Past Articles

I met Tom Chappell once, he is also a parent of a student who graduated from Northfield Mount Hermon, my old school. I thought about how the folks there who do fundraising will handle this potential donor. The Boston Globe had this story. “Chappell, 63, gave up a corporate career […]

Random musings on this cold March morning the second day of spring: Things in the cafe are looking up! We had our best day ever on Monday, and did it with our homemade banana breads and other goodies. We didn’t buy any pastries that we’d have to throw away, we […]

Boingboing.net had a link to this wild and . Love these photos of overloaded vehicles of every stripe

Does everybody really love a parade? Today I drove over to the corner of Appleton and Beech Streets, in the area of Holyoke known as the Flats. This was once an Irish enclave, but now it is nearly all Hispanic. I ducked into a crowded little grocery store where people […]

Mark Cuban is the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks and a founder of Broadcast.com, which he sold to Yahoo for billions. He talks about a problem that we will all be talking about in the future…on his blogmaverick.com site. You heard it here first. In the next few years, […]

We made a fire and I read the NY Times on line this morning, we got up so early it feels like it’s already 2 pm but only 10:30. A story detailed the story behind a popular trend: Fair Trade products. “Fair Trade labels don’t list the amount paid to […]

Hiawatha Bray writes in the Boston Globe about a new trend: businesses are asking for ZIP codes when customers pull out their credit cards. “A thief usually won’t know the ZIP code assocated with the card he’s using. So requiring the ZIP code is a simple way to reduce fraudulent […]

Brian McGrory wrote about the Mittster in the Boston Globe, and got it spot on. There is something he couldn’t put his finger on about Governor Romney, and it hit him when he went to a speech before a chamber of commerce group. There, the governor looked at his watch […]

The Huffington Post is the hottest blog going, all LA cool and stuff. She was chided recently about publishing text that was “from George Clooney’s blog” but was really written by a publicist. How shocking! “First of all, is the blogosphere powerful or what? As has been endlessly noted, the […]

Television has gotten much better in the 00s. Take tonight’s offering, American Inventor. They wrest that same level of pathos out of winning, acceptance and the joy of being picked that American Idol does. But these are inventors, each with their own idea that they fervently believe will change the […]

Gail Schiller writes in the Hollywood Reporter about product placement in news programs. “With TV stations facing increased and pressure on advertising revenue, the barriers that shielded news programing from such deals are falling. Product placement, media and branded entertainment agencies say they are increasingly being pitched opportunities from local […]

The insurance industry doesn’t share our President’s skepticism about global warming. A column in today’s Boston Globe by Derrick Z. Jackson quotes Munich Re, the world’s largest re-insurance firm, that the insurance business overall had the worst record of losses in their history in 2004: $210 billion in losses. Now […]

Bought the NY Times last night. I still wonder why I do that. When am I gonna read all of these sections? One story was about the division down on the Gulf coast over a new bridge to replace a four-lane structure between Ocean Springs and Biloxi. The chamber of […]

“Preach to the choir,” my wonderful girlfriend Cindy always says. “Don’t bother with those who don’t support you, or criticize or suspect you…talk and focus on the ones who understand you, want to help you succeed, and believe that you can help them.” I love her succinct approach and her […]

Reading Poynter.org today a story linked to this ad for a new website in LA, looking for writers, who want the experience of writing, with a blog-like attitude. “You’re a journalist. You write about Los Angeles – the live, crackling energy of its politics and people and media and neighborhoods. […]

A drizzly, rainy day in South Deerfield, and not many folks are coming in for coffee today. Funny you would think they would need the caffeine more on a day like this, but even the women at the bank said that nobody was coming in and they felt like taking […]

Today’s NY Times included this passage about how the food tasters at Trader Joe’s decide on what to buy for the store. “The pasta buyer had boiled up six different Italian brands of whole-grain pasta and tossed them in plain olive oil. The group fell silent and began chewing intently. […]

Dr. Wafa Sultan said the world’s Muslims, whom she compares unfavorably with the Jews, have descended into a vortex of self-pity and violence. Her story was told in today’s NY Times. She has been threatened by clericswho don’t like what she says about Islam. “Dr. Sultan said the world was […]