THERE'S THIS older woman, named Sarah, who for years ran an elevator at Tiger Stadium. Every summer, she would sit in that rickety, cell-like thing, which had no ventilation. During July and August it was a furnace."Do you think the Tigers could do anything?" she would gently ask, wiping her brow. "Put in air-conditioning, or get me a fan?"Year after year, nothing was done.
COACHING IS dead.The whistle is buried. The chalkboard is blank. The days when a coach spoke and a player listened?Those days are gone.There is no coaching anymore -- not in the NBA, anyhow, where $100-million players are a way of life.Coaching there has been replaced by "managing." Managing means keeping a player happy. Managing means keeping an ego in check. Managing is what Paul Westphal tried unsuccessfully to do in Seattle, with sulking multimillionaires like Gary Payton and Vin Baker.
Last week, as Americans fought over ballots as if they were life and death, the Dutch passed a law that really was about life and death: namely, when is it acceptable to end one and welcome the other?Their answer? When a patient is suffering. Not necessarily dying. Suffering. Inconsolably. Unbearably.When that happens, under the new law -- the first of its kind in the world -- any patient older than 16 need only discuss it with a doctor, agree that the pain is too much, and ask for a peaceful death.
EASTLANSING -- Less than a minute into Wednesday night's Michigan State-North Carolina game, the shot clocks went out, and someone had to root around in the storage closets and drag out the old corner units. Prop 'em up. Plug 'em in. So already, the night was going back in time.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to our final presidential debate. And we mean it this time. Let's begin with the obvious question: Gentlemen, which of you is our president?BUSH: I am!GORE: I am!Which of you had more votes?BUSH: I did! Electoral votes!GORE: I did! Popular votes!What about recounts?BUSH: We're done counting!GORE: We've only just begun.Absentee ballots?BUSH: They're mine! The military loves me!GORE: They're mine! Jewish voters living in Israel love me!
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
