Sometimes I surprise myself by being terrifically organized, and planning way, way ahead. I am like this with trips, I try hard to fill up my calendar months in advance so that everything else I have to do will work itself around the all-important chances to see the world.  Back […]

Downtown hotels in major cities can be a joy to discover. This weekend we will find out about Ink48, a new Kimpton hotel in Hell’s Kitchen, lower Manhattan.   The website is stunning, all of this glamour and glitz, it will be fun to compare it to other hotels we’ve […]

“You’ve never lived under this, you don’t know what it’s like to have freedom after 42 years,” Mohdi, a middle aged man told Anderson Cooper last night. He spoke jubilantly, unabashedly showing his face on CNN –he was so happy that Ghadafi’s statues were being torn down in Libya and […]

As I made plans to travel to France, and shoot down to Bordeaux from Paris on the grand TGV high speed train, I read with interest about Florida’s rejection of the federal billions to build a high speed rail line from Orlando to Tampa.  Governor Rick Scott, a former CEO, […]

One of the nice things about a new relationship are the pockets of community you discover yourself a part of when your partner invites you to one of ‘her’ parties. She’s a dancer and a drummer and a contradancer–a spirit-filled woman. That leads to all sorts of interesting new things, […]

What does it take to get canned just six months after you’ve been hired to run one of America’s most iconic magazine publishers?  I wondered this when I read a story in Friday’s WSJ about Time CEO Jack Griffin, who got the ax after his boss, Time Warner CEO Jeff […]

There are times when I reap the benefits of living in a small New England town, and find enjoyment in the depths of winter. Take last Thursday, when I took the truck to the dump to get rid of two week’s worth of cafe recycling. I thought ahead to an […]

An Alabama man deliberately destroyed two huge oak trees at Auburn University after his team lost in the Iron Bowl. Disgusting! The trees were a gathering place, and a place of celebration. Could this guy be any sicker? It’s a consensus: everyone I’ve talked to feels that a heinous crime […]

For the past few days I’ve been in Melbourne, Australia’s proud and immigrant enriched second city. It’s a city of four million and right on a bay, St. Kilda is the local seashore. The last time I was here in 2008, I saw a gigantic steel wheel on the horizon, […]

Here is the view that awaits anyone smart enough to venture down here to the very bottom of Australia’s Victoria state. Most people visit these striking limestone escarpments by car, driving down the Great Ocean Road. But others like many we met this week, wouldn’t think of driving and instead, […]