Op-Ed

By Madeline Skinner The Philomont Horse Show Grounds have been demolished. Only the cook shack remains—for now. For more than 60 years, this space served as a gathering place for the community and as the home of one of the area’s oldest horse shows. Today, it has been permanently erased. Trees have been cleared for…

By Ken Falke I grew up in the 1960s and ’70s—a time of big cars, long summer nights, and childhoods spent outdoors. We played until the streetlights came on. We scraped our knees, argued with friends, lost games, and learned from failure. Confidence wasn’t handed to us—it was earned. Look at kids today and the…

By Charlie Houston This month I’m channeling Roman mythology, specifically Minerva, its goddess of wisdom, and tackling the County’s fiscal tendencies. Lord knows, wisdom is needed there. As a reminder, “fiscal” simply means governmental taxation and spending. Though fiscal applies to governments, it affects you in a sacred place – your pocketbook. Maslow and His…

By Ken Falke  I recently sat through a suicide prevention seminar designed for school children and their teachers. I expected compassion. I expected hope. What I didn’t expect was a steady drumbeat of fragility. The language was saturated with risk, warning signs, vulnerability, crisis, trauma, triggers, and pathology. Students were told to monitor themselves and…

By Charlie Houston “Houston’s at it again with the mythology stuff,” you might declare, and ask, “What in heck is Momus?” [A note on readability: My words are in italics.] Momus is a demigod from Greek mythology. Momus was the minor god or spirit of mockery, blame, ridicule, scorn, complaint and harsh criticism. Zeus finally…

By Ron Rise Sr. When government is healthy, its laws are simple: general rules, openly debated, applied evenly, and restrained by due process. When government is sick, its laws grow clever: written for a moment, for a place, for a conflict—and justified by urgency. Senate Bill 648 looks like the second kind. Thomas Paine would…

By Ken Falke Over the last several years, I have noticed a peculiar verbal habit spreading through meetings, podcasts, classrooms, and news studios across America. It sneaks in quietly, usually at the end of an otherwise complete thought. It sounds harmless. Even friendly. But it’s not. It’s the reflexive, unnecessary, credibility-eroding habit of ending sentences…

What follows is a personal reflection that gradually gives way to satire—a speculative look at where current civic habits, if left unchecked, could lead.  By Charlie Houston Retrospection can bring warm memories or cold anger. I’ve experienced both since moving here thirty years ago. Memory is generous; the present, less so—and often deserving of a…