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May 13, 2013
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
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Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
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Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
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Jewish World Review
Why do bad things happen to stupid people?
By
Jim Mullen
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I just read a news story about a guy who got $14 million in 1998 from the sale of his family's business. Then through a series of accidents, he lost most of it during the current recession -- his riches disappeared in under 12 years.
First, the government took $4 million in taxes. Who knew the government was going to tax income? When did they start doing that? Then he accidentally bought $7 million worth of houses in England, Vermont and one in an exclusive upstate New York vacation spot into which he poured about $5 million worth of improvements, including a three-story boathouse. You know, the necessities. Then he accidentally bought a few horses -- one that cost $173,000 -- and a few cars, like a $400,000 Aston Martin to get to the horse-food store. Then he accidentally borrowed money to play the stock market.
When the recession hit, he had to sell his houses, which were worth much less than he paid for them. Long story short … he accidentally went broke. Now he actually has to work for a living at a job that will never pay him enough to buy a new car or an old horse.
He says he accidentally got some bad financial advice.
When I first heard this story I said, "Wow, what bad luck, maybe I should send him some money. These kinds of accidents could happen to almost anyone."
Like a lot of people, this guy was just unlucky. Like those American hikers who accidentally strayed into Iran and got arrested and have been in jail there for over a year and are about to go on trial. What a tragic accident. After all, there's no place to hike in North America, excluding the Rockies, the Sierra Nevada, the Appalachians, the Grand Canyon and a few thousand other places. You almost have to go to a hostile, war-torn region to get in any good hiking. The Alps and the Andes just won't do. So they accidentally wandered across the border to Iran? That could happen to anybody. They thought they were still in the tourist- and hiking paradise of Iraq.
Almost every day I read about an accident-prone person who has wrapped himself around a tree on the way home from bar or someone who accidentally overdoses on heroin or accidentally marries someone they don't really get along with. Why do these accidents keep happening to good people? Why do rock climbers fall? Why do people die at the top of Mount Everest? Why do racecar drivers crash? Why do some skydiver's parachutes fail to open? Why do most donor hearts come from motorcyclists? Why does bad luck follow some people around like a Justin Bieber groupie? If only there was something they could do to improve their luck. Some people are just born accident-prone I guess.
There's just nothing that can be done about it.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Jim Mullen is the author of "It Takes a Village Idiot: Complicating the Simple Life" and "Baby's First Tattoo."
Previously:
Moving on from movie theaters
Money never sleeps, but it does pass out
President Trump kept it classy
Stalking your college kid won't change a thing
Putting my life in Jeopardy
Mo' government, mo' problems
iLostIt
Dressed for excess
Expert tease
The mysteries of Jersey
You are a toilet, where am I?
Don't we all cheat at the game of life?
What happens when I forget where Google is?
Don't let the doorman hit you on the way out
Picasso fiasco
Purple (hair) Daze
Let me hear your body talk
Working from work
Babies deserve clean restrooms, too
3-year-old bear-killers are a thing of the past
Money-making ideas on the fly
Collecting and hoarding
Chain of fools
Please come pick up your acting awards, ESPN commentators, you've earned them
You've been superpoked by the U.S. gov't
e-Readin', e-Writin' and e-Rithmatic
A pose by any other name
Warning: Column contains 2010 spoilers
He loves only gold, only gold
Think about direction, wonder why …
Flushing your money down a diamond-studded toilet
More like wack Friday
The good, the ad and the ugly
The desert of the real
Let books be large and in charge
I was insulting people way before the Internet
GPS drill sergeant: Left, right, left!
Butterfly in the sky, you make winds go twice as high
Music to my ears it's not
You don't light up my life
Fair or not: Country living is far from Little House
A parable for the ages
Top 100 Cable news stories of the century
Green dumb
A developing story
Thinking outside the lunch box
What's good for the goose is good for the scanner
Newspapers will survive, but network TV?
A really big show of generation gaps
When pigs flu
The reports of our decline have been greatly exaggerated
Mergers and admonitions
Invest in gold: little, yellow, different
Stuck in Folsom Penthouse
Collecting karma
Setting loose the creative juice
It's all in the numbers
You're damaging your brain with practical skills
The real rat pack
The unspeakable luxury of the Park-O-Matic
Gross-ery shopping
© 2009, NEA
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