Josh Benner

Month: July 2012

  • Remembrance and reflection: my friend Johnnie

    I still remember the first time I ever talked to Johnnie. He was helping plan a philanthropy for his fraternity, and he called me after I had volunteered to do stand up comedy at the event. He was so enthusiastic, that I had a hard time understanding him. Johnnie had never heard my routine before,…

  • Sexually assaulted rower undeterred for good cause

    I read about this in the Chicago Sun-Times Jenn Gibbons, a 27 year old Chicago woman, who’s rowing 1,500 miles along the entire coast of Lake Michigan in an effort to raise money for breast cancer had made a point of using a blog to keep supporters aware of her journey. Earlier this week, a…

  • Tragedy, liberty, and the firearms debate

    I don’t own a gun and I’ve never shot a gun. But I also do believe in liberty. I read a piece in the New Yorker this afternoon by Adam Gopnik. He discussed last night’s horrific tragedy in Aurora, Colorado. In a number of ways, I found the column to be little more than emotionally…

  • Colorado Tragedy: Dark Knight Rises Massacre

    12 deaths. For what? People have issues, and people have problems but it is so unfathomable to me that a person could be filled with so much hatred that they would take out that rage on strangers. Because it’s not just 12 deaths. It’s 12 families who have to live with that death every day…

  • No excuses for Paterno: legacy forever ruined

    This morning, the highly anticpated Freeh Report was released pertaining to Penn State University’s handling of the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal. For people who have followed this story, the findings were about as bad as they could have been. They were also not very surprising.