It just isn’t possible to be too bleak these days. The snow is gone and the ground is damp from much-needed rain. Even better, we’re not in the middle of an election year. more

Someone called us this week to report his/her suspicion that a blind eye was being turned to an injustice in our city. He/she didn’t want to leave a name. He/she just wanted us to check out the public record, ask some questions and do some research on some part of the law that he/she was sure was being ignored. more

On Angelina JolieFrom the May 14 The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J.:Angelina Jolie, in publicizing her double mastectomy, now joins a pantheon of celebrities who have gone public with private pain to help … more

Getting started isn’t the hard part in so much of what we do in life. It’s finishing the job. Nowhere is that more important than in education, because so much of what we can expect out of life is determined by whether we get that high school diploma and that college degree. more

A co-worker has told me for years that in small-town journalism, sometimes you just have to take the steak. The words are a statement about journalistic ethics that I took on face value until Monday night. more

On Israel’s red lineFrom the May 7 Boston Herald:Well, President Barack Obama may have trouble figuring out where his red lines are in Syria, but not so Israel, which launched two air strikes … more

The wild, wild West was known for robbers and holdups. We may have become more civilized in the more than 100 years since then, but the holdups continue. more

“I was riding Casey. And the washing machine was on the porch.” It sounds like codes from a bad spy novel, but my brother’s words were indeed codes to opening up the past — and proof that Google can’t answer every question. more

On Jason Collins’s admissionFrom the April 30 Seattle Times:The May 6 edition of Sports Illustrated should make the Boy Scouts of America board meeting a little easier.NBA center Jason … more

“I feel your pain,” a Democrat famously said and his empathy won him the White House. “I like to feel your pain,” our current Democratic president might just as easily have said as his administration goes out of its way to put politics above the country’s good. The FAA furloughs that caused flight delays, and yes, some pain and inconvenience for thousands of travelers, is just the latest example. more