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Pitts: Mom who resurfaced after 11 years shows life catches up

Brenda Heist wanted to run away from life. Naturally, she went to Key West, Fla.

Pitts: NBA player's coming out game-changer beyond court

Boom!

Pitts: Rand Paul, GOP need to rethink 'outreach' to blacks

Rand Paul did just fine at Howard University, thank you very much. Or at least, that's how he remembers it.

Pitts: Paisley could adjust 'Accidental' perspective if he tried

There are many things to say about Brad Paisley's new song.

Pitts: Remember, Barry, Goliath Principle also applies to you

Dear Barry: Ordinarily, I'd address you as Mr. Obama or Mr. President, in deference to your office. But we need to have us a guy-to-guy chat here, so I hope you'll excuse the familiarity, because I just have to ask:

Pitts: Late civil rights foe proves we can escape burden of hate

A few words on the death of Elwin Wilson.

Pitts: Customers ill-served when robots of any kind answer call

Dear Whomever is in Charge of Customer Service for DirecTV:

Pitts: Portman's change of heart on gays deserves no cheers

Let there be no cheers for Rob Portman.

Pitts: If you're not free to do something stupid, you're not free

Perhaps you remember when Dr. Doom conquered the world.

Pitts: Introverts pulled into telecommuting controversy

It's not just a women's issue.

Pitts: Alleged assault of black baby sign of things to come

'The first kick I took was when I hit the ground."

Pitts: End doesn't justify means with drone hits on citizens

If it is true, as the writer Samuel Johnson once said, that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," then the dictionary must be the first.

Pitts: Chris Christie makes nation ponder some heavy truths

So it turns out Chris Christie is fat.

Pitts: Gun advocates prefer farfetched fantasy to hard reality

You remember that serious conversation we were going to have about guns? Here's how serious it has turned out to be.

Pitts: Conservatives must stop twisting civil rights history

Rush Limbaugh thinks John Lewis should have been armed.

Pitts: Can Republicans accept that a new era has dawned?

How fitting that Richard Blanco chose the sun.

Pitts: Torture may work, but that fails to make it acceptable

Does torture work?

Pitts: An armed society only offers freedom to live in fear

'Everybody got a pistol. This must really please the NRA"

Pitts: Unless we get grip on guns, Newtown deaths in vain

On the day after the recent massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., police in Newport Beach, Calif., took a man into custody for allegedly firing more than 50 rounds from a semi-automatic handgun in the parking lot of a shopping mall. He aimed into the air and no one was hit, though one person was hurt slightly while running away. Police say 42-year-old Marcos Gurrola was destitute and frustrated with his circumstances. Firing dozens of rounds at the sky was his way of venting.

Pitts: Political expediency trumps Norquist's anti-tax pledge

A few words to ponder as we sail toward the fiscal cliff. Those words would be: "That was then, this is now."

Pitts: What really matters? Holiday actions can confound us

Bing Crosby would be appalled.

Pitts: When it comes to education, don't lower bar, lift kids

I take this one personally. Let me tell you why.

Pitts: Republican Party has become its own worst enemy

'How ya like me now?"

Pitts: Obama victory a major blow to 'severe' conservatism

Thank goodness that's over.

Pitts: McGovern, Armstrong redefine winners and losers

One guy was among the greatest losers in the history of politics, the other, one of the biggest winners in all of sports.

Pitts: Romney's 'binders full of women' stuck in time warp

About those "binders full of women .?.?."

Pitts: Taliban shooting of teen girl bolsters her fight for justice

'Truth crushed to earth will rise again."

Pitts: Conservatives' War on Reality puts country at risk

'Reality," Stephen Colbert once famously said, "has a well-known liberal bias."

Pitts: Romney, others portray poverty as a character defect

Sharkara Peters is a 35-year-old single mother of two. She works 34 hours a week at a fast-food restaurant. A few months back, she was hospitalized with a blood clot in her lung.

PItts: We must defend First Amendment, even when it costs us dearly

They are, perhaps, the most dangerous words ever written:

Pitts: Whose opinion of gay marriage will carry the day?

We are gathered here today to discuss two recent controversies about same-sex marriage. One comes from the world of pigskin, the other from the world of chicken fat.

Pitts: Please politicians, give the racial pandering a break

Lord help us, they're talking race again.

Pitts: Akin personifies the extremism gripping Republicans

Rep. Todd Akin's fame — more accurately, his infamy — now reaches all the way to the Congo.

Pitts: Face it, America is under attack by right-wing terrorists

Can we finally say the thing we have not said so far?

Pitts: Conservatism has become intellectual shadow of itself

Some recent headlines from the alternate universe of modern conservatism:

Pitts: Man on a mission to champion real political discourse

It was in 2008, the debate between vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. Biden had just scored his opponent for failing to directly answer a question from moderator Gwen Ifill. But Palin was hardly apologetic. "I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you want to hear," she snapped, "but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also."

Pitts: Colorado shooting shows heroes live among, not above us

‘Am I my brother’s keeper?” — Genesis 4:9

Pitts: Voter suppression by Republicans is a serious matter

This one is for Mike. He is a Houston reader who shot me an email after my recent column equating the GOP push for voter ID laws with voter suppression.

Pitts: An ode to decency, simplicity and Sheriff Taylor

MAYBERRY, N.C. — Former sheriff Andy Taylor died here on July 3. Mayberry is in mourning.

Pitts: Time to declare America's greatness and have it be true

Can you say why America is the greatest country in the world?

Pitt: As facts fall by wayside, U.S. becomes nation of 2 realities

'The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."

Pitts: King's 'Can we all get along?' still begs for an answer

There was always something hapless about Rodney King.

Pitts: Bloomberg on wrong battlefield in war against obesity

There are things the law cannot do.

Pitts: Begin search for divinity at home, in acts of charity

Chyanna Richards saw Jesus in her bathroom.

Pitts: 'Internet courage' is really online cowardice, bullying

Steve Blake of the Los Angeles Lakers (formerly a Portland Trail Blazer) missed what would have been the winning shot in a critical game. His wife got death threats.

Pitts: No need to stand in tribute to inventor of TV remote

We are gathered here today to memorialize a man who revolutionized our lives.

Pitts: Mandatory minimum sentencing laws insult to justice

So the people got sick of it, all those criminals being coddled by all those bleeding heart liberal judges with all their soft-headed concern for rights and rehabilitation. And a wave swept this country in the Reagan years, a wave ridden by pundits and politicians seeking power, a wave that said, no mercy, no more. From now on, judges would be severely limited in the sentences they could hand down for certain crimes, required to impose certain punishments whether or not they thought those punishments fit the circumstances at hand. From now on, there was a new mantra in American justice. From now on, we would be "tough on crime."

Leonard Pitts

Stories by Leonard