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 […]
Today I derived joy from a simple act. I bought a metro shelving unit and organized my very unorganized walk-in refrigerator and everything is now easy to reach, safely put away, and there’s even room for more! I thought for a minute about how great it was after Georgio helped […]
Yesterday I had a chance to speak with a group of high school students in an environmental awareness class at Frontier, in South Deerfield. Their teacher, Delfina, brought the group in and doled out dollar bills outside the cafe so they could buy something while I spoke to them. I […]
Sara Blakely is the women who invented Spanx, a pair of cut off panty hose that shapes tummies and thighs and is now a $150 million company. She was interviewed by BusinessWeek’s Stacy Perman and the last two questions were the best. You’ve said that failure was a huge part […]
I read a shiver-inducing feature today in the WSJ, it was about cobras who live in large numbers in the hot Bengali plains southwest of Calcutta. The snakes are revered by the Hindu faith, and no one except priests are allowed to touch them or harm them. One man said […]
Oh what a trove of riches I was provided with this chilly morning in the WSJ. As Cindy and I watched the chickadees and cardinals feast on the feeder’s seeds, I read a wonderful piece by Eric Felten. His topic was ‘The Art of Drinking Well,’ and he describes the […]
It’s a brisk November morning and predictably, the cafe is quiet. Not dead, just quiet enough to give me a chance to sit in my favorite window seat, gaze out on the bright sun and deserted streets, and read the WSJ. I read a piece first about Iraq’s surfeit of […]