Opinion: A year -- and years -- gone by

One year ago today -- and a week after playing his final concert, here in Atlanta at the Fox -- Prince Rogers Nelson succumbed to an apparent opiate addiction that had dogged him for years. It's shocking and depressing to think about how many great talents have walked that very same road to destruction over the years, and also how many Americans in all walks of life die each year now from opiates. I know of at least three such deaths in our own little neighborhood in recent years, and the CDC reports more than 30,000 deaths annually from opiate overdoses.

Sorry to get so glum on you on a beautiful Friday afternoon -- it's just hard to accept people with so much life and talent letting it slip away from them like that. As partial atonement, here's Prince back in better days.