Gray Matter Musings Archives - Page 18 of 19

All Quiet on the Email Front

By Chris Carosa on August 2, 2016

For nearly two days now the many email folders in my universe have remained quiet. It’s called “propagation” in the jargon of internet specialists. I call it “bliss.” I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be off the grid. A long, long time ago (in what seems like a far distant galaxy), I shunned email. Does this surprise you? It should and it shouldn’t. I’ve always told people I was either born fifty years too early or fifty years too late. The former is revealed in my affinity for such things as classic trains, old time Americana, and the Marx Brothers. The latter manifests itself through my enthusiasm for astronomy and space exploration, the social possibilities of crowd-based technology solutions, and the new media.

Truth be told, for all the technology edges I’ve found leading, I’m really a stubborn old coot. Yes, it’s true that in 1989 we were able to start a weekly community newspaper in no time because we utilized the strange new world of “Pagemaker” and “laser printers.” But, do you realize, I had still avoided all use of ATMs? I had no problem digitizing print media. I abhorred the thought of ceding my preciously small bank account to some soulless Continue Reading “All Quiet on the Email Front”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Compuserve, email, Hayes Modem, Prodigy, Servetech

Trump, Truth, and Confirmation Bias

By Chris Carosa on July 26, 2016

I’ve been retired from active politics for more than two decades. In that time, I’ve focused on my primary business – picking winning stocks and avoiding losing stocks. It’s almost impossible to bat a thousand doing this, but I believe (and hope I’ve demonstrated) there’s a way to increase your odds.

Shortly after I left the political realm, I began in earnest to take on the financial industry establishment. (Truth be told, as readers of my initial run as publisher of The Sentinel know, I actually started this years before.) As a new firm, I had to find a position that differentiated our services from our competitors. Taking on the establishment wasn’t a rebel yell, it was a marketing imperative. Quite simply, no new business can survive if it Continue Reading “Trump, Truth, and Confirmation Bias”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged behavioral economics, Donald Trump, Modern Portfolio Theory, MPT, Neil Cavuto, politics, psychology, Ronald Reagan, Rorschach Test

America’s Pastime Sadly Past its Time

By Chris Carosa on July 19, 2016

I’ve been blessed to have lived a Norman Rockwell youth. Sure, I grew up in the gritty shadow of the Bethlehem Steel complex in the snowbelts south of Buffalo. Indeed, my elementary schools and my church were literally in those shadows. And, with my house abutting the New York State’s most famous interstate, the rush of Thruway traffic lulled me to sleep every night. (To this day people wonder how I can get to sleep when staying on the lower hotel floors in noisy New York City.)

Yet, despite the seemingly urban nature of my childhood environs, it endures as an idyllic Continue Reading “America’s Pastime Sadly Past its Time”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged A. Barlett Giamatti, baseball, Bill Veeck, Cooperstown, Eddie Gaedel, Hall of Fame, Pete Rose

A Parent’s Lament

By Chris Carosa on June 18, 2016

Has this ever occurred to you as we enter the season of celebration for all those graduating from high school: There are an awful lot of speeches made on behalf of these newly minted scholars, but precious few devoted to their parents.

It’s been a year now since Betsy and I officially became empty nesters. We’ve been told there are two typical responses from new empty nesters: Building a shrine in the suddenly vacant room of their now adult children; or, Reverting back to the hectic social life one had before those same children entered the picture. Or course, if you’re like us and had no social life to begin with, there’s a third way: Be too busy to notice anything.

But I’ll leave the various strategies for empty nesters for a later session. Here the lament of which I speak is akin to the “letting the birds fly” concept. Like peanut allergies, it appears this affliction occurs more frequently today than in past generations. But we need to go back a few generations to identify the Continue Reading “A Parent’s Lament”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Dr. Haim Ginott, free-rider, graduation, helicopter parent, Susan Swann, Vince Lombardi

Ruling the World My Way

By Chris Carosa on June 13, 2012

As I write this, alone, past midnight on June 12/13, 2012, I listen to an endless replay of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, a tear welling in my eye, as I see my life passing before me.

For a long time, the song that most defined me was Sinatra’s My Way. Not Paul Anka’s My Way, but Frank Sinatra’s. I know it’s a cliché, and I’ve asked my family never to play that song as an homage to life at my wake. I’ve asked that primarily because it’s a cliché, not because it’s not appropriate, or, at least, wasn’t appropriate.

There was something about Sinatra’s defiance that makes his interpretation of Anka’s lyrics so alluring. Even as a high school teenager, I found myself attracted to the song and, in particular, Sinatra’s stiff chinned version. Sure, I liked the eternal optimism of The Impossible Dream, but that tune, without a definitive version, had only the poetry of its Continue Reading “Ruling the World My Way”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Frank Sinatra, My Way, Paul Anka, The Impossible Dream, Viva La Vida

Letting Go

By Chris Carosa on March 29, 2012

There’s a scene at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy, despite being precariously perched on the cusp of certain death, desperately reaches for the elusive Holy Grail. “I can get it,” he gasps to his father, “I can almost reach it, Dad…”

Professor Henry Jones, who had been searching for the Holy Grail his whole life but now just as desperately is trying to save his suddenly smitten offspring, gently says, “Indiana.” His surprised son looks up at him. “Indiana,” continues the father, “let it go.”

And so he does.

Imagine spending your whole life striving to achieve that one goal, only to purposely back away when it lay within your clear grasp. How would you feel? What would be so important to have you “let it go”? And could you ever again hold as deep a conviction as what once drove you to that precipice?
Continue Reading “Letting Go”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings Tagged motivation, philosophy

How to Declare War

By Chris Carosa on December 1, 2011

[This Commentary originally appeared in the November 29, 1990 issue of The Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.]

What the Constitution says: The Constitution of the United States of America clearly states only Congress can declare war on another nation. Our founding fathers correctly determined the impropriety of putting an entire nation at risk as a result of one person having too much authority. Though naming him Commander-in-Chief, they astutely forbade the President from declaring war.

Constitutional scholars call this juxtaposition the separation of powers. The separation of powers between the three major branches of government creates a very durable system of Continue Reading “How to Declare War”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Commander-in-Chief, Congress, Constitution, Grenada, Gulf War, Iraq, James Madison, Korea, Kuwait, Libya, Panama, President George H.W. Bush, President Nixon, Saddam, Thomas Jefferson, Vietnam, War Powers Act

Penalize Colorado! Ethics Begins on the Football Field

By Chris Carosa on October 20, 2011

[This Commentary originally appeared in the October 18, 1990 issue of The Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.]

Sure I wanted Notre Dame to score on that last second touchdown pass. Just like a lot of other people, I was disappointed when the receiver dropped the ball. Yet, something else occurred on that particular Saturday which upset me even more.

College football bashing seems to be a regular event among the more erudite columnists. Many people complain the big money business of NCAA football runs counter to the spirit of the educational university. Certainly, we can’t encourage putting bucks ahead of books. But a solid education must Continue Reading “Penalize Colorado! Ethics Begins on the Football Field”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged 1972 Olympic basketball, Bill McCartney, Colorado, education, ethics, Extracurricular Activities, fair play, football, honesty, NCAA, philosophy, Vince Lombardi

The Speed of Light

By Chris Carosa on October 13, 2011

[This Commentary originally appeared in the October 11, 1990 issue of The Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.]

One hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second. It takes light about one and one-third seconds to go from the Earth to the Moon. We know this because scientists have shot lasers at the reflectors the Apollo astronauts left on the lunar surface. The Moon orbits at a distance of 240,000 miles from the Earth.

One hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second. The light emitted from our Sun has aged a little over eight minutes by the time it hits the Earth. The Earth circles the Sun from a span of 93 million miles away.

One hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second. That’s equal to nearly six trillion miles in one year. We refer to this distance as one light-year. The nearest star (Proxima Centauri) looms a mere 4.3 light-years from our Solar System. That translates to just Continue Reading “The Speed of Light”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Alpha Centauri, Apollo, distance to moon, distance to Sun, Einstein, ether, Galilean Transformation, Galileo, light-year, Michelson, Michelson-Morley, Morley, Newton, Principia, Proxima Centauri, Relativity, science fiction, Speed of light, Theory of Relativity, wave-particle duality

More Lasting Than Bronze

By Chris Carosa on March 22, 2011

Exegi monumentum aere perennius.

Horace begins a sarcastic ode on his own immortality with the above phrase, which translates to “I have erected a monument more lasting than bronze.” Ironically, in our continuing study of this poem, Horace has, indeed, achieved a form of immortality, one invulnerable to the physical ravages of time.

Last week I wrote a fanciful speech I never intended to deliver (“Et tu, Espagnol?”). This week, however, fate guided me to the School Board meeting where, with no preparation I delivered the following remarks (perhaps slightly embellished for the purposes of this page):

“I am reminded of a time some twenty or so years ago when a different Continue Reading “More Lasting Than Bronze”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life Tagged HFL, Honeoye Falls, Latin, Lima, Mendon, orchestra, string