Columns & Crackers

Today (April 18, 2025) is National Columnists' Day.

I was a journalist from September 1982 to April 2017.

My religion is called Gaudiya Vaishnavism, also known as Hare Krishna, which is a sect of Sanatana Dharma, also known as Hinduism. I wrote this column (below) in 2014 about my religion. It was published in almost all of the 24 southeastern Florida weekly newspapers in the chain for which I was working at the time (Forum Publishing Group, Sun Sentinel, Tribune Company).

My column was part of a series of columns written by the editors about living in today's world according to our religious tenets. It was published in our April 16, 2014, editions. At the time, I was one of two Assistant Editors (editor and page designer, and sometimes writer and photographer) for five of our weekly newspapers.

Click/tap on the (scanned) photo below to enlarge it.

Also, during my first paying journalism job (1989-1990), when I was the founding editor of a weekly supplement to a daily newspaper (as a reporter, writer, editor, photographer, and page designer at the Newburgh Evening News in Newburgh, New York), I wrote a weekly opinion column.

Today (April 18, 2025) is National Animal Crackers Day. I prefer the former, traditional box design when the circus animals were still in cages (below).