I often think about the old question: How much of a person comes from their “native temperament” – the DNA they were born with, and how that influences their behavior? And how much comes as a result of how they were raised – the values they received in their upbringings? This is the infamous “nature vs. nurture” question, for which there is no definitive answer. It is complicated. Are we born with a certain collection of predilections and traits from our genetic inheritance, and that mostly explains who we become? Or are we born a “tabula rasa” on which society can write one script or another? Humans have argued bitterly…

Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, was gunned down yesterday on a crowded Manhattan Street. A hooded man walked up to him and coolly shot him down in what was obviously a cold-blooded killing which had been carefully planned. The assassination seems to have been motivated by grievances against the health insurance industry, but facts are few as the authorities seek for the shooter. But I would guess this man was targeted because of his job – the suspect allegedly wrote “deny, defend, depose” on the bullet casings using in the killing, implying anger at insurance business practices. Was this an act of anti-business terrorism? As the suspect supposedly stayed…

The American presidential election is twenty-one days behind us, but it seems much longer. Donald Trump handily defeated Kamala Harris, both in the popular vote and Electoral College, and the Republicans also have control of both houses of Congress. Supposedly it was going to be a nail biter of an election, with the female vote key and abortion the paramount issue. That didn’t happen. There has been much to digest. Four days after the election I read a curious letter to the Wall Street Journal by Virginia Butterworth of Middletown, R.I., complaining of the writer Peggy Noonan’s choice in voting: “‘We believe in democracy. It’s a spectacular gesture of commitment’…

There are plenty of consolations for aging. But the physical decay of your body is not one of them.  It is this simple: everytime I see a present day photo of my face, I am unhappy with what I see. And then when I see that same photo five years later, it looks a lot better than what my face looks now. I get older. The photo shows that. It cannot be avoided. In the larger scheme of things, I don’t care too much about my appearance. With all the responsibilities my life brings in late middle age, worrying about deepening wrinkles or gray hair appears self-indulgent, or worse –…

When my younger daughter was in sixth grade, my wife and I received phone calls from other parents complaining that Elizabeth played “too rough” with their daughters. Surprised to hear this, I gave these comments some thought. What is the nature of my younger daughter? I reflected. What does she need? What would be best for her? Then I promptly enrolled Elizabeth in boxing classes. Well, Elizabeth boxed for a year and enjoyed it. But the boxing scene was…. semi-thuggy. I remember sitting there watching her middle school boxing peers talk about setting off fireworks on campus and brag about getting suspended for it. There was the “Mike Tyson effect”…

I am currently well into the new 2024-2025 school year. But I am barely hanging in there. The goals I wrote down are simple to understand and two in number: That is it. But, WOW, that is turning into quite the challenging task.  From getting them both out of the house on time to drive to school in the morning, to printing out stuff for them at my desk, dealing with the many parenting details at school, to teaching my own classes, coaching my older daughter’s school tennis team, to making sure my other daughter has rides to Thai boxing, my own USTA tennis leagues, etc. etc. etc. – well,…

The ancient Spartans refused to give sway to their fears of a foreign invasion by building walls. “The walls of our country are the tips of our spears,” they reportedly claimed. The Spartan army was feared such that attacks against their interests would be dealt with outside their homeland. But it is understandable: one ruminates on the enemy attacking and taking over one’s country, and one wishes to make that fear an impossibility by building a wall. Rather than using finesse, skill, and courage to deal with possible threats, you simply build an imposing barrier at the border and deign to sleep soundly at night. But how did that work…

It is a strange thing.  My blog statistics have shown a strange development lately: most of my blog “hits” are originating from the People’s Republic of China.  Why is that?  I have no idea. I really don’t. I never really know what is going on with respect to how visitors arrive to my webpage. True, I can see who is visiting which page and from what country, as well as which search engine referred them. But that is about all. And I never wanted to do a “deep dive” into search engine optimization or whatever. The black arts of trying to “game” SEOs towards getting more traffic to your website…

Approximately 30 months ago I wrote about my amazement that the United States Supreme Court might reject decades of judicial precedent by overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision: ”Abortion and Roe v. Wade: A Flawed Legal Decision, a Necessary Health Policy”December 2, 2021 Then six months later after I wrote that initial essay, the Supreme Court did in fact overturn Roe v. Wade with its Dobbs v. Jackson decision. In response, many feminists promised a “summer of rage” in America. In response, I promised to enjoy my summer: ”The Demise of Roe v. Wade and a ‘Summer of Rage’”June 25, 2022 A quick explanation: My job leads me…

So I just turned 57-years old. I wish I were 58. Or 61.5 years of age, more specifically. Speed up the years! Why? Because I could retire then. I am in the final full flush of my career: meshing decades of hard won experience while still being young enough to put in the exhausting work which successful classroom teaching is. I can hit all cylinders and direct a class full of ambitious smart teens like nobody’s business. I’m not done yet. I’m still engaged at work. That is one side of the coin. But the other side is that I am ready to try something new. For over three decades…

I wrote over two months ago about how Donald Trump and the “burn it all down” faction from the GOP in the House of Representatives sought to derail any foreign aid measures to Ukraine. For weeks and weeks I would go to Google and type in “House vote for Ukraine,” and it seemed nothing was happening. Why not? Were legislators asleep at the wheel? The Ukrainians are running out of money and weapons in their valiant fight against Putin’s Russia. Trump and his MAGA-allied Republicans seemed to be keeping the aid hostage. Because of razor thin majorities in the House, just a handful of ultra-conservative Republicans could hold the vote…

I have been coaching high school tennis for four years now. I do this because my daughter was on the team, and I wanted her team experience to go well. So I became the coach. “If you want a job done well, then do it yourself,” I thought to myself. After all the isolation of my daughter’s Covid-19 pandemic experience, I wanted her to have a solid team experience with quality friends and abundant exercise. That has worked out well. In fact, it worked out very well. But there has been a cost. I have always thought that high school sports were sort of an artificial tax on the academics…

Some eighteen months ago someone stole my road bike out of my garage. My older daughter came in late at night and failed to close our garage door, and the next morning my road bike and my wife’s sewing machine were gone. I suspect opportunistic thieves (like the lowlife “porch pirates” who steal Amazon packages from your front door) drove by my garage in the middle of the night, dashed in and grabbed what was at hand, and got out of there as quickly as possible. It was a blow. About once a week since then I reflect about the theft of my bike and I feel sad. I mourn…

My daughter turns 17-years of age today. I am a bit dumbfounded. Last year she turned 16-years old, and that date is very much wrapped up in her gaining a driver’s license. Here she was 14 months ago taking her first driving lesson – My daughter was a high school sophomore at the time. This meant she was elbow deep in high school and the fog of adolescence: that is often not a pretty thing. A 16-year old undergoes serious physical, emotional, and intellectual growth, at least hopefully. It is stressful: that is how I see it firsthand as a parent and a teacher. We adults forget how difficult being…

In his biography Open the tennis champion Andre Agassi said the following, “A win doesn’t feel as good as a loss feels bad, and the good feeling doesn’t last as long as the bad. Not even close.” This is a way of saying that we respond more powerfully to a negative stimuli than to a positive one. Maybe this is an evolutionary maneuver to help to try and keep us alive in a hostile world. But if so, it unfairly accentuates the negative over the positive. It leaves us prioritizing the half empty glass rather than the half full one. Take Agassi, for example. Why should a painful moment of…

I apologize in advance, dear reader, for bringing politics at length into one of my posts. Most Americans, myself included, are exhausted by recent political and cultural strife. A deeply polarized America is full of contention and division. I don’t wish to contribute to that mess. But politics is important, alas, and so I want to go on the record with my thoughts as the presidential election of 2024 approaches. The prospect of political violence is upon us, or even a civil war, in a crisis which has been a long time coming in the United States. This is how I see things, at least. For most of my life…

NOTE: A good tennis buddy Julio Cabral and I are both approaching retirement age as public school teachers. We are trying to help each other transition from the world of work to the mindset of the retired. I have done considerable research on this, and I know it can be difficult. Change, even positive and necessary change, can have its stressful aspects. One seeks to manage change, not be managed by it. The first year of retirement can be a real challenge for many. So my friend and I read together “The New Old Age” by David Brooks and decided to take the advice from this article about preparing to…

Back in 2017 I was with my friend Chris Prewitt at the Indian Wells Tennis Tournament with our ten year old daughters. We had just entered the sprawling complex, and there were people everywhere. Among the throngs of spectators crowding around us, Chris warned our daughters the following: “If we for some reason get separated from each other, I want you to go to a woman and ask her for help. Do you understand? Ask a lady who looks nice for help.” I was immediately taken aback. I wondered if Chris was making a big assumption that some woman would be the proper person to trust, just because she was…

What to do in the summer of 2024? Two summers ago I traveled to Costa Rica with my family: Last summer I went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with my older daughter: What about next summer? What should I do? Where should I go? I’m not sure. I’m sort of tired of Latin America. Was Puerto Vallarta all that different from Playa Flamingo? Not really. Maybe it is time to travel somewhere else? Spain? Italy? Latin America is close and affordable. Europe is further away and more expensive. And crowded with tourists. That is not ideal. Do I really want to be one of the flock of tourists staring at frescos…

Or, Many Questions and Few Answers I read yesterday about how the landscape outside of Avdiivka was just littered with the Russian war dead. Ukrainian intelligence recorded phone intercepts of Russian soldiers calling to their relatives about how they are being sacrificed. “There’s no f—— ‘dying the death of the brave’ here,” one soldier explained to his brother from the front in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. “You just die like a f—— earthworm.” The fields are full of the Russian war dead, as their generals are sending them off to die like sheep. Poorly led, poorly trained, hungry and demoralized, old and inferior weapons – the vaunted Russian military looks pathetic.…

Or, Time for a USTA Tennis Sabbatical? Almost exactly two years ago I received the totally unexpected news that I would be re-ranked as a 5.0 tennis player in USTA tennis leagues. My world was rocked. I never expected this. And I was looking at being removed from the tennis teams with my buddies that played an important role in my life. As I described, I was being exiled to ”5.0 tennis Siberia.”  Here is the meme I used to represent my reaction to the unexpected news of 5.0 re-ranking But on the third try, a desperate appeal was granted and I stayed at the 4.5 level. I wonder if…

I don’t know why. And I am not sure when it happened. But I ask my peers – parents with children still at home – if they spend more time, energy, and money parenting than their parents did. They always say, “Yes.” I have heard and read about this trend towards relentless and intensive parenting. I have lived it. My daughter plays club soccer. It is expensive, but that is not the most painful part. The worst is how time consuming it is. In August we traveled down to San Diego for a soccer tournament with matches on Saturday and Sunday. Then the woman’s professional team in town invited all…

Or, “Turning to Cannabis to Help Relieve Anxiety“ I read this article the other day and it highlighted an aspect of American life I have always disliked. I find it hard to believe that my fellow Americans swallow this kind of nonsense advertising: “Do you feel anxious in your life? Is it hard to fall asleep at night? Do you lie there worrying about your finances and your job? Do you fret about an uncertain future? Are you uncomfortable in your own skin? Here is the solution: Cannabis!” Really? The answer to confronting the stresses of modern life is to drug yourself? To ingest delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and gain a temporary…

My older daughter last week won her high school league finals match with her doubles partner in girls tennis. It was a tight match against quality competition, and it could have gone either way. As her father (and coach), I was emotionally invested in her winning. She won last year. I hoped my daughter would repeat. But I know how sports can go, and I was prepared for a possible loss. In competitive athletics you play the best you can on that day, and sometimes you lose and sometimes you win. It is best to not be overly attached to the final result if you want to play your best…

Yesterday had been a day almost completely taken up by tiresome parenting duties, and I was exhausted. By ten pm I was ready to crawl into bed, read for twenty minutes, and fall blissfully asleep. But I saw some breaking news bulletin about a “active shooter” in Lewiston, Maine who had killed numerous innocents in a bowling alley and bar. “Not again!” I thought. “What an asshole!” I felt like someone had sucker punched me, or dumped some human waste near me. I have long struggled to understand why these lonely losers decide to arm themselves to the teeth and run rampant, killing as many random strangers as they can…

I woke up seven days ago to see the awful news of the Hamas attacks on Israel.  The deaths of some 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, was celebrated by some, but I was horrified. But I would not rush to make judgements until at least a few days passed. Until initial panicked rumors passed around on social media consolidated into confirmed reports by professional journalists, I would say nothing. A week later, as events are somewhat more clear, I will speak. First of all: what happened. I read today the description of events by Peggy Noonan about the October 7th attack: “We must start with what was done. Terrorists calling themselves…

This is far from the first time I have written about my unease over social media piped into my daughter’s brains. I forswore TV for decades, not wanting it in my house. But by the time my kids came of age TV was well nigh obsolete, and now social media was the currency of the realm. Would I take drastic action to restrict smartphones and ban social media access in my house? In the same way I have never wanted mainstream TV broadcasts and the attendant commercials in my house? No, I wouldn’t. I still won’t. The world my daughters live in – their friends, social groups, etc. – was…

I came across this giant sign along the walls of a martial arts dojang last spring, and I was so taken aback by it that I snapped this quick photo: I was impressed by the message on the sign, but I am not sure if the impression was positive or negative. Is iron clashing against iron making a metal stronger? Is that what I want in my life? Or not? What exactly do I think of this analogy? I was unsure. I am still unsure. This essay is the product of my thinking on the subject. I did some further research and discovered this was a Bible quote. The full…

My father is elderly and in decline; my sister, brother, and I brace for difficult decisions going forward. Father Time is undefeated, and my everyone looks their mortality in the face, sooner or later. For my father, this will probably be sooner rather than later. We will do what we can to help him, and to help ourselves. I grow anxious and emotional thinking about it. My older daughter is sixteen years old. Often I feel I am tiptoeing around her, and she can be sullen, moody, and difficult at times. There are two more years until she leaves for college, and great finesse will be required to give her…

There is the concept of what some job might – or should – be. There is the noble idea of a vocation – or a calling to do some job professionally and help make the world a better place. Through your life’s work you can contribute to the collective, rather than merely taking away from it. A person can earn money and make a difference in the lives of others at the same time. Your job can be the ultimate expression of your reason for being alive – the pinnace of your existence – your “life’s work.” I fully understand plenty of people just take a job for the money,…