Cultural Gaffe (one of many)

The local grocery store in Washington DC is like a modern museum – not because it is full of old stuff but because it is full of wonders. I meander the aisles, cutting from side to side looking at the variety of goods and am amazed and a little confounded at, inter alia the variety of breakfast cereals. They say Americans eat a lot of sugar. After perusing the cartons in front of me I am inclined to agree. Fortunately the store has a great variety of fruit and vegetables, all sourced from places up and down the Potomac  - and Florida it seems. I am not sure about the deli cornucopia and leave that to another trip to try and decipher. It’s way too confusing. Read more

Waterboarding

I wrote some thoughts about waterboarding in an earlier post. There is some interesting observations here by journalist Christopher Hitchens who thought be might pursue a story to its (almost) nth degree.

CIA Interrogation – Try “Would You Like a Job?”

In 2005 the following techniques (listed below) were apparently approved (by the DoJ) for use on detainees. I can hear old school coppers all over the world having a chuckle – no reference to phone books, or fire hoses, or clamped cuffs, or …   We would be foolish if we thought these were the only physical techniques used. I think we all know that. But I was mildly surprised at the light touch involved in these techniques though the panic induced in water boarding could be intense, I am sure. Read more

Palintology

When I was in DC last month, or was it the month before? (time slips away) we were all being distracted by a bleeding Wall St, falling dollars and the presidential race – and in particular DC was distracted by the Alaskan phenomenon. At the time no one seemed to quite know what to make of her but this clever cartoonist of the Washington Post caught the feeling nicely – along with a terrific pun/play on words to boot. Made me laugh out loud, which does not usually happen when I am reading the newspaper.

In the Hands of Providence

There is something very mystical about the Gettysburg battlefield which is hard to explain. There is a very powerful sense of uniformed men still there, lingering over the heartache, savagery, the mundane and the heroic. That is, provided you do not arrive there on a day when thousands of boy scouts are running all over the place. Read more

Art Deco At Fair Park

In an area of the US which boasts one of the most rapidly growing urban areas in the country (I understand it competes with San Diego for that dubious honour) not only are places like Frisco and McKinney keeping some grip on their heritage but so too downtown Dallas where Fair Park retains most of the buildings erected for the 1936 Centennial Exposition. Read more

Recession? What Recession?

The statistics tell one story I guess. And the emotionally driven sinking red line tells another. But last week I picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal on my way to breakfast where beside pictures of brokers with heads in their hands was a small story about one (unknown) company paying $6billion in cash for another (unknown) company. Read more

McKinney is Famous for …

…being so, well,  American. It is October. So the corn stalks are out, reminding us of harvest thanksgiving. Orange pumpkins dot the sidewalks and verandas. Halloween creeps up on us after all, and only the blind or dull and unobservant could miss these brilliant cues.  Read more

Body of Lies a Body of Lies

On Sunday I sat in a movie theatre  in Texas and watched Russell Crowe, Leonardo Di Caprio and others in the recently released movie “Body of Lies”. There was something in the experience that came full circle  – or rather I should say there were a number of interesting threads that came together that afternoon. Read more

American DNA

We always say that even though we speak the same language as our American cousins we often don’t hear the same words. Which is another way of saying there are lots of things which on the surface are assumed to be the same but which are in fact very different. Read more

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