The first time I met Father Marty he was sweeping the hallway near the entrance of the parish hall behind his church, Christ the King. He greeted me warmly. It could be that he knows other greetings, but a cordial welcome with a genuine smile is the only kind I’ve ever seen. It is engaging, coming as it does from this white-haired, white bearded fellow, not tall but a little stout, who had he chosen a different career might have been Santa Claus or maybe even a leprechaun.
It’s only January, but if you’re like me you’re already sick of the election which is still more than nine months away. Our political system is in permanent campaign mode. But we’re not selecting a president, we’re selecting a celebrity. It’s not something we can afford to do this time around.
Let us have a moment of silence for the Eastman Kodak Company. I'm serious. “The Great Yellow Father,” as it used to be called in the photography press (when there was a photography press), has filed for bankruptcy.
If you’re like me, you have available to you a quick and easy way of increasing your living space by quite a bit. It’s this: throw away all those boxes.
A retrospective section published a few weeks ago in the local weekly I write for reminded me of just how effective a small-town, non-daily newspaper can be. And it raised the possibility of my telling a story that ought to be heard far and wide. But you won’t find it without looking. It has to do with an heroic editor who uncovered an important story of the “Emperor’s New Clothes” variety and published it — even though it ultimately cost her her newspaper.
The headline was sad but not surprising: “The Health Risks of Being Left-Handed: Lefties Face Chance Of ADHD, Other Disorders; Brain Wiring Holds Clues.” The article, published in the prestigious Wall Street Journal, cites a “research” which claims that left-handed people — called “lefties” by epithet-flinging bigots in the right-handed majority — aren’t quite as good as right-handed people.
What wiser heads have long suspected has now been proved by actual scientists working in real laboratories: cats control the minds of some people and make those persons insane.
The news was unexpected, sad, but not especially shocking: My friend and former colleague Morris Chafetz had died. He was sufficiently famous that there were long obituaries in both The New York Times and The Washington Post. Though I suppose the circumstance of his death figured into it, too.
Who are all those old people? I received a URL in the email. Terrified but unable to resist, I clicked on it. I may never recover.
If one were to do a survey of the next tablet computer from a major manufacturer likely to disappear — the HP TouchPad now being gone — the near-unanimous choice would very likely be Research In Motion's Blackberry Playbook. And that's too bad. The little 7-inch Playbook is a really cool machine, a Mercedes to HP's Ford F-150.