I called my friend Vernon tonight to wish him a happy birthday and to thank him for my salary, not to mention my health insurance. He was puzzled by this until I reminded him that in 2002 he had given me some advice which he had heard somewhere: “Be bold. […]

I used to advertise in the paper for tenants. but I don’t anymore because Craig’s List is free and the newspaper classifieds don’t work. And why is that? Could it possibly be that Craig’s List is more concerned with meeting the needs of their customers? The management of newspapers in […]

Imagine America without Uncle Sam or Santa or the Easter Bunny or the Brooklyn Bridge. Imagine America without Babe Ruth or Doris Day or Elvis. Without the contributions of German Americans, America would not be the country it is today. You know that painting of Washington crossing the Delaware at […]

It’s always a treat to have lunch at the Four Seasons in Boston and to meet with Victoria Larson of the German National Tourist Office and Kirsten Schmidt of Berlin Tourism. Last year I went with GoNOMAD Senior Travel Editor Kent St. John, and this year I went with GoNOMAD […]

That’s Royal Ford of the Boston Globe driving the new Daimler-Benz Smart Car. I want one, but you can’t buy them here in the US. I snapped this photo in Boston yesterday and Royal stopped to chat with me and my brother Shady. Watch for us in the Globe this […]

Since I spend my days editing brilliant stories from all over the world, once in a while I offer advice for writers. Writers and editors have always had a love-hate relationship without the love, and since I was a writer for a lot more years than I’ve been an editor, […]

What is a paradigm? I’m so glad you asked. I have seen this word used so many times by know-it-alls and I’m sick of it. The guy at the meeting that says, “We need to invent a new paradigm,” and everybody nods because they won’t admit that they don’t know […]

You know you’re in for a good time when you see a work by Hugh Trevor-Roper. He was dispatched by the Allied Command to make sure Hitler was dead. I was entralled by his work, The Last Days of Hitler. He had also written an essay about witchcraft which is […]

I got six issues of Archaeology magazine for a dime each, and I must say I’ve been thinking about subscribing. Whenever I see an article in the paper about an archaeological discovery I have to read the whole thing. I’ve always been fascinated by early humans and how they developed […]

I’ve been tag sailing and flea marketing to beat the band in these last days of fall, and I’ve picked up some great loot. Lots of great reads and ‘great listens’ for a quarter. I’ve got enough Sherlock Holmes stories on tape for my next eight car trips, plus Dragnet […]