Home Base: When asked to serve two masters, people make mistakes
At home this summer, my daughter Zayley, 11, has watched for the mail truck every day with the excitement of someone waiting for her Publishers Clearinghouse check.
Home Base: On a public health matter, the South fails to rise … again
Mississippi claims the No. 1 ranking in a statistical category that might surprise you.
No, it’s not public education funding, vocational training skills or even the number of 4- or 5-star football recruits per capita.
Home Base: Perhaps we’ve forgotten how to treat each other as human
One day when I was 15, I was sitting at my dining room table along with about five of my high school track teammates, all of us male. We were laughing about another boy from our school when my mom walked by and heard us.
Home Base: Mississippi Republicans lean on natural selection when it comes to educating its children
My three daughters are all in bed by 8:30 every night.
At least four nights a week, that’s when my wife breaks out the laptop and various paper-stuffed folders.
Home Base: How can we prevent unspeakable tragedies?
This newspaper employs more than one reasonably close friend of the Gabe Parker family.
Home Base: Stoking the fire of growing up
I’ve have often said of my middle daughter, Zayley, she carries with her a potent fire. With it, she can either light a room or burn it down.
Home Base: Fake news cuts both ways
Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Regardless of whether you support him, he’s a White House resident presumably until at least Jan. 20, 2021.
Home Base: Truth and myths about American exceptionalism
Every time you flip on a light switch, you are literally unleashing evidence the idea of American exceptionalism, at least in its traditionally accepted form, is false.
Home Base: Nature versus nurture
Where do “isms” come from?
You know, the nasty ones: racism, sexism, ageism, etc.
Home Base: Using the Lord’s name in vain
There’s nothing wrong with being a Christian. In fact, I highly recommend it.
There’s also nothing wrong with people allowing their faith to inform their decision-making, in any sphere.
Home Base: An alternative to wasting money on ‘stuff’
A long unused Kindle Fire lay gathering dust on an end table in our living room. Across the room, a gaming system sat similarly idle – its once enthusiasm-fueled glow lost to homework, youth sports, piano lessons and other fixtures of our family’s weekly grind.
Home Base: Two strangers in a hospital waiting room
Fresh off a CT scan at the hospital in Starkville on Wednesday, the radiology technician escorted me back to the x-ray waiting area.
Home Base: Group of ‘special’ athletes remain just that
Most of the time, the fans start filing out of a basketball arena when the home team goes down 20 late in the second half. At the very least, the visitors’ efforts would have silenced the crowd to the point where they could finish the job in relative peace.
Home Base: The many languages of an 8-year-old
At some point next Friday afternoon, my 8-year-old daughter Zayley will be singing a Chinese song somewhere in public with her class. Or maybe it’s Japanese. We’re not entirely sure.
Home Base: Making that resolution
An editor for whom I worked at Mississippi State University told me this day would come.
Home Base: Christmas shopping to the moon and back
I’m not sure when it happened. But it most certainly has.
Home Base: The ‘mom’ solution
Sometimes my children cry.
Home Base: Pushing up Daisies
“So how serious were you when you said you wanted to help?”
Home Base: Take time to remember before it’s too late
A soldier stood alone among headstones in a south Arkansas cemetery playing “Taps” on Saturday, while another waited by an American flag-draped casket that sat in front of a mourning family.
Home Base: Relieved of morning duties
“Daddy, I feel like I’m blind, and I literally feel dizzy. I feel like I don’t know where I am, and I feel like it’s Wednesday instead of Thursday.”