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The US used to be really dirty – environmental cleanup laws have made a huge difference

Growing up in the 1970s, I took for granted the trash piles along the highway, tires washed up on beaches, and smog fouling city air. The famed “Crying Indian” commercial of 1971 became a symbol of widespread environmental damage across the United States. That’s why the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, energized the nation. In the largest single-day public demonstration in U.S. history, roughly 10% of the population took to the streets to shout together: “Enough is enough!” Republican and Democratic politicians alike listened. Over the decade that followed, all the ...

Trapped in a cycle of comfort and guilt

Dear Annie: From the outside, my life looks steady and full. I have a thoughtful husband, grown children who stay in close touch, dear friends and work that gives my days purpose. I know I am fortunate, which only makes it harder to admit how much I am struggling in private. For years, I have carried pain from things that happened to me when I was young. I have done counseling and truly tried to make peace with the past. In many ways, I have built a happy life. But when stress creeps in, or I feel lonely, disappointed or overwhelmed, something in me still reaches for food as ...

A case of a symptomatic mensical tear might call for surgery

DEAR DR. ROACH: About eight months ago, I was diagnosed with a torn meniscus in my right knee. Over the course of six months, I received physical therapy and two cortisone shots and had fluid drained from my knee, but I still have pain when I walk. The pain level is about a 2 on scale of 1-10. But it’s discomforting, and I walk with a limp. The sports medicine doctor I saw didn’t recommend surgery and said to come back if the pain becomes unbearable, at around a 5 or 6. Should I get a second opinion on whether surgery will correct this? I’m 66 years old, and the pain/discomfort ...

Yes, of course, war settles things

Countless protest signs have informed us over the years that “war is not the answer.” We hear this message, with varying levels of sophistication and differing underlying worldviews, from institutions and people ranging from Code Pink to Pope Leo. “War does not solve problems,” the pontiff said in an Angelus address last year. “On the contrary, it amplifies them and causes deep wounds in the history of peoples — wounds that take generations to heal.” Now, there are many things that can be said about the tragedy of warfare without crediting the blatantly ahistorical ...

Trump, the pope and the gospel of ‘Pulp Fiction’

It is hardly surprising that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s explicitly Christian monthly worship services monthly in the Pentagon have raised alarm in some quarters about the separation of church and state. But who expected to find him quoting lines of alleged scripture that were lifted from Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 cult classic “Pulp Fiction?” The flap begins with a prayer. At an April 15 worship service, Hegseth recited a prayer he said was sent to him by the lead mission planner of “Sandy One,” of the Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) mission in Iran that saved a ...

Dear Annie: Bitter divorce threatens to break up family

Dear Annie: My wife and her sister have always had a close but delicate relationship. They can talk for hours, laugh about old family stories and check in on each other several times a week. But every so often, something shifts, and my sister-in-law becomes sharp, angry and deeply hurtful toward my wife. The source of it almost always goes back to her divorce. Even though the marriage ended 15 years ago, she still carries enormous bitterness toward her ex-husband and blames him entirely for the breakup. During their marriage, however, we grew close to him as part of the family. More ...