All Blog Posts (2,374)

I just finished the book, “Silver Linings Playbook,” and plan to see the Academy Award nominated movie this evening. It is about mental health and a mid-30s aged patient who is trying to make a trip back to reality with little help from a highly dysfunctional family. The plot questions what reality really is. Is…

So, there is something nasty in the winning, winning or losing with a cause, a fix.

Point shaving, game fixing, nothing new, but the scale, now there is the rub, or rather the boot.

International Football, or soccer to us, may be dirty, very dirty. After an investigation by a international and national police organizations, 680 matches have been marked…

The Superbowl is probably more engrained into American culture than any day of the year. Records are set for TV viewers, bathroom flushes at half-time and bets placed on the action in casinos. People can remember where they were on the first one played and significant others after that. I saw my first one in…

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. (Richard the III, Act I, Scene I)

Has been found, Richard's head and body that is, buried in what is now a parking lot in the city of Leicester in the…

Time usually heals, if nothing else by space, the space between the event and now.

On February 1st, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia was torn apart upon reentry after completing its successful mission to the International Space Station. The crew failed to return home.

The idea of space travel was, is and will be a risky business much like…

If you pay attention to the major news outlets, you would think the economy is getting better (http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/02/01/unemployment-ticks-up-to-7-9-but-signs-of-strong-recovery/).  Most of the news organizations ignore the net job losses, workforce participation rates and most of all, the level of underemployment in the United States.  There are strong indicators that things are…

It comes every year, Feb 2nd, where the prognostication of a rodent can be taken as sign, a sign that winter will end, more or less.

It also comes as a theme of opportunity and renewal, such as, in Phil Conners; a moment in life to discover the poignancy and beauty of light, jazz piano playing and reciting 19th century French poetry. But then again, that was but…

It is just a number, a big one, but still a number. And yet, it means something else, means about $9 trillion in recovered wealth as the Dow Jones Industrial index has recovered to close at 14000, the first time since July, 2007.

So, do most Americans feel better than they did 5 years ago? Nope, most Americans are still challenged to do better. Then who are the beneficiaries of the recovery? Good question.

Most American corporations are, and the bigger the better.…

That what an Hispanic mother was yelling at her five kids yesterday as I was shopping at my local grocery store. They were scattered throughout the aisles, as she was hauling a overloaded grocery cart towards the register.  I live in south-central Florida where the white-painted converted school buses bring the families of the orange pickers to…

There have been some significant NASA events' commemorations recently going back to the start of the American Space Age. And among the great and brave men and women being noted there is a lack of the note of America's first astronaut, well, not a man or a woman but a monkey, a chimpanzee, named Ham, to be more correct.

January 31, 1961(yes, 52 years ago), Ham…

My local Walmart has just installed about 10 self-checkout registers. Now I live in the Florida county that has the second oldest population of any county in America. Further, this Walmart is located among a half dozen retirement communities, which after citrus farming is the number two industry in the area.…

Women may now be used in combat according to new military rules. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/01/women-combat-process/ Accordingly, there is no job that a woman cannot do in the military as long as she passes the same tests as men…

I drove over to the golf course and played a round yesterday, as I do twice a week. I paid my green fee and enjoyed about 4 hours of bright sunshine, conversation and competition with my fellow retirees. I thank God for the days I have left to play golf and try to enjoy my life. But while I was doing that, the news was filled with the complaints of…

(This is a letter to the editor of a local paper that I just had published. I'd written it in response to another letter claiming liberals were exploiting the tragedy of Sandy Hook. Although I used some of the arguments in the original letter, I think mine is self-explanatory enough to be posted here.)



I read Mr. Niggemeyer's letter entitled "Liberals are exploiting this tragedy" with astonishment. Mr. Niggemeyer tells us in his letter what he believes. I have no doubt that he…

I have engaged in the process for about three quarters of a century. When I was a child I mostly took, as my parents gave me what I needed. But I soon learned the art of giving. I served mass as an alter-attendant in my early school days, then served the community as a scout for a number of years. I took some public education money, as I attended…