All the rage
There’s a new form of entertainment out there in which people pay for the privilege of destroying things. From Houston, Dallas, San Diego, Jacksonville, New York, Toronto and Niagara Falls to England, Hungary, Serbia, Russia and Australia, there are accounts of people setting up shop with the express purpose of giving folks a chance to […]
Slow news
It was with some trepidation that I accepted to writing this column. I had learned that journalists should never present their personal views. They must be completely objective, examine and report on all sides of a story with unbiased clarity. That is a commendable pursuit, and sometimes (I hope) I succeed. But I’ve since learned […]
Curate this
If you know me, and some of you think you do, you know I am a “curator”. And if you know me, you know I like to rant on about stuff. So, I’m going to rant about people who “curate” things. The short definition is that a curator is a content specialist who is involved […]
New you?
Now that it’s 2017, hopefully less beloved celebrities will die, the political world will be more civilized, and we’ll all lose a few pounds. It’s everywhere you look at the end of the year. Those promotional ads for fitness or diet schemes that will help folks achieve their new year’s resolutions. Promises of change and […]
So long, 2016!
Yes, girls and boys, it’s time to turf that ragged old 2016 calendar, and unfurl the one that arrived in the mail. Reflecting on the past year, sad to say, we lost a fine group of athletes from many different areas in the sporting world. In no particular order, I shall address those losses. Some […]
The genealogy pit
When I was younger and slightly less sophisticated than I am now, I used to ask myself why everyone was so concerned about the population increasing. The way I figured it, I had two parents, and four grandparents; and therefore, eight great-grandparents, and so on upwards. Surely the world was not expanding, but contracting? Of […]
Trip around the sun
In one of my first New Year columns for The Times, 10 years ago, I wrote about how most of us treat the new year like a Monday. I wrote, “New Year’s Day is like the mother of all Mondays for anyone who made a list of resolutions for 2007.” My reasoning was Monday seems […]
Deadline
Tomorrow. That’s the deadline. Or if you’re picking this paper up late, it may have passed. But despite notifications in newspapers and online, people still don’t know. Don’t realize that a bureaucratic process could have a deadline come up so bewilderingly quickly, especially for a decision that, left out of the hands of the community, […]
December notebook
The view from booth four at Jimmy’s on the main drag of Trenton looks onto the street entrance doors. It’s in booth four that I sometimes sit. Jimmy, at age 94 holds camp down near the restaurant’s kitchen. Booth 10 is Jimmy’s office. “I come in at five o’clock in the morning. I make it […]
Open: an autobiography
Andre Agassi is a tennis player. One of the very best of all time. Andre Agassi hates tennis. In the preface to the book, he writes that he has always hated tennis. He will admit, however, that tennis has been pretty good to him. There is a positive note to his tortured life. His foundation […]