Happy New Year

January 2, 2018

Happy New Year

happy new year

Mark Rubin

Days go by fast or slow, depending on what’s up, my mood, etc. Weeks and months and years? They pass like a train in the biggest hurry to get to who knows where. 2018 already? Incredible!

With yet another loss at the end of a year, my mind wandered to an emblem of aging: more funerals than weddings. Googling that phrase took me to Ecclesiastes 7:2: It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart. Hmmm! From writings which include the reminder that there’s a time for everything and a season

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Days of Awe / Personal Reflections

October 1, 2017

Days of Awe / Personal Reflections

markrubin

Mark Rubin

The Days of Awe aka High Holy Days—the days which encompass Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—ended at sundown on September 30. Ten days, for reflection and repentance. Jews look back, of course, for reflecting and repenting demand that perspective, but our most important 10 days are very much about going forward.

Reflecting, in a blog, leaves me totally comfortable. Repenting? Not so much. No big confessions here!

During the last several days much has been on my mind. The sorting process leaves me focused on Luck* and Openness. (There’s also a trial in eight weeks, moving, PredictIt –my new cool distraction, etc.)

Luck and I know one another well. A better

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Obamacare Repeal, and Free Labor and Employment Markets

September 21, 2017

Oh my G-d, have I written about the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare! More than 700 posts, and almost 10% mention the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. Here are a few of my favorites:

Health Insurance: Getting Personal

Who Called the Viruses and Bacteria?

More on Health Care … and We v. Me-I

Trouble Ahead: Thoughts on Health Care

The game ends on September 30, 2017, at midnight, Eastern Daylight Time. Senate reconciliation rules—obtuse to the nth—mandate that the Senate pass a new law by September 30, or not at all in 2017. (Not clear? Whether the House of Representatives must pass the same bill by 9/30, or if it can simply adopt the same bill before the Senate adjourns

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On Turning 60

September 16, 2017

On Turning 60

almost 60

On the High Line, Days Shy of 60

So, 60 I am. First, the day.

September 14 arrived as most days do. Early. There must be some Upper Midwest stock in me, for I live a little like a Norwegian Bachelor Farmer might. (Actually, nothing about me matches the link, but I rise early, I work hard, I go to bed early, and I’m not married. And I am planning a vegetable garden at my new home.)

Thursday rocked on. Lots of Facebook greetings, and I responded to all of them. At least I think—and hope—I did.

Facebook has its detractors. I understand some of the issues associated with FB, and I know many who don’t like

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I’m So Vain, and Other Stuff (the Bee)

August 25, 2017

I’m So Vain, and Other Stuff (the Bee)

Greenwood SC

Totality

You’re So Vain by Carly Simon—every thinking man’s “you know what” (13, 9, 12, 6, and you figure it out)—includes in its third stanza the following words:

Then you flew your Lear jet to Nova Scotia, to see the total eclipse of the sun.

So we had a total eclipse of the sun on August 21, 2017, in the United States of America. No, Donald Trump gets no credit for it. And when Hari Sreenivasan mentioned on the NewsHour last week that the total eclipse was scheduled for Monday, I thought he might have “special knowledge” about end times. Maybe I’d be “done for” in South Carolina.

South Carolina. I’d

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Cacophony of Crap: The Trump Decades

August 3, 2017

Cacophony of Crap: The Trump Decades

cacophony crap

Cacophony of Crap, Mess of Merde, Superadundance of  … well, you get the idea! The man has been in office for just about 194 days. Roughly 16.693 million seconds. I’m exhausted, and not shy about fessing up!

Remember when President Donald Trump fired James Comey, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Within a day or so the president said, about the firing: “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” We all screamed obstruction of justice. Remember? Wait. What? “Who’s James Comey?” Feels like eons ago!

There’s good stuff happening in the Time of Trump, for sure. Check on your retirement accounts. You’ll smile. For me, at

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You Can’t Go Home Again

July 28, 2017

You Can’t Go Home Again

mark hat

In April 2012—more than five years ago—I wrote You Can’t Go Home Again. (Truth be told, and I only note this because I read the piece again, I wrote the piece, mostly, in April 2011, when my daughter enrolled at my and her mother’s alma mater.) Alas, I had more Can’t Go Home experiences this week.

Two-day strategic planning conference. “Show up!” I did, and I gave myself a mini-staycation at our venue, Loews Ventana Canyon Resort. The resort sits less than a mile from the home my former spouse and I built and first slept in on Friday, March 13, 1992. The place our daughter called home for almost 24 years.

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Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and the Promise

July 24, 2017

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and the Promise

Mr. President

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels came to mind a bit ago, as I contemplated yet another piece of high drama in the never ending “let’s mess with health care” drama.* Truth be told, I don’t know whether there’s any plot linkage between repeal and replace, and the twists and turns associated with the Big Con on the Riviera. (Not a movie I ever saw.) The title fits, and that’s more farce than this despicable disgrace deserves.

Republicans offer one primary justification for repeal and replace: the promise. Ladies and gents, have you ever made a promise, only to find out later that what you promised won’t work anymore? Or, reflecting, that you were wrong from the

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The Loft Cinema and Dunkirk

July 23, 2017

The Loft Cinema and Dunkirk

loft cinema

dunkirk

I saw Dunkirk Thursday evening at 7 p.m. at the Loft Cinema. We don’t do movies at Mark Rubin Writes, Father’s Day 2016, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the Loft Cinema excepted. But I’m obliged to shout out for the Loft Cinema and independent theaters, and I have some thoughts about movie-watching.

Film—and, for now, I use that word most loosely—and my DNA don’t link up well. I watch almost no television. I never see more than one or two of the Best Picture Academy Award nominees, and a year having seen none happens. (Truth be told, in the last few years the show put on by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts

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