Commentary & Opinion

Ben Nelson, former CEO of Snapfish, an online photo service, is determined to stand higher education – at least part of it - on its head.  His goal is a simple one: provide large numbers of intellectually-gifted students with an education which will challenge them and prepare them to be the “thought leaders” of tomorrow.  The approach Mr. Nelson has laid out to do this “breaks the rules” in many ways, and has been variously described as daring and innovative by some, and ineffective, reckless  and over-reaching by others.

Kicker Alan Gendreau is hoping to make an NFL roster this year. That’s true for a lot of people right now, with the pro football draft coming Thursday followed by weeks of free agent signings and trades and mini-camps and all the things teams go through to cut down to their game day rosters. Since Gendreau is a kicker, and he sat out last year after finishing his career at Middle Tennessee State, it’s not likely you’ll hear his name on ESPN’s live draft broadcast, even in the late rounds when all but the truest diehards have switched over to The Voice or something. Picking a kicker in the NFL draft is like ordering a diet coke at Serendipity. Just not entirely satisfying.

The two Boston bombers were born in Dagestan and despite their alleged grievance over the treatment of Chechens, never lived there. For law enforcement officials and counter-terror experts this radical view that inspired their heinous act is a conundrum. Even President Obama asked plaintively, “Why did young men who grew up and studied here, as part of our communities and our country resort to such violence?”

Shortly after I walked out of the studio last week having recorded a piece on taxes, the news started to bristle with reports of the two bombs that exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Part of me wanted to rush back in and record something different. I’d lived a few blocks away, have many friends in Boston, shuddered for the people killed and injured, and shared the reaction that this looked like an attack on our country, on all of us. I was speechless.