We had our 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday.  We have a hard time believing that 50 years can go by so quickly.  Here is a picture below of my wife Susan (on the right) with her two best Minneapolis friends, followed by a picture of me with two of my oldest and closest friends.  (For our long-time readers, the stunning brunette in the middle is Backwoods Jack’s wife. The gorgeous blond on the left is Diane Cook, Susan’s best friend and the wife of Jim Cook, my dear friend and owner of Investment Rarities).

The distinguished looking man with the great head of hair on my right is my good friend, Ausbert de Arce.  He and his wife Petra live in Miami, not far from our home. Ausbert has spent the last couple of decades in the book publishing business running Assouline and Taschen, after a stint running the media division of the World Wrestling Federation. On my left is my closest friend, Rick Brown, who I have known for over 25 years.  Up until six years ago, Rick lived in the Minneapolis area and we spent a great deal of time together.  Rick was a successful executive for Minnesota Mining and Imation and is now semi-retired, living in sunny Carlsbad, California.  The three of us share an intense passion in high-end audio and music.  That has been our bond since the early 1980s.  Hobbies do breed great friendships.   The LAST TIME the three of us got together in Minneapolis was in the mid-90s for my son Andy’s wedding.  We all plan to spend Sunday afternoon listening to great music through a state of the art audio system in my home.  Susan will probably collapse after expending an unbelievable amount of energy for the last two weeks, entertaining and planning and executing our well attended event.  It was non-stop from Thursday evening into Sunday.  She is a stickler for detail and didn’t miss a beat.  Those who were there said it was one of the most lovely, emotional and warm events they had ever attended.  That’s a tribute to Susan, the most exceptional human being I have ever known and my partner for life.

Now it’s time to get back to reality – a world that seems to be coming apart at the seams.  There are more potential “black swans” out there than I care to count.  And for those of you who wish to believe that the Muslim religion is a peaceful religion and not a threat to us, you should spend a minute and check out the following…. They may now only be a small group of extremists, but the Nazis were a small group of extremists too.  And so were the communists under Stalin and how about Pol Pot in Cambodia.  Tens of millions perished because of a small group of “extremists.”  It’s always the extremists that make policy, as the majority silently go about their business as if nothing is wrong.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

 – Pastor Martin Niemöller

[Newt Gingrich – who has an annoying habit of facing facts and explaining them simply  – cuts through the PC crap that prevents our country from confronting head-on the Islamic threat to our way of life. df]

 “Nobody wants to tell the truth,” Gingrich complained.

“The truth is this is a radical Islamist group. They say openly if you don’t convert, we’ll kill you. It turns out they actually mean it. There’s no complexity…The president couldn’t even honestly describe ISIS last night because it goes against his ideology.”

–Mediaite.com

Watch this short video of Newt’s recent appearance on CNN.