Friday, April 15, 2016

Returning to the Gym

Well, two weeks after reactivating my athletic club membership and at least a year since I last exercised there, I stepped inside and actually used the exercise equipment.

Did it feel as if I had never left? You jest. It felt more like I had never been there in the first place! Actually, it wasn't quite that bad but that's mainly because I principally used the treadmill, not a difficult machine to figure out, and the jacuzzi!

The next big challenge will be to go again and to develop some kind of regimen that keeps me going there on a regular basis.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

#FeelTheHeat, Bernie

It's about time #BernieSanders has begun to feel what it's like to be a real candidate for President. 

Calls for him to actually release his income tax returns, not just the Form 1040 summary page. Interviews challenging him to detail how he would break up the big banks, to which he has no specific answers. And that's not even focusing on his disastrous record on gun control. Or critiques of his healthcare and public college tuition plans made by liberal economists. 

It's no longer #FeelTheBern. It's #FeelTheHeat.

Monday, April 4, 2016

Attending a College Without Fraternities

I just read an interesting article in Haaretz on Facebook dated April 3, 2016, about a swastika being drawn in condensation on a window of a Jewish fraternity house off campus at Brandeis University, my alma mater. I was saddened to read of this loathsome behavior. But I admit that what really caught my eye was the reference to a fraternity at Brandeis. In fact, because of that, at first I thought the swastika story was an April Fools joke. It wasn't.

And, apparently, fraternities (and, to a lesser extent, sororities) have come to Brandeis as well. Not officially, it seems, but in reality. The University apparently continues to ban fraternities from campus but apparently they exist off campus and recruit students. 

When I attended Brandeis in the early 1960s, Greek organizations were not permitted and, to my knowledge, none existed off campus for Brandeis students. But apparently times have changed.

I always found the ban on fraternities and sororities a good thing but, then, given my propensities, I probably wasn't fraternity material so that not having them around meant that one other set of social institutions that would likely reject me wasn't around to cause me grief! 

Instead, I was able to thrive in student government and in other milieus at Brandeis to which access for me might have been more difficult had the school had active Greek organizations.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Hillary and the New York Primary

I'm reminded that New York is a closed primary. I guess that suggests that if Hillary loses it's significant. And California, for the Democrats, is an open primary which suggests that, particularly if Sanders were to win in New York, he will be able to give Hillary a run for her money. 

Yes, Hillary will lose Wisconsin. But New York will be a measure of whether she is strong enough among Democrats themselves. I hope she is because, if she isn't, the doubts about her and her candidacy will surely grow.