Coming Soon to the Sky Above Afghanistan
Have you heard about the giant blimp that will soon be deployed 20,000 feet above Afghanistan? It’s made by Northrop Grumman and it’s a seven-story, football-field sized blimp that can stay up for three weeks at a time. And it positively bristles with electronic survelliance antennae, sensors, and other intelligence […]
Colrain’s Green Emporium Warms Up with Zydeco
I was at the hardware store and asked my favorite clerk, Mike, what he was doing this weekend. It was the classic Friday question. “I am playing zydeco music up in Colrain,” he said. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this was a very good time to […]
He Pilots a Giant Blue Mercury, or a Cool Orange Snowthrower
One of the joys of staying put for many years is how you get to know people, and recognize their cars and their mannerisms as you circulate through town. In our village, there is a short man who likes to wear funny looking hats and drives an enormous light blue […]
Up in Alaska, Men from Oregon Search Desperately for Gold
Tonight the TV was all about the Great North. First up Gold Rush Alaska, about a group of six men from Oregon who have assembled $250K worth of heavy machinery and have bought a claim in Porcupine Creek to mine gold. It’s one equipment failure after another and the miners […]
With the Alabama Story Done, Time for Ebooks and Podcasts
It’s another snow day in New England…everyone I know is getting weary of all of these days when everything closes down and the driving is terrible. I keep thinking, no, no, they can’t cancel school again, yet here they go, another day of no school, kids inside, and the cafe […]
Growing Hurts like Hell
Andréa Cabrita wrote a story today about volunteering in an orphanage in Zambia. At the very end, she perfectly sums up a life-changing experience like she went through. She did a beautiful job. It was like an insistent disruption that makes us want to disconnect, that makes us crave a […]
There’s Never Been a Better Time to Be a Bedbug
In a sure sign that the apocalypse is near, I read today in the WSJ that bedbugs are evolving several resistance techniques that makes them even harder to kill. Researchers at UMass have found NYC bedbugs are now 250 times more resistant to the standard pesticide than their brethren in […]
To Look Cool in Nairobi, Drive a Baby Boy
In Nigeria, a 2000 Honda Accord is widely known as a “Baby Boy.” The 2003 model, a step up, is called “End of Discussion.” And if you’re lucky and rich enough to drive the 2007 model, they call that “The Discussion Continues.” I read a story in yesterday’s WSJ about […]
Williamstown: A Perfect Sunday Destination
I am trying to remember the last time I was in Williamstown MA. Sadly, even reaching back through all of my blog archives, I could not find a single entry recalling those trips my father and I made to this college town, so it must have been before 2004. Until […]
Tunisians to Ben Ali: Enough is Enough!!
Arab governments are running scared, as the unthinkable has happened in Tunisia….the dictator of 23 years, Ben Ali, has been sent packing. We’ve sent writers to this North African nation several times and I was amazed when Paul Shoul told me about the fear people had about Ben Ali, who […]
Sometimes TV is So Annoying I Just Have to Kill It
Several people close to me never watch TV, and they are proud when they tell people how their living rooms are bigscreen-free. I am not like them, and enjoy watching TV, but tonight I have got to admit I was forced to mute and then finally kill the thing after […]
So Many Exciting Developments, In Spite of the Turmoil
It’s an interesting time here in the depths of winter in New England. I have a terrible time in my personal life, being dumped and everything, and at the cafe, the turmoil of the employee churn takes its toll. Today we got a classic employee insult when the woman who […]
Good News for Fish Eaters, For Those Who Catch Them, Not So Much
I was impressed by some dazzling good news yesterday. It turns out that as of 2010, the US will not be overfishing the oceans off its coasts. Through brutal regulations, the fisheries departments have figured out the right kind of nets and the right number of boats, and now we’re […]
No Sleepovers, No TV, and Plenty of Drills
An article entitled ‘Why Chinese Mothers are Superior” caught my attention onFacebook, when it was cited by a number of my friends. The story was written by Amy Chua, a Yale professor who was raised by Chinese parents and who ticked off the things no Chinese child would ever be […]
Meeting a Doctor and Talking About the Worst Case
The other night I joined my friend Joe and my cousin Paul and some others and played the drums. It was a lot of fun. When I had a break I sat next to the wife of a man who played bass, and we began talking. “What do you do?” […]
When African Americans Light Up, It’s Usually a Newport
When I pumped gas as a 14-year-old youth, many of my customers were African-American nurses who worked down the road at the Institute, a place where crazy people used to live until a few decades ago. Often they would order cigarettes…and rarely did they want any other brand than Newports. […]
When Your Members Are Jobless, You Sympathize with the Gov
The disconnect between unionized public employees and blue collar urban unionized workers is coming to a boil. In a story in Tuesday’s WSJ, William McGurn wrote about this rocky relationship, which is made much worse by the high level of unemployment faced by people like ironworkers and construction laborers. It’s […]
Social Media Engineers are Fanning Out Across the Neighborhood
An insurance company sent a pair of young experts to our cafe this morning. It was about social media. Heidi Warner is a Social Media Engineer, and in this spirit, she shows business owners how to publish blogs, keep up their facebooks, tweet, and many other of 2011’s tricks. She […]