Past Articles

I spent yesterday in New York City. I love the smell that wafts around you when you first hit the street. We parked in a Times Square lot and emerged to the heart of it all, Broadway. That scent hits you and you know you’re in the thick of it–where […]

Yoga Mama 

Julia King, 38, is part of an emerging class of women whom marketers call Yoga Mamas. These middle- and upper-income mothers are more style- and brand-conscious than their parents. AOL news has this story today. “No matter their income, they spend like lottery winners on their babies and toddlers. In […]

Back in June I was amazed at this story in Wired about phages, bacteria-eating viruses that could be the answer to antibiotic resistance. The first treatment to use the therapy could be available this year. “Half a century ago, antibiotics revolutionized medicine by turning many once-deadly infections like tuberculosis into […]

Maureen Dowd writes well in today’s NY Times about paying for dinner checks. “After Googling and Bikramming to get ready for a first dinner date, a modern girl will end the evening with the Offering, an insincere bid to help pay the check. “They make like they are heading into […]

Sunday morning and we turned back the clocks, so we get even more out of this sunny fall day. Life is good. I filled out the forms and wrote the check so on Monday I am signing up our three employees at GoNOMAD.com for Blue Cross Health Insurance. This is […]

Sam hangs out the window of his new studio apartment in downtown Greenfield.  There is no joy like seeing your young son move into his own apartment. It’s an exciting time for Sam, and in his face and his motions, you see hope, and pride that he managed to get […]

An Army wound-dresser in World War I in France, writer Edmund Wilson said “the war made me see. . . that respectable life is a living death.” His parents’ example may have had something to do with that observation, as well. In any case, through a life that ended in […]

Wendy Orent is the author of “Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World’s Most Dangerous Disease.” “It must seem like the sky is falling — that it’s about to rain chaos and death as the dreaded H5N1 avian flu appears to close in. Last spring, bird flu […]

Time Magazine published this piece on North Korea. “But any liberalization could lead to a loss of the absolute political control enjoyed by Kim. The dilemma is evident during a visit to the Kumsung Educational Institute. Boys recruited from around the country are learning English and computer skills beneath portraits […]

Random purely personal things that are on my mind. My feared liver numbers went from 67 to 43, and 24-17. That is all very good. Because of my strict two drink per week regimen, I’ve been able to significantly improve my liver function. So this is going to be around […]

Today’s Recorder newspaper included an AP story about how the thousands of college students who were uprooted by Katrina are faring in their new temporary colleges. “An estimated 75,000 college students were displaced from New Orleans by the storm. Many are still in the South, or at least at schools […]

Google’s already outsize ambitions appeared to balloon even bigger on Oct. 25 with the news that it’s apparently testing something called Google Base. The test site, spotted by sharp-eyed Web surfers in Europe, indicate that Google aims to solicit people to post all manner of content on its site. But […]

Magic Johnson dazzled the world when he wore Laker Purple, and took the team through four world championships in the 1980s. The star was in Springfield’s Alden Baptist Church yesterday, reported the Republican. “Today, Magic takes only two of the 26 pills routinely used to treat the HIV virus, and […]

If you had to choose, which of these Dubya originals would you say is your favorite?www.dubyaspeak.com polled their audience. I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees. 167 (19.2%) Part of the strategy is to call free nations together to form a coalition, to share information and to […]

Frank Rose wrote in Wired last week. “Consumers want an iPod phone that will play any song, anytime, anywhere. Just four little problems: the cell carriers, the record labels, the handset makers, and Apple itself. The inside story of why the ROKR went wrong.* (*And what it will take to […]

Tonight I joined many other members of Hidden-tech to learn about health insurance for small businesses in Massachusetts. There is a state program that will subsidize most of your employee’s monthly costs, it was presented by Simon Muil, a Brit who recalled his days using the single payer plan run […]

“The huge divide between the world’s rich and poor is well-illustrated by the yawning gap in assistance offered those who suffer nature’s wrath. According to this op-ed article from Tunisia’s Tunis Hebdo, the failure of the international community to deal more equitably with disaster victims is a sad reflection of […]