There are still role models in America.  Kansas City Royals pitcher Gil Meche just gave up $12 million because he doesn’t think he’s earned it.  The price of his autograph should increase tenfold. Pitchers who throw no hitters are forgotten.  Meche will not be.

Every man has his breaking point, his line in the sand. I just found mine. I wish it was over some grand ideal – freedom, democracy, the pride of our nation — but it’s not. It’s about my fireplace. Over my dead body will someone stop me from using it. I mean it. A report […]

I missed this piece by Democratic pollster Doug Schoen in The Wall Street Journal Online last week. Schoen talks about the public service union takeover of the Democratic Party and hits the nail on the head. In short, voters are slowly catching on to the coup that has occurred within the party of Jackson – […]

Kooky Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich has finally reached the pits — with his teeth.  The perennial presidential candidate is suing a Capitol Hill catering company for $150,000 after biting into an olive pit mistakenly included in a cafeteria  sandwich wrap.  From the injuries enumerated in his lawsuit (story link above), one would think he bit into a small […]

Whenever someone complains to me about a pet peeve, I tend to acquire it. So, in the hope that others are similarly susceptible, and in an effort to make the smallest dent in the world of words, here is one of mine. I am reminded of it today by a headline in Britain’s Daily Mail: […]

A dozen years ago, a single Brooklyn address became a national symbol for government failure. It was 110 Livingston Street in Brooklyn Heights, headquarters to the old New York City Board of Education (BoE), and it aroused in reform politicians and editorial writers at the time an almost pathological desire to rant. One New York […]

Way too easy to do. Reuters story here.

How much is our word worth? That’s about to become a key question in states across America. And the answer, to the chagrin of millions of retirees, might be “not much.” At issue is public employee pensions.  They are strangling the country, state-by-state, city-by-city, and town-by-town.  Americans just ate the biggest meal in history, and […]

I don’t know when I became one of those people – a starchy old parent alarmed by what’s on television today.  But I think I have. Or maybe I’m fine and the problem is with television executives who have pushed  the envelope so far that a consummately hip and open-minded guy like me is forced […]

I couldn’t help noticing while walking to my train this morning something I’ve noticed countless times before. The sidewalks in front of owner-occupied homes in my town are, for the most part, neatly shoveled and salted, while those collectively occupied remain piled with snow. This is hardly a groundbreaking observation. Individual responsibility and the inherent […]