Point Made

There are some things that we love to hate. Sports stars and movie stars, in general, can make normally nice people have strong, irrational feelings. I'll admit I have a strong aversion to Tom Brady and Tom Cruise. Politicians make it their business to cultivate the “We v They” atmosphere around their campaigns. But politicians, sports figures, and movie stars are people. They have press agents and handlers that control the access to them and the image they want to create. That all works well until one of their husbands sneaks out and has an affair with another woman. Or, they decide a threesome with two underage girls is appropriate. In many ways, they can earn our anger and disrespect. But what about brand names? In a recent article in the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/technology/24apple.html?hpw columnist) , Miguel Helft writes that success, Apple has now become the bad guy in the technology sector. This is after being the company you loved because they w...

If you are an online reader, like I am, you undoubtedly read the reader comments attached to almost any article, whether it’s the New York Times or a local site like OnMilwaukee.com. What is amazing to me is the stuff the website editors allow to be published under their banner. I guess it’s because I’m of a generation that remembers the Letter to the Editor section of the paper where often well-written and thoughtful arguments about the day's issues were printed. I’m not saying from time to time, the editor wouldn’t throw out a weird response to an issue. You vacillated between thinking his junior high school kid took over the job of vetting the letters for a day, maybe the editor the letter would promote circulation. The publication policy of the “Comment” section of today’s press varies. Most of them state that your comments will be looked over before publication. Often you read the comments posted, and you wonder what you’d have to write before they wouldn’t pub...

The Trip into Hell and Back Report from Camp Jeff After you read this, if you fly on Mexicana Air, you are a fool. Stacy,Dan, Grace & Eli picked my wife, Maria, and I up at our condo on the East Side of Milwaukee at approximately 6:00 pm on the afternoon of February 12, 2010. Our plan was to go to Chicago and spend the night at a hotel, so we would be able to easily get to Chicago O'Hare's International airport for our Saturday 10:20 am departure to Akumal, Mexico via Cancun. After having dinner in route, at the Chancery Restaurant in Pleasant Prairie, we easily found our hotel, The Renaissance Inn and restlessly watched the Winter Olympics on TV. The room was a bit small for the six of us, but it was clean and well located. Most of all, it offered free parking while we were gone and a shuttle service to and from the airport. As planned, we were shuttled out to O'Hare International, arriving at the International Terminal at 6:30 am on Saturday morning. We came to...