David Gritten writes a blog for the UK Telegraph, he wrote about the film season in Cannes, France. “Strangest of all are market screenings, mainly for the benefit of distributors who might be interested in buying a film for their particular territory. Often these films are being seen for the […]

Today I drove to Easthampton to pick up a new sidewalk sandwich sign painted by Jill MacFarlane. While I was at a cafe I picked up the Valley Advocate, and chuckled through a cover story by Annabel Lee, chronicling 100 Internet dates. Here is the ending: “I’m not sure what […]

David Rich writes for GoNOMAD about elephants in Thailand.“On the first trek into the jungle we quickly learned the most repeated command is bai, which means “GO.” The jungle to an elephant is like a chocolate factory to a Willie Wonka kid; every jungle bit is luscious, edible and available. […]

I remember well watching Survivor in 2000, the summer I lived in a youth hostel on Martha’s Vineyard. Richard Hatch was a big part of that show, and he got sentenced to prison yesterday for tax evasion. Ouch! “It seems unfortunately very clear to me that Mr. Hatch lied,” Torres […]

The Pioneer Valley’s famous bird killers, Michael Zak and Tim Lloyd are getting lots of ink in all of the papers. What most of the stories are saying is how stupid it is to try to keep birds away from a fish hatchery by shooting them. Today’s Recorder had quotes […]

Kelly and Quang just got back from an eight-month trip around the world. In their blog, Global Roam, they talk now about what it’s like to return home… “This is how it feels: We’d rather keep our revelations and our stories to ourselves. In this way, they retain an air […]

I’ve just finished Jeffery Tayler’s book about his trip across the Sahel in Africa. So I found his other journey journal, called “Glory in a Camel’s Eye,” on Amazon and extracted this nugget. “In any case, I discovered a distraction that brought me closer to Moroccan life than any job […]

A grey Saturday in South Deerfield, a day to let your eyes close and nap, and one to read the local papers. I picked up the Recorder and found a big front page story about an atrocity against birds. The owner of a Sunderland fish hatchery had more than 250 […]

“Today, there are new claims about other ways we are tracking down al Qaeda to prevent attacks on America,” Bush said.The government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval. Third, the intelligence activities I authorized are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both […]

Wendy Goodman lives in Greenfield, MA and just returned from Haiti, where she opened a community arts center in 2003. She explained the difficulties of trying to make progress in a country such as Haiti, where mistrust of outsiders and strict class boundries are so sharp. She was interviewed in […]

David Andelman wrote a tribute in Forbes about the Timesman who just passed away this week. The Times takes a lot of flack, but Abe Rosenthal was a class act. “After three months of total immersion in Vietnamese at Berlitz, I was heading to Saigon as a newly minted foreign […]