‘Our’ American Flag

To whomever is in the situation that you need to be taking the flags at the Irondale Cemetery:

I shall keep replacing the American Flags on my dad’s family plot, as perhaps you are not in a position to supply the flags for your family, and so you need to take from others.

Over the years I have known quite a few men, especially those older than I, perhaps born in the late ‘30s or early ‘40s, who early-on adopted a slogan of self-worth for themselves of “Never Apologize, Never Explain.” 

Dear EarthTalk: What are some ways people are using games to help reduce their carbon footprints?

Leah McNeil

Colchester, Conn.

Environmental advocates and organizations are increasingly employing gamification — defined by Merriam-Webster as “the process of adding games or game-like elements to something … so as to encourage participation” — to get people to learn about environmental problems and take action to reduce their carbon footprints and overall impact.

We recently joined together to celebrate the birth of our nation — as good a time as any to look at the way we treat one another as fellow Americans. While all of us could probably do with a quick refresher course on lessons of citizenship and civility, none needs it more desperately than our president, Donald J. Trump.

Just last week, Trump reignited the all-too-justified fears about his irresponsible use of Twitter — and his childish responses to those who second guess his authority, or his wisdom.

On Feb. 10, 1950, a West Virginia daily newspaper innocently printed what may have been the biggest lie up to that time in modern American history. This big lie in that small paper endures because it taught the politically ambitious that a big lie or two could take you far, like the more recent big lie about the birthplace of a president that paved the teller’s way to his own presidency.

New York no leader in some matters of sexual assault

The June 15 edition of this paper reported on a former Webutuck teacher accused of felony sexual assault against a child. In that report, a New York state trooper is cited as saying that for these charges there is no statute of limitations. While that may be true for this particular case, New York state has some of the nation’s most prohibitive statute of limitation laws when it comes to supporting adult survivors of child sexual abuse.