The annual Academy Awards extravaganza will be showcased again this weekend (Sunday night on ABC), but this year’s broadcast will feature a new element that may or may not add some viewer appeal to the festivities.             The categories (24 in all) are unchanged.  The usual yawners, e.g., Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing […]

            Several weeks ago, I provided a list of possible deficit-reduction moves the federal government could make and what their effect would be on the trillion-dollar-plus deficit the country is currently facing.  My purpose was two-fold: first, to indicate how difficult, if not impossible, it will be even to approach a balanced budget without a […]

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more.  It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” -Shakespeare, “Macbeth”             My wife has attended three funerals in the last month, and none of them had […]

            The Obama administration is taking all kinds of heat these days for the one and a quarter TRILLION dollar budget deficit it has just proposed for fiscal year 2011.  (Actually the projected deficit is a tad higher than that, but what’s a trifling 17 billion or so among friends?)             Figures accompanying the budget […]