Lori Falce stories, Page 8
Lori Falce: The beautiful perfection of an imperfect Christmas
I don’t love Christmas the way I did when I was kid. As a child, everything about the season was a holly, jolly marathon of music and lights. It stretched out for weeks and weeks in a candy-striped scavenger hunt of glee. It started the Saturday after Thanksgiving when we...
Lori Falce: Are we ready for killer robots?
I am OK with robots. Hey, I’m a product of my time. I grew up with R2-D2 and C3PO. My siblings and I were just sharing pictures of Johnny 5 from “Short Circuit” in our chat group this week. I married a sci-fi nerd who adored the various metal monsters...
Lori Falce: Do we really understand gaslighting?
Gaslighting is Merriam-Webster’s word of the year. When I heard this, it set my teeth on edge. I certainly understood the reasoning. The dictionary’s website saw a 1,740% increase in people checking out the definition in 2022 alone, but its use has exploded over the past four years. “Gaslighting” is...
Easy homemade treats are sweet dreams for holidays
How do you put those visions of sugarplums dancing in your family’s heads when you are pulled in a hundred different directions? You want the holiday you had as a kid — all special moments, amazing smells and once-a-year bites. But now you know that your mom making that happen...
Lori Falce: I want to vote for Jimmy Stewart
When you ask people what they think we need in government, you can get a wide variety of answers. We need more conservatives. We need more liberals. More progressives. More hardliners. More Christians. More business people. More people with experience. Fewer millionaires. More “real” people. There is no shortage of...
Lori Falce: This holiday season, let us all be heroes against hate
This column runs on Fridays, which means that on the day after Thanksgiving, it generally runs toward traditions and holidays. I have used it to talk about Black Friday shopping with my husband, my love of turning leftovers into soup and the Christmas cards I want to mail but never...
Lori Falce: Is crypto the MLM of dudes?
My friends and I were talking about the collapse of FTX — the cryptocurrency trading firm that suddenly declared bankruptcy last week. It was a scandal that might have been of epic proportions if not overshadowed by things like the U.S. election vote counting and developments in the war in...
1 shopping list, 3 different quick, comforting fall dinners
There are some foods that just scream fall — and it isn’t simply a pumpkin spice latte or apple cider. Summertime cooking can be about adventure, fun and keeping cool. We grill in the backyard. We dive face first into giant icy watermelon. We mix up substantial cold salads rather...
Lori Falce: Veterans need support more than sales and free lunch
On Veterans Day, the attention on former service members is obvious. There are offers for free coffee, free sandwiches, free meals and more. I know someone who preps in advance, making sure his identification is ready and loosens his belt, prepared to dine for free all day — and take...
Lori Falce: Should you pay for verification?
On Tuesday, I became a little bit cooler in my son’s eyes. Not much, and I’m not under any delusion it will last. But, for a brief, shining moment, my teenager was moderately impressed by me. “Elon Musk wants to charge people for blue check marks on Twitter?” he mused...
Lori Falce: Facts, opinions and political ads
The one thing I struggle with most in my job is not the task of making deadlines — although the editor who waits with well-concealed resignation for my weekend editorials every Friday might disagree. It is helping people — whether readers or writers — navigate the tightrope between what is...
Lori Falce: Is it fair to criticize a candidate for a health problem?
Ableism refers to attitudes or actions that make assumptions about or throw roadblocks in front of people dealing with a handicap or medical issue. Sometimes it is intentional. Sometimes it is uncaring. Sometimes it is simply unaware. But ableism also is frequently correctable — just like the medical issues in...
Lori Falce: Alex Jones damages the First Amendment
Without a doubt, the best and simultaneously hardest thing about the U.S. Constitution is the First Amendment. Specifically, that tug-of-war is represented in the words, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” It is a masterpiece of protection. It enshrines the absolute right to raise your...
Lori Falce: Will Herschel Walker face same backlash as Tim Murphy?
Oh, the scandal. A man with a documented stance on abortion is outed. He had an affair. There was a pregnancy. He asks her to get an abortion. This could be the story of Herschel Walker, the football star turned would-be Republican politician running for U.S. Senate in Georgia. A...
Lori Falce: Iranian woman’s death latest in list of human rights abuses
I get lists and rankings in my inbox every day. They tell me what states or cities or schools or businesses are the best and worst according to a myriad of factors. Most money. Least education. Highest unemployment. Lowest cost of living. Best quality of life. Worst opportunity for advancement....
Lori Falce: Should parents lead curriculum?
If there is one thing the pandemic taught me, it is that I am not a teacher. Having my son home for the tail end of sixth grade and all of seventh made me appreciate teachers. I thought I appreciated them before. I was wrong. I mean, yes, I was...
Lori Falce: The unreachable cure for cancer
There might be no better way to get people on your side than to say you want to cure cancer. Cancer is an ugly, predatory beast that stalks its victims without regard for age or class or worthiness. It attacks the good and the evil dispassionately. In 2019, the most...
Lori Falce: Queen Elizabeth’s legacy is a measurement of history
On Tuesday, Queen Elizabeth formally accepted Liz Truss as the new prime minister of the United Kingdom and gave her the authority to form a government in her name. Two days later, Truss returned the favor, acknowledging the queen’s death and formally naming Charles III as king. There may never...
Lori Falce: Quiet quitting needs a different name
I am annoyed by all the attention being given to the trendy workplace phenomenon of quiet quitting. It’s the latest in the post-pandemic upside-down world where workers are recognizing their power in a workplace where many industries are struggling to fill jobs. What annoys me is the wording itself. Quiet...
Lori Falce: The broken pact of veterans’ health care
I’m thinking a lot about my uncle right now. His funeral is this weekend. I am collecting memories from family members and friends. I am compiling them into the story of a man who wasn’t rich or famous but had the kind of life built on hard work and commitment...
Lori Falce: Veggie trays or crudite? The battle for Pa. votes
Who could have predicted that carrots and broccoli would have such an impact on politics? Every day at parties, barbecues and receptions of all kinds, platters of produce are being ignored in favor of chips, cookies, pizza and tiny little sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania is taking...
Lori Falce: The crippling cost of insulin
Insulin is not just a drug. It’s a hormone that is produced in the pancreas. It is part of how the body controls blood sugar. When you talk about it like that, it doesn’t seem like that big a deal. But it is — because the sugar in your blood...
Lori Falce: Drowning in recession rhetoric
Are we in a recession or not? It’s hard to get anyone to agree. First of all, you have to know what a recession is. The short definition is an economic condition where industry and business are down for a time. A recession isn’t as bad as a depression but...
Lori Falce: Where does Thompson really stand on gay marriage?
Politicians are notorious for the slippery ways in which they can avoid taking a firm position on some issues, freeing up just enough wiggle room to allow them to court votes on both sides. Sure, there are the sometimes rigid positions that are taken on polarizing issues such as guns...
Lori Falce: Blinded by political party colors
There was a time in my life when I couldn’t tell you the political parties of almost anyone I knew. Parties didn’t define any of those people as much as other things about them. They weren’t Democrats or Republicans. They were teachers, bankers, farmers, electricians, nurses, housewives, mechanics, retirees, students....
