I am from a mixed family. We range from devout Roman Catholics to more-Jewish-than-you-probably-think-of-when-you-think-of-Jewish. I am neither, but it has given me a different perspective on the different traditions. This is the week when my family’s different worlds collide. The biggest holiday of the Christian tradition coincides with one of the big three of the…
I don’t use curse words. Of all of my behavioral quirks, that is probably the most noticeable. It isn’t an affectation. I am not prudish about it or offended when others use them. I just don’t. I have one friend that has been trying to get me to swear for almost 20 years now. She…
I was sick this week. A non-serious, but icky, kind of sick. I won’t go into the details here. But, I stayed home from work for a couple of days. I believe very strongly in not infecting others when I’m sick. I don’t send my kid to school when she’s sick either, even if it…
I don’t hate commercials. I know that makes me a freak and you probably don’t want to be my friend anymore, but I don’t hate commercials. As a matter of fact, I often kind of like them. I really think you should give them a chance. If you think about them, I’ll bet you’d like…
I heard “I Wish It Would Rain” by the Temptations at the cafeteria at work today. It is a truly spectacular song. If you have three minutes, I can think of no better way to spend it. When it was playing, I couldn’t help but think how well everything works. The performance and the arrangement…
Today, as I do most everyday, I was scrolling through 3 Quarks Daily. In case you don’t know, it’s an excellent site. Once a week, on Monday, they have a collection of original essays. The rest of the week, they are a high quality aggregator. Instead of the usual headlines, they tend to feature longer works dealing with…
A couple years ago, I discovered that Kirk Cameron’s father in “Growing Pains” had a kid who had a hit song. I’ve never heard the song, but I read an article about the fact that he was pre-emptively suing Marvin Gaye’s estate so that the courts would certify that he had not stolen one of…
I hate Daylight Saving Time. I hate everything about it. It makes my electric bill go up. It means I have to try to wake up and wake my daughter up while it is still dark. It means I have to try to put my daughter to sleep while it is still light. It takes…
There’s this weird feature in life where if people say things often enough, they become common knowledge and people stop questioning them. The world of economics has raised the art of creating truths like this to its pinnacle. We all know that governments are no good at picking winners. We all know that regulation hurts business. …
