They Fear the Aspirations of their Own People the Most
I was up early this morning, reading and reading on my little iphone while lying in bed. So many interesting stories on such a tiny device, Lord what did I ever do before I got my mitts on this thing? I read Obama’s speech that he gave to the Nobel […]
How About Putting a Sail on that Freighter?
It’s a brilliant cold Saturday, and I learned quite a bit as I read last night’s WSJ while looking out at the chickadees and finches flitting over the feeder. One was about a German company called SkySails that installs parachute-like sails above commercial freighters and says that in the right […]
A One-Time Newspaper that Turned Heads
In San Francisco, they published a one-off that impressed everybody and they all lined up to buy it. Print newspapers aren’t dead, the story asserts, we just want them to be much better. This paper was called the San Francisco Panorama. It’s a big broadsheet in color with features about […]
Potemkin Village: A Useful Term for Our Time
Reading a story in the WSJ tonight I came across an excellent word that prompted me to delve into its meaning. That is, Potemkin Village. As in, ‘they planted a potemkin forest to block the highway.’ It goes back to Catherine the Great’s tour of Crimea in 1787, when a […]
Captured by the Snowfall
I am looking out at a serene backyard, dappled with sun. Yet in my part of the woods, the winds rage, the rain pours down on top of the big snowfall. Happily plugged in, I manage to ‘kill time’ a bit here in NJ while rides home are sorted out […]
The Narrative Pollutes the Minds of Muslims
My parents get two newspapers every day at their New Jersey home. One of them is the Trenton Times, which publishes Thomas Friedman’s column, as does the NY Times, their second newspaper. I read him today and as usual, agree with what he has to say. It’s about the Narrative…a […]
Wild Things Are Captures Boyhood’s Emotions
We staggered out of the theater in Davis Square this afternoon after seeing Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze’s brilliant adaptation of the Maurice Sendak children’s classic. The emotion that he’s able to squeeze out of 20-foot-high characters in elaborate costumes and CGI faces took our breath away. Those […]
The Supercomputing Center in Holyoke Is Coming
Just last week we were enjoying long, long days as the southern hemisphere moved into its summer. More than once we would be having dinner at 8 or 9 o’clock and the striking light outside made us swear that it was about 5. Today as I sit in Holyoke and […]