CALLAHANTICS

OK. After the craziest week of professional and peripheral experiences I have experienced in a very long time, we are back to examining the fundamental freedoms and rights that are inalienable versus privilege we take for granted as Americans. On Monday, during the Boston Marathon, New Yorkers like me were flashing back and working through our Local and National PTSD regarding explosions and injuries and responders being killed or injured, limbs falling from the sky and 3 fatalities that are still being resolved as I write this. As Americans, we have simultaneously been reminded as one people, that our freedoms don’t come free of any cost. With freedom comes responsibility (whether you like it or not).  These responsibilities are what our laws are for and our laws and their enforcement require us to work together as one country. As the ATF, FBI, Massachusetts State Police and Boston PD arrest “Suspect #2”  in connection to the bombing Monday at the Boston Marat...

OK. I think it’s official that we are now a social media and on-line communication world. As I listen to the U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe on Wednesday morning stating that the US Postal Service is going to stop delivering letters and other mail on Saturdays, but continue to handle packages, I see another basic staple that, like most other things, Americans take for granted until they begin to go away. The gradual nature of the demise makes sense, but because people generally don’t notice items until they are slammed directly in front of them, they can ignore them. There are many aspects of our daily lives that are funded by our taxes and that we don’t notice, so we don’t see the need to pay for them. The mail is definitely one of those. If delivery has been privatized to the point of making the US Postal Service irrelevant forever, then that’s fine. We will all go to UPS® or FedEx® and other Commercial Carriers to mail everything then so be it. It will be more expensive, an...

We don’t need to examine the Baby-boomer generation too deeply to understand that ,  as far as retirement goes, they are going to be  slower and  more cautious  retiring  during the giant post-recession. Frankly, if I were eligible for retirement in the next 10 years, there would still be no way on earth I would retire early. Having watched the retirement funds and  Thrift Savings Plan s  (TS Ps )   blown to smithereens by hedge fund gambling, speculation and outright fraud over  the past ten years, millions of people who could have retired, can’t and  many  federal employees  who  may have entertained the idea,  probably  won’t. The psychology is not  all  that complicated.  The U.S.  job market has gone from unions  having some political and financial teeth up through the 1970s which  once  required businesses to look at long -term investment and encourage   compens...

For the last few years, my husband and I had a holiday tradition. We delayed shopping as long as we can and then we bite the bullet and run (literally) through a mall the week before Christmas. The primary gift recipients are the nephews and the niece. The 30 second GameStop® to get two Mario games for the boys went well, and then….. We braved American Girl®.  We walked past the cheerleader, the grocery cashier, and the housewife before finally looking at one-another flabbergasted and my husband commenting, “Man what a scam!” I’m not sure how to describe the look on both my husband’s and my faces while we did the quick hunt around the store for the “phonograph” requested by my niece. Let’s just say that while I think American Girl® has a fantastic layout and brilliant marketing operation, it is literally terrifying to see the images that future women are experiencing. They are truly beginning to resemble a depiction from pre-19 th Amendment ideals, through the 1950s myths and e...

Why is it so complicated to define the rights of “pursuit of happiness” or “liberty”? I found most aspects of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) downright wrong, primarily because of the wide-ranging disparity of definitions given for both what a State is and what it has a right to regulate. While searching far and wide for any serious phrase defining “State”; the closest I came to was a mixture of definitions provided by The Associated Press, Collins English Dictionary and Webster: “Any territory that became a member of the union called the United States of America”.   Becoming part of any of the 50 states and six major US territories, (as members of that union), certain decisions and definitions will apply to all.   As a nation, we’ve been fighting over different issues and whether each State should have final say or our federal government should.   These distinctions have been debated, fought and fluctuated for over 236 years now.   By pressing to make D...

Mr. Scarborough, Earlier today I watched your interview on “Morning Joe,” with Senator Charles Schumer (D- NY) where you discussed the pain and suffering of your friends in Staten Island (like my friends and co-workers in Staten Island). You went on to address your perceived failures by the Red Cross both now and in the past, asking, “You'll make sure that the Red Cross does their job that they make the right decisions that they won't store it all in warehouses away from places and then re-sell it the way they did in Katrina?" I am a volunteer for American Red Cross and have been since 2003. I have supported disaster responses during fires, nor’easters, floods, a tsunami, an oil spill, terrorist attacks, 2 earthquakes and I have personally deployed during hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Gustav, Ivan, Irene, Isaac and now Sandy. I think after watching Red Cross get lambasted multiple times on multiple levels,  it is time to clarify for you, and for all media the reality...

I honestly think that I hear things during political debates that aren’t the most memorable (because they just don’t resonate more than the most provocative statements); but items that often provide the best insight into people.  Watching the debate at Hofstra University, which made it difficult for even conservative comedians to resist the jokes regarding the extreme demographic blanching of Nassau County, had many noticing the racial demographics. Many publications and programs (from Politico to Reuters to Bill Maher) were writing and tweeting quickly and repeatedly. I figured that was the way things would be and was relaxing with some liqueur while resisting the urge to engage in a drinking game with my friends over the words economy, education, taxes, Libya or the more commonly fun shots being consumed by friends over the words oil, gas and coal. Instead, the key moment for me, was Mitt Romney’s attempt to a respond to the question: “In what new ways to you intend to rectify ...