‘No respect’ shows up when you least expect it. At least that’s when it should show up; out of the blue, left field, from nowhere. And it hurts feelings. How many times has it happened to you?
TIME TRAVEL WITH BULLIES BEING BULLIES
Time travel with me back fifty years. Here’s why: Fifty years ago I was a seventeen year old student following the stream from Miss Spooner’s kindergarten classes at Roosevelt to graduating on the football field where my sports heroes played. It was a good run.
MALE BONDING WITH FRAGILE EGOS
Male bonding isn’t about two guys becoming Blood Brothers. Let’s leave the knives out of it. No cuts and pressing wounds together with intense eye contact needed here. What is needed, though, is an element of trust. Not ‘trust’ with money or wives involved, but that other trust: Trust in doing what’s right. Lose that […]
ACTING OUTRAGED IS DIFFERENT THAN INSPIRED OUTRAGE
Acting outraged draws the worst sort of attention, if attention is what you’re after. Men and women with mouths wide open in outrageous indignation come in two flavors: Practiced, and out of control. The people who practice their outrage take can turn it off at will; out of control outrage goes more out of control […]
HAPPY PLACES, BECAUSE WE NEED MORE THAN ONE
Happy places hard to find? It’s the virus pandemic, the lockdown, broiling temperatures, and forest fires. It’s the political right, political left, the politically disconnected. It’s President Trump, former VP Joe Biden, and the specter of a stealth third party candidate swaying the vote. Anyone but you, right? You’d be in your happy places if […]
ARMY MEDIC: JOB TWO OF FIVE
Army medic was the job I signed up for when I joined after freshman year in 1974. Army medic was my dad’s idea. The old Marine also advised against joining the Navy, but that’s expected. I went in on the Buddy Plan with a high school buddy. We lasted three days together in receiving, then […]
LEARNING LEADERSHIP: WHERE TO START AND END
The idea of learning leadership begins the first time you do what you are told to do. Usually it starts with a mom or a dad. If not them, maybe a teacher or coach. If it happens to be some jackass in the neighborhood a few years older, then it’s going to be a defective […]
BITTER SPORTS TAKE VOLUME ONE: THE BAD BULLY
Today’s the day for ‘Bitter Sports Takes,’ a new feature here. What’s it take to make the bitter sports take? Look at Oregon, more specifically the Oregon Ducks of Oregon Duck football. Who remembers Auburn from nine years ago, and why does it matter? Sports history, my friends. Sports history.
HEALTHCARE BULLY PREYS ON THE WEAKEST
Any coherent healthcare bully debate needs to go beyond the numbers, the insurance companies. Beyond drug company research and development that puts the BIG in Big Pharma. It’s about who the healthcare bully reaches for in the debate. The most vulnerable, of course. The population currently undergoing severe medical treatment. I’ll use cancer treatment […]