Columnists - The Durango Herald

It starts with public health: Your health is our mission

National Public Health Week, April 7 to 13, serves as a reminder that our well-being as individuals is tied to the health of the entire community. Public health is about prioritizing health ...

DATE: Apr 2, 2025 | CATEGORY: Creating Community

Durango Ragtime and Early Jazz Festival takes stage

Danny Coots and Adam Swanson became friends over a shared love of ragtime and early jazz music, that friendship coming decades after ragtime and early jazz were “new” styles of music. Coots ...

DATE: Apr 2, 2025 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Elders doing what we can during this unsettled time

I’ve recently been to a couple of Indivisible meetings and some protest marches downtown in reaction to what’s going on in Washington, D.C. There are so many elders at these happenings. At f...

DATE: Apr 2, 2025 | CATEGORY: Authentic Aging

I didn’t expect placing my husband in memory care would improve both of our lives

A few years ago, I wrote a poem, “I didn’t know,” (Herald, Nov. 13, 2022) that resonated with many. It was about the painful journey of finding a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s for my husband. Lif...

DATE: Apr 2, 2025 | CATEGORY: Opinion

A retreat from Democratic values: Vice President JD Vance’s Munich disgrace

In April 1928, Joseph Goebbels, later the Third Reich’s chief propagandist, wrote a newspaper essay addressing the question of why the National Socialists, despite being an “anti-parliamenta...

DATE: Apr 1, 2025 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Fight the urge to plant those tomato seeds

When the temperature reaches 71 degrees toward the end of March, it has a very profound effect on our psyche, and if you are a plant person like me, then it influences our desire to plant th...

DATE: Apr 1, 2025 | CATEGORY: From the Extension Office

Ex-wife has carried secret for 20 years

DEAR ABBY: I was married to a police officer for 20 years. It wasn’t a warm marriage. We divorced 20 years ago. Our one child is in his late 30s. I always put my son first and loved him with...

DATE: Apr 1, 2025 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Preserve Medicaid and de-privatize Medicare for cost savings

Most Americans will agree that our many government departments could use a careful examination of operations for improving efficiencies and reducing costs, fraud and waste. But there should ...

DATE: Mar 31, 2025 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Gravel on roads is no laughing matter

Dear Action Line, The medians and shoulders of our roads and highways are awash with rocks, gravel and other unsightly debris. What’s going on, and why can’t local agencies clear up...

DATE: Mar 31, 2025 | CATEGORY: Action Line

Living through a liminal time standing on the threshold of change

When the day came to leave Ohio and move to Colorado, I was emotionally torn. Everybody knows Colorado’s a gorgeous, scenic state, so why not live there? On the other hand – once a Buckeye, ...

DATE: Mar 30, 2025 | CATEGORY: Opinion

A moment at the Durango Recreation Center and the larger truths we ignore

On March 15, a woman wearing a “Make America Healthy Again” hat was verbally attacked by a man at the Durango Community Recreation Center. A moment, fleeting in time, but emblematic of some...

DATE: Mar 30, 2025 | CATEGORY: Opinion

What we are all witnessing is about ideology, not oligarchy

The Democrats, casting about for an anti-Trump narrative, have found a word: “oligarchy.” It was part of Joe Biden’s farewell address; it’s central to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ barnstorming; it s...

DATE: Mar 30, 2025 | CATEGORY: Opinion