Woodworking When we were kids, one of the rights of passage was to spend time learning how to make things out of wood. With 3-D printing and all the varieties of plastic that prevail these days, its hard to say whether kids learn woodworking any more. Some kids had a distinct leg-up with a father who proudly owned a complete woodworking shop in his basement or garage. Thewe were the dads that helped their kids…
Intimidation Donald Trump is an expert at intimidation. Just look at the array of recent portraits of the man. He is making a habit of lowering his face and scowling at the audience from underneath his bushy eyebrows and fluffy yet wispy coif. He has perfected the snarl. He is under a rather strict gag order because his comments can energize a legion of faceless followers to reign down violence and distress on anyone that…
Stormy Days Today is the second day of the Stormy Daniels testimony in the Donald Trump falsification of business records case in Manhattan. Everyone is debating the importance of the Stormy Daniel testimony to the Trump case. We have all heard ad nauseam that it matters not whether anyone believes the sexual encounter actually occurred in 2006 between Trump and Stormy (my rhetorical question is, who among us does NOT believe that it did happen?),…
Interregnum It is often said that the most dangerous time in any country is that time in between one governing reign and another. The same is said of wars, that the times just before and just after the formal cessation of hostilities is actually the time when there is more risk afoot for the general population. Things and, indeed, people get lost in the transition, things fall between the cracks (does that really make sense…
Timeout The modern world is all about near constant engagement with media and outside stimulation. I read more and more about the growing crisis about youthful mental agitation which pre-dated COVID, but was clearly ratcheted up by the Pandemic. The growing amount of mental disruption and distress is particularly acute in young people who get a disproportionate amount of their interactions through social media. It used to be that difficult interactions among youngsters took the…
This is a story written for me as a late 70th Birthday gift by my younger son, Thomas. I’m both incredibly impressed and moved by this story and am proud to share it with you (with his blessing). It’s longer than my normal story, but well worth the read in my opinion. Please be sure to click through for the epilogue at the end. Mojo Gubbins My dad doesn’t really do gifts. Let me clarify.…
Heeeeere’s Donny There are few movie lines more memorable than Jack Nicholson sticking his head through a freshly axed bathroom door saying with a devilish smile, “Heeeeere’s Johnny!” The Shining, from which the line comes, is also right up there in the pantheon of scary movies. Well friends, we are in our own scary movie and while I need to substitute Johnny with Donny, the urgency and extreme nature of the threat to us all…
Man Interrupted There has been a theme in recent cinematic content about interrupted lives, first with Girl, Interrupted and then Boy Interrupted. Girl, Interrupted was a 1999 film based on an earlier book that details the life of a young middle class woman who gets put into a mental institution for attempting suicide. Boy Interrupted is a 2009 true-life version of the same thing except its about a boy who is diagnosed as bipolar-polar and…
Dog Fight Right after my normal Sunday morning bagel run, Kim called to say that we had a problem with Buddy. It seemed that he had gotten bitten by another dog at the place where he is boarding for the weekend. I needed to go and pick him up and take him to the vet to see if there was any serious damage. When I got to Colean’s house, he was brought out and while…
What We Value I pretty much ignored the “Trial of the Century” about the O.J. Simpson accusations that he killed his wife and her lover. That happened in 1995 and I was close to being at the height of my career in investment banking. I was busy running around the world and building a global investment business. It was the year that my youngest son was born. The last thing I cared about was the…