Marshall Refused to Laugh at FDR's Jokes

Love that afternoon TV in the basement. Where else but on the History Channel's "Five Star Heroes" would I be able to learn about the life and times of General George Marshall.

Marshall went to Virginia Military Institute, his brother thought he'd flunk out. He couldn't get into West Point. He said that seeing the troops being celebrated coming home from the Spanish American War in his hometown made him want to become a military man.

Later in his career, he was sent to France as a supply officer. During an inspection of the troops by General Pershing, the big man began berating Marshall's senior officer. He grabbed the General by the arm and began lecturing him...turning the blame around and saying that it wasn't his commander's fault, it was the lack of supplies and training. His gambit was successful--Pershing later called him and offered him a job on his senior staff. When his first wife died at 26, he collapsed and couldn't do anything for two weeks. A few years later he married another beautiful woman, and Pershing was his best man.

He rose in the ranks during World War II. He refused to laugh at FDR's jokes, and never liked the man. Yet he was promoted again to chief of staff handling the war effort. He became one of only eight men who ever had five stars as a general or admiral. No one gets five stars nowadays.

Pumpcam Man Startles Motorists

Got home late tonight. Was working on a proposal in collaboration with another website. Very high profile client, good sized proposal. Talking to the west coast late into the night. Later, on the Tonight Show, there was a funny bit called Pumpcam.

The scene was from the survelliance camera in the gas pump, looking out. First an older woman fumbles with the nozzle, unable to get it into her tank. The stern voice booms out from the TV newscast on the gas pump. It's a campy announcer named Larry Atkinson, he's reading the news...then he suddenly addresses the startled motorist with a comment. "Hey you in the blue shirt. Yeah, you. Push your card into the slot again." The customers in frame after frame were stunned to find the guy in the TV talking...to Them!

One man fumed when the pumpcam addressed him. "Get the F**k away!, pretty soon you'll be stalking me in the toilet," he said. This was a classic bit...watch for this on youtube.com. There is the place you can find videos like this one.

Alphonse D'Arco Sang Like Nobody's Business

Alphonse D'Arco, born July 28, 1932, grew up near the Brooklyn Navy Yards, a neighborhood of heavyweight mobsters _ some his relatives. His childhood, D'Arco once recalled, was "like being in the forest and all the trees were the dons and the organized crime guys." AOL had the story behind his ratting out his mob associates today. He walked into the woods without hesitation.

Two tenets of the old-school Mafia appealed to him: Loyalty and honor. Both extended into his personal life. In 1959, D'Arco first met future Luchese family boss Vittorio Amuso. He was soon making money for the Lucheses in a variety of ways: Hijacking. Drug dealing. Burglary. Counterfeiting. Arson. Armed robbery.

D'Arco became a made man in a ceremony held in a Bronx kitchen. "I should burn like this paper if I betray anyone in this room," he swore. It was Aug. 23, 1982. He was particularly good with dates, as federal investigators would learn.

D'Arco had long ago resolved the differences between mob life and straight society. As John Q. Citizen, D'Arco would have lived by the rules. As Alphonse D'Arco, mobster, he would abide by the Mafia's code. He obeyed orders and his elders, kicked money up to the bosses. He never cooperated with law enforcement.

"D'Arco gave them great value for the money," said defense lawyer Edward Hayes. "D'Arco is a lunatic, but he has a story."

Once, in a Brooklyn courtroom, D'Arco stood before a federal judge who noted they had grown up in the same nearby neighborhood. "Yeah," D'Arco replied. "And we both rose to the top of our professions."

Bruce Cutler was Gotti's attorney the last time Al sang in court. His voice booming, Cutler recited a litany of perks that came D'Arco's way from his agreement to be an informant: No jail time. A new identity. An attorney, free of charge. "That's another reward, yes?" Cutler asked.

"I don't see anything to be a reward," D'Arco responded without hesitation. "I'd trade it all to go back on Spring Street."

Baghdad ER Shows the Horrible Effects of the War

Tonight we returned from NJ and watched a tape of HBO's documentary called Baghdad ER. It was a graphic depiction of life in the MASH unit of this stupid war. Every day soldiers are medivac'ed in, almost all of them suffering the effects of IED's, the dreaded roadside bombs detonated by garage door openers or cellphones. The men and women who work in the hospital unit endure the suffering and watch as they have to amputate limbs, try to repair torn apart fingers, and see many of their patients die on the table.

The HBO crew had a full run of the place, and this unfettered access allowed the show to show the poignancy of a man who slips into death, and the tears of soldiers who learn that their comrades didn't make it. So far there have been more than 16,400 injuries and 2300 deaths in Iraq.

Watching this show made Cindy and I both think about the terrible costs in people and in dollars of this unwinnable war. This is the kind of program you wish that Rumsfield and Wolfowitz would see. These men didn't serve---but their war has killed and maimed so many thousands of better men and women already and it's not over yet.

RFID Tags Could Mean No More Lost Luggage

CNN reports today about using RFID tags on luggage. It's being tested in Hong Kong Airport.

"If you have a misplaced piece of luggage today, someone has to physically stand next to it, or the bag has to pass in front of the reader before we know where it is," he said. "What RFID does is that the bag proactively says, 'I'm here,' and then we can go and find it much quicker."

Elie Simon of TAGSYS, which makes RFID tags, says that one of the benefits of the technology is how easily it can be integrated within the existing airport infrastructure.

"The beauty of RFID is that nothing has to be changed in order to introduce these processes in the airport. It's just, we simply add a little bit of electronics on the luggage tag and we put reading system stations all the way through," he said.

But the tags -- at around 10 cents apiece -- are not cheap, which is slowing down implementation.

On top of that, there is capital investment, including scanners on each carousel, at check-in desks and transit points -- all of which are big ticket items at a time when efficiency and cost cutting are the buzzwords of aviation.

In 2005, 30 million bags were either temporarily or permanently misplaced in transit.

Get the Digital Issue of Nylon, Click the MySpace Links

Poring over the NY Times again while visiting Steve Gilbert's big house in Lambertville, I found this short article about MySpace providing a spot on the web for Nylon magazine. It's an ingenious idea: The music and fashion magazine will publish a digital June/July issue, which readers can download, that will be identical to the print version that comes out later.

The digital issue will contain links on MySpace to the bands, artists and designers mentioned in the magazine, allowing readers to download featured music and clips. "The idea is to have everything in the issue tagged back to a MySpace account," said Marvin Scott Jarrett, the editor of Nylon. In future issues, they will sell the digital issue for .99.

You'll see much more of this kind of cross promotion and using the vastly more powerful web to boost sales and interest in print. That's my take on this move. It is looking like Rupert's $580 million price was another sly deal by the old guy, who truly knows which way the media is heading.

What You'll Do With Your Cellphone Some Day

Wired News had a story about an Australian entrepreneur who has started a new cell phone company called Amp'd.

"Here's how Peter Adderton sees the near future: You'll be asleep in your house, and your wireless entertainment device will wake you up. It'll be voice-activated, so if you want some music -­- Nelly or Eminem ­-- you just say so. You'll use the device to turn on your TV and change channels or to surf the internet on your computer. Just tell it what you want to do and it'll take you there.

When you go outside, you'll plug it into your car and it will serve as a global positioning system and give you detailed directions to where you're going. The device will tell the car stereo what tunes you have on your iPod and play them over the speakers. If someone else is driving, you can watch TV news or surf the internet, answer e-mail, download music or read an electronic book. At work you can put the phone up to a special reader and pay for lunch or coffee. Perhaps you'll hold a video conference. Or pay bills.

If you are in e-commerce mode, you can purchase music or movies, which will automatically be stored in your home entertainment system as well as in your wireless device, which will hold 34 MB of data -­- or much more with an optional card. Or you can download an interview with Dave Chappelle as you watch reruns of his show on Comedy Central, because the device will function like TiVo, too.

To anyone who has set up a wireless network at home, Adderton's vision of the future doesn't seem far-fetched. About 30 percent of all cell-phone calls are made within a Wi-Fi hotspot, he says. The problem would be to link up these wireless networks, which are like little fiefdoms, which he predicts will occur within three years.

Armless Man Stopped for Speeding

The AP had this story today. "An armless man stopped for speeding was driving with one foot on the steering wheel and another on the pedals, a policeman testified in court.

Colin Smith, who was born without arms and has never held a driver's license, appeared in court Thursday charged with driving in a manner likely to be dangerous to the public.

The police officer who stopped Smith said the driver's seat was reclined and the armless man appeared to be using one foot to steer the car and the other to work the accelerator and brake. Smith, 31, entered no plea but said he would defend himself against the charges. He told the court he had been driving for years, using his feet to steer, and had never had an accident."

A Treasure Trove of Reading at Nat and Val's House

We woke up late today at Nat and Val's house in Blawenburg. The season is ahead of our colder New England climate, so her garden is in full bloom. One thing I'm always amazed about when I visit here is the smorgasbord of reading materials at hand. The New Yorker, The NY Times, print-outs of fascinating emails from their friend who traveled in Pakistan, an old booklet describing life in olden days in NJ; everywhere you look there is something I want to read.

That's always been a preoccupation of mine...reading everything around me. Here it's hard to find time to talk 'cause I want to read these intriguing things around me. A friend of their sent a clipping from the UK, showing the enormous new US Embassy being built in London. My dad showed me a collage of black and white photos from their beach camping trips in Southampton in the '50s.

So many different things to catch up with...and of course, sisters who want to see us and have us come over, and old friends who want to get some face time. I'm glad we're not leaving until Monday so we can try to fit this all in!

Anticipating the Holiday Weekend

It's already a steamy day, a Friday, a day of travel and anticipation. We're on our way down to visit the family in Jersey, a ritual done at least every six months, but one that always excites me. I am the only member of my family who lives far away, the rest of them nest together in nearby towns, and get to socialize daily. That part of living here in Mass has always made me sad...but not sad enough to move to Jersey.

I've never enjoyed holiday weekends..I always feel restless, frustrated, bored and not sure what to do. My remedy is to travel during these times, so I won't face that weird sensation of a Monday and nothing is open. Some times I realize that being a semi workaholic manifests itself in these times...when I crave having work to go to.

This weekend will be filled with trying to cram in visits to all of my sisters in their respective houses, hanging out with my mom and dad, showing off the videotape of the TV show, and catching up with their lives. We depart at noon, now I am looking for a podcast to listen to during the drive.

Panty Raider Gets Her Come Uppance

Laura Crimaldi writes with charming righteousness in the Boston Herald about an Andover woman who cheated welfare and stole panties from Victoria's Secret.

"A brazen lingerie hustler who lived luxuriously for years in an Andover gated community while bilking $117,500 in welfare from taxpayers is still tooling around in a sleek $40,000 Mercedes SUV despite pleading guilty this week to defrauding the government.

"It just ticks me off because we work and we’re still struggling,” said Joyce Sheehan, whose neighbor, Jennifer Stevanovich, 32, escaped jail time Tuesday after admitting to swindling state and federal authorities out of $117,555.11 in housing vouchers, health care, food stamps and cash aid.

Stevanovich has taken a hard fall, going from a comfortable Andover apartment complex with a pool, tennis courts and clubhouse to living with her mother in a Lawrence duplex where the white paint is chipping, the gate is rusting and the screen door is busted.

Stevanovich, a hairdresser at Super Cuts in Burlington, was nabbed for welfare fraud after Andover police snagged her performing a panty raid on a Victoria’s Secret shop that cost the business some $14,000 in slinky lingerie. She secreted the scants from the shops by using a sack lined with foil that foiled the metal detectors.

Investigators for State Auditor Joe DeNucci found Stevanovich was paying just $113 monthy rent in 2004 while her bank account ballooned to $76,468 that year from cash made selling the stolen lingerie and goods pilfered from other swanks shops on eBay.

The Web is More than a Way to Sell Newspapers

Paul Maidment writes in Forbes.com about a meeting of newspaper execs facing the new Internet publishing world.

"Even the mighty minds behind Google took several years to realize that they were a media company, not a tech company. But they and their fellow West Coasters have invented a new way of presenting journalism, through aggregation rather than creation.

They have also invented a new way of consuming it, through search, and have found new expression to an age-old publishing truth--that if you can gather an audience, you can make money. In doing so, they have been ripping out the commercial heart of the newspaper industry, its classified ads business.

What was missing was audacious imagination. The U.S. industry already had a national news co-op, the Associated Press. Could it have held the space now occupied by Google News and Yahoo! News and done the job better as it both creates and aggregates news? As well as the stories written by its staff, one-fifth to one-quarter of the stores carried on the AP wire come from its owner newspapers but remains within the gated community of its members.

There was no call to throw open the gates. But this is not to pick on our friends at the AP, which is now reorganizing its business to serve the new world (and is a news supplier to this site). The whole industry was slow to recognize that the Web is not a proprietary medium, like print, but a distributed one.

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft understood that the consumer need was not newspapers but news. Yet for years the newspaper industry thought the purpose of going online was to drive people to read newspapers. The futility of that task is at last beginning to sink in."

Mushrooms in Amsterdam: Rock On!

Seth Stevenson writes in Slate about taking mushrooms in Amsterdam, the day before he was flying home to the US.

"I'm in an H&M, on the edge of the socks and accessories aisle, when the drugs begin to take hold. My body starts to yell at me: "Something is happening! What is happening?! Yeeeee!!" Racks of cotton dresses shimmer together in a wavy mass. Sounds that were soft are suddenly loud, while sounds that were loud are now fading away.

I manage to stumble outside to an empty park bench. The trees here are waving wooden fingers at me, and birds are somehow flying without flapping their wings. It feels like I'm in a scene from Koyaanisqatsi. And my stomach seems poised to eject from my torso at any moment. I am clinging to broken shards of reality.

Then, after a few terrifying minutes like this, it all smoothes out. My stomach settles. My eyes refocus. I decide that I am not in fact dying ... and that the basic laws of physics still pertain. I gather myself, and I stand up straight.

It feels like there is a magical accordion in my skull and that it's pumping a thick, steady breeze of colors through my brain.

Everyone I see, I love. You, guy in the glasses with a backpack: You're A-OK! Hey, you, mom with the stroller: Rock on! I feel deep empathy for all humankind. This is a feeling I wish to hold onto forever yet also wish to be rid of as soon as possible.

But I needn't actually move to Amsterdam (or, thank God, be on mushrooms) to find the life I'm seeking. It's all waiting for us, up there in our noggins. We choose to become who we are, and together we all create the world we live in. And now my rational, together voice is saying, "Duh! You're a mushroom-eating moron." But my Amsterdam voice is saying, "That is trippy!"

What Would You Do?

I came home this afternoon and there was a rare message for me on the home answering machine. Rare because nobody ever calls me at my home number, they know I am always at the office or on the cell. I listened to the voice on the tape...it wasn't familiar, but the name was.

"I'm in a bit of a jam," said the voice, "I'm up here in Brattleboro, and I need help. Please call me." I remembered this guy from prep school, thirty years ago we lived in the same dorm at Northfield Mount Hermon. Here he was on my phone, asking, I assumed, for money. I called the number and it was a cheap motel. "I"m so glad you called," he said. Then he went on to details. "I'm expecting this check, I'm having problems with the government, getting this electronic payment to come through....I just need some money to hold me over. I should have the money in ten days."

I asked him whether he had credit cards or checks. "I can't find them," he answered meekly. I asked whether he'd called his family--the first line of defense when you're down on your luck. "It's a long story, but they're not into helping me, I've burned bridges," he answered.

I didn't feel good about his reasons, and didn't offer to come up and rescue him. If he was once a close friend, maybe. But he wasn't. I barely knew him...and the whole thing smelled to me like it was a case of a drug problem or another tangled mess best left alone. What would you do?

Equity, Ownership Excite Ryan Seacrest

Ryan Seacrest was profiled in today's NY Times by Lola Ogunnaike. The Idol host gets up at 4 am to do a radio show, then works for E! and has his hands in lots of other things--including hosting duties on the #1 show on TV.

"Equity, ownership, production fees, license fees: those are the vocabulary words that are exciting to me," he said, flashing a perfectly aligned smile. "If you really want to be in this business for a long time, you have to be more than just one moving part.

"I'm frightened by the thought of being out of work," he said. "Growing up, there were people on shows like 'Diff'rent Strokes,' 'Facts of Life,' 'Love Boat' that you thought would be huge stars for the rest of their lives, and they've just vanished. You never want to be that person."

His on air foil, Simon Cowell said he was convinced that Mr. Seacrest would be nothing without him. "I gave him a personality," he said. "He was the equivalent of nonvintage wine, cheap plonk, and now, as a result of being around me, he's become full-bodied." He finally came around to complimenting Mr. Seacrest, which appeared more painful for him than an amputation. "I'm going to hate reading this, but Ryan has a tremendous work ethic," he said. "He wants all the glory, but he's prepared to work for it, and I've never ever heard him complain."

Mr. Seacrest, who says he's straight, doesn't mind the ribbing, but his friends do, he said. "They're always, like, 'Why don't you tell him to stop,' but I'm, like, there are worse things in the world than being a joke in a Jay Leno monologue," he said. Teri Hatcher, the star of "Desperate Housewives," told Oprah Winfrey recently that Mr. Seacrest dumped her cold after a few dates.

A relationship will have to wait, he said. For now he's focused on capitalizing on all the opportunities being thrown his way. "You can achieve a lot by hustling now, or you can be lazy and say, 'This is great,' " Mr. Seacrest said. "That is not in my plan."

Me and the Legends on TV

Tonight I watched TV for a long while, beginning with the Making It Here episode that was taped in October about GoNOMAD. It was a rush to watch it after such a long time in coming. I kept expecting myself to stumble on a word, or botch up something but it went remarkably smoothly, as if I had a script. I was winging it...that is one thing that happens when you love what you do--you're never at a loss for words and can always manage to talk about it eloquently.

Later I watched Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball. Touted all week, the show turned out to be quite emotional, a tribute to 'legends,' black women who have accompliished something that Oprah wanted to recognize while these women were still living. At first I was a little put off by the exclusive blackness of it all....thinking what it would be like if a white woman dared to honor so many people and leave out any black women. But my daughter Kate said, sensibly, that hey, every day is white people's day...so it's ok to have only black legends and 'Young'uns" as the pretty younger black women stars were called.

The opulent weekend included dinner served by one waiter for each diner, cooked of course by Jean Georges, the famous French chef, and ended with a gospel brunch where some of the legends such as Patty LaBelle and Gladys Knight picked up the mikes and sang to Jesus. Not a dry eye in the tent, these ladies know how to wring emotion out of legends, young'uns and the rest of us.

Crowdsourcing: Using the Masses to Solve Problems

On Sunday I read the entire new issue of Wired, and found many fascinating ideas to ponder. One was Crowdsourcing, a new trend that uses the masses to achieve what was once only done by professionals.

In corporate R&D, for example, Procter and Gamble employ more than 9000 scientists and researchers and still have many problems they can't solve. They now post these thorny sticky wickets on a website called InnoCentive, offering large cash rewards to more than 90,000 'solvers' who make up this network of backyard scientists.

One of them is Ed Melcarek, who won a $25,000 reward for helping Colgate-Palmolive inject flouride powder into a toothpaste tube without dispersing it into the surrounding air. Melcarek simply imparted an electric charge to the powder while grounding the tube, drawing the flouride particles to the tube without dispersion. It was as physics solution that never occurred to the 'test tube guys.'

So far more than 30% of the problems posted on the site have been cracked, "which is 30 percent more than would have been solved using a traditional inhouse approach," said Jill Panetta, InnoCentive's chief scientific officer.

Forget Frequent Flyer Miles this Summer!

Today is a grey day, but a great day to read the news on the laptop. The NY Times had a story about a tough summer for air travelers.

"Airlines, still struggling because of high fuel prices, have been able to raise fares because of the tight capacity. David Strine, an analyst at Bear Stearns, said that he expected fares to rise about 8 percent this year. Fares are still not as high as they were in the late-1990's, though.

Free rides are increasingly hard to come by. "Using frequent-flier mileage is virtually impossible today," said Julius Maldutis, an industry consultant.

Indeed, Mr. McCroskey, the Tennessee consultant, recently gave in and bought two $600 tickets for a Las Vegas vacation with his wife, leaving his pile of Delta frequent-flier miles untouched. "You can't use them," he said. "August was the first thing they were showing."

With airlines generally not expanding and traffic rising, is "fully loaded" the new normal in a business that for decades flew planes at 60 to 70 percent capacity? The ability to compare fares easily on the Internet has driven down ticket costs but also helped airlines to sell the very last seat.

For now, it seems that only rising prices could dampen demand. Some travelers, particularly business managers who are not paying for the seats out of their own pockets, may even find it a relief to be charged more if it would lead to less-crowded planes.

Proposed Border Fence in the Southwest

GoNOMAD Profiled on "Making It Here," TV Show

Last fall, Marla Zippay from WGBY Channel 57 came to visit us in our former small office at 14A Sugarloaf St. I drove up to the building on my scooter, they taped a few takes to get it right. She was filming the episode of "Making it Here," that will finally air on Monday May 22, and Saturday May 27. Below is their description, I can't wait to watch it!

On The Go Air Date: May 22, 2006 7:30 pm.
Meet Max Hartshorne, owner of GoNomad.com, in South Deerfield, MA. It is an alternative travel web site where visitors find "inspiration and links to plan their trip"– so if you’re looking to do elephant research in Thailand or learn Spanish in Cancun, GoNomad.com is the place to go!

We will also spend the day at the Holyoke Dam seeing how they keep the fish moving each spring as they head up river to migrate. Finally, George will take a trip to the highest point in Massachusetts: Mt. Greylock. He will get a "guided tour" with Visitor Services Supervisor Alec Gilman.

Magazine Publishers "Get" Video on the Web

The Boston Phoenix had a story last week about the future of magazine publishing. It's not as bad as newspapers, said the story.

"One operator gambling on online video is the Ehlert Publishing Group, a company that owns more than a dozen publications, most focused on “enthusiast” subjects such as motorcycling and boating. Company president Steve Hedlund says there was “nothing horribly dynamic about the impact” of early efforts to re-purpose editorial content online. And a few years ago, Ehlert tried to produce cable-TV shows on networks such as Outdoor Life before concluding that the money and effort weren’t worth it.

Then, about nine months ago, Hedlund says, “a light bulb kind of went off.... [We realized that] broadband video over the Internet is a viable proposition.... We set out on a course to redesign all of our Web sites and incorporate video content.” As a result, the company has just implemented a soft re-launch of eight Web sites and created an “Inside Power Sports” news program, and it will start charging advertisers in July.

“With video, our belief is the ad money will be in the form of video ads, and those dollars will come from television budgets,” says Hedlund. “There’s a little bit of a wing and a prayer.”

These days in the magazine industry, what isn’t?

Sidewalk Sign of the Times

Grinning Director Reduced to Sobbing Nobody

David Gritten writes a blog for the UK Telegraph, he wrote about the film season in Cannes, France.

"Strangest of all are market screenings, mainly for the benefit of distributors who might be interested in buying a film for their particular territory. Often these films are being seen for the first time. Sometimes only part of the film is shown. But the unnerving part of market screenings, held in small rooms, is the way people abruptly walk out - sometimes within five minutes - if they decide they're not interested in buying.

Of course, this runs counter to conventional cinema etiquette; you rarely walk out of a movie unless you strongly dislike or disapprove of what you're seeing.

But Cannes is a brutal marketplace, and these distributors are busy people. They don't have time to waste being sentimental, sitting through a film they know isn't for them. They may survey a dozen in a day. So it's conceivable that a film can start with an audience of 15, all of whom will walk out within 20 minutes, leaving it playing to an empty room.

Film-makers are strongly advised not to attend market screenings; they can be crushing. Last year in Cannes I attended such a screening and sat next to a director who wore a broad, optimistic grin at the outset. Within 15 minutes tears had sprung to his eyes, as one distributor after another walked out. He looked utterly desolate, and every departure was announced by the sound of seats flipping up as they were vacated.

Yet by the end of that week, his film had sold into a dozen foreign territories, and he was reasonably content.

Still, it's hard to think of a more blunt form of rejection: you spend two or three years of your life, crafting a film that is near and dear to you - and your first audiences won't even give you 10 minutes of their time.

Who wouldn't take it personally?

What Men Really Want from the Internet

Today I drove to Easthampton to pick up a new sidewalk sandwich sign painted by Jill MacFarlane. While I was at a cafe I picked up the Valley Advocate, and chuckled through a cover story by Annabel Lee, chronicling 100 Internet dates. Here is the ending:

"I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from all this. As I said before, I'm pretty sure you could do worse, and maybe better. But remember one thing: The Internet is all about past failures, projection, and panic. Think of your potential dates as people whose flights have been cancelled. They're in the airport, stranded, in a towering rage. They're screaming at the attendants behind the counter. They're demanding a hotel room, a rental car, another flight out the same night. Their frustration threshold was crossed yesterday.

Men approach their internet dating differently than women. Men, remember, are people who never felt they got enough sex in high school and college. They never got to bag those willowy girls with little round asses and long hair, the girls who flicked their glossy locks over their shoulders when they laughed. Most men feel they got trapped into monogomy much too early, then were nagged and henpecked all through their relationships and marriages. The Internet is their chance to settle a grudge. Do you want to help them achieve that goal?"

Teaching Elephants to Paint in Thailand

David Rich writes for GoNOMAD about elephants in Thailand.
"On the first trek into the jungle we quickly learned the most repeated command is bai, which means “GO.” The jungle to an elephant is like a chocolate factory to a Willie Wonka kid; every jungle bit is luscious, edible and available. An elephant the size of Piajaub devours 200 kilos (440 lbs.) of fodder a day, an enormity of leaves, bananas and sugar cane. The Conservation Center’s fifty-elephant results are reams of elephant dung paper.

Making Elephant Dung Paper

Our next assignment was the joy of making paper. Fortunately, the near-National Basketball Association-sized dung had been bleached and washed before, up to our elbows, we re-molded it into 400 gram (one pound) balls. We remixed the pure fiber with water and jell, and swished it onto screens for drying into elegant papers tie-dyed into in a millennium of pastel hues.

The only downer was visiting the elephant hospital. About half the bulky gray patients had stepped on land mines littering the Thai/Myanmar border. The more unlucky half had become constipated. Land mine wounds eventually heal but a bowel-constricted elephant is often on the short list for the big tusk depository in the sky.

Elephants play so well together and with their mahouts that they become big gray dust bunnies. Our last duty at night, after trekking into the jungle, and first in the morning when retrieving our charges, was to bathe the elephants. For the elephants, bathing was pure relaxation and playtime. For mahouts-in-training it was dodging exuberant trunk showers and playing submarine, while attempting to avoid bobbing paper-wannabees."

Survivor: Mass Correctional Institute, Cedar Junction

I remember well watching Survivor in 2000, the summer I lived in a youth hostel on Martha's Vineyard. Richard Hatch was a big part of that show, and he got sentenced to prison yesterday for tax evasion. Ouch!

“It seems unfortunately very clear to me that Mr. Hatch lied,” Torres said. When Hatch was convicted, Torres said he expected to sentence him to 33 to 41 months.
“I believe I’ve been completely truthful and completely forthcoming throughout the entire process,” Hatch told the judge before he was sentenced.

Hatch claimed he thought the show’s producers would pay his taxes and pleaded ignorance about money matters, saying he forgot to tell his accountants about some income. “Survivor” earned CBS a ratings hit. Hatch became known as “the fat naked guy” — a term coined by David Letterman — for refusing to wear clothes for much of the show.

Hatch sowed seeds of conflict among his competitors, and an estimated 51 million viewers were watching when he received his winning check.

At times, he seemed to handle his criminal case like an extended reality TV competition. He abruptly walked away from a plea deal with prosecutors and pleaded his innocence to Katie Couric on the “Today” show.

Lots of Better Ways to Keep Your Fish Alive

The Pioneer Valley's famous bird killers, Michael Zak and Tim Lloyd are getting lots of ink in all of the papers. What most of the stories are saying is how stupid it is to try to keep birds away from a fish hatchery by shooting them. Today's Recorder had quotes from Charles Bell, who runs the state hatchery in Sunderland. "Shooting birds, or shooting mammals, does not solve your problem. You shoot one and another one takes its place....our primary tools are netting and fences to keep them out."

John Williams manages the Bitzer Fish Hatchery in Montague, he talked about the bald eagles, who take just one fish at a time. The great blue herons are a little more wasteful, he added. "Herons will mortally wound fish by poking through them with their long beaks and then not eat them."

Bell says the way they keep the big herons from nesting is to drive around the grounds in the evening and honk their horns. It annoys them enough to make them move their nests.

Returning Home after an Eight Month Trip

Kelly and Quang just got back from an eight-month trip around the world. In their blog, Global Roam, they talk now about what it's like to return home...

"This is how it feels: We'd rather keep our revelations and our stories to ourselves. In this way, they retain an air of preciousness. We don't want to squander them on those who do not want to hear. And yet. If someone would just ask, ask us something other than was it fun, we would spill a wealth of experiences we are so eager to share.

I grabbed my fortune back and tucked it in my purse, letting Quang handle the questions: Got back almost a month ago. Yes, lots of fun. Where to next? Nowhere. Have to make some money.

Had we really been home almost one month? Yikes. Yes. Where has the time gone? These past three and a half weeks at home have inched by while the days have slipped into nights and back into days again. We are restless. We walk our dog and wait for something to happen. After six months of near constant movement, we have been reduced to a DVD-induced stupor. We are waiting for our lives to start.

Quang called in to work, to the job that had been offered him upon his return. No go. Things had shifted while we were away. That job was no longer a reality. I accepted work, summer quarter English classes; however, summer quarter doesn't start until July.

I stumbled upon an ad in a local paper for temporary, part-time gardeners. Perfect, I thought, and dailed up the listed number. I spend three days a week planting impatients in fancy flower gardens outside even fancier homes. But all the while I am impatient. I am impatiently waiting for something, something exciting, something consuming, something I can not picture and can not name, something bigger than me."

Moroccan Women Gliding By

I've just finished Jeffery Tayler's book about his trip across the Sahel in Africa. So I found his other journey journal, called "Glory in a Camel's Eye," on Amazon and extracted this nugget.

"In any case, I discovered a distraction that brought me closer to Moroccan life than any job with the Peace Corps ever would: Moroccan women. The first year I didn't dare engage them; the second year I found I couldn't resist. They glided down Marrakesh's alleys of dung levened dust, their kohl-daubed eyes alert, their breasts swinging under the silk of flowing djellabas, their hair glinting with the warm tints of henna. The prospect of marrying a rich (to them) American made me attractive enough, as the did the chance to dabble in pleasures of the flesh with a forbidden Christian; they knew that Nasranis would not despise them as whores for sleeping with them.

The instructors said not a word about the evening paseo, during which single men and women strolled the downtown avenues, arranging trysts after exchanging little more than stares and smiles. They didn't mention sbagha (painting) the practice whereby a Moroccan woman, desirous of maintaining her virginity yet determined to get off with her lover, vigorously 'paints' her clitoris with the tip of his erect penis. Nor did they tell us anything about the prevalence of prostitutes, often veiled, who worked the crowds of the big cities at dusk, searching for clients as the call to prayer sounded."

Men Killed Hundreds of Birds Who Dared Eat Their Fish

A grey Saturday in South Deerfield, a day to let your eyes close and nap, and one to read the local papers. I picked up the Recorder and found a big front page story about an atrocity against birds. The owner of a Sunderland fish hatchery had more than 250 great blue heron carcasses, 10 dead ospreys and one bald eagle on their grounds. Michael Zak and Timothy Lloyd shot them with rifles as they flew by.

"Ospreys, herons and eagles are all natural predators of fish, so I think you can probably figure out for yourself their motive," said Christina DiIorio-Sterline, of the US Justice Dept. There was no netting protecting the hatchery's trout to keep out the birds. The feds actually watched Zak kill a great blue, with a rifle, as the bird passed by the hatchery. The men face prison time of up to 125 years and $3 million in fines. "I can't wait to see how high they hang these people," said Patricia Carlisle, of Turners Falls, when told of the arrests.

A Database of "Every Call Ever Made"

"Today, there are new claims about other ways we are tracking down al Qaeda to prevent attacks on America," Bush said.The government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval. Third, the intelligence activities I authorized are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat." But read below, you will see Bush is wrong about this...

A source told USA Today that the NSA's goal was to "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders. For the customers of the three top phone companies — which provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million Americans — that means that since shortly after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, the government has compiled detailed records of calls they made across town or the country to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others, according to the paper.

While the White House has said the warrantless wiretap program was focused on identifying and tracking terror suspects by eavesdropping on calls and e-mails made into the U.S. by suspected terrorists, the domestic program described by USA Today's sources is far wider than the Bush administration has acknowledged.

Just hours after the story broke, Bush gave a terse press conference in which he again defended the practice without mentioning the USA Today story. He stressed that the NSA is not "mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."

Haiti: Trust is Hard to Find, Fear is Everywhere

Wendy Goodman lives in Greenfield, MA and just returned from Haiti, where she opened a community arts center in 2003. She explained the difficulties of trying to make progress in a country such as Haiti, where mistrust of outsiders and strict class boundries are so sharp. She was interviewed in the Recorder this morning.

"When you're born into Haiti as one of the populace, you're essentially born into a prison," she said, explaining that politics and corruption keep almost anyone who tries to leave from getting a visa. "The psychology is that there's no opportunity."

In Haitian society, "you dare not do someone else's work for fear you're trying to take that person's job. It's beyond a work ethic of 'how you survive?' In a culture with that kind of need, to build something cooperatively where someone will step in and fill the need is not where they are."

Even Haitian natives who return from the US to help their country are distrusted and struggle with the inner question of what's a fair wage to pay their countrymen. Goodman was exasperated by the feeling of not being trusted in spite of outward friendliness--trust is a privilege--and that saddened her. She watched her god daughter go to school and was devasted, since Haitian schools destroy rather than foster creativity..."it's trained in school, you get hit for asking a question."

A Funny Way to Get Around Vietnam

The Wisdom of Abe Rosenthal--It's the Heat

David Andelman wrote a tribute in Forbes about the Timesman who just passed away this week. The Times takes a lot of flack, but Abe Rosenthal was a class act.

"After three months of total immersion in Vietnamese at Berlitz, I was heading to Saigon as a newly minted foreign correspondent. Abe (it took me a long time to get past "Mr. Rosenthal") had summoned me to bid farewell and to give me a final word of advice. It was one that I would carry with me to 58 countries and was, perhaps, the single most incisive commentary on much of the Third World that I have heard, before or since.

There is one immutable reality about the lands where you are going," Abe began, smiling benevolently, but his eyes boring through me behind his trademark black-rimmed spectacles. "Through history and until today, it has been the principal determinant of every event you will cover and the motivation of every individual you will meet. It is the underlying force behind the politics, the culture, diplomacy, peace and war." He paused for effect. "It is the heat. It is inescapable, all-pervasive and unavoidable. And it affects the behavior of every living being who is subjected to it."

Abe was right, of course. As he was unfailingly right about almost every aspect of the world he reported on and whose agenda he wound up determining every time the presses rumbled to life in the basement of 229 W. 43rd St.--the Times building.

Where Do the Celebs Go: Find them on Stalker

Gawker is the biggest of all blogs. Some of their sticky features explain why. I was just browsing on their Gawker Stalker page. There every day, they chronicle where readers have run into stars. All of the stars you'd think they would log the comings and goings of, from Lucy Liu

Lucy Liu with a group of 7 others (looked like tourists) standing in line at Magnolia Bakery. She bought the group their cupcakes then suggested they eat them in cupcake park. Exquisite skin, not as skinny as you’d expect.

to Anderson Cooper, of CNN.

Last night at Whole Foods at Columbus Circle. Made eye contact so I know it was him. His suit was a navy blue with a subtle pinstripe but he is much shorter and slimmer than I would have thought. What a striking man!

They're all there. Walking around Manhattan. Sitting talking on a cellphone in the Village. Sitting two rows in front of someone at a theater.

Each celebrity is logged on a map of Manhattan.

Submit Your Sightings: tips@gawker.com

A Pair of Homegrown Porn Magnates in Montreal

Craig Silverman writes in the Toronto Globe and Mail about a pair of porn magnates.

"As he hoovers his way through a pack of cigarettes, McAlear explains how he went from working stiff to porn king. He was a mechanical engineer at Bell Helicopter when he introduced his wife to porn fans worldwide. Carol Cox was a hit, so the McAlears shot more photos and started selling videos via mail order. In 1997, when the internet could finally handle credit-card processing, they introduced a monthly membership fee of $9.95 and began streaming videos—cutting-edge technology that was largely being driven by the porn industry.

All the while, McAlear was still holding down a day job. "We turned the pay site on in January, 1997," he says. "By February we were doing over $30,000 in sales. In mid-March I quit Bell. I was losing money going to work."

Carol "performed" four days a week to keep the content fresh and members happy. McAlear staffed up and added more sites. Some were built around a specific girl, like Carol's site.

The company also threw special pay-per-view events—like the time 50 guys and 11 girls had sex on camera, while customers watched the orgy unfold live on their home PCs.

Leveraging technology to deliver better customer service and more interaction was key to McAlear's success, and the success of the porn industry as a whole. "We introduced these things because the ability to interact with the girls is critical in a niche like ours," says McAlear. "Now you can go in and talk to a girl and she'll do things for you."

Customers could also give Wild Rose instant feedback on what they liked and didn't like. If someone sent McAlear an e-mail requesting, say, a space-sex fantasy replete with busty aliens and lonely astronauts, Wild Rose could have it onscreen in a few weeks. In a regular feature called Casting Couch, avid fans in the Montreal area could even step inside the studio to shoot a scene with Carol Cox.

Nathan Cosme, Resplendent at One

  

Nathaniel Cosme's First Birthday

Today is a big day. Nathaniel Javier Cosme turns ONE! It was exactly one year ago, I was basking in the nude at D'Anza Springs Resort in the California desert, and Kate called me with the big news. I ws thrilled for her then and remain in love with my little grandson.

Nathan has been a wonderful addition to our family, he's growing up fast, walking around the yard, playing with trucks and toys, and mouthing what almost are words. Today we're having a big family party to celebrate his first birthday. We'll have a big crowd on hand to barbecue in the yard. Kate and Francisco have discovered the joys of gardening--perfect timing--and the place looks wonderful with new plantings and the new lawn coming up in old patches.

RSS is Coming On Strong--Choose Your News Sources

Steve Ballmer is a rich man and knows what is coming down the pike from Microsoft.
He spoke at an industry event and predicted great things for RSS feeds.

"While feedreading has been more embraced by those who work and use technology very frequently in their lives, Microsoft should be the engine to drive RSS to greater adoption." He thinks that the tipping point will come and it will bye bye email newsletters, hello feeds.

RSS offers an opt-in model to receiving content that places much greater control of the flow of information. While legitimate firms that use email for communication do enable people to unsubscribe from an email list, sometimes those email lists find their way into other hands.

And not everyone is equally as effective, or even concerned with allowing people to easily dump those email subscriptions. Of course, unwanted junk mail plagues millions of users with email accounts.

RSS does not have a spam problem. And if a RSS feed publisher suddenly became aggressive in filling a subscriber's feedreader with junk, a simple click is usually all it takes to remove that feed from the reader.

"Users are far more selective about where they want to see advertising online than offline, but users are also more willing to sign up and say I'll subscribe to things that are important to me," Ballmer said in noting how Microsoft will build the platform that enables RSS in Windows.

"I Remember by Reading" Says Chick Lit Plagiarist

Chip Scanlan, writes in the Poynter.org website about Harvard's now infamous "Chick-Lit Plagiarist" Kaavya Viswanathan.

"When accusations of plagiarism began to spread this week about a hot new novelist -- a 19-year-old Ivy Leaguer who'd pulled down a reputed $500,000 two-book contract and a DreamWorks movie deal to boot -- one of Kaavya Viswanathan's classmates detected more than a whiff of schadenfreude in the blogosphere.

Viswanathan, the daughter of Indian doctors who live in suburban New Jersey, wrote a book about the daughter of Indian doctors who live in suburban New Jersey.

In her mea culpa, the wordnapping writer had added a new excuse -- the unconscious defense -- to the litany of justifications plagiarists use to explain away their purloined texts. "Any phrasing similarities between her works and mine," Viswanathan insisted, "were completely unintentional and unconscious." Her latest explanation, she confided to The New York Times: her photographic memory. "I remember by reading," she told the Times' Dinitia Smith. "I never take notes."

"At best disingenuous and at worst literary identity theft," a spokesman for Random House (its Crown imprint publishes McCafferty) shot back. In a rare move, Little, Brown, Viswanathan's publisher, has asked bookstores to pull the book from shelves and return unsold copies.

Stopped by the Blue Lights of Hadley

So I'm tooling down Route 47, and it is a lovely day, about 83 or so....farm fields rolling by, coffee in the cup holder, en route to the bank. Around a corner... COP!...I brake, a little too obviously, and he tools past me. Down a ways, I think I'm clear, then he turns around, and speedily catches up to me...flicks on the blues. Damn!

I notice when he finally emerges from the cruiser, that his name is Boyden. I catch from his nameplate just that last name, as he gingerly approaches my vehicle. He was trained to believe that great danger can come forth from that pulled over passenger, so he makes a slight arc as he comes up. He doesn't take off his sunglasses. I proffer the two documents, my papers, as it were. "Do you know why I stopped you?" he asked nicely. "I dunno, was I speeding, officer?" I reply. I remember that you should always call troopers and officers by their titles. They like that.

He goes back to the car. lights cheerfully blue, his headlights flashing in my side rearview. I get a cell phone call from Kate. Surreptitiously, I speak to her, and get off, and he comes back to the car. "You take it easy, ok?" Thanks! Officer! Smile! On my way...

Girls with Big Boobs Get Battleship Bras

The Mincemeat Vixen writes a saucy blog called "Not Well Planned." Great stuff from Ontario.

"Last summer I went to a fancy bra store to buy a bra, asked for a C cup and the woman laughed at me. She put me in a changeroom and started bringing me Double-D Battleship-type bras that could take your eye out if we moved closely together at a high speed. I don't know if it was purely the weight gain, or if it was a hormonal surge at age 29, but I've now got breasts that could rival ANY of the chicks in the live sex shows at the Zanzibar.

And I'm not saying this to be like "oh-look-at-me-and-my-gigantic-gongas". Because I'd rather be 20 lbs lighter and have my old ones (and I WILL be, just give me time). I'm saying this so I can express my extreme HORROR at the type of bras available to girls with big boobs.

Have you ever SEEN the type of bras offered to anyone over a D-cup? Especially in WHITE? First of all, they only make them like, FULL COVERAGE, with BIG HONKIN' STRAPS. And they make them out of THICK, no-hint-of-translucency-or-lace material.

A white bra in a double-D looks like a f**king helmet for a giant, or a full-body shield, coming RIGHT AT YOU. You see one of those white bras and you have an almost instinctual urge to yell "DUCK!" and deek behind the nearest display.

I am fully expecting (hoping) that my new bra will start barking horrible insults at my breasts in a heavy Hungarian accent.

It's a Great Day for Smoothies at the Cafe

Today is such a beautiful day you would think the sidewalks would be crowded with strollers, and people would flock into the cafe. While the weather is indeed in the low '80s, producing near euphoria in our New England populace, we are slow up at the cafe...but that gives us time to think.

And we've thought about a new product that is going to be very popular. It begins with fresh fruit, and nonfat yogurt, and then a lot of ice....SMOOTHIES.

Our friends at Java Hut say these are the tonic to make sales sizzle...so we are going to be introducing these in the cafe soon. Sometimes it takes the time while no one is coming in to arrive at the million dollar idea...stay tuned!

No One in NY is Impressed That You're British...

The Press Gazette in the UK ran a story about what it's like for a British reporter to work in the Big Apple.

Carey says her experience on publications such as Star magazine and the National Enquirer taught her that American journalism isn't just Sex and the City's Carrie trotting out a 1,000 word piece while dressed in a tutu.

"I imagined fleets of Sarah Jessica Parker lookalikes tottering round in Manolos," she says. "In fact, the dress code is much more laid back. As a woman, you look overdressed in a skirt and a jacket."

Also, if you think you can impress with your Englishman in New York turn, forget it. "Everyone in the UK is impressed you are working in New York.

No one in NY is remotely impressed you are British.

There are too many of us for it to be considered a novelty," Carey adds. A move abroad can be an unsettling business and Witheridge says American bureaucracy is legendary.

"America loves red tape. Try renting an apartment without a bank account or social security number. It took months for me to obtain both. When it came to finding somewhere to live, I had to empty out my savings to put down a three-month security deposit, rather than the usual month," she says.

Carey agrees that the major challenge in big US cities like New York is the rental market. "As a newcomer you are seen as fresh meat by landlords and brokers, who charge crippling fees just to find you somewhere to live. They show absolutely no mercy."

There are compensations for working in the States. "It's the charisma of the place — and actually living there rather than just visiting," says Carey. "It's going out onto the street every morning and being hit in the face with the feeling of ‘Wow, I actually live in the coolest city on Earth'. It sounds corny, but that euphoria never wears off, no matter how long you are there."

There's Big Money--in Roads

Transurban Group, Australia's second- biggest toll road owner, agreed to buy Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway for $611 million, gaining its first U.S. highway.
Bloomberg had the story on line.

"The Melbourne-based Transurban bought the rights to manage, operate and maintain the 8.8 mile (14 kilometer) highway known as State Route 895 for 99 years, they said in a statement today. Transurban plans to link the route to Richmond Airport.

There are $25 billion of private investments proposed for new and existing toll roads in six U.S. states including Virginia, Texas and Oregon, according to a report last month by the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation, which advocates for such privatization.

More U.S. states will sell roads as they seek to raise non- tax revenue to pay for repairs to heavily traveled highways and bridges, Merrill Lynch & Co. said in a report in March.

The firm said 14 U.S. states have enacted laws allowing for toll road, public-private transactions, and five more have introduced legislation permitting it.

Pocahontas Parkway opened in 2002. Last year it reported average daily traffic of 15,600 vehicles, 6 percent higher than in 2004. In 2005 the road had sales of about $11 million, a 22 percent increase on the previous year. Transurban forecast traffic will rise to more than 30,000 vehicles daily by 2012.

Minutemen Say No to Al Jezeera TV

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, an anti-illegal immigration organization that patrols the border in Arizona, has refused another interview request by Al-Jazeera TV, calling it a “terrorist TV station.”
Little Green Footballs had the story.

"The Minutemen volunteers, many of them Vietnam, Korean and World War II veterans, said they would leave camp if the Arab news organization, which some described as “anti-American,” was given access to the site.

Al-Jazeera has attracted millions of viewers throughout the Arab world with its coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and its airing of tapes of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. But Al-Jazeera’s growing popularity also brought it greater scrutiny. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused the Qatar-based network of encouraging militants by airing hostage executions. And Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly branded it a “propaganda network...bent on encouraging violence and sympathetic to terrorists.”

Local journalism professors defended Al-Jazeera.

“With constant news that Middle Easterners may try to slip through Mexico, it’s no wonder that an Arab news channel would also be interested,” said Alan Weisman, a University of Arizona journalism professor.

“Al-Jazeera is a legitimate news organization. If we have the right to go into Middle Eastern countries to cover issues, why on earth shouldn’t we allow them to come here, particularly since we allege that Middle Easterners might try to cross the border? That’s a story of great journalistic interest,” Weisman told reporters.

God I Wish I Didn't Resemble a Terrorist Sympathizer

"The first time it happened was in 2002. A friend saw a picture of former University of South Florida professor and alleged terrorism supporter Sami Al-Arian and did a double take because he thought it was me. He thought the resemblance was funny. I didn't." Bob Andelman, left, writes in the St. Petersburg Times.

"Not that time, or the second, third or 100th time.

The more attention Al-Arian's case got in the media, the more often it happened. Even I could see why: The wire-rim glasses, classic bald head, the shape of the ears and, more particularly, the way we shaved our salt-and-pepper beards were all eerily similar. We're even close in age; Al-Arian is 47, I'm 46.

Al-Arian's case has affected my ability to travel freely, too. No one ever looked twice at me in an airport until Al-Arian's face started making the front page. Suddenly I was getting extra security checks, being pulled aside for extra wanding, questioning and delays. I was never strip-searched, but I always wondered if that might be coming. The hassles finally relented when I bought a pair of funky blue plastic-frame glasses that looked nothing like the wire frames and oval lenses Al-Arian and I apparently both preferred.

Curiously, it didn't matter to anyone that Al-Arian had been in jail for three years on charges that he raised money that went to terrorist organizations.

It also didn't matter that one of us was Jewish (me) and one of us was allegedly interested in killing Jews (him).

And it probably wouldn't have mattered to anyone who mistook me for him that I was somewhat sympathetic to his plight, first being suspected for years but never charged, then held in jail even though a jury acquitted him on eight of 17 charges and deadlocked on the rest. While I couldn't be more disgusted by Al-Arian's angry, misguided politics, we are supposed to be a nation of laws and due process. Get accused, get your right to trial. Get acquitted, go home. That's our system, whether he believes in its righteousness or not.

Emily and Sarah Pass the Torch to Kristi

Interns are one of the best parts about GoNOMAD. We meet so many great young women from UMass who end up working with us as interns. We have had Sarah and Emily this spring they will be done in May. Emily is traveling to Mexico to do a story about learning Spanish abroad, and they both will be going to Japan in the fall to live for a year.

I was called to give a reference--and I told him Emily would be a great choice for his teaching job in Japan he was hiring for. Sarah too, would be a good and capable hire.

Our new intern is named Kristi Girdharry, pictured here. She is studying English at UMass, and she will be handling the travel reader blog updates, writing travel features, doing reader research and other tasks for GoNOMAD.com.

Newsmagazines: The Un-Blogs of Our Time

Karen Breslau, San Francisco Bureau Chief, Newsweek, spoke with Journalism Jobs about blogs and newsweeklies today.

JournalismJobs.com: How does a weekly news magazine stay relevant in this up-to-the-minute news world?

Karen Breslau: Just because people are pelted with information from morning until night, they haven't lost the basic human hunger for a good story. In that sense, a good newsmagazine story is the un-blog: it's richly reported, it's coherent, it puts things into context, it gives you ideas to think about for more than 3 seconds and for God's sake, it should be well-written.

JournalismJobs.com: Are blogs diluting the role of journalists?

Karen Breslau: Absolutely not. Who was the last blogger to get kidnapped -- or worse -- on their way to an interview in Iraq or Pakistan? Blogs aren't diluting the role of journalists: they are diluting the size and attention of the more affluent spectrum of the audience. (And truth be told, that disproportiately affects journalists... since we are a gossip-driven bunch who spend our days staring at a screen).

And yes, mea culpa: I, like everyone else, have my own favorite blogs to plow through before I get down to the business of the day. But c'mon, blogs are an entertaining echo chamber: At the end of the day how much do you really gain from reading about what someone else wrote about what someone else said about what someone else did? There comes a point in every blog-orgy where I snap myself to my senses and wonder: Why am I reading someone else's e-mail? I've got too much of my own to deal with."

Chatting Up Bernie: Atkins is Coming to S. Deerfield!

Bernie is the Town Manager of Deerfield, and I popped into his office today when I was at Town Hall to pay my tax bill. He had some blockbuster news, among the many things he told me: ATKINS is coming to South Deerfield!

This is major, major, we have always needed and wanted a grocery store here, and Atkins of South Amherst is just about the best anywhere! It has fresh produce, gourmet foods, amazing meats cut by butchers, flowers, a deli and bakery and everything anyone needs. The new store, I hear, will be even bigger than the flagship in Amherst. Right over by the railroad tracks in a new building being developed by Steve Schecterle, who owns the Spirit Shop. This is going to be one of the busiest places in town, and help all of us.

Bernie also told me we had a bike rack coming to the town common, and that he'd take a look at where we can place the placard about the new WiFi we've provided there. Boy, South Deerfield is coming up in a big way, by the time these new stores open we will be packin' 'em in here at the GoNOMAD Cafe!