I read Hillary Clinton’s recent book about last year’s presidential campaign, “What Happened,” more as an act of defiance than a search for enlightenment. I read it because people told me I…
Rude Interruptions
As the Messenger Mountain News prepared for launch at the beginning of the year, the founders knew it needed a motto—a credo, if you will—to both express its aspirations and react to…
(DATELINE: BALTIC SEA, BETWEEN ST. PETERSBURG AND HELSINKI)—If there’s one thing you don’t expect on ocean cruises, it’s any kind of surprise. By definition, cruises are designed to be uncomplicated and predictable—you…
Be gentle with me this week. My iPod recently died; she was only nine, and I’m still grieving. I’ve never been an “early adopter,” one of those guys who stands in line…
I’ve been thinking a lot about Edward R. Murrow lately. Journalists of a certain age are prone to do that. Not because we’re lost in our senile reveries, but because Murrow, the…
Was it only a year ago that I was rhapsodizing about the upcoming 2016 programming at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum? As I wrote at the time, the Theatricum’s summer program blew in…
MONUMENT VALLEY, UTAH—We’re among those Americans who’ve seen a lot more of other countries than we have our own. But this spring, a timely professional conference for my wife in Denver and…
The city of Claremont, my hometown through middle school and most of my college years, recently held a memorial service for Janis Weinberger, who with her husband Martin, owned and published for…
Our mountains lost a great friend last week with the passing of Tony Beilenson, the former congressman, state senator and assemblyman. I learned the sad news—as I so often have—from a news…
The ash grove, how graceful, how plainly ’tis speaking The harp through it playing has language for me. When over its branches the sunlight is breaking, A host of kind faces is…