I love it when my newspaper is full of intriguing articles that stretch the mind. I am also fond of that moment when someone close to me reads it and is inspired. That happened the other day when I showed a column by Virginia Postrel to Devorah and she ended […]
Keith Brown was always an adventurer. In 1993 he climbed Mt. Everest. And just the other day, he skydived out of a plane at an astounding 29,000 feet up! I met him at NMH in 1976. Since then we haven’t been in touch, until recently when Facebook brought me his […]
Look down when you do a Google search today, and click on the link that says 10>100. The internet monolith has selected five companies from more than 150,000 submitted ideas to fund. The project began soliciting ideas in 2008, today, one of the winners was Shweeb. Shweeb, a derivative German […]
In our Pioneer Valley, there are lots and lots of massage therapists. There are three schools churning out graduates every semester, it’s a wonder there are enough people who need back rubbing to keep them all busy. I read in last night’s NY Times about the medical benefits of massage–based […]
Parks are wonderful, but there’s always the issue of that annoying dog poop to mess up your shoes and wreck your day. In Cambridge, MA ,an artist has come up with a use for dog poop. It’s a system of tanks and hoses that uses methane released by the poop […]
Tom Devine is the Valley’s openly gay, openly right-wing blogger, and he finds lots of articles with controversial points of view that I often find myself agreeing with. , Last night’s selection of an article on Reason.com made me pause and think. It’s called “Public Employees Vs the Public Will,” […]
Should the average citizen of Detroit care that its symphony may be on its last legs? Terry Teachout writes in the Weekend WSJ about the struggling Detroit Philharmonic Orchestra, which now faces such a steep deficit that management is considering cutting the musican’s pay by 30% just to stay in […]
When Amhed Fouad II was a two-year-old, he was crowned King of Egypt. But today at 58, the man who would be king lives in isolation in the Swiss countryside. Only a few of his Egyptian friends still call him His Majesty, others call him simply Fouad. A story in […]
Marina Goldman is a nurse practitioner from Montague who spends a lot of time in the faraway country of Sierra Leone. Besides my travel webmaster friend Andy the Hobo Traveler, who phoned in from Ivory Coast last week, nobody I know goes to West Africa and nobody but Marina is […]
On Sunday a Montague man named Mik’s dream comes true. I wrote about his dream back in December; he wanted to race human-powered cars down a steep hill in Turners Falls. He recalled doing this as a child, scooting down a hill in Saltaire, NY in a soapbox racer. I’ve […]
“And now, the power and class of New England, the Minuteman Marching Band!” George Parks loved to say that every time his band would get ready to play. Since the 1970s, Parks directed the beloved UMass Band. Sadly, this week, he had a heart attack at age 57, and died […]
Today I made a bunch of decisions that I’ll be living with for years to come. I decided on a few paint colors, (easy) and then on a carpet, a honey-colored shag, ( easy). But then it got harder when it came time to decide about flooring. I’ve got four […]