When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear. ~ Edmund Burke
On Free Speech
There must be renewed recognition that societies are kept stable and healthy by reform, not by thought police; this means there must be free play for so-called subversive ideas – every idea subverts the old to make way for the new. To shut off subversion is to shut off peaceful progress and to invite revolution and war. ~ I. F. Stone
No Cure – Wrong Doctor!
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
