I feel like my 20,000-square-foot house’s lot is a wildlife preserve. Three weeks ago, a deer gave birth to a fawn in a group of bushes in our backyard. The baby lay well-hidden while its mom left for long periods because deer know how to be discreet around potential predators. She would come back in the early evenings to nurse and clean the fawn, then quietly leave when she saw her baby was hidden away again. This went on for a couple of weeks. My wife sensed the phase was over, opened our fence, and we have not seen the…
Author: Lloyd Graff
The country is pulling apart. It’s a mess here. I don’t think so. This Memorial Day weekend reminded me of how remarkably bound together we are. Sometimes it takes a dark tragedy like the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, to awaken even the hacks in Washington that we must finally do something to prevent mentally ill kids from firing AR-15 assault rifles in schools. The copycat massacres are bringing Second Amendment zealots and gun restrictionists together at least on the fringes. I find some hope that the terror may finally be bringing us a bit closer to a consensus. *** The…
Why aren’t kids wanting to go to college, especially guys? I’ve been intrigued by this question since seeing the stats showing college enrollment continually dropping over the last decade. We are now at the point where women comprise almost 60% of college students, although in our politically correct world I am probably offensive to some if I choose a gender. We just received the latest bombshell from the esteemed Harvard College newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, which published an unsigned group editorial in support of boycotting Israel for its apartheid policies towards Arabs. I see this as related to the falling…
The war in Ukraine is a genocide. The economy is a perplexing complex of boom and missteps. Politics has degenerated into angry posturing and eliciting cheers from your fans rather than changing the minds of voters who are capable of listening to challenging ideas. Today I will write about SPORTS. *** The NBA playoffs are in mid-flight, and I am loving it. The game has evolved. The caliber of play is much better than I have ever seen. Defense is active, incredibly athletic, and mobile. It has to be better, because the 3-point shot has revolutionized the game since Daryl…
Elon Musk is buying Twitter. The announcement came the same day that Twitter announced that it was blocking climate change deniers. I don’t know for sure if there really is significant climate change going on caused by fossil fuel usage, and I doubt anybody does. To me, the economic and societal rationale for Twitter is to provide a vehicle to discuss just about any topic online. When the “progressive” managers of Twitter felt the topic was too dangerous to allow differing opinions, it left itself wide open to a brilliant business person like Musk to step in with his fortune,…
My family celebrated Passover this past weekend. It is called the “Holiday of Questions” for many reasons, but especially to pull children into the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt, hoping to reach the Promised Land despite all obstacles. My 6-year-old grandson is an inquisitive boy, and we enticed him to join the storytelling by promising him a prize for each good question he asked or answered. (He was the only youngster present). The questions quickly gravitated to the Israelites being slaves in Egypt. He wanted a smart 6-year-old’s definition of slavery and slave masters and why the slaves desperately…
I hate unions. I love Amazon. I’ve made a bundle on its stock. Their delivery service was a lifesaver during the COVID pandemic. Yet the story of Chris Smalls and the first union victory against Amazon Corporation at one warehouse, JFK 8 on Staten Island, excites me. It is a classic story of underdog triumphs against the Godzilla of American corporations. Amazon had two union elections last week, Birmingham, Alabama and Staten Island, New York. Amazon easily crushed the corporate union types who spent lots of money and brought in professional organizers from New York City to wage their battle…
Why did Vladimir Putin start this war to take Ukraine? I’ve heard and read a dozen theories about why he started this evil venture, which now appears to be both madness and failure. I think that a year ago or even a decade ago this invasion would not have seemed foolish to him because he was so blinded by what he saw as his destiny and his foes’ weakness. Putin grew up in the Cold War in the Soviet Union. His college was the KGB, which hated the West. He was stationed in East Germany when the Berlin Wall was…
One reason I continue to push the boulder uphill in a small business smack-dab in the middle of the industrial economy is that I get to hear the stories of so many people who have decided to start their own businesses in 2022. I cannot remember a time when I had the opportunity to connect with so many starter uppers. If you read or listen to the mainstream media you would probably miss the epidemic of startups in post-pandemic (we hope) America. I think the COVID-19 phenomena which exiled so many people to the solitude of their homes probably ignited…
I backed my 2016 Acura sedan out of the garage and headed toward Bergstein’s Deli to pick up the chicken matzo ball soup I had ordered a few minutes earlier on the phone. It is six minutes away. I order it a couple times a week. A teenager delivers it to my car five steps from the entrance. I always give the person who delivers it a couple dollars tip. I figure they are poorly paid and I want them to stick around because I value the good service. I got in the habit during the pandemic of picking up…