In social settings, one sometimes hears people babbling about the marvelous things that they are going to do. In the business environment, it is even more unsettling to hear an entrepreneur making public pronouncements of forthcoming achievements. Anyone with even the most basic understanding of how the world REALLY works knows that saying a lot...
A four-week window of Jewish holy days is approaching. I understand why we will spend more time in synagogue than usual. However, we will also spend more time at the dining room table. This isn’t a concession to human frailty; it is recognition of human greatness. Ever since the start of our lives as babes...
In the 1961 movie The Parent Trap as well as in its 1998 remake, two young girls at a summer camp loathe one another until they discover that they are really twins. They then collaborate in a plot to bring their divorced parents back together again. The movie worked well partially because of the genuine...
If you know what your car engine sounds like when running normally, you will instantly pick up early signs of mechanical problems. If you know the sound your baby makes when he’s hungry, you will immediately recognize a cry of pain. Departure from pattern is a warning sign. In forensic accounting, false expense submissions are often...
Is it a coincidence that countries with healthy Jewish populations tend to enjoy far greater economic success than those without? King Edward I expelled the Jews from England in 1290. For about two hundred years prior, England’s economy had been growing dramatically with Jews playing a significant role in the development of silver mining, currency...
Place your hands together, palm to palm, in a praying gesture. No problem, right? Now rapidly rub them backwards and forwards pressing them against each other as you rub. Feel the heat? What if you tightly clasp a rope and quickly pull it through your hand? You’ll quickly raise a heat blister. Friction, which produces...
You may be one of those people to whom interesting things keep happening. I hope you’re always saying things like, “You won’t believe what happened to me today!” or “Guess who I ran into yesterday.” Friends sometimes ask you, “How did you get that interview?” Or, they exclaim, “I can’t believe that you found one...
I never knew what the job of ‘community organizer’ entailed. I knew what a bus driver, a plumber, a bookkeeper, or a ballerina do. But, what does a community organizer do? I found out by reading a little book called Rules for Radicals written by Saul Alinsky, a Chicago political activist. (And no, I’m not...
Walking past a house in drought-stricken California lately, I noticed that the homeowner had replaced his front lawn with artfully arranged colored gravel. White and reddish-brown stones were arranged in a sharply delineated wave shape covering his front yard. Sometime later I happened to be passing the same house and paused again to admire the...
The aftermath to my appearance on The 700 Club with my friend Pat Robertson last Monday astounded me. Like noxious mushrooms after a rain, articles suddenly sprang up condemning Pat for something people thought he said, and condemning me for not condemning him. Also, I received a bunch of negative communications, almost all of them...
