Opinion

This is the week when the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day are on our minds. You may be wondering what to make for that Super Bowl gathering and your favorite Valentine. Score big with your Super Bowl guests by making some of these winning appetizers. Finger foods made ahead of time and arranged in a self-serving buffet spread ensure everyone — even the cook — will be watching the game from kickoff to victory.

Dear Neil: I have a magnolia tree in our backyard. It’s one of four of about the same age. The other three are thriving, but this one looks like it’s dying in spite of water and fertilizer. What can I do to spur it along?

Recently Texas passed the Safe Outdoor Dogs Act that enforces humane guidelines for restraining pet canines outdoors. Unfortunately for me, the act fails to impose similar guidelines for the treatment of grouchy husbands and embarrassing dads.

Getting a dinner reservation at Per Se, New York’s restaurant of choice for the city’s royalty, is more difficult than entering the U.S. illegally.

Romans 8: 22 (NIV) - “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Have you ever listened to the groan of a large wooden ship as it gives way to the tide? The sound is mournful as the ship’s structure bends and flexes to the rhythm of the sea. Some people find it relaxing.

Dear Neil: My daughter’s backyard is halfway filled with bamboo, and it’s spreading. How can we get rid of it? I really don’t want to sound like I’m exaggerating, but no invader that we have in our landscapes is any more difficult to eliminate.

When it became obvious that the Titanic was not going to survive its tragic collision with the iceberg in the North Atlantic, those in positions of authority started to do the human triage necessary in emergencies. Who would be saved, who would perish, and who would be empowered with those impossible decisions?

Major League Baseball’s player lockout had no sooner begun than commissioner Rob Manfred sent a letter to fans attempting to assuage ire about the possibility of another partial season – the sixth in 50 years – or even no season at all.

Dear Neil: I have four varieties of tomatoes, and all of them have started dying. What is causing the problem you can see in my photo? Your photo looks like early blight got them a couple of weeks ago.

As we approach the end of the first month of the new year, there is one thing we know as Christians remains the same - the great commission. Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20 gives us this great commission saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.