When 87 year old Leona Helmsley died in New York she was living alone in a lavish apartment with only her dog. She left an estate of some $4 Billion dollars.When the will was read it told the story of her relationships with people during her life. Before her only son died, she had a falling out with her daughter in law Mimi Panzirer and with two of her four grandchildren from that marriage. The feud with Panzirer was serious…
Did you read about the woman and her children who burned to death in the wildfires at Artemida, Greece? It’s a story about fate and its mysterious role in our lives. According to the Associated Press and MSNBC, Athanasia Paraskevopoulou was a 37 year old teacher who was at the family vacation home with her husband and their three daughters ages 15, 12 and 10 along with a 5 year old son. Wildfires started breaking out in the area. While…
Malcom Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point discusses the 80/20 rule. The idea is that in so many things 80% vs 20% is a percentage factor. For years I’ve seen references to this percentage rule applied to sports and many other areas of life. Gladwell says economists often talk about the 80/20 principle. That in any situation roughly 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people involved. In most societies 20% of the criminals commit 80%…
Larry Tye has written a fascinating book Rising From The Rails which gives the history of black railroad porters and the profound influence they had as a result of what they learned from their contact with white passengers. They picked up the newspapers or books the passengers left on the train and read them. They listened to conversations about business, education and the affairs of people and applied the lessons in their own families. Their good influence had a ripple…
The Reverend Robert Schuller once wrote some prose that capture the feeling I have as get older: "Spring is past, Summer is gone, Winter is here, and my song that I was meant to sing is still unsung. I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument" The other poem, whose author is unknown to me, describes the same regret at not having already accomplished the many things I intended to do, but haven’t yet done: Just Do it…
I read with interest in the New England Journal of Medicine (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/4/328) about the two year old cat Oscar. Dr. David Dosa says Oscar was adopted by staff members at a nursing home in Providence, Rhode Island as a kitten. After about six months the staff noted that he would make his own rounds of patients. He’s go in, sniff, observe and either leave or stay. If he stayed, the staff realized he had an uncanny ability to know when…
These are random thoughts from my recent trip to Wyoming. I’ve spent this week at the Spence Trial College teaching trial lawyers. But, the truth is, they teach me far more then I teach them. On the plane I was reading an interview of an actor who spoke of his recovery from drinking, but the comments really struck a chord with me regarding our fears and demons. He said: "My recovery was a slow process, rather like my decline. Recovery…
Jack Johnson, nicknamed the "Galveston Giant" was arguably the best heavyweight of his generation and was the first black heavyweight champion of the world – 1908 – 1915. He not only was the champion during the white "Jim Crow" era of American history, but, he drove fast cars, kept company with white women and otherwise refused to act the way white "Jim Crow" citizens expected a black man to act – like a second class citizen. The white boxing establishment…
I’m not much of a horse racing fan, but I admire the courage of jockey’s and the competitive spirit of the horses. The recent record setting win at Belmont by Rags to Riches brought this to mind. Only two fillies before Rags to Riches had ever won the Belmont one, Ruthless, in 1867 and the other, Tanya, in 1905. The June 139th Belmont stakes was an amazing win for this great horse. When reading about the race, I thought of…
I think I am getting old and grouchy. On a recent trip I was struck by how intrusive into one’s own zone of privacy cell phones can be. I know this is not something unique for me and is probably overly sensitive on my part, but for some reason it was particularly bothersome on this trip. It started the evening before I left, when a woman decided to use some kind of cell phone with a two way communication device….
