Recent Character Commentaries

Featured image for “The Ethical Take – Two Updates and a “Bombshell””
The Ethical Take – Two Updates and a “Bombshell”
We’ll get to the “Shocking Details” in our “bombshell” in a moment, but first, a little housekeeping. Deflated Brady – First, football’s “greatest quarterback of all time,” Tom Brady is suspended for four games for being “generally aware” of a scheme to deflate – and thus make the ball easier to control – footballs in the 2015 A.F.C. championship game....
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April 27, 2016
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American Diogenes
Lately, a few readers have asked why I spend so much time writing about Donald Trump. It can be summed up in one word. Actually, Jon Stewart told us when he signed off for the final time on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show; a show that began seventeen years earlier as a comedy riff on the news of the day,...
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April 1, 2016
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Snake Pit
The Fortune Cookie is a desperately funny Billy Wilder film about an equally desperate con man by the name of “whiplash” Willy, a lawyer (brilliantly played by Walter Matthau), and his schnook brother-in-law, (the equally brilliant Jack Lemmon). Lemmon is a TV cameraman who is accidentally sidelined by a football player while covering a game. After Gingrich learns from his...
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March 14, 2016
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Dear Cam, What Happened on Sunday?
What does it take to get to the Super Bowl, Cam? A lot of hard work, time, sacrifice and… something else. However, during the post-game media interview following last Sunday’s Super Bowl, you were beyond stoic. You sat, for all of 7 minutes, with a hoodie pulled tight around your head, no eye contact, head down at times, barely answering...
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February 10, 2016
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Don’t Mess with Mama
The streets of Milwaukee can be tough. Fortunately, Mama’s on patrol. Martha Freeman is a 77-year old retired corrections officer who, by day tends to household chores like passing out donated bread to those in need. By night, however, she cruises her neighborhood looking for kids who might be getting into trouble. And she’s packin’… wisdom and kindness. In a...
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December 21, 2015
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An Antidote to Fear and Hate
In a political season that has seen far too much prejudice, fear and hate, David Swan, a U.S. Army soldier, reminds us all just what is important and why in an open letter he writes to Muslims. In response to a reporter asking why he wrote it, Swan said, “There is so much divisive rhetoric being shouted on social and...
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December 14, 2015
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The Incredible Dorothy Day
On his recent visit to the United States, Pope Francis talked about several Americans who had an impact on Catholics in general and the Church, in particular. One of them was journalist Dorothy Day, a name not readily familiar to most. Former Washington Post columnist and current Peace Studies teacher, Colman McCarthy, offered a fuller background on Day and the...
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November 13, 2015
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The ‘Better Angels’ Candidate
“Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory… will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” – Lincoln’s first inaugural address, March 4, 1861 Regular readers know that the majority of my commentaries stick to...
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November 6, 2015
Featured image for “Good Call, FOX Sports!”
Good Call, FOX Sports!
When Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Edinson Volquez took the mound for the first game of the World Series between the Royals and the New York Mets on Tuesday, serious discussions were underway at FOX Sports. While the team of announcers went through line-ups and backgrounds on starting pitchers, what appeared to be known throughout Twitter and other social media...
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October 30, 2015
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Ryan’s Hope
Less than two weeks after he essentially said, “Thanks, but no thanks,” to running for House Speaker, Representative Paul Ryan put his finger on the precise problem with Republicans in general and the Freedom Caucus in particular. “We have become the problem. If my colleagues entrust me to be the speaker, I want us to become the solution.” In making...
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October 23, 2015