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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

 Last night’s mancave movie was my all-time favorite, The Lives of Others. Devorah asked me why it was my fav, and when I answered, it gave me some new insight into what makes a great movie.  It was that the central character, Wiesler, who is such the epitome of evil […]

Yesterday’s auspicious date of 1-1-11 made me pause and think of even more magical things that should have been happening that afternoon at 1:11 pm, or at 11:11 pm after we had all retired. Beside gawking at the numbers what does one do with them? In my case I take […]

It’s New Year’s Eve 2010, and I find myself in a familiar place…the kitchen where I grew up in Blawenburg NJ.  I’m about to walk across the street to my sister Annie’s house and join several other familiar faces to celebrate the New Year.  Sadly, two of my sisters appear […]