I have not driven a motor vehicle (hold on to your steering wheels, SoCal-ers) … For 67 consecutive days! And I do not miss it one bit. It’s an age thing, I think. Remember when you were in high school? You practically counted down the days until you were 15-and-a-half, when you could get a […]

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Have you seen the stories? This or that major city is setting up bicycle stations, where citizens can pick up and drop off basic bicycles for a small fee. Paris has done it. Barcelona has a great plan going. Other cities, too. The idea is to get people out of cars, perhaps get them some […]

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For the first two months here, I stayed north of Victoria Peak, on Hong Kong Island. That is, I was where all the people are. Shoulder to shoulder, it seems sometimes, in the mass of humanity that inhabits the coastal strip on the north shore. Not until Monday, Dec. 1, did I venture to the […]

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Or, we could subtitle this post, “the numbers at Gannett leak out, and they reinforce what Gannett veterans already knew.” That is, Gannett never has owned newspapers. By its own preferred corporate-speak, it has owned “profit centers” — and the greedy bastards who ran the company were bold enough to call it just that. A […]

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Crowded out, every one … When will “they” ever learn? (Everybody, sing!) Or not. One of the more interesting realities of Hong Kong: Very little seems to live on this stretch of the island aside from humans, their handful of pets … and some insects. And that’s about it. Which leaves you to wonder where […]

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Here’s something else we, as Americans, rarely think about: Nobody celebrates Thanksgiving except us. And if you happen to be out of the country when Thanksgiving rolls around … good luck finding a turkey. Cooked, uncooked, still in its feathers.  Non-Americans just don’t know Thanksgiving. “What? American colonists and Indians and … what?” But it’s […]

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This murderous business still going on in Mumbai, India (formerly known as Bombay), still unfolding … what apparently is a series of terror attacks aimed at Americans and Britons … If I were sitting in my place in SoCal, it would seem quite remote. People on, literally, the other side of the world, dead, wounded […]

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Back in the United States, most journalists don’t really know about this. Unless they have traveled in Asia and perhaps seen these newspapers on news stands — or had them left at their hotel-room doors. There are more than a few English-language newspapers in Asia. And they could wind up employing out-of-work American journalists. Those […]

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Well, of course it’s not. It’s Hong Kong. It’s China. We’re in the tropics. It’s 75 degrees and sunny. At night it might get down to 65. Hongkongers like to make believe we’re deep into Fall now. They dress like it, anyway. The women wear boots and jackets. The men break out their sweaters and […]

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Not many Americans grow up in a vertical environment. Folks from New York City, I suppose, but that’s about it. And for those of us from the country or small town or suburbs … our world is a two-dimensional place. Forward and back, left or right. That is not the case in Hong Kong, however. […]

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