CALLAHANTICS

Americans of all stars and stripes are working night and day trying to figure out what happened to our country our government and even ourselves over the past eighteen months. It’s as if we are looking cross eyed at a world where Dick Wolf, Lorne Michaels, Aaron Sorkin, Trevor Noah, Jake Tapper, Fareed Zakaria, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and Stephen Colbert are all beginning to sound equally logical in their intellectual approaches to what and where our nation is currently. Any situation where parody and reality become intertwined to a degree where nearly all of us are second guessing everything we see, hear, read, etc.; information begins to appear ludicrous. So why does it seem so familiar? Well, for starters, while America is still a relatively young country; our political parties have switched platforms multiple times.    Republicans worked toward greater federal power to fund massive projects during the 1860s including the transcontinental railroad and a state univers...

I have been an American Red Cross volunteer since the early 2000s. Why? Well, to be honest, I was looking for a mission to care about. Between contracts as a graphic designer and content writer; I was going slightly stir crazy, and it was a slow period in New York at the time. So I briefly thought through areas that I wanted to support, and randomly chose American Red Cross.    I walked in the door of the Greater New York Chapter which was at 150 Amsterdam Avenue . I went directly to HR/Volunteer Resources where I met Curt. He looked at my resume, asked me to sit down and called the disaster health and mental health director who invited me to come on board to assist them in re-configuring and updating their roster and have better track of their people. About two months after I took on that role, the lead, Lauren came by my cubicle and stated, “You know media; Right”?”   I was deep in writing, so I answered flippantly, “Yes, like you know medicine and there are so ...

When I was a child, my brother and I regularly watched The Jetsons on whatever channel producers William Hanna and Jos eph Barbera had currently syndicated it. At the end of the introduction, George Jetson always kicked back and put his feet on the desk of his classic office desk right after his flying car compacted into a briefcase and he allegedly began whatever   his “work” happened to be for Mr. Spacely creating whatever a Spacely’s Sprocket happened to be. As with most entertainment shows in the 1960s, it attempted to entertain while inspiring as many questions as answers. When I was becoming an adult and beginning to work my way from an adolescent to a college student and then a professional; I started looking at multiple generations of Gene Roddenberry’s slightly more concrete visions of future communication, transportation and everyday living from food to breathing to medical solutions. Ironically, the basic philosophical choices looked intuitive at the time, but today a...

In a career that experienced many enigmatic ups and downs over the past 20 years, I had numerous discussions with my parents, friends, contemporaries, leaders (and yes, even my spouse); about what should be considered doing too much, just enough, not enough, or too little? When I began high school, my parents recognized fairly early on that I had good survival instincts and was quite responsible; so I was not given excessive hand holding regarding dating, forming relationships, etc. In fact, other than the mandatory parochial message in school, I never had to sit through the "birds and the bees talk" either. Generally my parents and extended family had a more pragmatic approach than an idealistic one. Rather than stating, “It is best to wait until you’re married!” their general advice was; “ You do anything that stupid, you’re on your own, I’m not taking care of him/her/them for you! ” By the time I began college, I had pretty much eliminated (or at least tentatively allevi...

I have always had a very strange relationship with the Americans with Disabilities Act. I grew up what appeared to be completely healthy. I played, went to school, watched TV and lived a relatively normal life. Periodically issues would arise. I was acting up in class, not paying attention, saying and or doing weird things, (or so I was told). I thought it was strange, but at first I worked around it.  Some teachers loved me, one literally hated me, and several others were simply confused by me. On several occasions, I was told I had said or done something that had me scratching my head thinking they were crazy or simply cruel. Several times I was accused of taking actions that I honestly had no memory of doing.  After several of these occurred, my mother took me to multiple doctors and psychiatrists and we ran through the whole circuit of diagnostics including multiple Electroencephalographic (EEG) exams and computerized axial tomography (CAT) scans & all of t...