You’re offended? So what? Get over it

April 19, 2025

Ricky Gervais, whose infamous rant as host of the Golden Globes in 2020 ensured he wouldn’t be invited back any time soon, is known for telling it like it is. He did so that night in Hollywood and more recently during an appearance on “The View.” (Bet you didn’t expect a mention of that cringefest of a show in this space.) The subject was how people increasingly seem to go out of their way to be offended by anything and everything. Gervais wasn’t having it. “That’s the thing being offended, isn’t it? Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re ...

You can’t always say what you want, nor should you

April 12, 2025

Many people carry a misconception about the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment does indeed protect our freedom of speech, but nowhere in the Constitution is a provision protecting us from the consequences of whatever it is we feel compelled to say. Shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater or “Bomb!” in an airport, and you’re likely to find out quickly that while your freedom of speech is absolute, you won’t be free of the consequences of that speech. Those are terroristic threats. Two recent but unrelated situations got me thinking about this. The ...

Here’s to winter’s end and a hot dog at the game

March 15, 2025

“I watch baseball and it’s my game. You know, you take your worries to the park and you leave them there. You yell like crazy for your guys. It’s good for your lungs, it gives you a lift and nobody calls the cops. A hot dog at the game beats roast beef at the Ritz.” — Humphrey Bogart If you grew up in Northeast Ohio or settled here later in life, you know the sun and relative warmth this week is most likely what we call “false spring.” A week like this turns the thoughts of young and old men alike to baseball, golf and fishing. I’d be lying if I tried to convince ...

Some people can’t or won’t hear a word you say

March 8, 2025

Have you ever met or spoken with someone and quickly realized there wasn’t going to be an actual conversation? That doesn’t happen often for me, because I’m usually able to relate to all kinds of people, regardless of our differing backgrounds, life experiences or political feelings. But nowadays, the last item can create friction right from the start. The p-word — politics — seems to be where a lot of emails and phone calls can go off the rails. I bet you can see where this particular train is headed. A reader sent me a letter recently. Actually, it was more like a list ...

Are you ready for some backyard football?

March 1, 2025

What is something that disappeared from American life over the years and mostly went unnoticed? You’ve probably come across prompts like those if you spend any time at all on a social-media platform. My default answers are common sense, civility and shame. In other words, a lot of people now seem all too comfortable in letting it be known that they’re not so bright, not so nice and lack the self-awareness that should come naturally to all of us. There’s a column to be written about all of that, but something else far more important seems to have faded from the American ...

Losing weight the hard way is no fun

February 22, 2025

Legend has it that a man visited our newsroom one day years ago insisting that he had come up with the cure for cancer. As the story goes, the first person he encountered was a harried assistant sports editor. Upon hearing the man’s pitch, the sports guy responded: “Can you come back later? We’re on deadline right now.” Unfortunately, the man never returned and as far as anyone knows, the cure was never revealed to humanity. But at least the paper got out on time. That leads me to a discovery of my own — the cure for an admittedly lesser ailment, but one that many of us ...