An Experiment in Thanksgiving
Guys like this are something that I aspire to. Here's a little experiment in thanksgiving to our current men and women.  Go down to your local firing range (they're everywhere these days) then see if you can get your hands on an AK-47.  Throw in a ten round clip, aim the weapon and then squeeze the trigger as fast as you possibly can. Then, while your shoulder's aching and your ears are ringing, just try to imagine yourself at the other end of that. Then try to imagine that the rounds (bullets) are coming at you about 50 times faster out of a clip with four tim

Sucking Money from the Future: Albany Does It Again
Now that I have realized that public services and benefits face years if not decades of decline, the biggest issue in public finance, the one that concerns me personally and I think about every day, is whether the NYC public schools will begin their downward spiral to the 1970s in FY 2011 or FY 2012. If the latter my younger child, having chosen to leave the Catholic system and enter public high school, would get through her junior year. I’ve already given up on her senior year, and most of her generation of NYC kids didn’t get a public elementary school education either. I’ve accepted that my taxes will soar (sales and property taxes have already increased and this is just gettin

Me and Paul
It's been rough and rocky travelin',But I'm finally standin' upright on the ground.After takin' several readings,I'm surprised to find my mind`s still fairly sound -- Willie NelsonIt started simply enough. I was a geeky junior high school smart ass; by contrast, Paul was a popular junior high smart ass. He thought it would be a goof, and a heart attack for the administration, for me to be student council president, and he ran a gonzo campaign to elect me. Incredibly, we beat out Heidi, a popular and leggy blonde teacher’s pet for a spot in the runoff, but lost in the end to Lloyd, a golden-boy who went on to produce

Fatal Gaffes?
During this year’s final mayoral debate, Bill Thompson was said by the local commentariat to have made two grievous errors, which were only not said to be fatal in and of themselves because his candidacy was pronounced by the same wise-men to be in a state of extremis, for which the local press had already administered the rite of extreme unction.Now, in light of the fact that Mr. Thompson lost an election to a man who received less than 51% of the votes, the wise-men have been proven to be a little less wise, and perhaps it is time to subject these assertions to a more rigorous

America’s Debts: Past and Present Views
Suddenly, there is a great deal of concern about America’s federal debt, not only among the Chinese to whom a great deal of it is owed, but also among older generations of Americans, who worry that growing debts will hurt the federal government’s ability to provide them with everything they have promised themselves, without quite being willing to pay for it. A few years ago, many of our members of Congress were wholeheartedly in favor of adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare and not paying a cent of it, funding it entirely with borrowing to be paid back by someone someday. Now many of those same members of Congress say we cannot do anything for the health care of those under