Opinion

Dear Annie: I am recently engaged and very excited to plan my wedding with my fiance. I am also excited to have my best friends stand by my side on my special day.

Israelis do not “do” royalty, to put it mildly. They are famously irreverent, deeply skeptical and distinctively if not scathingly critical of their leaders.

“The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States... does not challenge that position.”

Dear Readers: A number of you wrote in concerned about the woman who is Living With Scrooge, the husband who has plenty of money but keeps his wife on a tight budget and makes her life miserable. I suggested marriage counseling, which many readers agreed with, but an equal number feel that the horse has left the barn and I should have advised her to run for the hills. I would agree if there were an issue of physical safety, but that was not the case. Still, I find alternative opinions to be interesting and wanted to share some with you.

On his first day as president, Joe Biden is unfurling big ideas for fixing the immigration program. Any smart plan will loosen howls by extreme opinions, be they for shutting the borders tight or opening them wide, so he might as well do the right thing. Rebuilding the system to be more humane would be welcome. But protecting American labor from unfair competition is also essential. That means controlling who enters and how many enter the country.

With his policy announcement about another COVID-19 relief bill, President Joe Biden declares loud and clear that he will not shy away from spending blowouts and fiscal irresponsibility. For the most part, his proposed plan is nothing more than a way to use the current crisis to deliver on Democrats’ longtime dream to explode the size and scope of the federal government.

Editor, I would be willing to bet dollars to donuts that the issues the Dems are accusing the Trump supporters of are being done by the Democrats. Pelosi says impeaching Trump would bring unity.

Dear Annie: All my life, since I was a kid, I always got abuse, judgment and blame from my own family. Now, as an adult, I still get all of that. When I got divorced, my family thought it was their right to judge and blame me. And they cut me off like I didn’t exist. It’s like I did some terrible crime so they had to punish me. There have been so many family functions and gatherings over the last few years, but no one invited me, as though I didn’t matter. It was hard, but I tried to deal with it, and slowly moved on with my new normal.

“We must end this uncivil war,” Joe Biden proclaimed shortly after he became the 46th president on Wednesday. Hours earlier, in his last moments as the 45th president, Donald Trump extended “best wishes” to the “new administration.” Graceful words, but accompanied by sharp and, in some cases, deserved attacks. Our presidents since George Washington have come to office through an inevitably adversary process, and while they may inspire “unity” on occasion, that’s more the exception than the rule.

“We have met the enemy and he is us,” said Walt Kelly’s cartoon character Pogo, half a century ago, about what we Americans were doing to our environment. Rereading President Joe Biden’s inaugural address, Pogo’s remark comes to mind.