FROM A RECOVERING POLITICIAN

Now that 2025 is in our rear-view mirror, I hope you enjoyed celebrating the holidays with family and friends, got all of your shopping done in time, and are prepared for the after-Christmas and January sales.But realize that even if you took a little time off, politics didn’t.

POINT OF VIEW

A new “New Year' has arrived. 2025 will soon lie behind us, and with keen anticipation, we wonder what the next 365 days will bring.We can only hope the political temperature on all sides will cool down. Presently, the American people are being ill-served by the sickening partisanship.

PEACE & JUSTICE

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? I always do. A New Year always brings with it promise and uncertainty, but this coming year brings with it a greater foreboding than we have experienced in the past. The Chinese have a saying: “May you live in interesting times.

THE FORGOTTEN KITCHEN

The H. J. Heinz Company of Pittsburgh, PA issued a pamphlet in 1957. The pamphlet includes 57 prize-winning recipes. The purpose of the pamphlet is to promote the use of ketchup. These recipes do not just use a squirt of ketchup, but sometimes a whole cup of ketchup.

in the garden

Recycle ChristmasTrees to Help Coastal RestorationNow that the holidays are winding down, there’s several opportunities to recycle your live Christmas tree. In Louisiana, we have around eighty Christmas tree farms harvesting an average of 11,000 trees each year.

Bridge Customer Service Center to Close Down on Jan. 9

The Belle Chasse Bridge Customer Service Center that Plenary opened back on October 10, 2025, is about to close. According to comments from the project’s Public Information Officer Angi Noote, the Customer Service Center will be closing down on January 9, 2026.

THE FORGOTTEN KITCHEN

In 1948 General Mills, Inc., the owner of the persona Betty Crocker, published a cookie pamphlet. It was called Betty Crocker Picture Cooky Book. There is a picture of the Betty Crocker of the era on the cover, as well as pictures of cookies.