Month: November 2019
The overtime goal in March 1962 was the last instant I played hockey for Peter Bragdon. In hockey, the first to score in overtime ends the game. Before anyone worried about participation trophies and hurt feelings, this was called “sudden death.” Neither golden goal nor sudden victory quite captures the finality. It did not occur […]
Let’s say your athletic career is likely to peak in high school (boarding school in my case). You don’t know that when you are a 10th grader (we called them IV formers following the English tradition) because you will only encounter athletes with real skill when they beat you out for teams at college. But, […]
I recently gave you the rules of this game in a post called Schadenfreude as Tax Policy. Since we will probably not succeed in reducing our own taxes to zero, we can take the fallback position of increasing taxes on bad behavior. To say nothing of punishing those we dislike. Virtually everyone would agree that […]
This story is the result of what I hope The Pundificator will increasingly become. Interaction with readers is wonderful because, as my political writing mentor, Andy Glass, a 60-year veteran who has forgotten more about the field than I will ever know, has always advised, “don’t worry about the numbers; you don’t need to make […]
Back by popular demand is “We Still Don’t Want You.” It is a slightly modified version of a story called “Be Like Fred” that was written in 2017 when Harvard stalwart, Fred Glimp died. Until “My Grandfather’s Shoes” a few days ago, it was the personal fave of some readers, perhaps because it was a […]
I recently gave you the rules of this game in a post called Schadenfreude as Tax Policy. Do you think we have too much or too little amateur commentary? For about 99.99999% of the time since we gave up the delights of hunting and gathering in favor of domesticity, the world happily left commentary to […]
The Danby Cup is a team event for players who are over 70 years old in a little-known game called court tennis. It is part of a biennial series known as the World Masters Amateur Championship that includes individual (singles and doubles) and team (country versus country) events at the over 50, 60 and 70 […]
I recently gave you the rules of this game in a post called Schadenfreude as Tax Policy. The original trolls, who lived under bridges and looked nasty, were actually a good bit better than today’s trolls, who gallivant about on social media picking fights. Today’s trolls are kind of like boys who can’t get dates, […]
Many years ago, when my daughter was in middle school, the mother of one of her close friends gave her daughter a cell phone. As far as I know, she was the first of her group to have one. At the outset, this seemed like a splendid thing and it was, no doubt, the source […]