Columns

As Texas Agriculture Commissioner, I am responsible for the licensing of more than 850 entities that currently grow, handle, sample or process hemp in Texas. Hemp and marijuana are two different names for the flowering plant known as cannabis. The legal difference between the two is the concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. THC is what gives the ‘high’ feeling people associate with cannabis. By law, marijuana has a concentration of THC that is 0.3% or higher. Hemp has a concentration of THC that is 0.3% or lower by dry weight.

As the temperatures rise across the country, extreme heat can have a significant impact on everyone’s safety, but it can be especially stressful and confusing for individuals with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Alzheimer’s disease causes a number of changes in the brain and body that may affect their safety, including changes in sensitivity to temperatures.

After the massive mail slowdowns and postage hikes of 2021, Congress took action to financially stabilize the U.S. Postal Service by passing a historic, bipartisan postal reform bill. The bill freed the Postal Service from an unreasonable 2006 law demanding that it pre-fund retiree health benefits 75 years in advance—a requirement that put billions of dollars on the Postal Service’s balance sheet each year and motivated it to keep hiking postage rates while reducing services.

Like so many of us, I have a lot of my family and friends’ birthdates in my phone’s calendar, and I have it set to notify me when a loved one’s birthday is on the horizon. I prefer to tell myself that “I have so many family members now, and combined with all my friends, I can’t possibly remember all those birthdates anymore.” But truthfully, probably just getting too lazy and too dependent upon my phone reminding me. Tend to take the easy way out when it is available.

Every summer I write an article to remind coaches and student-athletes about the danger of working out in the heat. Although there are less deaths today because of knowledge of heat exhaustion, it still happens. Hydration and rest are key in reducing core body temperature.

In athletics, we sometimes perceive a coach or player has lost their edge or usefulness. Coaches, for example, might have served admirably for several years. Then, for whatever the reason they are replaced. For many years they were productive, then suddenly, leadership perceives they need to make a change. In the same context, players sometimes are labeled and cannot shake the coaches’ perception. Decision makers have the right to make changes as they perceive are needed. What is the perception by the decision maker?

I’ve been reading my Bible in reverse. Oh, not really word-by-word in reverse, just in the reverse order of books. I’ve read through the Bible several times over the last 10 years, but after getting stuck in Leviticus and Numbers a few times, I figured out a way to mix up the daily readings so that I don’t get stuck in a quagmire again – I read out of three different portions of the Word during any given week – History, Poetry, and the New Testament.

NOTICE: Please observe the warning signs of red cones and yellow Caution tape around the front of the Van Zandt Newspapers building at the corner of Tyler and Buffalo Streets. Those who drove by the Van Zandt Newspapers building on Wednesday, may have wondered why six people were standing almost in the street, engaged in deep conversation.

Anyone examining my Internet browser history would be bored to tears – Amazon purchases, links for my new job, reviews of defibrillators our church is considering, etc. But there’s one guilty pleasure to be found in my use of the World Wide Web: Craigslist East Texas, in the Farm & Garden For Sale area – specifically, used tractors.

Husband has had a horrible time at work that day. Feeling kicked around, unappreciated and definitely out of sorts, he pulls into the driveway, only to find that his three-year-old has left her tricycle blocking the garage door… again. He leverages his tired body out of the car and lumbers slowly into the house, ready to snap the head from the first person he sees.