Tom Purcell Columns category, Page 7

Tom Purcell: Fighting off the digital scam artists

Everyone is at risk of being scammed now. The recent ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline was a wake-up call for everyone in America. Ransomware is malicious software that cyberscammers use to encrypt a company’s or individual’s data and block access to it — until a hefty sum of money is...
Tom Purcell: Why it makes sense to play in the woods

The retired science teacher jumped up from his hiding spot in his garden and grabbed my arm before I could escape. It happened in the mid-1970s when I was playing a game we neighborhood kids invented called “Fugitive.” Each summer night 15 or 20 of us would participate. Whoever drew...
Tom Purcell: A mother’s comfort

Scientific American describes my mother to a T. An article titled “The Incredible Importance of Mothers,” by social scientist Melanie Tannenbaum, lays out the argument that a mother’s comfort — not just meeting basic needs, such as providing food and shelter — is essential to the development and well-being of...
Tom Purcell: A hunger for normalcy

My recent trip to Florida was glorious for one simple reason: it was normal. You see, I had been hungering for a friendly social gathering for months — any gathering involving family, friends, business colleagues or old classmates would do. I had been hungering for the simple ability to freely...
Tom Purcell: The high price of a modest roof

The cost of construction materials has gone through the roof — if you can still afford a roof, which isn’t very affordable right now. All I wanted to do was build a modest roof over my modest deck at my modest house. But a year of government pandemic policies and...
Tom Purcell: The value of organized religion to a representative republic

Fewer Americans are attending traditional church services. Fewer are attending Catholic schools, too. According to Gallup, the number of Americans who belong to a church, synagogue or mosque continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup’s eight-decade trend. And thanks to the covid pandemic,...
Tom Purcell: Baseball strikes out on politics

You can’t escape politics anywhere now — not even in America’s once great pastime, baseball. A “pastime,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “something that amuses and serves to make time pass agreeably.” Boy, did the Pittsburgh Pirates accomplish that for me most of my early life. Pirates radio broadcasts...
Tom Purcell: In DC, politics springs eternal

Springtime has arrived in Washington, D.C. The National Cherry Blossom festival is underway. Some 3,700 cherry trees, given to America by the Japanese in 1912, soon will be in full bloom. I lived in the D.C. area for nearly eight years and always looked forward to this time of year....
Tom Purcell: Never save for a rainy day!

When I grew up in the 1970s, my father taught my sisters and me to “always save for a rainy day.” He was a child of the Depression, after all, one of the longest “rainy day” periods Americans have ever experienced. In 2021, however, America’s new national mantra appears to...
Tom Purcell: The benefit of Irish humor

I miss my Uncle Mike — especially on St. Patrick’s Day. He would have been 90 this year. He died far too young from leukemia in 1990 when he was only 59. His mother immigrated to Syracuse, N.Y., from Ireland. His father’s parents had been Irish immigrants, too. He was...
Tom Purcell: Nuance better than canceling in these Looney times

Is the world finally coming to grips with the wrongs I endured as a child growing up in the 1970s? I came of age before 24-hour cable news channels sensationalized childhood abductions and made every parent in America terrified their kid was likely to become the next victim. We ’70s...
Tom Purcell: Community, not money, the key to happiness

Get this: A study by McGill University has found that more money does not necessarily make people in low-income countries happier. I like more money as much as the next guy, but that does not surprise me. Sara Miñarro, the lead author, says in Futurity.org that the people interviewed reported...
Tom Purcell: The puppy solution

Coffee. I need coffee. And sleep. And food. I picked up my Lab puppy, Thurber, four days ago. I have spent every waking moment since happily tending to the little guy’s considerable needs. Before I got him, I was cocksure I’d mastered the proper training techniques to bend my little...
Tom Purcell: Biden, Social Security, my retirement and the wealthy

It’s February. It’s cold. To fend off the winter blahs, I dream of one day retiring to a warm beach, where I’ll stand in the surf, sipping beverages from glasses with little umbrellas in them. I spend hours using the Social Security Benefits Calculator to determine how much Social Security...
Tom Purcell: Simpler taxes long promised, never delivered

I love winter. I love snow. I love making a roaring fire in my fireplace on a chilly day. But I hate one thing about this time of year: taxes. February is rough for the self-employed. It’s rough because my 1099 forms — official records of how much my clients...
Tom Purcell: Sledding, snowmen, snowballs needed on Capitol grounds

Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat and D.C.’s delegate in the U.S. House, is on to something big! A longtime champion of, and leader on, civil rights and free speech issues, she has a clear mastery of common sense. You see, the west side of the U.S. Capitol grounds has long...

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