Craig's Corner

Today is Boxing Day.   It’s doesn’t involve gloves, rings or a round that start and end with a bell.   According to Wikipedia ,    it is “traditionally the day following Christmas Day when servants and tradesmen would receive gifts from their bosses or employers, known as a ‘Christmas box.’ … It is believed to be in reference to the Alms Box placed in places of worship in order to collect donations to the poor. … This custom is linked to an older English tradition: since they would have to wait on their masters on Christmas Day, the servants of the wealthy were allowed the next day to visit their families. The employers would give each servant a box to take home containing gifts and bonuses, and sometimes leftover food.”   In modern day America the day is mostly when people flock to the malls to return or exchange gifts received.   Over the past several weeks the media has feasted on “The War Against Christmas.”   It is a notion perpetuated by a handful of colorful persona

200 people on an enclosed metal tube chit chatting away on cell phones is one form of purgatory.   (It might even be more effective than water boarding.)  It’s hard enough for me to endure a flight when two strangers get seated together and one tries to pick the other up…or one decides to share their life’s story with another.   Shrinking personal space between seats and the ever creative fee structure makes getting from point a to point b more and more of an endurance test.   With the acknowledgement that cell phones do not interfere with flight operations, various government agencies began hearings last week   are considering lifting the ban on phone calls.   Congress has even voted to ban the calls.       Do we really need the U.S. Government to determine whether citizens can make a phone call?   Or where it's permissible to talk?  It’s bad enough that the NSA tracks the calls, who’s call who, for how long, etc.     I’m not advocating the use of phone calls in the

Winter Wonderland hit much of the country this past week through various storms.   The first major snow and ice-storms of the season remind commuters of the inadequacies of the transportation system.   Having driving across the US over the past couple of years I found most of the roads in pretty lousy condition.   To help remedy the situation Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) last week announced his sponsorship of a bill to raise the gas tax 15-cents per gallon and have those funds allocated towards road and highway improvement.   This would be a near-doubling of the current   18.4 cents a gallon.   Each State, of course, adds their own tax and fee.   Alaska boasts the lowest tax at 26.4 cents while New York charges 69.6 cents, just .6 cents more than California.   Combined with the Federal tax the NY and CA more than one-quarter of the cost of a gallon of gas is going towards the fee...and it doesn’t seem to be nearly enough.   The Federal excise fee raises approx. $25 bi

On November 27, 1978 Harvey Milk and George Moscone were murdered, vaulting Diane Feinstein from a Board Supervisor to the Mayor of San Francisco.   More than a political advance, the way that she handled the issues put her in the good graces of many – and allowed her to build a moderate reputation and the respect of many constituents.   She held that position for a decade, then after a narrowly lost Gubernatorial bid, was elected Senator for California and has been reelected four times.   In the 2012 election she claimed the record for the most popular votes in any U.S. Senate election in history, having received 7.75 million votes.   I voted for her in three of the four elections and even contributed to her campaigns.   At 80 she is the oldest currently serving Senator.   Despite her popularity and positions of power within the Washington establishment – her performance this past weekend shows that her time is up. On CNN’s “ State of the Union ” this past Sunday, Candy C

I left Syracuse in May of 1987 as flurries fell.   I missed my own graduation I was so anxious to cross the country and start my post-college life (and escape the never ending snow).   I have not returned to my alma matter nor to the city which seems fortuitous since to enter the city via the airport you now need TSA authorization.   According to both NBC News and the Daily Mail passengers can’t leave the arrival area at Syracuse airport without approval from the TSA.   Passengers must now enter a pod and wait for the TSA to electronically authorize them to leave the terminal – from which they can’t return.      Way back in the last century when I would go from Boston to Syracuse I flew the nascent airline People’s Express before Continental ate them up only to later merge with United.   The flight attendants would come up and down the aisle collecting payment and all the fares were fixed and flat.   (Bit of trivia: They were also the first airline to charge for che

I’m a child of the post-Camelot America, being born a year after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.    This week the world notes the 50 th anniversary of the murder, and with it come reflections, analysis and not a few conspiracy theories.   There’s little debate, however, that November 22, 1963 in Dallas marked the death of hope for a generation.     The rest of the 1960’s were marked by often violent clashes between groups – whether it was over issues of war, poverty or a rash of other issues as America broke free of its 1950’s constraints.   More assassinations followed so that the death of an inspirational leader (like Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy) became part of the landscape of America. In February of 2008 in the midst of the primary campaign Barack Obama was suddenly surging ahead of then front-runner and expected nominee Hillary Clinton.   I remarked to a friend: “I hope he don’t win.”   My friend, expecting a rash of policy invective fr

Millions of Americans took at least a moment on Monday, November 11 to salute Veterans on the day originally set aside to remember the World War I Armistice, later known as Armed Forces Day and now celebrated as Veterans Day.   The social network messages were authentic – and on my feed I learned about family members of friends who bravely served the U.S.   Veterans are those men and women who have served the United States militarily – in a range of roles and purposes over a variety of wars, military conflicts and interventions.   They have taken orders and fought for the principles of freedom and democracy.   My own pacifism and abhorrence of war does not mitigate my appreciation, respect and honor for those who have served.   Unfortunately the very government that lauds their service has undermined their contributions while basking in their bravery.     Nearly gone from this week’s celebrations is the 2013 summertime discovery  that some 600,000 Veterans have up

26 years ago the hit movie RoboCop envisioned a near-future where humans and machines would come together to create the police force of the future and save the world.   It’s a half-man, half-machine story that spawned two sequels, a TV series, two animated TV series, a mini-series, video-games and a slew of adaptions/crossovers.   The essential idea that the good guys need to be super-human, a combination of the best of machinery and the best of humanity to beat back the evil bad guys.   It’s a classic Hollywood story and makes for an amusing way to while away time.   Life is now trying to imitate fiction.   Drone warfare (half-human, half-machine) is a missile remote controlled by people and has been quite effective at eliminating scores of people.  President Obama is quoted in the new book Double Down by Mark Halperin and John Heilman.   In CNN’s review the President ”once told aides that he’d gotten ‘ really good at killing people .’” The President keeps a

President Truman (D) had a sign on his desk that said “The Buck Stops Here.”   According to his Presidential library the saying “derives from the slang expression 'pass the buck' which means passing the responsibility on to someone else. The latter expression is said to have originated with the game of poker, in which a marker or counter was used to indicate the person whose turn it was to deal. If the player did not wish to deal he could pass the responsibility by passing the "buck," as the counter came to be called, to the next player.”   Truman often referred to the sign, so much so that in his final address to the nation he said:   “The President--whoever he is--has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That's his job.”   President George W. Bush (43) took that to the extreme dubbing himself “The Decider.”   President Obama on the other hand is more likely to say:   “What buck?”     The job

I’m about to celebrate six smoke free years.   The November after my Dad’s stroke I quit my pack a day habit cold turkey.   I had stopped before, many times.   I was introduced to the habit around age 8 by my brother and then kept it up.   My grandmother, in an effort that failed miserably, let me smoke with her under the hopes that the rebellion would end.   It didn’t, legitimizing it instead, so much so that for years we sat smoking and chatting together.   After college I took a 7 or 8 year hiatus, my longest smoke-free stint ever, before being sucked back in.     I was never a reluctant smoker – I enjoyed the taste, the habit and the various accoutrements that went with it.   I had a collection of lighters, and cigarette cases – selecting them for a day as carefully as some select ties and shoes.   I was a Marlboro Man – at my most addictive two packs of red per day – the soft-pack of course because the hard pack had butts that were a few millimeters shorter.   I hav