Here’s what I want for my birthday this year

One of the best things about joining Facebook is that once a year, on your birthday, you hear from dozens of people, from just about every stage in your life. And all of them want to celebrate the day you were born, in one way or another. Facebook makes it easy, too. Not only do

Presidents Day wasn’t the same this year

Presidents Day was earlier this week, and I know the idea is to celebrate Lincoln, Washington, and all the other presidents, but it didn’t feel right this year. Having a president to repulses me in so many ways will lead to that. So in the few moments that I have for writing, I’m posting some

Radio Raheem for a new generation

Twenty-five years is a long time. I have many memories of the Summer of 1989, and one of them was going to see a movie that shook me up, Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.” And apparently, the current president and his then-girlfriend saw the movie too that summer, as evidenced by the film clip

It may be the last time, I don’t know

I went through this entrance to the Lincoln Restaurant a hundred times, at least. Having breakfast there was a Sunday tradition in the days before my kids were born. And now, unfortunately, it’s shut down. I hadn’t eaten there in a long while before it happened, and few restaurants get as long of a run

From one brilliant president to another

The only guest post I’ve ever had, in the more than 1,100 posts I’ve put here through the years, was a tweet that Barack Obama sent out on the night he was re-elected. He went out and spoke to his supporters after sending it, but those who follow him on Twitter got to hear the

Predictions for 2012

Here’s something I started writing on December 29, 2011. I saved it as a draft, and never gave it much thought until I discovered it this morning. Other than overstating Obama’s electoral vote totals, I think I was pretty prescient. Here’s my not-quite-a-year-ago predictions: OK, so I’m not that much of a prognosticator, but there

Saving the paper

Yesterday I had some time to kill while my car was being worked on. The usual procedure is to go into their waiting room, get a cup of coffee, and flip through a magazine as the mechanics are working their magic. But yesterday was a bit different than that. Around the corner from the car

The social media president

Over the next four years, there will probably be many instances where I can look at President Obama and say “I like what he just did” It was like that when he sang “Sweet Home Chicago” at the White House recently. When Mick Jagger hands you a microphone, and Buddy Guy wants you to sing,

Pizza and the Presidential debates

I see the term “wiping the floor” used a lot in politics, especially with regard to the recent Joe Biden-Paul Ryan meeting in Kentucky. And every time I hear it, I cringe a little bit. Is this an exchange of ideas, or an arm-wrestling match? And if your guy–whoever it might be–somehow does succeed in

Home, home again

Wednesday evening, O’Hare Airport The plane touched down a few minutes early and the plane de-boarding began as usual. The terminals at O’Hare seem excessively long, especially late at night when the bustle has ended for the day. But there are bags that must be claimed, and a cab that must be hired before the

The letters tell me something

One of my favorite websites is the anagram finder at wordsmith.org. It’s fun to take someone’s name, enter it into the finder, and see what comes up. Sometimes, the letters form words that indicate something about the person in general. For instance, an anagram for Clint Eastwood is “Old west action” and, judging from the

America must be better than this

The Trayvon Martin story is now getting media attention, and I’m glad to see that. When I originally got an email about his story, asking me to sign an online petition calling for an investigation into what happened, I signed it without a second thought. It really was the least that I could do, putting

Sandra Fluke and the Kill for/Die for thing

It’s a typical Saturday morning, and around my house that means ice skating. My older daughter had a lesson with a coach at one local skating rink, and my younger daughter had another lesson at another rink. It’s a good thing that we have two cars and two drivers to acommodate them. After I drove

Here come the culture wars

The economy seems to be picking up, and so the plan to attack Barack Obama with “double-digit unemployment” seems to have been put on the shelf. So how to challenge an incumbent president who killed bin Laden and saved Detroit? By revving up the culture wars, of course! The birth control dust-up with the Catholic

Newt Gingrich and the new Willie Horton

I listened to “Meet the Press” on the radio this morning and Newt Gingrich was the first guest, basking in the glow of his win in the South Carolina primary last night. In the interview, he tipped his hand as to what his electoral strategy for the fall election will be, should he get the

Twitter and the #Newt

As ubiquitous as Twitter is today, it sometimes helps to remember that it’s only been around since 2006. That means that the 2008 presidential election, in which Barack Obama defeated John McCain, is the only one to have occurred in Twitter’s existence. I remember how, in those days back in 2008, candidate Obama had a

Coming at life from the left

Yes, I have already written something about Dave Roberts and The Steal here. There’s not much I can say about him here, except to point out that he played for four teams other than the Red Sox, but I imagine that nobody knows this. And even though he’s the Red Sox’ 2004 hero, you’ll likely

Lincoln’s Hometown (and mine, too)

I was born in Springfield, Illinois, in a hospital that’s just up the street from where Abraham Lincoln lived for most of his adult life. Lincoln wasn’t born there, didn’t grow up there, and didn’t die there, but he did spend a good part of his life there. Or, as he said in his farewell