(1448,1,'2011-11-19 10:14:43','2011-11-19 18:14:43','If you could start the perfect country, what would you do?\n\nI would start with what real estate agents always say matters most -- location, location, location. I would want a mild climate in a location that is not near too many other countries with expansionist views, a location blessed with good weather, arable land and a reasonable amount of natural resources.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1321\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Natural beauty\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/road1.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1321\" title=\"road1\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/road1-300x219.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nI don\'t want to focus too much on the material part of it, although it\'s a pretty good bet that Ethiopia would be screwed no matter what the political system was. If you can\'t feed your people, that\'s a big handicap.\n\nThe economic system matters. We\'ve seen in the last 30 years in this country that an unrestricted,<em> laissez-faire</em> free market system can create an amazing amount of wealth, but when there is no government involvement at all, that wealth seems to gravitate toward the top.\n\nThat\'s where a progressive tax system seems to work the best. The greatest period of egalitarianism -- our strongest middle class -- came in the 1950s, when the top tax rate was 90 percent. We don\'t judge the success of a country by how rich its richest people are, but by how many of its people are able to raise happy, healthy families and hope for a better future for their children.\n\nThat doesn\'t mean you have to have a Socialist system, but it does mean the government can use tax revenues from a progressive system to make sure that most of its citizens at least have a fair shot at success.\n\nConservatives love to talk about not wanting to take away people\'s initiative, but the fact is, there are children in this country who did nothing any more wrong than being born into the wrong family who have almost no chance to succeed. Why should my children -- who had four years of college paid for and didn\'t have to take out loans -- get such a leg up on kids whose parents couldn\'t give them any help at all?\n\nAn awful lot of what I think a country should be  can be summed up in President Franklin D. Roosevelt\'s 1944 State of the Union. We were at war in 1944, but FDR was already thinking about what postwar America should be.\n\nhttp://youtu.be/KmdW3hFPjC0\n\nSocialism? Maybe a little, but in 1944, more people seemed to understand that we were all in this together and we ought to at least take care of our country\'s children. That\'s a pretty far cry from a political party that seems to love babies only until they\'re actually born.\n\nHere they are again:\n\n<em>\"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;</em>\n\n<em>The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;</em>\n\n<em>The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;</em>\n\n<em>The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;</em>\n\n<em>The right of every family to a decent home;</em>\n\n<em>The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;</em>\n\n<em>The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;</em>\n\n<em>The right to a good education.</em>\n\n<em>All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.</em>\n\n<em>America\'s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.</em>\n\n<em>For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.\"</em>\n\nThat\'s where my perfect country would start. When World War II began, FDR told America\'s businessmen that he didn\'t want to see any millionaires created by the war. American business had its duty to do just as America\'s soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. And for the most part, they did it.\n\nNo, America wasn\'t the perfect country in 1944. If you were black, much of the country had a apartheid ever bit as racist as South Africa. If you were Jewish, anti-Semitism was still the rule rather than the exception. If you were gay, you were deep in the closet. And if you were a woman who didn\'t want to be only a wife and mother, things were tough.\n\nBut it\'s amazing how many people in those groups and others still saw America as a wonderful place.\n\nAnd what was most wonderful about it was that there wasn\'t a government that catered to rich businessmen and big political contributors on the scale we do today.\n\nWe have Ronald Reagan and his followers to thank for that change. I always thought that Reagan\'s tragic flaw was that he believed people got rich -- even when they inherited their wealth -- because they were better people than folks who weren\'t rich.\n\nRonald Reagan\'s America isn\'t my country.\n\nI stand with FDR, believing that we are our brothers\' keepers and that America is great when America is good.\n\nThat\'s my perfect country.','For a perfect country, look to the past','','inherit','open','open','','1320-autosave','','','2011-11-19 10:14:43','2011-11-19 18:14:43','',1320,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1448',0,'revision','',0),(1449,1,'2011-11-19 10:11:29','2011-11-19 18:11:29','If you could start the perfect country, what would you do?\r\n\r\nI would start with what real estate agents always say matters most -- location, location, location. I would want a mild climate in a location that is not near too many other countries with expansionist views, a location blessed with good weather, arable land and a reasonable amount of natural resources.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1321\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Natural beauty\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/road1.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1321\" title=\"road1\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/road1-300x219.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nI don\'t want to focus too much on the material part of it, although it\'s a pretty good bet that Ethiopia would be screwed no matter what the political system was. If you can\'t feed your people, that\'s a big handicap.\r\n\r\nThe economic system matters. We\'ve seen in the last 30 years in this country that an unrestricted,<em> laissez-faire</em> free market system can create an amazing amount of wealth, but when there is no government involvement at all, that wealth seems to gravitate toward the top.\r\n\r\nThat\'s where a progressive tax system seems to work the best. The greatest period of egalitarianism -- our strongest middle class -- came in the 1950s, when the top tax rate was 90 percent. We don\'t judge the success of a country by how rich its richest people are, but by how many of its people are able to raise happy, healthy families and hope for a better future for their children.\r\n\r\nThat doesn\'t mean you have to have a Socialist system, but it does mean the government can use tax revenues from a progressive system to make sure that most of its citizens at least have a fair shot at success.\r\n\r\nConservatives love to talk about not wanting to take away people\'s initiative, but the fact is, there are children in this country who did nothing any more wrong than being born into the wrong family who have almost no chance to succeed. Why should my children -- who had four years of college paid for and didn\'t have to take out loans -- get such a leg up on kids whose parents couldn\'t give them any help at all?\r\n\r\nAn awful lot of what I think a country should be  can be summed up in President Franklin D. Roosevelt\'s 1944 State of the Union. We were at war in 1944, but FDR was already thinking about what postwar America should be.\r\n\r\nhttp://youtu.be/3EZ5bx9AyI4\r\n\r\nSocialism? Maybe a little, but in 1944, more people seemed to understand that we were all in this together and we ought to at least take care of our country\'s children. That\'s a pretty far cry from a political party that seems to love babies only until they\'re actually born.\r\n\r\nHere they are again:\r\n\r\n<em>\"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>The right of every family to a decent home;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>The right to a good education.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>America\'s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.\"</em>\r\n\r\nThat\'s where my perfect country would start. When World War II began, FDR told America\'s businessmen that he didn\'t want to see any millionaires created by the war. American business had its duty to do just as America\'s soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. And for the most part, they did it.\r\n\r\nNo, America wasn\'t the perfect country in 1944. If you were black, much of the country had a apartheid ever bit as racist as South Africa. If you were Jewish, anti-Semitism was still the rule rather than the exception. If you were gay, you were deep in the closet. And if you were a woman who didn\'t want to be only a wife and mother, things were tough.\r\n\r\nBut it\'s amazing how many people in those groups and others still saw America as a wonderful place.\r\n\r\nAnd what was most wonderful about it was that there wasn\'t a government that catered to rich businessmen and big political contributors on the scale we do today.\r\n\r\nWe have Ronald Reagan and his followers to thank for that change. I always thought that Reagan\'s tragic flaw was that he believed people got rich -- even when they inherited their wealth -- because they were better people than folks who weren\'t rich.\r\n\r\nRonald Reagan\'s America isn\'t my country.\r\n\r\nI stand with FDR, believing that we are our brothers\' keepers and that America is great when America is good.\r\n\r\nThat\'s my perfect country.','For a perfect country, look to the past','','inherit','open','open','','1320-revision-7','','','2011-11-19 10:11:29','2011-11-19 18:11:29','',1320,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1449',0,'revision','',0),(1450,1,'2011-11-19 20:14:33','2011-11-20 04:14:33','Who would have thought someone I never met would turn out to be one of the key figures in the watershed moment of my life?\r\n\r\nDamn you, Senator Joseph Lieberman.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1451\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"The villain of the story\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/lieberman-tutu.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1451\" title=\"lieberman-tutu\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/lieberman-tutu-300x289.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"289\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nThis story may seem a little weird, since the veteran Connecticut politician\'s name will be the only one in the story. I\'ll let the other folks remain anonymous out of respect for their privacy.\r\n\r\nWhen I celebrated my 20th birthday in December 1969, my life was somewhat off track. I had gone away to the University of Virginia when I was 17 going on 12, and I had foundered in the party school atmosphere in Charlottesville.\r\n\r\nI had started over again at George Washington University two years later, and my fall semester was sort of an academic disaster, but for a different reason. I had joined a fraternity and was having fun for the first time. By the end of the semester I was on academic suspension, but I was in love for the first time in my life.\r\n\r\nShe was a freshman and the daughter of a Connecticut politician (<em>not</em> Lieberman), we dated until the end of the spring semester while I worked and got ready to earn my way back into school for the fall semester. I had to take two classes in the summer at the community college to prove I could do college work successfully.\r\n\r\nShe went home for the summer. Her father -- a state senator -- was running for the U.S. Senate, and she was working on his campaign.\r\n\r\nI took a humanities course and a chemistry course, and for the first time since elementary school, I worked hard and did well. An A and a B; I hadn\'t gotten a B in a science course since seventh grade. My girlfriend and I had been drifting apart over the summer, and after the end of July, we were no longer talking on the phone.\r\n\r\nI sent my grades in, and GWU accepted me back -- on probation -- for the fall semester.\r\n\r\nI was fired up, and I actually felt OK about the fact that my first real relationship was over. In early September, just before registration, she called me. She was flying in to register for classes and then returning home for a week. Her dad had lost his U.S. Senate race, but he still had a primary election for the job he already had. He was the majority leader of the state senate, so no one expected anything except a victory.\r\n\r\nI picked her up at National Airport -- Ronald Reagan was still in his first term as governor of California then -- and we drove down to the campus. We had dinner together at our favorite restaurant, and we were walking back to her dorm after dinner when she asked me a question that took me by surprise. She asked me if I still loved her. Without even thinking, I said of course I did. She said that was good, because she still loved me.\r\n\r\nWe registered for our classes the next day, and we decided to take a political science class together. I drove her to the airport, and she told me she would be back in a week.\r\n\r\nThen disaster struck. Almost out of nowhere, her veteran politician father lost his primary election to a 28-year-old political rookie named Joseph Lieberman. She was devastated. When she returned to school, we had spent a little more than an hour together when she told me we had to break up.\r\n\r\nI didn\'t even ask her why, but something I had come to terms with completely in August now hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.\r\n\r\nShe said she hoped we could still be friends, and I just shrugged. At 20, I was playing Bogart when I felt like anything but that. All my motivation for doing well in school had vanished, and by spring I was gone again. I was 21, and most of the rest of my twenties turned out to be wasted -- a bad marriage, bad jobs and very little progress toward a real future.\r\n\r\nSo there was my watershed moment. I\'m not saying we would have dated all through college, gotten married and lived happily ever after. Maybe, but not likely. But I think in September 1970, I had reached a point where I was ready to straighten my life out. If she and I hadn\'t broken up, I think I would have had the motivation to get through GWU and then go on to law school, which was my goal at that time.\r\n\r\nI certainly don\'t blame her. I have very fond memories of our semester together, and I can\'t blame anyone but myself for the fact that I was so weak as to let myself get knocked off track.\r\n\r\nWell, that\'s not quite true that I don\'t blame anybody.\r\n\r\nI do blame Joe Lieberman.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Lieberman ruined me in my watershed moment','','publish','open','open','','lieberman-ruined-me-in-my-watershed-moment','','','2011-11-19 20:14:33','2011-11-20 04:14:33','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1450',0,'post','',0),(1451,1,'2011-11-19 19:17:40','2011-11-20 03:17:40','','lieberman-tutu','The villain of the story','inherit','open','open','','lieberman-tutu','','','2011-11-19 19:17:40','2011-11-20 03:17:40','',1450,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/lieberman-tutu.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1452,1,'2011-11-19 20:13:58','2011-11-20 04:13:58','Who would have thought someone I never met would turn out to be one of the key figures in the watershed moment of my life?\n\nDamn you, Senator Joseph Lieberman.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1451\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"The villain of the story\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/lieberman-tutu.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1451\" title=\"lieberman-tutu\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/lieberman-tutu-300x289.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"289\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThis story may seem a little weird, since the veteran Connecticut politician\'s name will be the only one in the story. I\'ll let the other folks remain anonymous out of respect for their privacy.\n\nWhen I celebrated my 20th birthday in December 1969, my life was somewhat off track. I had gone away to the University of Virginia when I was 17 going on 12, and I had foundered in the party school atmosphere in Charlottesville.\n\nI had started over again at George Washington University two years later, and my fall semester was sort of an academic disaster, but for a different reason. I had joined a fraternity and was having fun for the first time. By the end of the semester I was on academic suspension, but I was in love for the first time in my life.\n\nShe was a freshman and the daughter of a Connecticut politician (<em>not</em> Lieberman), we dated until the end of the spring semester while I worked and got ready to earn my way back into school for the fall semester. I had to take two classes in the summer at the community college to prove I could do college work successfully.\n\nShe went home for the summer. Her father -- a state senator -- was running for the U.S. Senate, and she was working on his campaign.\n\nI took a humanities course and a chemistry course, and for the first time since elementary school, I worked hard and did well. An A and a B; I hadn\'t gotten a B in a science course since seventh grade. My girlfriend and I had been drifting apart over the summer, and after the end of July, we were no longer talking on the phone.\n\nI sent my grades in, and GWU accepted me back -- on probation -- for the fall semester.\n\nI was fired up, and I actually felt OK about the fact that my first real relationship was over. In early September, just before registration, she called me. She was flying in to register for classes and then returning home for a week. Her dad had lost his U.S. Senate race, but he still had a primary election for the job he already had. He was the majority leader of the state senate, so no one expected anything except a victory.\n\nI picked her up at National Airport -- Ronald Reagan was still in his first term as governor of California then -- and we drove down to the campus. We had dinner together at our favorite restaurant, and we were walking back to her dorm after dinner when she asked me a question that took me by surprise. She asked me if I still loved her. Without even thinking, I said of course I did. She said that was good, because she still loved me.\n\nWe registered for our classes the next day, and we decided to take a political science class together. I drove her to the airport, and she told me she would be back in a week.\n\nThen disaster struck. Almost out of nowhere, her veteran politician father lost his primary election to a 28-year-old political rookie named Joseph Lieberman. She was devastated. When she returned to school, we had spent a little more than an hour together when she told me we had to break up.\n\nI didn\'t even ask her why, but something I had come to terms with completely in August now hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.\n\nShe said she hoped we could still be friends, and I just shrugged. At 20, I was playing Bogart when I felt like anything but that. All my motivation for doing well in school had vanished, and by spring I was gone again. I was 21, and most of the rest of my twenties turned out to be wasted -- a bad marriage, bad jobs and very little progress toward a real future.\n\nSo there was my watershed moment. I\'m not saying we would have dated all through college, gotten married and lived happily ever after. Maybe, but not likely. But I think in September 1970, I had reached a point where I was ready to straighten my life out. If she and I hadn\'t broken up, I think I would have had the motivation to get through GWU and then go on to law school, which was my goal at that time.\n\nI certainly don\'t blame her. I have very fond memories of our semester together, and I can\'t blame anyone but myself for the fact that I was so weak as to let myself get knocked off track.\n\nWell, that\'s not quite true that I don\'t blame anybody.\n\nI do blame Joe Lieberman.\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1450-revision','','','2011-11-19 20:13:58','2011-11-20 04:13:58','',1450,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1452',0,'revision','',0),(1454,1,'2011-11-25 19:35:31','2011-11-26 03:35:31','','phil-ochs','Phil Ochs','inherit','open','open','','phil-ochs','','','2011-11-25 19:35:31','2011-11-26 03:35:31','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/phil-ochs.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1455,1,'2011-11-25 19:57:06','2011-11-26 03:57:06','','harry-chapin-zippo-kluv-getty-photo-by-keith-bernstein-redferns','Harry Chapin','inherit','open','open','','harry-chapin-zippo-kluv-getty-photo-by-keith-bernstein-redferns','','','2011-11-25 19:57:06','2011-11-26 03:57:06','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/harry-chapin-zippo-kluv-getty-photo-by-keith-bernstein-redferns.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1456,1,'2011-11-25 19:57:57','2011-11-26 03:57:57','','harry-chapin-zippo-kluv-getty-photo-by-keith-bernstein-redferns','Harry Chapin','inherit','open','open','','harry-chapin-zippo-kluv-getty-photo-by-keith-bernstein-redferns-2','','','2011-11-25 19:57:57','2011-11-26 03:57:57','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/harry-chapin-zippo-kluv-getty-photo-by-keith-bernstein-redferns1.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1468,1,'2011-12-16 19:47:18','2011-12-17 03:47:18','I get annoyed when I come across people who think history started the day they were born.\r\n\r\nRecently I\'ve seen several posters on the<a title=\"IMDB\" href=\"http://www.imdb.com/\"> Internet Movie Database</a> who make lists of the greatest films of all time and half of their list is films made since 1990, hardly a golden age of the movies. They include \"Pulp Fiction,\" \"Reservoir Dogs,\" the Lord of the Rings trilogy and all sorts of other special-effects fests, and the only films from before 1950 that ever make their lists are the ones everybody knows.\r\n\r\nI understand their problem.\r\n\r\nAfter all, if you accept the fact that important things happened before you were born, you may have to admit to yourself you are not the crown of creation.\r\n\r\nI just finished watching a movie tonight, I\'m ashamed to say for the first time, that I would stack up against any of those I mentioned from the last 15-20 years.\r\n\r\nIt\'s not Judy Garland\'s most famous movie, but the performance she gives as lovely Rose Smith, a turn-of-the-century beauty, in Vincente Minnelli\'s \"Meet Me in St. Louis\" (1944) was one of her very best. It\'s even got a song to compare with \"Over the Rainbow.\"\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1469\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Judy Garland with Margaret O&#39;Brian\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1469\" title=\"Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nThere aren\'t any wizards or wicked witches, and there\'s nothing even to compare with a tornado for dramatic effect. It\'s simply the story of a loving family, and the biggest suspense is whether they will leave their home in St. Louis and move to New York.\r\n\r\nIt\'s interesting that there may have been more drama connected with the film itself than in the story. Garland reportedly balked at doing the film with O\'Brian for fear that the 7-year-old child star would steal the show. O\'Brian didn\'t get the part at first because her manager mother asked for too much money.\r\n\r\nOnce the filming was on, Garland insisted that the lyrics be changed in \"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas\" because she felt they were too downbeat for her character to sing to her little sister.\r\n\r\nThe original lyrics were more suited to 1944 America, with troops fighting in Europe and the Pacific, than to 1903 St. Louis in what was still a halcyon era for American families. Garland objected to singing \"Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last,\" which seems like a rather downbeat Christmas carol anyway.\r\n\r\nIn the end,<a title=\"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g4lY8Y3eoo\"> the song</a> worked beautifully as revised and the movie did as well. There are plenty of film aficianados who believe this film ushered in the Golden Age of MGM musicals, and if it was later surpassed by films like \"Singing in the Rain,\" it stands the test of time as well as any of them.\r\n\r\nMaybe one of these days I\'ll come up with a list of my own, of Hollywood\'s 50 best movies. I\'ll bet I could do a pretty good list and never include anything from the last 20 years.','Not all the good movies were made recently','','publish','open','open','','not-all-the-good-movies-were-made-recently','','','2011-12-16 19:56:03','2011-12-17 03:56:03','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1468',0,'post','',0),(1460,1,'2011-11-27 15:26:17','2011-11-27 23:26:17','We all have things we learned from our parents, but one of the most important lessons my father taught me is that there isn\'t necessarily any correlation between popularity and quality.\r\n\r\nIn fact, it\'s often just the opposite. For something to gain an incredible level of popularity, it has to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Otherwise, audiences are limited. The best-selling book of the 21st century is Dan Brown\'s \"The DaVinci Code,\" which has sold about 80 million copies. That certainly doesn\'t make Brown the greatest author of the century, even though his \"Angels and Demons\" is second on the list with 39 million copies sold.\r\n\r\nThen there are films. James Cameron has the top two spots on the list, with his \"Avatar\" grossing more than $2.7 billion worldwide and his \"Titantic\" at more than $1.8 billion. Is Cameron the greatest filmmaker of all time? Is \"Avatar\" the best movie ever?\r\n\r\nNot hardly, pilgrim.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1461\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"200\" caption=\"Book of the century?\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/200px-DaVinciCode.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1461\" title=\"200px-DaVinciCode\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/200px-DaVinciCode.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"299\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nIt\'s the same thing with television. Most folks would agree that the quality of shows on PBS is better than network sitcoms or reality shows, but it\'s those shows that draw much larger audiences than public broadcasting does.\r\n\r\nDoes McDonald\'s make the best food of any restaurant? More people eat there than eat at restaurants with higher quality.\r\n\r\nI love reading books by Stephen King and Dean Koontz, but that doesn\'t make me think they\'re the best writers of our time. I can tell the difference between a good story and a great novel, and I can tell the difference between an entertaining movie and a great film.\r\n\r\nLook at the Internet Movie Database, which allows members to vote for what they consider <a title=\"IMDB Top 250\" href=\"http://www.imdb.com/chart/top\">the best movies of all time</a>. Frank Darabont\'s \"Shawshank Redemption\" is a fine film that I like a lot, but for it to be considered the greatest movie of all time is just silly. In fact, five of the top 10 movies on the list have been made since 1990, a period of film history hardly considered a Golden Age.\r\n\r\nMy three favorite movies are \"Love Actually,\" \"Animal House\" and \"Bull Durham,\" but I wouldn\'t try to convince anyone that they\'re much more than really entertaining films.\r\n\r\nThe highest-rated pre-1950 film is \"Casablanca,\" which is No. 19 on the list. \"Citizen Kane,\" which many critics call the best movie ever made, is No. 38, and two of the most beloved movies of all time -- \"The Wizard of Oz\" and \"Gone With the Wind\" -- are 133 and 158, below such classics as \"Full Metal Jacket,\" \"Inglorious Basterds\" and \"Die Hard.\"\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/diehard2.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1462\" title=\"diehard2\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/diehard2-222x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"222\" height=\"300\" /></a>It isn\'t as if it\'s only modern audiences that have lost their sense of good taste. Back in the Golden Age of movies, folks flocked to movies and Ma and Pa Kettle, or Francis the Talking Mule or Andy Hardy.\r\n\r\nIt wasn\'t all \"Citizen Kane.\"\r\n\r\nSo it\'s fine if you like \"Dancing With the Stars\" or \"American Idol,\" but don\'t tell me their popularity means they\'re the highest-quality shows on TV.\r\n\r\nIt\'s fine if Rush Limbaugh has the highest ratings on talk radio, but that doesn\'t mean his show is any good.\r\n\r\nQuality and popularity rarely walk hand in hand, and they rarely have.\r\n\r\nThere is one interesting anomaly in all that. I looked on Wikipedia for the best-selling books of all time, and the list published excluded religious and political books because of the difficulty in coming up with accurate figures.\r\n\r\nThe top two books listed were Charles Dickens\' \"A Tale of Two Cities\" and Antoine de Saint-Exupery\'s \"The Little Prince\" are both credited with selling 200 million copies, edging out \"Trailer Park Cheerleaders\" for the top spot.\r\n\r\n<em>Not really.</em>\r\n\r\nNot really, although the 200 million figure is correct. The fascinating thing about \"The Little Prince\" is that it has been published in 190 different languages.\r\n\r\nThose are two pretty good books, so the rule doesn\'t always hold.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Popularity doesn\'t always translate to quality','','publish','open','open','','popularity-doesnt-always-translate-to-quality','','','2011-11-27 15:26:17','2011-11-27 23:26:17','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1460',0,'post','',0),(1461,1,'2011-11-27 14:45:03','2011-11-27 22:45:03','','200px-DaVinciCode','Book of the century?','inherit','open','open','','200px-davincicode','','','2011-11-27 14:45:03','2011-11-27 22:45:03','',1460,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/200px-DaVinciCode.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1462,1,'2011-11-27 15:10:22','2011-11-27 23:10:22','','diehard2','','inherit','open','open','','diehard2','','','2011-11-27 15:10:22','2011-11-27 23:10:22','',1460,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/diehard2.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1463,1,'2011-11-27 15:25:41','2011-11-27 23:25:41','We all have things we learned from our parents, but one of the most important lessons my father taught me is that there isn\'t necessarily any correlation between popularity and quality.\n\nIn fact, it\'s often just the opposite. For something to gain an incredible level of popularity, it has to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Otherwise, audiences are limited. The best-selling book of the 21st century is Dan Brown\'s \"The DaVinci Code,\" which has sold about 80 million copies. That certainly doesn\'t make Brown the greatest author of the century, even though his \"Angels and Demons\" is second on the list with 39 million copies sold.\n\nThen there are films. James Cameron has the top two spots on the list, with his \"Avatar\" grossing more than $2.7 billion worldwide and his \"Titantic\" at more than $1.8 billion. Is Cameron the greatest filmmaker of all time? Is \"Avatar\" the best movie ever?\n\nNot hardly, pilgrim.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1461\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"200\" caption=\"Book of the century?\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/200px-DaVinciCode.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1461\" title=\"200px-DaVinciCode\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/200px-DaVinciCode.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"299\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nIt\'s the same thing with television. Most folks would agree that the quality of shows on PBS is better than network sitcoms or reality shows, but it\'s those shows that draw much larger audiences than public broadcasting does.\n\nDoes McDonald\'s make the best food of any restaurant? More people eat there than eat at restaurants with higher quality.\n\nI love reading books by Stephen King and Dean Koontz, but that doesn\'t make me think they\'re the best writers of our time. I can tell the difference between a good story and a great novel, and I can tell the difference between an entertaining movie and a great film.\n\nLook at the Internet Movie Database, which allows members to vote for what they consider <a title=\"IMDB Top 250\" href=\"http://www.imdb.com/chart/top\">the best movies of all time</a>. Frank Darabont\'s \"Shawshank Redemption\" is a fine film that I like a lot, but for it to be considered the greatest movie of all time is just silly. In fact, five of the top 10 movies on the list have been made since 1990, a period of film history hardly considered a Golden Age.\n\nMy three favorite movies are \"Love Actually,\" \"Animal House\" and \"Bull Durham,\" but I wouldn\'t try to convince anyone that they\'re much more than really entertaining films.\n\nThe highest-rated pre-1950 film is \"Casablanca,\" which is No. 19 on the list. \"Citizen Kane,\" which many critics call the best movie ever made, is No. 38, and two of the most beloved movies of all time -- \"The Wizard of Oz\" and \"Gone With the Wind\" -- are 133 and 158, below such classics as \"Full Metal Jacket,\" \"Inglorious Basterds\" and \"Die Hard.\"\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/diehard2.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1462\" title=\"diehard2\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/diehard2-222x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"222\" height=\"300\" /></a>It isn\'t as if it\'s only modern audiences that have lost their sense of good taste. Back in the Golden Age of movies, folks flocked to movies and Ma and Pa Kettle, or Francis the Talking Mule or Andy Hardy.\n\nIt wasn\'t all \"Citizen Kane.\"\n\nSo it\'s fine if you like \"Dancing With the Stars\" or \"American Idol,\" but don\'t tell me their popularity means they\'re the highest-quality shows on TV.\n\nIt\'s fine if Rush Limbaugh has the highest ratings on talk radio, but that doesn\'t mean his show is any good.\n\nQuality and popularity rarely walk hand in hand, and they rarely have.\n\nThere is one interesting anomaly in all that. I looked on Wikipedia for the best-selling books of all time, and the list published excluded religious and political books because of the difficulty in coming up with accurate figures.\n\nThe top two books listed were Charles Dickens\' \"A Tale of Two Cities\" and Antoine de Saint-Exupery\'s \"The Little Prince\" are both credited with selling 200 million copies, edging out \"Trailer Park Cheerleaders\" for the top spot.\n\n<em>Not really.</em>\n\nNot really, although the 200 million figure is correct. The fascinating thing about \"The Little Prince\" is that it has been published in 190 different languages.\n\nThose are two pretty good books, so the rule doesn\'t always hold.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1460-revision','','','2011-11-27 15:25:41','2011-11-27 23:25:41','',1460,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1463',0,'revision','',0),(1464,1,'2011-12-01 13:10:31','2011-12-01 21:10:31','<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/war_main_2.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1465\" title=\"war_main_2\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/war_main_2-300x158.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"158\" /></a><strong><em>\"What shall be our legacy? What will our children say? Let them say of me I was one who believed in sharing the blessings I received. Let me know in my heart when my days are through, America America, I gave my best to you.\"</em></strong>\r\n<strong>-- AMERICAN ANTHEM, Norah Jones</strong>\r\n\r\nIt was maybe four years ago that I bought the DVD set for Ken Burns\' wonderful project about World War II, but it wasn\'t until this week that I sat down and watched the seven-part series.\r\n\r\nMy dad served in the European Theater of Operations, and when he returned home at the end of the war as a decorated veteran, he had yet to celebrate his 20th birthday. He lived to the age of 82 and accomplished much, but he always took the greatest pride in serving his country in Europe during the war.\r\n\r\nIn all the years I knew him, we never discussed the war. And while there were many of things to admire him for, I particularly respected the fact that he had put his life on the line to help defeat Hitler. Because of him and millions of others like him, the world was saved from the incredible barbarism of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire. Sixteen million young Americans -- most of them young men -- served in the military between 1941 and 1945. More than 400,000 of them died and nearly 1.1 million others were wounded or missing.\r\n\r\nWhen my father died in March 2008, he had five children and four grandchildren. When I think of the 400,000 men who served with him who never made it home, I find myself wondering about their children, grandchildren and other descendants who were never born because they didn\'t come back to have families.\r\n\r\nBut the others returned, and America changed.\r\n\r\nWe became a country that didn\'t understand sacrifice. A country that had more in common with Civil War America -- in which those who had the money could buy their way out of serving in the military -- than with World War II America, where the sons of the rich and famous served right along beside the sons of the middle class and the poor.\r\n\r\nWe elect as leaders people who did everything they could <em>not</em> to serve in the military. Someone like Dick Cheney can work to get five different deferments during Vietnam and then say with no shame that he had \"other plans\" that didn\'t involve serving his country. Or people like Dan Quayle and George W. Bush, who used family connections to get cushy spots in the National Guard and avoid going overseas.\r\n\r\nThe last president we had who saw combat action was George H.W. Bush, who was one of the youngest fighter pilots in the Navy in World War II. Two of the three presidents since then didn\'t even serve in the peacetime military.\r\n\r\nI was never in the military, nor were any of the handful of people I call my closest friends. Not one of us ever had to do anything in our lives that wasn\'t either about making money or furthering our ambitions. We\'re Dick Cheney without the air of superiority.\r\n\r\nHave any of us \"given our best\" to America, as Norah Jones sings in the song that so beautifully accompanied the Burns film?\r\n\r\nCould we even have done it had we been asked? I look at myself and at my close friends and I wonder if any of us would even have survived a week of combat. But as much as I doubt our abilities, I have a hunch that if we had been called to serve, at least some of us would have risen to the occasion and done our duty.\r\n\r\nAt least I hope we would have.','Could we have risen to the occasion and served?','','publish','open','open','','could-we-have-risen-to-the-occasion-and-served-well','','','2011-12-01 13:11:49','2011-12-01 21:11:49','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1464',0,'post','',0),(1465,1,'2011-12-01 12:08:51','2011-12-01 20:08:51','','war_main_2','','inherit','open','open','','war_main_2','','','2011-12-01 12:08:51','2011-12-01 20:08:51','',1464,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/war_main_2.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1466,1,'2011-12-01 13:10:27','2011-12-01 21:10:27','<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/war_main_2.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1465\" title=\"war_main_2\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/war_main_2-300x158.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"158\" /></a><strong><em>\"What shall be our legacy? What will our children say? Let them say of me I was one who believed in sharing the blessings I received. Let me know in my heart when my days are through, America America, I gave my best to you.\"</em></strong>\n<strong>-- AMERICAN ANTHEM, Norah Jones</strong>\n\nIt was maybe four years ago that I bought the DVD set for Ken Burns\' wonderful project about World War II, but it wasn\'t until this week that I sat down and watched the seven-part series.\n\nMy dad served in the European Theater of Operations, and when he returned home at the end of the war as a decorated veteran, he had yet to celebrate his 20th birthday. He lived to the age of 82 and accomplished much, but he always took the greatest pride in serving his country in Europe during the war.\n\nIn all the years I knew him, we never discussed the war. And while there were many of things to admire him for, I particularly respected the fact that he had put his life on the line to help defeat Hitler. Because of him and millions of others like him, the world was saved from the incredible barbarism of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire. Sixteen million young Americans -- most of them young men -- served in the military between 1941 and 1945. More than 400,000 of them died and nearly 1.1 million others were wounded or missing.\n\nWhen my father died in March 2008, he had five children and four grandchildren. When I think of the 400,000 men who served with him who never made it home, I find myself wondering about their children, grandchildren and other descendants who were never born because they didn\'t come back to have families.\n\nBut the others returned, and America changed.\n\nWe became a country that didn\'t understand sacrifice. A country that had more in common with Civil War America -- in which those who had the money could buy their way out of serving in the military -- than with World War II America, where the sons of the rich and famous served right along beside the sons of the middle class and the poor.\n\nWe elect as leaders people who did everything they could <em>not</em> to serve in the military. Someone like Dick Cheney can work to get five different deferments during Vietnam and then say with no shame that he had \"other plans\" that didn\'t involve serving his country. Or people like Dan Quayle and George W. Bush, who used family connections to get cushy spots in the National Guard and avoid going overseas.\n\nThe last president we had who saw combat action was George H.W. Bush, who was one of the youngest fighter pilots in the Navy in World War II. Two of the three presidents since then didn\'t even serve in the peacetime military.\n\nI was never in the military, nor were any of the handful of people I call my closest friends. Not one of us ever had to do anything in our lives that wasn\'t either about making money or furthering our ambitions. We\'re Dick Cheney without the air of superiority.\n\nHave any of us \"given our best\" to America, as Norah Jones sings in the song that so beautifully accompanied the Burns film?\n\nCould we even have done it had we been asked? I look at myself and at my close friends and I wonder if any of us would even have survived a week of combat. But as much as I doubt our abilities, I have a hunch that if we had been called to serve, at least some of us would have risen to the occasion and done our duty.\n\nAt least I hope we would have.','Could we have risen to the occasion and served we','','inherit','open','open','','1464-revision','','','2011-12-01 13:10:27','2011-12-01 21:10:27','',1464,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1466',0,'revision','',0),(1467,1,'2011-12-01 13:10:31','2011-12-01 21:10:31','<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/war_main_2.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1465\" title=\"war_main_2\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/war_main_2-300x158.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"158\" /></a><strong><em>\"What shall be our legacy? What will our children say? Let them say of me I was one who believed in sharing the blessings I received. Let me know in my heart when my days are through, America America, I gave my best to you.\"</em></strong>\r\n<strong>-- AMERICAN ANTHEM, Norah Jones</strong>\r\n\r\nIt was maybe four years ago that I bought the DVD set for Ken Burns\' wonderful project about World War II, but it wasn\'t until this week that I sat down and watched the seven-part series.\r\n\r\nMy dad served in the European Theater of Operations, and when he returned home at the end of the war as a decorated veteran, he had yet to celebrate his 20th birthday. He lived to the age of 82 and accomplished much, but he always took the greatest pride in serving his country in Europe during the war.\r\n\r\nIn all the years I knew him, we never discussed the war. And while there were many of things to admire him for, I particularly respected the fact that he had put his life on the line to help defeat Hitler. Because of him and millions of others like him, the world was saved from the incredible barbarism of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire. Sixteen million young Americans -- most of them young men -- served in the military between 1941 and 1945. More than 400,000 of them died and nearly 1.1 million others were wounded or missing.\r\n\r\nWhen my father died in March 2008, he had five children and four grandchildren. When I think of the 400,000 men who served with him who never made it home, I find myself wondering about their children, grandchildren and other descendants who were never born because they didn\'t come back to have families.\r\n\r\nBut the others returned, and America changed.\r\n\r\nWe became a country that didn\'t understand sacrifice. A country that had more in common with Civil War America -- in which those who had the money could buy their way out of serving in the military -- than with World War II America, where the sons of the rich and famous served right along beside the sons of the middle class and the poor.\r\n\r\nWe elect as leaders people who did everything they could <em>not</em> to serve in the military. Someone like Dick Cheney can work to get five different deferments during Vietnam and then say with no shame that he had \"other plans\" that didn\'t involve serving his country. Or people like Dan Quayle and George W. Bush, who used family connections to get cushy spots in the National Guard and avoid going overseas.\r\n\r\nThe last president we had who saw combat action was George H.W. Bush, who was one of the youngest fighter pilots in the Navy in World War II. Two of the three presidents since then didn\'t even serve in the peacetime military.\r\n\r\nI was never in the military, nor were any of the handful of people I call my closest friends. Not one of us ever had to do anything in our lives that wasn\'t either about making money or furthering our ambitions. We\'re Dick Cheney without the air of superiority.\r\n\r\nHave any of us \"given our best\" to America, as Norah Jones sings in the song that so beautifully accompanied the Burns film?\r\n\r\nCould we even have done it had we been asked? I look at myself and at my close friends and I wonder if any of us would even have survived a week of combat. But as much as I doubt our abilities, I have a hunch that if we had been called to serve, at least some of us would have risen to the occasion and done our duty.\r\n\r\nAt least I hope we would have.','Could we have risen to the occasion and served well?','','inherit','open','open','','1464-revision-2','','','2011-12-01 13:10:31','2011-12-01 21:10:31','',1464,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1467',0,'revision','',0),(1469,1,'2011-12-16 19:26:29','2011-12-17 03:26:29','','Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG','Judy Garland with Margaret O\'Brian','inherit','open','open','','meet_me_in_st__louis_mo_jg','','','2011-12-16 19:26:29','2011-12-17 03:26:29','',1468,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1470,1,'2011-12-16 19:46:58','2011-12-17 03:46:58','I get annoyed when I come across people who think history started the day they were born.\n\nRecently I\'ve seen several posters on the<a title=\"IMDB\" href=\"http://www.imdb.com/\"> Internet Movie Database</a> who make lists of the greatest films of all time and half of their list is films made since 1990, hardly a golden age of the movies. They include \"Pulp Fiction,\" \"Reservoir Dogs,\" the Lord of the Rings trilogy and all sorts of other special-effects fests, and the only films from before 1950 that ever make their lists are the ones everybody knows.\n\nI understand their problem.\n\nAfter all, if you accept the fact that important things happened before you were born, you may have to admit to yourself you are not the crown of creation.\n\nI just finished watching a movie tonight, I\'m ashamed to say for the first time, that I would stack up against any of those I mentioned from the last 15-20 years.\n\nIt\'s not Judy Garland\'s most famous movie, but the performance she gives as lovely Rose Smith, a turn-of-the-century beauty, in Vincente Minnelli\'s \"Meet Me in St. Louis\" (1944) was one of her very best. It\'s even got a song to compare with \"Over the Rainbow.\"\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1469\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Judy Garland with Margaret O&#39;Brian\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1469\" title=\"Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThere aren\'t any wizards or wicked witches, and there\'s nothing even to compare with a tornado for dramatic effect. It\'s simply the story of a loving family, and the biggest suspense is whether they will leave their home in St. Louis and move to New York.\n\nIt\'s interesting that there may have been more drama connected with the film itself than in the story. Garland reportedly balked at doing the film with O\'Brian for fear that the 7-year-old child star would steal the show. O\'Brian didn\'t get the part at first because her manager mother asked for too much money.\n\nOnce the filming was on, Garland insisted that the lyrics be changed in \"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas\" because she felt they were too downbeat for her character to sing to her little sister.\n\nThe original lyrics were more suited to 1944 America, with troops fighting in Europe and the Pacific, than to 1903 St. Louis in what was still a halcyon era for American families. Garland objected to singing \"Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last,\" which seems like a rather downbeat Christmas carol anyway.\n\nhttp://youtu.be/5g4lY8Y3eoo\n\nIn the end, the song worked beautifully as revised and the movie did as well. There are plenty of film aficianados who believe this film ushered in the Golden Age of MGM musicals, and if it was later surpassed by films like \"Singing in the Rain,\" it stands the test of time as well as any of them.\n\nMaybe one of these days I\'ll come up with a list of my own, of Hollywood\'s 50 best movies. I\'ll bet I could do a pretty good list and never include anything from the last 20 years.','','','inherit','open','open','','1468-revision','','','2011-12-16 19:46:58','2011-12-17 03:46:58','',1468,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1470',0,'revision','',0),(1471,1,'2011-12-16 19:50:12','2011-12-17 03:50:12','I get annoyed when I come across people who think history started the day they were born.\n\nRecently I\'ve seen several posters on the<a title=\"IMDB\" href=\"http://www.imdb.com/\"> Internet Movie Database</a> who make lists of the greatest films of all time and half of their list is films made since 1990, hardly a golden age of the movies. They include \"Pulp Fiction,\" \"Reservoir Dogs,\" the Lord of the Rings trilogy and all sorts of other special-effects fests, and the only films from before 1950 that ever make their lists are the ones everybody knows.\n\nI understand their problem.\n\nAfter all, if you accept the fact that important things happened before you were born, you may have to admit to yourself you are not the crown of creation.\n\nI just finished watching a movie tonight, I\'m ashamed to say for the first time, that I would stack up against any of those I mentioned from the last 15-20 years.\n\nIt\'s not Judy Garland\'s most famous movie, but the performance she gives as lovely Rose Smith, a turn-of-the-century beauty, in Vincente Minnelli\'s \"Meet Me in St. Louis\" (1944) was one of her very best. It\'s even got a song to compare with \"Over the Rainbow.\"\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1469\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Judy Garland with Margaret O&#39;Brian\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1469\" title=\"Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThere aren\'t any wizards or wicked witches, and there\'s nothing even to compare with a tornado for dramatic effect. It\'s simply the story of a loving family, and the biggest suspense is whether they will leave their home in St. Louis and move to New York.\n\nIt\'s interesting that there may have been more drama connected with the film itself than in the story. Garland reportedly balked at doing the film with O\'Brian for fear that the 7-year-old child star would steal the show. O\'Brian didn\'t get the part at first because her manager mother asked for too much money.\n\nOnce the filming was on, Garland insisted that the lyrics be changed in \"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas\" because she felt they were too downbeat for her character to sing to her little sister.\n\nThe original lyrics were more suited to 1944 America, with troops fighting in Europe and the Pacific, than to 1903 St. Louis in what was still a halcyon era for American families. Garland objected to singing \"Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last,\" which seems like a rather downbeat Christmas carol anyway.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g4lY8Y3eoo\">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g4lY8Y3eoo</a>\n\nIn the end, the song worked beautifully as revised and the movie did as well. There are plenty of film aficianados who believe this film ushered in the Golden Age of MGM musicals, and if it was later surpassed by films like \"Singing in the Rain,\" it stands the test of time as well as any of them.\n\nMaybe one of these days I\'ll come up with a list of my own, of Hollywood\'s 50 best movies. I\'ll bet I could do a pretty good list and never include anything from the last 20 years.','Not all the good movies were made recently','','inherit','open','open','','1468-autosave','','','2011-12-16 19:50:12','2011-12-17 03:50:12','',1468,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1471',0,'revision','',0),(1472,1,'2011-12-16 19:47:18','2011-12-17 03:47:18','I get annoyed when I come across people who think history started the day they were born.\r\n\r\nRecently I\'ve seen several posters on the<a title=\"IMDB\" href=\"http://www.imdb.com/\"> Internet Movie Database</a> who make lists of the greatest films of all time and half of their list is films made since 1990, hardly a golden age of the movies. They include \"Pulp Fiction,\" \"Reservoir Dogs,\" the Lord of the Rings trilogy and all sorts of other special-effects fests, and the only films from before 1950 that ever make their lists are the ones everybody knows.\r\n\r\nI understand their problem.\r\n\r\nAfter all, if you accept the fact that important things happened before you were born, you may have to admit to yourself you are not the crown of creation.\r\n\r\nI just finished watching a movie tonight, I\'m ashamed to say for the first time, that I would stack up against any of those I mentioned from the last 15-20 years.\r\n\r\nIt\'s not Judy Garland\'s most famous movie, but the performance she gives as lovely Rose Smith, a turn-of-the-century beauty, in Vincente Minnelli\'s \"Meet Me in St. Louis\" (1944) was one of her very best. It\'s even got a song to compare with \"Over the Rainbow.\"\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1469\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Judy Garland with Margaret O&#39;Brian\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1469\" title=\"Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nThere aren\'t any wizards or wicked witches, and there\'s nothing even to compare with a tornado for dramatic effect. It\'s simply the story of a loving family, and the biggest suspense is whether they will leave their home in St. Louis and move to New York.\r\n\r\nIt\'s interesting that there may have been more drama connected with the film itself than in the story. Garland reportedly balked at doing the film with O\'Brian for fear that the 7-year-old child star would steal the show. O\'Brian didn\'t get the part at first because her manager mother asked for too much money.\r\n\r\nOnce the filming was on, Garland insisted that the lyrics be changed in \"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas\" because she felt they were too downbeat for her character to sing to her little sister.\r\n\r\nThe original lyrics were more suited to 1944 America, with troops fighting in Europe and the Pacific, than to 1903 St. Louis in what was still a halcyon era for American families. Garland objected to singing \"Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last,\" which seems like a rather downbeat Christmas carol anyway.\r\n\r\nhttp://youtu.be/5g4lY8Y3eoo\r\n\r\nIn the end, the song worked beautifully as revised and the movie did as well. There are plenty of film aficianados who believe this film ushered in the Golden Age of MGM musicals, and if it was later surpassed by films like \"Singing in the Rain,\" it stands the test of time as well as any of them.\r\n\r\nMaybe one of these days I\'ll come up with a list of my own, of Hollywood\'s 50 best movies. I\'ll bet I could do a pretty good list and never include anything from the last 20 years.','Not all the good movies were made recently','','inherit','open','open','','1468-revision-2','','','2011-12-16 19:47:18','2011-12-17 03:47:18','',1468,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1472',0,'revision','',0),(1474,1,'2011-12-16 19:53:53','2011-12-17 03:53:53','I get annoyed when I come across people who think history started the day they were born.\r\n\r\nRecently I\'ve seen several posters on the<a title=\"IMDB\" href=\"http://www.imdb.com/\"> Internet Movie Database</a> who make lists of the greatest films of all time and half of their list is films made since 1990, hardly a golden age of the movies. They include \"Pulp Fiction,\" \"Reservoir Dogs,\" the Lord of the Rings trilogy and all sorts of other special-effects fests, and the only films from before 1950 that ever make their lists are the ones everybody knows.\r\n\r\nI understand their problem.\r\n\r\nAfter all, if you accept the fact that important things happened before you were born, you may have to admit to yourself you are not the crown of creation.\r\n\r\nI just finished watching a movie tonight, I\'m ashamed to say for the first time, that I would stack up against any of those I mentioned from the last 15-20 years.\r\n\r\nIt\'s not Judy Garland\'s most famous movie, but the performance she gives as lovely Rose Smith, a turn-of-the-century beauty, in Vincente Minnelli\'s \"Meet Me in St. Louis\" (1944) was one of her very best. It\'s even got a song to compare with \"Over the Rainbow.\"\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1469\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Judy Garland with Margaret O&#39;Brian\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1469\" title=\"Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nThere aren\'t any wizards or wicked witches, and there\'s nothing even to compare with a tornado for dramatic effect. It\'s simply the story of a loving family, and the biggest suspense is whether they will leave their home in St. Louis and move to New York.\r\n\r\nIt\'s interesting that there may have been more drama connected with the film itself than in the story. Garland reportedly balked at doing the film with O\'Brian for fear that the 7-year-old child star would steal the show. O\'Brian didn\'t get the part at first because her manager mother asked for too much money.\r\n\r\nOnce the filming was on, Garland insisted that the lyrics be changed in \"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas\" because she felt they were too downbeat for her character to sing to her little sister.\r\n\r\nThe original lyrics were more suited to 1944 America, with troops fighting in Europe and the Pacific, than to 1903 St. Louis in what was still a halcyon era for American families. Garland objected to singing \"Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last,\" which seems like a rather downbeat Christmas carol anyway.\r\n\r\nhttp://youtu.be/5g4lY8Y3eoo\r\n\r\nIn the end, the song worked beautifully as revised and the movie did as well. There are plenty of film aficianados who believe this film ushered in the Golden Age of MGM musicals, and if it was later surpassed by films like \"Singing in the Rain,\" it stands the test of time as well as any of them.\r\n\r\nMaybe one of these days I\'ll come up with a list of my own, of Hollywood\'s 50 best movies. I\'ll bet I could do a pretty good list and never include anything from the last 20 years.','Not all the good movies were made recently','','inherit','open','open','','1468-revision-4','','','2011-12-16 19:53:53','2011-12-17 03:53:53','',1468,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1474',0,'revision','',0),(1473,1,'2011-12-16 19:50:41','2011-12-17 03:50:41','I get annoyed when I come across people who think history started the day they were born.\r\n\r\nRecently I\'ve seen several posters on the<a title=\"IMDB\" href=\"http://www.imdb.com/\"> Internet Movie Database</a> who make lists of the greatest films of all time and half of their list is films made since 1990, hardly a golden age of the movies. They include \"Pulp Fiction,\" \"Reservoir Dogs,\" the Lord of the Rings trilogy and all sorts of other special-effects fests, and the only films from before 1950 that ever make their lists are the ones everybody knows.\r\n\r\nI understand their problem.\r\n\r\nAfter all, if you accept the fact that important things happened before you were born, you may have to admit to yourself you are not the crown of creation.\r\n\r\nI just finished watching a movie tonight, I\'m ashamed to say for the first time, that I would stack up against any of those I mentioned from the last 15-20 years.\r\n\r\nIt\'s not Judy Garland\'s most famous movie, but the performance she gives as lovely Rose Smith, a turn-of-the-century beauty, in Vincente Minnelli\'s \"Meet Me in St. Louis\" (1944) was one of her very best. It\'s even got a song to compare with \"Over the Rainbow.\"\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1469\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Judy Garland with Margaret O&#39;Brian\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1469\" title=\"Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nThere aren\'t any wizards or wicked witches, and there\'s nothing even to compare with a tornado for dramatic effect. It\'s simply the story of a loving family, and the biggest suspense is whether they will leave their home in St. Louis and move to New York.\r\n\r\nIt\'s interesting that there may have been more drama connected with the film itself than in the story. Garland reportedly balked at doing the film with O\'Brian for fear that the 7-year-old child star would steal the show. O\'Brian didn\'t get the part at first because her manager mother asked for too much money.\r\n\r\nOnce the filming was on, Garland insisted that the lyrics be changed in \"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas\" because she felt they were too downbeat for her character to sing to her little sister.\r\n\r\nThe original lyrics were more suited to 1944 America, with troops fighting in Europe and the Pacific, than to 1903 St. Louis in what was still a halcyon era for American families. Garland objected to singing \"Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last,\" which seems like a rather downbeat Christmas carol anyway.\r\n\r\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g4lY8Y3eoo\r\n\r\nIn the end, the song worked beautifully as revised and the movie did as well. There are plenty of film aficianados who believe this film ushered in the Golden Age of MGM musicals, and if it was later surpassed by films like \"Singing in the Rain,\" it stands the test of time as well as any of them.\r\n\r\nMaybe one of these days I\'ll come up with a list of my own, of Hollywood\'s 50 best movies. I\'ll bet I could do a pretty good list and never include anything from the last 20 years.','Not all the good movies were made recently','','inherit','open','open','','1468-revision-3','','','2011-12-16 19:50:41','2011-12-17 03:50:41','',1468,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1473',0,'revision','',0),(1476,1,'2011-12-26 19:30:16','2011-12-27 03:30:16','Nobody does despair like the Irish, and nobody does Irish better than the Pogues.\r\n\r\nThey\'re not actually Irish. The entry in Wikipedia refers to them as a Celtic punk band from London, but their name comes from <em>pog ma thoin</em>, loosely translated from the Irish as \"kiss my arse.\"\r\n\r\nI had heard of them before, but I had never bought anything of theirs until I got their version of Eric Bogle\'s \"And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda\" off iTunes. Then yesterday I discovered their great Christmas song, \"Fairytale of New York.\" Viewers on VH1 Great Britain voted it the best Christmas song of all time, although it\'s like no other Christmas song I\'ve ever heard.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1477\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Shane Macgowan and the late Kirsty MacColl\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pogues_2085282b.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1477\" title=\"pogues_2085282b\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pogues_2085282b-300x187.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"187\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nIt\'s a story of an aging alcoholic who finds himself in the drunk tank on Christmas Eve, remembering happier times with a woman he knew. The song turns into a back-and-forth between Macgowan and MacColl, in which they insult each other lovingly.\r\n\r\n<em>You\'re a bum</em>\r\n<em> You\'re a punk</em>\r\n<em> You\'re an old slut on junk</em>\r\n<em> Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed</em>\r\n<em> You scumbag, you maggot</em>\r\n<em> You cheap lousy faggot</em>\r\n<em> Happy Christmas your arse</em>\r\n<em> I pray God it\'s our last</em>\r\n\r\n<em>The boys of the NYPD choir</em>\r\n<em> Still singing Galway Bay</em>\r\n<em> And the bells were ringing out</em>\r\n<em> For Christmas day.</em>\r\n\r\nThere actually is no NYPD choir, but it hardly matters. There haven\'t been many Christmas songs that look at the other side of the holiday, at people who don\'t have families to visit and won\'t be getting any gifts they don\'t buy for themselves. Christmas is the time of year when more sick people die and when the suicide rate spikes. Christmas may be for the family, as Dennis Day sang in one of my mother\'s favorite Christmas songs, but if you have no family -- if you have no one at all to share it with -- Christmas is anything but the happiest day of the year.\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/NrAwK9juhhY\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"></iframe>\r\n\r\nThe YouTube version of the song from St. Patrick\'s Day 1988 has been viewed nearly 7 million times, and as much as any song I\'ve ever heard, it\'s a reminder that while there are people dressed to the nines for Midnight Mass or waking up early to look at the presents under the tree, there are people freezing in the streets, detoxing in the drunk tank and just living without any hope of happiness of the kind we grow to expcet.\r\n\r\nTwo miles outside the gates of the retirement community in which I live, there is a trailer park. It isn\'t even a particularly nice trailer park.  Several of the units visible from the road are broken-down and abandoned, but if you look a little farther, there are at least two or three not-so-mobile homes decorated very tastefully with Christmas lights.\r\n\r\nThese folks don\'t have much, but they believe.\r\n\r\n<em>The boys of the NYPD choir</em>\r\n<em> Still singing Galway Bay</em>\r\n<em> And the bells were ringing out</em>\r\n<em> For Christmas day.</em>','Pogues\' \'Fairytale\' a different look at Christmas','','publish','open','open','','pogues-fairytale-a-different-look-at-christmas','','','2011-12-26 19:30:16','2011-12-27 03:30:16','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1476',0,'post','',0),(1477,1,'2011-12-26 18:44:34','2011-12-27 02:44:34','','pogues_2085282b','Shane Macgowan and the late Kirsty MacColl','inherit','open','open','','pogues_2085282b','','','2011-12-26 18:44:34','2011-12-27 02:44:34','',1476,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pogues_2085282b.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1478,1,'2011-12-26 19:29:38','2011-12-27 03:29:38','Nobody does despair like the Irish, and nobody does Irish better than the Pogues.\n\nThey\'re not actually Irish. The entry in Wikipedia refers to them as a Celtic punk band from London, but their name comes from <em>pog ma thoin</em>, loosely translated from the Irish as \"kiss my arse.\"\n\nI had heard of them before, but I had never bought anything of theirs until I got their version of Eric Bogle\'s \"And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda\" off iTunes. Then yesterday I discovered their great Christmas song, \"Fairytale of New York.\" Viewers on VH1 Great Britain voted it the best Christmas song of all time, although it\'s like no other Christmas song I\'ve ever heard.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1477\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Shane Macgowan and the late Kirsty MacColl\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pogues_2085282b.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1477\" title=\"pogues_2085282b\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pogues_2085282b-300x187.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"187\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nIt\'s a story of an aging alcoholic who finds himself in the drunk tank on Christmas Eve, remembering happier times with a woman he knew. The song turns into a back-and-forth between Macgowan and MacColl, in which they insult each other lovingly.\n\n<em>You\'re a bum</em>\n<em> You\'re a punk</em>\n<em> You\'re an old slut on junk</em>\n<em> Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed</em>\n<em> You scumbag, you maggot</em>\n<em> You cheap lousy faggot</em>\n<em> Happy Christmas your arse</em>\n<em> I pray God it\'s our last</em>\n\n<em>The boys of the NYPD choir</em>\n<em> Still singing Galway Bay</em>\n<em> And the bells were ringing out</em>\n<em> For Christmas day.</em>\n\nThere actually is no NYPD choir, but it hardly matters. There haven\'t been many Christmas songs that look at the other side of the holiday, at people who don\'t have families to visit and won\'t be getting any gifts they don\'t buy for themselves. Christmas is the time of year when more sick people die and when the suicide rate spikes. Christmas may be for the family, as Dennis Day sang in one of my mother\'s favorite Christmas songs, but if you have no family -- if you have no one at all to share it with -- Christmas is anything but the happiest day of the year.\n\n<iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/NrAwK9juhhY\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"></iframe>\n\nThe YouTube version of the song from St. Patrick\'s Day 1988 has been viewed nearly 7 million times, and as much as any song I\'ve ever heard, it\'s a reminder that while there are people dressed to the nines for Midnight Mass or waking up early to look at the presents under the tree, there are people freezing in the streets, detoxing in the drunk tank and just living without any hope of happiness of the kind we grow to expcet.\n\nTwo miles outside the gates of the retirement community in which I live, there is a trailer park. It isn\'t even a particularly nice trailer park.  Several of the units visible from the road are broken-down and abandoned, but if you look a little farther, there are at least two or three not-so-mobile homes decorated very tastefully with Christmas lights.\n\nThese folks don\'t have much, but they believe.\n\n<em>The boys of the NYPD choir</em>\n<em> Still singing Galway Bay</em>\n<em> And the bells were ringing out</em>\n<em> For Christmas day.</em>','Pogues\' \'Fairytale\' a different look at Christmas','','inherit','open','open','','1476-revision','','','2011-12-26 19:29:38','2011-12-27 03:29:38','',1476,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1478',0,'revision','',0),(1493,1,'2012-01-06 19:22:34','2012-01-07 03:22:34','When I was in high school, the coolest guy in the world was British.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1494\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"1965\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/TBall.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1494\" title=\"TBall\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/TBall-300x221.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"221\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nOf course he was also a fictional character, but if there was anyone who didn\'t want to be James Bond, I sure didn\'t know him.\r\n\r\nBond was suave, sophisticated, great with the ladies and capable of doing all sorts of impossible things for Queen and Country.\r\n\r\nOf course there have been all sorts of actors playing Secret Agent 007 since the series began in 1962 with \"Doctor No,\" including Woody Allen,  but for those of us who were the right age to see the original films in their first release, the only <em>real</em> Bond is Sean Connery.\r\n\r\nIt has been nearly 40 years since Connery did his last turn as Bond, and at 81, he is in semi-retirement. But just as Connery played Robin Hood at the end of his life in \"Robin and Marian,\" it might be interesting to see him as an older, retired 007.\r\n\r\nActually, his role in \"The Rock\" as a British secret agent who has been in an American prison for decades could easily have been a Bond takeoff.\r\n\r\nI don\'t think \"Thunderball\" was Connery\'s best turn as Bond -- \"From Russia With Love\" and \"Goldfinger\" are probably competing for that honor -- but there was something special about it. Maybe it was that Connery was maturing as Bond, or maybe it\'s just that I was 15 then and had read most of Ian Fleming\'s Bond novels.\r\n\r\nFor whatever reason, I still enjoy \"Thunderball,\" even though I\'m watching it on a 37-inch television instead of the massive movie screens of the \'60s.\r\n\r\nWe adjust, and anyway, it\'s the memories that matter.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','\'Thunderball\' was Bond when he was peaking','','publish','open','open','','thunderball-was-bond-when-he-was-peaking','','','2012-01-06 19:22:34','2012-01-07 03:22:34','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1493',0,'post','',0),(1481,1,'2011-12-30 19:09:10','2011-12-31 03:09:10','<em>\"Probably everybody be nice to you if they knew you were dying.\"</em>\r\n<em>\"Everybody knows everybody is dying. That is why people are nice. You all die soon enough, so why not be nice to each other.\"</em>\r\n<strong>-- MARK HARRIS, \"Bang the Drum Slowly\"</strong>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1483\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Robert De Niro as doomed catcher Bruce Pearson.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/DeNiroBangDrumSlowly.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1483\" title=\"Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/DeNiroBangDrumSlowly-300x174.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"174\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nEverybody knows everybody is dying. From the moment we\'re born, it\'s an invisible countdown to the end, invisible only because none of us know exactly how many years of life we\'ll have.\r\n\r\nSo we do our best to ignore it, taking it seriously only when someone near to us has a serious illness.\r\n\r\nNicole and I have been through several tough illnesses in the nearly 20 years we have been together, and the older we get, the more serious the implications can be. I\'m certainly not complaining. I have friends whose health problems are every bit as serious as ours. My friends deal with their problems by continuing to put one foot in front of the other and taking one step at a time.\r\n\r\nIt\'s really all you can do, and while people certainly do seem to be nicer to you when they know you are dying, I think most of us are nicer to the people we love when they are simply ill.\r\n\r\nMy wife said something to me recently that served to make me both happy and sad at the same time. She said that one thing she liked about being ill was that I am so kind to her when she is ill.\r\n\r\nI was happy to hear it, but disappointed in myself that it should take an illness to make me be nicer to the person I love  more than anyone else in the world.\r\n\r\nIt is a step, though, and as health improves, maybe we can hang onto the feeling that made us be nicer in the first place.\r\n\r\nAfter all, everybody knows everybody is dying. That is why people are nice.  We all die soon enough, so why not be nicer to each other.','We\'re all dying someday, so why not be nice','','publish','open','open','','were-all-dying-someday-so-why-not-be-nice','','','2011-12-30 19:09:10','2011-12-31 03:09:10','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1481',0,'post','',0),(1482,1,'2011-12-29 19:46:03','2011-12-30 03:46:03','<em>\"Probably everybody be nice to you if they knew you were dying.\"</em>\n<em>\"Everybody knows everybody is dying. That is why people are nice. You all die soon enough, so why not be nice to each other.\"</em>\n<strong>-- MARK HARRIS, \"Bang the Drum Slowly\"</strong>\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1481-revision','','','2011-12-29 19:46:03','2011-12-30 03:46:03','',1481,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1482',0,'revision','',0),(1483,1,'2011-12-30 18:04:19','2011-12-31 02:04:19','Robert De Niro (Bruce Pearson) ia a farmboy who learns he is dying.','Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)','Robert De Niro as doomed catcher Bruce Pearson.','inherit','open','open','','bang-the-drum-slowly-1973','','','2011-12-30 18:04:19','2011-12-31 02:04:19','',1481,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/DeNiroBangDrumSlowly.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1484,1,'2011-12-30 19:08:25','2011-12-31 03:08:25','<em>\"Probably everybody be nice to you if they knew you were dying.\"</em>\n<em>\"Everybody knows everybody is dying. That is why people are nice. You all die soon enough, so why not be nice to each other.\"</em>\n<strong>-- MARK HARRIS, \"Bang the Drum Slowly\"</strong>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1483\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Robert De Niro as doomed catcher Bruce Pearson.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/DeNiroBangDrumSlowly.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1483\" title=\"Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/DeNiroBangDrumSlowly-300x174.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"174\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nEverybody knows everybody is dying. From the moment we\'re born, it\'s an invisible countdown to the end, invisible only because none of us know exactly how many years of life we\'ll have.\n\nSo we do our best to ignore it, taking it seriously only when someone near to us has a serious illness.\n\nNicole and I have been through several tough illnesses in the nearly 20 years we have been together, and the older we get, the more serious the implications can be. I\'m certainly not complaining. I have friends whose health problems are every bit as serious as ours. My friends deal with their problems by continuing to put one foot in front of the other and taking one step at a time.\n\nIt\'s really all you can do, and while people certainly do seem to be nicer to you when they know you are dying, I think most of us are nicer to the people we love when they are simply ill.\n\nMy wife said something to me recently that served to make me both happy and sad at the same time. She said that one thing she liked about being ill was that I am so kind to her when she is ill.\n\nI was happy to hear it, but disappointed in myself that it should take an illness to make me be nicer to the person I love  more than anyone else in the world.\n\nIt is a step, though, and as health improves, maybe we can hang onto the feeling that made us be nicer in the first place.\n\nAfter all, everybody knows everybody is dying. That is why people are nice.  We all die soon enough, so why not be nicer\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1481-revision-2','','','2011-12-30 19:08:25','2011-12-31 03:08:25','',1481,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1484',0,'revision','',0),(1485,1,'2011-12-31 18:15:46','2012-01-01 02:15:46','I was going to write about New Year\'s Eve tonight, about how I\'ve had very few wild ones in my six-plus decades on Earth.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/6a00e39827d9ad88330168e4bdd255970c-800wi.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1487\" title=\"6a00e39827d9ad88330168e4bdd255970c-800wi\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/6a00e39827d9ad88330168e4bdd255970c-800wi-300x226.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" /></a>But then I saw a post on Facebook from one of my friends, Tina Bacas Gibson. Three words. Three simple words.\r\n\r\n<em>\"Fuck you, 2011.\"</em>\r\n\r\nI don\'t blame her. I certainly don\'t know all the reasons she might have had for feeling that way, but I do know she lost a sister to cancer this year and that might just be enough.\r\n\r\nYears are rarely all good or all bad, but we generally remember them for the overall impression they leave with us. I lost my job in January 2008, but eight months later my little granddaughter Madison Nicole was born. That\'s why I can\'t really hate 2008, even though my dad died in March of that year.\r\n\r\nThis year hasn\'t been all that great, although it followed a year in which a number of wonderful things happened. We have been really struggling in the second half of the year, and my lovely wife\'s health has been a big problem.\r\n\r\nBut calling 2011 a total loss would be a mistake, because once again Pauline and Ryan came through and gave us another grandchild. Little Lexington Wesley was born in November.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1488\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Maddie, Lexington and Ryan\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/20111217_12.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1488\" title=\"20111217_12\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/20111217_12-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nNext year may be a good one. Virgile and Sterling will return from Greece for language training in Washington, D.C., and Pauline and her family will wrap up their tour in Surabaya and start three years in Jamaica.\r\n\r\nOur whole family will be in two time zones.\r\n\r\nThat in itself ought to make 2012 better than 2011.\r\n\r\nHope it\'s better for Tina, too.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Bad years end, with good ones to follow them','','publish','open','open','','bad-years-end-with-good-ones-to-follow-them','','','2011-12-31 18:15:46','2012-01-01 02:15:46','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1485',0,'post','',0),(1486,1,'2011-12-31 17:11:53','2012-01-01 01:11:53','','NYE-11.15.11','2012 makes its debut.','inherit','open','open','','nye-11-15-11','','','2011-12-31 17:11:53','2012-01-01 01:11:53','',1485,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/NYE-11.15.11.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1487,1,'2011-12-31 17:47:29','2012-01-01 01:47:29','','6a00e39827d9ad88330168e4bdd255970c-800wi','','inherit','open','open','','6a00e39827d9ad88330168e4bdd255970c-800wi','','','2011-12-31 17:47:29','2012-01-01 01:47:29','',1485,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/6a00e39827d9ad88330168e4bdd255970c-800wi.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1488,1,'2011-12-31 18:08:08','2012-01-01 02:08:08','','20111217_12','Maddie, Lexington and Ryan','inherit','open','open','','20111217_12','','','2011-12-31 18:08:08','2012-01-01 02:08:08','',1485,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/20111217_12.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1489,1,'2011-12-31 18:15:27','2012-01-01 02:15:27','I was going to write about New Year\'s Eve tonight, about how I\'ve had very few wild ones in my six-plus decades on Earth.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/6a00e39827d9ad88330168e4bdd255970c-800wi.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1487\" title=\"6a00e39827d9ad88330168e4bdd255970c-800wi\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/6a00e39827d9ad88330168e4bdd255970c-800wi-300x226.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" /></a>But then I saw a post on Facebook from one of my friends, Tina Bacas Gibson. Three words. Three simple words.\n\n<em>\"Fuck you, 2011.\"</em>\n\nI don\'t blame her. I certainly don\'t know all the reasons she might have had for feeling that way, but I do know she lost a sister to cancer this year and that might just be enough.\n\nYears are rarely all good or all bad, but we generally remember them for the overall impression they leave with us. I lost my job in January 2008, but eight months later my little granddaughter Madison Nicole was born. That\'s why I can\'t really hate 2008, even though my dad died in March of that year.\n\nThis year hasn\'t been all that great, although it followed a year in which a number of wonderful things happened. We have been really struggling in the second half of the year, and my lovely wife\'s health has been a big problem.\n\nBut calling 2011 a total loss would be a mistake, because once again Pauline and Ryan came through and gave us another grandchild. Little Lexington Wesley was born in November.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1488\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Maddie, Lexington and Ryan\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/20111217_12.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1488\" title=\"20111217_12\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/20111217_12-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nNext year may be a good one. Virgile and Sterling will return from Greece for language training in Washington, D.C., and Pauline and her family will wrap up their tour in Surabaya and start three years in Jamaica.\n\nOur whole family will be in two time zones.\n\nThat in itself ought to make 2012 better than 2011.\n\nHope it\'s better for Tina, too.\n\n&nbsp;','Bad years end, with good ones to follow them','','inherit','open','open','','1485-revision','','','2011-12-31 18:15:27','2012-01-01 02:15:27','',1485,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1489',0,'revision','',0),(1490,1,'2012-01-01 20:31:14','2012-01-02 04:31:14','If you can\'t be optimistic at the beginning of the year, I\'m not sure you can ever be optimistic.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/image38.png\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1491\" title=\"image38\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/image38-300x225.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>It\'s certainly easy to be negative when you\'re looking back on a bad year. I don\'t remember which year it was that Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain referred to as an <em>annus horribilis</em>; I think it might have been the year Chuck and Di got divorced, but I\'m not sure. My friend Mick thought she had said <em>anus horribilis</em>, which is a whole different kettle of worms.\r\n\r\nAt any rate, we all have bad years in our lives, and most of us don\'t anticipate them in advance. It just isn\'t human nature.\r\n\r\nThere certainly are years I will remember as bad ones, and without giving it really serious thought, I probably would have put 2011 fairly high on that list. Almost all of the progress I made in getting into shape in 2010 was lost in 2011, and as the New Year starts, I find myself starting all over again.\r\n\r\n<em>Cue Mel and Tim ...</em>\r\n\r\nAh, \"Starting All Over Again,\" another one of those \'60s songs that no one remembers except me, Mel and Tim.\r\n\r\nBut I wrote about 2011 yesterday, as fast away the old year passed.\r\n\r\nNow it\'s 2012, and some great things are going to happen this year. For one thing, I\'m going to get back into shape. For another, I\'m going to finish my book, which has essentially been on hold -- two-thirds finished -- for most of the last year. For a third, I\'m going to see to it that Nicole becomes healthy and happy again. Heck, we might even take a cruise together.\r\n\r\nYears ending in \"2\" have been a mixed blessing for me, but one thing tops everything else. It was 20 years ago that Nicole and I met, fell in love and got married after knowing each other only 51 days. This November, God willing, we will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary.\r\n\r\nI\'ve got a feeling it\'s going to be a really good year.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','On the year\'s first day, reason for optimism','','publish','open','open','','on-the-years-first-day-reason-for-optimism','','','2012-01-01 20:31:14','2012-01-02 04:31:14','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1490',0,'post','',0),(1491,1,'2012-01-01 20:20:38','2012-01-02 04:20:38','','image38','','inherit','open','open','','image38','','','2012-01-01 20:20:38','2012-01-02 04:20:38','',1490,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/image38.png',0,'attachment','image/png',0),(1492,1,'2012-01-01 20:31:02','2012-01-02 04:31:02','If you can\'t be optimistic at the beginning of the year, I\'m not sure you can ever be optimistic.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/image38.png\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1491\" title=\"image38\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/image38-300x225.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>It\'s certainly easy to be negative when you\'re looking back on a bad year. I don\'t remember which year it was that Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain referred to as an <em>annus horribilis</em>; I think it might have been the year Chuck and Di got divorced, but I\'m not sure. My friend Mick thought she had said <em>anus horribilis</em>, which is a whole different kettle of worms.\n\nAt any rate, we all have bad years in our lives, and most of us don\'t anticipate them in advance. It just isn\'t human nature.\n\nThere certainly are years I will remember as bad ones, and without giving it really serious thought, I probably would have put 2011 fairly high on that list. Almost all of the progress I made in getting into shape in 2010 was lost in 2011, and as the New Year starts, I find myself starting all over again.\n\n<em>Cue Mel and Tim ...</em>\n\nAh, \"Starting All Over Again,\" another one of those \'60s songs that no one remembers except me, Mel and Tim.\n\nBut I wrote about 2011 yesterday, as fast away the old year passed.\n\nNow it\'s 2012, and some great things are going to happen this year. For one thing, I\'m going to get back into shape. For another, I\'m going to finish my book, which has essentially been on hold -- two-thirds finished -- for most of the last year. For a third, I\'m going to see to it that Nicole becomes healthy and happy again. Heck, we might even take a cruise together.\n\nYears ending in \"2\" have been a mixed blessing for me, but one thing tops everything else. It was 20 years ago that Nicole and I met, fell in love and got married after knowing each other only 51 days. This November, God willing, we will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary.\n\nI\'ve got a feeling it\'s going to be a really good year.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1490-revision','','','2012-01-01 20:31:02','2012-01-02 04:31:02','',1490,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1492',0,'revision','',0),(1500,1,'2012-01-16 20:13:58','2012-01-17 04:13:58','When was it that the primary goal of our economy became making people who were already wealthy even wealthier?\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/104302_600.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1501\" title=\"104302_600\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/104302_600-300x210.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"210\" /></a>We live in a time when taxes of the very wealthiest among us are at an historic low, and budget deficits are at all-time highs, yet conservatives battle like demons to keep even the tiniest tax increases from being passed by Congress. Indeed, Republicans running for president refused to agree to even one dollar in tax increases for every $10 in spending cuts.\r\n\r\nFor more than thirty years, Republicans from Reagan to the Bushes to the current crop of candidates have been attacking the role of government in our society. They have turned dozens of government functions into ways for rich campaign contributors to get even richer.\r\n\r\nMaybe the worst part of all the changes we have been put through is that we have gotten rid of most of our manufacturing jobs -- the folks who actually <em>made</em> things -- and have replaced them with an entirely new category of jobs where people make massive amountsd of money simply by moving money around.\r\n\r\nIn his brilliant \"Bonfire of the Vanities,\" Tom Wolfe\'s main character, banker Sherman McCoy, describes his job as not the person who bakes the cake, not the person who buys the cake, but instead a person who puts together the deal by getting the baker and the buyer together. His compensation is nothing more than a few crumbs that fall off the cake.\r\n\r\nOf course, those crumbs add up.\r\n\r\nOf all the \"moving money around\" jobs, there is one particular type of job that I\'ve always thought was the most evil. Call them \"corporate raiders\" or whatever you want; they\'re the ones who come in and buy up companies, sell off their best assets, lay off workers and then sell the shells and walk away with big profits. Lots of working class and middle class people lose their jobs. A few rich people make massive profits.\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/BLWnB9FGmWE\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"></iframe>\r\n\r\nThis year, one of the men who wants to be president is one of those corporate raiders. Mitt Romney, whose government experience is limited to four years as governor of Massachusetts, has worked for much of his career as one of the biggest corporate raiders of all. He has amassed a personal fortune estimated at $264 million, without ever working for a company that actually <em>made</em> anything.\r\n\r\nThere has been a lot of talk in the last year or so about the 1 percent and the 99 percent. And while government has been slanted toward favoring the wealthy ever since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, it has been getting sillier and sillier since George W. Bush took office in 2001 and slashed taxes on the richest Americans.\r\n\r\nI don\'t think Mitt Romney is ever going to be president. He\'s got that same politically geeky quality that hurt Al Gore and John Kerry so much in their races for president. I\'ve always hated the idea of people voting for the candidate they would most like to have a beer with, but that\'s one thing that won\'t be working in Romney\'s favor this time.\r\n\r\nPoor Mittens.\r\n\r\nHe might just have to settle for the money.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Poor Mitt may come up short on the beer test in \'12','','publish','open','open','','poor-mitt-might-come-up-sort-on-the-beer-test-in-12','','','2012-01-18 19:44:30','2012-01-19 03:44:30','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1500',0,'post','',0),(1494,1,'2012-01-06 19:00:21','2012-01-07 03:00:21','','TBall','1965','inherit','open','open','','tball','','','2012-01-06 19:00:21','2012-01-07 03:00:21','',1493,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/TBall.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1495,1,'2012-01-06 19:22:19','2012-01-07 03:22:19','When I was in high school, the coolest guy in the world was British.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1494\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"1965\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/TBall.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1494\" title=\"TBall\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/TBall-300x221.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"221\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nOf course he was also a fictional character, but if there was anyone who didn\'t want to be James Bond, I sure didn\'t know him.\n\nBond was suave, sophisticated, great with the ladies and capable of doing all sorts of impossible things for Queen and Country.\n\nOf course there have been all sorts of actors playing Secret Agent 007 since the series began in 1962 with \"Doctor No,\" including Woody Allen,  but for those of us who were the right age to see the original films in their first release, the only <em>real</em> Bond is Sean Connery.\n\nIt has been nearly 40 years since Connery did his last turn as Bond, and at 81, he is in semi-retirement. But just as Connery played Robin Hood at the end of his life in \"Robin and Marian,\" it might be interesting to see him as an older, retired 007.\n\nActually, his role in \"The Rock\" as a British secret agent who has been in an American prison for decades could easily have been a Bond takeoff.\n\nI don\'t think \"Thunderball\" was Connery\'s best turn as Bond -- \"From Russia With Love\" and \"Goldfinger\" are probably competing for that honor -- but there was something special about it. Maybe it was that Connery was maturing as Bond, or maybe it\'s just that I was 15 then and had read most of Ian Fleming\'s Bond novels.\n\nFor whatever reason, I still enjoy \"Thunderball,\" even though I\'m watching it on a 37-inch television instead of the massive movie screens of the \'60s.\n\nWe adjust, and anyway, it\'s the memories that matter.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','\'Thunderball\' was Bond when he was peaking','','inherit','open','open','','1493-revision','','','2012-01-06 19:22:19','2012-01-07 03:22:19','',1493,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1495',0,'revision','',0),(1504,1,'2012-01-21 19:35:32','2012-01-22 03:35:32','I recently discovered something on the Internet that absolutely blew me away with how terrific it is.\r\n\r\nIf that sounds a little too \"gee whiz,\" let me explain. There are both good things and bad about the \'net, and some of the bad things are really bad -- hate sites and other sites that allow people whose behavior is well beyond the pale to communicate with each other.\r\n\r\nI had heard about Pandora before, and I listened to some of the music when I was visiting my daughter in Seattle and she was playing it on her laptop. I put it out of my mind, but today I was goofing around and I called up Pandora on my own computer. I don\'t know exactly what I was expecting, but it was more. I thought I would be able to listen to stations that already existed, but it\'s better than that.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pandora.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1505\" title=\"pandora\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pandora-300x219.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Since 2000, the founders of Pandora have created something called the <a title=\"Music Genome Project\" href=\"http://www.pandora.com/mgp.shtml\">Music Genome Project</a>, an attempt to capture the essence of music at the most basic level of all.\r\n\r\nI don\'t know how many thousands of songs are in the Pandora database, but I created a station -- starting with the music of Eric Bogle -- and what I realized very quickly is that Pandora created a playlist filled not only with Bogle\'s best songs, but with great songs by other artists that someone who likes Bogle might also like.\r\n\r\nPandora showed me Jackson C. Frank, a \'60s folksinger who had roomed with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in 1964 in London. He made one great album, produced by Simon, called \"Blues Run the Game.\" Frank died in 1999, and an expanded version of his single great album was released after his death.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/bluesrunthegame.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1508\" title=\"bluesrunthegame\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/bluesrunthegame-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a>It\'s a great album, and without Pandora, I would never have been aware of it.\r\n\r\nI also heard some great stuff by folksinger John McCutcheon, another person I discovered through the Bogle channel. Now I\'m looking forward to trying all sorts of musical combinations.\r\n\r\nIt really is wonderful.\r\n\r\nAnd for some reason, I was reminded of one of my favorite movies. In \"Notting Hill,\" Hugh Grant says something to Rhys Ifans about opening Pandora\'s box.\r\n\r\nIfans\' reply:\r\n\r\n<em>\"I knew a girl named Pandora once, but she never let me see her box.\"</em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Pandora radio opens many boxes of music','','publish','open','open','','pandora-radio-opens-many-boxes-when-it-comes-to-music','','','2012-01-21 19:36:33','2012-01-22 03:36:33','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1504',0,'post','',0),(1498,1,'2012-01-10 19:20:50','2012-01-11 03:20:50','','grapes-of-wrath','Grapes of Wrath','inherit','open','open','','grapes-of-wrath','','','2012-01-10 19:20:50','2012-01-11 03:20:50','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/grapes-of-wrath.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1501,1,'2012-01-16 18:57:34','2012-01-17 02:57:34','','104302_600','','inherit','open','open','','104302_600','','','2012-01-16 18:57:34','2012-01-17 02:57:34','',1500,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/104302_600.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1502,1,'2012-01-16 20:13:46','2012-01-17 04:13:46','When was it that the primary goal of our economy became making people who were already wealthy even wealthier?\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/104302_600.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1501\" title=\"104302_600\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/104302_600-300x210.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"210\" /></a>We live in a time when taxes of the very wealthiest among us are at an historic low, and budget deficits are at all-time highs, yet conservatives battle like demons to keep even the tiniest tax increases from being passed by Congress. Indeed, Republicans running for president refused to agree to even one dollar in tax increases for every $10 in spending cuts.\n\nFor more than thirty years, Republicans from Reagan to the Bushes to the current crop of candidates have been attacking the role of government in our society. They have turned dozens of government functions into ways for rich campaign contributors to get even richer.\n\nMaybe the worst part of all the changes we have been put through is that we have gotten rid of most of our manufacturing jobs -- the folks who actually <em>made</em> things -- and have replaced them with an entirely new category of jobs where people make massive amountsd of money simply by moving money around.\n\nIn his brilliant \"Bonfire of the Vanities,\" Tom Wolfe\'s main character, banker Sherman McCoy, describes his job as not the person who bakes the cake, not the person who buys the cake, but instead a person who puts together the deal by getting the baker and the buyer together. His compensation is nothing more than a few crumbs that fall off the cake.\n\nOf course, those crumbs add up.\n\nOf all the \"moving money around\" jobs, there is one particular type of job that I\'ve always thought was the most evil. Call them \"corporate raiders\" or whatever you want; they\'re the ones who come in and buy up companies, sell off their best assets, lay off workers and then sell the shells and walk away with big profits. Lots of working class and middle class people lose their jobs. A few rich people make massive profits.\n\n<iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/BLWnB9FGmWE\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"></iframe>\n\nThis year, one of the men who wants to be president is one of those corporate raiders. Mitt Romney, whose government experience is limited to four years as governor of Massachusetts, has worked for much of his career as one of the biggest corporate raiders of all. He has amassed a personal fortune estimated at $264 million, without ever working for a company that actually <em>made</em> anything.\n\nThere has been a lot of talk in the last year or so about the 1 percent and the 99 percent. And while government has been slanted toward favoring the wealthy ever since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, it has been getting sillier and sillier since George W. Bush took office in 2001 and slashed taxes on the richest Americans.\n\nI don\'t think Mitt Romney is ever going to be president. He\'s got that same politically geeky quality that hurt Al Gore and John Kerry so much in their races for president. I\'ve always hated the idea of people voting for the candidate they would most like to have a beer with, but that\'s one thing that won\'t be working in Romney\'s favor this time.\n\nPoor Mittens.\n\nHe might just have to settle for the money.\n\n&nbsp;','Poor Mitt might come up s','','inherit','open','open','','1500-revision','','','2012-01-16 20:13:46','2012-01-17 04:13:46','',1500,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1502',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` VALUES (1503,1,'2012-01-16 20:13:58','2012-01-17 04:13:58','When was it that the primary goal of our economy became making people who were already wealthy even wealthier?\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/104302_600.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1501\" title=\"104302_600\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/104302_600-300x210.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"210\" /></a>We live in a time when taxes of the very wealthiest among us are at an historic low, and budget deficits are at all-time highs, yet conservatives battle like demons to keep even the tiniest tax increases from being passed by Congress. Indeed, Republicans running for president refused to agree to even one dollar in tax increases for every $10 in spending cuts.\r\n\r\nFor more than thirty years, Republicans from Reagan to the Bushes to the current crop of candidates have been attacking the role of government in our society. They have turned dozens of government functions into ways for rich campaign contributors to get even richer.\r\n\r\nMaybe the worst part of all the changes we have been put through is that we have gotten rid of most of our manufacturing jobs -- the folks who actually <em>made</em> things -- and have replaced them with an entirely new category of jobs where people make massive amountsd of money simply by moving money around.\r\n\r\nIn his brilliant \"Bonfire of the Vanities,\" Tom Wolfe\'s main character, banker Sherman McCoy, describes his job as not the person who bakes the cake, not the person who buys the cake, but instead a person who puts together the deal by getting the baker and the buyer together. His compensation is nothing more than a few crumbs that fall off the cake.\r\n\r\nOf course, those crumbs add up.\r\n\r\nOf all the \"moving money around\" jobs, there is one particular type of job that I\'ve always thought was the most evil. Call them \"corporate raiders\" or whatever you want; they\'re the ones who come in and buy up companies, sell off their best assets, lay off workers and then sell the shells and walk away with big profits. Lots of working class and middle class people lose their jobs. A few rich people make massive profits.\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/BLWnB9FGmWE\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"></iframe>\r\n\r\nThis year, one of the men who wants to be president is one of those corporate raiders. Mitt Romney, whose government experience is limited to four years as governor of Massachusetts, has worked for much of his career as one of the biggest corporate raiders of all. He has amassed a personal fortune estimated at $264 million, without ever working for a company that actually <em>made</em> anything.\r\n\r\nThere has been a lot of talk in the last year or so about the 1 percent and the 99 percent. And while government has been slanted toward favoring the wealthy ever since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, it has been getting sillier and sillier since George W. Bush took office in 2001 and slashed taxes on the richest Americans.\r\n\r\nI don\'t think Mitt Romney is ever going to be president. He\'s got that same politically geeky quality that hurt Al Gore and John Kerry so much in their races for president. I\'ve always hated the idea of people voting for the candidate they would most like to have a beer with, but that\'s one thing that won\'t be working in Romney\'s favor this time.\r\n\r\nPoor Mittens.\r\n\r\nHe might just have to settle for the money.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Poor Mitt might come up sort on the beer test in \'12','','inherit','open','open','','1500-revision-2','','','2012-01-16 20:13:58','2012-01-17 04:13:58','',1500,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1503',0,'revision','',0),(1505,1,'2012-01-21 19:07:41','2012-01-22 03:07:41','','pandora','','inherit','open','open','','pandora','','','2012-01-21 19:07:41','2012-01-22 03:07:41','',1504,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pandora.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1506,1,'2012-01-21 19:11:02','2012-01-22 03:11:02','I recently discovered something on the Internet that absolutely blew me away with how terrific it is.\n\nIf that sounds a little too \"gee whiz,\" let me explain. There are both good things and bad about the \'net, and some of the bad things are really bad -- hate sites and other sites that allow people whose behavior is well beyond the pale to communicate with each other.\n\nI had heard about Pandora before, and I listened to some of the music when I was visiting my daughter in Seattle and she was playing it on her laptop. I put it out of my mind, but today I was goofing around and I called up Pandora on my own computer. I don\'t know exactly what I was expecting, but it was more. I thought I would be able to listen to stations that already existed, but it\'s better than that.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pandora.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1505\" title=\"pandora\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pandora-300x219.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Since 2000, the founders of Pandora have created something called the <a title=\"Music Genome Project\" href=\"http://www.pandora.com/mgp.shtml\">Music Genome Project</a>, an attempt to capture the essence of music at the most basic level of all.\n\nI don\'t know how many thousands of songs are in the Pandora database\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1504-revision','','','2012-01-21 19:11:02','2012-01-22 03:11:02','',1504,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1506',0,'revision','',0),(1508,1,'2012-01-21 19:29:30','2012-01-22 03:29:30','','bluesrunthegame','','inherit','open','open','','bluesrunthegame','','','2012-01-21 19:29:30','2012-01-22 03:29:30','',1504,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/bluesrunthegame.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1509,1,'2012-01-21 19:35:14','2012-01-22 03:35:14','I recently discovered something on the Internet that absolutely blew me away with how terrific it is.\n\nIf that sounds a little too \"gee whiz,\" let me explain. There are both good things and bad about the \'net, and some of the bad things are really bad -- hate sites and other sites that allow people whose behavior is well beyond the pale to communicate with each other.\n\nI had heard about Pandora before, and I listened to some of the music when I was visiting my daughter in Seattle and she was playing it on her laptop. I put it out of my mind, but today I was goofing around and I called up Pandora on my own computer. I don\'t know exactly what I was expecting, but it was more. I thought I would be able to listen to stations that already existed, but it\'s better than that.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pandora.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1505\" title=\"pandora\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pandora-300x219.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Since 2000, the founders of Pandora have created something called the <a title=\"Music Genome Project\" href=\"http://www.pandora.com/mgp.shtml\">Music Genome Project</a>, an attempt to capture the essence of music at the most basic level of all.\n\nI don\'t know how many thousands of songs are in the Pandora database, but I created a station -- starting with the music of Eric Bogle -- and what I realized very quickly is that Pandora created a playlist filled not only with Bogle\'s best songs, but with great songs by other artists that someone who likes Bogle might also like.\n\nPandora showed me Jackson C. Frank, a \'60s folksinger who had roomed with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in 1964 in London. He made one great album, produced by Simon, called \"Blues Run the Game.\" Frank died in 1999, and an expanded version of his single great album was released after his death.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/bluesrunthegame.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1508\" title=\"bluesrunthegame\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/bluesrunthegame-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a>It\'s a great album, and without Pandora, I would never have been aware of it.\n\nI also heard some great stuff by folksinger John McCutcheon, another person I discovered through the Bogle channel. Now I\'m looking forward to trying all sorts of musical combinations.\n\nIt really is wonderful.\n\nAnd for some reason, I was reminded of one of my favorite movies. In \"Notting Hill,\" Hugh Grant says something to Rhys Ifans about opening Pandora\'s box.\n\nIfans\' reply:\n\n<em>\"I knew a girl named Pandora once, but she never let me see her box.\"</em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1504-revision-2','','','2012-01-21 19:35:14','2012-01-22 03:35:14','',1504,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1509',0,'revision','',0),(1510,1,'2012-01-21 19:35:32','2012-01-22 03:35:32','I recently discovered something on the Internet that absolutely blew me away with how terrific it is.\r\n\r\nIf that sounds a little too \"gee whiz,\" let me explain. There are both good things and bad about the \'net, and some of the bad things are really bad -- hate sites and other sites that allow people whose behavior is well beyond the pale to communicate with each other.\r\n\r\nI had heard about Pandora before, and I listened to some of the music when I was visiting my daughter in Seattle and she was playing it on her laptop. I put it out of my mind, but today I was goofing around and I called up Pandora on my own computer. I don\'t know exactly what I was expecting, but it was more. I thought I would be able to listen to stations that already existed, but it\'s better than that.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pandora.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1505\" title=\"pandora\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pandora-300x219.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Since 2000, the founders of Pandora have created something called the <a title=\"Music Genome Project\" href=\"http://www.pandora.com/mgp.shtml\">Music Genome Project</a>, an attempt to capture the essence of music at the most basic level of all.\r\n\r\nI don\'t know how many thousands of songs are in the Pandora database, but I created a station -- starting with the music of Eric Bogle -- and what I realized very quickly is that Pandora created a playlist filled not only with Bogle\'s best songs, but with great songs by other artists that someone who likes Bogle might also like.\r\n\r\nPandora showed me Jackson C. Frank, a \'60s folksinger who had roomed with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in 1964 in London. He made one great album, produced by Simon, called \"Blues Run the Game.\" Frank died in 1999, and an expanded version of his single great album was released after his death.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/bluesrunthegame.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1508\" title=\"bluesrunthegame\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/bluesrunthegame-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a>It\'s a great album, and without Pandora, I would never have been aware of it.\r\n\r\nI also heard some great stuff by folksinger John McCutcheon, another person I discovered through the Bogle channel. Now I\'m looking forward to trying all sorts of musical combinations.\r\n\r\nIt really is wonderful.\r\n\r\nAnd for some reason, I was reminded of one of my favorite movies. In \"Notting Hill,\" Hugh Grant says something to Rhys Ifans about opening Pandora\'s box.\r\n\r\nIfans\' reply:\r\n\r\n<em>\"I knew a girl named Pandora once, but she never let me see her box.\"</em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Pandora radio opens many boxes when it comes to music','','inherit','open','open','','1504-revision-3','','','2012-01-21 19:35:32','2012-01-22 03:35:32','',1504,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1510',0,'revision','',0),(1511,1,'2012-01-25 19:37:52','2012-01-26 03:37:52','Some years back, I was riding in a car on a country road outside the small Ohio town where my mother was raised. I noticed something back in the trees. It was a decaying wooden structure that had once been a smallish roller coaster, the featured ride in what had once been a local amusement park that probably had gone out of business in the late 1940s or early 1950s.\r\n\r\nThe land hadn\'t been needed for anything, so nature just sort of reclaimed it, growing in an around what was left of the park until it was almost invisible to the eye.\r\n\r\nWhen I visit Virginia and see the town where I grew up, I usually see two things -- I see Fairfax as it is now, and maybe in the background I see it as it was when we moved there in 1963. Ball fields, restaurants, movie theaters and stores that I frequented during my high school years have been gone for a long time, but to me, it would take just a couple of steps sideways -- not even back -- at the right time and I\'d be there, looking at them again.\r\n\r\nThere are 11 different major league baseball stadiums where I saw games as far back as the \'50s and as recently as the \'90s that no longer exist. Things change, and it\'s easy to lose track if you don\'t keep up.\r\n\r\nI wonder how many people remember that for five years in the 1960s, there was a theme park in New York City that was bigger than Disneyland.\r\n\r\nThat\'s right, from 1960-64, in the northeastern part of the Bronx, the 85-acre park known as <a title=\"Freedomland USA\" href=\"http://www.benros.com/images/Freedomland%20Images/freedomland.htm\">Freedomland USA</a> operated as a U.S.-history themed amusement park. Disneyland, which had opened five years earlier, was only 65 acres, and it was way out west in Southern California. The chances that I would ever see it as a kid living in Virginia were pretty bleak, but we went to New York every year to visit our relatives on my dad\'s side of the family.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/freedomland3.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1512\" title=\"freedomland3\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/freedomland3-300x127.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"127\" /></a>For some reason, I have it in my mind that we didn\'t actually go to Freedomland in 1960 or 1961, but the next two years -- when I was 12 and 13 -- we went once each summer.\r\n\r\nWe didn\'t go in 1964, which was the first year of the New York World\'s Fair, and Freedomland closed at the end of that season. I figured it had been killed by the Fair, but what I read now says that it was never really doing that well financially and it had operated for five seasons without making a profit.\r\n\r\nThe park was actually shaped sort of like the United States, and its seven different themed areas each represented a part of the U.S. We saw the Chicago Fire re-enacted in one part and the San Francisco Earthquake in another. Ironically, the part devoted to the future was the Southeast, mostly because of Cape Canaveral.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/MapOfFreedomland.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1513\" title=\"MapOfFreedomland\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/MapOfFreedomland-300x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"184\" /></a>Amusement parks weren\'t a big park of my childhood. I didn\'t see Disneyland until I was 28 years old, and I was 30 when I finally made it to Disney World in Florida.\r\n\r\nI may be leaving some out, but I think Freedomland was pretty much the only theme park of my childhood. In the 1970s, Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens came to Virginia and I saw them both.\r\n\r\nI\'ve been to some pretty good parks -- the thrill rides at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Southern California are pretty great -- but I\'m not sure I ever saw a park that thrilled me as much at the time as Freedomland.\r\n\r\nFive years was all it lasted.\r\n\r\nI wonder how many people even remember it.\r\n\r\nI know I\'ll never forget it.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','\'Freedomland\' a memory of a long-gone time','','publish','open','open','','freedomland-a-memory-of-a-long-gone-time','','','2012-01-25 19:37:52','2012-01-26 03:37:52','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1511',0,'post','',0),(1512,1,'2012-01-25 19:26:04','2012-01-26 03:26:04','','freedomland3','','inherit','open','open','','freedomland3','','','2012-01-25 19:26:04','2012-01-26 03:26:04','',1511,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/freedomland3.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1513,1,'2012-01-25 19:31:43','2012-01-26 03:31:43','','MapOfFreedomland','','inherit','open','open','','mapoffreedomland','','','2012-01-25 19:31:43','2012-01-26 03:31:43','',1511,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/MapOfFreedomland.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1514,1,'2012-01-25 19:37:40','2012-01-26 03:37:40','Some years back, I was riding in a car on a country road outside the small Ohio town where my mother was raised. I noticed something back in the trees. It was a decaying wooden structure that had once been a smallish roller coaster, the featured ride in what had once been a local amusement park that probably had gone out of business in the late 1940s or early 1950s.\n\nThe land hadn\'t been needed for anything, so nature just sort of reclaimed it, growing in an around what was left of the park until it was almost invisible to the eye.\n\nWhen I visit Virginia and see the town where I grew up, I usually see two things -- I see Fairfax as it is now, and maybe in the background I see it as it was when we moved there in 1963. Ball fields, restaurants, movie theaters and stores that I frequented during my high school years have been gone for a long time, but to me, it would take just a couple of steps sideways -- not even back -- at the right time and I\'d be there, looking at them again.\n\nThere are 11 different major league baseball stadiums where I saw games as far back as the \'50s and as recently as the \'90s that no longer exist. Things change, and it\'s easy to lose track if you don\'t keep up.\n\nI wonder how many people remember that for five years in the 1960s, there was a theme park in New York City that was bigger than Disneyland.\n\nThat\'s right, from 1960-64, in the northeastern part of the Bronx, the 85-acre park known as <a title=\"Freedomland USA\" href=\"http://www.benros.com/images/Freedomland%20Images/freedomland.htm\">Freedomland USA</a> operated as a U.S.-history themed amusement park. Disneyland, which had opened five years earlier, was only 65 acres, and it was way out west in Southern California. The chances that I would ever see it as a kid living in Virginia were pretty bleak, but we went to New York every year to visit our relatives on my dad\'s side of the family.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/freedomland3.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1512\" title=\"freedomland3\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/freedomland3-300x127.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"127\" /></a>For some reason, I have it in my mind that we didn\'t actually go to Freedomland in 1960 or 1961, but the next two years -- when I was 12 and 13 -- we went once each summer.\n\nWe didn\'t go in 1964, which was the first year of the New York World\'s Fair, and Freedomland closed at the end of that season. I figured it had been killed by the Fair, but what I read now says that it was never really doing that well financially and it had operated for five seasons without making a profit.\n\nThe park was actually shaped sort of like the United States, and its seven different themed areas each represented a part of the U.S. We saw the Chicago Fire re-enacted in one part and the San Francisco Earthquake in another. Ironically, the part devoted to the future was the Southeast, mostly because of Cape Canaveral.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/MapOfFreedomland.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1513\" title=\"MapOfFreedomland\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/MapOfFreedomland-300x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"184\" /></a>Amusement parks weren\'t a big park of my childhood. I didn\'t see Disneyland until I was 28 years old, and I was 30 when I finally made it to Disney World in Florida.\n\nI may be leaving some out, but I think Freedomland was pretty much the only theme park of my childhood. In the 1970s, Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens came to Virginia and I saw them both.\n\nI\'ve been to some pretty good parks -- the thrill rides at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Southern California are pretty great -- but I\'m not sure I ever saw a park that thrilled me as much at the time as Freedomland.\n\nFive years was all it lasted.\n\nI wonder how many people even remember it.\n\nI know I\'ll never forget it.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','\'Freedomland\' ','','inherit','open','open','','1511-revision','','','2012-01-25 19:37:40','2012-01-26 03:37:40','',1511,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1514',0,'revision','',0),(1515,1,'2012-01-27 19:34:57','2012-01-28 03:34:57','<strong><em>\"There is a discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; and millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich; and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere.\"</em></strong>\r\n\r\nThat\'s our world, our poor, troubled world early in the second decade of the 21st century. The rich get richer and the poor amass debt and buy guns.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>\"These are differing evils, but they are common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows.\"</em></strong>\r\n\r\nWe tend to forget that only God, however we define Him, can provide perfect justice. Whatever we do is by nature flawed by the filter of our own weaknesses, viewed through the prism of our limitations.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>\"But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek -- as we do -- nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.\"</strong></em>\r\n\r\nDo we really believe that all men are brothers, that all women are sisters under God\'s rule? If we did, I doubt any of us could ever use words like \"nigger\" or \"raghead\" or \"kike\" without feeling guilty. I know I don\'t think there are very many people in this world who would reject purposeful, happy lives if they had the chance to live them.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>\"Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.\"</strong></em>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/LoveThyNeighborAsThyself.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1517\" title=\"LoveThyNeighborAsThyself\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/LoveThyNeighborAsThyself-300x176.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" /></a>Forget Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein and look a lot closer to home. If those of us who have been hateful toward those in power can accept the Bushes, the Cheneys and the Gingriches on the right or the Obamas, Bidens and Clintons on the left as fellow men and women who want only to do the right thing as they see it, and they can accept us the same way, we will go a very long way toward solving our problems.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>\"Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe.\"</strong></em>\r\n\r\nIt\'s going to take a great deal of moral courage. Not the false courage that demands others follow the same path to God we do, or live the same lifestyle we have chosen. No, we need the courage to stand up and say children are starving, women are being tortured and men all over the world are being denied basic freedom and dignity.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>\"For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty. But they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. All of us will ultimately be judged and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves, on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that effort.\"</strong></em>\r\n\r\nIs there a clue here as to the speaker of this amazing piece of rhetoric? The speech was made by an American, far from American shores in a part of the world in desperate need of freedom and dignity at the time it was delivered.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>\"The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.\"</em></strong>\r\n\r\nIn 1966, speaking to an audience of young people at South Africa\'s Day of Affirmation ceremonies, a 41-year-old United States senator from New York spoke in favor of people doing the right thing.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>\"Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live.\"</strong></em>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1516\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Bobby Kennedy in South Africa\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Robert-Kennedy.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1516\" title=\"Robert Kennedy\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Robert-Kennedy-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nHis name was Robert Francis Kennedy, and I believe his assassination in June 1968 probably changed American history for the worse more than any act of political terrorism since the killing of Abraham Lincoln.  Bobby Kennedy died nearly 44 years ago, and in that time we have not had a single effective American leader who urged us to try and be better than ourselves. This year is another election year, and much is at stake. But whether we re-elect Barack Obama or turn him out, we can do far more for ourselves and our country by listening to the words Kennedy spoke 44 years ago.\r\n\r\nThey aren\'t \"ragheads.\" They aren\'t \"niggers\" or \"gooks\" or \"skinheads.\" They\'re people, just like us, trying to raise children and find happiness.  And if they hate us, the way we defeat them is not by hating them in return. Not by killing them or conquering their countries.\r\n\r\nThat isn\'t it at all. We defeat them by accepting them as people at the same time we reject their actions.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>\"Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.\"</strong></em>\r\n\r\nWe don\'t need any more Nixons, those who play one group against another to gain money, fame and power.\r\n\r\nWe\'ve been there, done that and have lost much of what once made us special.\r\n\r\nSomehow, we need to try something different.','Time to get back to what once made us special','','publish','open','open','','time-to-get-back-to-what-once-made-us-special','','','2012-01-27 19:34:57','2012-01-28 03:34:57','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1515',0,'post','',0),(1516,1,'2012-01-27 19:25:59','2012-01-28 03:25:59','','Robert Kennedy','Bobby Kennedy in South Africa','inherit','open','open','','robert-kennedy','','','2012-01-27 19:25:59','2012-01-28 03:25:59','',1515,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Robert-Kennedy.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1517,1,'2012-01-27 19:29:52','2012-01-28 03:29:52','','LoveThyNeighborAsThyself','','inherit','open','open','','lovethyneighborasthyself','','','2012-01-27 19:29:52','2012-01-28 03:29:52','',1515,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/LoveThyNeighborAsThyself.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1518,1,'2012-01-27 19:34:39','2012-01-28 03:34:39','<strong><em>\"There is a discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; and millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich; and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere.\"</em></strong>\n\nThat\'s our world, our poor, troubled world early in the second decade of the 21st century. The rich get richer and the poor amass debt and buy guns.\n\n<strong><em>\"These are differing evils, but they are common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows.\"</em></strong>\n\nWe tend to forget that only God, however we define Him, can provide perfect justice. Whatever we do is by nature flawed by the filter of our own weaknesses, viewed through the prism of our limitations.\n\n<em><strong>\"But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek -- as we do -- nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.\"</strong></em>\n\nDo we really believe that all men are brothers, that all women are sisters under God\'s rule? If we did, I doubt any of us could ever use words like \"nigger\" or \"raghead\" or \"kike\" without feeling guilty. I know I don\'t think there are very many people in this world who would reject purposeful, happy lives if they had the chance to live them.\n\n<em><strong>\"Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.\"</strong></em>\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/LoveThyNeighborAsThyself.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1517\" title=\"LoveThyNeighborAsThyself\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/LoveThyNeighborAsThyself-300x176.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" /></a>Forget Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein and look a lot closer to home. If those of us who have been hateful toward those in power can accept the Bushes, the Cheneys and the Gingriches on the right or the Obamas, Bidens and Clintons on the left as fellow men and women who want only to do the right thing as they see it, and they can accept us the same way, we will go a very long way toward solving our problems.\n\n<em><strong>\"Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe.\"</strong></em>\n\nIt\'s going to take a great deal of moral courage. Not the false courage that demands others follow the same path to God we do, or live the same lifestyle we have chosen. No, we need the courage to stand up and say children are starving, women are being tortured and men all over the world are being denied basic freedom and dignity.\n\n<em><strong>\"For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty. But they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. All of us will ultimately be judged and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves, on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that effort.\"</strong></em>\n\nIs there a clue here as to the speaker of this amazing piece of rhetoric? The speech was made by an American, far from American shores in a part of the world in desperate need of freedom and dignity at the time it was delivered.\n\n<strong><em>\"The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.\"</em></strong>\n\nIn 1966, speaking to an audience of young people at South Africa\'s Day of Affirmation ceremonies, a 41-year-old United States senator from New York spoke in favor of people doing the right thing.\n\n<em><strong>\"Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live.\"</strong></em>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1516\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Bobby Kennedy in South Africa\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Robert-Kennedy.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1516\" title=\"Robert Kennedy\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Robert-Kennedy-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nHis name was Robert Francis Kennedy, and I believe his assassination in June 1968 probably changed American history for the worse more than any act of political terrorism since the killing of Abraham Lincoln.  Bobby Kennedy died nearly 44 years ago, and in that time we have not had a single effective American leader who urged us to try and be better than ourselves. This year is another election year, and much is at stake. But whether we re-elect Barack Obama or turn him out, we can do far more for ourselves and our country by listening to the words Kennedy spoke 44 years ago.\n\nThey aren\'t \"ragheads.\" They aren\'t \"niggers\" or \"gooks\" or \"skinheads.\" They\'re people, just like us, trying to raise children and find happiness.  And if they hate us, the way we defeat them is not by hating them in return. Not by killing them or conquering their countries.\n\nThat isn\'t it at all. We defeat them by accepting them as people at the same time we reject their actions.\n\n<em><strong>\"Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.\"</strong></em>\n\nWe don\'t need any more Nixons, those who play one group against another to gain money, fame and power.\n\nWe\'ve been there, done that and have lost much of what once made us special.\n\nSomehow, we need to try something different.','Time to get back to what once made us spei','','inherit','open','open','','1515-revision','','','2012-01-27 19:34:39','2012-01-28 03:34:39','',1515,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1518',0,'revision','',0),(1519,1,'2012-01-27 20:48:51','2012-01-28 04:48:51','<em><a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/NationalLampoonNov19741.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1524\" title=\"NationalLampoonNov1974\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/NationalLampoonNov19741-222x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"222\" height=\"300\" /></a>When I was 20 years old, a very different sort of magazine began publishing. A generation that had grown up on the slightly subversive Mad magazine all of a sudden had something that went much further in satirizing life in the \'70s -- National Lampoon. I\'ve written before about the Lampoon, but one of my favorite features of the magazine was its Letter to the Editor. Rather than looking for real letters from real readers, they made up humorous ones that often made the (famous) person writing look like a moron. On one of my earlier websites, I used to imitate them. Here\'s a funny one from 2004, with one or two updates for a little fun.</em>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\r\nEvery once in a while, when I don’t feel like writing a column, we go to the videotape.\r\n\r\nActually, that’s just an expression. Since we’re a literary medium – to define the term loosely – we don’t have videotape or audiotape. All we have are words you can read – assuming you can read.\r\n\r\nSo when I’m not feeling particularly inspired, we go to the mailbag and clean out the letters written by faithful readers. At least those we don’t turn over to the FBI, the Secret Service or Sheriff Lobo.  Then we print them. Here’s the latest batch:\r\n\r\nDear Sir: I notice Mike hasn’t been writing much about me lately. I assume that means he either has gone soft, gotten scared or found Jesus. Now if I could just get those guys at MoveOn.org  shut down, I’d be a happy chappy. <strong> DUBYA, Bushington, D.C.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Who is Mike Rappaport? I keep getting phone calls and letters from women who want to meet him. Is he more famous than I am? He sure isn’t better looking, unless that picture was taken on a real bad day. <strong> MICHAEL RAPAPORT, Hollywood, CA</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: I recently discovered your site on the World Wide Web, and I was very impressed by it. Would you be interested in accepting advertising for the service I provide? <strong> LONG DONG SILVER, Used to Be a Star, Ga.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Pay no attention to that last letter. It was written by someone who doesn’t love the Lord.  <strong>CLARENCE THOMAS, Uncle Tom, Md.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: It is easy to see why this website hasn’t been more successful. At least two and possibly three of your first four letters involve cultural references that are at least ten years out of date. Does Mike live on a desert island? Did we vote him off the continent?  <strong>MEDIA CRITICS, Asshole, Ala.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: This is to inform you that our lawyers will be contacting you unless you cease and desist using obscene names and pretending they are cities in Alabama. Alabama is a perfectly modern 21<sup>st</sup> century state in which people can no longer lynch Negroes, have sex with farm animals or marry their sisters (unless she’s a real hottie).  <strong>GOV. GOMER P. INCEST, Bestiality, Ala.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Do you eat with those typing fingers? <strong> BILLY GRAHAM, Still Alive but not Too Spry</strong>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1521\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\" caption=\"Eric Stratton\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/eric.jpg\"><img class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1521\" title=\"eric\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/eric-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nDear Sir: You fucked up. You trusted us. <strong> ERIC STRATTON, Faber, Pa.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: You can’t say “fuck” in George W. Bush’s America. Oh, Lord. I mean, you can’t say f***. <strong> JOHN ASHCROFT, A state of religious ecstasy</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Please inform Mike Rappaport that I no longer wish to appear in his dreams, unless they involve me being fully clothed and driving the Maserati I bought after winning $45 million in the California Lottery. Now if it were Brad Pitt … <strong>DIANE LANE, Hotness, Ca.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: I have never written a letter to the editor of a respectable publication, let alone some ridiculous little website. So if you ever see a letter to the editor with my name at the end of it, you will know it is a hoax and you will be hearing from my son. <strong> GEORGE AITCH DUBYA, A proud dad</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Your president loves to compare Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler. Let me tell you, we knew Adolf Hitler. we served with Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler was a friend of ours. And this guy Hussein is no Adolf Hitler. <strong> KAISER BILL’S ARMY, Gotterdammerung, Ky.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Did anybody see my beard before they cut it off? I grew a real cool beard. Bet you didn’t think I could grow a beard that cool. I was ready to pose as a member of ZZ Top when they caught me in that hole. <strong> SADDAM HUSSEIN, Eighth Circle of Hell.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Whatever happened to that fellow who wrote a few columns last summer? What was his name? Kersten, Kermin, Curran? I think it was Curran. <strong> PAUL REUBENS, Falling in love</strong>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1522\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"150\" caption=\"Paul Reubens\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/paul.jpg\"><img class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1522\" title=\"paul\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/paul-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nDear Sir: We love President Bush and we’re going to re-elect him this year, no matter how many times Mike Rappaport calls him “Dubya” and makes fun of him. And oh, yeah. Karl Rove is a god.  <strong>NASCAR DADS, Red States, USA</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: God help me, but I think Mike Rappaport is kinda cute. Do you think it would bother him that I used to be a man?  <strong>ANN COULTER, Adam\'s Apple, NY</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: I am way too busy finding a cure for AIDS to write a letter like this, even if it is about a guy who still has a crush on me after nearly 40 years. Don’t they have laws against stalking where you come from?  <strong>DR. CHERYL NEWMAN, A serious person</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Only 138 more days and we’ll be legal.  <strong>THE OLSEN TWINS, Puberty, N.J.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: The real Olsen twins would never write such a letter as the one that appeared above. Please inform your readers that the above letter is from Fred and Farkas Olsen, conjoined twins who are joined at the pubic area. Yes, it’s every bit as disgusting as it sounds.  <strong>THEIR DAD, Nausea, Ohio</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Is it true that Mike Rappaport idealizes every woman in his life that he likes and doesn’t get a chance to sleep with? Because there are a lot more of us out here than you might think.  <strong>CHRISTINE MILLER, Crank, Fla.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: How come “the editor” never appears in columns anymore? We miss him and thought he was the best thing about your website. Please print this letter so we can get our allowance. <strong> THE EDITOR’S KIDS, Curran, Nev.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: This is to inform you that your four-year contract with us will be up at the end of the month and we will not be renewing it. We need the space for another porno site. <strong> THE WEB HOSTERS, Somewhere in Cyberspace.</strong>','Sometimes it\'s fun just to have a little fun','','publish','open','open','','sometimes-its-fun-just-to-have-a-little-fun','','','2012-01-27 20:50:47','2012-01-28 04:50:47','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1519',0,'post','',0),(1521,1,'2012-01-27 20:47:00','2012-01-28 04:47:00','','eric','Eric Stratton','inherit','open','open','','eric','','','2012-01-27 20:47:00','2012-01-28 04:47:00','',1519,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/eric.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1522,1,'2012-01-27 20:47:45','2012-01-28 04:47:45','','paul','Paul Reubens','inherit','open','open','','paul','','','2012-01-27 20:47:45','2012-01-28 04:47:45','',1519,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/paul.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1523,1,'2012-01-27 20:44:57','2012-01-28 04:44:57','<em>When I was 20 years old, a very different sort of magazine began publishing. A generation that had grown up on the slightly subversive Mad magazine all of a sudden had something that went much further in satirizing life in the \'70s -- National Lampoon. I\'ve written before about the Lampoon, but one of my favorite features of the magazine was its Letter to the Editor. Rather than looking for real letters from real readers, they made up humorous ones that often made the (famous) person writing look like a moron. On one of my earlier websites, I used to imitate them. Here\'s a funny one from 2004, with one or two updates for a little fun.</em>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\nEvery once in a while, when I don’t feel like writing a column, we go to the videotape.\n\nActually, that’s just an expression. Since we’re a literary medium – to define the term loosely – we don’t have videotape or audiotape. All we have are words you can read – assuming you can read.\n\nSo when I’m not feeling particularly inspired, we go to the mailbag and clean out the letters written by faithful readers. At least those we don’t turn over to the FBI, the Secret Service or Sheriff Lobo.  Then we print them. Here’s the latest batch:\n\nDear Sir: I notice Mike hasn’t been writing much about me lately. I assume that means he either has gone soft, gotten scared or found Jesus. Now if I could just get those guys at MoveOn.org  shut down, I’d be a happy chappy. <strong> DUBYA, Bushington, D.C.</strong>\n\nDear Sir: Who is Mike Rappaport? I keep getting phone calls and letters from women who want to meet him. Is he more famous than I am? He sure isn’t better looking, unless that picture was taken on a real bad day. <strong> MICHAEL RAPAPORT, Hollywood, CA</strong>\n\nDear Sir: I recently discovered your site on the World Wide Web, and I was very impressed by it. Would you be interested in accepting advertising for the service I provide? <strong> LONG DONG SILVER, Used to Be a Star, Ga.</strong>\n\nDear Sir: Pay no attention to that last letter. It was written by someone who doesn’t love the Lord.  <strong>CLARENCE THOMAS, Uncle Tom, Md.</strong>\n\nDear Sir: It is easy to see why this website hasn’t been more successful. At least two and possibly three of your first four letters involve cultural references that are at least ten years out of date. Does Mike live on a desert island? Did we vote him off the continent?  <strong>MEDIA CRITICS, Asshole, Ala.</strong>\n\nDear Sir: This is to inform you that our lawyers will be contacting you unless you cease and desist using obscene names and pretending they are cities in Alabama. Alabama is a perfectly modern 21<sup>st</sup> century state in which people can no longer lynch Negroes, have sex with farm animals or marry their sisters (unless she’s a real hottie).  <strong>GOV. GOMER P. INCEST, Bestiality, Ala.</strong>\n\nDear Sir: Do you eat with those typing fingers? <strong> BILLY GRAHAM, Still Alive but not Too Spry</strong>\n\nDear Sir: You fucked up. You trusted us. <strong> ERIC STRATTON, Faber, Pa.</strong>\n\nDear Sir: You can’t say “fuck” in George W. Bush’s America. Oh, Lord. I mean, you can’t say f***. <strong> JOHN ASHCROFT, A state of religious ecstasy</strong>\n\nDear Sir: Please inform Mike Rappaport that I no longer wish to appear in his dreams, unless they involve me being fully clothed and driving the Maserati I bought after winning $45 million in the California Lottery. Now if it were Brad Pitt … <strong>DIANE LANE, Hotness, Ca.</strong>\n\nDear Sir: I have never written a letter to the editor of a respectable publication, let alone some ridiculous little website. So if you ever see a letter to the editor with my name at the end of it, you will know it is a hoax and you will be hearing from my son. <strong> GEORGE AITCH DUBYA, A proud dad</strong>\n\nDear Sir: Your president loves to compare Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler. Let me tell you, we knew Adolf Hitler. we served with Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler was a friend of ours. And this guy Hussein is no Adolf Hitler. <strong> KAISER BILL’S ARMY, Gotterdammerung, Ky.</strong>\n\nDear Sir: Did anybody see my beard before they cut it off? I grew a real cool beard. Bet you didn’t think I could grow a beard that cool. I was ready to pose as a member of ZZ Top when they caught me in that hole. <strong> SADDAM HUSSEIN, Eighth Circle of Hell.</strong>\n\nDear Sir: Whatever happened to that fellow who wrote a few columns last summer? What was his name? Kersten, Kermin, Curran? I think it was Curran. <strong> PAUL REUBENS, Falling in love</strong>\n\nDear Sir: We love President Bush and we’re going to re-elect him this year, no matter how many times Mike Rappaport calls him “Dubya” and makes fun of him. And oh, yeah. Karl Rove is a god.  <strong>NASCAR DADS, Red States, USA</strong>\n\nDear Sir: God help me, but I think Mike Rappaport is kinda cute. Do you think it would bother him that I used to be a man?  <strong>ANN COULTER, Adam\'s Apple, NY</strong>\n\nDear Sir: I am way too busy finding a cure for AIDS to write a letter like this, even if it is about a guy who still has a crush on me after nearly 40 years. Don’t they have laws against stalking where you come from?  <strong>DR. CHERYL NEWMAN, A serious person</strong>\n\nDear Sir: Only 138 more days and we’ll be legal.  <strong>THE OLSEN TWINS, Puberty, N.J.</strong>\n\nDear Sir: The real Olsen twins would never write such a letter as the one that appeared above. Please inform your readers that the above letter is from Fred and Farkas Olsen, conjoined twins who are joined at the pubic area. Yes, it’s every bit as disgusting as it sounds.  <strong>THEIR DAD, Nausea, Ohio</strong>\n\nDear Sir: Is it true that Mike Rappaport idealizes every woman in his life that he likes and doesn’t get a chance to sleep with? Because there are a lot more of us out here than you might think.  <strong>CHRISTINE MILLER, Crank, Fla.</strong>\n\nDear Sir: How come “the editor” never appears in columns anymore? We miss him and thought he was the best thing about your website. Please print this letter so we can get our allowance. <strong> THE EDITOR’S KIDS, Curran, Nev.</strong>\n\nDear Sir: This is to inform you that your four-year contract with us will be up at the end of the month and we will not be renewing it. We need the space for another porno site. <strong> THE WEB HOSTERS, Somewhere in Cyberspace.</strong>','','','inherit','open','open','','1519-revision','','','2012-01-27 20:44:57','2012-01-28 04:44:57','',1519,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1523',0,'revision','',0),(1520,1,'2012-01-27 20:27:35','2012-01-28 04:27:35','','NationalLampoonNov1974','','inherit','open','open','','nationallampoonnov1974','','','2012-01-27 20:27:35','2012-01-28 04:27:35','',1519,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/NationalLampoonNov1974.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1524,1,'2012-01-27 20:50:35','2012-01-28 04:50:35','','NationalLampoonNov1974','','inherit','open','open','','nationallampoonnov1974-2','','','2012-01-27 20:50:35','2012-01-28 04:50:35','',1519,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/NationalLampoonNov19741.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1525,1,'2012-01-27 20:48:51','2012-01-28 04:48:51','<em>When I was 20 years old, a very different sort of magazine began publishing. A generation that had grown up on the slightly subversive Mad magazine all of a sudden had something that went much further in satirizing life in the \'70s -- National Lampoon. I\'ve written before about the Lampoon, but one of my favorite features of the magazine was its Letter to the Editor. Rather than looking for real letters from real readers, they made up humorous ones that often made the (famous) person writing look like a moron. On one of my earlier websites, I used to imitate them. Here\'s a funny one from 2004, with one or two updates for a little fun.</em>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\r\nEvery once in a while, when I don’t feel like writing a column, we go to the videotape.\r\n\r\nActually, that’s just an expression. Since we’re a literary medium – to define the term loosely – we don’t have videotape or audiotape. All we have are words you can read – assuming you can read.\r\n\r\nSo when I’m not feeling particularly inspired, we go to the mailbag and clean out the letters written by faithful readers. At least those we don’t turn over to the FBI, the Secret Service or Sheriff Lobo.  Then we print them. Here’s the latest batch:\r\n\r\nDear Sir: I notice Mike hasn’t been writing much about me lately. I assume that means he either has gone soft, gotten scared or found Jesus. Now if I could just get those guys at MoveOn.org  shut down, I’d be a happy chappy. <strong> DUBYA, Bushington, D.C.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Who is Mike Rappaport? I keep getting phone calls and letters from women who want to meet him. Is he more famous than I am? He sure isn’t better looking, unless that picture was taken on a real bad day. <strong> MICHAEL RAPAPORT, Hollywood, CA</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: I recently discovered your site on the World Wide Web, and I was very impressed by it. Would you be interested in accepting advertising for the service I provide? <strong> LONG DONG SILVER, Used to Be a Star, Ga.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Pay no attention to that last letter. It was written by someone who doesn’t love the Lord.  <strong>CLARENCE THOMAS, Uncle Tom, Md.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: It is easy to see why this website hasn’t been more successful. At least two and possibly three of your first four letters involve cultural references that are at least ten years out of date. Does Mike live on a desert island? Did we vote him off the continent?  <strong>MEDIA CRITICS, Asshole, Ala.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: This is to inform you that our lawyers will be contacting you unless you cease and desist using obscene names and pretending they are cities in Alabama. Alabama is a perfectly modern 21<sup>st</sup> century state in which people can no longer lynch Negroes, have sex with farm animals or marry their sisters (unless she’s a real hottie).  <strong>GOV. GOMER P. INCEST, Bestiality, Ala.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Do you eat with those typing fingers? <strong> BILLY GRAHAM, Still Alive but not Too Spry</strong>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1521\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\" caption=\"Eric Stratton\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/eric.jpg\"><img class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1521\" title=\"eric\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/eric-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nDear Sir: You fucked up. You trusted us. <strong> ERIC STRATTON, Faber, Pa.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: You can’t say “fuck” in George W. Bush’s America. Oh, Lord. I mean, you can’t say f***. <strong> JOHN ASHCROFT, A state of religious ecstasy</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Please inform Mike Rappaport that I no longer wish to appear in his dreams, unless they involve me being fully clothed and driving the Maserati I bought after winning $45 million in the California Lottery. Now if it were Brad Pitt … <strong>DIANE LANE, Hotness, Ca.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: I have never written a letter to the editor of a respectable publication, let alone some ridiculous little website. So if you ever see a letter to the editor with my name at the end of it, you will know it is a hoax and you will be hearing from my son. <strong> GEORGE AITCH DUBYA, A proud dad</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Your president loves to compare Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler. Let me tell you, we knew Adolf Hitler. we served with Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler was a friend of ours. And this guy Hussein is no Adolf Hitler. <strong> KAISER BILL’S ARMY, Gotterdammerung, Ky.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Did anybody see my beard before they cut it off? I grew a real cool beard. Bet you didn’t think I could grow a beard that cool. I was ready to pose as a member of ZZ Top when they caught me in that hole. <strong> SADDAM HUSSEIN, Eighth Circle of Hell.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Whatever happened to that fellow who wrote a few columns last summer? What was his name? Kersten, Kermin, Curran? I think it was Curran. <strong> PAUL REUBENS, Falling in love</strong>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1522\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"150\" caption=\"Paul Reubens\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/paul.jpg\"><img class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1522\" title=\"paul\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/paul-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nDear Sir: We love President Bush and we’re going to re-elect him this year, no matter how many times Mike Rappaport calls him “Dubya” and makes fun of him. And oh, yeah. Karl Rove is a god.  <strong>NASCAR DADS, Red States, USA</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: God help me, but I think Mike Rappaport is kinda cute. Do you think it would bother him that I used to be a man?  <strong>ANN COULTER, Adam\'s Apple, NY</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: I am way too busy finding a cure for AIDS to write a letter like this, even if it is about a guy who still has a crush on me after nearly 40 years. Don’t they have laws against stalking where you come from?  <strong>DR. CHERYL NEWMAN, A serious person</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Only 138 more days and we’ll be legal.  <strong>THE OLSEN TWINS, Puberty, N.J.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: The real Olsen twins would never write such a letter as the one that appeared above. Please inform your readers that the above letter is from Fred and Farkas Olsen, conjoined twins who are joined at the pubic area. Yes, it’s every bit as disgusting as it sounds.  <strong>THEIR DAD, Nausea, Ohio</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: Is it true that Mike Rappaport idealizes every woman in his life that he likes and doesn’t get a chance to sleep with? Because there are a lot more of us out here than you might think.  <strong>CHRISTINE MILLER, Crank, Fla.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: How come “the editor” never appears in columns anymore? We miss him and thought he was the best thing about your website. Please print this letter so we can get our allowance. <strong> THE EDITOR’S KIDS, Curran, Nev.</strong>\r\n\r\nDear Sir: This is to inform you that your four-year contract with us will be up at the end of the month and we will not be renewing it. We need the space for another porno site. <strong> THE WEB HOSTERS, Somewhere in Cyberspace.</strong>','Sometimes it\'s fun just to have a little fun','','inherit','open','open','','1519-revision-2','','','2012-01-27 20:48:51','2012-01-28 04:48:51','',1519,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1525',0,'revision','',0),(1527,1,'2012-01-28 21:06:05','2012-01-29 05:06:05','','cbk','5675 Harshmanville Road','inherit','open','open','','cbk','','','2012-01-28 21:06:05','2012-01-29 05:06:05','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/cbk.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1530,1,'2012-01-31 18:28:43','2012-02-01 02:28:43','<div>It\'s a good thing I\'m not intimidated by intelligent women, because we have a ton of them in our family.</div>\r\n<div>Not literally, but intelligence doesn\'t skip a generation with the X-chromosomes in this family. I think three of the smartest people I know are my mother, my wife and my daughter. All three women are brilliant and all three are high achievers in different fields -- my mother in education, my wife in science and my daughter in diplomacy.</div>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1531\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Maddie -- the fourth generation\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Maddie-2.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1531\" title=\"Maddie (2)\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Maddie-2-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<div>Now it has been obvious for some time that my lovely granddaughter, Madison Nicole, is a very intelligent little girl. But a story I heard just today from her mother shows me that Maddie won\'t be taking a back seat to anyone in this family when it comes to intelligence.</div>\r\n<div>Pauline said that she had been going through Maddie\'s books, toys and clothes to sort out some of the stuff she had outgrown and make room for new stuff. She came across a copy of Shel Silverstein\'s \"The Giving Tree,\" a book I seem to recall giving to Maddie.</div>\r\n<div>\"I find the book horribly sad,\" Pauline wrote. \"I refuse to read to her on account of it making me cry every time I read it.\"</div>\r\n<div>Of course, Pauline says, that has only made Maddie more interested in the book. She flips through it, looks at the pictures and gets her babysitter and her father to read it to her.</div>\r\n<div>\"Today, on the way home from school, she was telling me the plot of the book,\" Pauline said. \"I\'m kind of half listening and inserting \'uh-huh\' where appropriate when she says, \'But you know mommy, I don\'t think the tree is really a tree.\'\"</div>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1532\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"241\" caption=\"The Giving Tree\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/the-giving-tree.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1532\" title=\"the-giving-tree\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/the-giving-tree-241x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"241\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nThat got Pauline\'s attention and she asked Maddie what she meant.</div>\r\n<div>\"I think the tree is like a person who loves the boy,\" Maddie said. \"Maybe a girl, or maybe a boy.\"</div>\r\n<div>Stunned, Pauline said, \"Yeah, honey. I think you might be right.\"</div>\r\n<div>Amazing. Without anyone suggesting it to her, or even mentioning the possibility, this little girl -- she turned 3 in September -- figured out on her own that something in a book she liked was a symbol for something else.</div>\r\n<div>\"Where did she get this?\" Pauline asked. \"How does she even know about symbols?  She\'s reading all these other fantastical books, how does she know that this one book is different, that it isn\'t just a story about a tree and a boy?\"</div>\r\n<div>When I was her age, I was sitting on the floor counting my toes and trying to get the same answer twice in a row. I don\'t think I discovered symbolism until I was 23.</div>\r\n<div>So her great-grandmother was an educator, her grandmother a scientist and her mother a diplomat.</div>\r\n<div>Maddie?</div>\r\n<div>I have a feeling she\'s going to write great books. Either that or governor of Washington.</div>\r\n&nbsp;','Amazing baby (at 3) more interesting than ever','','publish','open','open','','amazing-baby-at-3-more-interesting-than-ever','','','2012-01-31 18:28:43','2012-02-01 02:28:43','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1530',0,'post','',0),(1531,1,'2012-01-31 17:10:54','2012-02-01 01:10:54','','Maddie (2)','Maddie -- the fourth generation','inherit','open','open','','maddie-2-2','','','2012-01-31 17:10:54','2012-02-01 01:10:54','',1530,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Maddie-2.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1532,1,'2012-01-31 17:18:21','2012-02-01 01:18:21','','the-giving-tree','The Giving Tree','inherit','open','open','','the-giving-tree','','','2012-01-31 17:18:21','2012-02-01 01:18:21','',1530,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/the-giving-tree.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1533,1,'2012-01-31 18:28:40','2012-02-01 02:28:40','<div>It\'s a good thing I\'m not intimidated by intelligent women, because we have a ton of them in our family.</div>\n<div>Not literally, but intelligence doesn\'t skip a generation with the X-chromosomes in this family. I think three of the smartest people I know are my mother, my wife and my daughter. All three women are brilliant and all three are high achievers in different fields -- my mother in education, my wife in science and my daughter in diplomacy.</div>\n<div>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1531\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Maddie -- the fourth generation\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Maddie-2.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1531\" title=\"Maddie (2)\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Maddie-2-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n</div>\n<div>Now it has been obvious for some time that my lovely granddaughter, Madison Nicole, is a very intelligent little girl. But a story I heard just today from her mother shows me that Maddie won\'t be taking a back seat to anyone in this family when it comes to intelligence.</div>\n<div>Pauline said that she had been going through Maddie\'s books, toys and clothes to sort out some of the stuff she had outgrown and make room for new stuff. She came across a copy of Shel Silverstein\'s \"The Giving Tree,\" a book I seem to recall giving to Maddie.</div>\n<div>\"I find the book horribly sad,\" Pauline wrote. \"I refuse to read to her on account of it making me cry every time I read it.\"</div>\n<div>Of course, Pauline says, that has only made Maddie more interested in the book. She flips through it, looks at the pictures and gets her babysitter and her father to read it to her.</div>\n<div>\"Today, on the way home from school, she was telling me the plot of the book,\" Pauline said. \"I\'m kind of half listening and inserting \'uh-huh\' where appropriate when she says, \'But you know mommy, I don\'t think the tree is really a tree.\'\"</div>\n<div>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1532\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"241\" caption=\"The Giving Tree\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/the-giving-tree.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1532\" title=\"the-giving-tree\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/the-giving-tree-241x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"241\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThat got Pauline\'s attention and she asked Maddie what she meant.</div>\n<div>\"I think the tree is like a person who loves the boy,\" Maddie said. \"Maybe a girl, or maybe a boy.\"</div>\n<div>Stunned, Pauline said, \"Yeah, honey. I think you might be right.\"</div>\n<div>Amazing. Without anyone suggesting it to her, or even mentioning the possibility, this little girl -- she turned 3 in September -- figured out on her own that something in a book she liked was a symbol for something else.</div>\n<div>\"Where did she get this?\" Pauline asked. \"How does she even know about symbols?  She\'s reading all these other fantastical books, how does she know that this one book is different, that it isn\'t just a story about a tree and a boy?\"</div>\n<div>When I was her age, I was sitting on the floor counting my toes and trying to get the same answer twice in a row. I don\'t think I discovered symbolism until I was 23.</div>\n<div>So her great-grandmother was an educator, her grandmother a scientist and her mother a diplomat.</div>\n<div>Maddie?</div>\n<div>I have a feeling she\'s going to write great books. Either that or governor of Washington.</div>\n&nbsp;','Amazing baby (at 3) more interesting than ever','','inherit','open','open','','1530-revision','','','2012-01-31 18:28:40','2012-02-01 02:28:40','',1530,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1533',0,'revision','',0),(1548,1,'2012-02-15 19:34:44','2012-02-16 03:34:44','Newt Gingrich wants to send my grandson to work.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1549\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Ready for work\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1010520.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1549\" title=\"P1010520\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1010520-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nOh, I\'m exaggerating a little. Lex is still more than eight months from his first birthday, and Newt will probably leave him alone until he\'s 3 or 4.\r\n\r\nBut then, who knows?\r\n\r\nGingrich has been described as a stupid person\'s idea of what a smart person is, and I think that\'s a pretty apt view. He\'s constantly coming up with new ideas that sound interesting until you really think about them. Things like free laptops for the homeless, or a permanent American colony on the Moon.\r\n\r\nThen there was the one that\'s got me worried for my grandson. Newt was suggesting that schools should get rid of some of their janitors and have their students work part-time to keep the schools clean. He says it will give them a sense of responsibility, but of course whenever conservative Republicans talk about things like this, you can bet they are looking for ways to reduce the amount of money working people are paid.\r\n\r\nI don\'t have any problem with Lex learning some manual labor skills. You never know when they might come in handy. If I ever needed to, I could perform very well sweeping floors. I learned that when I was working an overnight cleaning shift at a Jack in the Box when I was 22 years old. At first I would literally fall asleep on my feet while sweeping.\r\n\r\nBlue collar work was never the problem. As long as people could make a decent living at it, there was nothing at all wrong with that kind of work.\r\n\r\nThe problem is, so many of those jobs have been eliminated that most of the jobs remaining in that sector are ones that don\'t pay well enough to support anyone.\r\n\r\nAs you can see from the shirt, Lex is getting ready to be a white-collar worker.\r\n\r\nI\'m not even sure that\'s the route he\'ll take. I\'m thinking ballplayer ... or movie star ... or senator, if he\'s willing to embrace a life of crime.\r\n\r\nHis role model could be Newt.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Newt Gingrich is coming for your children','','publish','open','open','','newt-gingrich-is-coming-for-your-children','','','2012-02-15 19:34:44','2012-02-16 03:34:44','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1548',0,'post','',0),(1549,1,'2012-02-15 19:10:29','2012-02-16 03:10:29','','P1010520','Ready for work','inherit','open','open','','p1010520','','','2012-02-15 19:10:29','2012-02-16 03:10:29','',1548,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1010520.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1550,1,'2012-02-15 19:34:41','2012-02-16 03:34:41','Newt Gingrich wants to send my grandson to work.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1549\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Ready for work\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1010520.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1549\" title=\"P1010520\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1010520-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nOh, I\'m exaggerating a little. Lex is still more than eight months from his first birthday, and Newt will probably leave him alone until he\'s 3 or 4.\n\nBut then, who knows?\n\nGingrich has been described as a stupid person\'s idea of what a smart person is, and I think that\'s a pretty apt view. He\'s constantly coming up with new ideas that sound interesting until you really think about them. Things like free laptops for the homeless, or a permanent American colony on the Moon.\n\nThen there was the one that\'s got me worried for my grandson. Newt was suggesting that schools should get rid of some of their janitors and have their students work part-time to keep the schools clean. He says it will give them a sense of responsibility, but of course whenever conservative Republicans talk about things like this, you can bet they are looking for ways to reduce the amount of money working people are paid.\n\nI don\'t have any problem with Lex learning some manual labor skills. You never know when they might come in handy. If I ever needed to, I could perform very well sweeping floors. I learned that when I was working an overnight cleaning shift at a Jack in the Box when I was 22 years old. At first I would literally fall asleep on my feet while sweeping.\n\nBlue collar work was never the problem. As long as people could make a decent living at it, there was nothing at all wrong with that kind of work.\n\nThe problem is, so many of those jobs have been eliminated that most of the jobs remaining in that sector are ones that don\'t pay well enough to support anyone.\n\nAs you can see from the shirt, Lex is getting ready to be a white-collar worker.\n\nI\'m not even sure that\'s the route he\'ll take. I\'m thinking ballplayer ... or movie star ... or senator, if he\'s willing to embrace a life of crime.\n\nHis role model could be Newt.\n\n&nbsp;','Newt Gingrich is coming for your children','','inherit','open','open','','1548-revision','','','2012-02-15 19:34:41','2012-02-16 03:34:41','',1548,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1550',0,'revision','',0),(1575,1,'2012-02-24 19:57:12','2012-02-25 03:57:12','<strong><em>\"We\'re all strangers, but after a while you get used to it. You become deeper strangers. That\'s a sort of love.\"</em></strong>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1576\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Richard Castellano in &quot;Lovers and Other Strangers&quot;\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Richard-S.-Castellano-Lovers-and-Strangers.png\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1576\" title=\"Richard S. Castellano Lovers and Strangers\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Richard-S.-Castellano-Lovers-and-Strangers-300x230.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"230\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nWhen I first saw<a title=\"Lovers and Other Strangers\" href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066016/\"> \"Lovers and Other Strangers\"</a> in 1970, I viewed the character played by Richard Castellano as the comic relief in the movie. His most frequent line was, \"So what\'s the story, Richie?\" as he tried to find out why the older of his two sons was getting a divorce.\r\n\r\nThe last few times I\'ve watched the movie -- of course I have the DVD -- I have actually come to realize that his character, Frank Vecchio, whose younger son is the groom in the movie that is the movie\'s centerpiece, is actually the most important character of all.\r\n\r\nHe\'s the one who speaks the lines at the beginning of this piece, lines that say an awful lot about what marriage in America was once -- two people who shared enough and had enough in common that they could live together in relative happiness and raise a family.\r\n\r\nMy grandparents were married for nearly 65 years -- from 1920 until my grandfather died in 1985 -- and I can\'t remember ever seeing them hug or kiss or share any other sort of physical affection. I never heard them say they loved each other, but they stayed together and I never saw any sign that they <em>didn\'t</em> love or at least respect each other.\r\n\r\nThey stayed together.\r\n\r\nSo did most of the people I knew in my parents\' generation. Things like no-fault divorce were much more rare in those days. Indeed, in some states the <em>only</em> grounds for divorce was adultery. That\'s the generation that Castellano\'s and Bea Arthur\'s characters in \"Lovers and Other Strangers\" inhabited. When Frank explains to his son Richie what people could share other than sex -- a love for good food, for example -- it sounded hilarious to those of us who were 20 years old in 1970.\r\n\r\nBut they made a commitment and they kept it. Unlike my generation; too many of us took the attitude not of \"till death do us part\" but instead \"stay with it till it\'s no fun, then split.\"\r\n\r\nThat was why my first marriage essentially lasted a little less than four years and left me on my own again before I was 30 years old.\r\n\r\nBut if you hang in there, good things happen. This November, Nicole and I will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary, and while I have no chance to live long enough for 65 years together and only a slim chance for 50, I know I went to spend the rest of my life with her.\r\n\r\nYes, in some ways we are strangers. I don\'t presume to understand her, although I try.\r\n\r\nBut we are deeper strangers, and that\'s a sort of love.\r\n\r\nIt really is.','Yesterday\'s comic relief can be today\'s truth','','publish','open','open','','yesterdays-comic-relief-can-be-todays-truth','','','2012-02-24 19:57:12','2012-02-25 03:57:12','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1575',0,'post','',0),(1553,1,'2012-02-16 14:54:38','2012-02-16 22:54:38','','Hoosiers-13','A world gone past.','inherit','open','open','','hoosiers-13','','','2012-02-16 14:54:38','2012-02-16 22:54:38','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Hoosiers-13.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1903,1,'2013-02-18 19:41:19','2013-02-19 03:41:19','[caption id=\"attachment_1904\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Jerry Buss (1933-2013)\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/111211571.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1904\" title=\"111211571\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/111211571-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\n<strong><em>I haven\'t written for a while, and this is certainly nothing new. But Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss died this weekend at the age of 80, and it reminded me of something I wrote about Buss in July 1987 when I was sports editor of the Greeley Tribune in Colorado. Buss probably would have laughed at this column, which poked gentle fun at his reputation as a swinger.</em></strong>\r\n\r\nThere\'s an old saying in the newspaper business:\r\n\r\n\"Dog bites man isn\'t news. Man bites dog is news.\"\r\n\r\nThat\'s why when the story about Puppi Buss came across the wire datelined Los Angeles,, I had my doubts. It looked like a clear case of dog bites man.\r\n\r\nThe <em>Los Angeles Times</em> story, which we ran in Thursday\'s <em>Tribune</em>, started something like this:\r\n\r\n\"A woman who claims she met Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss in the elevator of a West Hollywood hotel in 1969, and lived with him on and off for the next 15 years, filed a $25 million palimony suit against the millionaire businessman Wednesday, charging that he lied when he pledged he would take care of her for the rest of her life.\"\r\n\r\nFollowing were the sad details of the story of Puppi Buss, nee Marsha Lee Osborne, who lived with Jeffy Buss at various times between 1969 and 1984. She reportedly changed her name from Marsha to Puppi because Buss used the name as a \"term of affection\" when referring to her.\r\n\r\nThat\'s easy to understand. I know I always refer to the people I care about with animal designations. Just ask my brother \"Hamster\" and my cousin \"Warthog.\"\r\n\r\nWhy Puppi, though? Why not \"Kitten\" or \"Bunny,\" certainly more traditional animal nicknames for women? Could it be that \"Puppi\" became something a little darker when Buss was mad at her?\r\n\r\n<!--more-->\r\n\r\nAt any rate, Puppi reportedly, in the best tradition of California palimony cases, abandoned her own career and professional opportunities so that she could take care of Buss, who is 18 years her senior.\r\n\r\nLast year, when Puppi turned 35 (that\'s 245 in dog years), Buss allegedly stopped making payments to her. That ended a two-year campaign in which he forced her to leave the house he had bought for her and closed the business he had opened for her.\r\n\r\nNow Puppi has been reduced to managing day care centers and supervising rental properties (when  she isn\'t chasing cars). She is asking for $25 million, certainly a fair reimbursement for being named after an animal. What will probably come out in the course of all this is that Buss even made her eat out of a dog dish and sleep in the garage. Just a few more ways of showing \"affection.\" She probably balked at wearing the rhinestone collar and barking at the mailman, though.\r\n\r\nIt\'s a shame these two crazy kids can\'t work their problems out and get back together, because it certainly seems as though Puppi and Jerry are meant for each other.\r\n\r\nMaybe that\'s not entirely accurate. Maybe it\'s that the two of them deserve each other.\r\n\r\nSomeone -- I think it was either Pat Sajak or Ed Meese -- once called power the greatest aphrodisiac of all, and it\'s certain that Puppi wasn\'t attracted to Jerry because of his manly physique. In fact, her lawyer said she turned Buss down the first time he asked her out because he was \"too old and too heavy.\"\r\n\r\nA month later, though, she changed her mind. Her lawyer said Buss had slimmed down. Maybe Puppi found out who he was and how much money he had, or maybe she just realized that good looks aren\'t everything.\r\n\r\nSome people undoubtedly will see this as a case in the worst tradition of rich older men dominating naive young women, but I\'m not sure that\'s true. To me it seems more like a classic \"I Love L.A.\" case.\r\n\r\nRemember, it was Southern California that first gave us the concept of palimony back in the \'70s, when Michelle Triola sued Lee Marvin.. Her lawyer, Marvin Mitchelson, is the one who\'s taking care of Puppi these days..\r\n\r\nIt\'s tough not to admire a man who has devoted almost his entire career to fighting for a principle. Three hundred years from now, when people think of palimony, they\'ll think of Mitchelson.\r\n\r\nOf course the fact that he stands to make something like $8 million if Puppi gets her $25 million has nothing to do with it. Everyone knows that lawyers would give up everything they own to fight for something they believe in.\r\n\r\nAs I said earlier earlier, the simple solution to this case would just be for Puppi and Jerry to get back together. All it would take is a couple of concessions on each side.\r\n\r\nJerry would promise to pet her more often and to buy her the food she likes.\r\n\r\nPuppi would promise to use the paper.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Was it Puppi Love or just a business proposition?','','publish','open','open','','was-it-puppi-love-or-just-a-business-proposition','','','2013-02-18 19:41:19','2013-02-19 03:41:19','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1903',0,'post','',0),(1901,1,'2013-02-02 16:39:45','2013-02-03 00:39:45','I feel an obligation to post this, because it has never happened to me before.\r\n\r\nI don\'t seem to be able to finish anything. In the last month I have started a dozen different posts, but I haven\'t been able to finish any of them.\r\n\r\nPlease bear with me.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','A short explanation ...','','publish','open','open','','a-short-explanation','','','2013-02-02 16:39:45','2013-02-03 00:39:45','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1901',0,'post','',0),(1902,1,'2013-02-02 16:39:10','2013-02-03 00:39:10','I feel an obligation to post this, because it has never happened to me before.\n\nI don\'t seem to be able to finish anything. In the last month I have started a dozen diffre','','','inherit','open','open','','1901-revision','','','2013-02-02 16:39:10','2013-02-03 00:39:10','',1901,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1902',0,'revision','',0),(1556,1,'2012-02-17 20:18:11','2012-02-18 04:18:11','<em>\"The decisions you make now, bud, can\'t be changed but with years and years of hard work to redo it... And in those years you become something different. Everybody does as the time passes. You get married, you get into debt... But you\'re never gonna be the same person you are right now. And promise and potential... It\'s very fickle, and it just might not be there anymore.\"\r\n<strong>-- LIONS FOR LAMBS</strong></em>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1558\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Potential doesn&#39;t last forever.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/lionsa.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1558\" title=\"Lions For Lambs\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/lionsa-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nThe speech is in one of the final scenes of \"Lions for Lambs,\" where a USC professor played by Robert Redford tries to convince a promising student to actually do something meaningful with his life.\r\n\r\nIt may be difficult for some people to understand, but just as opportunities come and go, so does potential. The brain is a muscle like any other; exercise it and retain your potential or let things slide and slip slide away from brilliance just to brightness.\r\n\r\n<em>Editor\'s note: The brain is not a muscle.</em>\r\n\r\nNo, but the analogy works. I\'d be willing to bet that my IQ is 30-40 points lower than it was when I was 20. Reading fiction, playing computer games and surfing the Internet will do that to you.\r\n\r\nI made decisions, and I became something different -- someone different -- from what I was.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1559\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Tough to keep your seat.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/49027812.BullRiding2.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1559\" title=\"49027812.BullRiding2\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/49027812.BullRiding2-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nPromise and potential <em>are</em> very fickle, just as Redford\'s professor said. In a way, taking advantage of your gifts is like riding a bull in a rodeo. All you can do is hang on, keep trying and hope to make it through the ride. Each time you get thrown, it gets harder to get back on and do it again.\r\n\r\nI\'m not sure I ever bothered to get onto the bull more than once or twice in my life, and when things didn\'t go well -- when I got thrown -- I didn\'t get back on for a long time.\r\n\r\nI was always great at giving advice to my kids. I told my son that 90 percent of life was just showing up. He listened and he\'s doing very well.\r\n\r\nWhen I was 20, I might have accomplished something really important.\r\n\r\nI didn\'t.\r\n\r\nBut at 62, I can still be the best husband possible, the best father and the best grandfather. I can let the people I love know that I love them, and do what I can to make their lives happier.\r\n\r\nI can stop wasting my time on things like anger and disappointment, and I can finish my book.\r\n\r\nI think I might have at least a little bit of potential left.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When you\'re riding your potential, hang on tight','','publish','open','open','','when-youre-riding-your-potential-hang-on-tight','','','2012-02-17 20:18:11','2012-02-18 04:18:11','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1556',0,'post','',0),(1557,1,'2012-02-17 17:24:13','2012-02-18 01:24:13','<em>\"The decisions you make now, bud, can\'t be changed but with years and years of hard work to redo it... And in those years you become something different. Everybody does as the time passes. You get married, you get into debt... But you\'re never gonna be the same person you are right now. And promise and potential... It\'s very fickle, and it just might not be there anymore.\"\n<strong>-- LIONS FOR LAMBS</strong></em>\n\n<em>\n</em>','','','inherit','open','open','','1556-revision','','','2012-02-17 17:24:13','2012-02-18 01:24:13','',1556,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1557',0,'revision','',0),(1558,1,'2012-02-17 19:13:08','2012-02-18 03:13:08','','Lions For Lambs','Potential doesn\'t last forever.','inherit','open','open','','lions-for-lambs','','','2012-02-17 19:13:08','2012-02-18 03:13:08','',1556,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/lionsa.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1559,1,'2012-02-17 19:56:43','2012-02-18 03:56:43','','49027812.BullRiding2','Tough to keep your seat.','inherit','open','open','','49027812-bullriding2','','','2012-02-17 19:56:43','2012-02-18 03:56:43','',1556,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/49027812.BullRiding2.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1560,1,'2012-02-17 20:12:37','2012-02-18 04:12:37','<em>\"The decisions you make now, bud, can\'t be changed but with years and years of hard work to redo it... And in those years you become something different. Everybody does as the time passes. You get married, you get into debt... But you\'re never gonna be the same person you are right now. And promise and potential... It\'s very fickle, and it just might not be there anymore.\"\n<strong>-- LIONS FOR LAMBS</strong></em>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1558\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Potential doesn&#39;t last forever.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/lionsa.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1558\" title=\"Lions For Lambs\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/lionsa-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThe speech is in one of the final scenes of \"Lions for Lambs,\" where a USC professor played by Robert Redford tries to convince a promising student to actually do something meaningful with his life.\n\nIt may be difficult for some people to understand, but just as opportunities come and go, so does potential. The brain is a muscle like any other; exercise it and retain your potential or let things slide and slip slide away from brilliance just to brightness.\n\n<em>Editor\'s note: The brain is not a muscle.</em>\n\nNo, but the analogy works. I\'d be willing to bet that my IQ is 30-40 points lower than it was when I was 20. Reading fiction, playing computer games and surfing the Internet will do that to you.\n\nI made decisions, and I became something different -- someone different -- from what I was.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1559\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Tough to keep your seat.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/49027812.BullRiding2.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1559\" title=\"49027812.BullRiding2\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/49027812.BullRiding2-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nPromise and potential <em>are</em> very fickle, just as Redford\'s professor said. In a way, taking advantage of your gifts is like riding a bull in a rodeo. All you can do is hang on, keep trying and hope to make it through the ride. Each time you get thrown, it gets harder to get back on and do it again.\n\nI\'m not sure I ever bothered to get onto the bull more than once or twice in my life, and when things didn\'t go well -- when I got thrown -- I didn\'t get back on for a long time.\n\nI was always great at giving advice to my kids. I told my son that 90 percent of life was just showing up. He listened and he\'s doing very well.\n\nWhen I was 20, I might have accomplished something really important.\n\nI didn\'t.\n\nBut at 62, I can still be the best husband possible, the best father and the best grandfather. I can let the people I love know that I love them, and do what I can to make their lives happier.\n\nI can stop wasting my time on things like anger and disappointment, and I can finish my book.\n\nI think I might have at least a little bit of potential left.\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1556-revision-2','','','2012-02-17 20:12:37','2012-02-18 04:12:37','',1556,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1560',0,'revision','',0),(1542,1,'2012-02-02 14:45:48','2012-02-02 22:45:48','What\'s the oldest \"gadget\" you have that you\'re still using?\r\n\r\nLet\'s include computers, television sets, VCRs, radios, DVD players, kitchen appliances and personal items in that. Think of everything you have in your house or car that turns on and then does something and tell me the oldest thing you\'ve got.\r\n\r\nI\', pretty sure the oldest thing I have is a toaster that I bought in 1991 when I was living in Anaheim. When Nicole and I married in 1992, we went through what we had and got rid of duplications. She liked my toaster, so we kept it and I\'m still using it two or three times a week 20 years later.\r\n\r\nThat seems pretty good to me, but it isn\'t even in the same ballpark as the gadget that hangs on the wall in my mother\'s house, the home in which I grew up.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1543\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"185\" caption=\"Different color, same model\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/images-1.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1543\" title=\"images (1)\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/images-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"185\" height=\"273\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nIt\'s a yellow phone with a rotary dial that AT&amp;T installed in the brand-new house my parents bought in January 1963. I seem to recall we had two phones in the house at first, the one in the kitchen and an extension in my parents\' bedroom.\r\n\r\nI think they replaced the bedroom phone at some point and added a third one downstairs in the family room. Both of the other phones have been touch-tone for many years, but the one in the kitchen has gone on and on. Next January it will have been in its place for 50 years.\r\n\r\nWhy is this significant?\r\n\r\nAnyone who had a telephone before the 1980s could tell you that. Until the phone company was forced to diversify, people didn\'t <em>own</em> the phones in their homes. The phone company did, and rented them to us for a small monthly fee.\r\n\r\nPhones<em> lasted</em> back then. They were heavier, more solid and better built, because planned obsolescence -- the scourge of the modern world -- didn\'t benefit the phone company back then. The longer your phone lasted, the better off they were.\r\n\r\nEver since the Reagan-era diversification, when the folks who sold you the phones weren\'t the same ones who provided service, the phones themselves have gotten flimsier and less dependable. I know I haven\'t owned a phone since then that has lasted 10 years, let alone 50.\r\n\r\nCell phones are even worse. I\'ve had two high-end Blackberries and one Android that have all gone bad in less than 18 months.\r\n\r\nI remember when I was younger, hearing my grandfather say they didn\'t make things the way they once did.\r\n\r\nWho knew?\r\n\r\nHe was right.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','My mother has a phone that\'s older than my kids','','publish','open','open','','my-mother-has-a-phone-thats-older-than-my-kids','','','2012-02-02 14:45:48','2012-02-02 22:45:48','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1542',0,'post','',0),(1570,1,'2012-02-22 10:04:42','2012-02-22 18:04:42','I was reading this month\'s Vanity Fair in the doctor\'s office and I came across the leading man interviews with George Clooney, Matt Damon and Daniel Craig.\r\n\r\nWhat fascinated me was the questions, apparently an interview format developed by Marcel Proust. So I thought I would interview myself, using those questions. Here goes:\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1571\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"200\" caption=\"Moving on down the road.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1571\" title=\"312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\n<strong>What is your idea of perfect happiness?</strong>\r\nMy children.\r\n\r\n<strong>What is your greatest fear?</strong>\r\nHurting the people I love.\r\n\r\n<strong>Which historical figure do you most identify with?</strong>\r\nH.L. Mencken.\r\n\r\n<strong>Which living person do you most admire?</strong>\r\nMy daughter.\r\n\r\n<strong>What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?</strong>\r\nI give up too easily.\r\n\r\n<strong>What is the trait you most deplore in others?</strong>\r\nSelf-righteousness.\r\n\r\n<strong>What is your greatest extravagance?</strong>\r\nMy collection of movies on DVD.\r\n\r\n<strong>What is your favorite journey?</strong>\r\nTen days in Venice with my wife.\r\n\r\n<strong>What do you consider the most overrated virtue?</strong>\r\nPatience.\r\n\r\n<strong>On what occasion do you lie?</strong>\r\nTo spare someone\'s feelings.\r\n\r\n<strong>What do you dislike most about your appearance?</strong>\r\nFluctuations in weight.\r\n\r\n<strong>Which living person do you most despise?</strong>\r\nI wish I didn\'t, but Rush Limbaugh.\r\n\r\n<strong>What words or phrase do you most overuse?</strong>\r\nI\'ll tell you what ...\r\n\r\n<strong>Which talent would you most like to have?</strong>\r\nBeing able to sing well.\r\n\r\n<strong>What is your current state of mind?</strong>\r\nFrustrated.\r\n\r\n<strong>If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?</strong>\r\nMy work ethic.\r\n\r\n<strong>If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?</strong>\r\nI would make my wife healthier, both in spirit and in body.\r\n\r\n<strong>What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?</strong>\r\nPlaying the small role I did in helping my children grow from wonderful kids with great potential into high-achieving adults.\r\n\r\n<strong>If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?</strong>\r\nSomeone who works very hard and perseveres despite average talents. Or maybe a kangaroo.\r\n\r\n<strong>What is your most treasured possession?</strong>\r\nThe love of my family and friends.\r\n\r\n<strong>Where would you like to live?</strong>\r\nWherever my wife Nicole is.\r\n\r\n<strong>What is your favorite occupation?</strong>\r\nWriting a newspaper column.\r\n\r\n<strong>What is the quality you like most in a man?</strong>\r\nUnselfishness.\r\n\r\n<strong>What is the quality you like most in a woman?</strong>\r\nKindness. Either that or large breasts. Just kidding.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1572\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"The future is his.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1010519.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1572\" title=\"P1010519\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1010519-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\n<strong>What is your greatest regret?</strong>\r\nThe fact that I probably won\'t live long enough to see how things turn out as adults for my grandchildren.\r\n\r\n<strong>What do you value the most in your friends?</strong>\r\nThe wonderful history that we share together.\r\n\r\n<strong>Who are your favorite writers?</strong>\r\nPat Conroy, Robert B. Parker, Bob Greene (not the fitness guy, the other one).\r\n\r\n<strong>Who is your favorite hero of fiction?</strong>\r\nAtticus Finch, also Jonathan Kent.\r\n\r\n<strong>Who are your heroes in real life?</strong>\r\nMy wife and children.\r\n\r\n<strong>What is it that you most dislike?</strong>\r\nPeople who carry water politically for the mega-rich.\r\n\r\n<strong>How would you like to die?</strong>\r\nPeacefully, with the people I love close at hand.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Proust picked the questions; they\'re my answers','','publish','open','open','','proust-picked-the-questions-theyre-my-answers','','','2012-02-22 10:04:42','2012-02-22 18:04:42','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1570',0,'post','',0),(1571,1,'2012-02-22 10:01:42','2012-02-22 18:01:42','','312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n','Moving on down the road.','inherit','open','open','','312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n','','','2012-02-22 10:01:42','2012-02-22 18:01:42','',1570,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1572,1,'2012-02-22 10:03:07','2012-02-22 18:03:07','','P1010519','The future is his.','inherit','open','open','','p1010519','','','2012-02-22 10:03:07','2012-02-22 18:03:07','',1570,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1010519.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1573,1,'2012-02-22 10:03:50','2012-02-22 18:03:50','I was reading this month\'s Vanity Fair in the doctor\'s office and I came across the leading man interviews with George Clooney, Matt Damon and Daniel Craig.\n\nWhat fascinated me was the questions, apparently an interview format developed by Marcel Proust. So I thought I would interview myself, using those questions. Here goes:\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1571\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"200\" caption=\"Moving on down the road.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1571\" title=\"312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n<strong>What is your idea of perfect happiness?</strong>\nMy children.\n\n<strong>What is your greatest fear?</strong>\nHurting the people I love.\n\n<strong>Which historical figure do you most identify with?</strong>\nH.L. Mencken.\n\n<strong>Which living person do you most admire?</strong>\nMy daughter.\n\n<strong>What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?</strong>\nI give up too easily.\n\n<strong>What is the trait you most deplore in others?</strong>\nSelf-righteousness.\n\n<strong>What is your greatest extravagance?</strong>\nMy collection of movies on DVD.\n\n<strong>What is your favorite journey?</strong>\nTen days in Venice with my wife.\n\n<strong>What do you consider the most overrated virtue?</strong>\nPatience.\n\n<strong>On what occasion do you lie?</strong>\nTo spare someone\'s feelings.\n\n<strong>What do you dislike most about your appearance?</strong>\nFluctuations in weight.\n\n<strong>Which living person do you most despise?</strong>\nI wish I didn\'t, but Rush Limbaugh.\n\n<strong>What words or phrase do you most overuse?</strong>\nI\'ll tell you what ...\n\n<strong>Which talent would you most like to have?</strong>\nBeing able to sing well.\n\n<strong>What is your current state of mind?</strong>\nFrustrated.\n\n<strong>If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?</strong>\nMy work ethic.\n\n<strong>If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?</strong>\nI would make my wife healthier, both in spirit and in body.\n\n<strong>What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?</strong>\nPlaying the small role I did in helping my children grow from wonderful kids with great potential into high-achieving adults.\n\n<strong>If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?</strong>\nSomeone who works very hard and perseveres despite average talents. Or maybe a kangaroo.\n\n<strong>What is your most treasured possession?</strong>\nThe love of my family and friends.\n\n<strong>Where would you like to live?</strong>\nWherever my wife Nicole is.\n\n<strong>What is your favorite occupation?</strong>\nWriting a newspaper column.\n\n<strong>What is the quality you like most in a man?</strong>\nUnselfishness.\n\n<strong>What is the quality you like most in a woman?</strong>\nKindness. Either that or large breasts. Just kidding.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1572\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"The future is his.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1010519.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1572\" title=\"P1010519\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1010519-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n<strong>What is your greatest regret?</strong>\nThe fact that I probably won\'t live long enough to see how things turn out as adults for my grandchildren.\n\n<strong>What do you value the most in your friends?</strong>\nThe wonderful history that we share together.\n\n<strong>Who are your favorite writers?</strong>\nPat Conroy, Robert B. Parker, Bob Greene (not the fitness guy, the other one).\n\n<strong>Who is your favorite hero of fiction?</strong>\nAtticus Finch, also Jonathan Kent.\n\n<strong>Who are your heroes in real life?</strong>\nMy wife and children.\n\n<strong>What is it that you most dislike?</strong>\nPeople who carry water politically for the mega-rich.\n\n<strong>How would you like to die?</strong>\nPeacefully, with the people I love close at hand.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1570-revision','','','2012-02-22 10:03:50','2012-02-22 18:03:50','',1570,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1573',0,'revision','',0),(1574,1,'2012-02-22 10:05:46','2012-02-22 18:05:46','I was reading this month\'s Vanity Fair in the doctor\'s office and I came across the leading man interviews with George Clooney, Matt Damon and Daniel Craig.\n\nWhat fascinated me was the questions, apparently an interview format developed by Marcel Proust. So I thought I would interview myself, using those questions. Here goes:\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1571\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"200\" caption=\"Moving on down the road.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1571\" title=\"312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n<strong>What is your idea of perfect happiness?</strong>\nMy children.\n\n<strong>What is your greatest fear?</strong>\nHurting the people I love.\n\n<strong>Which historical figure do you most identify with?</strong>\nH.L. Mencken.\n\n<strong>Which living person do you most admire?</strong>\nMy daughter.\n\n<strong>What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?</strong>\nI give up too easily.\n\n<strong>What is the trait you most deplore in others?</strong>\nSelf-righteousness.\n\n<strong>What is your greatest extravagance?</strong>\nMy collection of movies on DVD.\n\n<strong>What is your favorite journey?</strong>\nTen days in Venice with my wife.\n\n<strong>What do you consider the most overrated virtue?</strong>\nPatience.\n\n<strong>On what occasion do you lie?</strong>\nTo spare someone\'s feelings.\n\n<strong>What do you dislike most about your appearance?</strong>\nFluctuations in weight.\n\n<strong>Which living person do you most despise?</strong>\nI wish I didn\'t, but Rush Limbaugh.\n\n<strong>What words or phrase do you most overuse?</strong>\nI\'ll tell you what ...\n\n<strong>Which talent would you most like to have?</strong>\nBeing able to sing well.\n\n<strong>What is your current state of mind?</strong>\nFrustrated.\n\n<strong>If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?</strong>\nMy work ethic.\n\n<strong>If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?</strong>\nI would make my wife healthier, both in spirit and in body.\n\n<strong>What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?</strong>\nPlaying the small role I did in helping my children grow from wonderful kids with great potential into high-achieving adults.\n\n<strong>If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?</strong>\nSomeone who works very hard and perseveres despite average talents. Or maybe a kangaroo.\n\n<strong>What is your most treasured possession?</strong>\nThe love of my family and friends.\n\n<strong>Where would you like to live?</strong>\nWherever my wife Nicole is.\n\n<strong>What is your favorite occupation?</strong>\nWriting a newspaper column.\n\n<strong>What is the quality you like most in a man?</strong>\nUnselfishness.\n\n<strong>What is the quality you like most in a woman?</strong>\nKindness. Either that or large breasts. Just kidding.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1572\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"The future is his.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1010519.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1572\" title=\"P1010519\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1010519-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n<strong>What is your greatest regret?</strong>\nThe fact that I probably won\'t live long enough to see how things turn out as adults for my grandchildren.\n\n<strong>What do you value the most in your friends?</strong>\nThe wonderful history that we share together.\n\n<strong>Who are your favorite writers?</strong>\nPat Conroy, Robert B. Parker, Bob Greene (not the fitness guy, the other one).\n\n<strong>Who is your favorite hero of fiction?</strong>\nAtticus Finch, also Jonathan Kent.\n\n<strong>Who are your heroes in real life?</strong>\nMy wife and children.\n\n<strong>What is it that you most dislike?</strong>\nPeople who carry water politically for the mega-rich.\n\n<strong>How would you like to die?</strong>\nPeacefully, with the people I love close at hand.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','Proust picked the questions; they\'re my answers','','inherit','open','open','','1570-autosave','','','2012-02-22 10:05:46','2012-02-22 18:05:46','',1570,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1574',0,'revision','',0),(1576,1,'2012-02-24 19:20:15','2012-02-25 03:20:15','','Richard S. Castellano Lovers and Strangers','Richard Castellano in \"Lovers and Other Strangers\"','inherit','open','open','','richard-s-castellano-lovers-and-strangers','','','2012-02-24 19:20:15','2012-02-25 03:20:15','',1575,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Richard-S.-Castellano-Lovers-and-Strangers.png',0,'attachment','image/png',0),(1577,1,'2012-02-24 19:56:25','2012-02-25 03:56:25','<strong><em>\"We\'re all strangers, but after a while you get used to it. You become deeper strangers. That\'s a sort of love.\"</em></strong>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1576\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Richard Castellano in &quot;Lovers and Other Strangers&quot;\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Richard-S.-Castellano-Lovers-and-Strangers.png\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1576\" title=\"Richard S. Castellano Lovers and Strangers\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Richard-S.-Castellano-Lovers-and-Strangers-300x230.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"230\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nWhen I first saw<a title=\"Lovers and Other Strangers\" href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066016/\"> \"Lovers and Other Strangers\"</a> in 1970, I viewed the character played by Richard Castellano as the comic relief in the movie. His most frequent line was, \"So what\'s the story, Richie?\" as he tried to find out why the older of his two sons was getting a divorce.\n\nThe last few times I\'ve watched the movie -- of course I have the DVD -- I have actually come to realize that his character, Frank Vecchio, whose younger son is the groom in the movie that is the movie\'s centerpiece, is actually the most important character of all.\n\nHe\'s the one who speaks the lines at the beginning of this piece, lines that say an awful lot about what marriage in America was once -- two people who shared enough and had enough in common that they could live together in relative happiness and raise a family.\n\nMy grandparents were married for nearly 65 years -- from 1920 until my grandfather died in 1985 -- and I can\'t remember ever seeing them hug or kiss or share any other sort of physical affection. I never heard them say they loved each other, but they stayed together and I never saw any sign that they <em>didn\'t</em> love or at least respect each other.\n\nThey stayed together.\n\nSo did most of the people I knew in my parents\' generation. Things like no-fault divorce were much more rare in those days. Indeed, in some states the <em>only</em> grounds for divorce was adultery. That\'s the generation that Castellano\'s and Bea Arthur\'s characters in \"Lovers and Other Strangers\" inhabited. When Frank explains to his son Richie what people could share other than sex -- a love for good food, for example -- it sounded hilarious to those of us who were 20 years old in 1970.\n\nBut they made a commitment and they kept it. Unlike my generation; too many of us took the attitude not of \"till death do us part\" but instead \"stay with it till it\'s no fun, then split.\"\n\nThat was why my first marriage essentially lasted a little less than four years and left me on my own again before I was 30 years old.\n\nBut if you hang in there, good things happen. This November, Nicole and I will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary, and while I have no chance to live long enough for 65 years together and only a slim chance for 50, I know I went to spend the rest of my life with her.\n\nYes, in some ways we are strangers. I don\'t presume to understand her, although I try.\n\nBut we are deeper strangers, and that\'s a sort of love.\n\nIt really is.','','','inherit','open','open','','1575-revision','','','2012-02-24 19:56:25','2012-02-25 03:56:25','',1575,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1577',0,'revision','',0),(1599,1,'2012-03-05 19:32:11','2012-03-06 03:32:11','When Nicole and I moved to Georgia, one of the things that excited me the most about our new community was that it was designed around a golf course.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1600\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"My favorite Par 5 -- No. 8\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101210_19.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1600\" title=\"20101210_19\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101210_19-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nInstead of driving 45 miles as I did in Southern California to play at the lovely Empire Lakes course in Rancho Cucamonga, all I have to do now is walk about a quarter mile to the first tee. Last winter I played 18 holes in 28-degree weather -- I was the only person on the course -- and in May I played maybe 20 times.\r\n\r\nBut when we came back from Europe in July and Nicole was having health problems, I didn\'t find myself making the effort to get onto the course as often. I played a couple of times in September and October, and then went out for nine holes on November 2nd.\r\n\r\nI didn\'t play again for more than four months.\r\n\r\nThen today, on a windy late-winter day, I got my clubs out of the garage, went down to the clubhouse and paid to play 18 holes. I hadn\'t swung any of my clubs in longer than I cared to remember, although I had played 18 holes -- sort of -- indoors in Seattle with my son-in-law on a wonderful simulator.\r\n\r\nWe played St. Andrew\'s. My score was somewhere in the 120s. I was out of shape and I couldn\'t get accustomed to hitting a ball into a screen.\r\n\r\nMy first swing today was nothing special. A drive that went maybe 130 yards. In fact, I double-bogeyed the first hole, but heck, I did that maybe a third of the time when I played regularly. It\'s one of the two or three toughest holes on the course.\r\n\r\nWhat surprised me the most was that things got better after that. I put my tee shot on the fringe on the second hole and two-putted for a par. I parred the fourth hole as well, and after a second double bogey on No. 6, I parred the seventh hole and bogeyed the eighth.\r\n\r\nOn the par three ninth hole, I hit a bad shot -- topped it -- but got a good result as the ball wound up on the green, 42 feet away from the hole.\r\n\r\nI have a tendency to three-putt in those situations, but I hit this one as well as I possibly could. The ball came to a stop about 10 inches to the left of the hole. I tapped in for par and a quite respectable 43 for nine holes.\r\n\r\nI called it quits at that point and walked off feeling pretty good.\r\n\r\nToday was the fifth day of my diet-and-exercise regimen, and it was the first day I substituted golf for walking. It worked pretty well, and things are fine in general -- down 11 pounds the first four days. I still have a helluva long way to go, but after five days, I\'m into my routine.\r\n\r\nThat\'s half the battle at this point.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','On the links wonderful after a long absence','','publish','open','open','','on-the-links-wonderful-after-a-long-absence','','','2012-03-05 19:32:11','2012-03-06 03:32:11','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1599',0,'post','',0),(1580,1,'2012-02-28 20:43:43','2012-02-29 04:43:43','There is one thing that really fascinates me about the passing years.\r\n\r\nIt\'s that some things that mattered deeply to us when we were young continue to matter, others don\'t and still others sort of slip away without even a thought.\r\n\r\nWhen I was in my early twenties, there were few movies I anticipated as eagerly as the ones made by Woody Allen. I thought \"Bananas\" was one of the funniest films I had ever seen, and when \"Sleeper\" came out in limited release in December 1973 I remember driving up Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C., almost to the Maryland line for a midnight showing at the one theater in the area where it was playing.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1581\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"168\" caption=\"Woody in &quot;Sleeper&quot;\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/00210065-0000-0000-0000-000000000000_00000065-06d1-0000-0000-000000000000_20101022191453_sleeper.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1581\" title=\"00210065-0000-0000-0000-000000000000_00000065-06d1-0000-0000-000000000000_20101022191453_sleeper\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/00210065-0000-0000-0000-000000000000_00000065-06d1-0000-0000-000000000000_20101022191453_sleeper.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"168\" height=\"280\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nI\'m not sure there was ever a movie that made me laugh more. It wasn\'t the first time Woody and Diane Keaton appeared together, but it was the first time she was in a film he directed, and she showed a surprising talent for physical comedy.\r\n\r\nBy then I was hooked. I saw every film he made through \"Radio Days\" -- still one of my favorites -- in 1987, including a fairly amazing occurrence in January 1984 when I was living in Anderson, S.C. We had only one movie theater in town -- actually two screens -- so what came to Anderson was fairly limited. I remember on a Monday night off, I went to the last showing (9:30 or so). The two movies playing were Allen\'s \"Broadway Danny Rose\" and a slob comedy about skiing called \"Hot Dog: The Movie.\"\r\n\r\nThere were a pretty good number of people in line for tickets and refreshments, but surprise of surprises, every one of them except me went for David Naughton and Shannon Tweed. I watched \"Broadway Danny Rose\" without one other person in the theater.\r\n\r\nSomewhere, thought, he lost me. In the \'90s, I only saw two of Allen\'s films -- \"Manhattan Murder Mystery\" and \"Mighty Aphrodite,\" the second on DVD. And in the next decade, I only saw \"Scoop\" -- again on DVD -- and that was actually more because of Scarlett Johansson than Woody. I have the DVD for \"Vicky Cristina Barcelona\" but have yet to watch it.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/MV5BMTM4NjY1MDQwMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTI3Njg3NA@@._V1._SX95_SY140_.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1582\" title=\"MV5BMTM4NjY1MDQwMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTI3Njg3NA@@._V1._SX95_SY140_\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/MV5BMTM4NjY1MDQwMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTI3Njg3NA@@._V1._SX95_SY140_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"95\" height=\"140\" /></a>But last night I put Woody\'s most recent film into my Blu-Ray player, \"Midnight in Paris\" with Owen Wilson in the Woody Allen role, and I loved it from beginning to end. I don\'t know how critics rate this movie compared to other recent films of his, but I enjoyed it more than anything I had seen since \"Radio Days.\"\r\n\r\nI don\'t think this is going to send me off on a buying spree of his recent work, but I guess I\'ll at least watch \"Vicky\" and then maybe I\'ll drag out some of the old ones again.\r\n\r\nI\'m pretty sure no one is making comedies any better than that.\r\n\r\nThe only thing that\'s a shame about it is that comedy is such a communal experience. When I watch a good comedy in a crowded theater, I laugh out loud from beginning to end.\r\n\r\nHere at home, I just smile.\r\n\r\nIt\'s OK. Smiling is better than not smiling.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','It looks like Woody still knows what he\'s doing','','publish','open','open','','it-looks-like-woody-still-knows-what-hes-doing','','','2012-02-28 20:43:43','2012-02-29 04:43:43','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1580',0,'post','',0),(1581,1,'2012-02-28 20:22:59','2012-02-29 04:22:59','','00210065-0000-0000-0000-000000000000_00000065-06d1-0000-0000-000000000000_20101022191453_sleeper','Woody in \"Sleeper\"','inherit','open','open','','00210065-0000-0000-0000-000000000000_00000065-06d1-0000-0000-000000000000_20101022191453_sleeper','','','2012-02-28 20:22:59','2012-02-29 04:22:59','',1580,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/00210065-0000-0000-0000-000000000000_00000065-06d1-0000-0000-000000000000_20101022191453_sleeper.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1582,1,'2012-02-28 20:38:03','2012-02-29 04:38:03','','MV5BMTM4NjY1MDQwMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTI3Njg3NA@@._V1._SX95_SY140_','','inherit','open','open','','mv5bmtm4njy1mdqwml5bml5banbnxkftztcwnti3njg3na-_v1-_sx95_sy140_','','','2012-02-28 20:38:03','2012-02-29 04:38:03','',1580,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/MV5BMTM4NjY1MDQwMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTI3Njg3NA@@._V1._SX95_SY140_.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1583,1,'2012-02-28 20:43:36','2012-02-29 04:43:36','There is one thing that really fascinates me about the passing years.\n\nIt\'s that some things that mattered deeply to us when we were young continue to matter, others don\'t and still others sort of slip away without even a thought.\n\nWhen I was in my early twenties, there were few movies I anticipated as eagerly as the ones made by Woody Allen. I thought \"Bananas\" was one of the funniest films I had ever seen, and when \"Sleeper\" came out in limited release in December 1973 I remember driving up Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C., almost to the Maryland line for a midnight showing at the one theater in the area where it was playing.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1581\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"168\" caption=\"Woody in &quot;Sleeper&quot;\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/00210065-0000-0000-0000-000000000000_00000065-06d1-0000-0000-000000000000_20101022191453_sleeper.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1581\" title=\"00210065-0000-0000-0000-000000000000_00000065-06d1-0000-0000-000000000000_20101022191453_sleeper\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/00210065-0000-0000-0000-000000000000_00000065-06d1-0000-0000-000000000000_20101022191453_sleeper.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"168\" height=\"280\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nI\'m not sure there was ever a movie that made me laugh more. It wasn\'t the first time Woody and Diane Keaton appeared together, but it was the first time she was in a film he directed, and she showed a surprising talent for physical comedy.\n\nBy then I was hooked. I saw every film he made through \"Radio Days\" -- still one of my favorites -- in 1987, including a fairly amazing occurrence in January 1984 when I was living in Anderson, S.C. We had only one movie theater in town -- actually two screens -- so what came to Anderson was fairly limited. I remember on a Monday night off, I went to the last showing (9:30 or so). The two movies playing were Allen\'s \"Broadway Danny Rose\" and a slob comedy about skiing called \"Hot Dog: The Movie.\"\n\nThere were a pretty good number of people in line for tickets and refreshments, but surprise of surprises, every one of them except me went for David Naughton and Shannon Tweed. I watched \"Broadway Danny Rose\" without one other person in the theater.\n\nSomewhere, thought, he lost me. In the \'90s, I only saw two of Allen\'s films -- \"Manhattan Murder Mystery\" and \"Mighty Aphrodite,\" the second on DVD. And in the next decade, I only saw \"Scoop\" -- again on DVD -- and that was actually more because of Scarlett Johansson than Woody. I have the DVD for \"Vicky Cristina Barcelona\" but have yet to watch it.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/MV5BMTM4NjY1MDQwMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTI3Njg3NA@@._V1._SX95_SY140_.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1582\" title=\"MV5BMTM4NjY1MDQwMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTI3Njg3NA@@._V1._SX95_SY140_\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/MV5BMTM4NjY1MDQwMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTI3Njg3NA@@._V1._SX95_SY140_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"95\" height=\"140\" /></a>But last night I put Woody\'s most recent film into my Blu-Ray player, \"Midnight in Paris\" with Owen Wilson in the Woody Allen role, and I loved it from beginning to end. I don\'t know how critics rate this movie compared to other recent films of his, but I enjoyed it more than anything I had seen since \"Radio Days.\"\n\nI don\'t think this is going to send me off on a buying spree of his recent work, but I guess I\'ll at least watch \"Vicky\" and then maybe I\'ll drag out some of the old ones again.\n\nI\'m pretty sure no one is making comedies any better than that.\n\nThe only thing that\'s a shame about it is that comedy is such a communal experience. When I watch a good comedy in a crowded theater, I laugh out loud from beginning to end.\n\nHere at home, I just smile.\n\nIt\'s OK. Smiling is better than not smiling.\n\n&nbsp;','It looks like Woody still kn','','inherit','open','open','','1580-revision','','','2012-02-28 20:43:36','2012-02-29 04:43:36','',1580,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1583',0,'revision','',0),(1584,1,'2012-02-29 19:39:07','2012-03-01 03:39:07','Twenty-two months ago today, I arrived in Texas weighing 280 pounds.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1585\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"In Texas, May 2010\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/20101020_36.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1585\" title=\"20101020_36\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/20101020_36-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nIt was the heaviest I had ever been in my life, and I was serious enough to pay to spend 11 weeks at Rancho Cortez, a fitness ranch in the lovely Texas Hill Country. I shoveled manure, hiked, rode horseback and exercised, dieting all the while.\r\n\r\nWhen I left for home in mid-July, I weighed 213 pounds, and I had established such a good routine that by the end of October -- when we moved from California to Georgia -- my weight was down to 168.\r\n\r\nI had lost 112 pounds in six months and I was walking at least six miles every day.\r\n\r\nI figured I had completely straightened out my life, health-wise, and I went to two reunions back home in Virginia in early November thrilled with how I looked.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1586\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"200\" caption=\"November 2010\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n1.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1586\" title=\"312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n1-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nIf only it had lasted.\r\n\r\nThere have been at least five different times in my life that I have had very successful diets, and every one of those times, I eventually gained the weight back.\r\n\r\nThis time was the worst of all. In about a year, I gained back all the weight I had worked so hard to lose in 2010. My cholesterol is bad again and so is my blood pressure. I look pretty much like I did on horseback, only a little heavier.\r\n\r\nYou\'re not going to see any pictures of the way I look now, at least not on my Website.\r\n\r\nA lot of the stress that I reacted badly to was due to health problems my lovely wife was having. She too is heavier than she has ever been, although she is still beautiful.\r\n\r\nWe\'ve been talking about it for weeks, and tomorrow morning -- March 1 -- both of us will start a strict diet and exercise regimen designed to get us heading in the right direction. We\'re going back to Texas together in May, although we\'ll spend just a month there this time.\r\n\r\nIt isn\'t going to be easy.\r\n\r\nIt is going to be necessary.\r\n\r\nOne of these times, I have to get it right.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','This time, getting it right is a definite must','','publish','open','open','','this-time-getting-it-right-is-a-definite-must','','','2012-02-29 19:39:07','2012-03-01 03:39:07','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1584',0,'post','',0),(1585,1,'2012-02-29 19:15:21','2012-03-01 03:15:21','','20101020_36','In Texas, May 2010','inherit','open','open','','20101020_36','','','2012-02-29 19:15:21','2012-03-01 03:15:21','',1584,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/20101020_36.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1586,1,'2012-02-29 19:23:37','2012-03-01 03:23:37','','312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n','November 2010','inherit','open','open','','312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n-2','','','2012-02-29 19:23:37','2012-03-01 03:23:37','',1584,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n1.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1587,1,'2012-02-29 19:39:05','2012-03-01 03:39:05','Twenty-two months ago today, I arrived in Texas weighing 280 pounds.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1585\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"In Texas, May 2010\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/20101020_36.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1585\" title=\"20101020_36\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/20101020_36-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nIt was the heaviest I had ever been in my life, and I was serious enough to pay to spend 11 weeks at Rancho Cortez, a fitness ranch in the lovely Texas Hill Country. I shoveled manure, hiked, rode horseback and exercised, dieting all the while.\n\nWhen I left for home in mid-July, I weighed 213 pounds, and I had established such a good routine that by the end of October -- when we moved from California to Georgia -- my weight was down to 168.\n\nI had lost 112 pounds in six months and I was walking at least six miles every day.\n\nI figured I had completely straightened out my life, health-wise, and I went to two reunions back home in Virginia in early November thrilled with how I looked.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1586\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"200\" caption=\"November 2010\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n1.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1586\" title=\"312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/312316_108384889268366_100002905662762_59593_1144218450_n1-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nIf only it had lasted.\n\nThere have been at least five different times in my life that I have had very successful diets, and every one of those times, I eventually gained the weight back.\n\nThis time was the worst of all. In about a year, I gained back all the weight I had worked so hard to lose in 2010. My cholesterol is bad again and so is my blood pressure. I look pretty much like I did on horseback, only a little heavier.\n\nYou\'re not going to see any pictures of the way I look now, at least not on my Website.\n\nA lot of the stress that I reacted badly to was due to health problems my lovely wife was having. She too is heavier than she has ever been, although she is still beautiful.\n\nWe\'ve been talking about it for weeks, and tomorrow morning -- March 1 -- both of us will start a strict diet and exercise regimen designed to get us heading in the right direction. We\'re going back to Texas together in May, although we\'ll spend just a month there this time.\n\nIt isn\'t going to be easy.\n\nIt is going to be necessary.\n\nOne of these times, I have to get it right.\n\n&nbsp;','This time, getting it right is a definite must','','inherit','open','open','','1584-revision','','','2012-02-29 19:39:05','2012-03-01 03:39:05','',1584,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1587',0,'revision','',0),(1588,1,'2012-03-01 19:46:54','2012-03-02 03:46:54','One day at a time.\r\n\r\nIt\'s frustrating to look at it that way, but I have come to understand that\'s really the only way I can look at it when it comes to my weight. Indeed, my overall health. There have been too many times in the last 30 years that I have spent months and months dieting and exercising to get myself into peak condition. In 1985, I could do a solid hour of intense circuit training when 22 1/2 minutes was considered a complete workout.\r\n\r\nIn 1989 and 1992, I could do an hour on the StairMaster at the highest setting possible.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/core.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1589\" title=\"core\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/core.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"288\" height=\"136\" /></a>Of course, I was much younger then. It got much more difficult in my fifties, and when I turned 60, I honestly didn\'t know if I could do it again. It took a lot more help than usual and I actually used my computer to keep track, thanks to the arm band I wore every day that measured my activity and my sleep.\r\n\r\nIt really helped me -- one day at a time -- to do what I needed to do.\r\n\r\nToday I charged my armband and started wearing it for the first time. I used the Website to count calories -- I\'m allowed 1,300 a day as long as I exercise for an hour and a half. I only managed a little less than an hour of walking today, but I only consumed about 600 calories.\r\n\r\nA good first day.\r\n\r\nA good first step. Tomorrow I\'ll take the second one.\r\n\r\nJust like any other alcoholic.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','It really all comes down to one day at a time','','publish','open','open','','it-really-all-comes-down-to-one-day-at-a-time','','','2012-03-01 19:46:54','2012-03-02 03:46:54','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1588',0,'post','',0),(1589,1,'2012-03-01 19:38:11','2012-03-02 03:38:11','','core','','inherit','open','open','','core','','','2012-03-01 19:38:11','2012-03-02 03:38:11','',1588,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/core.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1590,1,'2012-03-01 19:46:12','2012-03-02 03:46:12','One day at a time.\n\nIt\'s frustrating to look at it that way, but I have come to understand that\'s really the only way I can look at it when it comes to my weight. Indeed, my overall health. There have been too many times in the last 30 years that I have spent months and months dieting and exercising to get myself into peak condition. In 1985, I could do a solid hour of intense circuit training when 22 1/2 minutes was considered a complete workout.\n\nIn 1989 and 1992, I could do an hour on the StairMaster at the highest setting possible.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/core.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1589\" title=\"core\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/core.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"288\" height=\"136\" /></a>Of course, I was much younger then. It got much more difficult in my fifties, and when I turned 60, I honestly didn\'t know if I could do it again. It took a lot more help than usual and I actually used my computer to keep track, thanks to the arm band I wore every day that measured my activity and my sleep.\n\nIt really helped me -- one day at a time -- to do what I needed to do.\n\nToday I charged my armband and started wearing it for the first time. I used the Website to count calories -- I\'m allowed 1,300 a day as long as I exercise for an hour and a half. I only managed a little less than an hour of walking today, but I only consumed about 600 calories.\n\nA good first day.\n\nA good first step. Tomorrow I\'ll take the second one.\n\nJust\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1588-revision','','','2012-03-01 19:46:12','2012-03-02 03:46:12','',1588,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1590',0,'revision','',0),(1591,1,'2012-03-02 19:05:59','2012-03-03 03:05:59','My wife is the smartest person I know, and there isn\'t anything that is going to change that.\r\n\r\nNicole is a world-renowned scientist with two doctorates, and I only know two other people who have even one. Although I should include my friend Mick, who has a Th. D., the first to be awarded since the release of \"The Wizard of Oz.\"\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1592\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"199\" caption=\"Christine Miller\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/72713_1566395852264_1606450687_1274116_4087749_n.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1592\" title=\"72713_1566395852264_1606450687_1274116_4087749_n\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/72713_1566395852264_1606450687_1274116_4087749_n.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"267\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nThat said, another one of my friends is moving up the list fast and could find herself in second place before long. Christine Worth Miller was a good friend of mine for about two years during the Nixon Administration, but we lost touch and had almost no contact again until the last year or so on Facebook.\r\n\r\nShe lives in Florida now, and recently ended a relationship that had lasted nearly two-thirds of her life. Since Chris is an early Baby Boomer -- a few years younger than I am -- she has begun to think about how retirement will work. Or won\'t work, as the case may be.\r\n\r\nOur generation is the one stuck in between when it comes to retirement. Our parents\' generation generally had pensions, and our children started putting money into 401(k) accounts and Roth IRAs as soon as they got out of school and started working.\r\n\r\nI never had the opportunity to contribute to a retirement account at work until I was past my 40th birthday, and if it weren\'t for my wife, I would either be looking for a job or living in genteel poverty on Social Security. I am truly blessed.\r\n\r\nBut other friends nearing retirement age either don\'t have enough saved, still have large mortgages or don\'t own homes at all. And money isn\'t even the only problem. I\'ve been reading the wonderful book, <a title=\"The Art of Happiness\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Happiness\">\"The Art of Happiness,\" </a>by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and one of the most interesting parts to me was his emphasis on personal relationships as important to happiness.\r\n\r\nChris\'s idea, which fascinated me, was that people who had been her friends for many years, some of whom didn\'t have significant others or the money to live well on their own, might benefit from a sort of communal living. For example, four friends might be quite happy sharing a four-bedroom house. Each would have their own bedroom and they would share some of the bathroom facilities and the rest of the house.\r\n\r\nMaybe the best thing about her idea is that the worst part of getting old is almost without question being alone. To not only have friends to share your days, but for those friends to be people who share the fond memories of your youth, truly sounds wonderful. It reminds me of the Harry Chapin song,<a title=\"Let Time Go Lightly\" href=\"http://www.metrolyrics.com/let-time-go-lightly-lyrics-harry-chapin.html\"> \"Let Time Go Lightly:\"</a>\r\n\r\n<em>\"Old friends, they mean much more to me than the new friends, Cause they can see where you are,and they know where you\'ve been.\"</em>\r\n\r\nI think my friend may just be brilliant.','A wonderful idea for a shared retirement','','publish','open','open','','a-wonderful-idea-for-a-shared-retirement','','','2012-03-02 19:05:59','2012-03-03 03:05:59','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1591',0,'post','',0),(1592,1,'2012-03-02 18:05:37','2012-03-03 02:05:37','','72713_1566395852264_1606450687_1274116_4087749_n','Christine Miller','inherit','open','open','','72713_1566395852264_1606450687_1274116_4087749_n','','','2012-03-02 18:05:37','2012-03-03 02:05:37','',1591,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/72713_1566395852264_1606450687_1274116_4087749_n.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1593,1,'2012-03-02 19:05:17','2012-03-03 03:05:17','My wife is the smartest person I know, and there isn\'t anything that is going to change that.\n\nNicole is a world-renowned scientist with two doctorates, and I only know two other people who have even one. Although I should include my friend Mick, who has a Th. D., the first to be awarded since the release of \"The Wizard of Oz.\"\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1592\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"199\" caption=\"Christine Miller\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/72713_1566395852264_1606450687_1274116_4087749_n.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1592\" title=\"72713_1566395852264_1606450687_1274116_4087749_n\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/72713_1566395852264_1606450687_1274116_4087749_n.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"267\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThat said, another one of my friends is moving up the list fast and could find herself in second place before long. Christine Worth Miller was a good friend of mine for about two years during the Nixon Administration, but we lost touch and had almost no contact again until the last year or so on Facebook.\n\nShe lives in Florida now, and recently ended a relationship that had lasted nearly two-thirds of her life. Since Chris is an early Baby Boomer -- a few years younger than I am -- she has begun to think about how retirement will work. Or won\'t work, as the case may be.\n\nOur generation is the one stuck in between when it comes to retirement. Our parents\' generation generally had pensions, and our children started putting money into 401(k) accounts and Roth IRAs as soon as they got out of school and started working.\n\nI never had the opportunity to contribute to a retirement account at work until I was past my 40th birthday, and if it weren\'t for my wife, I would either be looking for a job or living in genteel poverty on Social Security. I am truly blessed.\n\nBut other friends nearing retirement age either don\'t have enough saved, still have large mortgages or don\'t own homes at all. And money isn\'t even the only problem. I\'ve been reading the wonderful book, <a title=\"The Art of Happiness\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Happiness\">\"The Art of Happiness,\" </a>by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and one of the most interesting parts to me was his emphasis on personal relationships as important to happiness.\n\nChris\'s idea, which fascinated me, was that people who had been her friends for many years, some of whom didn\'t have significant others or the money to live well on their own, might benefit from a sort of communal living. For example, four friends might be quite happy sharing a four-bedroom house. Each would have their own bedroom and they would share some of the bathroom facilities and the rest of the house.\n\nMaybe the best thing about her idea is that the worst part of getting old is almost without question being alone. To not only have friends to share your days, but for those friends to be people who share the fond memories of your youth, truly sounds wonderful. It reminds me of the Harry Chapin song,<a title=\"Let Time Go Lightly\" href=\"http://www.metrolyrics.com/let-time-go-lightly-lyrics-harry-chapin.html\"> \"Let Time Go Lightly:\"</a>\n\n<em>\"Old friends, they mean much more to me than the new friends, Cause they can see where you are,and they know where you\'ve been.\"</em>\n\nI think my friend may just be brilliant.','','','inherit','open','open','','1591-revision','','','2012-03-02 19:05:17','2012-03-03 03:05:17','',1591,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1593',0,'revision','',0),(1594,1,'2012-03-06 20:08:30','2012-03-07 04:08:30','Some months back, I was trying to discover some basic truths about life.\r\n\r\nI asked numerous people who mattered to me to send me their thoughts on the matter, and it came as no surprise to me that one of the most insightful comments came from my daughter Pauline. She wrote that what really mattered in life was family, and that living that belief was the most important thing to her.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1604\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Family, what matters most\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1604\" title=\"387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\n\"I always put my family first,\" she said.\r\n\r\nRecently, when I wrote about the Proust questions and posted an interview with myself, Pauline sent me an e-mail -- not for publication -- in which she answered the same questions. Her answers showed something I knew all along -- that what she had said earlier was 100 percent sincere, 100 percent true.\r\n\r\nThat left me wondering, because I agreed with her 100 percent. If you look at the basic human motivations, going back thousands of years, it seems to me that loving and being loved are pretty near the top of the list. Certainly there are others that matter, such as the desire for security, but it seems to me that so much of modern society with its \"he who dies with the most toys wins\" attitude has gone off track somewhere.\r\n\r\nI could ask almost any of my friends who have children what matters most to them, and I can\'t think of any of them who would rate their careers ahead of their families. Even the ones who haven\'t been particularly successful, when I look at the choices they have made, their career problems have come because they refused to put their jobs ahead of their families.\r\n\r\nThe other night I was watching \"Awakenings,\" the wonderful film from 1990 in which experimental drug therapy helped \"awaken\" patients who had been catatonic for more than 40 years since an encephalitis epidemic in 1926. Some of the patients were resentful, upset at how much of their lives had been lost. The main character, played by Robert DeNiro, wanted people who hadn\'t been through it to understand what really mattered.\r\n\r\nAfter his character was once again catatonic, his doctor -- played by Robin Williams -- passed along his thoughts.\r\n\r\n\"What we do know is that, as the chemical window closed, another awakening took place; that the human spirit is more powerful than any drug - and<em> that</em> is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. <em>These</em> are the things that matter. This is what we\'d forgotten - the simplest things.\"\r\n\r\nI couldn\'t agree more.','More people should know what really matters','','publish','open','open','','more-people-should-know-what-really-matters','','','2012-03-06 20:08:30','2012-03-07 04:08:30','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1594',0,'post','',0),(1595,1,'2012-03-03 20:24:49','2012-03-04 04:24:49','Everywhere I\'ve ever lived, I was within reach of a good daily newspaper. In fact, for the nearly 20 years I lived in the Washington, D.C., area, and the 20 I lived in Los Angeles, I had the opportunity to see a great newspaper every day.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1596\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Downtown Griffin\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20110209_6.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1596\" title=\"20110209_6\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20110209_6-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nI thought it would be the same thing living south of Atlanta, but it turns out we live one county too far to the south to get home delivery of the <em>Journal-Constitution</em>. Our local paper -- the <a title=\"Griffin Daily News\" href=\"http://www.http://griffindailynews.com/\"><em>Griffin Daily News</em></a> -- isn\'t anything special. It\'s only a third of the size of the smallest paper I ever worked for, and most of the news in it is two days old because of early deadlines. Just about all I read consistently are the weather forecasts and  the (mostly right wing) syndicated columnists.\r\n\r\nThere is one interesting thing about the paper. It\'s a once-a-week feature called <a title=\"My Two Cents\" href=\"http://griffindailynews.com/view/full_story/17731585/article-My-Two-Cents-March-3--2012?instance=mytwocents_leadstory\">My Two Cents</a>, in which subscribers can write in and have a paragraph or so of their thoughts published anonymously. My favorite -- one that comes up again and again -- is someone writing in to complain about the intelligence of people who write in. I wonder if they understand irony.\r\n\r\nToday, though, there was one that sort of stayed with me.\r\n\r\n<em>\"It\'s a crying shame that because of gangs, a person can\'t even drive over to the side of town they spent their youth growing up. Any area north of the Hill Street railroad tracks is off limits to each of us who grew up on the north side of town because of intimidation from this group of people.\"</em>\r\n\r\nGriffin isn\'t a big city. There are about 20,000 people, a population relatively equally divided between white and black, and I\'m pretty sure the writer is referring to the fact that the north side of town is what Johnny Rivers would have called \"The Poor Side of Town.\"\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1597\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Home\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101202_13.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1597\" title=\"20101202_13\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101202_13-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nI don\'t know the city that well yet. We\'ve lived her for nearly 16 months, but we lived in a gated community north of Griffin in what are probably the most expensive houses in the city.\r\n\r\nIn fact, very few people who have retired to our Del Webb community, <a title=\"Sun City Peachtree\" href=\"http://www.delwebb.com/communities/ga/griffin/sun-city-peachtree/index.aspx\">Sun City Peachtree</a>, lived in Griffin before moving here. I\'m pretty sure more than half of the folks who live here now came from places other than Georgia.\r\n\r\nNicole and I like it here. We like it a lot.\r\n\r\nIf only the Journal-Constitution would deliver one county farther to the south.\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em><strong>Diet update: I\'ve made it through three days now, walking every day and eating fewer than 1,000 calories each day, so it\'s a good start.</strong></em></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em><strong>I only weigh myself in the mornings, so the progress report is for two days. Down 7 pounds. Of course it\'s mostly water weight at the beginning, but it\'s a nice way to start.</strong></em></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em><strong>A long, long way to go.</strong></em></p>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','One thing missing here is a good newspaper','','publish','open','open','','one-thing-missing-here-is-a-good-newspaper','','','2012-03-03 20:24:49','2012-03-04 04:24:49','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1595',0,'post','',0),(1596,1,'2012-03-03 20:06:32','2012-03-04 04:06:32','','20110209_6','Downtown Griffin','inherit','open','open','','20110209_6','','','2012-03-03 20:06:32','2012-03-04 04:06:32','',1595,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20110209_6.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1597,1,'2012-03-03 20:17:12','2012-03-04 04:17:12','','20101202_13','Home','inherit','open','open','','20101202_13','','','2012-03-03 20:17:12','2012-03-04 04:17:12','',1595,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101202_13.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1598,1,'2012-03-03 20:24:28','2012-03-04 04:24:28','Everywhere I\'ve ever lived, I was within reach of a good daily newspaper. In fact, for the nearly 20 years I lived in the Washington, D.C., area, and the 20 I lived in Los Angeles, I had the opportunity to see a great newspaper every day.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1596\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Downtown Griffin\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20110209_6.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1596\" title=\"20110209_6\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20110209_6-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nI thought it would be the same thing living south of Atlanta, but it turns out we live one county too far to the south to get home delivery of the <em>Journal-Constitution</em>. Our local paper -- the <a title=\"Griffin Daily News\" href=\"http://www.http://griffindailynews.com/\"><em>Griffin Daily News</em></a> -- isn\'t anything special. It\'s only a third of the size of the smallest paper I ever worked for, and most of the news in it is two days old because of early deadlines. Just about all I read consistently are the weather forecasts and  the (mostly right wing) syndicated columnists.\n\nThere is one interesting thing about the paper. It\'s a once-a-week feature called <a title=\"My Two Cents\" href=\"http://griffindailynews.com/view/full_story/17731585/article-My-Two-Cents-March-3--2012?instance=mytwocents_leadstory\">My Two Cents</a>, in which subscribers can write in and have a paragraph or so of their thoughts published anonymously. My favorite -- one that comes up again and again -- is someone writing in to complain about the intelligence of people who write in. I wonder if they understand irony.\n\nToday, though, there was one that sort of stayed with me.\n\n<em>\"It\'s a crying shame that because of gangs, a person can\'t even drive over to the side of town they spent their youth growing up. Any area north of the Hill Street railroad tracks is off limits to each of us who grew up on the north side of town because of intimidation from this group of people.\"</em>\n\nGriffin isn\'t a big city. There are about 20,000 people, a population relatively equally divided between white and black, and I\'m pretty sure the writer is referring to the fact that the north side of town is what Johnny Rivers would have called \"The Poor Side of Town.\"\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1597\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Home\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101202_13.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1597\" title=\"20101202_13\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101202_13-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nI don\'t know the city that well yet. We\'ve lived her for nearly 16 months, but we lived in a gated community north of Griffin in what are probably the most expensive houses in the city.\n\nIn fact, very few people who have retired to our Del Webb community, <a title=\"Sun City Peachtree\" href=\"http://www.delwebb.com/communities/ga/griffin/sun-city-peachtree/index.aspx\">Sun City Peachtree</a>, lived in Griffin before moving here. I\'m pretty sure more than half of the folks who live here now came from places other than Georgia.\n\nNicole and I like it here. We like it a lot.\n\nIf only the Journal-Constitution would deliver one county farther to the south.\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em><strong>Diet update: I\'ve made it through three days now, walking every day and eating fewer than 1,000 calories each day, so it\'s a good start.</strong></em></p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em><strong>I only weight myself in the mornings, so the progress report is for two days. Down 7 pounds. Of course it\'s mostly water weight at the beginning, but it\'s a nice way to start.</strong></em></p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em><strong>A long, long way to go.</strong></em></p>\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1595-revision','','','2012-03-03 20:24:28','2012-03-04 04:24:28','',1595,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1598',0,'revision','',0),(1600,1,'2012-03-05 18:45:48','2012-03-06 02:45:48','','20101210_19','My favorite Par 5 -- No. 8','inherit','open','open','','20101210_19','','','2012-03-05 18:45:48','2012-03-06 02:45:48','',1599,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101210_19.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1601,1,'2012-03-05 19:31:12','2012-03-06 03:31:12','When Nicole and I moved to Georgia, one of the things that excited me the most about our new community was that it was designed around a golf course.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1600\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"My favorite Par 5 -- No. 8\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101210_19.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1600\" title=\"20101210_19\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101210_19-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nInstead of driving 45 miles as I did in Southern California to play at the lovely Empire Lakes course in Rancho Cucamonga, all I have to do now is walk about a quarter mile to the first tee. Last winter I played 18 holes in 28-degree weather -- I was the only person on the course -- and in May I played maybe 20 times.\n\nBut when we came back from Europe in July and Nicole was having health problems, I didn\'t find myself making the effort to get onto the course as often. I played a couple of times in September and October, and then went out for nine holes on November 2nd.\n\nI didn\'t play again for more than four months.\n\nThen today, on a windy late-winter day, I got my clubs out of the garage, went down to the clubhouse and paid to play 18 holes. I hadn\'t swung any of my clubs in longer than I cared to remember, although I had played 18 holes -- sort of -- indoors in Seattle with my son-in-law on a wonderful simulator.\n\nWe played St. Andrew\'s. My score was somewhere in the 120s. I was out of shape and I couldn\'t get accustomed to hitting a ball into a screen.\n\nMy first swing today was nothing special. A drive that went maybe 130 yards. In fact, I double-bogeyed the first hole, but heck, I did that maybe a third of the time when I played regularly. It\'s one of the two or three toughest holes on the course.\n\nWhat surprised me the most was that things got better after that. I put my tee shot on the fringe on the second hole and two-putted for a par. I parred the fourth hole as well, and after a second double bogey on No. 6, I parred the seventh hole and bogeyed the eighth.\n\nOn the par three ninth hole, I hit a bad shot -- topped it -- but got a good result as the ball wound up on the green, 42 feet away from the hole.\n\nI have a tendency to three-putt in those situations, but I hit this one as well as I possibly could. The ball came to a stop about 10 inches to the left of the hole. I tapped in for par and a quite respectable 43 for nine holes.\n\nI called it quits at that point and walked off feeling pretty good.\n\nToday was the fifth day of my diet-and-exercise regimen, and it was the first day I substituted golf for walking. It worked pretty well, and things are fine in general -- down 11 pounds the first four days. I still have a helluva long way to go, but after five days, I\'m into my rou\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1599-revision','','','2012-03-05 19:31:12','2012-03-06 03:31:12','',1599,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1601',0,'revision','',0),(1602,1,'2012-03-05 19:32:13','2012-03-06 03:32:13','When Nicole and I moved to Georgia, one of the things that excited me the most about our new community was that it was designed around a golf course.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1600\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"My favorite Par 5 -- No. 8\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101210_19.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1600\" title=\"20101210_19\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101210_19-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nInstead of driving 45 miles as I did in Southern California to play at the lovely Empire Lakes course in Rancho Cucamonga, all I have to do now is walk about a quarter mile to the first tee. Last winter I played 18 holes in 28-degree weather -- I was the only person on the course -- and in May I played maybe 20 times.\n\nBut when we came back from Europe in July and Nicole was having health problems, I didn\'t find myself making the effort to get onto the course as often. I played a couple of times in September and October, and then went out for nine holes on November 2nd.\n\nI didn\'t play again for more than four months.\n\nThen today, on a windy late-winter day, I got my clubs out of the garage, went down to the clubhouse and paid to play 18 holes. I hadn\'t swung any of my clubs in longer than I cared to remember, although I had played 18 holes -- sort of -- indoors in Seattle with my son-in-law on a wonderful simulator.\n\nWe played St. Andrew\'s. My score was somewhere in the 120s. I was out of shape and I couldn\'t get accustomed to hitting a ball into a screen.\n\nMy first swing today was nothing special. A drive that went maybe 130 yards. In fact, I double-bogeyed the first hole, but heck, I did that maybe a third of the time when I played regularly. It\'s one of the two or three toughest holes on the course.\n\nWhat surprised me the most was that things got better after that. I put my tee shot on the fringe on the second hole and two-putted for a par. I parred the fourth hole as well, and after a second double bogey on No. 6, I parred the seventh hole and bogeyed the eighth.\n\nOn the par three ninth hole, I hit a bad shot -- topped it -- but got a good result as the ball wound up on the green, 42 feet away from the hole.\n\nI have a tendency to three-putt in those situations, but I hit this one as well as I possibly could. The ball came to a stop about 10 inches to the left of the hole. I tapped in for par and a quite respectable 43 for nine holes.\n\nI called it quits at that point and walked off feeling pretty good.\n\nToday was the fifth day of my diet-and-exercise regimen, and it was the first day I substituted golf for walking. It worked pretty well, and things are fine in general -- down 11 pounds the first four days. I still have a helluva long way to go, but after five days, I\'m into my routine.\n\nThat\'s half the battle at this point.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','On the links wonderful after a long absence','','inherit','open','open','','1599-autosave','','','2012-03-05 19:32:13','2012-03-06 03:32:13','',1599,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1602',0,'revision','',0),(1620,1,'2012-03-13 20:12:36','2012-03-14 03:12:36','I wonder if Charles Dickens ever realized he was starting \"A Tale of Two Cities\" with what would turn out to be one of the greatest cliches of all time.\r\n\r\n<em>\"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.\"</em>\r\n\r\nI wonder if Dickens realized when his book was published in 1859 that people would still be reading it more than 150 years later, or that it would be atop the list of all-time best sellers with more than 200 million copies sold.\r\n\r\nI even wonder if he realized his name would become a term to describe lively, rambunctious children, but that\'s off topic and we won\'t discuss that any further -- at least for now.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/whether-its-the-best-of-times-or-the-worst-of-times-its-the-only-time-weve-got-20101026-1280x1024.png\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1621\" title=\"whether-its-the-best-of-times-or-the-worst-of-times-its-the-only-time-weve-got-20101026-1280x1024\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/whether-its-the-best-of-times-or-the-worst-of-times-its-the-only-time-weve-got-20101026-1280x1024-300x240.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" /></a>But what is it about that phrase? How can something be the best of times and the worst of times, all at the same time?\r\n\r\nThere are people in this world who matter very much to me -- family and friends -- who I\'m sure would look at 2012 from very different perspectives. I\'m pretty sure my daughter Pauline, who had her second child in November, would consider the last four or five months to be pretty close to the best of times. Just as I\'m sure that one of my friends, who can remain anonymous for the purpose of this narrative, would look at mounting medical bills and declining health for someone he loves and tell you that 2012 wasn\'t a particularly wonderful year.\r\n\r\nAnd then there are those who have both wonder and despair, if not at the same time at least in the same general time frame.\r\n\r\nIn January 1998, in the middle of the five most wonderful years of my career, I was working as a newspaper columnist. In an effort to find something offbeat, I went for a walk in downtown Ontario, Calif., and watched people who were essentially just in the process of living their lives.\r\n\r\nI saw a man looking in a pawnshop window, another man eating lunch with his son, a mother taking her two children to a doctor\'s appointment and a homeless woman in a doorway with her dog.\r\n\r\nThis was the way I finished the column that appeared the next day.\r\n\r\n<em>\"Every picture may tell a story,, but it\'s often tough to know exactly what that story is.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>\"A homeless woman and her dog. A man and his son. Two teenagers sharing music. A mother and her children. A man in a pawn shop.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>\"They all had two things in common. I saw them all on one lunchtime walk, and none of them were intent on making news. They were living their lives, going about their business, and somehow I understood.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>\"We all have the same 168 hours in a week. The only thing that separates us is how we choose to spend them.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>\"I don\'t know if these are the best of times, but I know one thing.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>\"They\'re the only times we\'ve got.\"</em>\r\n\r\nFourteen years later, I might have a slightly different way of saying it.\r\n\r\nI don\'t know if these are the best of times, but I know one thing.\r\n\r\nAll we can do is make the best of the times we\'ve got.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','The best of times? Who can ever really know?','','publish','open','open','','the-best-of-times-who-can-ever-really-know','','','2012-03-13 20:12:36','2012-03-14 03:12:36','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1620',0,'post','',0),(1604,1,'2012-03-06 18:40:57','2012-03-07 02:40:57','','387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n','Family, what matters most','inherit','open','open','','387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n-2','','','2012-03-06 18:40:57','2012-03-07 02:40:57','',1594,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1605,1,'2012-03-06 20:07:30','2012-03-07 04:07:30','Some months back, I was trying to discover some basic truths about life.\n\nI asked numerous people who mattered to me to send me their thoughts on the matter, and it came as no surprise to me that one of the most insightful comments came from my daughter Pauline. She wrote that what really mattered in life was family, and that living that belief was the most important thing to her.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1604\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Family, what matters most\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1604\" title=\"387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n\"I always put my family first,\" she said.\n\nRecently, when I wrote about the Proust questions and posted an interview with myself, Pauline sent me an e-mail -- not for publication -- in which she answered the same questions. Her answers showed something I knew all along -- that what she had said earlier was 100 percent sincere, 100 percent true.\n\nThat left me wondering, because I agreed with her 100 percent. If you look at the basic human motivations, going back thousands of years, it seems to me that loving and being loved are pretty near the top of the list. Certainly there are others that matter, such as the desire for security, but it seems to me that so much of modern society with its \"he who dies with the most toys wins\" attitude has gone off track somewhere.\n\nI could ask almost any of my friends who have children what matters most to them, and I can\'t think of any of them who would rate their careers ahead of their families. Even the ones who haven\'t been particularly successful, when I look at the choices they have made, their career problems have come because they refused to put their jobs ahead of their families.\n\nThe other night I was watching \"Awakenings,\" the wonderful film from 1990 in which experimental drug therapy helped \"awaken\" patients who had been catatonic for more than 40 years since an encephalitis epidemic in 1926. Some of the patients were resentful, upset at how much of their lives had been lost. The main character, played by Robert DeNiro, wanted people who hadn\'t been through it to understand what really mattered.\n\nAfter his character was once again catatonic, his doctor -- played by Robin Williams -- passed along his thoughts.\n\n\"What we do know is that, as the chemical window closed, another awakening took place; that the human spirit is more powerful than any drug - and<em> that</em> is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. <em>These</em> are the things that matter. This is what we\'d forgotten - the simplest things.\"\n\nI couldn\'t agree more.','','','inherit','open','open','','1594-revision','','','2012-03-06 20:07:30','2012-03-07 04:07:30','',1594,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1605',0,'revision','',0),(1606,1,'2012-03-06 20:08:30','2012-03-07 04:08:30','Some months back, I was trying to discover some basic truths about life.\n\nI asked numerous people who mattered to me to send me their thoughts on the matter, and it came as no surprise to me that one of the most insightful comments came from my daughter Pauline. She wrote that what really mattered in life was family, and that living that belief was the most important thing to her.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1604\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Family, what matters most\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1604\" title=\"387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n\"I always put my family first,\" she said.\n\nRecently, when I wrote about the Proust questions and posted an interview with myself, Pauline sent me an e-mail -- not for publication -- in which she answered the same questions. Her answers showed something I knew all along -- that what she had said earlier was 100 percent sincere, 100 percent true.\n\nThat left me wondering, because I agreed with her 100 percent. If you look at the basic human motivations, going back thousands of years, it seems to me that loving and being loved are pretty near the top of the list. Certainly there are others that matter, such as the desire for security, but it seems to me that so much of modern society with its \"he who dies with the most toys wins\" attitude has gone off track somewhere.\n\nI could ask almost any of my friends who have children what matters most to them, and I can\'t think of any of them who would rate their careers ahead of their families. Even the ones who haven\'t been particularly successful, when I look at the choices they have made, their career problems have come because they refused to put their jobs ahead of their families.\n\nThe other night I was watching \"Awakenings,\" the wonderful film from 1990 in which experimental drug therapy helped \"awaken\" patients who had been catatonic for more than 40 years since an encephalitis epidemic in 1926. Some of the patients were resentful, upset at how much of their lives had been lost. The main character, played by Robert DeNiro, wanted people who hadn\'t been through it to understand what really mattered.\n\nAfter his character was once again catatonic, his doctor -- played by Robin Williams -- passed along his thoughts.\n\n\"What we do know is that, as the chemical window closed, another awakening took place; that the human spirit is more powerful than any drug - and<em> that</em> is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. <em>These</em> are the things that matter. This is what we\'d forgotten - the simplest things.\"\n\nI couldn\'t agree more.','More people should know what really matters','','inherit','open','open','','1594-autosave','','','2012-03-06 20:08:30','2012-03-07 04:08:30','',1594,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1606',0,'revision','',0),(1607,1,'2012-03-07 19:42:10','2012-03-08 03:42:10','Now that I have finally gotten back into the routine of doing myself some good, I\'m starting to also regain the frame of mind I had in the summer of 2010.\r\n\r\nGoing out every day and walking anywhere from 6-12 miles, weighing myself every day and watching the weight melt off was one of the happiest summers I had enjoyed in a long time. It certainly wasn\'t what I expected the summer after I celebrated my 60th birthday to be like.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1608\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Deep in the heart ...\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Texas-stuff-005.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1608\" title=\"Texas stuff 005\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Texas-stuff-005-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nThe weight loss -- 62 pounds just in Texas -- was great. It\'s tough to beat getting into really good shape for the first time in years, but what really mattered was getting into terrific shape, emotionally and mentally.\r\n\r\nThe best thing of all was that I really felt I had an epiphany, that I came to an understanding about the meaning of life. There are so many things that divide us in this world -- race, ethnicity, political persuasion, religion -- but when it comes down to it, none of those things really matter.\r\n\r\nIt\'s ridiculous to look at someone and see differences. We are far more alike than we are different when you look at what really matters. All most people want to is to be happy, to be able to live and raise their families in peace and for their children to have better lives than they did.\r\n\r\nThree things seemed to matter, and all three work for people of all shapes and sizes. We need to love God, because that\'s what gives us the understanding that we aren\'t the most important thing in the world. We need to love our neighbor; the rule of reciprocity is at the heart of every legitimate religion man has ever practiced.\r\n\r\nAnd we need to let go of regrets so that we can live in the present and look to the future.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/selflovefortune.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1609\" title=\"selflovefortune\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/selflovefortune-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>All that made sense to me, but something was missing. It wasn\'t that any of those three basic principles was wrong, but that there was one more piece to the puzzle that I hadn\'t yet found.\r\n\r\nThen it came to me.\r\n\r\nWe need to love ourselves, because if we cannot love ourselves, there is no way we can truly love anyone else.\r\n\r\nI\'m not talking about narcissism. Far from it. But it\'s important that we understand that our lives have value. If we can accept ourselves as basically good people -- albeit people always trying to do better -- then the rest of it falls into place quite nicely.\r\n\r\nYou don\'t need to follow Jesus ... or Muhammad ... or Buddha.\r\n\r\nAll that stuff just comes down to religions invented by men. Not that there\'s anything wrong with any of them. I consider myself a Christian, but that doesn\'t make me any better than anyone who practices another religion. There is no single way to get it right.\r\n\r\nAnything that gets you to love God, love your neighbor, love yourself and live without regrets is the right formula.\r\n\r\nThe right way to live.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','There are things that make our differences tiny','','publish','open','open','','there-are-things-that-make-our-differences-tiny','','','2012-03-07 19:42:10','2012-03-08 03:42:10','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1607',0,'post','',0),(1608,1,'2012-03-07 18:06:57','2012-03-08 02:06:57','','Texas stuff 005','Deep in the heart ...','inherit','open','open','','texas-stuff-005','','','2012-03-07 18:06:57','2012-03-08 02:06:57','',1607,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Texas-stuff-005.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1609,1,'2012-03-07 19:22:38','2012-03-08 03:22:38','','selflovefortune','','inherit','open','open','','selflovefortune','','','2012-03-07 19:22:38','2012-03-08 03:22:38','',1607,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/selflovefortune.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1610,1,'2012-03-07 19:35:50','2012-03-08 03:35:50','Now that I have finally gotten back into the routine of doing myself some good, I\'m starting to also regain the frame of mind I had in the summer of 2010.\n\nGoing out every day and walking anywhere from 6-12 miles, weighing myself every day and watching the weight melt off was one of the happiest summers I had enjoyed in a long time. It certainly wasn\'t what I expected the summer after I celebrated my 60th birthday to be like.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1608\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Deep in the heart ...\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Texas-stuff-005.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1608\" title=\"Texas stuff 005\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Texas-stuff-005-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThe weight loss -- 62 pounds just in Texas -- was great. It\'s tough to beat getting into really good shape for the first time in years, but what really mattered was getting into terrific shape, emotionally and mentally.\n\nThe best thing of all was that I really felt I had an epiphany, that I came to an understanding about the meaning of life. There are so many things that divide us in this world -- race, ethnicity, political persuasion, religion -- but when it comes down to it, none of those things really matter.\n\nIt\'s ridiculous to look at someone and see differences. We are far more alike than we are different when you look at what really matters. All most people want to is to be happy, to be able to live and raise their families in peace and for their children to have better lives than they did.\n\nThree things seemed to matter, and all three work for people of all shapes and sizes. We need to love God, because that\'s what gives us the understanding that we aren\'t the most important thing in the world. We need to love our neighbor; the rule of reciprocity is at the heart of every legitimate religion man has ever practiced.\n\nAnd we need to let go of regrets so that we can live in the present and look to the future.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/selflovefortune.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1609\" title=\"selflovefortune\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/selflovefortune-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>All that made sense to me, but something was missing. It wasn\'t that any of those three basic principles was wrong, but that there was one more piece to the puzzle that I hadn\'t yet found.\n\nThen it came to me.\n\nWe need to love ourselves, because if we cannot love ourselves, there is no way we can truly love anyone else.\n\nI\'m not talking about narcissism. Far from it. But it\'s important that we understand that our lives have value. If we can accept ourselves as basically good people -- albeit people always trying to do better -- then the rest of it falls into place quite nicely.\n\nYou don\'t need to follow Jesus ... or Muhammad ... or Buddha.\n\nAll that stuff just comes down to religions invented by men. Not that there\'s anything wrong with any of them. I consider myself a Christian, but that doesn\'t make me any better than anyone who practices another religion. There is no single way to get it right.\n\nAnything that gets you to love God, love your neighbor, love yourself and live without regrets is the right formula.\n\nThe right way to live.\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1607-revision','','','2012-03-07 19:35:50','2012-03-08 03:35:50','',1607,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1610',0,'revision','',0),(1611,1,'2012-03-08 17:57:12','2012-03-09 01:57:12','Some things remain.\r\n\r\nWhen I used to visit my grandparents in Crestline, Ohio, I was amused by the fact that it was one of the few towns I had ever seen that didn\'t have any fast-food restaurants. Indeed, by the late \'60s, it didn\'t have a movie theater or any real restaurants either.\r\n\r\nCrestline had been an important railroad center during the heyday of the iron horses. Its population peaked at nearly 6,000 in 1970 and it was legally classified as a city. In the 2010 census, it was down to 4,630, making it a village. It is actually very small, with a total area of just 2.9 square miles.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1612\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Freezer Fresh\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Freezer-Fresh-1963-copy.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1612\" title=\"Freezer Fresh 1963 copy\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Freezer-Fresh-1963-copy-300x156.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"156\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nThe old <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Highway\">Lincoln Highway</a> went right through Crestline on its way west, and the Freezer Fresh in the picture was the one place a motorist could stop for something to eat on his way west.\r\n\r\nThe Lincoln Highway was actually the first national memorial to the 16th president, and it was one of the earliest auto routes from coast to coast, opening in 1913. There have been songs, television shows and more to memorialize Route 66, but Route 30 came first and it was more than a thousand miles longer. It went from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.\r\n\r\nI remember going to the Freezer Fresh when I was 10 years old. I think it was the first time I ever had a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate to form a chocolate shell. The place was already a little run down in 1960, and I was really surprised to learn that it\'s still doing business in 2012. In fact, you can see the <a title=\"Freezer Fresh\" href=\"http://restaurants.post-gazette.com/oh/crestline/62068-freezer-fresh-drive-in/menu/\">menu</a> online.\r\n\r\nIt\'s part of an America that disappeared long ago. Nobody drives across country, and if they did, they would take I-70 to Utah and pick up I-15 on its way to Southern California.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IN19790702t100700.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1613\" title=\"IN19790702t100700\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IN19790702t100700.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" /></a>But it\'s an America that\'s still there if you head away from the major highways and look for the small towns, where there really isn\'t any change other than decay and there isn\'t much else to do than watch the paint peeling.\r\n\r\nBefore I die, I want to leave Times Square and head west on Route 30. I may not find that long-gone America in New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, but I\'m pretty sure that when I get to central Ohio I can get a gravy burger, some curly fries and a milkshake and still have enough change from a 10-dollar bill to get a hand-dipped cone.\r\n\r\nOnly the price has changed in 50 years. Oh, that and the fact that you can order your ice cream sugar free.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Some highways can help us go back in time','','publish','open','open','','some-highways-can-help-us-go-back-in-time','','','2012-03-08 17:57:12','2012-03-09 01:57:12','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1611',0,'post','',0),(1612,1,'2012-03-08 16:49:03','2012-03-09 00:49:03','','Freezer Fresh 1963 copy','Freezer Fresh','inherit','open','open','','freezer-fresh-1963-copy','','','2012-03-08 16:49:03','2012-03-09 00:49:03','',1611,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Freezer-Fresh-1963-copy.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1613,1,'2012-03-08 17:28:23','2012-03-09 01:28:23','','IN19790702t100700','','inherit','open','open','','in19790702t100700','','','2012-03-08 17:28:23','2012-03-09 01:28:23','',1611,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IN19790702t100700.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1614,1,'2012-03-08 17:57:04','2012-03-09 01:57:04','Some things remain.\n\nWhen I used to visit my grandparents in Crestline, Ohio, I was amused by the fact that it was one of the few towns I had ever seen that didn\'t have any fast-food restaurants. Indeed, by the late \'60s, it didn\'t have a movie theater or any real restaurants either.\n\nCrestline had been an important railroad center during the heyday of the iron horses. Its population peaked at nearly 6,000 in 1970 and it was legally classified as a city. In the 2010 census, it was down to 4,630, making it a village. It is actually very small, with a total area of just 2.9 square miles.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1612\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Freezer Fresh\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Freezer-Fresh-1963-copy.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1612\" title=\"Freezer Fresh 1963 copy\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Freezer-Fresh-1963-copy-300x156.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"156\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThe old <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Highway\">Lincoln Highway</a> went right through Crestline on its way west, and the Freezer Fresh in the picture was the one place a motorist could stop for something to eat on his way west.\n\nThe Lincoln Highway was actually the first national memorial to the 16th president, and it was one of the earliest auto routes from coast to coast, opening in 1913. There have been songs, television shows and more to memorialize Route 66, but Route 30 came first and it was more than a thousand miles longer. It went from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.\n\nI remember going to the Freezer Fresh when I was 10 years old. I think it was the first time I ever had a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate to form a chocolate shell. The place was already a little run down in 1960, and I was really surprised to learn that it\'s still doing business in 2012. In fact, you can see the <a title=\"Freezer Fresh\" href=\"http://restaurants.post-gazette.com/oh/crestline/62068-freezer-fresh-drive-in/menu/\">menu</a> online.\n\nIt\'s part of an America that disappeared long ago. Nobody drives across country, and if they did, they would take I-70 to Utah and pick up I-15 on its way to Southern California.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IN19790702t100700.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1613\" title=\"IN19790702t100700\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IN19790702t100700.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" /></a>But it\'s an America that\'s still there if you head away from the major highways and look for the small towns, where there really isn\'t any change other than decay and there isn\'t much else to do than watch the paint peeling.\n\nBefore I die, I want to leave Times Square and head west on Route 30. I may not find that long-gone America in New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, but I\'m pretty sure that when I get to central Ohio I can get a gravy burger, some curly fries and a milkshake and still have enough change from a 10-dollar bill to get a hand-dipped cone.\n\nOnly the price has changed in 50 years. Oh, that and the fact that you can order your ice cream sugar free.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','Some highways ca','','inherit','open','open','','1611-revision','','','2012-03-08 17:57:04','2012-03-09 01:57:04','',1611,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1614',0,'revision','',0),(1615,1,'2012-03-09 19:37:51','2012-03-10 03:37:51','Some days just suck.\r\n\r\nThe language isn\'t that elegant, but I have thought and thought and thought about this and finally decided that was really the only way to say it.\r\n\r\nSome days just suck.\r\n\r\nMy day started with something that if it weren\'t part of a bad day wouldn\'t even be worth mentioning. On the ninth morning of my diet, I weighed myself and saw that for the first time, I hadn\'t lost any weight yesterday. This was no big deal at all. I\'m still down 16 pounds in eight days, and if I didn\'t have four or five months of dieting ahead of me to reach my goal, I would feel absolutely great about 16 pounds in eight days.\r\n\r\nStill ...\r\n\r\nI\'m still struggling with my sleep, and that is getting very frustrating. When I upload the data from my armband, what it\'s showing is that before I get to sleep for good, it\'s usually 5 or 6 a.m. Before that I\'m either sleeping restlessly or not at all.\r\n\r\nI didn\'t really feel motivated just to walk, so I thought I would play nine holes of golf in the afternoon. Since it had been raining, rental carts had to stay on the cart path. I figured that meant I would get in plenty of walking.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1616\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Bad day on the links\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101210_8.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1616\" title=\"20101210_8\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101210_8-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nThe only problem was that the ground really was wet. Since I\'m still trying to get my stroke back after four months of not playing, I have been relying on a lot of low line drives and, dare I say it, glorified grounders. But with wet ground, instead of my shots going 180-200 yards, they were going 110-120. I started by triple-bogeying the tough par four that starts the course and then double-bogeying the par three second hole.\r\n\r\nYuck.\r\n\r\nSince no one was behind me, I went back and started over. This time I started with a double bogey and a bogey, but what was really depressing about it was that I had yet to hit even one shot that felt good. I moved on to the third hole -- the first par five -- and I hit four mediocre shots that still left me short of the green.\r\n\r\nAt that point, I picked up my ball, drove back, turned in the cart and went to the grocery store.\r\n\r\nThe next few hours were sort of uneventful. but by mid-evening, Nicole and I were arguing about something I still don\'t understand. Anyone who has been married for more than a few years knows that these things sometimes just come out of nowhere, but nobody is more tenacious in these \"nothing\" arguments than my strong-willed wife.\r\n\r\nSo I\'m sitting in my office writing this, and the only good thought running through my mind is that in less than 90 minutes, this day will be over.\r\n\r\nGood riddance.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Some days, you\'re just glad to see them go','','publish','open','open','','some-days-youre-just-glad-to-see-them-go','','','2012-03-09 19:37:51','2012-03-10 03:37:51','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1615',0,'post','',0),(1616,1,'2012-03-09 19:32:39','2012-03-10 03:32:39','','20101210_8','Bad day on the links','inherit','open','open','','20101210_8','','','2012-03-09 19:32:39','2012-03-10 03:32:39','',1615,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101210_8.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1617,1,'2012-03-09 19:37:06','2012-03-10 03:37:06','Some days just suck.\n\nThe language isn\'t that elegant, but I have thought and thought and thought about this and finally decided that was really the only way to say it.\n\nSome days just suck.\n\nMy day started with something that if it weren\'t part of a bad day wouldn\'t even be worth mentioning. On the ninth morning of my diet, I weighed myself and saw that for the first time, I hadn\'t lost any weight yesterday. This was no big deal at all. I\'m still down 16 pounds in eight days, and if I didn\'t have four or five months of dieting ahead of me to reach my goal, I would feel absolutely great about 16 pounds in eight days.\n\nStill ...\n\nI\'m still struggling with my sleep, and that is getting very frustrating. When I upload the data from my armband, what it\'s showing is that before I get to sleep for good, it\'s usually 5 or 6 a.m. Before that I\'m either sleeping restlessly or not at all.\n\nI didn\'t really feel motivated just to walk, so I thought I would play nine holes of golf in the afternoon. Since it had been raining, rental carts had to stay on the cart path. I figured that meant I would get in plenty of walking.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1616\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Bad day on the links\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101210_8.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1616\" title=\"20101210_8\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20101210_8-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThe only problem was that the ground really was wet. Since I\'m still trying to get my stroke back after four months of not playing, I have been relying on a lot of low line drives and, dare I say it, glorified grounders. But with wet ground, instead of my shots going 180-200 yards, they were going 110-120. I started by triple-bogeying the tough par four that starts the course and then double-bogeying the par three second hole.\n\nYuck.\n\nSince no one was behind me, I went back and started over. This time I started with a double bogey and a bogey, but what was really depressing about it was that I had yet to hit even one shot that felt good. I moved on to the third hole -- the first par five -- and I hit four mediocre shots that still left me short of the green.\n\nAt that point, I picked up my ball, drove back, turned in the cart and went to the grocery store.\n\nThe next few hours were sort of uneventful. but by mid-evening, Nicole and I were arguing about something I still don\'t understand. Anyone who has been married for more than a few years knows that these things sometimes just come out of nowhere, but nobody is more tenacious in these \"nothing\" arguments than my strong-willed wife.\n\nSo I\'m sitting in my office writing this, and the only good thought running through my mind is that in less tha\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1615-revision','','','2012-03-09 19:37:06','2012-03-10 03:37:06','',1615,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1617',0,'revision','',0),(1698,1,'2012-05-10 18:24:01','2012-05-11 01:24:01','<h3><em><strong>As little as I\'ve been writing recently, I ought to be ashamed to do this. But I came across this piece from January 2004 and thought it was both funny and relevant.</strong></em></h3>\r\nNow you\'re really going to have to listen to me.\r\n\r\nI received a letter from Cambridge, England, notifying me that I had been selected as one of the 2,000 outstanding intellectuals of the 21st century.\r\n\r\n<em>That\'s right, we bad. We bad.</em>\r\n\r\nSorry, but I couldn\'t help channeling Richard Pryor in “Silver Streak” for a minute there.\r\n\r\nSeriously, here\'s how the letter started:\r\n\r\n<em>\"The Oxford English Dictionary defines intellectualism as the \'doctrine that knowledge is wholly or mainly derived from pure reason\' and it follows by saying that an intellectual is \'\'a person possessing a good understanding, enlightened person.\'   Surely, therefore, this definition is the reason for your selection to be included in this prestigious publication which is due for release in late 2004.\"</em>\r\n\r\nWell, gosh.\r\n\r\nNow I\'m no slouch. I read two newspapers every day, I finish the crossword puzzle more often than not and I can usually beat the contestants on \"Wheel of Fortune\" to the correct answer.  Sometimes I don’t even need to buy a vowel.\r\n\r\nBut intellectual? I\'m not even the leading intellectual in my own family. My wife has doctorates in astronomy and geophysics, my daughter has two bachelors degrees - both with honors - from UCLA and my son just finished his first semester of college at Cal State Northridge with a 4.0 average.\r\n\r\nIn my house, I\'m the freaking village idiot.\r\n\r\nNot that there\'s anything wrong with that. If Bill Cosby, Elayne Boosler, Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Martin all lived together, one of them would have to be the least funny guy – or girl – in the house.\r\n\r\nAnd if Willie, Mickey and the Duke lived together - when they were all living - one of them would have been the least athletic. I\'m thinking Duke.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1700\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"283\" caption=\"No competition at all.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/NapoleonBush.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1700\" title=\"NapoleonBush\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/NapoleonBush-283x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"283\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nSo it\'s all a matter of comparison. Put me in a phone booth with Dubya and I\'d be the first one to find my way out. Yeah, I know he\'s got degrees from Yale and Harvard, but my guess is the names \"Pierce\" and \"Bush\" - momma\'s and daddy\'s names - had more to do with that than any grades he actually earned. If Dubya had a brain, he\'d be outside playing with it.\r\n\r\nPut me up against ol\' Dub in a battle of wits and I\'d refuse to fight. There\'s no honor in beating an unarmed man, even if it would be <em>soooo</em> much fun.\r\n\r\nAnyway, I\'m no dope. Just ask the folks in Cambridge. Those limeys know brains when they see them. We\'re talking about the land that gave us Billy Shakespeare, Bert Russell and Monty Python.  I\'m part English myself, on my mother\'s side and way back on my natural father\'s side. Of course, I\'m part German too, and the Germans have a fine intellectual tradition of their own -- Goethe, Nietzche, Goebbels.\r\n\r\nOh, never mind. Every nationality, every ethnic group, has its great thinkers and its morons. For every Benjamin Franklin there\'s a Benny Hill, for every Apostle Paul there\'s a Pauly Shore.\r\n\r\nAnd for every Mike Rappaport, well, there\'s a Mike Rappaport. Like most people, I\'ve got my smart side and my goofy side.\r\n\r\nBut hey, Cambridge likes me. Cambridge thinks I\'m one of the finest minds of my generation. Cambridge figures I might do something great someday.\r\n\r\n<em>Uh, Mike ... Isn\'t this another one of those books where they\'ll put your name in a book with a few thousand other wannabes as long as you pay $300 or $400 to buy the special leather-bound edition?</em>\r\n\r\nNot at all. If you want the book, you can buy it for whatever they\'re selling it for - in pounds, not dollars - but they stress that you don\'t have to buy the book in order to be listed in it.\r\n\r\nThey love me for my mind. Not my money.\r\n\r\n<em>But didn\'t you buy the book when they put you in \"Who\'s Who in America?\"</em>\r\n\r\nSure, but that was because I wanted to donate a copy to the public library. I didn\'t want to be one of those prophets who was without honor in his own small city of 24,000 people.\r\n\r\n<em>Uh, yeah. Whatever.</em>\r\n\r\nYeah, I bought the special leather-bound edition and looked inside at my bio once or twice. Then I donated it to the library. Dang book wouldn\'t fit in the bookcase, and I needed more space in the bottom of my closet for my shoes.\r\n\r\nThat\'s not the point, though. It\'s one thing to be in \"Who\'s Who in America.\" They\'re not particularly selective. I think Dubya, Pee Wee Herman and the guy who mows my lawn are all in there. But if someone thinks you\'re one of the \"2,000 outstanding intellectuals of the 21st century,\" that\'s really something.\r\n\r\nNow if you\'ll excuse me, Vanna White is calling.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Some intellectuals are never recognized','','publish','open','open','','some-intellectuals-are-never-recognized','','','2012-05-10 18:24:01','2012-05-11 01:24:01','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1698',0,'post','',0),(1621,1,'2012-03-13 19:52:18','2012-03-14 02:52:18','','whether-its-the-best-of-times-or-the-worst-of-times-its-the-only-time-weve-got-20101026-1280x1024','','inherit','open','open','','whether-its-the-best-of-times-or-the-worst-of-times-its-the-only-time-weve-got-20101026-1280x1024','','','2012-03-13 19:52:18','2012-03-14 02:52:18','',1620,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/whether-its-the-best-of-times-or-the-worst-of-times-its-the-only-time-weve-got-20101026-1280x1024.png',0,'attachment','image/png',0),(1622,1,'2012-03-13 20:11:43','2012-03-14 03:11:43','I wonder if Charles Dickens ever realized he was starting \"A Tale of Two Cities\" with what would turn out to be one of the greatest cliches of all time.\n\n<em>\"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.\"</em>\n\nI wonder if Dickens realized when his book was published in 1859 that people would still be reading it more than 150 years later, or that it would be atop the list of all-time best sellers with more than 200 million copies sold.\n\nI even wonder if he realized his name would become a term to describe lively, rambunctious children, but that\'s off topic and we won\'t discuss that any further -- at least for now.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/whether-its-the-best-of-times-or-the-worst-of-times-its-the-only-time-weve-got-20101026-1280x1024.png\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1621\" title=\"whether-its-the-best-of-times-or-the-worst-of-times-its-the-only-time-weve-got-20101026-1280x1024\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/whether-its-the-best-of-times-or-the-worst-of-times-its-the-only-time-weve-got-20101026-1280x1024-300x240.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" /></a>But what is it about that phrase? How can something be the best of times and the worst of times, all at the same time?\n\nThere are people in this world who matter very much to me -- family and friends -- who I\'m sure would look at 2012 from very different perspectives. I\'m pretty sure my daughter Pauline, who had her second child in November, would consider the last four or five months to be pretty close to the best of times. Just as I\'m sure that one of my friends, who can remain anonymous for the purpose of this narrative, would look at mounting medical bills and declining health for someone he loves and tell you that 2012 wasn\'t a particularly wonderful year.\n\nAnd then there are those who have both wonder and despair, if not at the same time at least in the same general time frame.\n\nIn January 1998, in the middle of the five most wonderful years of my career, I was working as a newspaper columnist. In an effort to find something offbeat, I went for a walk in downtown Ontario, Calif., and watched people who were essentially just in the process of living their lives.\n\nI saw a man looking in a pawnshop window, another man eating lunch with his son, a mother taking her two children to a doctor\'s appointment and a homeless woman in a doorway with her dog.\n\nThis was the way I finished the column that appeared the next day.\n\n<em>\"Every picture may tell a story,, but it\'s often tough to know exactly what that story is.</em>\n\n<em>\"A homeless woman and her dog. A man and his son. Two teenagers sharing music. A mother and her children. A man in a pawn shop.</em>\n\n<em>\"They all had two things in common. I saw them all on one lunchtime walk, and none of them were intent on making news. They were living their lives, going about their business, and somehow I understood.</em>\n\n<em>\"We all have the same 168 hours in a week. The only thing that separates us is how we choose to spend them.</em>\n\n<em>\"I don\'t know if these are the best of times, but I know one thing.</em>\n\n<em>\"They\'re the only times we\'ve got.\"</em>\n\nFourteen years later, I might have a slightly different way of saying it.\n\nI don\'t know if these are the best of times, but I know one thing.\n\nAll we can do is make the best of the times we\'ve got.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1620-revision','','','2012-03-13 20:11:43','2012-03-14 03:11:43','',1620,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1622',0,'revision','',0),(1624,1,'2012-03-14 18:21:13','2012-03-15 01:21:13','','true1','','inherit','open','open','','true1','','','2012-03-14 18:21:13','2012-03-15 01:21:13','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/true1.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1694,1,'2012-04-25 18:23:25','2012-04-26 01:23:25','My younger sister is a great thinker and a real activist. She sent me an article she wrote for <a title=\"The Horn Book\" href=\"http://www.hbook.com/2012/04/using-books/home/on-the-rights-of-reading-and-girls-and-boys/\">The Horn Book</a> in which she argued very effectively that we ought to stop dividing children\'s books into books for boys and books for girls.\n\nThinking back to my own childhood, when I read several hundred books a year, I remember that boys were pushed toward Tom Swift and the Hardy Boys while girls were given Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins. That\'s probably oversimplifying it -- I never read much of any of those series -- but I read a ton of baseball books and most of the science fiction written by Robert Heinlein.\n\nA lot of those books came from the Carnegie Library in my mother\'s home town. I usually spent several weeks visiting my grandparents every summer, and I would check out five or six books every other day. But there were a few books -- rare ones -- that I would read over and over again as the years went by.\n\nThey weren\'t the so-called iconic books of my generation. I never read any Tolkien, and books like \"On the Road\" left me cold. I did read \"The Catcher in the Rye\" a couple of times, but I never thought it really spoke to me. Holden Caulfield was half a generation ahead of me.\n\nThere was one book, though, that sort of came out of nowhere for me. My dad was born in New York City and grew up in Brooklyn. Starting when I was 7 or 8 years old, we spent time with our grandparents in Brooklyn nearly every summer. I never made it to Ebbets Field, but I saw so many other fascinating things about America\'s favorite city-within-a-city.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_1.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1693\" title=\"31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" /></a>I don\'t know how old I was the first time I read \"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.\" The book had been published in 1943, and the story it told occurred more than a generation before that. I don\'t think it was the first book I ever read with a female protagonist, but it was certainly one of the first ones that really resonated with me.\n\nIt was such a beautiful story, so completely American. Francie Nolan lived in grinding poverty, but loved her life and believed that it would get better.\n\nShe was the daughter of immigrants, with a hard-working mother and a charming, alcoholic father.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1691-revision','','','2012-04-25 18:23:25','2012-04-26 01:23:25','',1691,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1694',0,'revision','',0),(1627,1,'2012-03-14 18:48:36','2012-03-15 01:48:36','','P1010510','Happy','inherit','open','open','','p1010510','','','2012-03-14 18:48:36','2012-03-15 01:48:36','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/P1010510.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1697,1,'2012-04-28 19:03:36','2012-04-29 02:03:36','My younger sister is a great thinker and a real activist. She sent me an article she wrote for <a title=\"The Horn Book\" href=\"http://www.hbook.com/2012/04/using-books/home/on-the-rights-of-reading-and-girls-and-boys/\">The Horn Book</a> in which she argued very effectively that we ought to stop dividing children\'s books into books for boys and books for girls.\n\nThinking back to my own childhood, when I read several hundred books a year, I remember that boys were pushed toward Tom Swift and the Hardy Boys while girls were given Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins. That\'s probably oversimplifying it -- I never read much of any of those series -- but I read a ton of baseball books and most of the science fiction written by Robert Heinlein.\n\nA lot of those books came from the Carnegie Library in my mother\'s home town. I usually spent several weeks visiting my grandparents every summer, and I would check out five or six books every other day. But there were a few books -- rare ones -- that I would read over and over again as the years went by.\n\nThey weren\'t the so-called iconic books of my generation. I never read any Tolkien, and books like \"On the Road\" left me cold. I did read \"The Catcher in the Rye\" a couple of times, but I never thought it really spoke to me. Holden Caulfield was half a generation ahead of me.\n\nThere was one book, though, that sort of came out of nowhere for me. My dad was born in New York City and grew up in Brooklyn. Starting when I was 7 or 8 years old, we spent time with our grandparents in Brooklyn nearly every summer. I never made it to Ebbets Field, but I saw so many other fascinating things about America\'s favorite city-within-a-city.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_1.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1693\" title=\"31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" /></a>I don\'t know how old I was the first time I read \"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.\" The book had been published in 1943, and the story it told occurred more than a generation before that. I don\'t think it was the first book I ever read with a female protagonist, but it was certainly one of the first ones that really resonated with me.\n\nIt was such a beautiful story, so completely American. Francie Nolan lived in grinding poverty in the years just before World War I, but loved her life and believed that it would get better.\n\nShe was the granddaughter of immigrants from Austria and Ireland, with a hard-working mother and a charming, alcoholic father who worked -- when he worked at all -- as a singing waiter. She essentially had nothing, but she loved so many things about her life and didn\'t feel like anyone owed her anything.\n\nThe amazing thing about the story -- and I downloaded it onto my Nook to see if it was as I remembered -- is that while yes, Francie is a girl, there isn\'t anything \"girly\" about the story at all. She is first and foremost a person, an individual about whom we care deeply.\n\nSecond, she is completely and totally an American of the period in which she lived. She isn\'t some phony Horatio Alger story. She doesn\'t go from rags to riches; she survives her childhood and is headed off to college. It\'s pretty apparent she has a chance at a good life.\n\nWhat more can anyone ask of a real story?\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1691-revision-3','','','2012-04-28 19:03:36','2012-04-29 02:03:36','',1691,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1697',0,'revision','',0),(1637,1,'2012-03-23 16:51:58','2012-03-23 23:51:58','For more than 50 years, I have had a favorite baseball player. I\'m not sure I was that adamant about it when I first became a fan in the late \'50s -- maybe Mickey Mantle -- but by the mid \'60s, I really admired the way Pete Rose played the game. He was my favorite player for more than 20 years, and even though I came to realize he wasn\'t as good a human being as he was a ballplayer, I still have an autographed bat of his among my memorabilia.\r\n\r\nFrom the time Rose stopped playing until about 1993, I\'m not sure I let myself have a favorite player. For one thing, I was covering baseball -- the Dodgers -- for a good chunk of that time, and I took the old rule about No Cheering in the Press Box seriously.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1638\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Chipper Jones nears the end of a great career.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/chipper-jones-32212.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1638\" title=\"Baltimore Orioles v Atlanta Braves\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/chipper-jones-32212-300x161.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"161\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nBy the mid \'90s. though, I had another favorite, one I followed from the very beginning of his career up to the present. And this year, I\'ll make several trips to Turner Field in Atlanta to watch that favorite play out his last season with the Braves.\r\n\r\n<a title=\"Chipper Jones\" href=\"http://www.chipperjones.com/home.htm\">Chipper Jones</a> has had the sort of career that very few athletes have anymore. He spent his entire time in the game as a member of one organization. He was drafted by Atlanta, came up through the Braves\' farm system and reached the majors for good -- after losing a season to a knee in injury -- in 1995.\r\n\r\nThe Braves won the World Series in his rookie year, and four seasons later, Jones won the National League Most Valuable Player award.\r\n\r\nHe was a switch-hitter, and he established himself as one of the four or five best ever to play the game. As he enters his final season, his .304 batting average is the second-highest ever for someone who hits from both sides of the plate. His 453 home runs are third among switch hitters, and he\'s certainly worthy of being included in the debate with Mantle, Eddie Murray, Rose and Frankie Frisch.\r\n\r\nIn recent years, he has been hampered by injuries. He hasn\'t hit 30 home runs since 2004, and his last really great seasons were 2007 and 2008, when he scored more than a hundred runs, drove in more than a hundred runs at age 35 and then won the batting title with a .364 average at age 36.\r\n\r\nWhen he announced earlier this week that 2012 would be his last season, he spoke of how much he had enjoyed playing his entire career in one spot. He said he was a Southern kid who had been happy to play for a Southern team. He spoke of how difficult a public relations problem it had been for the Braves when Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz had overstayed their welcome, and he said he didn\'t want to do that.\r\n\r\nOne last time around the sun. One last season of cheering and possibly a spot in the playoffs.\r\n\r\nThen the five-year wait for the Hall of Fame begins.\r\n\r\nAs for me, I also like this kid Ryan Zimmerman who plays for Washington. I think he\'s a worthy successor.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','A long-time favorite gets ready for his final season','','publish','open','open','','a-long-time-favorite-gets-ready-for-his-final-season','','','2012-03-23 16:51:58','2012-03-23 23:51:58','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1637',0,'post','',0),(1696,1,'2012-04-27 12:00:26','2012-04-27 19:00:26','My younger sister is a great thinker and a real activist. She sent me an article she wrote for <a title=\"The Horn Book\" href=\"http://www.hbook.com/2012/04/using-books/home/on-the-rights-of-reading-and-girls-and-boys/\">The Horn Book</a> in which she argued very effectively that we ought to stop dividing children\'s books into books for boys and books for girls.\n\nThinking back to my own childhood, when I read several hundred books a year, I remember that boys were pushed toward Tom Swift and the Hardy Boys while girls were given Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins. That\'s probably oversimplifying it -- I never read much of any of those series -- but I read a ton of baseball books and most of the science fiction written by Robert Heinlein.\n\nA lot of those books came from the Carnegie Library in my mother\'s home town. I usually spent several weeks visiting my grandparents every summer, and I would check out five or six books every other day. But there were a few books -- rare ones -- that I would read over and over again as the years went by.\n\nThey weren\'t the so-called iconic books of my generation. I never read any Tolkien, and books like \"On the Road\" left me cold. I did read \"The Catcher in the Rye\" a couple of times, but I never thought it really spoke to me. Holden Caulfield was half a generation ahead of me.\n\nThere was one book, though, that sort of came out of nowhere for me. My dad was born in New York City and grew up in Brooklyn. Starting when I was 7 or 8 years old, we spent time with our grandparents in Brooklyn nearly every summer. I never made it to Ebbets Field, but I saw so many other fascinating things about America\'s favorite city-within-a-city.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_1.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1693\" title=\"31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" /></a>I don\'t know how old I was the first time I read \"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.\" The book had been published in 1943, and the story it told occurred more than a generation before that. I don\'t think it was the first book I ever read with a female protagonist, but it was certainly one of the first ones that really resonated with me.\n\nIt was such a beautiful story, so completely American. Francie Nolan lived in grinding poverty in the years just before World War I, but loved her life and believed that it would get better.\n\nShe was the granddaughter of immigrants from Austria and Ireland, with a hard-working mother and a charming, alcoholic father who worked -- when he worked at all -- as a singing waiter. She essentially had nothing, but she loved so many things about her life and didn\'t feel like anyone owed her anything.\n\nThe amazing thing about the story -- and I downloaded it onto my Nook to see if it was as I remembered -- is that while yes, Francie is a girl, there isn\'t anything \"girly\" about the story at all. She is first and foremost a person, an individual about whom we care deeply.\n\nSecond, she is completely and totally an American of the period in which she lived.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1691-revision-2','','','2012-04-27 12:00:26','2012-04-27 19:00:26','',1691,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1696',0,'revision','',0),(1650,1,'2012-03-28 18:03:50','2012-03-29 01:03:50','Do you ever get the feeling that all the great comic strips are disappearing?\r\n\r\nThere used to be at least three or four strips that I made the effort to see every single day -- Doonesbury, Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, Tank McNamara. Now two of them are gone and I haven\'t seen Tank in a long time. Only Garry Trudeau keeps plugging away. He\'s now in his fifth decade doing Doonesbury, which I\'m sure is a surprise even to him.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1651\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"250\" caption=\"Peanuts\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/images.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1651\" title=\"images\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/images.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"202\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nYou may notice I didn\'t mention the greatest strip of them all. When Charles Schulz died in 2000, he was only a few months shy of doing 50 years worth of <a title=\"Peanuts\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanuts\">\"Peanuts.\"</a> At its peak it appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers and was translated into 21 languages. There were books, stuffed animals, television specials and even a successful Broadway show (\"You\'re a Good Man, Charlie Brown\"). The strip and all its incarnations and merchandising earned more than $1 billion for Schulz.\r\n\r\nHe did all the inking, lettering and writing from beginning to end. \"Peanuts\" might have been the greatest one-man show in history.\r\n\r\nStarting a few years after Schulz\'s death, Fantagraphics Books began publishing a complete record of every single daily and Sunday strip in two-year volumes. Most other strips that are anthologized are \"best of\" collections, but \"Peanuts\" was so good that you could open any one of the books to any random page and get a good laugh for yourself.\r\n\r\nIf there were to be a vote to choose the most iconic character from a comic strip, you\'d have to figure Charlie Brown -- the most lovable loser ever -- would top the list.\r\n\r\nUnless Snoopy did.\r\n\r\nOther strips have come and gone, but 12 years after Schulz stopped drawing \"Peanuts,\" reruns of the strips still appear in most American newspapers. The topical references to Bob Dylan turning 30 or to Howard Cosell broadcasting football may be dated, but the characters will never fade.\r\n\r\nAt some point, I\'ll collect the entire set of Fantagraphics Books. I\'ll read them myself, but mostly I\'ll keep them for the pleasure they will bring Maddie and Lex, my two grandchildren.\r\n\r\nWho knows? It just might be that Charles Schulz and his \"Li\'l Folks\" will be the closest thing to Shakespeare when it comes to lasting writing from the second half of the 20th century.\r\n\r\nWe could do a lot worse.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Schulz\'s \'Peanuts\' characters may just live forever','','publish','open','open','','schulzs-peanuts-characters-may-just-live-forever','','','2012-03-28 18:03:50','2012-03-29 01:03:50','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1650',0,'post','',0),(1634,1,'2012-03-21 17:50:56','2012-03-22 00:50:56','[caption id=\"attachment_1635\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Beautiful Augusta\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/river-at-dusk.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1635\" title=\"river-at-dusk\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/river-at-dusk-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nAugusta is supposed to be one of the prettier cities in Georgia, but I didn\'t get to see much of it in my first visit.\r\n\r\nMy lovely wife had an 8:15 a.m. appointment to see a neurologist at Medical College of Georgia, and since we live about 150 miles west of Augusta, we decided to drive in the night before. We arrived about 8:30 p.m., stopped in at Subway for a sandwich for our evening meal and then went to our motel.\r\n\r\nWe were at the neurologist\'s office by 7 a.m. -- rough night sleeping -- and the doctor was very prompt at getting her in on time. I dozed in a chair in the waiting room, and Nicole met with the doctor for about three hours. We were back on the road by noon -- after another Subway pit stop -- and home by 3 p.m.\r\n\r\nWe didn\'t see any of the beautiful older neighborhoods, and all I saw of the classic Augusta National Golf Course was a couple of closed gates by which people will enter in a few weeks to see the Masters.\r\n\r\nMy friend Brian Robin described a course in Mississippi as the \"best course in the state that you can actually play.\" Well, Augusta National is one of the most famous courses in the country that you can never play. It\'s a private club that is extremely exclusive in its membership. I know my friend Tom Kensler got to play the course once because he covered the Masters for the <em>Denver Post</em>, and I think it was on the day after the tournament that they let reporters play the course.\r\n\r\nI did have one sort of interesting things that almost happened. An old friend of mine, a girl I dated 44 years ago and haven\'t seen since we stopped dating, is a doctor at MCG. I was sitting in the waiting room in the Neurology Department on the fourth floor of the massive office building, and her office was two floors below me.\r\n\r\nDid I stop by and see her?\r\n\r\nNot a chance.\r\n\r\nI don\'t bother people who are doing serious work.\r\n\r\nAt least not people who might be holding scalpels.\r\n\r\nOh, most important of all, the doctor gave Nicole a relatively clean bill of health.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','A quick visit to see very little of a pretty city','','publish','open','open','','a-quick-visit-to-see-very-little-of-a-pretty-city','','','2012-03-21 17:50:56','2012-03-22 00:50:56','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1634',0,'post','',0),(1635,1,'2012-03-21 17:22:24','2012-03-22 00:22:24','','river-at-dusk','Beautiful Augusta','inherit','open','open','','river-at-dusk','','','2012-03-21 17:22:24','2012-03-22 00:22:24','',1634,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/river-at-dusk.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1636,1,'2012-03-21 17:50:42','2012-03-22 00:50:42','[caption id=\"attachment_1635\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Beautiful Augusta\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/river-at-dusk.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1635\" title=\"river-at-dusk\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/river-at-dusk-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nAugusta is supposed to be one of the prettier cities in Georgia, but I didn\'t get to see much of it in my first visit.\n\nMy lovely wife had an 8:15 a.m. appointment to see a neurologist at Medical College of Georgia, and since we live about 150 miles west of Augusta, we decided to drive in the night before. We arrived about 8:30 p.m., stopped in at Subway for a sandwich for our evening meal and then went to our motel.\n\nWe were at the neurologist\'s office by 7 a.m. -- rough night sleeping -- and the doctor was very prompt at getting her in on time. I dozed in a chair in the waiting room, and Nicole met with the doctor for about three hours. We were back on the road by noon -- after another Subway pit stop -- and home by 3 p.m.\n\nWe didn\'t see any of the beautiful older neighborhoods, and all I saw of the classic Augusta National Golf Course was a couple of closed gates by which people will enter in a few weeks to see the Masters.\n\nMy friend Brian Robin described a course in Mississippi as the \"best course in the state that you can actually play.\" Well, Augusta National is one of the most famous courses in the country that you can never play. It\'s a private club that is extremely exclusive in its membership. I know my friend Tom Kensler got to play the course once because he covered the Masters for the <em>Denver Post</em>, and I think it was on the day after the tournament that they let reporters play the course.\n\nI did have one sort of interesting things that almost happened. An old friend of mine, a girl I dated 44 years ago and haven\'t seen since we stopped dating, is a doctor at MCG. I was sitting in the waiting room in the Neurology Department on the fourth floor of the massive office building, and her office was two floors below me.\n\nDid I stop by and see her?\n\nNot a chance.\n\nI don\'t bother people who are doing serious work.\n\nAt least not people who might be holding scalpels.\n\nOh, most important of all, the doctor gave Nicole a relatively clean bill of health.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','A','','inherit','open','open','','1634-revision','','','2012-03-21 17:50:42','2012-03-22 00:50:42','',1634,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1636',0,'revision','',0),(1638,1,'2012-03-23 16:27:40','2012-03-23 23:27:40','LAKE BUENA VISTA, FL - MARCH 18:  Infielder Chipper Jones #10 of the Atlanta Braves throws over to first for an out against the Baltimore Orioles during a Grapefruit League Spring Training Game at Champion Stadium at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex on March 18, 2012 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.  (Photo by J. Meric/Getty Images)','Baltimore Orioles v Atlanta Braves','Chipper Jones nears the end of a great career.','inherit','open','open','','baltimore-orioles-v-atlanta-braves','','','2012-03-23 16:27:40','2012-03-23 23:27:40','',1637,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/chipper-jones-32212.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1639,1,'2012-03-23 16:32:28','2012-03-23 23:32:28','For more than 50 years, I have had a favorite baseball player. I\'m not sure I was that adamant about it when I first became a fan in the late \'50s -- maybe Mickey Mantle -- but by the mid \'60s, I really admired the way Pete Rose played the game. He was my favorite player for more than 20 years, and even though I came to realize he wasn\'t as good a human being as he was a ballplayer, I still have an autographed bat of his among my memorabilia.\n\nFrom the time Rose stopped playing until about 1993, I\'m not sure I let myself have a favorite player. For one thing, I was covering baseball -- the Dodgers -- for a good chunk of that time, and I took the old rule about No Cheering in the Press Box seriously.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1638\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Chipper Jones nears the end of a great career.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/chipper-jones-32212.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1638\" title=\"Baltimore Orioles v Atlanta Braves\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/chipper-jones-32212-300x161.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"161\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nBy the mid \'90s. though, I had another favorite, one I followed from the very beginning of his career up to the present. And this year, I\'ll make several trips to Turner Field in Atlanta to watch that favorite play out his last season with the Braves.\n\n<a title=\"Chipper Jones\" href=\"http://www.chipperjones.com/home.htm\">Chipper Jones</a> has had the sort of career that very few athletes have anymore. He spent his entire time in the game as a member of one organization. He was drafted by Atlanta, came up through the Braves\' farm system and reached the majors for good -- after losing a season to a knee in injury -- in 1995.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1637-revision','','','2012-03-23 16:32:28','2012-03-23 23:32:28','',1637,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1639',0,'revision','',0),(1640,1,'2012-03-23 16:51:03','2012-03-23 23:51:03','For more than 50 years, I have had a favorite baseball player. I\'m not sure I was that adamant about it when I first became a fan in the late \'50s -- maybe Mickey Mantle -- but by the mid \'60s, I really admired the way Pete Rose played the game. He was my favorite player for more than 20 years, and even though I came to realize he wasn\'t as good a human being as he was a ballplayer, I still have an autographed bat of his among my memorabilia.\n\nFrom the time Rose stopped playing until about 1993, I\'m not sure I let myself have a favorite player. For one thing, I was covering baseball -- the Dodgers -- for a good chunk of that time, and I took the old rule about No Cheering in the Press Box seriously.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1638\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Chipper Jones nears the end of a great career.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/chipper-jones-32212.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1638\" title=\"Baltimore Orioles v Atlanta Braves\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/chipper-jones-32212-300x161.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"161\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nBy the mid \'90s. though, I had another favorite, one I followed from the very beginning of his career up to the present. And this year, I\'ll make several trips to Turner Field in Atlanta to watch that favorite play out his last season with the Braves.\n\n<a title=\"Chipper Jones\" href=\"http://www.chipperjones.com/home.htm\">Chipper Jones</a> has had the sort of career that very few athletes have anymore. He spent his entire time in the game as a member of one organization. He was drafted by Atlanta, came up through the Braves\' farm system and reached the majors for good -- after losing a season to a knee in injury -- in 1995.\n\nThe Braves won the World Series in his rookie year, and four seasons later, Jones won the National League Most Valuable Player award.\n\nHe was a switch-hitter, and he established himself as one of the four or five best ever to play the game. As he enters his final season, his .304 batting average is the second-highest ever for someone who hits from both sides of the plate. His 453 home runs are third among switch hitters, and he\'s certainly worthy of being included in the debate with Mantle, Eddie Murray, Rose and Frankie Frisch.\n\nIn recent years, he has been hampered by injuries. He hasn\'t hit 30 home runs since 2004, and his last really great seasons were 2007 and 2008, when he scored more than a hundred runs, drove in more than a hundred runs at age 35 and then won the batting title with a .364 average at age 36.\n\nWhen he announced earlier this week that 2012 would be his last season, he spoke of how much he had enjoyed playing his entire career in one spot. He said he was a Southern kid who had been happy to play for a Southern team. He spoke of how difficult a public relations problem it had been for the Braves when Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz had overstayed their welcome, and he said he didn\'t want to do that.\n\nOne last time around the sun. One last season of cheering and possibly a spot in the playoffs.\n\nThen the five-year wait for the Hall of Fame begins.\n\nAs for me, I also like this kid Ryan Zimmerman who plays for Washington. I think he\'s a worthy successor.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1637-revision-2','','','2012-03-23 16:51:03','2012-03-23 23:51:03','',1637,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1640',0,'revision','',0),(1641,1,'2012-03-24 11:16:43','2012-03-24 18:16:43','If there is a more useless thing to brag about than being good at one particular video game, I don\'t know what it is.\r\n\r\nUnless, of course, you\'re 13.\r\n\r\nWhen I was 13, there were no such things as video games. We did have pinball machines, which had been around in bars and stores since the 1930s, but the idea of being able to do anything with a TV screen other than turn it on and watch a show would have seemed like science fiction to us. That\'s why -- in spite of how simplistic it seems -- when Pong first came out in 1972, it was a huge sensation. I swear that sometimes we spent hours just making that little dot on the screen go back and forth.\r\n\r\nOnce the real games started coming out -- Space Invaders, Asteroids, Galaxian and finally Pac-Man in 1980 -- video gaming sort of slipped out into the mainstream culture, and all of a sudden businesses known as video game arcades started springing up. When I was working for the paper in Gastonia, N.C., in 1982, someone opened an arcade right next door to our office.\r\n\r\nI remember playing a lot of Donkey Kong that year -- I was 32, but it was a highly arrested-development 32 -- although I never got to the point where I \"won\" the game. I would rack up a score of 50,000 on a game and then see that the high score was something like 5 million. There was only one game in which I ever \"finished,\" and even that wasn\'t really the end.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1642\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"224\" caption=\"Scramble\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/scramble.gif\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1642\" title=\"scramble\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/scramble.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"224\" height=\"251\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nI don\'t know what it was that fascinated me so much about <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_(video_game)\">Scramble</a>. I wasn\'t all that big on space games or even shooting games, but the idea of piloting this little rocket ship through six levels and destroying the enemy base at the end managed to hold my interest for the better part of a year.\r\n\r\nHey, there was nothing good on TV that year.\r\n\r\nI didn\'t realize at the time that Scramble was a milestone game in a couple of ways. It was the first-ever game that scrolled horizontally as the rocket moved across the landscape, and it was actually the game that settled several questions about intellectual property rights. In<em> Stern Electronics, Inc. v. Kaufman</em>, the court ruled that it was possible to copyright the sounds and images in a video game and not just the computer code used to write them.\r\n\r\nI didn\'t care about any of that stuff. I just wanted to destroy the base. I improved my skills enough to get through five of the six levels most of the time, but the sixth level was sheer torture. You flew the rocket through empty skies, and it was very difficult to know when the base was coming. When it did, you had one chance to be absolutely perfect. If not, you missed it.\r\n\r\nI don\'t remember exactly when I did it, but I do remember feeling roughly the same sense of accomplishment as when I graduated from high school.\r\n\r\nTrust me, the metaphor is an apt one. I destroyed the base and thought I had won the game.\r\n\r\nNope. All that happened was the game sent me back to the beginning to do it all again with a slightly greater degree of difficulty.\r\n\r\nI never played Scramble again.','Just like school, we never really finish video games','','publish','open','open','','just-like-school-we-never-really-finish-video-games','','','2012-03-24 11:16:43','2012-03-24 18:16:43','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1641',0,'post','',0),(1642,1,'2012-03-24 11:03:29','2012-03-24 18:03:29','','scramble','Scramble','inherit','open','open','','scramble','','','2012-03-24 11:03:29','2012-03-24 18:03:29','',1641,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/scramble.gif',0,'attachment','image/gif',0),(1643,1,'2012-03-24 11:16:10','2012-03-24 18:16:10','If there is a more useless thing to brag about than being good at one particular video game, I don\'t know what it is.\n\nUnless, of course, you\'re 13.\n\nWhen I was 13, there were no such things as video games. We did have pinball machines, which had been around in bars and stores since the 1930s, but the idea of being able to do anything with a TV screen other than turn it on and watch a show would have seemed like science fiction to us. That\'s why -- in spite of how simplistic it seems -- when Pong first came out in 1972, it was a huge sensation. I swear that sometimes we spent hours just making that little dot on the screen go back and forth.\n\nOnce the real games started coming out -- Space Invaders, Asteroids, Galaxian and finally Pac-Man in 1980 -- video gaming sort of slipped out into the mainstream culture, and all of a sudden businesses known as video game arcades started springing up. When I was working for the paper in Gastonia, N.C., in 1982, someone opened an arcade right next door to our office.\n\nI remember playing a lot of Donkey Kong that year -- I was 32, but it was a highly arrested-development 32 -- although I never got to the point where I \"won\" the game. I would rack up a score of 50,000 on a game and then see that the high score was something like 5 million. There was only one game in which I ever \"finished,\" and even that wasn\'t really the end.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1642\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"224\" caption=\"Scramble\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/scramble.gif\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1642\" title=\"scramble\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/scramble.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"224\" height=\"251\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nI don\'t know what it was that fascinated me so much about <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_(video_game)\">Scramble</a>. I wasn\'t all that big on space games or even shooting games, but the idea of piloting this little rocket ship through six levels and destroying the enemy base at the end managed to hold my interest for the better part of a year.\n\nHey, there was nothing good on TV that year.\n\nI didn\'t realize at the time that Scramble was a milestone game in a couple of ways. It was the first-ever game that scrolled horizontally as the rocket moved across the landscape, and it was actually the game that settled several questions about intellectual property rights. In<em> Stern Electronics, Inc. v. Kaufman</em>, the court ruled that it was possible to copyright the sounds and images in a video game and not just the computer code used to write them.\n\nI didn\'t care about any of that stuff. I just wanted to destroy the base. I improved my skills enough to get through five of the six levels most of the time, but the sixth level was sheer torture. You flew the rocket through empty skies, and it was very difficult to know when the base was coming. When it did, you had one chance to be absolutely perfect. If not, you missed it.\n\nI don\'t remember exactly when I did it, but I do remember feeling roughly the same sense of accomplishment as when I graduated from high school.\n\nTrust me, the metaphor is an apt one. I destroyed the base and thought I had won the game.\n\nNope. All that happened was the game sent me back to the beginning to do it all again with a slightly greater degree of difficulty.\n\nI never played Scramble again.','','','inherit','open','open','','1641-revision','','','2012-03-24 11:16:10','2012-03-24 18:16:10','',1641,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1643',0,'revision','',0),(1644,1,'2012-03-26 18:47:34','2012-03-27 01:47:34','<em>Short takes from a journey through a disorganized mind:</em>\r\n\r\nI\'m in big trouble.\r\n\r\nI went to the drugstore the other day to get the only truly critical medicine in my life, only to find out there wasn\'t any.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1645\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Recalled?\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Why-Excedrin-NoDoz-bottles-are-being-recalled-8KQJKID-x-large.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1645\" title=\"Why-Excedrin-NoDoz-bottles-are-being-recalled-8KQJKID-x-large\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Why-Excedrin-NoDoz-bottles-are-being-recalled-8KQJKID-x-large-300x220.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nI have been using Excedrin for headaches, toothaches and whatever other aches I\'ve had for the last 30-plus years. I\'m sure it\'s all in my head, but Excedrin is the only thing that seems to work for me consistently.\r\n\r\nI buy the large size -- 250 capsules or tablets -- and then use up the bottle in about four months. So when I went looking for Excedrin the other day, I hadn\'t actually shopped for it since November or so.\r\n\r\nI couldn\'t find any, so I asked. I learned to my great surprise that all the Excedrin had been recalled for some flaw in the packaging process. The biggest shock to me was that it had actually happened several months ago.\r\n\r\nI really do have to start keeping up with the news.\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I have always enjoyed apocalyptic fiction, whether in books or films. Not so much the book of Revelation stuff, although I did read the entire \"Left Behind\" series -- a great example of a good story and poor writing . I drew the line at watching the movies. Kirk Cameron gives me the creeps.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Some of the best end-of-the-world fiction I\'ve read were Nevil Shute\'s classic \"On the Beach,\" Pat Frank\'s \"Alas Babylon\" (in which the world doesn\'t really end) and of course Stephen King\'s \"The Stand\" (in which all that ends is the world as we know it). The Gregory Peck-Ava Gardner version of \"On the Beach\" is my favorite film of this sort, although I have a weird soft spot for a weird little Nicolas Cage film called \"Knowing\" in which the world actually ends.</p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1646\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Knowing\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/movie-Knowing-movie-review-dvd-new-critic-matt-willey.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1646\" title=\"movie-Knowing-movie-review-dvd-new-critic-matt-willey\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/movie-Knowing-movie-review-dvd-new-critic-matt-willey-300x180.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"180\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nOf course there are movies like \"Armageddon\" and \"Deep Impact\" -- the twin asteroid/comet movies of 1997 -- but despite the great tagline \"Earth. It was fun while it lasted,\" you pretty well knew going in that Bruce Willis and Bobby Duvall weren\'t going to let us down by failing to save the day.\r\n\r\nI have probably watched \"On the Beach\" a dozen times on DVD, and recently I saw that there had been a remake for television in 2000 starring Armand Assante and Rachel Ward in the roles Peck and Gardner played so well. I ordered the DVD from Amazon, but I haven\'t watched it yet.\r\n\r\nMy favorite thing about the original version is the way \"Waltzing Matilda\" weaves in and out of the movie as the primary musical theme. Long before I started listening to Eric Bogle and Slim Dusty, even before I heard \"Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport,\" I fell in love with Australia through \"Waltzing Matilda.\"\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1647\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"My last NCAA tournament\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/00000008.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1647\" title=\"00000008\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/00000008-e1332812074591-300x214.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">During the 16 years I worked as a sportswriter, my greatest area of expertise was college basketball, and the most fun I ever had was covering the NCAA tournament. In 1985 and 1986, when I was working in St. Louis, I had the great privilege of covering the Final Four.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">That took me to Rupp Arena in Kentucky for the classic \'85 game when Villanova stunned Georgetown, 66-64, and then to Reunion Arena in Dallas the next year for Louisville\'s win over Duke.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I traveled all over for various regionals and sub-regionals -- Providence, R.I., in 1985, Ogden, Utah, and Kansas City in 1986, and Salt Lake City and Oakland, Calif., in 1990. Earlier, when I was working in the Southeast, I covered a day\'s worth of games in Charlotte in 1982 and Atlanta in 1984.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I achieved enough as a college basketball reporter that I was asked twice -- in 1987-88 and in 1990-91 -- to be one of the voters in the Associated Press college basketball poll.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I left sportswriting in 1996, and I never missed covering pro football. I\'ve missed being a baseball writer, but more than anything, the time of year I have the most nostalgia is during the three weeks known as March Madness.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Ironically, the most fun day of all is the first -- four different games at 12, 2, 7 and 9.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">That, as they say, is a busy day.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"></p>','Tales of headaches, apocalypses and March Madness','','publish','open','open','','tales-of-headaches-apocalypses-and-march-madness','','','2012-03-26 18:47:34','2012-03-27 01:47:34','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1644',0,'post','',0),(1645,1,'2012-03-26 17:44:05','2012-03-27 00:44:05','','Why-Excedrin-NoDoz-bottles-are-being-recalled-8KQJKID-x-large','Recalled?','inherit','open','open','','why-excedrin-nodoz-bottles-are-being-recalled-8kqjkid-x-large','','','2012-03-26 17:44:05','2012-03-27 00:44:05','',1644,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Why-Excedrin-NoDoz-bottles-are-being-recalled-8KQJKID-x-large.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1646,1,'2012-03-26 18:04:29','2012-03-27 01:04:29','','movie-Knowing-movie-review-dvd-new-critic-matt-willey','Knowing','inherit','open','open','','movie-knowing-movie-review-dvd-new-critic-matt-willey','','','2012-03-26 18:04:29','2012-03-27 01:04:29','',1644,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/movie-Knowing-movie-review-dvd-new-critic-matt-willey.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1647,1,'2012-03-26 18:33:38','2012-03-27 01:33:38','','00000008','My last NCAA tournament','inherit','open','open','','00000008','','','2012-03-26 18:33:38','2012-03-27 01:33:38','',1644,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/00000008.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1648,1,'2012-03-26 18:47:28','2012-03-27 01:47:28','<em>Short takes from a journey through a disorganized mind:</em>\n\nI\'m in big trouble.\n\nI went to the drugstore the other day to get the only truly critical medicine in my life, only to find out there wasn\'t any.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1645\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Recalled?\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Why-Excedrin-NoDoz-bottles-are-being-recalled-8KQJKID-x-large.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1645\" title=\"Why-Excedrin-NoDoz-bottles-are-being-recalled-8KQJKID-x-large\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Why-Excedrin-NoDoz-bottles-are-being-recalled-8KQJKID-x-large-300x220.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nI have been using Excedrin for headaches, toothaches and whatever other aches I\'ve had for the last 30-plus years. I\'m sure it\'s all in my head, but Excedrin is the only thing that seems to work for me consistently.\n\nI buy the large size -- 250 capsules or tablets -- and then use up the bottle in about four months. So when I went looking for Excedrin the other day, I hadn\'t actually shopped for it since November or so.\n\nI couldn\'t find any, so I asked. I learned to my great surprise that all the Excedrin had been recalled for some flaw in the packaging process. The biggest shock to me was that it had actually happened several months ago.\n\nI really do have to start keeping up with the news.\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I have always enjoyed apocalyptic fiction, whether in books or films. Not so much the book of Revelation stuff, although I did read the entire \"Left Behind\" series -- a great example of a good story and poor writing . I drew the line at watching the movies. Kirk Cameron gives me the creeps.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Some of the best end-of-the-world fiction I\'ve read were Nevil Shute\'s classic \"On the Beach,\" Pat Frank\'s \"Alas Babylon\" (in which the world doesn\'t really end) and of course Stephen King\'s \"The Stand\" (in which all that ends is the world as we know it). The Gregory Peck-Ava Gardner version of \"On the Beach\" is my favorite film of this sort, although I have a weird soft spot for a weird little Nicolas Cage film called \"Knowing\" in which the world actually ends.</p>\n\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1646\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Knowing\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/movie-Knowing-movie-review-dvd-new-critic-matt-willey.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1646\" title=\"movie-Knowing-movie-review-dvd-new-critic-matt-willey\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/movie-Knowing-movie-review-dvd-new-critic-matt-willey-300x180.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"180\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nOf course there are movies like \"Armageddon\" and \"Deep Impact\" -- the twin asteroid/comet movies of 1997 -- but despite the great tagline \"Earth. It was fun while it lasted,\" you pretty well knew going in that Bruce Willis and Bobby Duvall weren\'t going to let us down by failing to save the day.\n\nI have probably watched \"On the Beach\" a dozen times on DVD, and recently I saw that there had been a remake for television in 2000 starring Armand Assante and Rachel Ward in the roles Peck and Gardner played so well. I ordered the DVD from Amazon, but I haven\'t watched it yet.\n\nMy favorite thing about the original version is the way \"Waltzing Matilda\" weaves in and out of the movie as the primary musical theme. Long before I started listening to Eric Bogle and Slim Dusty, even before I heard \"Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport,\" I fell in love with Australia through \"Waltzing Matilda.\"\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\n\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1647\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"My last NCAA tournament\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/00000008.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1647\" title=\"00000008\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/00000008-e1332812074591-300x214.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" /></a>[/caption]\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">During the 16 years I worked as a sportswriter, my greatest area of expertise was college basketball, and the most fun I ever had was covering the NCAA tournament. In 1985 and 1986, when I was working in St. Louis, I had the great privilege of covering the Final Four.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">That took me to Rupp Arena in Kentucky for the classic \'85 game when Villanova stunned Georgetown, 66-64, and then to Reunion Arena in Dallas the next year for Louisville\'s win over Duke.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I traveled all over for various regionals and sub-regionals -- Providence, R.I., in 1985, Ogden, Utah, and Kansas City in 1986, and Salt Lake City and Oakland, Calif., in 1990. Earlier, when I was working in the Southeast, I covered a day\'s worth of games in Charlotte in 1982 and Atlanta in 1984.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I achieved enough as a college basketball reporter that I was asked twice -- in 1987-88 and in 1990-91 -- to be one of the voters in the Associated Press college basketball poll.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I left sportswriting in 1996, and I never missed covering pro football. I\'ve missed being a baseball writer, but more than anything, the time of year I have the most nostalgia is during the three weeks known as March Madness.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Ironically, the most fun day of all is the first -- four different games at 12, 2, 7 and 9.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">That, as they say, is a busy day.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"></p>','Of headaches, apocalypses and March Madness','','inherit','open','open','','1644-revision','','','2012-03-26 18:47:28','2012-03-27 01:47:28','',1644,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1648',0,'revision','',0),(1671,1,'2012-04-04 18:03:57','2012-04-05 01:03:57','[caption id=\"attachment_1672\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Spring is here.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_8.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1672\" title=\"20120331_8\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_8-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nI made it onto the golf course to play nine holes yesterday, and as has been the case lately, my game was sort of erratic.\r\n\r\nLast spring, I was playing a great deal of golf, and I had some of the most amazing rounds of my life. I broke 80 three times, with an overall best round of 78. Even better than that, though, I had one round playing only the front nine where I had eight pars and one bogey for a 37.\r\n\r\nThat round was really cool, because I had pars on the first eight holes and missed a putt on the ninth that would have given me a tremendous milestone -- par golf.\r\n\r\nGenerally when I\'m playing well, I\'ll shoot around 40 or 41 on the front nine. I know the holes well enough that I can usually shoot par on about half of them. But right now I\'m a long way from that kind of consistency.\r\n\r\nWhen I played yesterday, I bogeyed seven of the nine holes. I parred one of them, but it was on the remaining hole -- No. 6 -- that I had my best moment this year, golf-wise.\r\n\r\nThe hole is a strange one. It\'s a relatively short par four (about 335 yards), but you can\'t see the green from the tee box. You hit your first shot uphill, and it\'s crucial to stay in the middle of the fairway. It\'s an easy approach shot to the green from here, but that\'s where the hole gets interesting. The pin placement is everything here. If it\'s a red flag, it\'s on the flattened out left side of the green and a relatively easy par. But the other 75 percent of the green is much tougher, sloping downward all over the place so that a less-than-perfect shot will either go through and out the back or will slide off the front of the green down into a depression.\r\n\r\nI rarely par the hole and it\'s not at all uncommon for me to wind up with a double bogey.\r\n\r\nBut yesterday I had a good tee shot, 200 yards just over the crest of the hill in the middle of the fairway. My second shot was one of the best I\'ve ever hit on this hole. With the pin placed far to the right near the back, I put my shot slightly to the right of center and far enough back that it didn\'t roll away. I was left with about an 18-foot putt and my goal was to get it close enough to tap in for par.\r\n\r\nAt least that was the plan. What actually happened was I rolled in the 18-footer for a birdie, my first ever on No. 6 when the flag was blue.\r\n\r\nIt was kind of an odd way to shoot 42, but it definitely fit in with that old saying about golf -- all it takes is one great hole or even one great shot to leave you feeling wonderful and eager to get back out there again.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Sometimes all it takes is one wonderful shot','','publish','open','open','','sometimes-all-it-takes-is-one-wonderful-shot','','','2012-04-04 18:03:57','2012-04-05 01:03:57','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1671',0,'post','',0),(1651,1,'2012-03-28 17:45:56','2012-03-29 00:45:56','','images','Peanuts','inherit','open','open','','images-8','','','2012-03-28 17:45:56','2012-03-29 00:45:56','',1650,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/images.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1652,1,'2012-03-28 18:02:53','2012-03-29 01:02:53','Do you ever get the feeling that all the great comic strips are disappearing?\n\nThere used to be at least three or four strips that I made the effort to see every single day -- Doonesbury, Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, Tank McNamara. Now two of them are gone and I haven\'t seen Tank in a long time. Only Garry Trudeau keeps plugging away. He\'s now in his fifth decade doing Doonesbury, which I\'m sure is a surprise even to him.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1651\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"250\" caption=\"Peanuts\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/images.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1651\" title=\"images\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/images.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"202\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nYou may notice I didn\'t mention the greatest strip of them all. When Charles Schulz died in 2000, he was only a few months shy of doing 50 years worth of <a title=\"Peanuts\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanuts\">\"Peanuts.\"</a> At its peak it appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers and was translated into 21 languages. There were books, stuffed animals, television specials and even a successful Broadway show (\"You\'re a Good Man, Charlie Brown\"). The strip and all its incarnations and merchandising earned more than $1 billion for Schulz.\n\nHe did all the inking, lettering and writing from beginning to end. \"Peanuts\" might have been the greatest one-man show in history.\n\nStarting a few years after Schulz\'s death, Fantagraphics Books began publishing a complete record of every single daily and Sunday strip in two-year volumes. Most other strips that are anthologized are \"best of\" collections, but \"Peanuts\" was so good that you could open any one of the books to any random page and get a good laugh for yourself.\n\nIf there were to be a vote to choose the most iconic character from a comic strip, you\'d have to figure Charlie Brown -- the most lovable loser ever -- would top the list.\n\nUnless Snoopy did.\n\nOther strips have come and gone, but 12 years after Schulz stopped drawing \"Peanuts,\" reruns of the strips still appear in most American newspapers. The topical references to Bob Dylan turning 30 or to Howard Cosell broadcasting football may be dated, but the characters will never fade.\n\nAt some point, I\'ll collect the entire set of Fantagraphics Books. I\'ll read them myself, but mostly I\'ll keep them for the pleasure they will bring Maddie and Lex, my two grandchildren.\n\nWho knows? It just might be that Charles Schulz and his \"Li\'l Folks\" will be the closest thing to Shakespeare when it comes to lasting writing from the second half of the 20th century.\n\nWe could do a lot worse.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1650-revision','','','2012-03-28 18:02:53','2012-03-29 01:02:53','',1650,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1652',0,'revision','',0),(1676,1,'2012-04-16 19:39:16','2012-04-17 02:39:16','<em><strong>Short takes from a journey through a disorganized mind:</strong></em>\r\n\r\nWhen people used to describe a period of time by saying it was \"40 days and 40 nights,\" they generally weren\'t referring to five weeks and five days or to 960 hours.\r\n\r\nNo, when they said 40/40, it was a colorful way of saying \"it was a long time, but we\'re not sure exactly how long.\"\r\n\r\nWell, when I tell you I have completed the first 46 days of my effort to get back into shape, I am referring to the specific number -- 31 days of March and 15 days of April -- and I have a specific result. I have lost 42 pounds. Of course it\'s essentially the same 42 pounds I lost two years ago en route to losing 112 pounds in six months.\r\n\r\nI wish I had kept track -- or better yet -- that I could just remember exactly how much weight I have lost in all the various and assorted diets of my life. I\'m pretty sure that it\'s at least 400 pounds, which would be great if I had weighed something like 550 and how was down to 150. Of course that\'s not the case; I have been on nature\'s roller-coaster ride for the last 30 years or so, and at some point the mechanism is going to break.\r\n\r\nI\'m actually pretty good at losing weight. I just suck at keeping it off.\r\n\r\nThat has to change.\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1679\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"In my room.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120326_76.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1679\" title=\"20120326_76\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120326_76-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nSomething about my office -- the one room in our lovely house that is all mine -- just makes me happy. Deep down happy.\r\n\r\nNicole has done a truly wonderful job of decorating the rest of the house. Our house is a real showplace. But my one room, with all its movie posters, sports memorabilia, photos and the like on the walls, is the nicest room I have ever had that I could call mine.\r\n\r\nThe built-in bookcases, which are packed to the gills with books and DVDs, fill an entire wall. A television set and storage cabinets occupy the opposite wall. I\'ve got four autographed jerseys, of which there\'s room on the walls for two at a time. Right now I\'m looking at John Elway\'s No. 7, and I\'ve got Johnny Bench\'s No. 5 on the wall behind my left shoulder.\r\n\r\nChipper Jones is packed away for now, and I\'m looking forward to the arrival of a fairly rare minor league jersey of Tom Seaver from his one season below the major-league level. He was 12-12 with Jacksonville in 1966. The very next season, he won 16 games for the New York Mets.\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>***</strong></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">It has been nearly 15 years since television shows started coming out on DVD, and there is one that has been in my sights for almost all that time.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/LA-Law.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1681\" title=\"LA-Law\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/LA-Law-300x192.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"192\" /></a>I was living in St. Louis when \"LA Law\" first debuted in 1986, and almost everything about it spoke to me of how much I wanted to live in California.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I had always had my sights set on the San Francisco Bay Area rather than the Southland, and I nearly got a job in Marin County in January 1988. That didn\'t happen, though, and in 1990 I got a job in Los Angeles and moved south to spend the next 20 years of my life.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">When we left for our retirement in Georgia in November 2010, I was more than ready to leave. But now that the first season of \"LA Law\" is finally out on DVD, watching it really brings back memories.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Good ones.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"></p>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Weight loss, my office and a favorite old show','','publish','open','open','','weight-loss-my-office-and-a-favorite-old-show','','','2012-04-16 19:39:16','2012-04-17 02:39:16','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1676',0,'post','',0),(1654,1,'2012-03-30 18:46:19','2012-03-31 01:46:19','When did we become a country in which everyone felt they had the right to tell everyone else how they should or shouldn\'t live?\r\n\r\nMy guess is that it was right about the same time when our politicians slipped from simply smarmy down to viciously venal.\r\n\r\nIt actually all fits together. We evolved from people who read books and had intelligent discussions into people who vegetated in front of their television sets and only believed what the loudest voices told us to believe.  This may be difficult to fathom, but until first radio and then television came along, one of the most popular forms of entertainment in small-town America was going to an auditorium and listening to lectures.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1655\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Chautauqua\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/oldmen.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1655\" title=\"oldmen\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/oldmen-300x189.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"189\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nThe <a title=\"Chautauqua\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua\">Chautauqua</a> movement would be almost impossible to comprehend these days. The very idea that most of the folks in a small town would go to an auditorium and spend two or three hours listening to a presentation designed to make them more informed about some aspect of the world is so far beyond modern reality that it might as well be science fiction.\r\n\r\nBenjamin Franklin was the one who said the Founding Fathers had given us a republic -- if we could keep it -- and H.L. Mencken was the one who said in the 1920s that the republican would fall within a hundred years. Mencken gave two reasons -- stupidity and greed -- and both appear to be in full flight in 2012.\r\n\r\nIt would be easy -- and probably wrong -- to say the average member of the public is stupid because he\'d rather watch \"Jersey Shore\" than PBS or listen to Justin Bieber instead of grand opera. The average person is a lot more stressed by life than folks were a hundred years ago.\r\n\r\nMy late father often told us that our generation had a lot more stressful choices to make than his had. He had health insurance through his job for his entire career, and he had a pension when he retired. He didn\'t have to buy insurance or make decisions about 401(k) accounts or individual retirement accounts. His generation -- the one that survived the Depression and won World War II -- had far more stability in their careers. My dad worked for one employer for his entire career. By contrast, my closest friend hasn\'t had a full-time job with full benefits for more than two or three years of the last 25 years.\r\n\r\nThe fact is, more and more people feel like control over their lives is slipping away from them. Whether it\'s conservatives telling them they can\'t have an abortion or liberals telling them they shouldn\'t be smoking or eating meat, everybody seems to be in somebody\'s face these days. And as worried as so many people are about their finances, many certainly resent being told how they have to spend that money.\r\n\r\nOne of the biggest problems is that while once we were a country where people sincerely believed we were all in it together, today working people have as much in common with Donald Trump or Bill Gates as they do with an extraterrestrial. In fact, just about the only thing we all have in common anymore is that we all are born and we all die.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/on_the_beach.large_.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1657\" title=\"on_the_beach.large\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/on_the_beach.large_-195x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" /></a>I just finished reading a book I first read nearly 50 years ago -- Nevil Shute\'s \"On the Beach.\" The Gregory Peck-Ava Gardner film made from the book is a classic, but there really aren\'t many movies made from books that surpass the printed word.\r\n\r\nThe book is far more poignant in dealing with its subjects as the end of the world approaches, a world destroyed by politicians and military men. Parents worry about dying before their infant children, an old woman wonders what will happen to her little dog when she isn\'t around to feed him. Folks who never gave a thought to international politics, who wanted nothing more than to be left alone to live their lives, died for the hubris of the rich and powerful.\r\n\r\nMy guess is that most people don\'t care at all how other people live their lives as long as those other people don\'t affect them. My friend is fond of that old cliche about your right to throw your fist ending where his nose begins, but he has always defined his nose rather loosely. Back in 1978, when you could still smoke a cigarette without making a federal case of it, I remember him and his girlfriend hassling someone in a cafeteria who was smoking at the next table.\r\n\r\nI\'ve never been a smoker, but I have a feeling that\'s where our society\'s holier-than-thou complex got started. Once was the time that people who smoked were courteous about it and tried to avoid blowing smoke where it wasn\'t wanted. But after a while, that wasn\'t good enough, and now there really are some people who would like to prevent smokers from lighting up in their own homes.\r\n\r\nIs it even possible anymore for us just to respect each other as human beings? It doesn\'t affect me in any negative way if gay people want to marry each other, or if kids want to meet at the flagpole before school starts and praise Jesus. But if you were to listen to some people, these forms of love and worship are worse for our country than all three of the Kardashian sisters combined.\r\n\r\nI suppose the problem is that issues became so complex -- or at least seemed to -- that average people decided they had no chance to understand them. So they chose the loudest voice that made sense to them and started believing everything they heard from that person.\r\n\r\nOnce was the time we elected people like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. Now we have a president who started running for office after two years as a U.S. senator and a challenger who doesn\'t even have the charm of Thurston Howell in \"Gilligan\'s Island.\" We call people intellectuals and great thinkers whose politics come straight from the novels of a fourth-rate writer like Ayn Rand.\r\n\r\nCouldn\'t we at least try for John Steinbeck?\r\n\r\nI don\'t think it\'s too late to save our country, but time is definitely a-wastin\'. We need to get rid of the bums, the hypocrites and the grifters and look for some honest folks to make our laws. But more important, maybe most important of all, we need to understand that a gay couple in Hawaii and a foot-washing Baptist couple in Alabama have a lot more in common than they do dividing them.\r\n\r\nMost folks just want someone to love, someone to share their happiness and the chance to work for a better life.\r\n\r\nOh, and most of them aren\'t at all fond of politicians.\r\n\r\nSee, that\'s a start.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','We may have lost something, but we can get it back','','publish','open','open','','we-may-have-lost-something-but-we-can-get-it-back','','','2012-03-30 18:46:19','2012-03-31 01:46:19','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1654',0,'post','',0),(1655,1,'2012-03-30 14:42:43','2012-03-30 21:42:43','','oldmen','Chautauqua','inherit','open','open','','oldmen','','','2012-03-30 14:42:43','2012-03-30 21:42:43','',1654,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/oldmen.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1656,1,'2012-03-30 15:27:16','2012-03-30 22:27:16','When did we become a country in which everyone felt they had the right to tell everyone else how they should or shouldn\'t live?\n\nMy guess is that it was right about the same time when our politicians slipped from simply smarmy down to viciously venal.\n\nIt actually all fits together. We evolved from people who read books and had intelligent discussions into people who vegetated in front of their television sets and only believed what the loudest voices told us to believe.  This may be difficult to fathom, but until first radio and then television came along, one of the most popular forms of entertainment in small-town America was going to an auditorium and listening to lectures.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1655\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Chautauqua\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/oldmen.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1655\" title=\"oldmen\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/oldmen-300x189.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"189\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThe <a title=\"Chautauqua\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua\">Chautauqua</a> movement would be almost impossible to comprehend these days. The very idea that most of the folks in a small town would go to an auditorium and spend two or three hours listening to a presentation designed to make them more informed about some aspect of the world is so far beyond modern reality that it might as well be science fiction.\n\nBenjamin Franklin was the one who said the Founding Fathers had given us a republic -- if we could keep it -- and H.L. Mencken was the one who said in the 1920s that the republican would fall within a hundred years. Mencken gave two reasons -- stupidity and greed -- and both appear to be in full flight in 2012.\n\nIt would be easy -- and probably wrong -- to say the average member of the public is stupid because he\'d rather watch \"Jersey Shore\" than PBS or listen to Justin Bieber instead of grand opera. The average person is a lot more stressed by life than folks were a hundred years ago.\n\nMy late father often told us that our generation had a lot more stressful choices to make than his had. He had health insurance through his job for his entire career, and he had a pension when he retired. He didn\'t have to buy insurance or make decisions about 401(k) accounts or individual retirement accounts. His generation -- the one that survived the Depression and won World War II -- had far more stability in their careers. My dad worked for one employer for his entire career. By contrast, my closest friend hasn\'t had a full-time job with full benefits for more than two or three years of the last 25 years.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1654-revision','','','2012-03-30 15:27:16','2012-03-30 22:27:16','',1654,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1656',0,'revision','',0),(1657,1,'2012-03-30 16:36:02','2012-03-30 23:36:02','','on_the_beach.large','','inherit','open','open','','on_the_beach-large','','','2012-03-30 16:36:02','2012-03-30 23:36:02','',1654,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/on_the_beach.large_.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1658,1,'2012-03-30 16:50:34','2012-03-30 23:50:34','When did we become a country in which everyone felt they had the right to tell everyone else how they should or shouldn\'t live?\n\nMy guess is that it was right about the same time when our politicians slipped from simply smarmy down to viciously venal.\n\nIt actually all fits together. We evolved from people who read books and had intelligent discussions into people who vegetated in front of their television sets and only believed what the loudest voices told us to believe.  This may be difficult to fathom, but until first radio and then television came along, one of the most popular forms of entertainment in small-town America was going to an auditorium and listening to lectures.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1655\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Chautauqua\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/oldmen.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1655\" title=\"oldmen\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/oldmen-300x189.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"189\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThe <a title=\"Chautauqua\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua\">Chautauqua</a> movement would be almost impossible to comprehend these days. The very idea that most of the folks in a small town would go to an auditorium and spend two or three hours listening to a presentation designed to make them more informed about some aspect of the world is so far beyond modern reality that it might as well be science fiction.\n\nBenjamin Franklin was the one who said the Founding Fathers had given us a republic -- if we could keep it -- and H.L. Mencken was the one who said in the 1920s that the republican would fall within a hundred years. Mencken gave two reasons -- stupidity and greed -- and both appear to be in full flight in 2012.\n\nIt would be easy -- and probably wrong -- to say the average member of the public is stupid because he\'d rather watch \"Jersey Shore\" than PBS or listen to Justin Bieber instead of grand opera. The average person is a lot more stressed by life than folks were a hundred years ago.\n\nMy late father often told us that our generation had a lot more stressful choices to make than his had. He had health insurance through his job for his entire career, and he had a pension when he retired. He didn\'t have to buy insurance or make decisions about 401(k) accounts or individual retirement accounts. His generation -- the one that survived the Depression and won World War II -- had far more stability in their careers. My dad worked for one employer for his entire career. By contrast, my closest friend hasn\'t had a full-time job with full benefits for more than two or three years of the last 25 years.\n\nThe fact is, more and more people feel like control over their lives is slipping away from them. Whether it\'s conservatives telling them they can\'t have an abortion or liberals telling them they shouldn\'t be smoking or eating meat, everybody seems to be in somebody\'s face these days. And as worried as so many people are about their finances, many certainly resent being told how they have to spend that money.\n\nOne of the biggest problems is that while once we were a country where people sincerely believed we were all in it together, today working people have as much in common with Donald Trump or Bill Gates as they do with an extraterrestrial. In fact, just about the only thing we all have in common anymore is that we all are born and we all die.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/on_the_beach.large_.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1657\" title=\"on_the_beach.large\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/on_the_beach.large_-195x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" /></a>I just finished reading a book I first read nearly 50 years ago -- Nevil Shute\'s \"On the Beach.\" The Gregory Peck-Ava Gardner film made from the book is a classic, but there really aren\'t many movies made from books that surpass the printed word.\n\nThe book is far more poignant in dealing with its subjects as the end of the world approaches, a world destroyed by politicians and military men. Parents worry about dying before their infant children, an old woman wonders what will happen to her little dog when she isn\'t around to feed him.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1654-revision-2','','','2012-03-30 16:50:34','2012-03-30 23:50:34','',1654,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1658',0,'revision','',0),(1659,1,'2012-03-30 18:45:36','2012-03-31 01:45:36','When did we become a country in which everyone felt they had the right to tell everyone else how they should or shouldn\'t live?\n\nMy guess is that it was right about the same time when our politicians slipped from simply smarmy down to viciously venal.\n\nIt actually all fits together. We evolved from people who read books and had intelligent discussions into people who vegetated in front of their television sets and only believed what the loudest voices told us to believe.  This may be difficult to fathom, but until first radio and then television came along, one of the most popular forms of entertainment in small-town America was going to an auditorium and listening to lectures.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1655\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Chautauqua\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/oldmen.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1655\" title=\"oldmen\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/oldmen-300x189.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"189\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThe <a title=\"Chautauqua\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua\">Chautauqua</a> movement would be almost impossible to comprehend these days. The very idea that most of the folks in a small town would go to an auditorium and spend two or three hours listening to a presentation designed to make them more informed about some aspect of the world is so far beyond modern reality that it might as well be science fiction.\n\nBenjamin Franklin was the one who said the Founding Fathers had given us a republic -- if we could keep it -- and H.L. Mencken was the one who said in the 1920s that the republican would fall within a hundred years. Mencken gave two reasons -- stupidity and greed -- and both appear to be in full flight in 2012.\n\nIt would be easy -- and probably wrong -- to say the average member of the public is stupid because he\'d rather watch \"Jersey Shore\" than PBS or listen to Justin Bieber instead of grand opera. The average person is a lot more stressed by life than folks were a hundred years ago.\n\nMy late father often told us that our generation had a lot more stressful choices to make than his had. He had health insurance through his job for his entire career, and he had a pension when he retired. He didn\'t have to buy insurance or make decisions about 401(k) accounts or individual retirement accounts. His generation -- the one that survived the Depression and won World War II -- had far more stability in their careers. My dad worked for one employer for his entire career. By contrast, my closest friend hasn\'t had a full-time job with full benefits for more than two or three years of the last 25 years.\n\nThe fact is, more and more people feel like control over their lives is slipping away from them. Whether it\'s conservatives telling them they can\'t have an abortion or liberals telling them they shouldn\'t be smoking or eating meat, everybody seems to be in somebody\'s face these days. And as worried as so many people are about their finances, many certainly resent being told how they have to spend that money.\n\nOne of the biggest problems is that while once we were a country where people sincerely believed we were all in it together, today working people have as much in common with Donald Trump or Bill Gates as they do with an extraterrestrial. In fact, just about the only thing we all have in common anymore is that we all are born and we all die.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/on_the_beach.large_.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1657\" title=\"on_the_beach.large\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/on_the_beach.large_-195x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" /></a>I just finished reading a book I first read nearly 50 years ago -- Nevil Shute\'s \"On the Beach.\" The Gregory Peck-Ava Gardner film made from the book is a classic, but there really aren\'t many movies made from books that surpass the printed word.\n\nThe book is far more poignant in dealing with its subjects as the end of the world approaches, a world destroyed by politicians and military men. Parents worry about dying before their infant children, an old woman wonders what will happen to her little dog when she isn\'t around to feed him. Folks who never gave a thought to international politics, who wanted nothing more than to be left alone to live their lives, died for the hubris of the rich and powerful.\n\nMy guess is that most people don\'t care at all how other people live their lives as long as those other people don\'t affect them. My friend is fond of that old cliche about your right to throw your fist ending where his nose begins, but he has always defined his nose rather loosely. Back in 1978, when you could still smoke a cigarette without making a federal case of it, I remember him and his girlfriend hassling someone in a cafeteria who was smoking at the next table.\n\nI\'ve never been a smoker, but I have a feeling that\'s where our society\'s holier-than-thou complex got started. Once was the time that people who smoked were courteous about it and tried to avoid blowing smoke where it wasn\'t wanted. But after a while, that wasn\'t good enough, and now there really are some people who would like to prevent smokers from lighting up in their own homes.\n\nIs it even possible anymore for us just to respect each other as human beings? It doesn\'t affect me in any negative way if gay people want to marry each other, or if kids want to meet at the flagpole before school starts and praise Jesus. But if you were to listen to some people, these forms of love and worship are worse for our country than all three of the Kardashian sisters combined.\n\nI suppose the problem is that issues became so complex -- or at least seemed to -- that average people decided they had no chance to understand them. So they chose the loudest voice that made sense to them and started believing everything they heard from that person.\n\nOnce was the time we elected people like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. Now we have a president who started running for office after two years as a U.S. senator and a challenger who doesn\'t even have the charm of Thurston Howell in \"Gilligan\'s Island.\" We call people intellectuals and great thinkers whose politics come straight from the novels of a fourth-rate writer like Ayn Rand.\n\nCouldn\'t we at least try for John Steinbeck?\n\nI don\'t think it\'s too late to save our country, but time is definitely a-wastin\'. We need to get rid of the bums, the hypocrites and the grifters and look for some honest folks to make our laws. But more important, maybe most important of all, we need to understand that a gay couple in Hawaii and a foot-washing Baptist couple in Alabama have a lot more in common than they do dividing them.\n\nMost folks just want someone to love, someone to share their happiness and the chance to work for a better life.\n\nOh, and most of them aren\'t at all fond of politicians.\n\nSee, that\'s a start.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1654-revision-3','','','2012-03-30 18:45:36','2012-03-31 01:45:36','',1654,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1659',0,'revision','',0),(1660,1,'2012-04-02 19:28:09','2012-04-03 02:28:09','I\'m not sure what it was that motivated me to make these lists, but last summer I posted an earlier version of this on Facebook. I picked my five favorite films in a lot of different genres, and then I picked my No. 1 film in each category.\r\n\r\nNow the last thing I want to do is just cut and paste what I wrote last summer, even if this is for a different audience, so what I thought I would do was expand each category to a top 10. Within the 10, they\'re in no particular order, except that the one title in boldface in each group is my favorite.\r\n\r\nHere goes:\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1667\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Bull Durham\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Kevin_Costner_and_Susan_Sarandon_in_Bull_Durham_Wallpaper_JxHy.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1667\" title=\"Kevin_Costner_and_Susan_Sarandon_in_Bull_Durham_Wallpaper_JxHy\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Kevin_Costner_and_Susan_Sarandon_in_Bull_Durham_Wallpaper_JxHy-300x214.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\n<strong>ACTION/ADVENTURE</strong>: Die Hard, <strong>Raiders of the Lost Ark</strong>, The Rock, The Abyss, Armageddon, The Adventures of Robin Hood (the 1937 one), Air Force One, Patriot Games, Con Air, Fail Safe.\r\n\r\n<strong>COMEDY (FUNNY)</strong>: <strong>Animal House</strong>, American Graffiti, Night Shift, My Favorite Year, Used Cars, Duck Soup, After Hours, Sleeper, Tootsie, Some Like it Hot.\r\n\r\n<strong>COMEDY (SATIRE)</strong>: <strong>Bedazzled</strong>, Best in Show, Lord Love a Duck, The Loved One, Smile, Putney Swope, Modern Romance, Saved, Serial, State and Main.\r\n\r\n<strong>DRAMA</strong>: The Godfather Part II, The Grapes of Wrath, Casablanca, <strong>To Kill a Mockingbird</strong>, True Confessions, Twelve Angry Men, Chinatown, Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago.\r\n\r\n<strong>FANTASY</strong>: <strong>The Wizard of Oz</strong>, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, It\'s A Wonderful Life, Streets of Fire, Peggy Sue Got Married, Superman, Pleasantville, Chances Are, The Princess Bride, Back to the Future.\r\n\r\n<strong>FOREIGN (LANGUAGE)</strong>:<strong> After Life</strong>, Shall We Dance, The Wild Child, Il Postino, Changing Times, Cinema Paradisio, Closely Watched Trains, Tous les Matins du Monde, The Sorrow and the Pity, Das Boot.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1668\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Hanover Street\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/500full.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1668\" title=\"500full\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/500full-300x194.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"194\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\n<strong>GUILTY PLEASURES:</strong> Joe vs. the Volcano, Real Men, <strong>Hanover Street</strong>, A Small Circle of Friends, Stealing Home, Purple Hearts, The Long Kiss Goodnight, American Dreamz, The Hollywood Knights, Shining Through.\r\n\r\n<strong>HORROR</strong>:   Dawn of the Dead, Freaks, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Dracula, Bride of Frankenstein, Gotham, The Others, Shaun of the Dead, An American Werewolf in London, Shock Corridor.\r\n\r\n<strong>MUSICALS</strong>: West Side Story, The Music Man, Bye Bye Birdie, Woodstock, <strong>Singin\' in the Rain</strong>, A Mighty Wind, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Meet Me in St. Louis, Guys and Dolls, Moulin Rouge.\r\n\r\n<strong>ROMANCE</strong>: <strong>Love Actually</strong>, Notting Hill, Windy City, Blume in Love, The Electric Horseman, Just Like Heaven, Somewhere in Time, Sleepless in Seattle, Electric Dreams, When Harry Met Sally.\r\n\r\n<strong>SCIENCE FICTION</strong>: Blade Runner, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET: The Extraterrestrial, When Worlds Collide, <strong>Time After Time</strong>, Forbidden Planet, Star Trek (2009), Galaxy Quest, Total Recall.\r\n\r\n<strong>SPORTS</strong>:<strong> Bull Durham</strong>, Field of Dreams, Bang the Drum Slowly, A League of Their Own, Rocky, For Love of the Game, Hoosiers, Tin Cup, Pastime, Seabiscuit.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1669\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"180\" caption=\"My favorite movie.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/281515_10150371894377067_713362066_10183053_3131929_a.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1669\" title=\"281515_10150371894377067_713362066_10183053_3131929_a\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/281515_10150371894377067_713362066_10183053_3131929_a.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"180\" height=\"271\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\n<strong>THRILLERS:</strong> North by Northwest, The Birds, Vertigo, The Maltese Falcon, <strong>Dead Again</strong>, Pretty Poison, The Last Seduction, Silence of the Lambs, Mystic River, From Russia With Love.\r\n\r\n<strong>WAR</strong>: Testament, On the Beach,<strong> Gallipoli</strong>, The Human Comedy, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Guns of Navarone, From Here to Eternity, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, In the Valley of Elah, Threads.\r\n\r\n<strong>WESTERNS</strong>:  Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Magnificent Seven, The Searchers,<strong> Little Big Man</strong>, Tombstone, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Fort Apache,  Rio Bravo, Stagecoach (1939).','So many movies give us so much pleasure','','publish','open','open','','so-many-movies-give-us-so-much-pleasure','','','2012-04-02 19:28:09','2012-04-03 02:28:09','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1660',0,'post','',0),(1661,1,'2012-03-31 16:43:07','2012-03-31 23:43:07','I\'m not sure what it was that motivated me to make these lists, but last summer I posted an earlier version of this on Facebook. I picked my five favorite films in a lot of different genres, and then I picked my No. 1 film in each category.\n\nNow the last thing I want to do is just cut and paste what I wrote last summer, even if this is for a different audience, so what I thought I would do was expand each category to a top 10. Within the 10, they\'re in no particular order, except that the one title in boldface in each group is my favorite.\n\nHere goes:\n\n<strong>ACTION/ADVENTURE</strong>: Die Hard, <strong>Raiders of the Lost Ark</strong>, The Rock, The Abyss, Armageddon, The Adventures of Robin Hood (the 1937 one), Air Force One, Patriot Games, Con Air, Fail Safe.\n\n<strong>COMEDY (FUNNY)</strong>: <strong>Animal House</strong>, American Graffiti, Night Shift, My Favorite Year, Used Cars, All of Me, .\n\n<strong>COMEDY (SATIRE)</strong>: <strong>Bedazzled</strong>, Best in Show, Lord Love a Duck, The Loved One, Smile.\n\n<strong>DRAMA</strong>: The Godfather Part II, The Grapes of Wrath, Casablanca, <strong>To Kill a Mockingbird</strong>, True Confessions.\n\n<strong>FANTASY</strong>: <strong>The Wizard of Oz</strong>, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, It\'s A Wonderful Life, Streets of Fire, Peggy Sue Got Married.\n\n<strong>FOREIGN</strong>:<strong> After Life</strong>, Shall We Dance, The Wild Child, Il Postino, Changing Times.\n\n<strong>GUILTY PLEASURES:</strong> Joe vs. the Volcano, Real Men, <strong>Hanover Street</strong>, A Small Circle of Friends, Stealing Home.\n\n<strong>HORROR</strong>:   <strong>Dawn of the Dead</strong>, Freaks, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Dracula, Bride of Frankenstein.\n\n<strong>MUSICALS</strong>: West Side Story, The Music Man, Bye Bye Birdie, Woodstock, <strong>Singin\' in the Rain</strong>.\n\n<strong>ROMANCE</strong>: <strong>Love Actually</strong>, Notting Hill, Windy City, Blume in Love, The Electric Horseman.\n\n<strong>SCIENCE FICTION</strong>: Blade Runner, <strong>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</strong>, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET: The Extraterrestrial, When Worlds Collide.\n\n<strong>SPORTS</strong>:<strong> Bull Durham</strong>, Field of Dreams, Bang the Drum Slowly, A League of Their Own, Rocky.\n\n<strong>THRILLERS:</strong> North by Northwest, The Birds, Vertigo, The Maltese Falcon, <strong>Dead Again</strong>.\n\n<strong>WAR</strong>: Testament, On the Beach,<strong> Gallipoli</strong>, The Human Comedy, The Best Years of Our Lives.\n\n<strong>WESTERNS</strong>:  Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Magnificent Seven, The Searchers,<strong> Little Big Man</strong>.','','','inherit','open','open','','1660-revision','','','2012-03-31 16:43:07','2012-03-31 23:43:07','',1660,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1661',0,'revision','',0),(1662,1,'2012-04-01 18:37:31','2012-04-02 01:37:31','[caption id=\"attachment_1663\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Not an endless highway, but ...\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_11.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1663\" title=\"20120331_11\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_11-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nAnd the road goes on and on ... and on.\r\n\r\nTwo years ago, first in Texas and then in California, I thought I had successfully managed to get my life straightened out. I lost 112 pounds and got into an exercise routine that had me walking for at least two hours every day.\r\n\r\nI weighed 168 pounds, the first time in more than 20 years that I made it under 170, and I swore to myself I would never let things get out of hand to the point where I had to diet for six months just to get healthy. I didn\'t need to starve myself or spend hours doing grueling exercises to maintain my healthy weight; all I needed was to eat sensibly and walk every day.\r\n\r\nAs it turned out, I couldn\'t do either. A foot injury got me out of the habit of walking, and by then I was already getting back into the habit of eating too many things that were bad for me.\r\n\r\nBy summer I was back to 230 pounds and by late fall I had gained back all the weight I had worked for six months to lose.\r\n\r\nYikes.\r\n\r\nI learned an important lesson, but it wasn\'t one that made me happy. I learned that no matter how hard I work to lose weight and get into shape, no matter how I promise myself I will never be overweight again, I cannot trust myself.\r\n\r\nI get thin, I get fat, I get thin again ...\r\n\r\nPretty depressing, huh?\r\n\r\nBut for every negative, there is a positive. And if I can\'t manage to keep the weight off, what matters is at least I keep trying. So as I wrote earlier, when the calendar showed March 1st, I began the Great Diet and Exercise of 2012. I weighed 284 pounds, four pounds heavier than I had ever been in my life and 116 pounds more than I had weighed at the end of October 2010.\r\n\r\nOne day at a time, and now 31 days -- the month of March -- is in my rear-view mirror. I walked more than half of the days and I got more conscientious about it as the month wore on. I ate on average a little less than 1,100 calories per day and I had the best weight loss month I\'ve ever had on any diet in my life.\r\n\r\nI dropped 34 pounds, and while 250 is still pretty horrible, it\'s a lot better than 284 and it\'s one helluva good start.\r\n\r\nOne month down.\r\n\r\nFive to go.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','One really good month down, five more still to go','','publish','open','open','','one-really-good-month-down-five-to-go','','','2012-04-01 18:38:05','2012-04-02 01:38:05','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1662',0,'post','',0),(1663,1,'2012-04-01 07:42:56','2012-04-01 14:42:56','','20120331_11','Not an endless highway, but ...','inherit','open','open','','20120331_11','','','2012-04-01 07:42:56','2012-04-01 14:42:56','',1662,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_11.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1664,1,'2012-04-01 18:36:33','2012-04-02 01:36:33','[caption id=\"attachment_1663\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Not an endless highway, but ...\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_11.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1663\" title=\"20120331_11\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_11-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nAnd the road goes on and on ... and on.\n\nTwo years ago, first in Texas and then in California, I thought I had successfully managed to get my life straightened out. I lost 112 pounds and got into an exercise routine that had me walking for at least two hours every day.\n\nI weighed 168 pounds, the first time in more than 20 years that I made it under 170, and I swore to myself I would never let things get out of hand to the point where I had to diet for six months just to get healthy. I didn\'t need to starve myself or spend hours doing grueling exercises to maintain my healthy weight; all I needed was to eat sensibly and walk every day.\n\nAs it turned out, I couldn\'t do either. A foot injury got me out of the habit of walking, and by then I was already getting back into the habit of eating too many things that were bad for me.\n\nBy summer I was back to 230 pounds and by late fall I had gained back all the weight I had worked for six months to lose.\n\nYikes.\n\nI learned an important lesson, but it wasn\'t one that made me happy. I learned that no matter how hard I work to lose weight and get into shape, no matter how I promise myself I will never be overweight again, I cannot trust myself.\n\nI get thin, I get fat, I get thin again ...\n\nPretty depressing, huh?\n\nBut for every negative, there is a positive. And if I can\'t manage to keep the weight off, what matters is at least I keep trying. So as I wrote earlier, when the calendar showed March 1st, I began the Great Diet and Exercise of 2012. I weighed 284 pounds, four pounds heavier than I had ever been in my life and 116 pounds more than I had weighed at the end of October 2010.\n\nOne day at a time, and now 31 days -- the month of March -- is in my rear-view mirror. I walked more than half of the days and I got more conscientious about it as the month wore on. I ate on average a little less than 1,100 calories per day and I had the best weight loss month I\'ve ever had on any diet in my life.\n\nI dropped 34 pounds, and while 250 is still pretty horrible, it\'s a lot better than 284 and it\'s one helluva good start.\n\nOne month down.\n\nFive to go.\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1662-revision','','','2012-04-01 18:36:33','2012-04-02 01:36:33','',1662,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1664',0,'revision','',0),(1665,1,'2012-04-01 18:37:31','2012-04-02 01:37:31','[caption id=\"attachment_1663\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Not an endless highway, but ...\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_11.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1663\" title=\"20120331_11\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_11-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nAnd the road goes on and on ... and on.\r\n\r\nTwo years ago, first in Texas and then in California, I thought I had successfully managed to get my life straightened out. I lost 112 pounds and got into an exercise routine that had me walking for at least two hours every day.\r\n\r\nI weighed 168 pounds, the first time in more than 20 years that I made it under 170, and I swore to myself I would never let things get out of hand to the point where I had to diet for six months just to get healthy. I didn\'t need to starve myself or spend hours doing grueling exercises to maintain my healthy weight; all I needed was to eat sensibly and walk every day.\r\n\r\nAs it turned out, I couldn\'t do either. A foot injury got me out of the habit of walking, and by then I was already getting back into the habit of eating too many things that were bad for me.\r\n\r\nBy summer I was back to 230 pounds and by late fall I had gained back all the weight I had worked for six months to lose.\r\n\r\nYikes.\r\n\r\nI learned an important lesson, but it wasn\'t one that made me happy. I learned that no matter how hard I work to lose weight and get into shape, no matter how I promise myself I will never be overweight again, I cannot trust myself.\r\n\r\nI get thin, I get fat, I get thin again ...\r\n\r\nPretty depressing, huh?\r\n\r\nBut for every negative, there is a positive. And if I can\'t manage to keep the weight off, what matters is at least I keep trying. So as I wrote earlier, when the calendar showed March 1st, I began the Great Diet and Exercise of 2012. I weighed 284 pounds, four pounds heavier than I had ever been in my life and 116 pounds more than I had weighed at the end of October 2010.\r\n\r\nOne day at a time, and now 31 days -- the month of March -- is in my rear-view mirror. I walked more than half of the days and I got more conscientious about it as the month wore on. I ate on average a little less than 1,100 calories per day and I had the best weight loss month I\'ve ever had on any diet in my life.\r\n\r\nI dropped 34 pounds, and while 250 is still pretty horrible, it\'s a lot better than 284 and it\'s one helluva good start.\r\n\r\nOne month down.\r\n\r\nFive to go.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','One really good month down, five to go','','inherit','open','open','','1662-revision-2','','','2012-04-01 18:37:31','2012-04-02 01:37:31','',1662,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1665',0,'revision','',0),(1666,1,'2012-04-02 14:40:13','2012-04-02 21:40:13','I\'m not sure what it was that motivated me to make these lists, but last summer I posted an earlier version of this on Facebook. I picked my five favorite films in a lot of different genres, and then I picked my No. 1 film in each category.\n\nNow the last thing I want to do is just cut and paste what I wrote last summer, even if this is for a different audience, so what I thought I would do was expand each category to a top 10. Within the 10, they\'re in no particular order, except that the one title in boldface in each group is my favorite.\n\nHere goes:\n\n<strong>ACTION/ADVENTURE</strong>: Die Hard, <strong>Raiders of the Lost Ark</strong>, The Rock, The Abyss, Armageddon, The Adventures of Robin Hood (the 1937 one), Air Force One, Patriot Games, Con Air, Fail Safe.\n\n<strong>COMEDY (FUNNY)</strong>: <strong>Animal House</strong>, American Graffiti, Night Shift, My Favorite Year, Used Cars, Duck Soup, After Hours, Sleeper, Tootsie, Some Like it Hot.\n\n<strong>COMEDY (SATIRE)</strong>: <strong>Bedazzled</strong>, Best in Show, Lord Love a Duck, The Loved One, Smile, Putney Swope, Modern Romance, Saved, Serial, State and Main.\n\n<strong>DRAMA</strong>: The Godfather Part II, The Grapes of Wrath, Casablanca, <strong>To Kill a Mockingbird</strong>, True Confessions, Twelve Angry Men, Chinatown, Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago.\n\n<strong>FANTASY</strong>: <strong>The Wizard of Oz</strong>, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, It\'s A Wonderful Life, Streets of Fire, Peggy Sue Got Married, Superman, Pleasantville, Chances Are, The Princess Bride, Back to the Future.\n\n<strong>FOREIGN (LANGUAGE)</strong>:<strong> After Life</strong>, Shall We Dance, The Wild Child, Il Postino, Changing Times, Cinema Paradisio, Closely Watched Trains, Tous les Matins du Monde, The Sorrow and the Pity, Das Boot.\n\n<strong>GUILTY PLEASURES:</strong> Joe vs. the Volcano, Real Men, <strong>Hanover Street</strong>, A Small Circle of Friends, Stealing Home, Purple Hearts, The Long Kiss Goodnight, American Dreamz, The Hollywood Knights, Shining Through.\n\n<strong>HORROR</strong>:   Dawn of the Dead, Freaks, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Dracula, Bride of Frankenstein, Gotham, The Others, Shaun of the Dead, An American Werewolf in London, Shock Corridor.\n\n<strong>MUSICALS</strong>: West Side Story, The Music Man, Bye Bye Birdie, Woodstock, <strong>Singin\' in the Rain</strong>, A Mighty Wind, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Meet Me in St. Louis, Guys and Dolls, Moulin Rouge.\n\n<strong>ROMANCE</strong>: <strong>Love Actually</strong>, Notting Hill, Windy City, Blume in Love, The Electric Horseman, Just Like Heaven, Somewhere in Time, Sleepless in Seattle, Electric Dreams, When Harry Met Sally.\n\n<strong>SCIENCE FICTION</strong>: Blade Runner, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET: The Extraterrestrial, When Worlds Collide, <strong>Time After Time</strong>, Forbidden Planet, Star Trek (2009), Galaxy Quest, Total Recall.\n\n<strong>SPORTS</strong>:<strong> Bull Durham</strong>, Field of Dreams, Bang the Drum Slowly, A League of Their Own, Rocky, For Love of the Game, Pride of the Yankees, Tin Cup, Pastime, Seabiscuit.\n\n<strong>THRILLERS:</strong> North by Northwest, The Birds, Vertigo, The Maltese Falcon, <strong>Dead Again</strong>, Pretty Poison, The Last Seduction, Silence of the Lambs, Mystic River, From Russia With Love.\n\n<strong>WAR</strong>: Testament, On the Beach,<strong> Gallipoli</strong>, The Human Comedy, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Guns of Navarone, From Here to Eternity, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, In the Valley of Elah, Threads.\n\n<strong>WESTERNS</strong>:  Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Magnificent Seven, The Searchers,<strong> Little Big Man</strong>, Tombstone, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Fort Apache,  .','','','inherit','open','open','','1660-revision-2','','','2012-04-02 14:40:13','2012-04-02 21:40:13','',1660,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1666',0,'revision','',0),(1667,1,'2012-04-02 19:21:55','2012-04-03 02:21:55','','Kevin_Costner_and_Susan_Sarandon_in_Bull_Durham_Wallpaper_JxHy','Bull Durham','inherit','open','open','','kevin_costner_and_susan_sarandon_in_bull_durham_wallpaper_jxhy','','','2012-04-02 19:21:55','2012-04-03 02:21:55','',1660,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Kevin_Costner_and_Susan_Sarandon_in_Bull_Durham_Wallpaper_JxHy.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1668,1,'2012-04-02 19:24:10','2012-04-03 02:24:10','','500full','Hanover Street','inherit','open','open','','500full','','','2012-04-02 19:24:10','2012-04-03 02:24:10','',1660,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/500full.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1669,1,'2012-04-02 19:24:55','2012-04-03 02:24:55','','281515_10150371894377067_713362066_10183053_3131929_a','My favorite movie.','inherit','open','open','','281515_10150371894377067_713362066_10183053_3131929_a','','','2012-04-02 19:24:55','2012-04-03 02:24:55','',1660,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/281515_10150371894377067_713362066_10183053_3131929_a.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1670,1,'2012-04-02 19:28:06','2012-04-03 02:28:06','I\'m not sure what it was that motivated me to make these lists, but last summer I posted an earlier version of this on Facebook. I picked my five favorite films in a lot of different genres, and then I picked my No. 1 film in each category.\n\nNow the last thing I want to do is just cut and paste what I wrote last summer, even if this is for a different audience, so what I thought I would do was expand each category to a top 10. Within the 10, they\'re in no particular order, except that the one title in boldface in each group is my favorite.\n\nHere goes:\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1667\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Bull Durham\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Kevin_Costner_and_Susan_Sarandon_in_Bull_Durham_Wallpaper_JxHy.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1667\" title=\"Kevin_Costner_and_Susan_Sarandon_in_Bull_Durham_Wallpaper_JxHy\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Kevin_Costner_and_Susan_Sarandon_in_Bull_Durham_Wallpaper_JxHy-300x214.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n<strong>ACTION/ADVENTURE</strong>: Die Hard, <strong>Raiders of the Lost Ark</strong>, The Rock, The Abyss, Armageddon, The Adventures of Robin Hood (the 1937 one), Air Force One, Patriot Games, Con Air, Fail Safe.\n\n<strong>COMEDY (FUNNY)</strong>: <strong>Animal House</strong>, American Graffiti, Night Shift, My Favorite Year, Used Cars, Duck Soup, After Hours, Sleeper, Tootsie, Some Like it Hot.\n\n<strong>COMEDY (SATIRE)</strong>: <strong>Bedazzled</strong>, Best in Show, Lord Love a Duck, The Loved One, Smile, Putney Swope, Modern Romance, Saved, Serial, State and Main.\n\n<strong>DRAMA</strong>: The Godfather Part II, The Grapes of Wrath, Casablanca, <strong>To Kill a Mockingbird</strong>, True Confessions, Twelve Angry Men, Chinatown, Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago.\n\n<strong>FANTASY</strong>: <strong>The Wizard of Oz</strong>, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, It\'s A Wonderful Life, Streets of Fire, Peggy Sue Got Married, Superman, Pleasantville, Chances Are, The Princess Bride, Back to the Future.\n\n<strong>FOREIGN (LANGUAGE)</strong>:<strong> After Life</strong>, Shall We Dance, The Wild Child, Il Postino, Changing Times, Cinema Paradisio, Closely Watched Trains, Tous les Matins du Monde, The Sorrow and the Pity, Das Boot.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1668\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Hanover Street\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/500full.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1668\" title=\"500full\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/500full-300x194.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"194\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n<strong>GUILTY PLEASURES:</strong> Joe vs. the Volcano, Real Men, <strong>Hanover Street</strong>, A Small Circle of Friends, Stealing Home, Purple Hearts, The Long Kiss Goodnight, American Dreamz, The Hollywood Knights, Shining Through.\n\n<strong>HORROR</strong>:   Dawn of the Dead, Freaks, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Dracula, Bride of Frankenstein, Gotham, The Others, Shaun of the Dead, An American Werewolf in London, Shock Corridor.\n\n<strong>MUSICALS</strong>: West Side Story, The Music Man, Bye Bye Birdie, Woodstock, <strong>Singin\' in the Rain</strong>, A Mighty Wind, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Meet Me in St. Louis, Guys and Dolls, Moulin Rouge.\n\n<strong>ROMANCE</strong>: <strong>Love Actually</strong>, Notting Hill, Windy City, Blume in Love, The Electric Horseman, Just Like Heaven, Somewhere in Time, Sleepless in Seattle, Electric Dreams, When Harry Met Sally.\n\n<strong>SCIENCE FICTION</strong>: Blade Runner, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET: The Extraterrestrial, When Worlds Collide, <strong>Time After Time</strong>, Forbidden Planet, Star Trek (2009), Galaxy Quest, Total Recall.\n\n<strong>SPORTS</strong>:<strong> Bull Durham</strong>, Field of Dreams, Bang the Drum Slowly, A League of Their Own, Rocky, For Love of the Game, Hoosiers, Tin Cup, Pastime, Seabiscuit.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1669\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"180\" caption=\"My favorite movie.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/281515_10150371894377067_713362066_10183053_3131929_a.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1669\" title=\"281515_10150371894377067_713362066_10183053_3131929_a\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/281515_10150371894377067_713362066_10183053_3131929_a.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"180\" height=\"271\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n<strong>THRILLERS:</strong> North by Northwest, The Birds, Vertigo, The Maltese Falcon, <strong>Dead Again</strong>, Pretty Poison, The Last Seduction, Silence of the Lambs, Mystic River, From Russia With Love.\n\n<strong>WAR</strong>: Testament, On the Beach,<strong> Gallipoli</strong>, The Human Comedy, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Guns of Navarone, From Here to Eternity, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, In the Valley of Elah, Threads.\n\n<strong>WESTERNS</strong>:  Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Magnificent Seven, The Searchers,<strong> Little Big Man</strong>, Tombstone, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Fort Apache,  Rio Bravo, Stagecoach (1939).','So many movies give us so much pleasurw','','inherit','open','open','','1660-revision-3','','','2012-04-02 19:28:06','2012-04-03 02:28:06','',1660,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1670',0,'revision','',0),(1672,1,'2012-04-04 12:57:22','2012-04-04 19:57:22','','20120331_8','Spring is here.','inherit','open','open','','20120331_8','','','2012-04-04 12:57:22','2012-04-04 19:57:22','',1671,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_8.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1673,1,'2012-04-04 12:59:11','2012-04-04 19:59:11','[caption id=\"attachment_1672\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Spring is here.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_8.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1672\" title=\"20120331_8\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_8-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nI made it onto the golf course to play nine holes yesterday, and as has been the case lately, my game was sort of erratic.\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1671-revision','','','2012-04-04 12:59:11','2012-04-04 19:59:11','',1671,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1673',0,'revision','',0),(1674,1,'2012-04-04 18:03:11','2012-04-05 01:03:11','[caption id=\"attachment_1672\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Spring is here.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_8.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1672\" title=\"20120331_8\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_8-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nI made it onto the golf course to play nine holes yesterday, and as has been the case lately, my game was sort of erratic.\n\nLast spring, I was playing a great deal of golf, and I had some of the most amazing rounds of my life. I broke 80 three times, with an overall best round of 78. Even better than that, though, I had one round playing only the front nine where I had eight pars and one bogey for a 37.\n\nThat round was really cool, because I had pars on the first eight holes and missed a putt on the ninth that would have given me a tremendous milestone -- par golf.\n\nGenerally when I\'m playing well, I\'ll shoot around 40 or 41 on the front nine. I know the holes well enough that I can usually shoot par on about half of them. But right now I\'m a long way from that kind of consistency.\n\nWhen I played yesterday, I bogeyed seven of the nine holes. I parred one of them, but it was on the remaining hole -- No. 6 -- that I had my best moment this year, golf-wise.\n\nThe hole is a strange one. It\'s a relatively short par four (about 335 yards), but you can\'t see the green from the tee box. You hit your first shot uphill, and it\'s crucial to stay in the middle of the fairway. It\'s an easy approach shot to the green from here, but that\'s where the hole gets interesting. The pin placement is everything here. If it\'s a red flag, it\'s on the flattened out left side of the green and a relatively easy par. But the other 75 percent of the green is much tougher, sloping downward all over the place so that a less-than-perfect shot will either go through and out the back or will slide off the front of the green down into a depression.\n\nI rarely par the hole and it\'s not at all uncommon for me to wind up with a double bogey.\n\nBut yesterday I had a good tee shot, 200 yards just over the crest of the hill in the middle of the fairway. My second shot was one of the best I\'ve ever hit on this hole. With the pin placed far to the right near the back, I put my shot slightly to the right of center and far enough back that it didn\'t roll away. I was left with about an 18-foot putt and my goal was to get it close enough to tap in for par.\n\nAt least that was the plan. What actually happened was I rolled in the 18-footer for a birdie, my first ever on No. 6 when the flag was blue.\n\nIt was kind of an odd way to shoot 42, but it definitely fit in with that old saying about golf -- all it takes is one great hole or even one great shot to leave you feeling wonderful and eager to get back out there again.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1671-revision-2','','','2012-04-04 18:03:11','2012-04-05 01:03:11','',1671,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1674',0,'revision','',0),(1683,1,'2012-04-18 16:57:17','2012-04-18 23:57:17','It\'s amazing how much my relationship with television has changed over the years.\r\n\r\nI was never a big TV viewer when I was young. While I ultimately became a big fan of \"Star Trek,\" I never watched even one episode during the years it was shown on ABC. The first show that ever became \"appointment\" television for me was \"Dallas,\" which came on in 1978. It was around that same time that I first got HBO, and for most of the next decade I watched a lot more movies on cable than I did regular shows with all their commercials.\r\n\r\nI still had a few shows that were appointment TV for me -- \"Dynasty,\" \"Moonlighting\" and, starting in 1986,<a title=\"LA Law\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.A._Law\"> \"LA Law.\"</a>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/DouX9Ubw-Xw\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"></iframe>\r\n\r\nI don\'t know if there was ever a show that had a cooler theme song/credits sequence. Starting with the jazz saxophone riff, and then the sound of the trunk slamming shut and showing the California vanity license plate reading \"LA LAW.\"\r\n\r\nThat image totally resonated with me. I was born in California, and even though I had never lived there, I had visited the state with my first wife in 1978 and then by myself earlier in 1986. My goal from the time I had started my career was someday to make it to the West Coast, and \"LA Law\" was so totally \'80s California that almost every time I watched it, it reinforced my desire someday to live there.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/220px-LA_Law.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1687\" title=\"220px-LA_Law\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/220px-LA_Law.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"163\" /></a>Two months after the show came on the air, I moved to Colorado.  Two years later I moved on to Nevada, still watching \"LA Law\" every Thursday night at 10 p.m. (it had been 9 p.m. in St. Louis and in Colorado) The show lasted until May 1994, by which time I had lived in Los Angeles for four years. I had stopped watching by then. Most television dramas start getting weird after five or six years, and I was working a lot of nights by then anyway.\r\n\r\nAppointment television was becoming a lot less important to me by then. In the last 20 years, I only had one show that mattered to me that much, and after four or five seasons, even \"The West Wing\" wasn\'t worth making the effort.\r\n\r\nOf course, the advent of DVDs changed all that. All of a sudden, I could buy an entire year\'s worth of a show and watch it as quickly -- or as slowly -- as I wanted, and I didn\'t have to sit through commercials. There were numerous shows I hadn\'t watched that became favorites on DVD -- \"Buffy the Vampire Slayer,\" \"Angel,\" \"Boston Legal\" and others.\r\n\r\nBut \"LA Law\" never seemed to come out on DVD. The earlier hit show by creator Steven Bochco -- \"Hill Street Blues\" -- hadn\'t done all that well, and to date only two seasons have made it to DVD.\r\n\r\nNow season one of \"LA Law\" is out, although technically I don\'t think it has been released in this country. The box that came from Amazon says it\'s a Region 2 (Europe) DVD, although it plays just fine on my Blu-Ray player. The schedule for release in the United Kingdom is for a season to come out every three months, so who knows?\r\n\r\nI do know that at the beginning of every episode, hearing the sax riff and the slamming trunk and then seeing the license plate takes me back in a way no other shows do. For a minute, it\'s 1986 again. I\'m 36 years old and still working my way toward making my dreams come true.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','A sax, a trunk and all of a sudden it\'s 1986 again','','publish','open','open','','a-sax-a-trunk-and-all-of-a-sudden-its-1986-again','','','2012-04-18 16:57:17','2012-04-18 23:57:17','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1683',0,'post','',0),(1679,1,'2012-04-16 19:01:02','2012-04-17 02:01:02','','20120326_76','In my room.','inherit','open','open','','20120326_76','','','2012-04-16 19:01:02','2012-04-17 02:01:02','',1676,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120326_76.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1678,1,'2012-04-10 08:25:35','2012-04-10 15:25:35','<em><strong>Short takes from a journey through a disorganized mind:</strong></em>\n\nWhen people used to describe a period of time by saying it was \"40 days and 40 nights,\" they generally weren\'t referring to five weeks and five days or to 960 hours.\n\nNo, when they said 40/40, it was a colorful way of saying \"it was a long time, but we\'re not sure exactly how long.\"\n\nWell, when I tell you I have completed the first 40 days of my effort to get back into shape, I am referring to the specific number -- 31 days of March and nine days of April -- and I have a specific result. I have lost 39 pounds. Of course it\'s essentially the same 39 pounds I lost two years ago en route to losing 112 pounds in six months.\n\nI wish I had kept track -- or better yet -- that I could just remember exactly how much weight I have lost in all the various and assorted diets of my life. I\'m pretty sure that it\'s at least 400 pounds, which would be great if I had weighed something like 550 and how was down to 150. Of course that\'s not the case; I have been on nature\'s roller-coaster ride for the last 30 years or so, and at some point the mechanism is going to break.\n\nI\'m actually pretty good at losing weight. I just suck at keeping it off.\n\nThat has to change.\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Relationships <em>hurt</em>, and I\'m not talking about male-female, male-male or any of the other combinations people form when they\'re in love.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"></p>\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1676-revision','','','2012-04-10 08:25:35','2012-04-10 15:25:35','',1676,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1678',0,'revision','',0),(1680,1,'2012-04-16 19:11:51','2012-04-17 02:11:51','<em><strong>Short takes from a journey through a disorganized mind:</strong></em>\n\nWhen people used to describe a period of time by saying it was \"40 days and 40 nights,\" they generally weren\'t referring to five weeks and five days or to 960 hours.\n\nNo, when they said 40/40, it was a colorful way of saying \"it was a long time, but we\'re not sure exactly how long.\"\n\nWell, when I tell you I have completed the first 46 days of my effort to get back into shape, I am referring to the specific number -- 31 days of March and 15 days of April -- and I have a specific result. I have lost 42 pounds. Of course it\'s essentially the same 42 pounds I lost two years ago en route to losing 112 pounds in six months.\n\nI wish I had kept track -- or better yet -- that I could just remember exactly how much weight I have lost in all the various and assorted diets of my life. I\'m pretty sure that it\'s at least 400 pounds, which would be great if I had weighed something like 550 and how was down to 150. Of course that\'s not the case; I have been on nature\'s roller-coaster ride for the last 30 years or so, and at some point the mechanism is going to break.\n\nI\'m actually pretty good at losing weight. I just suck at keeping it off.\n\nThat has to change.\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\n\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1679\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"In my room.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120326_76.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1679\" title=\"20120326_76\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120326_76-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nSomething about my office -- the one room in our lovely house that is all mine -- just makes me happy. Deep down happy.\n\nNicole has done a truly wonderful job of decorating the rest of the house. Our house is a real showplace. But my one room, with all its movie posters, sports memorabilia, photos and the like on the walls, is the nicest room I have ever had that I could call mine.\n\nThe built-in bookcases, which are packed to the gills with books and DVDs, fill an entire wall. A television set and storage cabinets occupy the opposite wall. I\'ve got four autographed jerseys, of which there\'s room on the\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1676-revision-2','','','2012-04-16 19:11:51','2012-04-17 02:11:51','',1676,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1680',0,'revision','',0),(1681,1,'2012-04-16 19:29:40','2012-04-17 02:29:40','','LA-Law','','inherit','open','open','','la-law','','','2012-04-16 19:29:40','2012-04-17 02:29:40','',1676,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/LA-Law.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1682,1,'2012-04-16 19:38:57','2012-04-17 02:38:57','<em><strong>Short takes from a journey through a disorganized mind:</strong></em>\n\nWhen people used to describe a period of time by saying it was \"40 days and 40 nights,\" they generally weren\'t referring to five weeks and five days or to 960 hours.\n\nNo, when they said 40/40, it was a colorful way of saying \"it was a long time, but we\'re not sure exactly how long.\"\n\nWell, when I tell you I have completed the first 46 days of my effort to get back into shape, I am referring to the specific number -- 31 days of March and 15 days of April -- and I have a specific result. I have lost 42 pounds. Of course it\'s essentially the same 42 pounds I lost two years ago en route to losing 112 pounds in six months.\n\nI wish I had kept track -- or better yet -- that I could just remember exactly how much weight I have lost in all the various and assorted diets of my life. I\'m pretty sure that it\'s at least 400 pounds, which would be great if I had weighed something like 550 and how was down to 150. Of course that\'s not the case; I have been on nature\'s roller-coaster ride for the last 30 years or so, and at some point the mechanism is going to break.\n\nI\'m actually pretty good at losing weight. I just suck at keeping it off.\n\nThat has to change.\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***</p>\n\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1679\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"In my room.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120326_76.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1679\" title=\"20120326_76\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120326_76-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nSomething about my office -- the one room in our lovely house that is all mine -- just makes me happy. Deep down happy.\n\nNicole has done a truly wonderful job of decorating the rest of the house. Our house is a real showplace. But my one room, with all its movie posters, sports memorabilia, photos and the like on the walls, is the nicest room I have ever had that I could call mine.\n\nThe built-in bookcases, which are packed to the gills with books and DVDs, fill an entire wall. A television set and storage cabinets occupy the opposite wall. I\'ve got four autographed jerseys, of which there\'s room on the walls for two at a time. Right now I\'m looking at John Elway\'s No. 7, and I\'ve got Johnny Bench\'s No. 5 on the wall behind my left shoulder.\n\nChipper Jones is packed away for now, and I\'m looking forward to the arrival of a fairly rare minor league jersey of Tom Seaver from his one season below the major-league level. He was 12-12 with Jacksonville in 1966. The very next season, he won 16 games for the New York Mets.\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>***</strong></p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">It has been nearly 15 years since television shows started coming out on DVD, and there is one that has been in my sights for almost all that time.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/LA-Law.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1681\" title=\"LA-Law\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/LA-Law-300x192.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"192\" /></a>I was living in St. Louis when \"LA Law\" first debuted in 1986, and almost everything about it spoke to me of how much I wanted to live in California.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I had always had my sights set on the San Francisco Bay Area rather than the Southland, and I nearly got a job in Marin County in January 1988. That didn\'t happen, though, and in 1990 I got a job in Los Angeles and moved south to spend the next 20 years of my life.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">When we left for our retirement in Georgia in November 2010, I was more than ready to leave. But now that the first season of \"LA Law\" is finally out on DVD, watching it really brings back memories.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Good ones</p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"></p>\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1676-revision-3','','','2012-04-16 19:38:57','2012-04-17 02:38:57','',1676,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1682',0,'revision','',0),(1684,1,'2012-04-17 19:22:59','2012-04-18 02:22:59','It\'s amazing how much my relationship with television has changed over the years.\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1683-revision','','','2012-04-17 19:22:59','2012-04-18 02:22:59','',1683,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1684',0,'revision','',0),(1692,1,'2012-04-25 18:13:09','2012-04-26 01:13:09','','31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_','','inherit','open','open','','31bxmmtwjgl-_sl500_aa300_','','','2012-04-25 18:13:09','2012-04-26 01:13:09','',1691,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1686,1,'2012-04-17 19:35:39','2012-04-18 02:35:39','It\'s amazing how much my relationship with television has changed over the years.\n\nI was never a big TV viewer when I was young. While I ultimately became a big fan of \"Star Trek,\" I never watched even one episode during the years it was shown on ABC. The first show that ever became \"appointment\" television for me was \"Dallas,\" which came on in 1978. It was around that same time that I first got HBO, and for most of the next decade I watched a lot more movies on cable than I did regular shows with all the','','','inherit','open','open','','1683-revision-2','','','2012-04-17 19:35:39','2012-04-18 02:35:39','',1683,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1686',0,'revision','',0),(1687,1,'2012-04-18 16:09:00','2012-04-18 23:09:00','','220px-LA_Law','','inherit','open','open','','220px-la_law','','','2012-04-18 16:09:00','2012-04-18 23:09:00','',1683,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/220px-LA_Law.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1688,1,'2012-04-18 16:13:36','2012-04-18 23:13:36','It\'s amazing how much my relationship with television has changed over the years.\n\nI was never a big TV viewer when I was young. While I ultimately became a big fan of \"Star Trek,\" I never watched even one episode during the years it was shown on ABC. The first show that ever became \"appointment\" television for me was \"Dallas,\" which came on in 1978. It was around that same time that I first got HBO, and for most of the next decade I watched a lot more movies on cable than I did regular shows with all their commercials.\n\nI still had a few shows that were appointment TV for me -- \"Dynasty,\" \"Moonlighting\" and, starting in 1986,<a title=\"LA Law\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.A._Law\"> \"LA Law.\"</a>\n\n<iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/DouX9Ubw-Xw\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"></iframe>\n\nI don\'t know if there was ever a show that had a cooler theme song/credits sequence. Starting with the jazz saxophone riff, and then the sound of the trunk slamming shut and showing the California vanity license plate reading \"LA LAW.\"\n\nThat image totally resonated with me. I was born in California, and even though I had never lived there, I had visited the state with my first wife in 1978 and then by myself earlier in 1986. My goal from the time I had started my career was someday to make it to the West Coast, and \"LA Law\" was so totally \'80s California that almost every time I watched it, it reinforced my desire someday to live there.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/220px-LA_Law.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1687\" title=\"220px-LA_Law\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/220px-LA_Law.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"163\" /></a>Two months after the show came on the air, I moved to Colorado.  Two years later I moved on to Nevada, still watching \"LA Law\" every Thursday night at 10 p.m. (it had been 9 p.m. in St. Louis and in Colorado) The show lasted until May 1994, by which time I had lived in Los Angeles for four years. I had stopped watching by then. Most television dramas start getting weird after five or six years, and I was working a lot of nights by then anyway.\n\nAppointment television was becoming a lot less important to me by then. In the last 20 years, I only had one show that mattered to me that much, and after four or five seasons, even \"The West Wing\" wasn\'t worth making the effort.\n\nOf course, the advent of DVDs changed all that. All of a sudden, I could buy an entire year\'s worth of a show and\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1683-revision-3','','','2012-04-18 16:13:36','2012-04-18 23:13:36','',1683,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1688',0,'revision','',0),(1689,1,'2012-04-18 16:56:37','2012-04-18 23:56:37','It\'s amazing how much my relationship with television has changed over the years.\n\nI was never a big TV viewer when I was young. While I ultimately became a big fan of \"Star Trek,\" I never watched even one episode during the years it was shown on ABC. The first show that ever became \"appointment\" television for me was \"Dallas,\" which came on in 1978. It was around that same time that I first got HBO, and for most of the next decade I watched a lot more movies on cable than I did regular shows with all their commercials.\n\nI still had a few shows that were appointment TV for me -- \"Dynasty,\" \"Moonlighting\" and, starting in 1986,<a title=\"LA Law\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.A._Law\"> \"LA Law.\"</a>\n\n<iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/DouX9Ubw-Xw\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"></iframe>\n\nI don\'t know if there was ever a show that had a cooler theme song/credits sequence. Starting with the jazz saxophone riff, and then the sound of the trunk slamming shut and showing the California vanity license plate reading \"LA LAW.\"\n\nThat image totally resonated with me. I was born in California, and even though I had never lived there, I had visited the state with my first wife in 1978 and then by myself earlier in 1986. My goal from the time I had started my career was someday to make it to the West Coast, and \"LA Law\" was so totally \'80s California that almost every time I watched it, it reinforced my desire someday to live there.\n\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/220px-LA_Law.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1687\" title=\"220px-LA_Law\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/220px-LA_Law.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"163\" /></a>Two months after the show came on the air, I moved to Colorado.  Two years later I moved on to Nevada, still watching \"LA Law\" every Thursday night at 10 p.m. (it had been 9 p.m. in St. Louis and in Colorado) The show lasted until May 1994, by which time I had lived in Los Angeles for four years. I had stopped watching by then. Most television dramas start getting weird after five or six years, and I was working a lot of nights by then anyway.\n\nAppointment television was becoming a lot less important to me by then. In the last 20 years, I only had one show that mattered to me that much, and after four or five seasons, even \"The West Wing\" wasn\'t worth making the effort.\n\nOf course, the advent of DVDs changed all that. All of a sudden, I could buy an entire year\'s worth of a show and watch it as quickly -- or as slowly -- as I wanted, and I didn\'t have to sit through commercials. There were numerous shows I hadn\'t watched that became favorites on DVD -- \"Buffy the Vampire Slayer,\" \"Angel,\" \"Boston Legal\" and others.\n\nBut \"LA Law\" never seemed to come out on DVD. The earlier hit show by creator Steven Bochco -- \"Hill Street Blues\" -- hadn\'t done all that well, and to date only two seasons have made it to DVD.\n\nNow season one of \"LA Law\" is out, although technically I don\'t think it has been released in this country. The box that came from Amazon says it\'s a Region 2 (Europe) DVD, although it plays just fine on my Blu-Ray player. The schedule for release in the United Kingdom is for a season to come out every three months, so who knows?\n\nI do know that at the beginning of every episode, hearing the sax riff and the slamming trunk and then seeing the license plate takes me back in a way no other shows do. For a minute, it\'s 1986 again. I\'m 36 years old and still working my way toward making my dreams come true.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1683-revision-4','','','2012-04-18 16:56:37','2012-04-18 23:56:37','',1683,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1689',0,'revision','',0),(1691,1,'2012-04-28 19:04:11','2012-04-29 02:04:11','My younger sister is a great thinker and a real activist. She sent me an article she wrote for <a title=\"The Horn Book\" href=\"http://www.hbook.com/2012/04/using-books/home/on-the-rights-of-reading-and-girls-and-boys/\">The Horn Book</a> in which she argued very effectively that we ought to stop dividing children\'s books into books for boys and books for girls.\r\n\r\nThinking back to my own childhood, when I read several hundred books a year, I remember that boys were pushed toward Tom Swift and the Hardy Boys while girls were given Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins. That\'s probably oversimplifying it -- I never read much of any of those series -- but I read a ton of baseball books and most of the science fiction written by Robert Heinlein.\r\n\r\nA lot of those books came from the Carnegie Library in my mother\'s home town. I usually spent several weeks visiting my grandparents every summer, and I would check out five or six books every other day. But there were a few books -- rare ones -- that I would read over and over again as the years went by.\r\n\r\nThey weren\'t the so-called iconic books of my generation. I never read any Tolkien, and books like \"On the Road\" left me cold. I did read \"The Catcher in the Rye\" a couple of times, but I never thought it really spoke to me. Holden Caulfield was half a generation ahead of me.\r\n\r\nThere was one book, though, that sort of came out of nowhere for me. My dad was born in New York City and grew up in Brooklyn. Starting when I was 7 or 8 years old, we spent time with our grandparents in Brooklyn nearly every summer. I never made it to Ebbets Field, but I saw so many other fascinating things about America\'s favorite city-within-a-city.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_1.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1693\" title=\"31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" /></a>I don\'t know how old I was the first time I read \"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.\" The book had been published in 1943, and the story it told occurred more than a generation before that. I don\'t think it was the first book I ever read with a female protagonist, but it was certainly one of the first ones that really resonated with me.\r\n\r\nIt was such a beautiful story, so completely American. Francie Nolan lived in grinding poverty in the years just before World War I, but loved her life and believed that it would get better.\r\n\r\nShe was the granddaughter of immigrants from Austria and Ireland, with a hard-working mother and a charming, alcoholic father who worked -- when he worked at all -- as a singing waiter. She essentially had nothing, but she loved so many things about her life and didn\'t feel like anyone owed her anything.\r\n\r\nThe amazing thing about the story -- and I downloaded it onto my Nook to see if it was as I remembered -- is that while yes, Francie is a girl, there isn\'t anything \"girly\" about the story at all. She is first and foremost a person, an individual about whom we care deeply.\r\n\r\nSecond, she is completely and totally an American of the period in which she lived. She isn\'t some phony Horatio Alger story. She doesn\'t go from rags to riches; she survives her childhood and is headed off to college. It\'s pretty apparent she has a chance at a good life.\r\n\r\nWhat more can anyone ask of a real story?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Great books aren\'t just for boys or girls','','publish','open','open','','great-books-arent-just-for-boys-or-girls','','','2012-04-28 19:04:11','2012-04-29 02:04:11','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1691',0,'post','',0),(1693,1,'2012-04-25 18:16:58','2012-04-26 01:16:58','','31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_','','inherit','open','open','','31bxmmtwjgl-_sl500_aa300_-2','','','2012-04-25 18:16:58','2012-04-26 01:16:58','',1691,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/31BxMMtWJGL._SL500_AA300_1.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1700,1,'2012-05-10 18:22:55','2012-05-11 01:22:55','','NapoleonBush','No competition at all.','inherit','open','open','','napoleonbush','','','2012-05-10 18:22:55','2012-05-11 01:22:55','',1698,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/NapoleonBush.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1699,1,'2012-05-10 18:20:13','2012-05-11 01:20:13','<h3><em><strong>As little as I\'ve been writing recently, I ought to be ashamed to do this. But I came across this piece from January 2004 and thought it was both funny and relevant.</strong></em></h3>\nNow you\'re really going to have to listen to me.\n\nI received a letter from Cambridge, England, notifying me that I had been selected as one of the 2,000 outstanding intellectuals of the 21st century.\n\n<em>That\'s right, we bad. We bad.</em>\n\nSorry, but I couldn\'t help channeling Richard Pryor in “Silver Streak” for a minute there.\n\nSeriously, here\'s how the letter started:\n\n<em>\"The Oxford English Dictionary defines intellectualism as the \'doctrine that knowledge is wholly or mainly derived from pure reason\' and it follows by saying that an intellectual is \'\'a person possessing a good understanding, enlightened person.\'   Surely, therefore, this definition is the reason for your selection to be included in this prestigious publication which is due for release in late 2004.\"</em>\n\nWell, gosh.\n\nNow I\'m no slouch. I read two newspapers every day, I finish the crossword puzzle more often than not and I can usually beat the contestants on \"Wheel of Fortune\" to the correct answer.  Sometimes I don’t even need to buy a vowel.\n\nBut intellectual? I\'m not even the leading intellectual in my own family. My wife has doctorates in astronomy and geophysics, my daughter has two bachelors degrees - both with honors - from UCLA and my son just finished his first semester of college at Cal State Northridge with a 4.0 average.\n\nIn my house, I\'m the freaking village idiot.\n\nNot that there\'s anything wrong with that. If Bill Cosby, Elayne Boosler, Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Martin all lived together, one of them would have to be the least funny guy – or girl – in the house.\n\nAnd if Willie, Mickey and the Duke lived together - when they were all living - one of them would have been the least athletic. I\'m thinking Duke.\n\nSo it\'s all a matter of comparison. Put me in a phone booth with Dubya and I\'d be the first one to find my way out. Yeah, I know he\'s got degrees from Yale and Harvard, but my guess is the names \"Pierce\" and \"Bush\" - momma\'s and daddy\'s names - had more to do with that than any grades he actually earned. If Dubya had a brain, he\'d be outside playing with it.\n\nPut me up against ol\' Dub in a battle of wits and I\'d refuse to fight. There\'s no honor in beating an unarmed man, even if it would be <em>soooo</em> much fun.\n\nAnyway, I\'m no dope. Just ask the folks in Cambridge. Those limeys know brains when they see them. We\'re talking about the land that gave us Billy Shakespeare, Bert Russell and Monty Python.  I\'m part English myself, on my mother\'s side and way back on my natural father\'s side. Of course, I\'m part German too, and the Germans have a fine intellectual tradition of their own -- Goethe, Nietzche, Goebbels.\n\nOh, never mind. Every nationality, every ethnic group, has its great thinkers and its morons. For every Benjamin Franklin there\'s a Benny Hill, for every Apostle Paul there\'s a Pauly Shore.\n\nAnd for every Mike Rappaport, well, there\'s a Mike Rappaport. Like most people, I\'ve got my smart side and my goofy side.\n\nBut hey, Cambridge likes me. Cambridge thinks I\'m one of the finest minds of my generation. Cambridge figures I might do something great someday.\n\n<em>Uh, Mike ... Isn\'t this another one of those books where they\'ll put your name in a book with a few thousand other wannabes as long as you pay $300 or $400 to buy the special leather-bound edition?</em>\n\nNot at all. If you want the book, you can buy it for whatever they\'re selling it for - in pounds, not dollars - but they stress that you don\'t have to buy the book in order to be listed in it.\n\nThey love me for my mind. Not my money.\n\n<em>But didn\'t you buy the book when they put you in \"Who\'s Who in America?\"</em>\n\nSure, but that was because I wanted to donate a copy to the public library. I didn\'t want to be one of those prophets who was without honor in his own small city of 24,000 people.\n\n<em>Uh, yeah. Whatever.</em>\n\nYeah, I bought the special leather-bound edition and looked inside at my bio once or twice. Then I donated it to the library. Dang book wouldn\'t fit in the bookcase, and I needed more space in the bottom of my closet for my shoes.\n\np&gt;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&lt;p&gt;That\'s not the point, though. It\'s one thing to be in \"Who\'s Who in America.\" They\'re not particularly selective. I think Dubya, Pee Wee Herman and the guy who mows my lawn are all in there. But if someone thinks you\'re one of the \"2,000 outstanding intellectuals of the 21st century,\" that\'s really something.&lt;/p&gt;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&lt;p&gt;Now if you\'ll excuse me, my wife wants me to take out the garbage.&lt;/p&gt;','','','inherit','open','open','','1698-revision','','','2012-05-10 18:20:13','2012-05-11 01:20:13','',1698,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1699',0,'revision','',0),(1701,1,'2012-05-10 18:23:49','2012-05-11 01:23:49','<h3><em><strong>As little as I\'ve been writing recently, I ought to be ashamed to do this. But I came across this piece from January 2004 and thought it was both funny and relevant.</strong></em></h3>\nNow you\'re really going to have to listen to me.\n\nI received a letter from Cambridge, England, notifying me that I had been selected as one of the 2,000 outstanding intellectuals of the 21st century.\n\n<em>That\'s right, we bad. We bad.</em>\n\nSorry, but I couldn\'t help channeling Richard Pryor in “Silver Streak” for a minute there.\n\nSeriously, here\'s how the letter started:\n\n<em>\"The Oxford English Dictionary defines intellectualism as the \'doctrine that knowledge is wholly or mainly derived from pure reason\' and it follows by saying that an intellectual is \'\'a person possessing a good understanding, enlightened person.\'   Surely, therefore, this definition is the reason for your selection to be included in this prestigious publication which is due for release in late 2004.\"</em>\n\nWell, gosh.\n\nNow I\'m no slouch. I read two newspapers every day, I finish the crossword puzzle more often than not and I can usually beat the contestants on \"Wheel of Fortune\" to the correct answer.  Sometimes I don’t even need to buy a vowel.\n\nBut intellectual? I\'m not even the leading intellectual in my own family. My wife has doctorates in astronomy and geophysics, my daughter has two bachelors degrees - both with honors - from UCLA and my son just finished his first semester of college at Cal State Northridge with a 4.0 average.\n\nIn my house, I\'m the freaking village idiot.\n\nNot that there\'s anything wrong with that. If Bill Cosby, Elayne Boosler, Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Martin all lived together, one of them would have to be the least funny guy – or girl – in the house.\n\nAnd if Willie, Mickey and the Duke lived together - when they were all living - one of them would have been the least athletic. I\'m thinking Duke.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1700\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"283\" caption=\"No competition at all.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/NapoleonBush.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1700\" title=\"NapoleonBush\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/NapoleonBush-283x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"283\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nSo it\'s all a matter of comparison. Put me in a phone booth with Dubya and I\'d be the first one to find my way out. Yeah, I know he\'s got degrees from Yale and Harvard, but my guess is the names \"Pierce\" and \"Bush\" - momma\'s and daddy\'s names - had more to do with that than any grades he actually earned. If Dubya had a brain, he\'d be outside playing with it.\n\nPut me up against ol\' Dub in a battle of wits and I\'d refuse to fight. There\'s no honor in beating an unarmed man, even if it would be <em>soooo</em> much fun.\n\nAnyway, I\'m no dope. Just ask the folks in Cambridge. Those limeys know brains when they see them. We\'re talking about the land that gave us Billy Shakespeare, Bert Russell and Monty Python.  I\'m part English myself, on my mother\'s side and way back on my natural father\'s side. Of course, I\'m part German too, and the Germans have a fine intellectual tradition of their own -- Goethe, Nietzche, Goebbels.\n\nOh, never mind. Every nationality, every ethnic group, has its great thinkers and its morons. For every Benjamin Franklin there\'s a Benny Hill, for every Apostle Paul there\'s a Pauly Shore.\n\nAnd for every Mike Rappaport, well, there\'s a Mike Rappaport. Like most people, I\'ve got my smart side and my goofy side.\n\nBut hey, Cambridge likes me. Cambridge thinks I\'m one of the finest minds of my generation. Cambridge figures I might do something great someday.\n\n<em>Uh, Mike ... Isn\'t this another one of those books where they\'ll put your name in a book with a few thousand other wannabes as long as you pay $300 or $400 to buy the special leather-bound edition?</em>\n\nNot at all. If you want the book, you can buy it for whatever they\'re selling it for - in pounds, not dollars - but they stress that you don\'t have to buy the book in order to be listed in it.\n\nThey love me for my mind. Not my money.\n\n<em>But didn\'t you buy the book when they put you in \"Who\'s Who in America?\"</em>\n\nSure, but that was because I wanted to donate a copy to the public library. I didn\'t want to be one of those prophets who was without honor in his own small city of 24,000 people.\n\n<em>Uh, yeah. Whatever.</em>\n\nYeah, I bought the special leather-bound edition and looked inside at my bio once or twice. Then I donated it to the library. Dang book wouldn\'t fit in the bookcase, and I needed more space in the bottom of my closet for my shoes.\n\nThat\'s not the point, though. It\'s one thing to be in \"Who\'s Who in America.\" They\'re not particularly selective. I think Dubya, Pee Wee Herman and the guy who mows my lawn are all in there. But if someone thinks you\'re one of the \"2,000 outstanding intellectuals of the 21st century,\" that\'s really something.\n\nNow if you\'ll excuse me, Vanna White is calling.\n\n&nbsp;','Some intellectuals are never recognized','','inherit','open','open','','1698-revision-2','','','2012-05-10 18:23:49','2012-05-11 01:23:49','',1698,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1701',0,'revision','',0),(1703,1,'2012-05-15 19:22:07','2012-05-16 02:22:07','Some changes in our lives are obvious and expected, but others not only take us by surprise, sometimes they happen so gradually we don\'t even notice.\r\n\r\nWhen I was a kid, I never worried that someone would break into our house during the night and hurt me. There may have been nights I had things on my mind and didn\'t sleep well -- although I really don\'t recall many -- but I always felt protected because I knew my dad was there to deal with anything that might happen.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1704\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Still one of my favorite pictures\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Vacation-2005-008.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1704\" title=\"Vacation 2005 008\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Vacation-2005-008-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nTo be fair, we didn\'t live in the kind of neighborhoods where that was a big concern. But even if we had, I don\'t think it was something I felt that I needed to worry about. My dad had that covered.\r\n\r\nThrough most of my 20s and 30s, I lived either alone or with one roommate. For a few years it was a wife, but for some reason, I\'m not sure the thought of feeling safe -- or not feeling safe -- ever really crossed my mind. Maybe it\'s just that when you\'re physically mature and aren\'t facing any real threats, you don\'t worry.\r\n\r\nMy life changed in the fall of 1992 when I remarried and became a dad to a 12-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son. I certainly didn\'t worry about anyone breaking into the house. We lived in one of the best neighborhoods in Southern California, and the scariest thing that ever happened -- heck, maybe the <em>only</em> scary thing that ever happened -- was being awakened very early one morning by the Northridge Earthquake.\r\n\r\nOf course, that was January 1994, and by then I had already come to a realization. For the first time in my life, there were people sleeping without fear because<em> I</em> was there. I remembered an exchange from the Bruce Dern movie \"Middle Age Crazy\" where he talked about the time in his life when he had been the \"kiddo\" and the time when he was the \"daddy.\" In that movie, Dern was wishing he could be the kiddo again, but I was happy to realize there were people counting on me to keep them safe.\r\n\r\nIt\'s funny. My dad was the most ethical man I have ever known, and I have no idea if he had any sort of weapon -- for lack of a better term -- to use if someone tried to break into our house. I know for sure that he never had a gun, and I would never use one either. I\'m a big believer in the statistics that guns in the home are a lot more likely to be misused than to be used for the intended purpose.\r\n\r\nSo what did I use? For most of the years my kids were at home, I had a softball bat that I kept beside my bed. I wouldn\'t use it to stand up to someone with a gun, but with just about anything else, I would take my chances with the damage that metal bat could do.\r\n\r\nI don\'t have that bat anymore, but I have one that\'s a little more aesthetically pleasing -- a Louisville Slugger with my name on it.\r\n\r\nI\'ve also got an autographed bat in a display case, but if it reaches the point where I have to bring Pete Rose into the conversation, I\'m probably in trouble.\r\n\r\nActually, I get awakened a lot more than I used to. My wife of 20 years is having problems with anxiety, and she wakes me in the middle of the night because she thinks someone is in the house. It doesn\'t worry me, because it\'s not a prowler. She sometimes thinks people she knows -- who live thousands of miles away -- are in the house, so all I have to do is prove to her that they haven\'t come to visit without letting us know.\r\n\r\nJust more of the service when you pass from \"kiddo\" to \"daddy.\"\r\n\r\nAll part of being a man.\r\n\r\nI learned that from my dad.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Life changes when you go from \'kiddo\' to \'daddy\'','','publish','open','open','','life-changes-when-you-go-from-kiddo-to-daddy','','','2012-05-15 19:22:07','2012-05-16 02:22:07','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1703',0,'post','',0),(1704,1,'2012-05-15 18:37:13','2012-05-16 01:37:13','','Vacation 2005 008','Still one of my favorite pictures','inherit','open','open','','vacation-2005-008-2','','','2012-05-15 18:37:13','2012-05-16 01:37:13','',1703,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Vacation-2005-008.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1705,1,'2012-05-15 19:22:00','2012-05-16 02:22:00','Some changes in our lives are obvious and expected, but others not only take us by surprise, sometimes they happen so gradually we don\'t even notice.\n\nWhen I was a kid, I never worried that someone would break into our house during the night and hurt me. There may have been nights I had things on my mind and didn\'t sleep well -- although I really don\'t recall many -- but I always felt protected because I knew my dad was there to deal with anything that might happen.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1704\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Still one of my favorite pictures\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Vacation-2005-008.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1704\" title=\"Vacation 2005 008\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Vacation-2005-008-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nTo be fair, we didn\'t live in the kind of neighborhoods where that was a big concern. But even if we had, I don\'t think it was something I felt that I needed to worry about. My dad had that covered.\n\nThrough most of my 20s and 30s, I lived either alone or with one roommate. For a few years it was a wife, but for some reason, I\'m not sure the thought of feeling safe -- or not feeling safe -- ever really crossed my mind. Maybe it\'s just that when you\'re physically mature and aren\'t facing any real threats, you don\'t worry.\n\nMy life changed in the fall of 1992 when I remarried and became a dad to a 12-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son. I certainly didn\'t worry about anyone breaking into the house. We lived in one of the best neighborhoods in Southern California, and the scariest thing that ever happened -- heck, maybe the <em>only</em> scary thing that ever happened -- was being awakened very early one morning by the Northridge Earthquake.\n\nOf course, that was January 1994, and by then I had already come to a realization. For the first time in my life, there were people sleeping without fear because<em> I</em> was there. I remembered an exchange from the Bruce Dern movie \"Middle Age Crazy\" where he talked about the time in his life when he had been the \"kiddo\" and the time when he was the \"daddy.\" In that movie, Dern was wishing he could be the kiddo again, but I was happy to realize there were people counting on me to keep them safe.\n\nIt\'s funny. My dad was the most ethical man I have ever known, and I have no idea if he had any sort of weapon -- for lack of a better term -- to use if someone tried to break into our house. I know for sure that he never had a gun, and I would never use one either. I\'m a big believer in the statistics that guns in the home are a lot more likely to be misused than to be used for the intended purpose.\n\nSo what did I use? For most of the years my kids were at home, I had a softball bat that I kept beside my bed. I wouldn\'t use it to stand up to someone with a gun, but with just about anything else, I would take my chances with the damage that metal bat could do.\n\nI don\'t have that bat anymore, but I have one that\'s a little more aesthetically pleasing -- a Louisville Slugger with my name on it.\n\nI\'ve also got an autographed bat in a display case, but if it reaches the point where I have to bring Pete Rose into the conversation, I\'m probably in trouble.\n\nActually, I get awakened a lot more than I used to. My wife of 20 years is having problems with anxiety, and she wakes me in the middle of the night because she thinks someone is in the house. It doesn\'t worry me, because it\'s not a prowler. She sometimes thinks people she knows -- who live thousands of miles away -- are in the house, so all I have to do is prove to her that they haven\'t come to visit without letting us know.\n\nJust more of the service when you pass from \"kiddo\" to \"daddy.\"\n\nAll part of being a man.\n\nI learned that from my dad.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','Life changes when you go from \'kiddo\'','','inherit','open','open','','1703-revision','','','2012-05-15 19:22:00','2012-05-16 02:22:00','',1703,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1705',0,'revision','',0),(1712,1,'2012-06-01 19:36:58','2012-06-02 02:36:58','I had a sort of amazing moment the other day, when something flashed through my mind for the first time in my life.\r\n\r\nI was playing golf and I was enjoying a pretty good round. I had a shot at breaking 80, and if I hadn\'t missed three or four short putts earlier, it would have been a lock.\r\n\r\nI was seven over par through 15 holes, which would have meant I needed three pars for a 79. But on the par three 16th hole, I put my drive on the green and then rolled in an 18-foot birdie putt to go to six under.\r\n\r\nThat was nice, but it wasn\'t the amazing moment.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1714\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Sun City Peachtree 17th green in winter.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20101210_451.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1714\" title=\"20101210_45\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20101210_451-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nOn 17 -- a par four -- I put my tee shot out in the middle of the fairway, about 180 yards from the hole. I took out my fairway wood, lined up my shot and swung. Then came the amazing moment.\r\n\r\nI don\'t know why it was, but as I made contact and saw the shot heading out down the fairway, two words crossed my mind.\r\n\r\n<em>\"That\'s perfect.\"</em>\r\n\r\nIt damn near was. The flag was near the back of the green, and then shot was heading directly on line with the flag. That\'s rare enough for me, but when it does happen, I usually sacrifice distance and don\'t reach the putting surface. Either that or the shot doesn\'t bite and goes all the way through and off the green at the back.\r\n\r\nNot this time. The shot never hooked or sliced, and it hit the green, rolled a while and stopped 10 feet from the hole. A truly perfect shot would have gone in for an eagle 2, but that would have been too Hollywood even for me. As it turned out, I missed the birdie putt and tapped in for par. When  I bogeyed the tough 18th hole, I had my 79 -- the fifth or sixth time I\'ve broken 80 since I started playing this course.\r\n\r\nI have been playing two or three times a week, and after years of thinking my game would improve if I made it out more often, I feel like I\'ve been proven right.\r\n\r\nSomeday I\'ll have the reaction I had the other day and the shot will actually turn out to be perfect. It\'ll go in for an eagle or maybe even a hole in one.\r\n\r\nBut for now, the amazing feeling that flashed through my mind when I hit my second shot on 17 will be enough.\r\n\r\nMore than enough.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Sometimes the most amazing moments happen','','publish','open','open','','sometimes-the-most-amazing-moments-really-happen','','','2012-06-01 19:37:18','2012-06-02 02:37:18','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1712',0,'post','',0),(1708,1,'2012-06-02 19:29:47','2012-06-03 02:29:47','<em><a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1709\" title=\"Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" /></a>\" Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion\'s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don\'t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it\'s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it\'s always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I\'ve got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around.\"</em>\r\n<strong>-- OPENING LINES OF \"LOVE ACTUALLY\"</strong>\r\n\r\nIf there is one thing that bothers me these days, it\'s that people seem so angry. Angry and judgmental, quick to say that people who choose to live differently than them are somehow evil.\r\n\r\nAnd of course when you\'re defending your way of life from evil people, politics becomes brutally important.\r\n\r\nExcept that it isn\'t. Politicians on both sides of the aisle spend most of their time defending the status quo. Does anyone in Congress really debate whether the free-market system -- basically unfettered capitalism -- is really good for our country? If you listen to the bleatings about \"Obamacare,\" you would think we had just turned our country over to Karl Marx, Joe Stalin and the rest of the crew. But who benefited most from the act? The insurance companies, who you may have noticed aren\'t saying anything bad about it.\r\n\r\nIn fact, most of the principles of Obama\'s reform were identical to ideas generated by the conservative Heritage Foundation. If they had been proposed by a Republican president, they would have had full GOP support. Instead, we have two parties in Washington that won\'t do much of anything if it means their opponents will share the credit at all. So nothing gets done and our problems just become worse and worse.\r\n\r\nThe irony is that I don\'t think most people really care all that much about politics, one way or the other. I think most people just want to be left alone to live their lives, and I think there\'s a lot more respect among people of opposing views than talk radio or the cable squawk channels would have us believe. Add up all the audiences of all the talk shows and cable news on both sides and it\'s not much more than 10 percent of the country.\r\n\r\nJust as we have been hearing lately about the 1 percent and the 99 percent, we really ought to stop worrying so much about the folks who get all excited about politics. Let them have their fun. Sadly, it really doesn\'t seem to make that much difference anymore who is ostensibly in charge in Washington. Republicans block the Democrats and I\'m pretty sure the Democrats will do the same the next time they\'re out of power.\r\n\r\nPolitics won\'t save our country.\r\n\r\nNeither will money.\r\n\r\nMaybe we would be better off if we could manage to start liking each other again.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Politics isn\'t going to save our country','','publish','open','open','','politics-isnt-going-to-save-our-country','','','2012-06-02 19:29:47','2012-06-03 02:29:47','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1708',0,'post','',0),(1709,1,'2012-05-24 19:34:28','2012-05-25 02:34:28','','Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960','','inherit','open','open','','love-actually-a-romantic-love-story-love-21838192-1706-960','','','2012-05-24 19:34:28','2012-05-25 02:34:28','',1708,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1710,1,'2012-05-25 08:46:39','2012-05-25 15:46:39','<em><a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1709\" title=\"Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" /></a>\" Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion\'s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don\'t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it\'s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it\'s always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I\'ve got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around.\"</em>\n<strong>-- OPENING LINES OF \"LOVE ACTUALLY\"</strong>\n\nIf there is one thing that bothers me these days, it\'s that people seem so angry.\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1708-revision','','','2012-05-25 08:46:39','2012-05-25 15:46:39','',1708,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1710',0,'revision','',0),(1711,1,'2012-05-25 19:14:41','2012-05-26 02:14:41','<em><a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1709\" title=\"Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" /></a>\" Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion\'s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don\'t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it\'s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it\'s always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I\'ve got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around.\"</em>\n<strong>-- OPENING LINES OF \"LOVE ACTUALLY\"</strong>\n\nIf there is one thing that bothers me these days, it\'s that people seem so angry. Angry and judgmental, quick to say that people who choose to live differently than them are somehow evil.\n\nAnd of course when you\'re defending your way of life from evil people, politics becomes brutally important.\n\nExcept that it isn\'t. Politicians on both sides of the aisle spend most of their time defending the status quo. Does anyone in Congress really debate whether the free-market system -- basically unfettered capitalism -- is really good for our country? If you listen to the bleatings about \"Obamacare,\" you would think we had just turned our country over to Karl Marx, Joe Stalin and the rest of the crew. But who benefitted most from the act? The insurance companies, who you may have noticed aren\'t saying anything bad about it.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1708-revision-2','','','2012-05-25 19:14:41','2012-05-26 02:14:41','',1708,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1711',0,'revision','',0),(1713,1,'2012-06-01 19:20:45','2012-06-02 02:20:45','','20101210_45','The 17th green at Sun City in winter.','inherit','open','open','','20101210_45','','','2012-06-01 19:20:45','2012-06-02 02:20:45','',1712,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20101210_45.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1714,1,'2012-06-01 19:22:54','2012-06-02 02:22:54','','20101210_45','Sun City Peachtree 17th green in winter.','inherit','open','open','','20101210_45-2','','','2012-06-01 19:22:54','2012-06-02 02:22:54','',1712,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20101210_451.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1715,1,'2012-06-01 19:26:34','2012-06-02 02:26:34','I had a sort of amazing moment the other day, when something flashed through my mind for the first time in my life.\n\nI was playing golf and I was enjoying a pretty good round. I had a shot at breaking 80, and if I hadn\'t missed three or four short putts earlier, it would have been a lock.\n\nI was seven over par through 15 holes, which would have meant I needed three pars for a 79. But on the par three 16th hole, I put my drive on the green and then rolled in an 18-foot birdie putt to go to six under.\n\nThat was nice, but it wasn\'t the amazing moment.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1714\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Sun City Peachtree 17th green in winter.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20101210_451.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1714\" title=\"20101210_45\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20101210_451-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nOn 17 -- a par four -- I put my tee shot out in the middle of the fairway, about 180 yards from the hole. I took out my fairway wood, lined up my shot and swung. Then came the amazing moment.\n\nI don\'t know why it was, but as I made contact and saw the shot heading out down the fairway, two words crossed my mind.\n\n<em>\"That\'s perfect.\"</em>\n\nIt damn near was. The flag was near the back of the green, and then shot was heading directly on line with the flag. That\'s rare enough for me, but when it does happen, I usually sacrifice distance and don\'t reach the putting surface. Either that or the shot doesn\'t bite and goes all the way through and off the green at the back.\n\nNot this time. The shot never hooked or sliced, and it hit the green, rolled a while and stopped 10 feet from the hole. A truly perfect shot would have gone in for an eagle 2, but that would have been too Hollywood even','','','inherit','open','open','','1712-revision','','','2012-06-01 19:26:34','2012-06-02 02:26:34','',1712,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1715',0,'revision','',0),(1716,1,'2012-06-01 19:36:33','2012-06-02 02:36:33','I had a sort of amazing moment the other day, when something flashed through my mind for the first time in my life.\n\nI was playing golf and I was enjoying a pretty good round. I had a shot at breaking 80, and if I hadn\'t missed three or four short putts earlier, it would have been a lock.\n\nI was seven over par through 15 holes, which would have meant I needed three pars for a 79. But on the par three 16th hole, I put my drive on the green and then rolled in an 18-foot birdie putt to go to six under.\n\nThat was nice, but it wasn\'t the amazing moment.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1714\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Sun City Peachtree 17th green in winter.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20101210_451.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1714\" title=\"20101210_45\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20101210_451-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nOn 17 -- a par four -- I put my tee shot out in the middle of the fairway, about 180 yards from the hole. I took out my fairway wood, lined up my shot and swung. Then came the amazing moment.\n\nI don\'t know why it was, but as I made contact and saw the shot heading out down the fairway, two words crossed my mind.\n\n<em>\"That\'s perfect.\"</em>\n\nIt damn near was. The flag was near the back of the green, and then shot was heading directly on line with the flag. That\'s rare enough for me, but when it does happen, I usually sacrifice distance and don\'t reach the putting surface. Either that or the shot doesn\'t bite and goes all the way through and off the green at the back.\n\nNot this time. The shot never hooked or sliced, and it hit the green, rolled a while and stopped 10 feet from the hole. A truly perfect shot would have gone in for an eagle 2, but that would have been too Hollywood even for me. As it turned out, I missed the birdie putt and tapped in for par. When  I bogeyed the tough 18th hole, I had my 79 -- the fifth or sixth time I\'ve broken 80 since I started playing this course.\n\nI have been playing two or three times a week, and after years of thinking my game would improve if I made it out more often, I feel like I\'ve been proven right.\n\nSomeday I\'ll have the reaction I had the other day and the shot will actually turn out to be perfect. It\'ll go in for an eagle or maybe even a hole in one.\n\nBut for now, the amazing feeling that flashed through my mind when I hit my second shot on 17 will be enough.\n\nMore than enough.\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1712-revision-2','','','2012-06-01 19:36:33','2012-06-02 02:36:33','',1712,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1716',0,'revision','',0),(1717,1,'2012-06-01 19:36:58','2012-06-02 02:36:58','I had a sort of amazing moment the other day, when something flashed through my mind for the first time in my life.\r\n\r\nI was playing golf and I was enjoying a pretty good round. I had a shot at breaking 80, and if I hadn\'t missed three or four short putts earlier, it would have been a lock.\r\n\r\nI was seven over par through 15 holes, which would have meant I needed three pars for a 79. But on the par three 16th hole, I put my drive on the green and then rolled in an 18-foot birdie putt to go to six under.\r\n\r\nThat was nice, but it wasn\'t the amazing moment.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1714\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Sun City Peachtree 17th green in winter.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20101210_451.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1714\" title=\"20101210_45\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20101210_451-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nOn 17 -- a par four -- I put my tee shot out in the middle of the fairway, about 180 yards from the hole. I took out my fairway wood, lined up my shot and swung. Then came the amazing moment.\r\n\r\nI don\'t know why it was, but as I made contact and saw the shot heading out down the fairway, two words crossed my mind.\r\n\r\n<em>\"That\'s perfect.\"</em>\r\n\r\nIt damn near was. The flag was near the back of the green, and then shot was heading directly on line with the flag. That\'s rare enough for me, but when it does happen, I usually sacrifice distance and don\'t reach the putting surface. Either that or the shot doesn\'t bite and goes all the way through and off the green at the back.\r\n\r\nNot this time. The shot never hooked or sliced, and it hit the green, rolled a while and stopped 10 feet from the hole. A truly perfect shot would have gone in for an eagle 2, but that would have been too Hollywood even for me. As it turned out, I missed the birdie putt and tapped in for par. When  I bogeyed the tough 18th hole, I had my 79 -- the fifth or sixth time I\'ve broken 80 since I started playing this course.\r\n\r\nI have been playing two or three times a week, and after years of thinking my game would improve if I made it out more often, I feel like I\'ve been proven right.\r\n\r\nSomeday I\'ll have the reaction I had the other day and the shot will actually turn out to be perfect. It\'ll go in for an eagle or maybe even a hole in one.\r\n\r\nBut for now, the amazing feeling that flashed through my mind when I hit my second shot on 17 will be enough.\r\n\r\nMore than enough.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Sometimes the most amazing moments really happen','','inherit','open','open','','1712-revision-3','','','2012-06-01 19:36:58','2012-06-02 02:36:58','',1712,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1717',0,'revision','',0),(1732,1,'2012-06-17 20:36:29','2012-06-18 03:36:29','I have two children who think I\'m a wonderful dad.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1733\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Virgile and his wife Sterling\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DSC_0055.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1733\" title=\"DSC_0055\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DSC_0055-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nI keep telling them that it\'s easy to be a good father when you have maybe the two best children in the world. Of course it has been a long time since they were children. Pauline is 31 and already has two children of her own, and Virgile is 27. Both have good marriages and great career-type jobs. Most important, both of them give every indication of being very happy with their lives.\r\n\r\nWhatever contribution I have made to them is pretty much overrated. All I really had to do was stay out of their way and provide support when they asked for it.\r\n\r\nI mean really. When your son gets an evaluation from his boss calling him the best young officer he has seen in 20 years, all you can do is shake your head and smile.\r\n\r\nAs for Pauline, I think the sky is the absolute limit for her. The only thing that might limit her career is that she insists that whenever a choice has to be made between job and family, she will always put her family first. I admire her so much for that.\r\n\r\nSomehow, though, I have a hunch she\'s going to find a way to do both well. Simply put, she is the most impressive young woman I have ever known.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1734\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Pauline, Lexington and Madison\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1734\" title=\"387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/387226_10150524004317122_838372121_8760500_573618796_n-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nI used to know two other men for whom Father\'s Day was a holiday that meant something. Both of them are gone now -- my grandfather passed on in 1985 and my own father died four years ago. As the years go by, I miss each of them more and more.\r\n\r\nIt may sound like a cliche to say it, but they are the two men who more than anyone else, taught me what it means to be a man.\r\n\r\nI don\'t know how much longer I\'ll be around. My own grandfather died when I was 35. If I\'m going to live till Maddie is 35, I will be 93 years old. I\'m not sure why, but there is something that horrifies me about being 93. Heck, I\'m already half falling apart at 62.\r\n\r\nI do hope to have many more Father\'s Days, though, and even though Virgile and his wife aren\'t currently planning to have kids, I hope they will change their mind because I think my son would be a wonderful father.\r\n\r\nHe has a good example in his own generation. My son-in-law -- Virgile\'s brother-in-law -- has been a great husband to Pauline and a terrific dad to Maddie and Lex.\r\n\r\nSo Happy Father\'s Day, Ryan. I didn\'t forget you.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Father\'s Day can be a very poignant holiday','','publish','open','open','','fathers-day-can-be-a-very-poignant-holiday','','','2012-06-17 20:36:29','2012-06-18 03:36:29','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1732',0,'post','',0),(1719,1,'2012-06-02 19:29:14','2012-06-03 02:29:14','<em><a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1709\" title=\"Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Love-Actually-A-Romantic-Love-Story-love-21838192-1706-960-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" /></a>\" Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion\'s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don\'t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it\'s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it\'s always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I\'ve got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around.\"</em>\n<strong>-- OPENING LINES OF \"LOVE ACTUALLY\"</strong>\n\nIf there is one thing that bothers me these days, it\'s that people seem so angry. Angry and judgmental, quick to say that people who choose to live differently than them are somehow evil.\n\nAnd of course when you\'re defending your way of life from evil people, politics becomes brutally important.\n\nExcept that it isn\'t. Politicians on both sides of the aisle spend most of their time defending the status quo. Does anyone in Congress really debate whether the free-market system -- basically unfettered capitalism -- is really good for our country? If you listen to the bleatings about \"Obamacare,\" you would think we had just turned our country over to Karl Marx, Joe Stalin and the rest of the crew. But who benefited most from the act? The insurance companies, who you may have noticed aren\'t saying anything bad about it.\n\nIn fact, most of the principles of Obama\'s reform were identical to ideas generated by the conservative Heritage Foundation. If they had been proposed by a Republican president, they would have had full GOP support. Instead, we have two parties in Washington that won\'t do much of anything if it means their opponents will share the credit at all. So nothing gets done and our problems just become worse and worse.\n\nThe irony is that I don\'t think most people really care all that much about politics, one way or the other. I think most people just want to be left alone to live their lives, and I think there\'s a lot more respect among people of opposing views than talk radio or the cable squawk channels would have us believe. Add up all the audiences of all the talk shows and cable news on both sides and it\'s not much more than 10 percent of the country.\n\nJust as we have been hearing lately about the 1 percent and the 99 percent, we really ought to stop worrying so much about the folks who get all excited about politics. Let them have their fun. Sadly, it really doesn\'t seem to make that much difference anymore who is ostensibly in charge in Washington. Republicans block the Democrats and I\'m pretty sure the Democrats will do the same the next time they\'re out of power.\n\nPolitics won\'t save our country.\n\nNeither will money.\n\nMaybe we would be better off if we could manage to start liking each other again.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1708-revision-3','','','2012-06-02 19:29:14','2012-06-03 02:29:14','',1708,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1719',0,'revision','',0),(1720,1,'2012-06-16 20:56:38','2012-06-17 03:56:38','When you\'re young and you marry, it\'s all about the good times.\r\n\r\nUnless you\'re somehow forced by circumstances, you marry someone because you are happier with them than without them and you are optimistic that things will get even better the longer you two are together.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1721\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"In sickness and in health\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/couples480-blog480.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1721\" title=\"couples480-blog480\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/couples480-blog480-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nWhen you\'re young, marriage is maybe the ultimate act of belief in the future.\r\n\r\nYou say the vows -- better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness or health -- but you don\'t really believe anything bad will happen. You\'re in it for better, for richer, for health and if any of that bad stuff happens, you\'ll deal with it with all the invincibility of youth.\r\n\r\nIt\'s different when you\'re older. When you marry past 40, you carry the baggage of previous failure and the awareness that bad things happen as well as good things and you may not be able to control very much about either.\r\n\r\nIf your life has gone at all according to plan, richer or poorer may not be as much of a factor as when you\'re younger, but health is much more likely to come into play. My good friend Mick and his wife have been married for nearly 33 years and both are dealing with health problems.\r\n\r\nFor the last six years of my father\'s life, my mother was his 24/7 caregiver. She was only a year younger than he was and not in the best health herself, but she gave everything she had to help him. I don\'t think there\'s any better way to show love for someone than that, and I wonder how many of us could do something like that for as long as she did.\r\n\r\nI know I couldn\'t. I have such admiration for her efforts, and also for the help my sisters and my brother gave her. But I also know none of them considered it a chore, an imposition or even hard work. When someone you dearly love needs your help, there really isn\'t any question whether or not you will help them.\r\n\r\nSickness or health never came into play in my first marriage. I was 25 and she was 21 when we took our vows, and I wasn\'t even 30 when it all fell apart for reasons that had nothing to do with health. It was 30 years ago this spring that we spoke for the last time, nearly half a lifetime ago for me. Of course, I\'m 62 now and health problems are becoming a reality both for me and for my lovely wife.\r\n\r\nFor me it\'s mostly aches and pains, as well as elevated blood pressure as my weight fluctuates. I take glucosamine for my incipient arthritis, pills for my blood pressure and over-the-counter sleep aids to help me nod off at night. My wife is dealing with much more significant issues, most of them involving anxiety. At times during the last year or so, things have been extremely difficult for her.\r\n\r\nI do what I can to help, and we seems to have made at least some progress. I\'ll be damned if I give myself any credit for it. When you have one failed marriage in your past, all you\'re really trying to do is get even. I love her, though, and I\'ll be here as long as she wants me and I\'m still drawing breath.\r\n\r\nThat\'s what \"in sickness or in health\" is all about.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Too many folks don\'t pay attention to their vows','','publish','open','open','','too-many-folks-dont-pay-attention-to-their-vows','','','2012-06-16 20:56:38','2012-06-17 03:56:38','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1720',0,'post','',0),(1721,1,'2012-06-03 19:36:43','2012-06-04 02:36:43','','couples480-blog480','In sickness and in health','inherit','open','open','','couples480-blog480','','','2012-06-03 19:36:43','2012-06-04 02:36:43','',1720,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/couples480-blog480.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1722,1,'2012-06-03 19:55:34','2012-06-04 02:55:34','When you\'re young and you marry, it\'s all about the good times.\n\nUnless you\'re somehow forced by circumstances, you marry someone because you are happier with them than without them and you are optimistic that things will get even better the longer you two are together.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1721\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"In sickness and in health\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/couples480-blog480.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1721\" title=\"couples480-blog480\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/couples480-blog480-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nWhen you\'re young, marriage is maybe the ultimate act of belief in the future.\n\nYou say the vows -- better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness or health -- but you don\'t really believe anything bad will happen. You\'re in it for better, for richer, for health and if any of that bad stuff happens, you\'ll deal with it with all the invincibility of youth.\n\nIt\'s different when you\'re older. When you marry past 40, you carry the baggage of previous failure and the awareness that bad things happen as well as good things and you may not be able to control very much about either.\n\nIf your life has gone at all according to plan, richer or poorer may not be as much of a factor as when you\'re younger, but health is much more likely to come into play. From friend Mick and his wife have been married for nearly 33 years and both are dealing with health problems.\n\nFor the last six years of my father\'s life, my mother was his 24/7 caregivwer. She was only a year younger than he was and not in the best health herself,\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1720-revision','','','2012-06-03 19:55:34','2012-06-04 02:55:34','',1720,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1722',0,'revision','',0),(1723,1,'2012-06-04 18:25:34','2012-06-05 01:25:34','When you\'re young and you marry, it\'s all about the good times.\n\nUnless you\'re somehow forced by circumstances, you marry someone because you are happier with them than without them and you are optimistic that things will get even better the longer you two are together.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1721\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"In sickness and in health\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/couples480-blog480.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1721\" title=\"couples480-blog480\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/couples480-blog480-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nWhen you\'re young, marriage is maybe the ultimate act of belief in the future.\n\nYou say the vows -- better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness or health -- but you don\'t really believe anything bad will happen. You\'re in it for better, for richer, for health and if any of that bad stuff happens, you\'ll deal with it with all the invincibility of youth.\n\nIt\'s different when you\'re older. When you marry past 40, you carry the baggage of previous failure and the awareness that bad things happen as well as good things and you may not be able to control very much about either.\n\nIf your life has gone at all according to plan, richer or poorer may not be as much of a factor as when you\'re younger, but health is much more likely to come into play. My good friend Mick and his wife have been married for nearly 33 years and both are dealing with health problems.\n\nFor the last six years of my father\'s life, my mother was his 24/7 caregiver. She was only a year younger than he was and not in the best health herself, but she gave everything she had to help him. I don\'t think there\'s any better way to show love for someone than that, and I wonder how many of us could do something like that for as long as she did.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','','','inherit','open','open','','1720-revision-2','','','2012-06-04 18:25:34','2012-06-05 01:25:34','',1720,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1723',0,'revision','',0),(1724,1,'2012-06-04 18:53:42','2012-06-05 01:53:42','If I could putt, I don\'t think I\'d have anything to worry about.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1725\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"My favorite green? If only I could putt.\"]<a href=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20120604_25.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1725\" title=\"20120604_25\" src=\"http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20120604_25-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nI\'m getting fairly consistent at hitting my drives a decent distance and keeping them in the middle of the fairway, and my approach shots from off the green are getting better and better.\r\n\r\nIf only I could putt. The other day I wrote about the shot on the 17th hole that felt almost perfect. In the two times I have played since then, I have had similar results on that same hole, putting shots first within 15 feet and then within six feet. My putting was bad both times, a three-putt for bogey and then a two-putt for par.\r\n\r\nYesterday I missed at least five putts from six feet or less, and if I had made the last one -- on the 18th green -- I would have broken 80.\r\n\r\nIt\'s a very strange feeling. I\'m hitting good shots more consistently than I ever have  in my life, and even though I take a few shots over since I play alone, I would probably still be good enough here to get a 12 or 13 handicap.That\'s not bad at all for somebody who used to have a really tough time breaking 90.\r\n\r\nIn fact, when I first started playing full-length courses about 18 years ago, breaking 130 was a big deal for me.\r\n\r\nI miss my friends, though. Playing with Chuck and Mickey for more than 15 years meant that a day on the golf course was about more than just golf. As I\'ve written before, we were lucky to be able to play twice a month, which made it tough to improve. Playing two or three times a week has shown me the difference.\r\n\r\nWho knows? Maybe someday I\'ll play with them again.\r\n\r\nFriendship matters.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','If I could putt, I\'d rule the world','','publish','open','open','','if-i-could-putt-id-rule-the-world','','','2012-06-04 18:53:42','2012-06-05 01:53:42','',0,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/?p=1724',0,'post','',0),(1725,1,'2012-06-04 18:34:19','2012-06-05 01:34:19','','20120604_25','My favorite green? If only I could putt.','inherit','open','open','','20120604_25','','','2012-06-04 18:34:19','2012-06-05 01:34:19','',1724,'http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20120604_25.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),