Top 10 ways to make New Year's resolutions stick

  Another year rolls around and gyms across the country fill with newcomers. Gym regulars grouse about how the competition for the treadmills and elliptical machines has grown ten-fold, but they smile knowingly because they have seen it all before. In a month or two, the gym will be back to normal as all the New Year's resolution makers lose steam and go back to business as usual.

  Yet every year there are a few who defy the odds and keep going to the gym regularly. They stick to their resolutions. What is it that sets the resolution-keepers apart from the resolution drop-outs?

How much are you willing to pay for money?

  Disdain for money is a common theme among moralists and philosophers. But money’s not the problem. It’s what people do to get it and what they do with it when they get it.

  In "Fiddler on the Roof," a poor man sings of his daydreams of the wonderful life he’d have if he were a rich man. And surely it would be better. As someone once said, “I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. Rich is better.”

  Yet the Biblical warning that “love of money is the root of all evil” reminds us to be aware of the difference between need and greed.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1646 - The ride to save the last five!

  The Ride to Save the Last Five. It’s a slogan that makes sense only when we know the background. When we know why we were on a ride to save the last five, we understand the slogan. When we know the situation of the last five, then we know that it is really a matter of life and death.  A Ride to Save the Last Five.

  Murder of African Americans in Selma, Alabama is a crisis of monumental proportion. Last year, Selma ranked first in Alabama and eighth in the country among the most dangerous cities in the United States of America. Those rankings are for last year. However, we don’t know the rankings for this year. We do know that it is likely to be worse, much worse.

Gay rights activist and Supreme Court victor left his mark on the First Amendment

  Raymond Wayne Hill, who passed away at the age of 78 on November 24, was known for his championing of gay rights causes and his social activism. He co-founded Houston’s first LGBTQ organization, helped to galvanize the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, and served as executive director of the Houston Human Rights League.

  But, Hill also left his mark on the First Amendment, achieving a stunning victory before the U.S. Supreme Court in City of Houston v. Hill (1987). Hill thought that a police officer was picking on a friend of his, another man with the last name of Hill. Hill approached the officer and said: “Why don’t you pick on somebody your own size?”

With Rosa Parks Day, Alabama moves toward recognition of its true heroes

  On December 1, the state of Alabama marked its first Rosa Parks Day.

  It was a significant step toward recognizing the state's prominent civil rights activists.

  Sixty-three years ago – on Dec. 1, 1955 – Parks was arrested and jailed for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse – We lost some great leaders in 2018

  As is my custom at the close of the year, I like to memorialize great Alabamians who have appeared and lived legendary lives upon the stage of political history in the Heart of Dixie.

  This year we have had some real legends. I have expanded the geographical limits to outside of Alabama to include two of the greatest men in American history. America’s greatest preacher and one of the nation’s great presidents passed away. Most of these fellows lived a long time. 

Christmas around the world

  Christmas is both a religious holiday and increasingly a secular holiday heavily influenced by local culture. As a result, Christmas traditions are as diverse as the world is diverse culturally.

  In the United States, for example, Christmas traditions are a literal potpourri of the Christmas traditions brought by immigrants, mostly European. For example: Yule log (English), Christmas tree (German), carols or noels (France), Santa Claus (Dutch). In more recent times, newer Christmas traditions have arrived with the most recent immigrants such as luminaries (Mexico) and the greeting "Feliz Navidad!" (Latin America generally).

What is a good Christmas?

  Will this be a good Christmas?

  How will you measure it?

  For lots of kids, the answer may be embedded in the response to the question, “What did ya get?”

  On the other hand, retailers and Wall Street investors will look to sales and profits.

Conservatives are using the courts to attack health care for all Americans

  Conservative state officials, in conjunction with the Trump administration, have launched an all-out attack on health care in the United States. They have brought a suit to overturn the entirety of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which would have serious consequences for nearly every American who has health coverage, whether through their employer, the individual market, Medicare, or Medicaid. And they found a partisan judge who proved willing to ignore the rule of law and help them advance their political agenda through the courts.

Trump’s school safety commission recommendations would make schools less safe

  The Federal Commission on School Safety—established by President Trump following the tragic school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and led by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos—released a report Tuesday that recommends withdrawing the 2014 Department of Justice and Department of Education legal guidance on discriminatory discipline.

  The commission’s recommendations threaten to make our nation's schools and students less safe; ignore settled law; ignore both evidence and evidence-based solutions; and ignore progress made towards safe, welcoming, and healthy schools for all students.