Opinion

President Joe Biden is flat-out wrong if he thinks the pandemic is over. Although the trendlines are pointing downward, the United States still registers around 360 deaths per day from the coronavirus along with a seven-day average of 55,000 new infections, with 13,700 people currently hospitalized. Those numbers are a far cry from the earlier days of the pandemic, but that hardly means the threat is gone.

I spent my whole life in cities and suburbs where there is so much light pollution that you’re lucky to see Orion’s Belt. I grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I thought I knew what the night sky looked like.

Sitting at the kitchen table this early morning, I see before me nature’s infinite variety in the form of a shallow blue-gray bowl filled with five small gourds.

To the Editor:

“Jobs, Jobs, Jobs,” bellows State Senator Puffy Stuffy. “Wages, Wages, Wages,” shouts State Representative Roberta Righteous.

Many people have criticized Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis for flying nearly 50 asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard.

The Russo-Ukrainian conflict is now firmly in a new phase. The Russians lost the strategic element of the war long ago, but now they have managed to lose operationally and tactically. There are two important economic lessons to be learned from this war — one is about public spending on services, the other about free trade.

My wife and I did not go to the State Fair this year. It was the first time we missed it (other than the two affected by COVID closures) since we moved to Indiana in 1982. Mary Ellen’s favorite thing is going to the poultry barn to see the baby chicks. I love to get a grilled you-know-what on a stick. We don’t talk much about our favorite things on the way home.

The kitchen table looked like the fall section of a craft store had thrown up all over it.

History has always fascinated me. Some of my school friends hated memorizing dates, battles and presidents, but I loved all of that. But I also found history to sometimes be confusing.