By Mary Ellen Shaw Having grown up with party lines and phones without a dial, I am truly amazed by the way communication has changed. Dial phones were probably as welcome to my parents’ generation as cell phones are to […]
Category: Column
Perfect lines: an anniversary of sorts
By Brett Yates I was hired in 2008 as a youth culture columnist for the Mountain Times, just a few months after my 20th birthday, and one of the earliest articles I wrote was an impassioned denunciation of emo music, […]
Spotting a winner
By Dom Cioffi A few months ago, one of my coworkers was in my office to discuss an upcoming project. In the middle of our conversation, the internet radio I was tuned into started playing a song that I absolutely […]
A plague of ticks: scientists search for solutions
By Susan Shea On a hike this spring, we walked through a clear-cut area with tall grass and brambles. Afterwards, our pant legs were crawling with black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis), also known as deer ticks, the kind that carry Lyme […]
Spiraling to rock bottom with the aid of a sugar binge
By Brady Crain I promised last week that I would start doing more interesting things to write about. Then came a few good hard intellectual and emotional kicks to the groin. I won’t get into it too much, but this […]
Dispatch from Europe, Part II
By Marguerite Jill-Dye I sat in the library of a great man whose vision has touched people’s lives all over the world. His name is Father Ernesto Bustio from Guemes, Spain, in the Province of Cantabria. His adjoining office walls […]
Product review: Tropical Sour Patch Kids
By Brett Yates Sour Patch Kids, the iconic child-shaped treat invented in the 1970s by a Long Island man named Frank Galatolie, are, in my opinion, perhaps the greatest mass-produced American candy. To me, their astringent artificiality best captures the […]
Guinea pig training progresses
Pip the guinea pig, peaking out from his blanket fort By Brady Crain I have, based on the orders of everyone, been taking it much easier. I lift or do pushup/pullup sets every two days, walk at least once a […]
Estimating the cost of college
By Kevin Theissen It doesn’t take a degree in finance to see that the cost of college continues to rise. In its 2015 report, the College Board showed that public four-year institutions raised prices an average of 3.4 percent annually […]
Awakening to a new reality
By Marguerite Jill Dye I feel as if I’m abandoning a sinking ship, leaving America for a pilgrimage across Spain during this perilous time of crises, turmoil, and uncertainty. Keeping up with the news, one can only wonder, has Armageddon […]