Opinion

Today is the fifth day of 2023 and the 16th day of winter. TODAY’S HISTORY: In 1781, British naval forces led by Brig.

Don’t Let Kids’ Activities Break the Bank Today’s selections from my virtual mailbag come from mothers who on the one hand are facing completely different dilemmas, but on the other are exactly alike in that they want the very best for their children. Dear Mary: My biggest budget busters are enrichment activities for our four children.

Dear Annie: Kids today are pushed too early to make career decisions. The first two years of college are a good time to take different courses to see where one’s interest lies. A major can easily be declared as a junior, and ample credits can be accumulated in that discipline in the last couple of years.

Today, the new U.S. Congress is sworn in. Welcome, especially to those new to Washington. As a reminder to my readers and charge to our elected representatives, here is the oath you will take: “I, (name here), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

They call them “overdose prevention sites.” I’d never heard of them until I saw the picture in the LA Times of a drug user literally falling down in the middle of a city plaza where dozens of people were openly consuming fentanyl, meth and other deadly drugs. What makes it a “prevention” site is that they are less likely to overdose out in public, with public health workers circulating around the plaza handing out Narcan, the overdose reversal medication, helping people into a sitting position and reminding them to breathe. The police who were there reportedly gave some of the street vendors a hard time; the drug users they leave alone or help out.

Today is the fourth day of 2023 and the 15th day of winter. T ODAY’S HISTORY: In 1896, Utah was admitted as the 45th U.S.

Dear Annie: I am a 19-yearold woman who can’t stop thinking about this guy, “Charles.” He has been picked on for his appearance, but I think he has pretty eyes and nice hands, plus a knack for singing. But then I found out recently that he is bigoted and has texted other girls, even when he has a girlfriend. Still, he’s always on my mind, despite all the red flags waving. I obviously don’t want a relationship with Charles and wouldn’t feel anything if he got a girlfriend. In fact, I’d be much happier if I never saw or heard from him again.

I got an unexpected Facebook message from someone I had unfriended a couple of years back. We disagree on politics, and I just could not handle all the hateful rhetoric in their feed. So, I clicked the unfriend button. This person hopes we can be friends again. “I am more for human beings than for politicians. I’ve had enough of them,” they wrote. I agreed. I am pro-kindness and pro-humanity.

George Santos, a newly elected congressman from Long Island, New York, has been caught in a string of embarrassing lies about his background. He claimed to have received a degree from Baruch College in 2010; he didn’t. He claimed to have worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup; he didn’t. He claimed to own multiple properties; he doesn’t. In fact, he lives with his sister and has previously been a “deadbeat tenant” who was sued for thousands of dollars in unpaid rent and bounced checks. (He says now that he never even paid the judgment. “I completely forgot about it.”) In a lie with perhaps the most ridiculous justification, Santos told voters he was Jewish; he isn’t. His explanation? He’d heard stories that someone on his mother’s side of the family had converted from Judaism to Catholicism. “I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos insisted. “I said I was Jew-ish.”

T ODAY’S HISTORY: In 1777, Revolutionary forces under the command of George Washington defeated the British at Princeton, New Jersey. In 1947, a session of Congress was televised for the first time to viewers in three East Coast cities.