Williamstown: A Perfect Sunday Destination
I am trying to remember the last time I was in Williamstown MA. Sadly, even reaching back through all of my blog archives, I could not find a single entry recalling those trips my father and I made to this college town, so it must have been before 2004. Until […]
Tunisians to Ben Ali: Enough is Enough!!
Arab governments are running scared, as the unthinkable has happened in Tunisia….the dictator of 23 years, Ben Ali, has been sent packing. We’ve sent writers to this North African nation several times and I was amazed when Paul Shoul told me about the fear people had about Ben Ali, who […]
Sometimes TV is So Annoying I Just Have to Kill It
Several people close to me never watch TV, and they are proud when they tell people how their living rooms are bigscreen-free. I am not like them, and enjoy watching TV, but tonight I have got to admit I was forced to mute and then finally kill the thing after […]
So Many Exciting Developments, In Spite of the Turmoil
It’s an interesting time here in the depths of winter in New England. I have a terrible time in my personal life, being dumped and everything, and at the cafe, the turmoil of the employee churn takes its toll. Today we got a classic employee insult when the woman who […]
Good News for Fish Eaters, For Those Who Catch Them, Not So Much
I was impressed by some dazzling good news yesterday. It turns out that as of 2010, the US will not be overfishing the oceans off its coasts. Through brutal regulations, the fisheries departments have figured out the right kind of nets and the right number of boats, and now we’re […]
No Sleepovers, No TV, and Plenty of Drills
An article entitled ‘Why Chinese Mothers are Superior” caught my attention onFacebook, when it was cited by a number of my friends. The story was written by Amy Chua, a Yale professor who was raised by Chinese parents and who ticked off the things no Chinese child would ever be […]
Meeting a Doctor and Talking About the Worst Case
The other night I joined my friend Joe and my cousin Paul and some others and played the drums. It was a lot of fun. When I had a break I sat next to the wife of a man who played bass, and we began talking. “What do you do?” […]
When African Americans Light Up, It’s Usually a Newport
When I pumped gas as a 14-year-old youth, many of my customers were African-American nurses who worked down the road at the Institute, a place where crazy people used to live until a few decades ago. Often they would order cigarettes…and rarely did they want any other brand than Newports. […]