Craig's Corner

I’m a terrible gambler…in the traditional sense. When it comes to entrepreneurship, I’m a total risk taker. But when it comes to lotteries, slots, etc., it’s never been my thing. For years I had a client in Las Vegas and I’d spend 2 or 3 days a week there. It took me nearly 18 months to play a slot – and then it was the penny slot for about 5 minutes or less than a dollar. When the mega-lotteries hit the $100 million jackpots, then I’ll play. On eBay I’m more apt to “buy it now” than to bid. Auctions are a staple of the fundraising circuit, just as bad food and long speeches are. Television has popularized the auction process with Storage Wars and its various clones. Having people compete to buy something, or to donate is relatively harmless and many find it entertaining. Providing a cash prize for voting? That just seems like a bad idea, but it’s exactly what Los Angeles is considering.  The Los Angeles Ethics Commission recommended that the City Council consider a cash-pr...

A few weeks back I visited a Parish for the first time. A lovely New England Church epitomizing church going in August: doors were open, fans were positioned just so, and there were a smattering of people. The few kids were wriggling every which way. The pews filled to about 30 (in a place that holds 15 times that). The Rector was on a month-long holiday, and a long retired priest navigated the service with the help of lots of bits of paper. As the organist banged out the hymns, I seemed to be a soloist as there was no choir and the other folks didn't even open the book. At the time for the sermon, the substitute priest came to the center of the sanctuary – quasi-Oprah style - and didn't take the pulpit. Oh Jeez, I thought, a wanderer! Despite my initial judgments, that homily has stuck with me. Weeks later the question that he posed has so resonated with me that it must be shared. Why must we kill each other? That’s the question.  What is the point of life? That exi...

I’m a middle child. Popular psychology enthusiasts have come up with a variety of characteristics that are common to people who are first born, last born, and everything in between. According to www.middlechildpersonality.com : “Middle children are peacekeepers by default. They are the mediators.” There’s truth in that description for me, though I’m not totally convinced my traits are due to birth order. Even during the dozen plus years that I was away from the Church, I’ve objected to war and preferred peaceful solutions. As a person of faith the Church provides a natural framework to oppose war. That doesn’t mean all religious people are pacifists. In fact, most aren’t. Many of the wars throughout the ages have been over issues of God. Differences in Christianity have been used as a reason to go to war, so much so that much of Europe’s map exists because of the various wars over the centuries. In the Middle East the Palestinians and the Israelis have been fighting for what...

I just finished the recent Tom Clancy novel “Support and Defend.” Like his other books there is plenty of action, intrigue, conspiracy and patriotism at play. And, to be clear, it’s a Tom Clancey novel in that it’s in his style. The man’s been dead for nearly a year. It’s the second book his collaborator Mark Greaney has published under Clancey’s aegis. No matter, the page-turning (in my case screen swiping) taught storytelling with explosions and intrigue is an amusing escape. As I clicked through to the last page I then checked a news site to discover that after months of vehement and outraged statements to the contrary, the CIA admitted to spying on the U.S. Senate. Mediaite reports: “CIA Director John Brennan admitted that the agency had hacked into Senate computers, as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was looking into the CIA over Bush-era torture tactics. That was in stark contrast with the defiant tone Brennan struck months ago when he adamantly denied th...