As I put together this post, and since my thoughts have turned to travel, I thought I’d make Articles of Interest.3 all about travel.
Articles of Interest.3 – The ‘Travel Post’
19 Saturday May 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
Baseball Notes, Thoughts, & Stats After 38 Games
18 Friday May 2012
Posted in Go Sox
from Life Magazine
In no particular order of importance, here are some thoughts and some statistics rattling through my alleged brain at the end of the first quarter of the season:
Latest from Sam Wo’s
18 Friday May 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
Thanx to friend Anita Rechler, the above picture, taken May 13, confirms that indeed Sam Wo’s is closed and has yet to satisfy the Health Department that it meets code.
Two Films & a Play
17 Thursday May 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (for the Elderly & Beautiful) *** (1/2)
The previews and descriptions of this film made me uncertain I wanted to see it, even though it is about a favorite place of mine in India – Jaipur. But something got me to go, perhaps a review or perhaps because we couldn’t find anything else we wanted to see.
Three Very Different Restaurants
16 Wednesday May 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
I draw your attention to three very different restaurants in very different geographical locations. The prices vary widely, but the tastes at all three are worthy of your seeking them out.
More Pix of the Kinder
15 Tuesday May 2012
Posted in Family and Friends
For those of you who enjoy pictures of the kinder, here are some of the latest, including a Kodak slide show of the gathering for my sister Janet’s 70th birthday in Atlanta.
T’s nice to see the next generation coming along so nicely, and their parents too.
(Randy & Corey are Janet’s sons. Jolie is Randy and his wife Val’s daughter, and Evan is Cory & his wife Julie’s son. Annie is my daughter, Abba (Edan) is her husband, and Eli and Abby are their children.)
Abby and Eli
LBJ: Political Genius or Ruthless Manipulator?
13 Sunday May 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures, The Outer Loop
Over the last week I have read Robert Caro’s fourth book on Lyndon Johnson and attended a Politics & Prose bookstore “conversation’ between 
Caro and Politico’s Chief White House correspondent Mike Allen. I thought the book (606 pages) truly worthy of my week’s devotion to it. I enjoyed listening to Caro and getting a sense of the man, his humility, his solidity, and his insights, though I think Allen missed an opportunity to draw out Caro on many aspects of the book that deserved discussion.
If you definitely plan to tackle The Passage of Power, you need not read further than the end of this paragraph. Mark this site, and come back to it after you have read the book. Then read what is written below, and let me others know what you think.**
If you’re not sure if you want to read the book, or if you just want to get a bit of a summary and one person’s reactions, read the “Summary” and “10 Takeaways” below.
(If your time is limited, check out The New Yorker’s excerpt of the day LBJ went from believing his political life was over to attaining the most power he ever had — Nov. 22, 1963.)
Remaining Nats’ Games: List of Dates Still Available for Free
08 Tuesday May 2012
Posted in Go Sox
Here is a list of the remaining games that are available for you to choose from to join me to watch the Nats in 2012.
One seat for each game is free to you, except you may have to buy me a hot dog and/or a beer and put up with my companionship for the duration of the game.
If you might want two tickets to any of the games listed below, I may be open to selling those to you. Note that the Friday, Sept. 7 Marlins game is definitely for sale.
Three TED Talks
07 Monday May 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures, Misc
Three TED Talks, by Elizabeth Miller
During the month of April, I tried to watch 30 TED talks in 30 days. TED, for those who don’t know, is an annual gathering of some of the world’s leading thinkers and doers out in Long Beach, California. Standing for Technology, Entertainment and Design, the conference usually consist of 50+ talks over four days that allows speakers and attendees to discuss a wide variety of topics. Most talks are about 20-25 minutes long.
Touted as “the ultimate brain spa” and a “4-day journey into the future,” the original conference has grown to include TED-sponsored activities all over the world and on a variety of more specialized topics (the environment, young people etc).
The conference has come a long way since it first debuted in 1984. You can read more abut TED’s history online. These days, it posts most of the talks by featured speakers online (though not right away), which is what motivated me to watch them from the comfort of my own home.
I didn’t quite get to 30 talks in 30 days. I probably watched more like 15, but these are my three favorites, on quite different topics.
Join Me & Robert Caro
01 Tuesday May 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
Having purchased two copies of Robert Caro’s 
new The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (Vol.4), I was given four free tickets to a Politics & Prose bookstore event with the author.
Robert Caro will be “in conversation with Mike Allen, chief correspondent of Politico,” the newspaper/Internet/radio/TV outlet that focuses on what’s happening in Washington.
The event is Wednesday evening, May 9 at 7 PM at the Sidwell Friends School, 3825 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC.
I have at least two free tickets (and perhaps three) available for folks to join me.
First to ask…by email, Comment below, or phone.
“Ways of Knowing Truth,” by David P. Stang
01 Tuesday May 2012
Posted in The Outer Loop
Tags
As readers of this website may know, I am on a quest this year to try to understand how we know what we know and particularly how come good folks can differ so much on issues of politics and religion. Along that line, friend Dave Stang sent along the speech below he gave in 2007 in an attempt to school me on this subject.
(Also, see his Comment at the end of Articles of Interest.3)
Articles of Interest.3
30 Monday Apr 2012
Posted in Misc
Here is the third in a series of links to recent articles I’ve found ‘of interest.’
The first three articles, in various ways, ‘talk’ about what has happened and is happening in the world about us. Then there is an article about a modern attempt to follow Odysseus’ Mediterranean ‘jaunt.’ And finally, a very short ‘review’ about a topic that continues to interest me – the brain and how we come to believe what we believe.
Articles of Interest.2
22 Sunday Apr 2012
Posted in Misc
Enough folks seemed to like the idea of my posting Articles of Interest, and so I will continue along. Let me know what kinds of articles most interest you. Until then, you’ll get a smattering of my eclectic reading.
For Articles of Interest.2, you’ll find one article relating to food/eating out, one on travel, two book reviews, a column for those who are aging or helping someone who is, and the 2012 Pulitzer Prize winning article for feature writing.
1. Six Rules for Dining Out by Tyler Cowan in The Atlantic Monthly, May 2012. Cowan has a slightly different slant than many restaurant writers.
2. You’re Welcome: Couch-Surfing the Globe, by Particia Marx in the April 16 New Yorker. Another slightly different way of looking at something, this time on traveling (especially if you’re a bit younger than I). Don’t be put off by the title. Hat tip to friend Sal Gaimbanco for alerting me to this article.
3. Wish You Were Here, a new novel by Graham Swift, lovingly reviewed by Washington Post’s fiction editor Ron Charles. I haven’t read it, but the review is intriguing.
4. India Becoming by Akash Kapur, reviewed Mar. 11 in FT Magazine by David Pilling. Another book I haven’t read, but one that also intrigues me, following along on Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forever.
5. Too Many Pills for Aging Patients, a column by Jane Brody in The New York Times, Apr. 16. If you are aging or helping someone who is, check out Brody’s article and recommendations.
6. The Bravest Woman in Seattle, by Eli Sanders in The Stranger, a Seattle Weekly. Sanders recently won a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for this article. (Note: strong and disturbing content)
As always, please let me and others know of your comments or thoughts on any of the above articles.
Also, do alert me to any article(s) that you think others might find of interest.
Two Good Films
22 Sunday Apr 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
The Kid with a Bike ****
Another good foreign film, another one in French with subtitles, another one which offers some hope amidst times and circumstances that are troublesome (See Le Havre, Monsieur Lahzar).,
This one is about an 11 year old boy, Cyril, who has been abandoned by his father and misses him terribly. Living in a children’s home, Cyril desperately wants to find his father. While searching for his father, he literally runs into a kindly young woman, Samantha, who decides to try to help.
The 88-minute film traces Cyril’s search for his father and the growing relationship he has with Samantha. So as not to spoil the film, I’ll refrain from outlining what happens, but the boy and his bike and the woman who is helping him become individuals you will not easily forget.
(Note, wife Ellen did not like The Boy with a Bike as much as I did, but the film was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize ag Cannes and a Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.)
Hermano *****
This Venezuelan film may be the best film we’ve seen this year in our Sunday morning Cinema Club. Maybe the best we’ve seen anywhere so far this year.
It’s the story of two brothers raised in the barrios of La Ceniza. The younger brother, Daniel, “Gato,” was found and rescued by Julio and Julio’s mother. Then raised as brothers, Gato and Julio become inseparable. They also become rising soccer stars and are presented with the opportunity to play professional soccer. What happens then I will leave to when you see the film.
There are so many good aspects to this film, the acting, which almost doesn’t seem like acting, the filming, which while slightly jarring to some folks, I thought was superb, music that adds another layer of interest, and a story line that is much more than the usual sports as a metaphor for life film.
The film has not been shown yet in this country but has won some prizes outside of the US. It will be shown here, opening within the next couple of months after several benefit performances around the country.
Do put it on your list to see.
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Monsieur Lahzar, which I reviewed earlier, got a rating of 100% (good or excellent) from our film club when we saw it several weeks ago. Apparently that high a rating has only happened one other time in the 20 years of the movie club (“The Piano” was the other one.). It opens in Washington April 27th.
A Sad Apology
21 Saturday Apr 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
One Last Time
In October of last year, I wrote, “Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again – almost.”
The topic was an old favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Sam Wo’s. 
After being away a few years, I found myself one noon in SF with some free time, and so hastened to Washington St. to see if it was still there. You can read for yourself how delighted I was with what I found.
Now, thanks (?) to my good niece Leslie, comes word that after 100 years, Sam Wo’s is closing. You can read about the details as written in the SF Chronicle, but basically, the place is so far from being acceptable to the Health Department, that it would take a mammoth rebuilding to keep it open.
Alas, the present owner has chosen, probably understandably, not to do so. It will close Friday nite/Saturday morn, April 20/21.
And so my apologies to the also deceased Thomas Wolfe. After going ‘home’ to Sam Wo’s for the last 50 years, that is now no longer possible.
So sad.
Never again.
So sad.
Update: Sat., Apr. 21, 4 PM: Now comes word that there may be hope. According to this article, the owner’s daughter wants to keep Sam Wo’s open and will appear before the Health Board on Tuesday. Stay tuned.
Update, Wed., Apr. 25: The health dept hearing’s over, and all agree that Sam Wo’s can reopen if they correct the code violations. Owner appears to want to do so. No reopening date set. See SF Chronicle latest story.