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Never too late to thrive

Dear Annie: I am an older gay man. The bullying started when I was young. The boys in the neighborhood didn’t want me around because I was lousy at sports. The girls didn’t want any boys around while they were playing. When I started school, it wasn’t any different. Bullying increased with junior high, and high school was the worst. To cope, I avoided socializing with people. I didn’t attend any high school functions. Consequently, I never really learned how to be around people. Later, I would usually say or do something that was frowned upon. That just made me isolate myself ...

Trump can use the economy to change people’s minds about him

WASHINGTON — With the end of the Mueller probe and the news that the U.S. economy is performing far beyond expectations, President Donald Trump has reached an inflection point in his presidency. He has the chance to turn the political tides decisively in his favor, if he takes it. On Friday, we learned that the economy added 263,000 jobs in April — exceeding the 190,000 that economists predicted. This came on top of the news, a week earlier, that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 3.2% in the first quarter, far exceeding predictions of 2.5% growth. Unemployment is at the ...

Passionless partner

Dear Annie: I am in a relationship with a 71-year-old woman. I am 72. We have a lot in common and our relationship has moved toward moving in together. We have been intimate, but when we are, there is no passion on her part. Even after extensive foreplay, she has no passion. She just lies there. She never touches me and is never the aggressor. I love this woman, and she says she loves me. But she certainly doesn’t know how to express it. She is a sweet woman who is just going through a tough financial time. I am willing to help her, but I sometimes think her involvement with me is ...

Would climate engineering be playing God?

As climate technology advances, the incredible is becoming creditable. Someday, a guy sitting in a bunker may be able to alter the planet’s temperature by fiddling with a cosmic thermostat. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. There are basically two approaches to climate engineering. One is to capture greenhouse gas emissions and bury them. The other, more controversial idea, is to reflect the energy from sunlight back into space. This could be done through ginormous mirrors or by spraying aerosols into the atmosphere to make the Earth shinier (and, therefore, more ...

PTSD and forgiveness

Dear Annie: Your recent column signed by “Blamed for Bedlam” struck a chord with me, and I’d like to share my story. For 60 years, my brother and I were the closest of friends. He is godfather to my children, and you could even say he was a “soul father” to them as well. With my mom, we were a very close-knit family unit. I am in my mid-60s now. My mom lived with my husband and me, and our children, until she reached the age of 93. Our home was the hub of parties and family reunions. It was always packed with people and love, and my brother, single at the time, was a daily ...

A uniquely American story

Feb. 19, 1942, was not President Franklin Roosevelt’s finest day. Some 10 weeks after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR signed Executive Order 9066, which violated the legal rights of some 120,000 Japanese Americans. In short order, people of Japanese descent were given just 48 hours to dispose of their homes, their farms, their businesses. Their investments and their bank accounts were expropriated. Let us listen to the painful memories of a 10-year-old American citizen: “My own family was sent first to Santa Anita racetrack. We showered in the horse paddocks. Some families ...