Let’s face it – travel is incredibly simple in Japan. The Shinkansen can take you across the country in a single day. Japanese airports are staging points for almost all traffic from the western world. It’s no surprise you see some wealthy Japanese businessmen finishing off their breakfasts of rice and Miso in Osaka, and […]
The Art of the Party
“Chelsea’s become too clean. We need something different.” Solange Umutoni is not talking about the floodlit circus that used to be 27th Street. Nor is she referring to its formerly notorious nightclubs—places like Cain and Bungalow 8—where the most illicit vice is now cigarette-smoking. Ms. Umutoni talking about art. It’s December 4, 2006, and we’re […]
How Blogs Become Journalism
Acknowledging that “citizen journalism has forced news organizations to change the way they do business,” news site OnMilwaukee.com announced last month it would invite readers to launch their own blogs on all things Milwaukeean. So how are they faring? Ironically, publisher Andy Tarnoff predicted the news site’s biggest problem in his inaugural article: There’s only […]
The Hadley Memo
Was the now-notorious Hadley Memo a White House ploy that backfired or another Bush-league blunder? Either way, it leaves the United States with diminished clout and prestige while the Iraq fiasco worsens daily. Leaked by what the New York Times described as “an administration official,” the memorandum written by National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley […]
Double-entendre Pontiff
Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to Turkey, thanks to being under tight security including shutting down major arteries, snipers and security checkpoints in Istanbul and portions of the public transit system in Istanbul went off with nary a hitch, and the main demonstrations during the duration of his stay were either far afield from his itinerary […]
Solana’s Biggest Fan
Meet Xavier Solana. The biggest wasteful surplus in the European Union today. I’d hazard a guess there’s no one more unstomachable anywhere from Belfast to Berlin. I wish he’d stop visiting the Middle East and talking like he’s got the faintest idea what’s really going on here. This man has got his head so far up […]