Opinion

The Biden administration recently stopped a plan to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes. The excellent arguments for why they are dangerous were overcome by good arguments for why making them illegal didn’t make sense.

The current demonstrations on college campuses against Israel remind some of the unrest on college campuses during the 1960s. But the comparison is not a good one.

Dear Annie: My friend “Emily” and I go way back to our college days, when we used to share absolutely everything with each other -- the good, the bad and the ugly. She recently got a promotion at work (she works for a well-known accounting firm), something I know she’s been dreaming of for a while. Of course, I’m super happy for her, but things between us have kind of shifted since then.

The Luncheon Society intrigued me by its very name. My grandmother attended women’s society “luncheons.” So how could I refuse a Zoom invitation (“you might enjoy”) out of the ether to join a virtual conversation mixing yesteryear and tomorrow? Speakers and guests are all over the map.

This is not directly about the issues animating the “pro-Palestinian” demonstrations at many colleges. Rather it’s about the air of privilege filling the sails of hypocrisy on which many ride.

Dear Annie: I have a question I hear many people ask about wedding gifting. The old rule of thumb was the gift should cover the plate.

The historian John Lukacs used to say all the old “isms” of politics were defunct. They’ve become “wasms,” except one -- nationalism.

It’s extremely embarrassing that we still allow our disabled children to be spanked, hit and paddled at school. No child should have to deal with that, but it’s truly terrible that we can’t even agree to spare some of our most vulnerable children.

Dear Annie: I had been in a wonderful relationship with an incredible woman for two years and 10 months. She recently broke up with me because I had not discussed my personal finances with her.

Eight years ago, the leftist media took great offense to being dismissed by Donald Trump as “fake news,” but they never seemed to grasp this is exactly how they painted the conservative media, as truth-defying propaganda outlets.