Zitat des Tages von Mike Barnicle:
We live in a culture where everyone's opinion, view, and assessment of situations and people spill across social media, a lot of it anonymously, much of it shaped by mindless meanness and ignorance.
For millions on the outside looking in, this is where they want to live - America.
We have more tools at hand, literally, to make life easier and more productive than ever. We have Google, Wikipedia, iPads, iPhones, iTunes, YouTube, Netflix, and 600 cable channels. We can shop, pay bills, order food, and get nearly everything delivered, all of it with the touch of a finger on a device in the palm of our hand.
You can have a wedding at Fenway Park.
It's your glove, your baseball glove. It's got a soul, a memory all its own, and a future that never fades because it has never let go of the grasp the past has on you and so many others.
Political people give speeches and espouse positions declaring that America is the best and strongest nation in the world.
Fear is hugely contagious. Used skillfully by politicians looking to manipulate voters, it can become toxic and capable of infecting more than just a few.
Very few people live in the same house they move into when they're married or the same neighborhood when they're married. Very few people certainly live in the neighborhood they grew up in.
Rebellion has its roots in government's indifference and incompetence.
The middle-class ladder has rungs that no longer exist for many trying to climb higher. Instead, for too many, in too many places, their chore is simply trying to hang on.
The New York City police department is more representative of the city it serves than most law firms, university faculties, and media companies.
I don't think we treat people very well in the media, both as customers - and I call them customers - of newspapers and magazines, or TV news, and we don't understand that the greatest story that we could tell, each and every day, is the story of the people around us.
Like most of us, Joe Biden has had moments when he's led the league in mistakes or verbal gaffes. The difference is his were on a public stage where explanations are almost always made out by pundits to be excuses.
I am, if nothing else, an optimist.
Cops, more than firefighters, EMTs or other public safety employees, almost always get the first glance of the human condition at the worst, most lethal moments; nobody calls a cop with good news.
The United States of America, justifiably and proudly, went to war in Afghanistan in early winter of 2001. The United States invaded Iraq on a false premise in the spring of 2003.
Reality is self-defined as the mob, any mob, writes its own history, never to be contradicted by the quiet statement of truth.
Everyone has a smart phone, and everything is recorded. One event spills into another. Conclusions come quickly at the near total expense of consideration of what just actually happened.
You used to be able to identify Sox fans in Yankee Stadium. They sat, slump-shouldered, with the same panicked expectation nervous motorists have looking in the rearview mirror at the 16-wheeler behind them on Interstate 95 near New Haven.
Sixteen times a year, all thirty-two NFL teams give us what we're looking for: speed, skill, violence, fantasy league orgasms and a final score. No confusion. No doubt. No indecision. A winner and a loser.