Category Archives: Personally Speaking

Got this email note for parents from school regarding this weekend’s homecoming dance. One might think the homework requirements are a grind for high schoolers, but not as much, apparently, as the dance. A report from the dean of students held a warning for ninth graders, who had a great time at the ninth-grade-only dance [...]

The decline of American newspapers is a sad thing to watch, especially for those of us who were trained to go into an industry we had the impression would be around at least until our retirement. Well, that pipedream is gone, and along with amazing shrinking staffs and lighter-weight content, there is the item of [...]

The old and new are crashing in on eachother in London these days. It’s the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth and all the squalid, dank details of the Victorian underbelly are being celebrated, in a way. There is a big exhibit at the British History Museum, for example, but the Charles Dickens Museum, installed [...]

The giant illuminated billboard at Heathrow declares: “We’re ready.” But the mobbed scene in Terminal 5 says otherwise. The train between terminals pulls out empty, causing the next to be packed. Then those people ascend to “baggage reclaim” on jammed elevator only to meet people coming up the suddenly operating escalator. The hapless guides try [...]

The start of baseball season is a day always filled with joy and hope – a triumph over winter and the promise of summer all with the crack of a bat. It was better than ever this year as I got to go to the designated season opener at the new Marlin Park in Miami. [...]

It’s tough for me to feel sympathy for the Winklevoss Twins, but with talk this week of Facebook going public with a $100 billion valuation, it only makes me feel once more that I’ve been had, on the internet – a pawn in somebody’s get rich quick scheme. The last time I felt this way [...]