Local Columnists

The easiest part of being a journalism professor may be teaching. The toughest part is trying to figure out what journalism will look like when our students are my age.

Unlike most of you, my experience with Columbia Regional Airport is not limited to the Veteran’s Salute Air Show and trying to catch a ride on Mesa Air to St. Louis or Kansas City. As of May 16, I am the newest member of the Airport Advisory Board. It says so on the Certificate of Commission signed by Darwin.

Had a little time on my hands the other day. So I thought I’d think a little about time. It’s a fascinating subject and one that will frustrate what little gray matter you might have. Funny. I had never thought about time before. So I tried to force myself to say what time is. Or what it was or what it will be.

This is the time of year that most proves the wisdom of my choice to make Columbia our retirement home as the weather begins to mirror the hospitality of its citizens.

Congress, apparently content to explore ever new depths in public disapproval, is on the verge of having a single member derail the most meaningful reform in years of the federal Freedom of Information Act.

A friend recently visited relatives in a Southern city, and he was impressed with the way the folks he stayed with clung to their family traditions. He was particularly struck by how the entire family gathered at the breakfast and dinner table, morning and evening, every day for meals and conversation. This was not common practice among his friends.

Today’s discussion is about immigration, migration and even remigration. These issues are a great part of the current debate about immigration reform in the U.S. Congress. We’d like to put some perspective on that debate.

Thank the Almighty, whatever that might mean, for planting the seed of life in the lesbian body of Mary Cheney and for granting her parents the opportunity to show support for a homosexual couple raising a child in an atmosphere of love. The message, carried prominently in news reports throughout the world, is that America has come of age in recognizing, as do most truly modern countries, that homosexuality is indeed normal.

Imagine a line composed of every household with children in the United States, arranged from lowest to highest income. Now, divide the line into five equal parts. Which of the groups do you think enjoyed big increases in income since 1991? If you read the papers, you probably would assume that the bottom fifth did the worst. After all, income inequality in America is increasing, right?

The Memorial Day weekend air show has become a Boone County tradition. I’ve never attended, but I’ve always thought it was a nice way to get people out to trample the grass growing on the runways of Englewood International Airport. The patriotic, even militaristic, nature of the activities hasn’t bothered me much. What always did bother me, though, was the unconstitutional censoring of protesters’ First Amendment rights. It was not only illegal, but also unwise, for the city of Columbia to conspire with the air show organizers to forbid a hardy handful of antiwar activists from handing out leaflets and circulating petitions.

Sometimes I forget why the Clintons disturb me. Then they offer a reminder. Case in point are reports that one of Hillary Clinton’s most pampered donors made big bucks off scams against the elderly.

You can’t get much syrupier or chirpier than Paula Deen. She’s the ebullient celebrity queen of Southern cooking, with a buttery drawl, a down-home manner and her own popular TV show on Food Network.

I appreciate our indoor smoking ban as much as the next person, assuming the next person isn’t a bar owner or a tobacco heiress. But when I heard that adult smoking could potentially give a movie an R rating, I confess I snorted.

I’m proud when the Missourian digs deep to find stories others would just as soon keep quiet. I worry, though, that journalists haven’t done enough to stand up to the avalanche of sound bites coming from Washington, and we citizens don’t demand enough from our politicians and our media.

Just south of Stadium Boulevard, where it is bisected by Providence Road, we can get a glimpse of the Mizzou of the future. The athletic complex is a welcome symbol of the university’s direction. North of Stadium, the campus looks much like it always did, except for new hotel-like dorms and the journalism school’s extension under construction rising beside the Sociology Building. What has become a vast seven-building journalism complex at the northeast edge of the Quad will doubtless spur more building activity in the sports complex.

How history will treat President Bush’s administration won’t be determined for a number of years. Nevertheless, it is a dead-bang certainty that in 2008 syndicated columnists and local editorialists will lose a convenient punching bag in that bashing the president has been a welcome substitute for original journalistic thought or initiative since his 2000 election.

Frankly, I was relieved that there were no high school graduates among my family members this year; I would have been hard-pressed to offer them any degree of encouragement.

My dad is a World War II hero, a winner of the Distinguished Flying Cross, so not much scares him. He does not, however, talk about politics.

With the legislative session safely in our rearview mirror and best forgotten, let’s look ahead. Is that President Hulshof just over the horizon?

The WNBA season has opened again, and it’s a different ballgame from the six-on-six game foisted on girls 40 years ago – a game of limits.