Opinion & Policy

  Next week is Thanksgiving, and I’d like to talk to all of us who have lost loved ones during the past year. I have personally lost my husband, the husbands of two very dear friends and many of my childhood friends this year – some just very recently. All of our families are going…

Ask Accordia: I was just diagnosed with diabetes. I am 44 years old and nervous about what this means for my life. Any advice on maintaining my health with his new diagnosis?    The American Diabetes Association says 1.5 million people are diagnosed with diabetes each year. So, you are not alone. First, it is…

  We like to label folks. I am not sure why; maybe in our minds it gives us a sense of order. However, we need to be careful how we place labels on people because it can cause us to have unfair expectations of each other. You have all heard the question, “Do you see…

  George Floyd died on May 25, 2020, during an arrest by Officer Derek Chauvin and three other police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hours after Floyd’s death, a bystander uploaded video of the incident, and now people everywhere were made aware that yet another person had died while in the custody of law enforcement, when…

  Thanksgiving is coming soon! Some of us are particularly excited about it, while some folks tend to look at it as Black Friday Eve. Personally, I love so many things about the holiday. It’s always a treasured time with family, and the menu is a strong part of it. I think the smells, the…

We are now just about two months from the upcoming 2022 regular session of the Alabama Legislature come January. Lawmakers are coming off of a special session which has drawn the ire of voters around the state when they rammed through a redistricting plan for congressional maps without any regard for public input. Now one…

Letters to the editor   In the past week we have received two letters to the editor via mail. Neither had a return address, and neither was signed. There is no information on either letter to indicate who the authors are. While we can print letters to the editor and withhold the author’s name, per…

  I have had a very challenging time putting this column together. My mind has jumped between so many things, situations, politics, leadership, and just outright consistencies AND inconsistencies that I don’t know how to lay it out. But I’ll do my best to come full circle and tie these topics together in the end.…

I am a veteran of the Cold War, Desert Storm, War on Terrorism, and Iraq. I am the father of an Afghanistan veteran. I am the son of a Vietnam veteran. I am a grandson to two World War Two veterans. I am a great-grandson to Spanish-American War and Philippines Insurrection veterans. I am a…

  Stakeholders in journalism, news and the general welfare of a fact-based democracy have been beside themselves in recent weeks as a little-known bill that they hoped would slip its way into the broader Build Back Better plan was treated as little more than an expendable remnant. In the interest of price chopping and compromise,…