One of the fascinating things about studying American history is that it’s so full of contradictions. In order for a country of our size and variety to cohere at all, we require a group acceptance of some pretty romantic mythology. And often, the real story is a lot uglier than the prettified conventional wisdom we’re… Read more »
Today, a singer-songwriter I like, Jay Brannan, had an outburst on his Facebook page: “when an item or article of clothing wears out or breaks, i want to replace it with EXACTLY the same thing. the idea of “discontinuing” or “redesigning” ruins life.” Soon after, he tweeted the same thought, refining it: “the idea of… Read more »
I have just received my response from the “Customer Relations” representative at Virgin Atlantic, who, like the “Social Relations” rep, continues to blame the irresponsible decisions that stranded 250 of us at JFK International Airport for 32 hours on the weather. Never mind that the core of my issues were why we were forced to… Read more »
Isn’t it hilarious that even its e-mail response was 22 hours late? A rep from Virgin Atlantic swore he sent an e-mail to me at lunchtime on Wednesday, but of course I didn’t receive one. He resent it after I provided a second e-mail, in case he had mis-typed the first one. Finally, it arrived…. Read more »
I didn’t take many videos of my little sojourn in JFK during the blizzard, partly because I was busy strategizing a way out of there, and mostly because AT&T made uploading anything except the simplest tweet or photo such an impossibility. I got one video, the McDonald’s one, out (which was good for Fox News,… Read more »
This is a new one. I’m blogging from the floor of Terminal 4 at JFK. The short version: Despite the fact that a ferocious snowstorm was approaching full gale, Virgin Atlantic refused to cancel my flight to London. Unable to change my travel without incurring a $250-plus fee, I was forced to go to the… Read more »
My recent silence has everything to do with travel. I was on The Golden Trudge. I took a trip to Peru, where I visited Cusco and did the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. When I tell people what I’ve been up to, many of them coo and instantly ask to hear all about it. So… Read more »
At least, it was when it began. It was in the Depression of 1873. A few years before, a bunch of greedy New York bankers artificially jacked up the price of gold, causing a financial panic and sending America into a slump that lasted for years. (Sounding familiar yet?) Anyway, at the time, France was… Read more »
Most good publications have something called an “editorial calendar.” That means the editors have a list of topics they want to cover during the year, partly because people want to know about them at those times, and partly because it’s when advertisers are most interested in paying for ads for stuff about that subject matter…. Read more »
Long before you lived here, America was a land of many towns. Our expansive “agrarian society” was barely a society at all, really, save for a loosely connected sense of similar place and purpose. And each place had its own time on the clock. When it was 9:00 am in your town, it could be… Read more »