The Blackout Tells The Story of the Other Side
Last night in the swelter of the heat wave, it was refreshing to watch another heatwave unfold on the TV. Francisco and I watched “Blackout,” a movie about the 2003 power outage and how it unfolded in Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood. One telltale scene was when the radio broadcast how […]
Tsunami Wrecks Islands, Then Lower Class Tourists Do The Same
Today’s WSJ has a story datelined Fort Blair, Andaman and Nicobar islands. These islands rang a bell because after the Asian tsunami of 2004, we had to go in and make a lot of changes to the feature story we had up about this destination on GoNOMAD. They were wrecked, […]
Cousin Chris Makes Electricity from the Sun
We’re just back from a family party where the star attraction was a sleek set of photovoltaic cells perched atop a makeshift llama barn. My cousin Chris celebrated his birthday with a gathering of sisters, cousins, uncles and friends, and in the New Jersey June swelter, we ambled amidst the […]
When You Lose Your Latin Workers, the Burmese Step In
Despite the downturn in the economy, there are still many jobs that go begging. That’s why meat packer JBS Swift last year set up a war room with maps showing concentric circles of where people might possibly live who would consider working at the big meat plant. The idea at […]
The Rat Pack Opened the Doors for Blacks in Vegas
I watch the television news each morning that I wake up in South Deerfield, since I’ve installed one of those racks that holds the TV way up on the wall like in a hospital room. My ritual is to flip it on and catch some scenes of news or turn […]
Big Newspaper, Big Internet Flop
I remember a boss once when I sold newsaper ads whose claim to fame was his long association with the Washington Post. His name was Don, and he used to come into work very early, and always wore beautifully pressed dress shirts and shiny leather shoes. He came from that […]
Why Can’t We?
I am back, running on all cylinders, having some fun doing what I do when I am working in my South Deerfield office. The trip to Tours in France energized my writing, making it easier to write and let it flow. That always makes for a better story, that flow. […]
France’s Secret Garden Isn’t Just for Cheaters
While we were finishing dinner during one of the stops this week, a French guide told me that her kid’s German teacher was sitting over on the other side of the restaurant with his mistress. She knew him because her husband is a doctor, and he’s treating the man’s parents […]