Most recently updated columns from Creators Syndicate

New Newspaper Contributors for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

There are few human skills more crucial than being able to recognize a mistake and act to fix it. Whether you're a fifth-grader or a CEO, going into denial when you're mired in failure makes the problem worse.

Unfortunately, we're now witnessing a textbook case of a massive enterprise gone haywire that those responsible abjectly refuse to fix – even as the evidence keeps pouring in to co ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Dear Readers: Today is July 4th and the 232nd anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The following was written in 1955 (readers can update the statistics if they choose). We hope you enjoy it:

I Am The Nation

by Otto Whittaker

I was born on July 4, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence is my birth certificate. The bloodlines of the ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Holiday Mathis for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Happy birthday, America! A Cancer sun sign nation, the American national "spirit" is unequivocally sentimental and patriotic. Today's Leo moon ups the celebratory vibe and doesn't fall short on pride and loyalty, either. Folks wear their hearts on their sleeves today as loyalty and love combine to show off our steadfast nation from her best angle.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). Sle ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Stan Newman for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

We love "apposite anagrams" -- phrases whose letters can be rearranged to form other phrases with the same (or nearly the same) meaning. Our crossword pal Mike Shenk, editor of the Wall Street Journal puzzle, once came up with BENEATH CHOPIN/THE PIANO BENCH. Your humble trivia author has dabbled in these as well, discovering HAPPIER TO SEE OYL/POPEYE THE SAILOR and SNUB I USE FOR NOSY ON ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Margo Howard for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Dear Margo: I have been married for 25 years and have two children, one adult and one teenager. I have never been happy in my marriage. I decided a long time ago that my commitment was to maintaining a secure family life for my children, mostly because I did not have that when I grew up. My husband is distant, insensitive, uncomfortable with emotions, and spends more time alone than he does wit ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Susan Deitz for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

More than one hundred million strong — and soon to become a majority — the single community affirms the undependent life.

I RESOLVE to think for myself in all situations rather than allow an "expert" to decide the course of my life. While I will remain open to wise counsel, I alone will make the final decision in matters affecting my life. And when there are shared ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Joanna Levesque — a.k.a. 17-year-old pop star JoJo — is barely taking a breath for the Fourth of July holiday before getting right back into her hectic schedule.

"We're about three-quarters of the way through my next album, 'All I Want is Everything,' and I've been singing every single day without a break," she reports. In about two weeks, "We'll pick out the f ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Jan Denise for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

I love him, but I can't brush my teeth without his hovering over me. Sometimes I feel like he's got me on a leash, and I just want to run.

In the beginning of a relationship, we can mistake clinging for love. Later, it can seem more like insecurity — even desperation — especially to an independent person trying to find some space.

But it's an attachment style ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Susan Deitz for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

DEAR SUSAN: I'm 36, single and happy with my career. But I've been told I'm too critical. I don't want someone to be a drag, but I find fault with every man in my life. For example, I'm seeing someone who's nice, but he annoys me. He'll say he enjoyed being with me but won't set a date for the next time. He says he likes spontaneity! He doesn't work much, but I have little free time anyway. &md ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New L. Brent Bozell for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy reported last month that a teenager who has been depressed in the past year was more than twice as likely to have used marijuana than teenagers who have not reported being depressed (25 percent compared with 12 percent). The study said marijuana use increased the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent. So much for the "harml ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Roger Simon for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

I have done some pretty awful things in the name of journalism. I have rushed up to interview mothers who have lost children, husbands who have lost wives, families shattered by a variety of emotional and physical calamities.

All reporters do these things. We wear a protective cloak of professional indifference while we write the names and ages and addresses in our notebooks. The deed is ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Roland S. Martin for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Joe Horn may be praised by gun enthusiasts and thrill seekers as a no-nonsense guy who got fed up with crime in America by pulling out his shotgun and blasting two men to their deaths, but there is no doubt that the Texas man will be haunted by his fatal decision.

Ever since the suburban Houston man saw two burglars crawling out his neighbor's window Nov. 14 and gunned them down, Horn ha ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Suzanne Fields for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

I've always wondered how we might have celebrated Independence Day if it had fallen on the Fourth of February. But summer it is, and good, because summer liberates the spirit like no other season. We ride waves from sea to shining sea, light barbecue grills across the land where the deer and the antelope play, and luxuriate in the balmy nights of midsummer, fireworks lighting the starry skies o ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Various Sports Writers for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Unable to untangle all of the strings attached to Barry Bonds' 756th home run ball, the Baseball Hall of Fame was prepared to cut bait.

It announced July 2 that it had backed away from obtaining the iconic artifact of the steroid era because what had been announced as a donation had been recharacterized as a loan.

If this was a bluff, it was brilliant.

Within hours of the n ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Oliver North for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

NEW YORK — The potentates who run the taxpayer-subsidized Corporation for Public Broadcasting have an exquisite sense of timing. To honor America's 232nd birthday, PBS is bracketing our nation's anniversary with a three-part documentary on the horrors of warfare in the 20th century. Regrettably, nearly two-thirds of the series is a dubious assessment of American motives and methods during ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Mona Charen for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The rescue of three Americans from the jungles of South America is a terrific Fourth of July present to the nation. (And John McCain gets high marks for timing in being present for the happy event.) American contractors Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes and Marc Gonsalves had been captured by the Colombian communist guerrilla group FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) when their antinarcoti ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Pat Buchanan for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Not until a year after Lexington did the Continental Congress muster the resolve to declare the 13 colonies free and independent states, no longer subject to Parliament or Crown.

Not for five years after July 4, 1776, did George Washington's army truly attain America's independence at Yorktown.

Even then, Washington and his aide Alexander Hamilton knew that the 13 states, while po ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New David Limbaugh for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Sen. Barack Obama spoke on the subject of patriotism this past week in an effort to undo some of the damage he has already inflicted on his own image — through his associations, his statements and policy positions — and to obscure his liberalism.

Liberals rightly feel defensive about their patriotism because they always seem to find themselves blaming the United States for th ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Susan Estrich for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

It was the headline you never wanted to see. For nearly two years, I have started my day by checking in on Leroy Sievers to see how he is doing. His "My Cancer" blog on npr.com has become a family of sorts for people living with cancer, for people taking care of family and friends with cancer, and for anyone who has been touched by the disease or who hasn't.

For two years, sinc ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008

New Linda Chavez for 07/04/2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

There are few places in the world that beckon to those who share no common blood or history, but America has done so for centuries. It is one of the things that defines this great country. In celebrating the 232nd birthday of our nation this Fourth of July, it is worth recalling what Ronald Reagan said about the promise the United States holds out to so many.

In his farewell address, Pre ...

Updated: Fri Jul 04, 2008