I have said for years that if your have a chronic condition not being resolved, find someone who has a track record of curing that condition. Here is the same principle phrased differently.
Bobby Fry at Bar Marco
In January 2015, Bobby Fry did something most restaurant owners thought was financial suicide.
He announced that Bar Marco, his upscale Pittsburgh eatery, would completely eliminate tipping.
Not reduce it. Not add a service charge. Eliminate it entirely.
Instead, every full-time employee would receive a $35,000 base salary, healthcare from day one, 500 shares in the company, paid vacation, and profit-sharing bonuses.
In return, they would work a maximum of 40 to 44 hours per week with two days and one night off. They would attend bi-monthly financial meetings. They would have full transparency into the restaurant’s earnings. And they would be treated like partners, not temporary help.
The restaurant industry called him crazy.
In an industry where servers often earn just $2.83 per hour before tips, where nearly 40 percent of workers live near the poverty line, where turnover averages over 60 percent annually, what Fry proposed seemed impossible.
But Fry had done his homework.
“You cannot tell me that your business model relies on paying people below the poverty line,” he said. “You gotta have more pride in your business than that.”
On April 1, 2015, the new model launched.
What happened next shocked everyone.
Within two months, weekly profits tripled. They went from approximately $3,000 to $9,000.
Revenues exceeded expectations by 26 percent.
Overhead costs dropped from 40 percent to 32 percent.
The water bill was cut in half. The linen bill was cut in half. Liquor inventory became lean and precise.
How?
Because employees who are invested in a business act like owners.
When the staff had access to the restaurant’s financial data, they started suggesting ways to reduce waste. They noticed which candle votives were safer. They tracked food spoilage. They managed linen more carefully. They treated every dollar like it mattered.
Because it did. Their bonuses depended on it.
By the end of that year, annual salaries at Bar Marco were expected to reach between $48,000 and $51,000, including bonuses. Three employees left to start restaurants of their own, taking the ownership mindset Fry had cultivated with them.
The model was so successful that Fry implemented it at Bar Marco’s sister restaurant, The Livermore, later that year.
Today, a decade later, Bar Marco is still operating in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, still serving its seasonal menu of small plates and natural wines. It was named one of Bon Appétit’s Top 50 Best New Restaurants and one of Thrillist’s Top 33 Cocktail Bars in America.
But the real story isn’t the awards.
It’s the proof that a different model is possible.
Fry built his philosophy on a simple observation: “Google is the best company in the world for how much money they make per employee, and that’s because they put all their time and energy into their employees. It pays off for them in fistfuls.”
He proved that the same principle works in restaurants.
When you treat workers like stakeholders instead of replaceable parts, they don’t just show up.
They show up invested.
Bar Marco didn’t just eliminate tipping.
It eliminated the idea that restaurant workers have to choose between passion and stability.
And it proved that doing right by your people isn’t just good ethics.
It’s good business.
Art Is Not Luxury
View video: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DYhV72Wry/
Carroll O’Connor
Carroll O’Connor buried his son in 1995, then walked into court and spoke drug dealers’ names out loud, turning private grief into a public fight that Hollywood largely avoided.
Most Americans knew Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker, the loud, abrasive television character whose bigotry was exposed through satire. Offscreen, O’Connor was almost the opposite: disciplined, private, intellectually rigorous, and deeply protective of his family. That distinction mattered when tragedy entered his life for real.
In March 1995, his son Hugh O’Connor was found dead in his Los Angeles apartment. He was thirty-three years old. The cause was a heroin overdose. Hugh had struggled with addiction for years, cycling through rehabilitation programs, relapses, periods of sobriety, and setbacks. Carroll and his wife, Nancy, spent enormous sums on treatment, medical care, and legal help, believing that persistence and resources could overcome the disease.
They could not.
Instead of retreating from public view, O’Connor did something few celebrities dared to do. He spoke openly and angrily. He publicly named individuals he said supplied the drugs that led to his son’s death. He repeated those names in interviews and in print. One of the men sued him for defamation.
O’Connor did not retract his statements. He welcomed the case.
In 1997, a jury ruled in O’Connor’s favor, finding that his claims were substantially true. The individuals involved were later convicted on drug-related charges. The courtroom became a place not just of mourning, but of record-making.
The choice came at a cost. Hollywood was comfortable discussing addiction only when it remained abstract or safely personal. O’Connor refused both. He testified before Congress, called for stronger enforcement against drug traffickers, and criticized systemic failures in law enforcement without euphemism. He framed addiction not as a moral failing, but as a medical condition exploited by criminal networks.
He did all of this while continuing to work.
O’Connor returned to television in In the Heat of the Night as Chief Bill Gillespie, a role marked by restraint, authority, and moral gravity. It stood in sharp contrast to Archie Bunker’s volatility. The performance earned him another Emmy and revealed an actor channeling grief into control rather than rage.
Privately, the loss never eased. The stress took a physical toll. O’Connor underwent multiple heart surgeries and lived with chronic pain, yet continued speaking publicly about addiction and accountability. He insisted that silence protected the wrong people and that naming systems mattered more than protecting reputations.
Carroll O’Connor died in 2001 at the age of seventy-six.
He is often remembered for Archie Bunker. That memory leaves out the harder chapter, when he chose confrontation over comfort and accuracy over discretion. Faced with a loss that satire could not soften, O’Connor used his voice not to perform, but to force attention onto a reality many preferred to keep unseen.
He understood something fame often hides:
Silence shields systems.
Naming names forces reckoning.
Quote of the Day
“Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold.” – Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer (1770 – 1827)
Life Without Bread – Dr Lutz
He removed sugar. His patients got better. Medicine looked away.
1950s Austria.
Dr. Wolfgang Lutz is doing everything right.
Prescribing approved drugs. Following modern guidelines. Trusting the science of his time.
His patients keep coming back.
Diabetes controlled, not reversed.
Pain managed, not resolved.
Chronic disease after chronic disease.
So Lutz does something risky.
He thinks.
He digs into old medical literature. Before processed food. Before pharmaceutical dominance. Before calories became doctrine. One idea keeps reappearing.
Low carbohydrate eating.
He is skeptical. But honest. So he tries it on patients who have failed everything else.
His rules are simple.
Under 72 grams of carbohydrates per day.
No limits on meat, eggs, cheese, or butter.
Real food. No sugar. Minimal starch.
The results shock him.
Blood sugar normalizes.
Weight drops without hunger.
Inflammation fades.
Digestive disorders disappear.
Arthritis improves.
People do not just comply.
They recover.
So he keeps going. For decades. Thousands of patients. Same result every time.
Remove sugar and starch. Health returns.
In 1967, he publishes Leben Ohne Brot.
Life Without Bread.
Real patients. Real outcomes. Clear instructions.
Medicine ignores it.
This is the age of low-fat dogma. Margarine. Vegetable oils. Carbs as salvation. A doctor prescribing butter and steak is labeled as dangerous.
Lutz keeps going anyway.
He has something stronger than consensus.
He has results.
In 2000, at age 89, he publishes follow-up data. Patients low carb for over 30 years. Healthy. No early death. No arterial collapse. No cholesterol catastrophe.
He dies at 97.
Still low carb.
Still right.
We did not lack evidence.
We lacked courage.
You Are Cause
Lifestyle Habits of Billionaires
The Green Rucksack
I locked the classroom door. The metal click echoed like a gunshot in the sudden silence.
I turned to the twenty-five high school seniors staring at me. They were the Class of 2026. They were supposed to be the “Zoomers,” the digital natives, the generation that had everything figured out.
But from where I stood, looking at their faces illuminated by the blue light of hidden phones, they just looked tired.
“Put the phones away,” I said. My voice was quiet, but they heard it. “Turn them off. Not silent. Off.”
There was a grumble, a collective shifting of bodies in plastic chairs, but they did it.
For thirty years, I have taught History in this gritty, working-class town in Pennsylvania. I’ve watched the factories close. I’ve watched the opioids creep in like a fog. I’ve watched the arguments at home turn into wars on the news.
On my desk sat an old, olive-green military rucksack. It belonged to my father. It smells like old canvas and gasoline. It’s stained. It’s ugly.
For the first month of school, the students ignored it. They thought it was just “Mr. Miller’s junk.”
They didn’t know it was the heaviest thing in the entire building.
This year’s class was brittle. That’s the only word for it. You had the football players who walked with a swagger that looked practiced.
You had the theater kids who were too loud, trying to drown out the silence. You had the quiet ones who wore hoodies in September, trying to disappear into the drywall.
The air in the room was thick. Not with hate, but with exhaustion. They were eighteen years old, and they were already done.
“I’m not teaching the Constitution today,” I said, dragging the heavy rucksack to the center of the room. I dropped it on a stool.
Thud.
The sound made a girl in the front row flinch.
“We are going to do something different,” I said. “I’m passing out plain white index cards.”
I walked the rows, placing a card on each desk.
“I have three rules. If you break them, you leave.”
I held up a finger.
“Rule one: Do not write your name. This is anonymous. Completely.”
“Rule two: Total honesty. No jokes. No memes.”
“Rule three: Write down the heaviest thing you are carrying.”
A hand went up. It was Marcus, the defensive captain of the football team. A giant of a kid, usually cracking jokes. He looked confused. “What do you mean, ‘carrying’? Like, books?”
I leaned back against the whiteboard. “No, Marcus. I mean the thing that keeps you awake at 3:00 AM. The secret you are terrified to say out loud because you think people will judge you. The fear. The pressure. The weight on your chest.”
I looked them in the eyes. “We call this ‘The Rucksack.’ What goes in the bag, stays in the bag.”
The room went tomb-silent. The air conditioning hummed.
For five minutes, nobody moved. They looked at each other, waiting for the first person to crack.
Then, a girl in the back—Sarah, straight-A student, perfect hair—picked up her pen. She wrote furiously.
Then another. Then another.
Marcus, the football player, stared at the blank white card for a long time. His jaw was tight. He looked angry. Then, he hunched over, shielding his paper with his massive arm, and wrote three words.
When they were done, they walked up, one by one. They folded their cards and dropped them into the open mouth of the rucksack. It was like a religious ritual. A silent confession.
I zipped the bag shut. The sound was sharp.
“This,” I said, resting my hand on the faded canvas. “This is this room. You look at each other and you see jerseys, or makeup, or grades. But this bag? This is who you actually are.”
I took a deep breath. My own heart was hammering. It always does.
“I am going to read these out loud,” I said. “And your job—your only job—is to listen. No laughing. No whispering. No glancing at your neighbor to guess who wrote it. We just hold the weight. Together.”
I opened the bag. I reached in and pulled the first card.
I unfolded it. The handwriting was jagged.
“My dad lost his job at the plant six months ago. He puts on a suit every morning and leaves so the neighbors don’t know. He sits in his car at the park all day. I know he’s crying. I’m scared we’re going to lose the house.”
The room felt colder. I pulled the next one.
“I carry Narcan in my backpack. Not for me. For my mom. I found her blue on the bathroom floor last Tuesday. I saved her life, and then I came to school and took a Math test. I’m so tired.”
I paused. I looked up. Nobody was looking at their phones. Nobody was sleeping. They were staring at the bag.
I pulled another.
“I check the exits every time I walk into a movie theater or a grocery store. I map out where I would hide if a shooter came in. I’m eighteen and I plan my own death every day.”
Another.
“My parents hate each other because of politics. They scream at the TV every night. My dad says people who vote for the ‘other side’ are evil. He doesn’t know that I agree with the ‘other side.’ I feel like a spy in my own kitchen.”
Another.
“I have 10,000 followers on TikTok. I post videos of my perfect life. Last night, I sat in the shower with the water running so my little brother wouldn’t hear me sobbing. I am more lonely than I have ever been.”
I kept reading. For twenty minutes, the truth poured out of that green bag.
“I’m gay. My grandfather is a pastor. He told me last Sunday that ‘those people’ are broken. I love him, but I think he hates me, and he doesn’t even know it’s me.”
“We pretend the WiFi is down, but I know Mom couldn’t pay the bill again. I eat the free lunch at school because there’s nothing in the fridge.”
“I don’t want to go to college. I want to be a mechanic. But my parents have a bumper sticker on their car that says ‘Proud College Parent.’ I feel like I’m already a disappointment.”
And finally, the last one. The one that made the air leave the room.
“I don’t want to be here anymore. The noise is too loud. The pressure is too heavy. I’m just waiting for a sign to stay.”
I folded the card slowly. I placed it gently back in the bag.
I looked up.
Marcus, the tough linebacker, had his head in his hands. His shoulders were shaking. He wasn’t hiding it.
Sarah, the girl with the perfect grades, was reaching across the aisle, holding the hand of a boy who wore black eyeliner and usually sat alone. He was gripping her hand like a lifeline.
The barriers were gone. The cliques were dissolved.
They weren’t Jocks, or Nerds, or Liberals, or Conservatives. They were just kids. Kids walking through a storm without an umbrella.
“So,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. “That is what we carry.”
I zipped the bag. The sound was final.
“I’m hanging this back on the wall. It stays here. You don’t have to carry it alone anymore. Not in here. In this room, we are a team.”
The bell rang. Usually, it triggers a stampede.
Today, nobody moved.
Slowly, quietly, they began to pack up their things. And then, something happened that I will never forget.
As Marcus walked past the stool, he didn’t just walk by. He stopped. He reached out and patted the rucksack, two gentle thumps. I got you.
Then the next student. She rested her palm on the strap for a second.
Then the boy who wrote about the Narcan. He touched the metal buckle.
Every single student touched that bag on the way out. They were acknowledging the weight. They were saying, I see you.
I have taught American History for three decades. I have lectured on the Civil War, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights Movement. But that hour was the most important lesson I have ever taught.
We live in a country obsessed with winning. With looking strong. With the “highlight reel” we post on social media. We are terrified of our own cracks.
And our kids? They are paying the price. They are drowning in silence, right next to each other.
That evening, I received an email. The subject line was blank.
“Mr. Miller. My son came home today and hugged me. He hasn’t hugged me since he was twelve. He told me about the bag. He said he felt ‘real’ for the first time in high school. He told me he was struggling. We are going to get help. Thank you.”
The green rucksack is still on my wall. It looks like garbage to anyone who walks in. But to us, it’s a monument.
Listen to me.
Look around you today. The woman ahead of you in the checkout line buying generic cereal. The teenager with the headphones on the bus. The man shouting about politics on Facebook.
They are all carrying a rucksack you cannot see. It is packed with fear, with financial worry, with loneliness, with trauma.
Be kind. Be curious. Stop judging the surface and remember the weight underneath.
Don’t be afraid to ask the people you love: “What are you carrying today?”
You might just save a life
Ellen McKenzie
Four armed men came to take her home while her husband was gone. She gave them one warning, then reached for the rifle.
Montana Territory, October 1889.
The sound of approaching horses made Ellen McKenzie’s hands pause mid-stir over the stew pot. Her husband, James, had left two days earlier, driving their small herd to market. Their nearest neighbor lived four miles away through dense pine forest. And she was alone with their eight-month-old daughter, sleeping peacefully in a wooden cradle beside the stone fireplace.
Through the cabin’s single window, Ellen watched four riders emerge from the tree line.
No territorial badges. No official authority. Just the kind of men who knew exactly when homestead husbands left their claims unguarded.
Land grabbers.
They moved through the territory with ruthless efficiency—filing fraudulent claims while owners were away, counting on isolated wives to flee rather than fight. Most families couldn’t afford lawyers. The nearest marshal was three days’ ride. By the time disputes reached court, the land was usually sold and the men long gone.
They’d made a calculation about Ellen McKenzie.
They were wrong.
She lifted her daughter from the cradle, breathing in the soft scent of her hair, feeling the tiny heartbeat against her chest. Then she carried her down to the root cellar, wrapped her in quilts, and laid her gently on grain sacks among the potatoes and preserves.
“ Mama’s right upstairs, sweetheart,” she whispered. “I won’t let them take what’s ours.”
She bolted the cellar door from above.
Then she reached for her husband’s Winchester rifle and checked the chamber.
Six rounds loaded. A full box of ammunition on the shelf.
Her father had fought at Antietam as a Union sharpshooter. When she was seven, he’d handed her a rifle and said, “The frontier doesn’t ask if you’re ready. It asks if you can shoot straight when it matters.”
She could.
The first knock came—almost polite.
“Ma’am, we’re from the Territorial Land Office. There’s been a filing error on your claim—”
Ellen’s voice carried through the thick log door, steady as iron.
“The only error is you thinking I’ll open this door.”
Low laughter followed. The sound of men who had done this many times and never been challenged.
“Now, Mrs. McKenzie, there’s no need for trouble—”
The Winchester cracked once.
The bullet tore into the doorframe six inches from the speaker’s head, close enough for him to feel the air rush past.
The laughter stopped.
“That was your warning,” Ellen called. “Next man who steps on my property gets the bullet. And I don’t miss when I’m aiming to hit.”
For five hours, Ellen McKenzie held the cabin alone.
Every shadow crossing a window, the rifle tracked it.
Every boot on the porch, she drove them back.
Every attempt to circle behind the house, she was already there, having memorized every sightline around her home.
They tried bargaining. Threats. Waiting her out.
Nothing worked.
When her baby’s cries rose through the floorboards, Ellen knelt and whispered through the cracks in the planks:
“I hear you, my love. I know you’re scared. But we’re McKenzies. We don’t abandon what’s ours.”
The crying softened, as if her daughter understood.
As the Montana sky darkened to purple with approaching dusk, the men began to grasp something that defied everything they believed:
This woman wasn’t stalling for rescue.
She was the fortress.
Then—distant thunder rolled across the valley.
James appeared over the ridge with three neighboring ranchers he’d wired from town, a sudden unease having sent him racing home.
The land grabbers scattered like startled crows.
When James burst through the door, he found Ellen calm and steady, rifle still ready, their daughter on her hip, nursing peacefully as if nothing extraordinary had happened.
Ellen didn’t collapse in relief.
She simply met his eyes and said, “They thought I’d be easy.”
The story spread across Montana Territory faster than telegraph wire.
Within three weeks, two other homestead women successfully defended their claims while their husbands were away—both citing Ellen McKenzie’s stand as proof that being alone didn’t mean being helpless.
Territorial newspapers picked it up. Women’s groups in Helena and Butte referenced it in their organizing. The four would-be claim jumpers were quietly identified and encouraged to leave the territory.
Years later, when their daughter traced her fingers over the bullet scar still visible in the doorframe, James placed his weathered hand over the mark and said:
“Your mother taught grown men something they’d forgotten: kindness isn’t weakness. Mercy isn’t surrender. And a woman protecting her family is the most dangerous force on the frontier.”
Ellen didn’t answer. She simply smiled—the smile of someone who knows exactly who she is and what she’s capable of.
Because the frontier had its own lessons, harsh and unforgiving:
You could wait for someone to save you.
Or you could load the rifle, secure the door, and become your own salvation.
When frontier women faced that choice, they chose the rifle.
And the frontier learned to respect them for it.
(Tom: As a rule, the only thing that has ever stopped an armed, bad intentioned person is an armed, well intentioned person. Don’t ever forget that.)