Tag Archives: writing

Look How Far We Have Come??

The route to independence for pre-teen boys in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s was paved with paper.

Newspapers.

Before there was a digital, instant-access-age, twice daily local newspapers were hand delivered to America’s door-steps by an army of young boys, over a million strong at its zenith.  Nearly half of all of the nation’s newspapers were handled by these young entrepreneurs and I was one of them.  Sadly, today that number has dropped to near zero.

Commitment, being on time, managing your time, honesty, accuracy, math skills,-adding-subtracting, managing money, counting change, managing credit, marketing, customer-relations, communication, handling complaints, paper-work, banking, coping with weather, delays, illness, fitness all of this and more was the responsibility of the newly minted pre-teen business owner.  As my customers came to know me, I mowed their lawns in the summer and shoveled snow from their sidewalks and driveways in the winter.

How would that reality affect today’s pre-teens and teens?

I attended one of the highest ranked business schools in the country and I learned far more about the realities of enterprise and life managing my paper route as a 12-year-old than I did at the university.  I’m still an entrepreneur and I continue to use those old, familiar lessons every day; street-reality forged by experience.  I was up-sell-marketing before I knew it was a business term.

The real tragedy here is that right now, today, we have done nothing to replace that kind of invaluable experience for our young people.  There is a price to be paid for ignoring this void and if you can pry the cell phones and ear-buds off today’s teens and pre-teens, that blind spot we are ignoring becomes abundantly obvious by their blank stares and struggle to effectively communicate.

My “graduation” from the paper-route was to the local gas station, a natural transition in those days because customers did not pump their own gas, attendants did.  Just shy of 16 and anxious to get my license, I was saving to trade my bicycle for a motorcycle and eventually a car.  A service station seemed like the place to learn more about all things mechanical.  Pumping gas for customers led to learning how to check the oil, filling or changing a tire, even changing the oil, or spark plugs.  Over time, even more methods of mechanical know-how became a puzzle I solved that granted me access to remedies and possibilities I previously knew nothing about and could not otherwise afford.  Knowledge becomes power when you can solve your own mechanical problems and at the same time save money and gain independence.  It was liberating, empowering and it gave me confidence.  It was a way to advance one more rung on life’s ladder and gain my independence.  I could transform a junk car into something useable and do it on a small budget and when it broke, I could fix it.

Self-service gas pumping, grocery scanning and a host of other jobs previously manned by an army of school-aged kids are now extinct in the age of automation.  Again, we leave behind a void and no intention of filling it, yet can we really expect to suffer no effect?  What I describe was my life growing up.  Thank God for it and Thank God I was able to introduce these kinds of working values to my own children, a genuine work-ethic.

Kids peddling newspapers and pumping gas are jobs and experiences never coming back however, the life skills those jobs and many others like them instilled in those kids provided a tremendous benefit we fail to provide today.  Like everything in life, there is a price for this failing and we can see it all around us as the mobs of phone-obsessed kids trudge through life oblivious to their surroundings, mind-numbed by a screen and sadly lacking of any of the kinds of “street-smarts” I managed to learn.

Today’s parental insistence on the physical “safety” of their kids justifies their hyper-insulation from the realities of life.  Paradoxically, kids will learn the longest-lasting lessons about safety when parents allow them, (within reason and with calculation) to experiment with their own judgment and at times be even a bit unsafe.  You can’t know where the margins are if you never push them.  Close-calls forge real lessons and develop better habits much more authentically than a hovering-smothering-over-protective and lecturing parent.  The mistakes and mis-steps we prevent our kids from taking will correspondingly fail to teach them anything.  Failure is a wonderful teacher when consequences have real sting.

The illusion of safety is represented by a parent believing that the act of knowing their kids’ whereabouts is sufficient.  The actual threat comes silently from screens and ear-buds and knows no safe boundaries.  While parents may sit in the same room with their kids, digital forces from unknown sources are competing for dominance and control of their thoughts.

The reality of my childhood that involved, literally, playing on the railroad tracks, hopping trains and jumping off cliffs into the deep waters of abandoned gravel pits was a better and more effective character developing experience that I would argue was in the long run not only safer, but better than being mentally and emotionally poisoned digitally, ironically under the silent illusion of a safety we failed to provide.

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Look How Far We Have Come??


The route to independence for pre-teen boys in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s was paved with paper:


Newspapers.

Before there was a digital, instant-access-age, twice daily local newspapers
were hand delivered to America’s door-steps by an army of young boys, over a million
strong at its zenith. Nearly half of all of the nation’s newspapers were handled by these
young entrepreneurs and I was one of them. Sadly, today that number has dropped to
near zero.

Commitment, being on time, managing your time, honesty, accuracy, math skills,-addingsubtracting,
managing money, counting change, managing credit, marketing, customerrelations,
communication, handling complaints, paper-work, banking, coping with
weather, delays, illness, fitness all of this and more was the responsibility of the newly
minted pre-teen business owner. As my customers came to know me, I mowed their
lawns in the summer and shoveled snow from their sidewalks and driveways in the winter.
How would that reality affect today’s pre-teens and teens?


I attended one of the highest ranked business schools in the country and I learned far
more about the realities of enterprise and life managing my paper route as a 12-year-old
than I did at the university. I’m still an entrepreneur and I continue to use those old,
familiar lessons every day; street-reality forged by experience. I was up-sell-marketing
before I knew it was a business term.


The real tragedy here is that right now, today, we have done nothing to replace that kind
of invaluable experience for our young people. There is a price to be paid for ignoring
this void and if you can pry the cell phones and ear-buds off today’s teens and pre-teens,
that blind spot we are ignoring becomes abundantly obvious by their blank stares and
struggle to effectively communicate.


My “graduation” from the paper-route was to the local gas station, a natural transition in
those days because customers did not pump their own gas, attendants did. Just shy of 16
and anxious to get my license, I was saving to trade my bicycle for a motorcycle and
eventually a car. A service station seemed like the place to learn more about all things
mechanical. Pumping gas for customers led to learning how to check the oil, filling or
changing a tire, even changing the oil, or spark plugs. Over time, even more methods of
mechanical know-how became a puzzle I solved that granted me access to remedies and
possibilities I previously knew nothing about and could not otherwise afford. Knowledge
becomes power when you can solve your own mechanical problems and at the same time
save money and gain independence. It was liberating, empowering and it gave me
confidence. It was a way to advance one more rung on life’s ladder and gain my
independence. I could transform a junk car into something useable and do it on a small
budget and when it broke, I could fix it.


Self-service gas pumping, grocery scanning and a host of other jobs previously manned
by an army of school-aged kids are now extinct in the age of automation. Again, we
leave behind a void and no intention of filling it, yet can we really expect to suffer no
effect? What I describe was my life growing up. Thank God for it and Thank God I was
able to introduce these kinds of working values to my own children, a genuine work-ethic.
Kids peddling newspapers and pumping gas are jobs and experiences never coming back
however, the life skills those jobs and many others like them instilled in those kids
provided a tremendous benefit we fail to provide today. Like everything in life, there is a
price for this failing and we can see it all around us as the mobs of phone-obsessed kids
trudge through life oblivious to their surroundings, mind-numbed by a screen and sadly
lacking of any of the kinds of “street-smarts” I managed to learn.


Today’s parental insistence on the physical “safety” of their kids justifies their hyperinsulation
from the realities of life. Paradoxically, kids will learn the longest-lasting
lessons about safety when parents allow them, (within reason and with calculation) to
experiment with their own judgment and at times be even a bit unsafe. You can’t know
where the margins are if you never push them. Close-calls forge real lessons and develop
better habits much more authentically than a hovering-smothering-over-protective and
lecturing parent. The mistakes and mis-steps we prevent our kids from taking will
correspondingly fail to teach them anything. Failure is a wonderful teacher when
consequences have real sting.


The illusion of safety is represented by a parent believing that the act of knowing their
kids’ whereabouts is sufficient. The actual threat comes silently from screens and earbuds
and knows no safe boundaries. While parents may sit in the same room with their
kids, digital forces from unknown sources are competing for dominance and control of
their thoughts.


The reality of my childhood that involved, literally, playing on the railroad tracks,
hopping trains and jumping off cliffs into the deep waters of abandoned gravel pits was a
better and more effective character developing experience that I would argue was in the
long run not only safer, but better than being mentally and emotionally poisoned digitally,
ironically under the silent illusion of a safety we failed to provide.

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The Mediocre Mind

I live in Port Dickinson NY where exiting onto the adjacent highway is a challenge. Old State Road, a small two-lane road intersects the divided four-lane Brandywine highway at a traffic light and even though you can see oncoming traffic for the better part of three-quarters of-a-mile, a sign prohibits turning right on red. I routinely ignore this prohibition, much to the consternation of my good friend Dave, who is a faithful rules-follower, believing that the fragility of the social order itself depends upon the bulk of humanity obeying rules and following the signs. He constantly lectures me about my cavalier attitude about “rules and signs” and I regularly tease him about his blind obedience to them.

The Brandywine was designed and built over 50-years ago before modern traffic engineering and design standards were conceived. Today, a 90-degree intersection of slow to fast traffic patterns is considered unsafe. Modern speed-differential intersections are either avoided entirely or on-off-ramps and traffic-circles are used, but in this case, we are still enjoying the old and dangerous method.

The stop-line marked on the pavement at this intersection is about 15-feet from the highway. When I approach this, I regularly ignore that line, drive beyond it to the edge of the intersection, so I can better see to my left, checking for oncoming traffic before I ignore that sign and turn right.

Good thing I did that yesterday.

As I gazed up the highway, I observed a white full-sized Ford pick-up truck approaching at a high rate of speed, changing lanes in order to turn right onto the road where I was sitting. As the truck careened around the corner, narrowly missing me, it ran up onto the lawn of an adjacent house, hit a pole, then another, before coming to rest on the second homes lawn, tires spinning and dirt flying as the driver tried to extricate the vehicle from the severely grooved up turf. Had I been sitting at the stop line, like a good little soldier of obedience, I would have been killed by this asshole.

Because I ignore stupid rules, I’m alive today.

Thank God it wasn’t Dave in that moment, minding his own business and faithfully playing by the rules, but dead nevertheless. When it doesn’t make sense, when it’s stupid or ill-thought-out, use your God-given intelligence and reasoning and ignore those things that might hurt or kill you in the process. It’s a stupid, fucking sign. Ignore it and live or relish your blind obedience towards your own demise.

“Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.”

— Harry Day

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Open letter to the US Soccer coach

July 9, 2026

Coach Pochettino:

You blew the single greatest opportunity you ever will have as a coach and worse yet you failed not only your players but our country.

After President Trump intervened causing FIFA to overturn the ban on Balogun, you should have called a news conference and said the following.

Although I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the extraordinary efforts exerted in order to reverse the Red-Card ban on Balogun that now allows him to play in our next contest against Belgium, I am here to announce that he will not be playing in this game and we are honoring the initial call made on the pitch. While I believe the call was wrong, it nevertheless stands in the absence of outside influence and even the appearance of impropriety is bad for the game and our mutual association as footballers. Preserving the integrity and spirit of honest and fair competition is more important than winning under a cloud of doubt.

I’m genuinely curious if the thought of doing what I suggest ever crossed your mind?

Had you done this, you would have galvanized your role as a great coach while ensuring the positive impression the United States has made on the world. You would have taught your players a life lesson they would never forget while burnishing the credentials of what we are as Americans.

As it stands now, not only did we get our asses handed to us, but we appear to be bad sports that will go crying to daddy when things don’t go our way. Just think of the difference our loss to Belgium would have been if we had taken the high-road. Perhaps we still would have lost, but who knows, maybe accepting that Red-Card penalty might have energized players and fans and just maybe a different outcome, but even in defeat, had we done as I suggest, we would have been universally cheered in our defeat and respected for our sense of fair play.

I played an Olympic sport at a high level on 3-US teams, captained the team against Mexico and also served as an Executive in the national governing body authoring the sports successful application to the US Olympic Committee so I know and understand sports at the level you are coaching. That said, you failed to see the single most important moment in your tenure and because of that failure, you should resign.

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DETOUR: Hi-Road CLOSED

The World Cup Soccer coming to the US and North America is a gigantic bright spot in a world sometimes not so nicely glistening.  So far, the US has enlightened, charmed and otherwise impressed the hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors experiencing the magic of what it means to be fortunate enough to be within or borders.  The opportunity to continue that charming winning streak is about to come to and end I’m afraid.

As I write this, the match between the US and Belgium is about 60-minutes away.  As you probably have heard by now, our star scorer was prohibited from playing in this game because of a Red Card violation in the prior game, requiring him to sit this one out.  Long story short, President Trump intervened in the situation and now, miracle of miracles, this player is back on the pitch, ready to play tonight.

What a monumental mistake.

If I were the US coach, I would call a news conference and announce that even though we are able now to play our best scorer, thanks to presidential interference, we are not going to do so and that player will remain on the bench for this game and not play.  I would further declare that I was resting him for the next match and that even though we could play him, we understand the optics are bad and in the interest of fairness and the appearance of manipulation, we choose to take the original penalty and carry on.

If we did that, the world would admire our sense of fairness and our sportsmanship and even our harshest critics would be hard pressed to find fault with our choice.

If we prevail over Belgium without our best scorer, that really says something.  If we lose, we lose, fair and square; we go home heads held high.

We have a chance to demonstrate to the world what it means to be an American, in the spirit of fairness and the perception of it, we can show the world that we walk the walk not just talk the talk, but it looks like we will not take that path.  What a shame.  We saw an opportunity to interject something into the system and we took advantage of it.  Now we can’t win for winning and we can certainly be assured of losing something much more important than a soccer match.

I hope we lose to Belgium, just so the criticism stops because the further we go into the finals of this tournament with the albatross of inside dealing hanging around our neck; the worse it looks for America and her supposed sense of fairness.

We had a chance to make a real statement in doing the right, but hard thing but in a few minutes, we will blow that opportunity.  What a shame.

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ICE Over-reach

The latest sequel to the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter debacle comes to you live from snow-white Minnesota with a cast of lily-white performers.  Noticeable differences include the absence of burned down neighborhoods and the twist in the plot that includes the cop in this case actually getting it wrong.

Bottom line on the ICE Shooting, if the agent could have gotten out of the way, he should have gotten out of the way. In reality he was able to get out of the way because he did get out of the way, uninjured, so again, clearly his life was not in danger, he simply had to step aside, which he did while firing his weapon.  Had he simply let her go, at most, charges would have been violations or at a stretch, low level misdemeanors.  Instead she is dead.  Not obeying a lawful order to stop, or to get out of the car, or whatever, is not license to use deadly force.

The shoot was bad.

The hoopla of course, has much to do with the built-up frustration, and hostility as America repeatedly witnesses angry-middle-class housewives turn into urban-warriorettes, pretending to be righteously indignant in order to be the center of attention in their wine-club.  Virtue signaling from the rare-air of the upper-middle class mommies looking for something to do makes them Tic-Tok and X celebrities, validated from the comfort of their SUV’s.

While they may be easy to hate, that doesn’t sign their death warrant.

And here is the most troubling part.  We are all so over-loaded with the barrage of stories coming from the news-cycle; we tend to forget over time what has happened.  In eight weeks or so, this episode will be a distant memory, covered over with whatever the next story will be and in some small by-line buried in the newspapers or perhaps not even mentioned in the larger media machine, the family of the dead woman in Minnesota will be paid an undisclosed sum of money and no admissions of wrong-doing will be forthcoming and with that, we’re off to the next stop for our outrage machine to become re-engaged.

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Spectrum News Bias

Spectrum news anchor JoDee Kenney made a comment this weekend about the issuance of Commercial Drivers Licenses, (CDL) in New York, referencing national news about states lax oversight, professed by National Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy when he was addressing recent instances of truck drivers that can’t speak English and can’t read or understand road signs.

Kenney made the comment that these CDL audits were mainly occurring in “Blue States” and inferred, directly, that this was a form of retaliation coming from the administration.

Kenney is supposed to be a news anchor, not an opinion host.  Her obvious bias disqualifies her from serious credibility as an anchor and she should either step down or be removed.

These are the FACTS:

The Department is now moving to withhold $73 million in federal funding if New York fails to follow the law, revoke every illegally issued license

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy today announced that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) nationwide audit of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) uncovered that the New York Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has been routinely issuing CDLs to foreign drivers illegally. The federal audit exposed a shocking 53 percent failure rate in the records sampled, indicating a total collapse in the administration of New York’s CDL program.   
 
FMCSA’s audit of New York’s non-domiciled CDL issuance practices found numerous failures by the state of New York including:  

  • Out of 200 sampled records, 107 were issued in violation of federal law—a failure rate of over 53%. 
  • The DMV’s systems defaulted to issuing 8-year licenses to foreign drivers for non-REAL ID licenses, regardless of when their legal status expired.
  • New York issued commercial licenses to foreign drivers without providing any evidence that it had verified their current lawful presence in the United States.

“When more than half of the licenses reviewed were issued illegally, it isn’t just a mistake—it is a dereliction of duty by state leadership. Gov. Hochul must immediately revoke these illegally issued licenses. If they refuse to follow the law, we will withhold federal highway funding,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “This administration will never stop fighting to keep you and your family safe on our roads.” 
 
In a stunning admission, New York DMV officials confirmed that their licensing system is programmed to default to an automatic 8-year expiration for non-REAL ID CDLs—intentionally disregarding the expiration of a foreign driver’s lawful presence in the U.S. This systemic failure allows the state to blindly grant long-term commercial driving privileges to foreigners that expire long after the expiration of their lawful presence in the country. 

Spectrum is and always has been strongly Left-Leaning and this particular story involving Kenney should be corrected and taken down as opinion not news.  Spectrum needs to apologize to their viewers for mixing opinion with news and Kenney needs to be fired.

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Mixed Signals

All of my friends and colleagues were shocked and puzzled by my opinion about the ongoing saga concerning Kilmar Abrego Garcia and as you can see, (if you care anymore), it seems that I am right.  He is still here, even after presidential efforts to disappear him. 

Even after a carefully orchestrated and relentless character assassination campaign with zero proof, the Great Unwashed of the minimally informed that seek validation over truth have made up their small minds.  With the senseless murder of an innocent young girl followed by Charlie Kirk’s assassination days later, for many, the weight of the news cycle buries and paves over their desire to retain information or even muster up the will to care.

Fully armed and sure of their logical purity, I would ask the gang of “the-very-sure” that have the Garcia thing all figured out to consider the following.

Some few days ago, federal agents raided a Hyundai plant in Georgia and arrested some 300 Korean nationals on site.  After nearly a week of involuntary jail incarceration, the administration did an about-face, releasing all 300 and providing charter air service back to Korea.  Come to find out, upon further investigation, these detainees all had B-1 visas, allowing them to be in the US legally.

Trump originally declares they are here illegally.  A week later, he invites them to stay.

These men were engineers here to build the state-of-the-art car manufacturing plant.  Now, completion times have been moved back dramatically.  What Korean engineer in his right mind wants to visit America after this fiasco?

Nobody understands and lives by the mantra of, I would rather ask for forgiveness than seek permission that I do, but expedience needs to be curtailed by the rule of law and the Constitution when it come to human rights and the lives of people.  Those who look the other way or excuse Trump on the basis of what he can get done quickly need to square in their own minds the fact that when those they oppose do similar contradictory things, the scrutiny is higher.  This is the definition of a hypocrite.   

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Follow-Up

I write articles and stories for a wide variety of outlets. Sometimes when I fail to gain the attention of a publisher, I drop the article into my personal blog you’re reading now. I’ve written a few pieces on the on-going saga of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and as you can see in the comments, I have few supporters. The last article I posted here was rejected by the publisher of a blog site called AmericanThinker.com. In the editors rejection notes to me, we had a spirited back-and-forth that I thought you might enjoy reading so I have copied and pasted it below. Looks like I’m hitting nerves!

On Thu, Aug 28, 2025 at 8:15 AM Bob <hmrun123@aol.com> wrote:

You argued with me about this some months ago and come to find out you were wrong.  Maybe now this is timely?

Bob:

I’m afraid that pillorying the Trump administration on behalf of a gangster and human trafficker is not something that will play with AT readers. We’re going to pass. 

Best,

JR Dunn

On Fri, Aug 29, 2025 at 8:27 AM Bob <hmrun123@aol.com> wrote:

JR:

There is nothing in what I wrote that is incorrect factually.  Gangster?  Zero proof.  Human Trafficker, again zero proof, read what I wrote.  If you’re a Trump at all costs guy, you’re really not doing your readers any service feeding them only what they want to hear.  There a many flavors of ice cream, seems you’re hooked on plain vanilla. 

 “And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith”

In a message dated 8/30/2025 7:04:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time, jrdunn@americanthinker.com writes:

— JR Dunn 

Bob:

I’ll stick with plain vanilla rather than the Ben & Jerry’s Diesel Oil with Sea Slugs that’s being presented here. 

BTW, a colleague reminded me that we should add “wife beater” to “gangster” and “human trafficker.” 

JR:

Here it is in its simplest form:  Are you familiar with the legal concept known as the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine?  If not, Google it.  Had the administration not erred in grabbing Garcia up and unlawfully taking him to prison in the first place, (Which BTW they admitted doing) none of what followed would have taken place.  What followed was literally the fruit of the poisonous tree.

Don’t EVER declare in your writings that, “we are a nation of laws” or otherwise tout lawfulness when you approve of trampling all over civil and constitutional rights as a necessary casualty of getting to the outcome you have pretended to envision as the right one.  Your position in this case is one of a dogmatic ideologue suffering from cognitive dissonance.  (Thankfully, this can be treated.)  

Thank you for making my point so vividly in your tortured defense calling for crucifixion via the publics ignorance of due process and making your case only attractive in the public square of group-think low-information consumers of news. 

You and your colleague ought to sign up for a Constitutional Law course in order to elucidate yourselves.  I’ll take as convincingly persuasive, the quotes I reference from members of the judiciary over your tepid and unsupported utterances passing as authoritative.

If you had any creative courage at all, you would publish what I wrote with your 2-cent warning label about how full of crap you think I am, but reminding readers about how you are of a big enough mind to put what I wrote out there to see what others might think.  One would think you would relish watching me get flamed?  It seems to me that you’re all about reinforcing your opinions rather than exploring alternatives.  Not really so courageous.

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Disconnected

NYS Governor Hochul (of all the unlikely people) demonstrated long over-due leadership by banning student cell phone use in public schools.  This begs the question of why local leaders controlling the 731 school districts throughout NYS failed to do so on their own?  Who in God’s name thought it wise to provide kids with another distraction or way to cheat?  Maybe with test scores being so abysmal, school officials hoped that the cell phone induced cheating would improve their numbers?

Did any of the geniuses that manage our schools really believe cell phones would have no negative effect?  As it stands, kids are completely intoxicated by their phones.  For many, their social skills suck, they can’t carry on a reasonable conversation and their attitudes, well they suck as well.

History is a fine teacher and I’m old enough to have a historical perspective based on my own experience and I can tell you this, with certainty.  The overwhelming majority of school leaders from 50+ years ago would have banned cell phones from day one.  This is because back then, leaders actually led.  They didn’t  wait for legislation, regulation or questionnaires to know what was smart and what was stupid and allowing cell phones in schools is on its face stupid.  What passes for leadership in schools today is little more than cowardly custodianship.

Waiting to be told what anyone with a pulse knew was a problem and then applauding the effort demonstrates how leaderless our schools actually are.  You see, the youngest members of the educational establishment just coming aboard are also from the cell phone dynasty and have the same social issues and screen addictions as their students.

And to cap off what is already a colossal joke, the governor allots $13.5 for phone storage bags.

Seriously?

Again, common sense goes something like this.  Kids, you have 3 choices when it comes to your phones.  1.  Leave them home, (best choice.)  2.  If you drive, leave it in your car.  3.  Leave it in your locker with the ringer off.  There you go, common sense solution and $13 million saved.

What the hell is wrong with these people?  This is the best we’ve got?  Talk about phoning it in….  

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