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Imagine living to the ripe old age of 104….and spending eight decades of that long life in virtual seclusion. I read a column called Remembrances tonight in the WSJ about Huguette Clark, a society girl who made her debut at age 20, and then married at 22. Yet despite being […]
Of all the lovable and charming characters on The Office, Andy Bernard is to me the funniest of all. Is this because of my growing up in Ivy League Princeton, NJ, where there were families like Mr Bernard’s who brag about their Cornell roots yet are absolutely terrible at their […]
When I saw the eponymous title of a new book by a less-than-admired president, I knew I wanted to read more. Millard Filmore is a new book by Paul Finkelman that explains the background of how a barely-known comptroller of New York became President of the United States. His fortune […]
Today was a nearly perfect Sunday. I discovered another bike trail, this one between Lanesborough and Adams, and enjoyed time with a good friend riding through wooded trails, beside lakes and streams, enjoying the breeze, the ducks, and interesting conversation. Everyone riding on the trail seemed happy, as if this […]
What’s the difference between the French and the Americans? Peggy Noonan writes in today’s WSJ that a striking contrast can be seen when comparing how the two countries reacted the the arrest last week of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was once considered to be the next president of France. Now he’s […]
Last night I read in the WSJ that a ban on circumcision is being placed on the ballot in San Francisco in November. And that a similar ban was proposed in Massachusetts last year. How come I never heard about that? The San Francisco initiative would ban the circumcision of […]
When the first English and Dutch settlers came to Cape Cod, it turns out that they were failures at fishing. In Paul Schneider’s history of the Cape and Islands, “The Enduring Shore,” he writes that the ‘master salt maker’ on the Mayflower turned out to not know how to make […]
There are some stories that you just don’t read about in very many places. I read tonight on the WSJ’s editorial page about an upcoming bail-out for the US Postal Service, which has just about reached the end of a $15 billion line of credit extended to it by the […]
What a lovely day to spend in bed, rain pounding down on the roof, reality television silently playing on the wall-mounted TV, typing out thoughts on my laptop. It’s funny to think that there was once a time that I would have been depressed by a rainy Sunday. Today, I […]
Last night I reached a decision that will finally end the long experiment known as the GoNOMAD Cafe. It’s become clear that it is not a viable business for me, and after a nightmare of trying to fund a payroll, I have set a date for the closing of the […]
Tomorrow morning, try something new. Reach over and switch off that radio. Try turning off that familiar mainstay, WFCR, that has filled your kitchen with news and music for the past fifty years. For many Valley households, it’s just impossible to imagine waking up without NPR’s Morning Edition, and the […]
There was a time, not that long ago, that companies like Wal-Mart could demand that products made in China cost less and less every year. I read tonight in the Wall St. Journal about many reasons that this has changed, and from now on, the story said that prices of […]