Nice Guys Finish First!

Well, there’s no avoiding it.  Each year, around this same time, the event returns, seemingly more glorified and glamorized than the prior year, if that’s even possible.  And each year I feel compelled to write about it, hopefully in an even more cynical way than the prior year, if that’s even possible.  Of course, I’m [...]

“There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything.  And that is by making the other person want to do it.” Seventy five years ago, a man named Dale Carnegie wrote that statement in a book he titled, How To Win Friends And Influence People.  It was written in the opening [...]

The suburban sprawl of the baby-boom years turned many farmlands into neighborhoods for young families in the 50′s and 60′s.  City dwellers who escaped the concrete surroundings of apartment buildings, row houses, front stoops and playgrounds reveled in the spacious surroundings of their newly erected free-standing colonial or ranch homes.  But there was one small price to pay.  For [...]

Matt Barkley is an impressive kid, by athletic standards.  In a country such as ours which sometimes values sports accomplishment to the point of worship and idolatry, a kid like Matt Barkley is destined to be a top news-maker for years to come. Barkley was the most heralded high school quarterback in the nation in [...]

So I won’t try.  In a recent edition of the New York Times, Op-ed columnist David Brooks authored a beautifully scripted account of how evidence continues to emerge in support of the thesis that Nice Guys Finish First.  Take a look. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/opinion/17brooks.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

My dad had this idea and just wouldn’t give up on it.  He could be that way sometimes.  This time he wanted to organize a block party.  Mom and all of us kids were against it.  “Dad, it’s embarrassing,” we would argue.  “Nobody has block parties anymore.” And Dad would respond, “Yeah and that’s the [...]

This point is inarguable:  mankind is infatuated with domesticated animals.  The greatest evidence of this assertion can be found in most of our own homes.  From hamsters to Great Danes, we love the animals which we call our pets.  And as pet owners we’re often guilty of taking that “love” to extreme degrees.  We humanize [...]

There’s no shortage of discussion surrounding the subject of kids’ health.  And everywhere we turn the message seems to be the same:  our kids’ health is going down the tubes.  It’s a cynical consensus for sure, but it does seem hard to argue the facts.  According to the CDC, the childhood obesity rates in the U.S. [...]

When I think back on my own childhood I can’t help but feel lucky.  I grew up on Long Island in a neighborhood that typified the suburban developments which sprang up all over America in the post-war 50’s and 60’s.  Our house looked very similar to the other 30 houses on our block, and similar [...]

I was wondering if anyone else was struck by the incredible paradox created by this past week’s two top news stories.  In one story we were tormented by – or treated to (depending upon one’s viewpoint) – the barrage of news coverage on Charlie Sheen’s life of debauchery and grandiose self-delusion that is being played out on television [...]