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Dear Annie: Can’t keep everyone happy for the holidays

Columns

Dear Annie: My husband and I have been married for six years, and every holiday now feels less like a celebration and more like a negotiation. My family lives about an hour away. My parents host a big Thanksgiving and Christmas every year with my siblings, nieces, nephews and all the traditions I grew up with. My mother starts planning weeks in advance, and she takes it very personally if we are not there. She will say things like, “It just does not feel like Christmas without everyone together,” which makes me feel guilty before we have even made a decision. My husband’s ...

Let them eat cake — and candy, too

Columns

I fell into a net loop watching old commercials the other day, reminiscing with videos of escapist Calgon bubble baths, roving dog food chuck wagons and smiling folks settling into bed with “The Clapper.” At one point, I stumbled on an ad more anachronistic than any of its contemporaries: a commercial for Kool-Aid. Kids playing hard — dribbling basketballs, roller skating and swimming — needed something icy cold to drink. In burst the Kool-Aid Man to save the day, breaking down the walls between thirst and refreshment. It’s a commercial ostensibly for kids, but ...

A croaky voice and mucus might signify a type of acid reflux

Columns

DEAR DR. ROACH: Can you give me information about laryngopharyngeal reflux? I develop a croaky voice at times and have lots of mucus in the morning (which doesn’t get coughed up), among other things. Is diet alone enough to remedy the problem? I’m going in for a vocal cord vibration test. — M.M. ANSWER: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is when the acid in the stomach doesn’t stay where it belongs and goes backward into the esophagus. There’s a structure called the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) that’s supposed to keep the acid in the stomach, but sometimes it ...

The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?

Columns

I’m allowing myself to believe that sane people may be in charge of Congress starting next Jan. 20. I know, I know: Polls have gotten our hopes up before only to have them dashed on the rocky shores of political reality. But this time it does seem as if congressional Republicans will finally get their comeuppance for their blind loyalty to Trump. The sense of relief in the land is palpable. We may soon witness the beginning of the end of this daymare — unless Trump goes full-throttled dictator and prevents votes for Democrats in the Senate and House from being ...

A botched execution shakes our attitudes toward the death penalty

Columns

Almost a week after receiving a double shot of a lethal execution drug, Christa Pike woke up in a Nashville, Tennessee, hospital, handcuffed to a bed and, according to one of her lawyers, “angry and confused.” Indeed, anger and confusion is pretty much where this horrifying episode leaves most of the rest of us, regardless of where we stand on the volatile issue of capital punishment. The details of the execution attempt and its aftermath are appalling, compounded by the fact that Pike’s lawyers had warned that she suffered from a blood-clotting condition that makes any ...

Stop the hysteria over Flock cameras

Columns

In the bad old crime days of New York City, I spent a Christmas Eve waiting outside an emergency room. Our foursome had been violently robbed in a subway station, and I was eager for the doctor’s report on one member who’d suffered a concussion fighting off a mugger. Because someone got hurt, city detectives took the case seriously. They interviewed us and urged a trip to transit authority headquarters to look at mugshots. We did. Desperate to nail the two attackers, I gazed over page after page of faces. If this happened today, subway and street cameras would have identified ...