Acts of Kindness

09/11/2015   Blog

This is where Mr. Trump misses the point!!   It's so easy to disrespect or berate - which in fact is everything that is wrong with our political discourse.

Disabled Basketball Player Is Given Help By Opposing Player To Score A Shot

Competition is everything to so many. Aggression, arrogance and unkindness has no place in any professional sports – the very idea of ‘sportsmanship’ is that good conduct is shown in play just as it would at game’s end – yet to play the game means to play it well, and give no quarter.
 

When it comes to basketball that means you guard the ball and be ever-ready to make the opposing team pay with 2 points if they leave you open to score an easy basketball. These are the rules; to win, you follow them.

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PAARI

09/02/2015   Blog

I was recently asked to join the Board of Directors of a new not-for-profit, the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative (PAARI) (paariusa.org) .

This nonprofit has been established to assist in the effort to address the scourge of opioid addiction in concert with and in response to Gloucester's revolutionary new drug addiction treatment program.  As I have lost 3 first cousins to this scourge, I am excited about this fresh new approach to a terrible sickness.

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The truth is 'so far so good' takes you only so far

08/26/2015   Blog

There is an old story of the optimist who accidently falls off the roof of a 28 story building.

As he tumbled toward his certain death below, he allegedly was heard telling horrified onlookers in windows on the way down: "So far so good ... so far so good ... so far so good ..."

Historically, presidential campaigns can provoke that same reaction from both candidates as well as their staffs and the media.

Things appear to be going well until they are not.

Former Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll for president in August of 2011 and thus earned the front cover of Newsweek magazine.

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Waiting for next firecracker to explode in New Hampshire

08/23/2015   Blog

Assuming the new Boston Herald/ Franklin Pierce College Republican presidential poll of New Hampshire primary voters is correct, and I think it is, Donald Trump is on his way to ending his 2016 campaign adventure running as an Independent candidate rather than as a Republican nominee, and the guy who has in the past exhibited the temperament to become the "next Donald Trump" is on the rise in the Granite State. 

First the Trump implosion. 

On the surface Trump's 18 percent still leads the field of 17 by five points in the poll released this past Tuesday. 

Normally being in first place, and up by five points to boot, would be great news for any campaign. 

Sadly for Trump Express, this is not the case. 

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Trump leads while GOP establishment seethes

08/23/2015   Blog

The headline was "Donald Trump dominates in Republican poll." 

Dominates?!?! 

He is currently at 20 percent, which means 80 percent of all Republican primary voters are rejecting him at the point in time when most experts consider him to be the apex of his vanity campaign. 

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Life Advice

08/01/2015   Blog

“Hang Out with People Who are Better than You”... Warren Buffett

Another memorable piece of wisdom that Buffett shared with Pabrai and Spier was this: “Hang out with people better than you, and you cannot help but improve.” Over the years, Buffett has spoken eloquently about how much we’re influenced — both for better and worse — by the people around us. In a fascinating interview with Gillian Zoe Segal, author of a new book entitled Getting There, Buffett warns: “If you hang around with people who behave worse than you, pretty soon you’ll start being pulled in that direction.”

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Smart Guns

07/15/2015   Blog

Haven't heard a rationale argument from the NRA against smart guns despite the fact that they save lives.  This doesn’t quite get to the meat of the issue as to why the gun lobby doesn’t want smart guns, but it’s a step in the right direction.

There is an interesting Op-Ed about smart guns recently in the New York Times.

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Matty at the Bat

05/01/2015   Blog

My theme for this month is fear.

No, not fear of crime or want or illness.

Nope, the fear this month is the fear of the facts and the truth.

Just a few weeks ago the NRA successfully 'threatened' most of the Mass. bill board owners and companies with a potential boycott if they ran a message from the not-for-profit, 'Stop Handgun Violence'.

As most who've driven in the city for the past decade know, the group has produced a series of ads which highlight the need to remain vigilant as regards the dangers of unregulated and under-regulated handguns in our city streets, schools, and homes.

And what was their message this time?

Was it 'Repeal the Second Amendment!' or 'Confiscate all legal guns' or 'Disband the NRA'?

Nope! The sign said, 'We’re not anti-gun, we're pro-life'!

WOW! No wonder the NRA went into a paroxysm of fear!

What a devastating thought!

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May springs forward as stories abound

05/01/2015   Blog

The month of May has finally arrived, but it's fair to say April left most of us shaking off the grim idea that this past winter would simply never end.

Fear not! The snows of the horrific winter of 2015 will soon slide into the realm of memory, legend, and folklore chased away by the warm wind of spring.

Before we are seduced one again by the sunshine of summer, it might be fun to look at the stories you might have missed as April slowly morphed its way into May.

Did you catch the story of the JFK airport cleaner who was arrested after being caught stealing 1,400 mini-bottles of liquor from American Airlines planes?

My sense is she probably enjoyed a much more comfortable winter than most of us!

Did you catch the story of the high-tech prison where marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev is going to most likely spend the next 60 or 70 years of his life?

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Tales that are tough to swallow

04/24/2015   Blog

Robert Ripley created his famous newspaper feature "Believe It or Not" almost 100 years ago. Today, I wonder whether he would have accepted some of these items as true:

Believe it or not, years after poor Terri Schiavo was treated like a political piñata by then Gov. Jeb Bush and his right-wing posse of nonmedical specialists in Florida, all of whom insisted, despite overwhelming medical evidence to the contrary, that Schiavo was sentient, and not, as was later conclusively confirmed, brain-dead, that he'd do the same thing again in the future to some other poor soul if given the opportunity.

Let's hope he's never given that chance.

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