Columns

By VINCE LUECKE
Editor

We’re always happy when editorials on this page generate letters to the editor, even when it’s a mistake of ours that gets people putting pen to paper.

Last week’s editorial advocating tighter restrictions on assault-style firearms generated quite the buzz. That’s good. Our editorial contained an error in saying school shootings were carried out with automatic weapons. Instead, they were done with semiautomatic weapons. There is a difference.

By VINCE LUECKE
Editor

Like a lot of people, winter often finds me in a bit of a funk. I don’t get depressed in the clinical sense but find I’m grumpy(ier), more anxious and less apt to be active. I’m working to shed pounds and the occasional walks – bike rides on nice days – have and will help.

By VINCE LUECKE
Editor

A new year has brought new faces to county government. Officeholders were sworn in last Monday during a ceremony at the county courthouse.

The arrival of new people to public jobs means former officials have left office. They deserve our thanks for several years of hard work.

This column first appeared in 2004 but is relevant today. I thought of what I wrote eight years ago after watching media coverage of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting and the shooting deaths of two firefighters who were killed when they responded to a house fire in New York.
Not many of us are called upon to risk our lives to save others. Staff members at the school did that trying to stop a deranged shooter. The firefighters did as well. As the new year arrives, we might think about how we might respond to help others, in all sorts of situations.