Here are two photos from our recent trip to Kuwait. While there, we went to the Kuwait fish market where they hold daily auctions of local fish and “foreign” fish (caught in non-Kuwaiti waters). The action’s wild, with a few hundred buyers vying for bucketsful of various varieties of fish and shellfish to be sold … Read more
These are a couple of recent pics from a recent trip to Jalisco, Mexico – where humpback whales migrate for their mating season. In the first, you can see The Rake, the tops of a couple of whales, and a “water spout”. There were four males and one female in this group, where the males … Read more
I am writing in reference to the “Dance Dance Competition” article in the April issue. Although I appreciate any visibility that dance receives in this community, I do not feel this article speaks to the comprehensive nature of dance education available to my students at Summit School of Dance nor to the positive benefits gleaned … Read more
In the April Rake [“Cuddly Kierkegaardians”], Dan Sinykin mused that “Søren Kierkegaard … wrote more than thirty books during his life (1813-1855) on topics ranging from faith to seduction. That’s a lot of ink for a man whose favorite thinkers, Socrates and Jesus, never penned a word.” I’d agree that Socrates and Jesus never saw … Read more
Psychiatrist Kevin Turnquist gave an excellent response, conservative and correct, to important questions about “depression” and related issues [“The Doctor is In,” April]. I find that the word “depression” nowadays is loosely used and over-used by the general public. Where once we were “unhappy” or “down” or “moody” or “low,” now we are “depressed.” This … Read more
Thank you for the moving and chilling story about Fozia Mussa [“Country Girl,” April]. I am glad she, unlike so many others, is getting the opportunity to explore her potential and is doing so much with it. There certainly is more than enough racism and xenophobia in the world. However, many if not most of … Read more
The question I’ve always had about George Tenet — seen this evening on “60 Minutes” getting feisty with Scott Pelley — is this: How exactly did he, a Clinton-appointee running the goddam CIA, pass muster with Dick Cheney and hang on into the Bush 43 administration? I mean, here was a crowd gone obsessional with … Read more
The Twins have now lost three of Johan Santana’s last four starts, which would be disastrous were it not for the surprising performances of Ramon Ortiz and Carlos Silva. Everybody, of course, is just figuring that anything positive that Santana can give the team in April is gravy, given his slow starts in recent seasons. … Read more
The Minnesota History Center certainly hit upon a fetish last night. The place was so crowded at the first-ever RetroRama that a girl couldn’t even get a pink martini. Note to self: Next time, heed that time-honored tradition of packing a flask in your stockings. Even though I couldn’t get a drink and didn’t come … Read more
One of the mustier traditions of newspaper writing is the amount of group-think involved in crafting the first paragraph of a story — in journalism jargon known as “the lede”. Tradition says that the first paragraph should contain the essence of all the information to follow. Tradition also implies that that first paragraph represent the … Read more