Category Archives: United States

I see them every day when I cycle to work, the squad of tents nested snug to the ventilation shaft that exhausts the highway buried beneath the city.  The round canvas domes with tarped doors faced off against the Federal Reserve … Continue reading →

I was in the DC airport this week; airports always remind everyone of 911.  The weather was terrible, the flights delayed.  I was fortunate to nab a carrel with an outlet and a usable if slightly broken chair to work … Continue reading →

When Star Trek announced that Space was the Final Frontier, it rang cool.  It also rang true.  Spending time in the mountains of Colorado, a place that was frontier little more than a century ago, makes me wonder what frontiers … Continue reading →

When John Adams described America as ‘a nation of laws, not men’ he was reacting against tyrannical royal rulers and imagining a country that would be sustained by a system of shared tenents that transcend individual personalities.  I have always … Continue reading →

It’s May Day, the blooms along Brattle Street are breathtaking, we had a Royal Wedding this week, replete with flowing trains and outrageous hats, and today I ate my first watermelon of the season.  Despite front page news of war … Continue reading →

I spent today, Easter Sunday, with my children, who are both students at UMass Amherst.  During the day I was reminded of a class trip we took ten years ago to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  May is Museum … Continue reading →

In the first three months of 2011 I know two people who died, three family members who were admitted to the ICU, and I lost count of the reported aches and flu’s flying around my orb. Blame it on the … Continue reading →

The main branch of the Cambridge Public Library has been open over a year.  The building has been heralded as a success both as a work of architecture (Boston Globe 11/10/2009) and for stimulating library use (over 4,000 items were … Continue reading →

There is a remarkable two page photograph in the NY Times Magazine (2/13/2011); the stone interior of a dim church, seven worshippers bundled in their winter coats dispersed among the pews, a sharp shaft of light descending on a balding, … Continue reading →

This piece was presented as an editorial commentary on WBUR in March, 2002.  I recalled it when I read a recent NY Times article about he unfolding sex-abuse scandal in Ireland, which I discuss in a companion piece. There is a crisis … Continue reading →