A friend felt her stomach turn; I got teary and had a terrible sense of disbelief. I listened closely as CNN interviewed the Mayor of Ferguson and police officials. I heard the news that the FBI was taking over the investigation into the shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager in [...]

By Debbie Baldwin Anyone with children older than 10 has slowly come to terms with the fact that there is no summer. OK, that was an exaggeration. Of course, there’s a summer. According to the calendar, summer lasts about three months. Mentally, it lasts six weeks. Emotionally, summer is 16 [...]

by Martha Irvine FILE - In this Feb. 27, 2013 photo illustration, hands type on a computer keyboard in Los Angeles. Frustration over passwords is as common across the age brackets. Bill Lidinsky, director of security and forensics at the School of Applied Technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology, [...]

060614-tangential Posted: Thursday, June 5, 2014 12:00 pm By Debbie Baldwin So, school’s out. Cranky, Whiny and Punch are loose for the summer. It’s great—truly. No more grueling classes from eight in the morning until three in the afternoon. No more sports teams. No more homework. No more 'school-night' curfew. [...]

So this weekend was Mother’s Day. Personally I never held much stock in the event. It’s an overly involved brunch, some unwanted picture taking and a lot of beginner-level pottery. Now I’m not made of stone, an affectionate handmade card gets me every time, but the rest? Honestly, I would [...]

Posted: Thursday, April 17, 2014 12:00 pm By Debbie Baldwin It seems most of what comes out of Hollywood these days are sequels and prequels…and remakes and re-imaginings and reinterpretations. It’s green, actually: Reuse, reduce, recycle. If there’s an additional dollar to be made…like I said, green. So it may surprise [...]

Lemon Aid Story PrintCreate a hardcopy of this pageFont Size:Default font sizeLarger font size             Posted: Thursday, March 27, 2014 12:00 pm By Debbie Baldwin I drive a lemon. Let me clarify: According to Webster’s Dictionary, a lemon, in the vehicular sense, is a car that 'does [...]

The Big Chill  Posted: Thursday, March 6, 2014 12:00 pm By Debbie Baldwin It’s warming up. Yes, I’ve lived in this town long enough to know not to declare with any certainty the rough part is over, but still, it is March. Even if this little heatwave is just a temporary reprieve from [...]

  By Debbie Baldwin Everybody has a cell phone, and almost everybody texts. Texting is easy, cheap, fun, mildly illicit, and it makes you feel cool—it’s kind of like the 21st-century’s version of smoking. And not unlike smoking, it can be offensive at certain times. The good news is, after [...]