Mark Knows It All

Have you noticed that people as of late have become mean? This is more than usual testiness. This is mean stuff. What makes it even more disturbing is folks seem to be enjoying it. I belong to a lot of organizations, and I can personally tell you it’s a jungle out there. What is even more disturbing is folks are overtly telling you how mean they are. I can’t believe some of the stuff I have heard over the past few months. I am a lawyer, and it is mean people that fuels our business. That being said mean people, at least in my experience, have always been the exception rather than the rule. I am not so sure anymore. Whether it is in an organization or a church or a club or in the office or driving a car or going to the theater, there seems to be anger just below the surface that is bubbling up more and more. People are always going to disagree. This is more than being disagreeable. This is nasty business where there is shouting and pounding and deliberate deception and delibe...

CHASING WINDMILLS On a recent day shopping trip to Cleveland my wife and I came across one of those humongous electric generating windmills. It is located in Bainbridge and is clearly visible on the high school property as one drives along Route 422…the back way to Cleveland!! We decided to investigate. Of course it would be located on school grounds. Windmills are politically correct and make a statement saying the school board is being green with somebody else’s money. We have seen them from a distance many times, but now we could get up close and personal. These things are huge and somewhat scary. This one is located almost on top of the school parking lot and it looks like the blades could swoop down and lift you up…and they are VERY, VERY, VERY noisy. There is some creaking and groaning, but mostly there is a deep roaring sound that almost sounds like an airplane engine. I feel sorry for the folks that live around there. To make matters worse, although they look lovely and gr...

Liberal media just doesn’t get it. Along the fringes of the news this weekend are numerous reports of layoffs at the New York Times. These aren’t the grunts…these folks are senior staff including the Times Washington editor, its food editor, and the former New York Time Magazine editor. The cuts will number up to 30 top newsroom positions either through buyouts or layoffs. Newspapers generally have a problem with the modern day information age. Free information is everywhere. Long gone are the days of newspapers publishing “extras” to inform the public of breaking news. All one does today is turn on television or click onto the internet. Anything and everything one needs to know is at our fingertips. On the other hand, that doesn’t negate the need for reporting. There is a place for newspapers in our society. Unfortunately for the elite media mavens, the need is for good reporting. Historically the New York Times has been the national newspaper of record. Those in the acad...

Let me understand this. AlGore goes into business with Joel Hyatt (of Hyatt Legal Services fame) and starts a liberal television network, never mind Hyatt is a stellar conservative, with AlGore owning 20%. Current TV was carried on most large cable networks reaching 60 million households in the United States although nobody watched it being underwhelmed by its progressive message. That tends to be a problem when trying to make money. One of Current’s intended targets was the liberal audience at CNN, which nobody watches either. But I digress. Over the past several months AlGore had been quietly lobbying the cable companies to continue their relationship with Current TV because something was going to happen. Bingo!! It was announced today that AlGore and his associates sold Current to Al Jazeera, the Qatar state owned Arab network which served as the mouthpiece for Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda after 9/11. To this day it continues on a semi-regular basis anti-American rants a...