Editorial
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Death for profit?
Ethics is a big part of journalism. According to merriam-webster.com, ethics is defined as: 1. plural but sing or plural in constr : the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation 2. a : a set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values I’ve been talking a lot about ethics these past few weeks. I’m helping a group of Boy Scouts earn their Journalism Merit Badge. We’ve watched, reviewed and...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Love is in the air
Ah, to be in love. Whether it’s with another person, your best four-legged friend or even your garden, to have a true passion for someone else or something is a wonderful feeling. Sometimes I feel lazy when all I want to do is watch the Food Network all day on a Saturday instead of, say, riding 30 miles on my bike or running a marathon. But then I forgive myself by explaining to my conscience, “To each their own.” As long as everyone has a pa...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Cords, cords, everywhere...
I love Ben Franklin. I really do. And I love light and electricity. In fact, “The Electric Company” was one of my favorite PBS shows growing up. Gotta love Channel 13! (Please go pledge your support now.) But I hadn’t really considered how much I depend on electricity on a day-to-day basis until this past week. Like so many things in life, I had come to take it for granted. “Of course my car is going to start in the morning,” I think proudl...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Water Leaks 101
I can’t believe the Boy Scouts of America do not offer a Water Conservation Merit Badge. (Or a recycling one, for that matter.) But, if they did offer a water one, I would have to insist Lin Hughes Gold, of the Lakewood Neighborhood Association; Caroline Nosworthy, from Councilman Sheffie Kadane’s office; and the two Dallas Water Utilities workers, who came to my mother’s house this past week, be awarded the honor even though they are not Scou...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: The Absence of Malice
Choices are hard to make and, sometimes, even harder to deal with after you’ve made a decision. I believe that cruise captain, Francesco Schettino, didn’t mean to crash the $650 million Costa Concordia ship in Italy this past week. What person would wish that horror on themselves, or others, in a million years? But he did. He made a choice, some really bad choices evidently about going off course, and did, indeed crash his own ship. And pe...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!
I admit it. If there were a “mommy cam” in our house, it would have captured me more than once kicking a dropped piece of broken ice under the refrigerator late at night instead of bending down, picking it up and throwing it in the sink. If you’re as old as I, you’ve seen an episode of the original “Candid Camera.” If you’re a younger reader, just imagine a show kind of like “America’s Funniest Home Videos” but with staged situations and a po...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Psssst… what’s the secret word?
“Gotta have the password before you can get into the tree house.” So go the days from yesteryear when all a kid needed was a big tree, a couple of old pieces of wood and an imagination to have fun all day long. These days, we are all so bombarded by electronic stimuli, we’re missing out on the little things in life that can mean so much. Build a house in a real tree? Why, when you can build an entire virtual world online? There’s a catch, t...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Looking back before moving forward
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind?” It’s impossible to recognize a New Year, or new start, in our lives without giving some thought to the past. Some people say the year has flown by. And sometimes it seems like it has. But, in reality, when I sit back and actually think back over the events of the past year, I’m amazed by all that has happened in such a short time. We hit the ground running (after the snow mel...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Naughty or nice?
I’d like to pretend I’m an angel and only have “nice” holiday memories. But, truth be told, my most vivid holiday memory is of me being “naughty.” I was about eight years old and my mother caught me red-handed hiding behind the Christmas tree. I had been carefully peeling back the tape from the wrapping paper to confirm what I hoped was inside: a Barbie Styling Head. It was. But the moment I saw inside my gift I heard my mother’s voice echo in...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: The last nice thing you can do for your pet
How do you decide what day your aging dog should die? Scheduling an appointment with death was the last thing I wanted for our beloved dog, Annie. But that is exactly what I had to do this week. Annie was 17 and had definitely seen her better days. In fact, she couldn’t see at all anymore. Or hear. Despite being very skinny and frail she was still eating and had regular “movements,” if you know what I mean and I think you do (though not alway...
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