Larry the K's Lineup

Memo to the nation’s new CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Please carefully consider your words; they have deep impact and can depress millions if you’re not careful. Although I completely understand your frustration with governors in states like Florida and Texas, who overnight eliminated all COVID limits, leading to skyrocketing cases in those states, you have to be careful of what you say and how you say it, because your comments on Monday depressed millions of us. It wasn’t at all constructive to describe a “recurring feeling . . . of impending doom” due to a rise in COVID cases across the nation. That comment was way too negative given how many of us are either partially or fully vaccinated. And, such comments give credence to those of us who believe that far too many health experts --- no matter how well-meaning --- fail to understand just how deeply millions of Americans who never had to battle mental health or isolation/depression issues, have been vulnerable to them sin...

The spring holidays of Passover (which started Saturday evening, March 27) and Easter, which will be celebrated Sunday, April 4, offer a rare chance to expand people’s understandings of holidays outside of their comfort zone. The chance for a give-and-take conversation about both prominent observances, it can be hoped, can play a key role in reducing the amount of anti-Semitism and other irrational hatred that continues to taint our society. Recent examples show just how acceptable some people think it is to spout such raw hatred, which goes back centuries. This column appeared in the Friday, March 26, 2021 edition of The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA: Is the time for renewed understanding among people of different faiths upon us or will the hatred and vitriol that dominate social media continue unabated? Pessimists would answer no to the first question and yes to the second, while optimists would answer yes and no. I pose those questions --- and more near the end of this column...

  Passover, the eight-day Jewish Festival of Freedom, will begin at sundown this Saturday (March 27), and once again, families will be forced to limit and scale down their Seder meals due to the ongoing pandemic. That was the case for 2020’s holiday, when the pandemic was just starting, and the fact that this is happening again, is as unbelievable as it is thoroughly depressing. That’s why there will be no need to eat any bitter herbs at this Seder, because people who are being forced to celebrate what’s always been a joyous holiday full of friendship, camaraderie and outreach only virtually or with very few people will leave a very bitter taste in our mouths. Let’s just hope and pray that this damned pandemic --- which continues to weigh us down with a steady stream of bad news by the health experts who won’t let us have even a minute of happiness --- will go away before our days on Earth are up! Instead of saying “Next Year in Jerusalem” at   our Seders, we should say: “...

The Attleboro area running community is no doubt joining their counterparts across Massachusetts and New England in mourning the death on Wednesday (March 17) of Dick Hoyt, who for decades ran the Boston Marathon and hundreds of other races while pushing his quadriplegic son Rick Hoyt in customized wheelchairs. Hoyt, who had been battling health issues, died at 80, his family announced. Hoyt died in his sleep at his Holland home, his son Russ Hoyt told the Associated Press. “He had an ongoing heart condition that he had been struggling with for years and it just got the better of him,” he said. Dick first pushed his son Rick, who born a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy and cannot walk or talk, in a 1977 5-miler. They finished their first Boston Marathon in 1981. Over the years, they participated in more than 1,000 road races, marathons, including several in the Attleboro area. For instance, the father-son duo had become popular fixtures in the Butterfly 5K, which had been run for ma...

  This column about my father Isaac “Ike” Kessler, originally was published on March 26, 2003, in The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA. I’m posting it on my blog today, March 13, 2021, to honor the 18th  anniversary of my father’s passing. The column is also appropriate to publish in the same week that the one-year anniversary of the coronavirus pandemic has been observed, a scourge that has killed more than 530,000 Americans to date and that made 2020 the deadliest in American history. Ike’s “Greatest Generation” eventually came together to defeat the Nazis and Imperial Japan --- no small feat after the devastation of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. World War II resulted in lasting changes and completely transformed American society, and the post-pandemic world may be nearly as transformative to American society. Now, almost 80 years after the start of the United States’ entry into World War II, Americans have been battling a deadly virus that has become an invisib...

Your Boston Red Sox have been in Fort Myers, Fla., working out since Feb. 18, when pitchers and catchers had their first workout, and spring training games began Feb. 28. With that bogus 20-pitch rule in effect (where managers can end an inning that’s getting out of hand), and with other gimmicks – such as games ranging from as short as 5 innings to conventional 9-inning games --- it’s hard to get a handle on the 2021 Red Sox, but here are a few first impressions: Red Sox quiz: Who was the Red Sox Sox first DH? (Answer at the end of this post.) * Pitching: Pitching will be the key, as it always is. New acquisition Garrett Richards has looked abysmal in his only two outings, but otherwise, it’s too early to tell about the pitching since Chris Sale will be out until July and the team is understandably taking it slowly with Eduardo Rodriquez, who is on the mend after his COVID and myocarditis battles. But the Sox must leave camp with five solid starting pitchers – and no openers --- i...

Snafu (Situation normal all vulgarity upped): a confused or chaotic state; a mess (noun); in utter confusion or chaos (adjective). Fubar: (Vulgarity upped) beyond recognition. These two acronyms, popular in the military, especially during World War II, sum up all the frustrations with the state of Massachusetts’ absurdly cruel and user-unfriendly website for vaccinations. The site lacks any kind of consistency and has turned getting a vaccine in the Bay State into a massive free-for-all that’s more reminiscent of trying to win the Powerball or Megabucks than attempting to get vaccinated against a pandemic that has altered our lives for a year now and has killed more than 520,000 Americans. My latest experience on Thursday, March 4, when shots that had been added the previous week at 8 a.m. went live this week at 5 or 7 a.m., depending on whom you talked or listened to, was mirrored by thousands of frustrated state residents. The latest horror show was just one more sad chapter i...

Here's my latest negative experience of trying to navigate the impossible Massachusetts vaccine website: Back on the website on Tuesday (March 2), and more of the same --- wait times of 1 minute, then 37, 54 and 55 minutes ----- and then greater than a day! Oh, and when you click on Gillette and it does say there are availabilities on certain days, it's a ruse as you call it up only to find that NOTHING is actually available at any times on those dates, so it's a total sham of a website. Here's a thought: Make the website far more user-friendly by not making people  START OVER EVERY DARN TIME THEY HOP ON THE WEBSITE!  It makes  no sense  that you have to wait until you sign up for an appointment before the state takes your info (insurance, age, who you are, etc). By doing that, the state would then have your information, and they'd have a record of those who have already been trying to get on the website, and then --- who knows --- maybe an email could be generated ...

Here's my latest experience with the Massachusetts' COVID-19 vaccine website, also known as The Worst Website Evah! So, just for the heck of it ---- maybe I'm a masochist ---- I went on the state's website after 5 p.m. today (Monday, March 1), and saw some availabilities at the Gillette Stadium site in the coming days, so I clicked on register and then fell into the abyss: The wait time rapidly changed, in minutes, from: 9 to 18, to 9.864, to 12, to 29, to 34, 35, 37. Then I got a message saying the wait time was "greater than a day." Then it said the wait time was 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10, 13 and "greater than a day." That's when I got off. The wait times clearly do not mean anything. I understand that the shots are in limited supply but the state's website is a total mess and not at all user friendly ---- no matter what King Charlie thinks!