Today's Opinions

Kind reader, we are not unaware of the fact that since the beginning of the new year we have failed to follow our usual pattern of choice of subject matter upon which to write these weekly columns.
From the inception of these columns we have tried, and generally been successful in writing about several different fields.
These have included history, biography, reminiscences, travel, gastronomy, gardening, tributes — both current and post mortem, law, philosophy and politics.

It seems that Washington politicans like to keep the public in the dark about what they’ve been up to.
It seems the news media must agree with them because the only news media I’ve seen this story in was public TV. The politicians are now cutting funding for public TV.  
In 1998 nearing the end of President Clinton’s administration, Washington politicians determined that the millionaires and billionaires didn’t have enough money and that the poor and working class had way too much.

When the group I sometimes hike with decided to take on a 10-mile hike at Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, I hesitated.

Ten miles is a long hike, and the long climb to the White Rocks and Sand Cave also is listed as strenuous.

I was well aware of this fact.

I had done this hike several times as a much younger woman when I lived on the edge of the park.

I also knew the beauty that lay ahead.

And so, last Saturday, I went with about a dozen other hardy hikers and began the 1,655-foot climb.