Author: Haven Pell
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D. MA) is a leading candidate to be the Democratic presidential nominee. She has plans for nearly everything and styles herself as a wonk. This contrasts with her desire not to show her 70 years by bounding on to campaign stages and waving her arms about. Fair enough. It is, after all, […]
Most of the emails I get from Coach and later teacher, Peter Bragdon end: “Keep it Going – Pete.” Some end: “Stay Young” and occasionally one will end with both. Fast forward nearly six decades after the events described in The Goal and The Exam. I lured a St. Paul’s form mate, Jos Wiley, from […]
I recently gave you the rules of this game in a post called Schadenfreude as Tax Policy. Are you a soft drink? If not, why do you need a personal brand? Soft drinks need to be brands because the soft drink makers want you to buy theirs as opposed to somebody else’s. This makes sense […]
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 […]