Too Early To Call?

Counting "I's"

2012-02-10T04:33:00.000-05:00

Insomnia sucks. I have finished watching the Joe Namath documentary on HBO, read online about the problems in our society and cleaned up my g-mail inbox. It is 3:30 AM and my night's sleep has long ago ended. I have tried to put a positive spin on this disaster by saying that it is in the quiet of the dead of night that my writing comes to life. "Tooearlytocall" is only possible because I...

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Trying to Keep Up

2012-02-09T15:17:00.001-05:00

It was almost 4PM and here I was, surveying the landscape below and trying to figure out a safe passage home. I had almost forgotten what this felt like. I have become a half day skier for the past several years. This resulted from a combination of factors, not the least of which was that most of my old ski buddies were now literally old and unwilling, or unable, to withstand the rigors...

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The Sound of Money

2012-02-08T05:50:00.003-05:00

("Another 2012 Campaign for Sale") I find it almost shockingly naive and out of touch with the reality of the moment that you suggest that the President should sit idle in the face of the Republican super PAC onslaught. The staggering candidacy of Newt Gingrich has recently risen up, based largely on $10,000,000 of contributions from one man (actually one man and his wife). The...

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The Party Crashers

2012-02-07T15:46:00.001-05:00

What is the sound of 10 West Point cadets talking animatedly in your living room? I can tell you. A combination of habit and circumstance has resulted in our house being the site of the annual ski-patrol groundhog's day party. One of the patrollers at our little mountain also spends some time at an even smaller hill at West Point, training young cadets not in ways of war, but in...

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Pet Phrases

2012-02-02T09:25:00.001-05:00

I have a (dog) bone to pick with Gail Collins. I ask that she please refrain from referring to Romney as "the guy who drove to Canada with the family dog strapped on the roof" anymore. It is distracting that in seemingly every column on the former governor this tale (tail) appears. It is lazy journalism and eventually (meaning now) it detracts from the value of the piece. And while I am...

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Quiet Please

2012-01-27T07:32:00.001-05:00

("Symphony of Shrieks and Powerful Strokes") I can understand a piercing, blood curdling scream in the proper context, say snakes on a plane, or even the shower scene in "Psycho". I just find the noise emanating from those playing a game of tennis unsettling and wholly out of place. The contrast between the quiet that is demanded from the crowd and the sounds that are permitted on the...

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Class(less) Participation

2012-01-26T06:29:00.001-05:00

("With Audiences Encouraged to React, Primary Debates Seem More Made for TV") It has been a particularly distasteful audience display throughout this Republican nomination process. In their responses, the crowd has demonstrated, time and again, the most distressing disregard for homosexuals, for the poor, for the unemployed, for blacks. Most recently, the "elite" media has come under...

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What Newt's Not

2012-01-24T06:18:00.000-05:00

("The Gusts of Gingrich") He is not a young Cassius Clay, filled with poetry, humor and a twinkle in his eye. He is not "The Greatest", willing to stand up for his beliefs and fight the system, no matter the personal cost. He is not anti-establishment but only an aging bureaucrat, an insider cast aside by his own long ago for his bad temper and bad vision. He is not a...

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What's Money Got to Do With It?

2012-01-20T07:42:00.000-05:00

("The Wealth Issue") Yes there is travail and persistence in the Romney family legacy, but there is also polygamy and an ancestor who fathered 21 children. The history of our country is filled with tales of enormous hardship. It is best for Mr. Brooks to leave the psychological underpinnings of the perpetual candidacy of Mr. Romney to others more qualified. My own guess is that the failed...

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Occupy Mitt Romney

2012-01-18T08:09:00.001-05:00

("Pressed, Romney Shares Tax Data; A Rate Near 15%") He is the 15%. Or just about. When a reluctant Mitt Romney reveals even a little about his income taxes, after significant prodding from fellow Republicans, this is a stunning development. Not so much in that he is being attacked, but from where that attack emanates. Wasn't it this group that declared the problem was that we were not...

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The Tough Get Going

2012-01-17T08:49:00.000-05:00

I arrived at the house of Roosevelt Brown in full gear, helmet on, shoulder pads in place, the number 79 written across the back of my jersey. In the 1950's, a father could just pick up the phone and call an all-pro offensive lineman to ask if he and his young son could come by for a visit. From 1976 to 1996, I attended virtually every New York Giant home game. In January of...

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Interpreting Dreams

2012-01-16T07:58:00.000-05:00

("How Fares the Dream?") It is in many ways more insidious and more troubling than overt racism. We are a society that imposes de facto, if not de jure, inequality almost 50 years after Dr. King's famous speech. We fail to place the necessary emphasis and focus on education and thus perpetuate the plight of the underclass. We take steps to deprive access to nutritional needs and care and...

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Mitt and the Seven Dwarfs

2012-01-15T16:08:00.000-05:00

It is a Disney classic over 70 years old, now in revival. A show booked only until this summer, when all but its star will disappear into the night. And its lead has just been called the "whitest white man to run for president in years" ("What's Race Got to Do With It?" New York Times, January 15, 2012). Now playing for your entertainment pleasure the one, the only "Snow White and the Seven...

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Lessons Learned

2012-01-12T07:43:00.000-05:00

("The Value of Teachers") In 1945, at the age of 27, my mother retired from teaching high school English. The war had ended, and on November 11th of that year, she and my father married. 35 years later, an article appeared in our local county newspaper. It was written by a staff member who had been a one time student of my mother's. She did not know where my mother was, or whether she...

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Of Myths and Men

2012-01-10T07:09:00.000-05:00

("Please Hold the Cheese") It should have been called "Of Myths and Men". It is the attempt of the Republican candidates to fit very square pegs into extremely round holes. And the worst offender has to be the Myth of Mitt. As the man who was born with a whole truckload of silver spoons speaks of his early personal fears of being laid off , as he distances himself from his own health care...

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The Wrong Ticket

2012-01-09T12:41:00.001-05:00

("Just the Ticket") There are several reasons why the concept of Hillary Clinton as Vice Presidential candidate in 2012 is so wrong for both her and her party. Initially, it sends a message that the Democrats are in panic mode. This is totally contrary to the collected and reasoned demeanor that the President so assiduously attempts to convey. Further, it would do a great...

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You Can't Have One Wlthout the Other

2012-01-06T07:05:00.001-05:00

("After Santorum Left Senate, Familiar Hands Reached Out") Citizen Cain with the National Restaurant Association, Gingrich with Freddie Mac and Santorum with United Health Care. When the Republican pretenders are scrutinized under the bright lights we find their hands deep in the pockets of the big corporations. They are lobbyists masquerading as politicians while in office,...

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Comings and Goings

2012-01-05T09:48:00.001-05:00

The boxes are everywhere throughout the suite. Outside the entrance to my office, they are stacked in 2 columns, each standing as tall as I do. In the conference room, one corner is filled. My room has smaller piles, scattered all over. Each box has specific information as to its contents. There is an unmistakable message here. After nearly a quarter of a century, I am moving out. This is...

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They Are The 75%

2012-01-04T06:57:00.001-05:00

Their slogan might well be,"We are the 75%". They proved last night, that no matter how far right a conservative Mormon masquerading as a tea partier tried to go, it was not far enough. The 75% anti-Mitt crowd in Iowa settled on Rick Santorum and Ron Paul who just days ago both seemed to have expended all their time and energy in fruitless pursuit of the minds and votes of the caucus...

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My New Year's Wish

2012-01-01T00:19:00.000-05:00

We have made our way to distant planets, seen quantum leaps in telecommunication and demonstrated the capacity to clone. We have automobiles that park themselves, and tell us when we have lost our way. We can (almost always) control unmanned planes from thousands of miles away, and we continue to make wondrous medical breakthroughs. But somehow it remains beyond our comprehension how to...

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December 31, 2011

2011-12-31T09:21:00.000-05:00

Is it possible that this could be remembered as the year that wasn't? After all the upheaval throughout the world caused what seemed like daily tidal waves in our markets, the S&P 500 closed almost exactly where it began 2011. After all the attempts by the Republican party to undermine the presidency, Obama's approval rating hovers around 50% and those looking to destroy him seem to...

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The Other Dowd

2011-12-28T09:09:00.001-05:00

There is something extraordinary about the Dowd family tradition ("Kevin Warns Republicans") First, from my vantage point as a liberal Democrat, Kevin's annual observations are filled with wit, and a rational measure of distance (particularly this year) from the party that he supports. While I find fault with many of his contentions, such as his slap at Eric Holder for dealing with the...

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Playing in Endless Loop

2011-12-27T07:24:00.001-05:00

I awoke in the pitch dark, startled and wide awake. In my mind was a single continuous repetitive refrain. It was 1:45 AM. Earlier in the day I had watched a video from a Columbia University graduate school musical follies production. In it was a brilliant MBA parody of "I Believe" from the "Book of Mormon". The original tune was a statement of unquestioned devotion to the...

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The Fiction of Insurance

2011-12-22T06:34:00.000-05:00

She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. My neighbor, who I knew only in passing, had stopped in the lobby of our building to chat with my wife. She was talking of a recent medical treatment as I happened by. She discussed, very matter of factly, that the cost of this care had not been covered by her insurance. That was all the opening I needed to launch into an extended, impassioned...

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Yogi Berra and a Game of Chicken

2011-12-21T05:21:00.001-05:00

("Republicans in House Reject Deal Extending Payroll Tax Cut") In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, it is deja vu all over again. Once more we stand on the precipice, as we watch a Republican created disaster unfold. Soon al-Qaeda will have a higher approval rating than Congress. Is this another debt ceiling debacle in which we will be compelled to listen to an endless supply of right...

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