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Walking down the aisle

Dear Annie: I’m getting married in a few months, and I’m paying for everything myself. My parents are divorced and not on good terms, but I have a good relationship with both of them and want them there. Recently, my mom said she expects me to ask my grandfather (her father) to walk me down the aisle because “he’s the one that’s really been there for you.” I told her no, and, while I love my grandfather, I want my dad to do it. Mom said absolutely not, adding, “That deadbeat doesn’t deserve it.” Though I would never throw it in her face, it was Mom who did something ...

Chief justice wisely gets courts out of redistricting politics

“Partisan gerrymandering is nothing new,” writes Chief Justice John Roberts near the beginning of his opinion in Rucho v. Common Cause. “Nor is frustration with it.” The question is what, if anything, federal courts ought to do about it. The answer the chief justice and the four other Republican-appointed justices have endorsed, journalists have been reporting, is nothing. Actually, judges have a very effective weapon to limit, though not prohibit, partisan districting — which we’ll get to later. But first, let’s be clear that the chief justice is right about the ...

Jealousy rearing its ugly head

Dear Annie: I will turn 65 this year and can’t help but look back on my life. For the most part, until recently at least, I was feeling very satisfied. I was married right out of college, at 22, to the wrong person, and we split up after 10 months. She has since been married four times. But I found the ideal person for me, and we were married when I turned 30 and have been together — happily — ever since. We have one child, our beautiful daughter who will graduate from college next year. My wife and I tried to inculcate her with the importance of education and self-esteem, and we ...

Is Putin right? Has liberalism lost the world?

“The liberal idea has become obsolete. ... (Liberals) cannot simply dictate anything to anyone as they have been attempting to do over the recent decades.” Such was the confident claim of Vladimir Putin to the Financial Times on the eve of a G-20 gathering that appeared to validate his thesis. Consider who commanded all the attention at the Osaka summit. The main event was Trump’s meeting with China’s Xi Jinping and their agreement to renew trade talks. Xi runs an archipelago of detention camps where China’s Uighur Muslims and its Kazakh minority have their minds ...

Intermittent fasting fan

Dear Annie: I have discovered something that your readers might find helpful, and if you agree, I hope that you will print my letter. For the past 20 years, I have wanted to lose the same 10 pounds. In fact, I have lost them dozens of times and then regained them after going off whatever diet I tried. And I have tried them all! Low fat and high carbohydrate works well, as does high fat and low carbohydrate. The problem with either diet is that I find myself missing too many different foods and eventually go off it. When I was following a low-fat diet, I craved hamburgers and fries ...

Breaking free from abuser

Dear Annie: My husband and I have been married for 1 1/2 years, though we started going out more than three years ago. We should still be at the honeymoon stage in our relationship, but I am writing because he has changed recently in really bad ways. He calls me names, puts me down, belittles me and makes me feel worthless. Before this, he begged me to give up my apartment and move into his house. Yet recently, he made it clear that I would never be on the deed. I have a child from my first marriage, and initially my husband welcomed her with open arms. Now he doesn’t acknowledge ...