Yum, yum, UMAMI yum. That’s the new taste sensation, according to a story in yesterday’s WSJ by Katy McLaughlin. It’s a Japanese term coined in the early 20th century by Kikunae Ikeda, a scientist who made the word up based on the word for ‘deliciousness.’ Simply put, it’s the fifth […]
Last night was a triumph of seven-letter words: Our first Scrabble Tournament at the cafe. I have been talking about this event for months, and it finally happened. In cafe tradition, it was full of energy and life–the kind of spirit I like to think our cafe brings out in […]
Naira Costa is a house cleaner from Brazil who is a prime example of why the mortgage melt down happened. In yesterday’s WSJ, her story was told and it is a doozy. Through a pastor turned mortgage broker, with her taxi driver husband the pair bought a house in the […]
When I was about six, we went to the New York World’s fair, in Astoria, Queens. There we saw the Futurama, and one of the coolest exhibits showed cars that drove themselves as you sat back and just rode. The NY Times today has a story about this elusive, yet […]
I write a blog for my friends at Airport Parking Reservations. Here is a post I feel strongly about, that I posted tonight. It’s time we took back the thousands of miles of highways in the sky that the Pentagon has claimed for its training flights and missile tests. Over […]
When half of a media outlet’s editorial staff decides to jump ship, chances are it will be reported first on the media gossip blog Gawker — even, it turns out, when those departures are from Gawker itself. The New York Times reported today that Emily Gould, a Gawker editor, dropped […]
When I visited Medellin Colombia in June, we met several journalists from Venezuela, and the first thing we asked them was what they thought about Hugo Chavez. “Well, one woman editor told us, “people either love him or hate him. But really, we don’t care that much about what he […]
Richard Read wrote a piece for Newhouse News service about a trip to North Korea. Here at the end, he finally breaks away, and it’s the best part of the story. “The ceaseless propaganda had gripped me, but not in the intended manner: I found myself fighting an impulse to […]
On Saturday night after we got back from our favorite restaurant, Apollo Grill, I got a chance to finish reading the Weekend WSJ, and found a story about Porsche. The headline referred to the $100 million that their CEO Wendelin Wiedeking took home for a year’s pay. That’s making big […]
It’s windy outside and there’s a bit of new snow on the ground. Cindy and I are on our dueling laptops, she doing some sort of continuing ed and I of course, having read all that I can read on line, am sitting here writing blogs. I got a comment […]
Here is my favorite neighbor, Georgi, the owner of Georgio’s Restaurant, located next to the cafe. Every day, Georgi bellows out to me from his stove (shown here) as I run downstairs to retrieve food from the walk-in. “Moxxxy my friend…how are YOU?…what’s GOIN’ on?” He has helped us out […]
I have been blogging regularly about what I consider a turning point in society’s view of green energy. Again and again I read about initiatives moving forward despite the government’s recalcitrance; it is the market that is pushing hard and the profit motive that keeps them innovating. Last night’s WSJ […]