Good afternoon, everybody, happy Wednesday! I hope you all enjoyed the poem I posted on Facebook today. It’s about an Amish girl and snow, really sweet. I thought I’d take some questions, but first I want to address something that’s being weighing heavily on my mind.

I have done some things that are contrary to my values. I tortured some folks. I understand why it happened, and I think it’s important that we all remember how lonely, frightened and angry I was feeling after the Twin Towers fell. I was really furious, drinking pretty heavily at the time and the truth is that I wanted nothing more than to lash out. I think many of us were feeling that way, and I know that my partner-in-torturing-folks, Vera, certainly was.

But remember, Vera, who is a patriot, was under tremendous pressure at that time. She was working really hard at two kitchen jobs, unsure about whether to get back with her ex and had just had her bike stolen.

That’s quite a bit to handle, and she was simply doing the best she could under difficult circumstances. However, having said all that, the simple truth is that we did some things that were wrong.

Waterboarding violates my ideals and values.

Nothing, not even finding out where Vera’s stolen bicycle was, and if it was her ex who stole it, is worth violating our values for. Vera and I crossed a line, and this needs to be understood and accepted, and we, as drinking buddies, need to take responsibility so that hopefully we don’t torture any more folks in the future.

Kids, let me say to you, torturing folks is wrong. It’s not what Michael Murray stands for, and it’s my hope that this sad series of incidents over the summers of 2011 and 2012 and 2013, remind us once again, that our character has to be measured not by what we do when things are easy, but what we do when things are hard.

While sitting at my desk and looking out the window I saw a young woman in a pink skirt and a black top passing by on the sidewalk. She was unbelievably happy, the sort of happiness you don’t often discover in the solitary, unguarded moments of pedestrians. There was a huge smile illuminating her face and instead of subsiding after a moment, it just kept getting stronger, evolving and reanimating her features. She was very nearly radiant, bursting with THE BEST NEWS OF HER LIFE. And as this door opened into her life, I watched, now slightly melancholy, remembering college days when oxygen was like light in the lungs, as she turned left and headed toward the horizon.