Today's Opinions

Have you ever wondered how an investigation really unfolds? How forensics experts analyze a crime scene?  How an officer identifies a drunken driver?

The 11-week Citizens’ Academy is a free program offered by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office to county residents. It is your behind-the-scenes tour through virtually every aspect of our criminal justice system. Participants learn in a classroom setting one night per week, with plenty of interactive activities throughout.

Following are some of the many class topics.

It has happened. You were or are going to be laid off. Your soon-to-be-last employer has informed you that you can select COBRA and pay the full 100 percent (plus 2 percent administration) of the premium. You think, “Great, I am covered.”

However, you find out 45 to 60 days later that your premium is two or three times higher than what you previously contributed. The latter is the norm. I have seen singles and families with $600 and $1,200 monthly premiums, respectively. There go your layoff-package dollars.

In his terrific essay on “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell observed that “(w)hen there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

Orwell spoke of a phenomenon that exists in our time as it did in his — the hijacking of language to conceal the truth behind political objectives.