Cooking the NYTimes and Other Assorted Retirement Activities

  As a youngster, I remember watching Meet the Press on Sunday mornings.  I have a feeling this began when I stayed overnight at my maternal grandmother's Chicago apartment (4051 West School Street).  She was the home district secretary to Congressman Roman C. Pucinski (D), 11th Congressional District of Illinois, and had a keen interest in the workings, and machinations, of politics.  Rose Laura Dach Piekielko was a died in the wool Richard C. Daley (D), Mayor of Chicago, Democrat.  Those beliefs had a significant impact on my own political ideals. Consequently, it has become my habit to watch the Sunday morning political interview shows.  I stuck with Meet the Press when Tim Russert and Chuck Todd were the hosts.  Television scheduling being what it is, Meet the Press interfered with the last half hour of CBS Sunday Morning, another stalwart view in our home.  Scrolling around, it seemed as if the various political parties shilled out the same p...

I wasn't going to blog about the (most) recent school shooting.  Full disclosure: when the news broke, the Olympics were on and I switched channels to the cable station that continued with Olympic coverage.  I just couldn't watch yet another one, partially because I think I was steeling myself against the rhetoric I anticipated would follow. It did.  The rhetoric.  And that's what threw me over the edge this morning and why I'm writing.   First, allow me to offer the highest praise and admiration to the students who have taken it to the streets.  RIGHT ON!!  They are truth tellers, peace seekers, voices of wisdom in a sad society that appears to have become inured to and accepting of gun violence.  Thank you. Second, as a member of The Clubs and a former school teacher and administrator, my personal opinion is that arming adept teachers would not provide any additional measure of safety against an armed intruder carrying one or more we...