Today’s WSJ told a sad story, see chart at the left. “There are several reasons why newspapers so far have failed to crack this market. Because online ads are far less expensive than print ads and thus offer lower commissions, it’s difficult to get salespeople to focus on selling the […]
Today I had to contact Sharp Electronics, the makers of our cafe’s cash register. After I was finished getting soaked for a simple new plastic cash drawer, to the tune of about $100, I perused their website, and discovered that Sharp is a big player in solar electricity. That got […]
Today the heat has mostly passed, and we have a little break from the pounding rain. I’m in my favorite window seat at the cafe, and just finished a quick read–Tuesday’s Daily Hampshire Gazette. On page one was a story about a guy I’ve met before (but can’t recall where!) […]
Today I man the office solo. Steve is out on assignment covering his favorite beat–New Hampshire. He’s writing about Summer Stock Theater there. I remember well when Steve and I lived up there, just across the river in Norwich VT, and we worked together in Lebanon. It was the Connecticut […]
Yesterday I did a radio interview with Kevin and Sue McCarthy about my trip to Borneo and Kuala Lumpur. Kevin reminded me of a term that I had forgotten that says a lot about Malaysians. It’s called Hidari Islam, and means their brand of the religion is cloaked with tolerance […]
Tom Devine is a blogger’s blogger. He posts more frequently than anyone I know, and it’s all usually interesting. Today I read on his blog about one of his few experiences having heterosexual sex. “One thing led to another, and soon we were kissing, hugging, our hands and mouths going […]
Yesterday was a perfect summer day….for floating down the Deerfield River. I can always count on my friends Jack and Laura to motivate me to get moving. Either it’s a bike ride, a hike to a new undiscovered forest, or floating down a river–they are my primary motivators to move, […]
I read a WSJ review of a new book about the early days of Fidel Castro and Fulgencio Batista called “Havana Nocturne.” this morning on our sunny deck. The book depicts a wild era of ‘rum, roulette and revolution,’ spiced up by orgies involving future presidents and famous American mobsters. […]
Gerard Baker had fun in the UK’s Times online with this biblical account of Obama’s world tour this week. “And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores […]
I caught up with a woman today who told me a year ago that she was launching a new website and a home-based business. I hear ideas like this so many times that I usually expect them to languish and never come to fruition. But this one was different–and the […]
Every day I read the papers and scan the web for news about airlines and airport parking for my other blog. But yesterday, sadly, I got word that someone else would be taking it over. So I’ll no longer write that blog, even though I still enjoy finding tidbits about […]
Last month’s Wired magazine cover made a case for accepting nuclear power if we are to ever really battle global climate change. I got up early this morning and read an op-ed in the WSJ by William Tucker that made more of the same very valid points. It’s time for […]