Larry the K's Lineup

Having fallen asleep over the years during a couple of all-time Broadway smash hits --- "Cats" in 1987 on Broadway the day before that year's New York City Marathon and "Les Miserables" in 1988 in Boston --- I nonetheless still count another smash Broadway musical, "Fiddler on the Roof," as my all-time favorite. The lead in that play, Tevye (performed by such greats as Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi and Topel, among others) has always been one of my favorite Broadway characters. The songs in "Fiddler" are legendary, and being the father of two lovely, intelligent and independent-minded daughters, I've been partial to "Sunrise, Sunset." But with this post, it's another song with the lyrics, "a blessing on your head, Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov," that I choose to reference, because with the year coming to an end, it's time to say, like Tevye, that I'm a very rich man --- and not in terms of taxable income! I'm w...

  As I wrote in a blog post at this time last year, one of the best things that The Sun Chronicle, in its role as a community newspaper in Attleboro, MA --- where I was the local news editor, a columnist and editorial writer for nearly 30 years before retiring from my full-time position in March of 2017 --- does is to present its annual salute to volunteers at Christmastime. Its True Santas --- which this year feature 16 people in 12 categories of volunteering in accordance with the 12 Days of Christmas --- stand as a truly timely reminder that our existence doesn’t depend on the negativism of cable news, social media and far too many self-serving and cutthroat politicians on both extremes of the political spectrum. No, instead, our continued survival as a society depends on decent people who aren’t afraid to reach out and help others not just around Christmas, but also throughout the entire year ---- and that was never truer than during the height of the pandemic and now, when COV...

Hanukkah began at sundown today (Sunday, Dec. 18, 2022), with the first of eight candles being lit, but the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights will be a much more somber observance this year, given the frightening rise in antisemitism. That has led to so much hatred being spread that the nation is now in danger of moving perilously closer than ever before to doing to the Jewish people what the German people and the Nazis did to them in the 1930s. With frank expressions of hatred toward Jews by the likes of rapper and entertainer Ye (formerly known as Kanye West), NBA star Kyrie Irving and far too many politicians --- combined with the abject failure of average Americans to condemn the hatred --- Jews may one day soon have to think about where they can flee to before the American Holocaust --- God forbid --- starts. That is why the need to educate people about Jewish traditions and customs is more important than ever. People need to stop fearing American Jews, who are once again bein...

For the first time since 2019 due to the coronavirus pandemic, I returned this November and December to volunteering for the local holiday gift drive, Christmas Is For Kids, which serves the greater Attleboro, MA, area. It felt really good to be helping out again. Not only does the gift drive personify the spirit of Christmas, but it makes a huge difference to area families who are struggling. The drive handles requests from individuals and from several social service agencies with whom it partners. This column, which was published in the Wednesday, Dec. 7 edition of The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA, summarizes the drive and shows the good that can come out of having people of different backgrounds working together for a common goal. THE LINK TO THE COLUMN: Here’s the link to the column on the newspaper’s website: https://www.thesunchronicle.com/opinion/columns/kessler-helping-kids-during-holiday-season-is-timeless/article_671a3e3a-fb30-5f9b-be3a-2a5137b3379c.html “The peopl...

Here's one lifetime Red Sox fan's thoughts and reactions to the news that another foundation player, shortstop Xander Bogaerts, one of the few survivors from the 2018 World Championship team, is gone, having agreed to an 11-year, $280 million contract with the San Diego Padres: * Bloom and Henry have to go: The loss of Bogaerts should be the final straw for chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, who has shown that he's never understood or grasped what baseball is all about in Boston since he replaced Dave "World Series or bust" Dombrowski in the fall of 2019. Don't cite the admittedly lengthy 11-year contract as the reason why Bogey is now a Padre. Sure, the Sox weren't going to match those years, but that's not the main reason why Bogey is gone. He's gone because the Sox, since the end of the 2021 season, showed themselves to be either too arrogant or too frugal to open up the team's immense wealth to give Bogey a respectful offer. It wasn't...