To whom it may concern, Like most Americans, my health is important to me. Also like most Americans, I am not wealthy. Put these two things together and that makes health insurance important to me. If anything serious happened, I could not pay for treatment without insurance. What’s worse, I wouldn’t even be able to…
I discovered Esperanza Spalding in 2005. I was at a show celebrating George Wein (founder of the Newport Jazz Festival among many other things). Herbie Hancock played, and Spalding was the bassist in his band. They sounded great. I was an instant fan. I still remember when Herbie introduced the band, when he got to…
Libertarianism has had a prominent position in America for my whole life. It goes by many names: free-market capitalism, classical liberalism, neoliberalism, monetarism, freedom, limited government, supply-side economics, and on and on. People who use these labels may protest that they are not all the same thing (I’ll address that in a little bit), but…
There are approximately 7.85 billion people in the world. I care about dozens of them. Maybe over a hundred, but certainly less than 500. Which means there are approximately 7.85 billion people in the world that I simply don’t care about. It sounds a little strange, cold even, to say it like that, but it’s…
I saw Lisa Fischer perform a couple of nights ago at the Ridgefield Playhouse. She was accompanied by Taylor Eigsti on piano. It’s the first live music I’ve seen in over a year. That’s gotta be my longest drought ever. The venue was only at partial capacity, we wore masks, maintained social distance, and I’m…
I just published my first piece with MLB & NFL News and Videos – Grunt Talks G.T Sports (grunttalksmlb.com). You can read it here: Who Referees the Umpires? I’d appreciate any feedback. And, while you’re there, check out some of the other content, like this great baserunning video or the comparison videos. This should be…
I’ve recently had two interesting conversations with my daughter about bad words. I’m going to tell you about the second one first. She was watching YouTube. I wasn’t really paying attention until my daughter said, “She’s going to get demonetized.” I looked up and asked why. My daughter said, “She just said shiitake mushroom. YouTube…
When I was in college studying philosophy, there was a lot of hand-wringing about how exclusive the discipline was. There was a noticeable lack of women and people of non-European descent. (Today we would add a lack of LGBTQA+ people, but it was the early nineties and that didn’t seem to concern anyone as much…
Jay Bruce retired from Major League Baseball thirty-four at bats into his fourteenth season. It’s always a little sad when a player retires, especially if the retirement is forced by performance or injury. In Bruce’s case, it was performance. He only had four hits in those thirty-four at bats. That’s a .118 average, much better…
Every job has its tools. My first work experience was as a paper carrier when I was ten or eleven. I had a big sack that went over my shoulder to carry the papers. I also had a hat, gloves, a jacket, boots, sneakers, and rain gear. All of these tools helped me do my…
