Osama bin Laden... UBL... Usama bin Laden...

No matter how you spell his name, it's true... we got him.

Finally.

It's about time, huh?

10 years later, we finally got him.

I was out with a bunch of friends watching a WWE Pay-Per View, of all things. Yes, I’m a pro wrestling fan… get over it.

I started getting a ton of emails saying that President Obama was going to make a last minute statement at 10:30 PM that night. But it didn’t say what his statement was going to be about.

Naturally, I started to wonder what Obama was going to speak about. I began to debate if it would be regarding Muammar Ghaddafi’s son and grandsons being killed in a NATO airstrike earlier that weekend. Or if there were a brand new development in the Middle East. Or if it was something completely different and something that hadn’t hit the news cycle quite yet.

Never in a million years did it even enter my thought process that Obama would be announcing that the United States had killed a major terrorist threat, much less the most wanted man on the planet, Osama bin Laden. But as the Pay-Per-View ended and we turned to CNN, I soon discovered that was precisely what had occurred (in addition to learning that Obama was already running late to making his statement).

When the news coverage confirmed that was, in fact, what had happened, feelings of shock, happiness, and sadness (yes, sadness as well) came over me. Shock, because it’s certainly not every day that the most wanted person on the planet gets taken out, not to mention that nothing at all was leaked to the public at any point in the months of intelligence gathering stages of the operation or its ultimate execution.

Happiness, since, of course, the mastermind behind the 9/11 plot, as well as other attacks on U.S. citizens, and citizens of many of our allies as well, had been taken out and brought to justice.

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The break is over…

The holiday break that is… Not just for me, since clearly I’m back with a new column…

But for everyone… And I know this because everyone is back to being completely self-centered and obnoxious as they are during the remaining days, weeks, and months of the calendar.

Is this surprising? Drum roll please… no, not at all.

Unfortunately, this has been the pattern I’ve noticed over the last several years. The holidays roll around, and everyone is in a great mood and is all nicey-nice to one another… actually polite to one another… actually considerate of others. And then, as New Year’s becomes more of a distant memory, so does that behavior.

Case in point: I was in the library in the days leading up to Christmas, and a man rushed in to return his books. Smiling and happy, he told every person he saw “Happy holidays! Happy new year!” whether they worked at the library or not. But then, when I returned to the library about a week and a half ago, with the holidays in the rear view mirror, I witnessed a patron throwing a fit to a librarian about, well, I don’t even know what…

Shocker, shocker…

Clearly the holidays bring out the best in people quite a bit of the time, if not — dare I say — the vast majority of the time. But unfortunately, this is a temporary phenomenon. It comes and, of course, goes on a yearly basis. The consistent niceness and politeness comes every year along with the arrival of Christmas decorations and goes every year with the ending of the good sales at the mall.

I understand why the holidays always seem to bring out the civility, friendliness, and niceness in people. What just doesn’t quite seem to compute in my head is why it takes the holidays to bring it out in the first place, and why it can’t last all year round. I mean, if people have the ability to behave so well at one point in …   More

I tell my friends I think a girl is cute all the time…

And I’ve never been accused of sexual harassment…

A couple of weeks ago, a 9 year-old 4th grader in North Carolina did just that. He told a friend in his class that he thought a girl was cute. In this case, the girl in question was his teacher, who happened to be out that day. His substitute teacher heard this comment made to his friend, and reported it as a complaint to the school’s principal. The school’s principal then in turn, suspended the 4th grader.

Take a second and think about that.

Really think about that for a second…

A 9 year-old boy… was suspended, for sexual harassment… He’s 9 years old! He doesn’t even know what sexual harassment is!

Unless he’s Courtney Love’s son or something… which certainly doesn’t seem to be the case…

And yet, this 9 year-old boy, for making what in his mind was surely an innocent, innocuous comment, was punished and given a 5 day suspension.

Now, a few days later, a higher power stepped in and wrong was righted when the district overturned the suspension, expunged it from his record, sent a formal letter of apology to his mother, the principal resigned, and the boy was given additional instruction assistance for the time he forced to miss in his class.

But all of this makes me wonder: Have we taken things too far in regard to rules and regulations, and do we take the execution of them to a ridiculous extent at times?

There’s been some ridiculousness at the TSA over the last few weeks as well. Three elderly women and grandmothers, all of whom were over the age of 65, and all of whom have medical conditions, were forced to submit to strip searches at JFK airport here in New York.

Really? Grandmas? You’re going to go after grandmas? They’re now the big threats to our national security? Is it the sucking candies or reading glasses …   More

In the course of producing guest columns for the Herald, I’ve had an opportunity to review the political machinations in Albany in some detail. My first eight columns left little doubt that a wide range of serious problems preclude the possibility of an effective, efficient government.

Our newly elected governor addressed these concerns in his “State of the State” message, promising to get the state’s fiscal house in order; radically redesign our governmental structures and operations and restore integrity and performance to state government. In particular, he envisions the transformation of a government known for dysfunction, gridlock and corruption, to a government of performance, integrity and pride. An interesting set of metaphors displayed on a banner of hope for all to see.

“Albany’s fiscal crisis and the road to redemption,” published on Jan. 13, leveraged the address, emphasizing what is actually required to restore confidence in our broken political process. Five additional columns commented on the shenanigans evident in dealing with both the budget deficit and the process.

Assuming your interest in the subject of reform, it is fair to ask if we are any better off today than when all of the exuberance expressed made headlines. Even more importantly, is there any way we can really assess performance? My next three columns will examine this question in detail, focusing on key stakeholders’ accomplishments in the reform process. For now let’s do an overall assessment.

Two hot topics are making news. In an attempt to stem the ruinous growth in New York’s public pensions, to his credit, Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to create a new pension tier that would save billions over the next 30 years, a grand plan that hardly addresses the absurdities of the current system. Ethics reform is equally disingenuous, with a 113-page bill that would require lawmakers to disclose only new client relationships “brought” in after 2012. Ultimate …   More

Washington D.C. is probably my favorite city in the country.

Behind Manhattan, that is, of course…

My girlfriend and I headed to D.C. last weekend to visit some of her college friends and get away for a couple of days. We hung out with her friends, went to a museum (the Newseum, to be exact, since I’m a big geek like that), went out to eat, went out for drinks, and just had a good time.

Which in a sense, is a challenging feat for me…

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the time I have to relax when I have it. It’s just difficult for me to let go of work to fully let go. I know that holds true for so many other people, as well.

We’re living in a unique time; not only are we — as a society and as a global community — in the midst of a technological and digital revolution and transition period, but it’s occurring during the worst economy and job market in almost one hundred years. Times haven’t been this hard since the nation was crippled by The Great Depression.

That creates an interesting, and at times, certainly unfortunate yield. Because of the challenging job market and economy, people are under even more pressure to perform at work and even excel, but without promotions or raises. After all, no one wants it to go the other way and be the one to get the axe if layoffs become necessary.

This, all the while, during a digital revolution, where to keep up with the newest technologies — ranging from something as simple as cable television (rather than a digital converter box for basic broadcast channels) to something a bit more intricate like a data package for an iPhone — incurs a monthly cost. Don’t pay it and you’ll fall behind the curve and get left behind. Not to mention that the technology that we all have at our fingertips also keeps us much more connected to our jobs, and our jobs much more connected to us.

That’s by no means the only rationale for why …   More

In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the song “Happy days are here again!” in his successful presidential campaign. The lyrics evoke both the optimism and buoyancy that was badly needed during the Depression years to restore confidence in government planning and policy.

In a press release issued on June 24, Gov. Andrew Cuomo also accentuated the positive, announcing “progress on historic initiatives, action on issues that have been left unresolved for decades, and a legislative session that has delivered results.” He also applauded both house leaders and members of the Legislature for passing these unprecedented reforms.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, for his part, said he was also “extremely proud of the many accomplishments the past several weeks have brought” and cited the passage of measures that will “create jobs, bring needed tax relief to homeowners and businesses, reduce the regulatory burden facing local governments, enable our state universities to grow and our students excel, and improve the process for creating more clean, reliable and affordable energy.”

Last, but certainly not least, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver stated: “This has been a singularly productive session for the people of New York. On major issues which in the past have been stalled, we have settled our differences without compromising principles.”

I’m not quite sure we should all be enamored of what we are reading, or observing and, indeed, the bloom may already be starting to come off the rose.

Cuomo, in a New York Times column published on July 14, said he was “heartened by the accomplishments of his first six months — particularly the passage of a property-tax cap and the legalization of same-sex marriage — in a state capital divided by party and infamous for corruption and dysfunction.” But he attributed his legislative success to “a set of reasons that I don’t know are necessarily replicable.” He also highlighted …   More