Ashley, North Dakota, is a small farming town where the local diet leans hard on sausage, deep-fried chicken and strudel. It has something of a medical center, but the nearest trauma hospital able to handle the most serious injuries is almost four hours away in Fargo. Yet the elders in ...

When families buy homes in residential neighborhoods, they do so with certain expectations. They expect streets designed for residents, not revolving tourists. They expect neighbors, not nightly guests. Most importantly, they expect the city’s zoning laws to mean something. That is why the ...

In a 2011 Los Angeles Times column titled "When Unity Was All-American," writer George Skelton marked the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor by recalling a time when Americans respected those whom they elected. "What I remember most," he recalled about America during World War II, "are home ...

We're not southern enough to be yes, ma'am or no, sir, but I try to nudge manners into my kids' daily interactions with strangers. Today, I nudged him when I saw two women cross the parking lot and asked him to open the restaurant door. One of the women was older and one much younger, maybe a ...

Tuesday saw the usual first-week-of-June gaggle of state primary elections. It's a feature of the American federal system that states choose when to hold primary and local elections. Back in the 1850s, as historian Roy Franklin Nichols notes, there was an election in all but one or two of the ...

For as long as I can remember, I've had a fascination with words. I grew up in a home where reading was a regular activity, both individually and out loud to the entire family. Books, stories, religious works, encyclopedias, newspapers and other materials were regularly read and shared. I had ...