14Sep 2016 by CJ

Nelly – why should your fans have to pay your taxes?

Life & Living
An important news bulletin. It appears that rapper Nelly (singer of the 2002 hit "Hot in Herre") has been a bad boy and now is in trouble with the government for not paying his taxes. But fear not! His adoring fans are coming to his rescue. They’ve started a social media campaign urging everyone to stream his song on Spotify – the more the song is streamed, the more money Nelly will make to bail himself out of debt. Are you serious? I can’t tell you how infuriated this makes me, especially given the fact that so many misguided individuals are championing this cause to help out the popular rapper. I’m reminded of a quote by Criss Jami: “Man is not, by nature, deserving of all that he wants. When…
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12Sep 2016 by CJ

Suicide – a decision you cannot change

Life & Living
“Only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.” – Richard M. Nixon Last week a 16-year-old girl committed suicide at the school where my wife teaches. It was a complete and horrifying shock to her friends, who had no idea she was contemplating it, nor did they know of any apparent reason . It was a complete shock to the faculty and staff, who just the day before were talking with her in the hallway – never once noticing anything peculiar or alarming. And truly, it was a complete shock to me. While I’ve experienced depression and days of darkness when I just wasn’t sure I had the strength to go on, I never felt…
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05Sep 2016 by CJ

Amending familial relationships can be hard

Life & Living, Love & Relationships
“It's not a person’s mistakes which define them - it's the way they make amends.”  ― Freya North I have cousins on my mother’s side, whom I haven’t seen in over 30 years. While some familial relationships experience such absences based on geographical location or the expansion of sub-families, mine seems to have more dramatic undertones, rather than a logical reality. Without airing out all my dirty laundry, there was a supposed “falling out” between members of the family - details of which have been the subject of speculation for years, but never fully revealed to me. I was around eight-years-old when this all occurred. And while I fully understand how turmoil inside the family can quickly divide people against each other, for me there’s still that little eight-year-old boy wondering…
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29Aug 2016 by CJ

Guilt can be a useful tool in moderation

Life & Living
“When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.” - Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom I grew up in an Italian-American family, and if there’s one thing Italians know how to do well it’s guilt each other. I try not to play that card in my personal life – having lived through enough of that drama for the majority of my life. But today my Italian heritage was shining through. I was trying to make a point – trying my best NOT to play the card hidden up my sleeve. But after much going back and forth with little to no progress, I embarrassingly played the guilt card. For a moment I felt like my mother – overdramatizing the situation in order to get the reaction…
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28Aug 2016 by CJ

A person’s life is more than what you see

Life & Living
This article was first published back in 2007. I dedicate it to my grandfather, whose birthday was August 24th - he would have been 93 years old. He taught me many lessons, but perhaps the greatest being a person’s life is more than what you see. ____________________________________________________ As the night grew cold, I found myself unable to read as my body shivered - causing the book to become unstable and unreadable for that matter. I gathered a large woolen blanket from the foot of my bed and covered my frigid body -  hoping for warmth so I could continue on with my reading. Just a few days prior, we all enjoyed a record heat wave and yet tonight the temperatures were well below freezing. The grandfather clock struck midnight and…
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