dalman

MinnesotaCare probably saved my life. The month of June, which is usually my favorite month, was punctuated - sometimes painfully (ouch!) - by dental and doctor appointments. During this month, July, those visits will continue - into early August, in fact. This is not the best...

So many people keep saying, "Stop the blame game! Just let's all be nice and get together and plug the Gulf gusher." Yes, wouldn't that be nice? Why, then, are so many of those very people, with such "good intentions," screaming like hysterics at a Salem witch trial and pointing...

Rain, rain, rain... People complain about it. Not me. Like the Beatles sang in "Rain," one of their best (but least-known) songs: "When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads, they might as well be dead, when the rain comes, when the rai-a-a-n comes ...

Feelings of anxiety and uncertainty are running rampant among Americans, according to a survey published in the June issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine. The survey reveals that even though the national economy is on its way to recovery, 84 percent of Americans are worried...

There is one reason why I like Facebook but at least seven reasons why I do not. At least twice a week, such invitations pop up on my e-mail inbox. Sometimes I have no clue who the person is. Mostly, though, the invitations are from friends, relatives and acquaintances - many of...

Beware of some dentists and dental clinics. I repeat the qualifying word "some," because the vast majority of them, no doubt, are excellent. Several times in recent months, I've heard from readers who have been misled or conned by dentists or their clinic staffs. It happened to me...

My refrigerator has morphed into one giant humming "do list." There are so many magnets holding do lists to that fridge, there's a static force field big enough to make what's left of my hair stand on end. For as long as I can remember, I've depended upon do lists. I still come...

The tug-of-war over a proposed wind farm out east is a classic example of a society so complicated, with factions so at odds with one another, that virtually nothing can get done. We've seen this deadlock over and over in the U.S. Congress, of course. We've even seen it locally with...

If you want to cheat people and get away with it, all you have to do is make your game complicated - so complicated nobody gets it. That's how Wall Street has operated for years. That's why there was a virtual financial melt-down, and that's why the "too-big-to-fail" good-ol' boys...

Very soon, next to my "Please take off shoes" sign on the front door, there will be another sign: "Leave cell phone outside!" I'm sick and tired of people coming to visit, only to spend half the time here on their cell phones. An emergency call or two? Fine. But it's never an emergency;...

Never forget! But, of course we do - again and again. Since the Holocaust ("Never forget!"), in which an estimated six million Jews were systematically put to death, untold more millions of human beings have been slaughtered time and again. Humankind not only forgets but seems intent...

The trouble with quitting smoking is that it leads to another terrible addiction - an addiction called food. Quitting eating (or at least eating less) is just as difficult - maybe more so - than kicking the evil weed. On February 13, 2009, I tossed an empty pack of cigarettes into...

The beautiful face of Phoebe Price ought to haunt us and nag at our collective consciousness forever. On the afternoon of January 14 of this year, a sister came home and saw Phoebe hanging, dead, from a stairwell. She had been harassed and hounded to death by nine classmates. Phoebe,...

Forget the tea party. Pop the champagne! Yippee! Time to celebrate. Let's rejoice that the Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress - at long last - finally flexed its muscle, tossed obstructionists aside and passed a health-care reform bill. This historic action should have been...

Computer withdrawal is almost as bad as quitting smoking. Most of us, I think, are kidding ourselves when we crow about how we are not addicted to computers. "If it weren't for my news work," I've vowed so often, "I would disconnect my Internet service. It's all just cyber-junk....