Europe, Travel

Frankfurt, Germany

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I had a few hours to kill after landing at the Frankfurt airport. Since Frankfurt is not one of the obvious tourist attractions of Germany, I had never visited the old city center. I entered the historically significant Paulskirche, where representatives from all over Germany met in 1848 to discuss German unification and a constitution image image [Read More]
Diary

Hellhole: Is solitary confinement torture?

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I knew that humans beings are social creatures and that we need others to reach our highest potential. But I had no idea that the brain completely disintegrates after longer periods of solitary confinement that is now practiced in many U.S. prisons. Read this fascinating story by Atul Gawande in the New Yorker. He happened image [Read More]
Humor, Situations

TAILS OF MANHATTAN

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I no longer have the patience to watch Woody Allen movies, but his short pieces in the New Yorker are still fun to read. Here is a wonderful postscript to the Madoff Ponzi scheme that made many jewish people wonder why they would be so credulous. Woody Allen in New Yorker, March 30, 2009: Two image [Read More]
Diary

Blood on the Water: Oxford Versus Cambridge.

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This review in the Economist wetted my appetite. I will read this book during my summer holiday. The Economist: SIBLING rivalry has many famous examples. Cain and Abel, Linus and Lucy, Liam and Noel. Less well-known, but no less competitive, are David and James Livingston, two brothers who, in April 2003, raced on opposite sides image [Read More]
Diary

How to Help Children Survive Separation and Divorce

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The Economist reports: JULIE LYNN EVANS, a well-known British psychotherapist, deals with troubled children with remarkable devotion and insight. As the recession puts added strain on many marriages, her account of the mental stresses and strains that parental break-up inflicts on children could not be more timely.Many of the children Ms Evans sees do not image [Read More]
Diary

I want to join the “Century Club”

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I want to be as productive as Elliot Cook Carter at 100. Read this fascinating story about the concert in New York a few months ago. Alex Ross. (The New Yorker). The last emperor of China had just assumed his throne. William Howard Taft, the President-elect of the United States, was meeting with Theodore Roosevelt at image [Read More]
Diary

Jon Steward on the Quality of Financial News Reporting

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Music, Pop

U2 -“No line on the horizon”

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I had trouble downloading an iTunes TV show. To test the function, I needed to download some music.  The new U2 was placed prominent on the virtual storefront. I bought it and was surprised how good it is. For a band that has been in this game for over 20 years, the new album feels image [Read More]
Diary

A Feature that you don’t have in your car

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Mr. Gibbs (Obama’s press secretary) said, the president was particularly impressed by the many phones inside the presidential limousine. “He thinks the coolest thing about this,” Mr. Gibbs said, “is that you can pick up the phone and say, ‘I need to reach so and so,’ and a minute later, the phone rings and they image [Read More]