Columns

I took in a Reds/Mets game last weekend at Great American Ballpark and found myself sitting in a seat surrounded by Mets fans. I would cheer and they would groan, or they would cheer and I would groan. It was a beautiful day, a close game, and some politer-than-NFL-game banter going back and forth.

Editor’s note — This column was originally written in February of 2022. It is a follow-up to the author’s column last week that was originally written in August of 2021 about his dog’s passing.

The Gallup World Poll just released its latest 2024 global ranking of happiness levels in countries around the world, and in the United States happiness is trending down. In fact, the U.S. dropped out of the top 20 happiest countries for the first time since the polling began in 2012.

My husband, Peter, and I spend the winters in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The center of the town is a designated World Heritage Site, which means the facades of the buildings must remain as they were in the mid-1700s. The streets are made of round and sometimes slippery cobblestones. The doors are stout and covered with hundreds of coats of paint, and on the top of every building is a rooftop terrace where people can watch the fireworks that go off for no reason that anyone has ever been able to figure out. It is wonderful.

Editor’s note — This column was originally written in August of 2021.

We’ve covered security cameras and using your current (or an old) phone as a security camera but we haven’t discussed doorbell cameras so that’s the subject this week.

About a week ago I was driving on North High Street in Hillsboro lunchtime traffic and I was caught behind a large truck. This particular truck had a message on the back of it which read, “Need Change? You Must Love God More Than Sin.”

After World War I the United States retreated from global affairs. During the 1920s and the depression of the 1930s the policy approach was to isolate, in hopes of protecting the U.S. economy. Notwithstanding the huge public works programs effected by President Roosevelt, it was the production demands of a global war, World War II, that pulled the U.S. out of the depression.

I was lying in bed the other night in the little apartment my husband, Peter, and I rent in Mexico, and thinking that things were perfect. Then I wondered what that meant.

Editor’s Note — This first part of this column is the second part of a two-part column. The second part of the column is completely separate, but kind of related.