Hands down, my wife’s favorite movie – the one she watches till the end, no matter when it started – is Overboard; that over-the-top, can-see-the-ending-a-mile-away romantic comedy starring Goldie Hawn and real-life partner Kurt Russell. Joanna Stayton (Hawn), is a wealthy, stuck-up, supremely bored heiress traveling the world, apparently, on one of the largest private yachts imaginable, because her husband...

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”                   — Mohandas Gandhi, 20th Century Indian political leader Recently, I ordered a hi-tech stationary bike for my wife for Christmas. Boy is she going to be surprised when she receives this gift that she has been hinting at (just a little), for the past couple of months. I...

Phil Connors: Do you ever have déjà vu, Mrs. Lancaster? Mrs. Lancaster: I don’t think so, but I could check with the kitchen. In January 2005, film critic Roger Ebert had an epiphany. Groundhog Day, that eccentric, wholly original movie where Bill Murray plays a narcissistic weatherman who relives the same day over and over, is in fact, a “Great...

A few years ago, a college buddy contacted me by e-mail with a headline and link to a website that talked about a conspiracy theory that he believed to be true. His message: “Jim, you need to look into this. You can’t believe what they’re doing!” This was the first of several messages all with a similar format: startling headline,...

We are standing on a precipice of an Alt-Reality where self-serving falsehoods are driving out truth and objectivity. Goodbye Walter Cronkite; hello Alt-Deceivers. Fake news stories have quickly taken on a life of their own. Part of this is due to the hyperpartisanship of the recent election cycle. Another part is due to Donald Trump shamelessly pushing false information at...

Last Sunday on the CBS News program 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley spoke with House Speaker Paul Ryan. One exchange caught my attention. Pelley: Trump tweeted, in the last week or so, that he had actually “…won the popular vote, if you deduct the millions who voted illegally.” Do you believe that? Ryan tried to dismiss this with a smile and...

The passing of actor and political activist Robert Vaughn reminded me that we should never forget the lessons of history. It also reminded me of a time in college. In 1972 I had one more required class to take, American Jurisprudence. From the moment I sat down, I was lost, completely over my head. The students in the class were...

“Democracy is the only system capable of reflecting the humanist premise of equilibrium or balance. The key to its secret is the involvement of the citizen.”         – John Ralston Saul “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” – Ronald Reagan “Nuclear weapons have posed an existential threat to humanity for decades. They undermine democracy by putting...

It didn’t take long for President-elect Trump to show us the difference between what he said during his campaign and what he says now. During the campaign, Trump called President Obama “incompetent.” In last week’s Oval Office meeting, Trump now calls Obama, “a very good man.” During the campaign, Trump said that Obama is “very stupid,” and “the founder of...

While the results of Tuesday night’s stunning upset – by a man who has never served an elected office – will be analyzed and parsed for months and years to come, here are some observations, both general and ethical. – The vast majority of pollsters and media, armed with the latest technology, did not come close to getting it right....