Entries by Staff Writer

By Susan Harper

You can read a long way down in the dictionary, under the word “spell” before you get to anything about putting letters together to make a word. It surprises me to tell you this, but in my trusty Webster’s the first entry for “spell” has to do with magic, and the synonym offered is “incantation.”

This makes a certain kind of sense to me. Even as a child I thought there was tremendous power in words — a notion confirmed for me by the idea that the pen is mightier than the sword, although that too offered a surprise when I actually looked it up. The original quote, from a play by Edward Bulwer Lytton, says, “Beneath the rule of men entirely great / The pen is mightier than the sword,” suggesting that where tyrants reign, the pen is relatively powerless. But that doesn’t mean that words are. Even under tyrants, people talk.
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The Jackson County Sheriff's Office announced the following arrests during the past week: [Full Story »] 

By Susan Harper

Along with my resistance to such politically overused phrases as “with all due respect” and “at the end of the day” — which seem to have an almost viral presence in public speech — I find that I have a towering and still-growing resentment of the new favorite buzz-phrase among politicians: “ordinary Americans.” Depending on how much and how carefully you listen to what passes for news these days, you will hear those two words paired up and uttered 10 or 20 times a day. [Full Story »] 

By Susan Harper

We’ve probably all had the experience of getting a song stuck in our heads. I had a colleague at the library who used to cover her ears whenever “Miss Catherine” played a certain tune as part of her Kidsercise program. “If I hear that song this morning,” my co-worker used to say, fleeing the front desk, hands over hears, elbows sticking out so that she had to run through the door sideways, “I’ll be hearing it all week.”
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The availability of vaccines for both the seasonal flu and the H1N1 flu is a day-to-day thing for the Jackson County Health Department.
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By Susan Harper
Yesterday my father died. Tomorrow I’ll fly to L.A. for my son’s wedding. The day after that, I’ll fly back here for my dad’s funeral.
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Two East College Avenue women face felony drug charges after the Commerce Police Department allegedly purchased prescription drugs at their residence.

Michelle Lackey, 32, and Mary Middleton, 69, both of 221 East College Avenue, were each charged with the sale and distribution of Schedule 2 narcotics, according to Ken Harmon, head of the department’s Criminal Investigation Division. [Full Story »] 

Commerce High School crowned its homecoming court Friday night at halftime of the Commerce-Prince Avenue football game.

Left to right are Haiden Nunn, Miss Junior; Bree Haggard, Miss Homecoming; Taylor Brock, Miss Freshman; and Andrea Mathis, Miss Sohomore.

Photo courtesy of Carol Streetman. [Full Story »]