Geez, sometimes I wish I actually looked impressive. You come here to this Arab country thinking that, “Hey, we’re all Muslims!” and for once you actually don’t stick out like a sore thumb, at least not because you wear hijab, but you do stick out because you’re not ‘Arab chic’. You should see these ladies […]

I was talking to my son this afternoon, we do that a lot, and somehow we got to discussing the need to be friendly and reach out to people. He said that he’d been rebuffed at times, and so was reluctant to do so. And I remembered a moment so very vividly right there and […]

Recently went to an event filled with young people that were definitely outside my normal realm of acquaintance. And in a word, it was FASCINATING! Reminds me of what Dr. Phil said in one of his recent shows, about how once we’ve made up our minds we stop searching for new information, and we only […]

The last time I went to this conference was years ago when they asked me to storytell for the kids. It was so long ago that one of my daughters joined me at the venue and then got annoyed with the audience because they were bouncing around instead of listening. She was only about thirteen […]

Mike Tyson said that. And a company called Busy Building Things immortalized the saying on a little plaque that sits above my desk even as I type this. I think it’s amazingly profound! It’s quite self explanatory, I guess. I mean, you make a plan, a strategy, and then you jump into the fray and […]

feels a bit like a waste of time. Sometimes the feeling of impotence in the face of global dilemmas is just excruciating. This is one of those times. It seems to crop up every so often. It’s like tensions build and build in Israel and Palestine, and they start fighting, and people start dying. And […]

Can you believe that’s actually a line of dialogue in the movie Love is a Many Splendored Thing??? I burst out laughing when I heard ‘third’ uncle, say that to his Eurasian niece. Okay, maybe I should give the movie a break. A love affair between a white guy and a half Chinese woman in Hong […]

Sun Yat Sen is the father of modern China. I had no idea. He died in 1925 and they decided to raise a mausoleum for him on top of Purple Mountain in Nanjing. At the time China had about 39.2 million people, so the guy who designed the memorial got the bright idea there should […]

We went to see the Confuscious Temple. It was in a very touristy district, lots of foreigners and when I stepped off the bus I saw a Chinese woman who was wearing what could only be hijab! She was so cute! And I felt incredibly homesick. And despite all my qualms at being photographed by […]

Before I transcribe my next installment of my Shanghai journal, I just want to say HAAAA! The Yankees got SWEPT! Blown away! By the Detroit Tigers in four games! Oh how I laughed when that smug-faced A-Rod grounded out in the ninth inning! He’d worked the count 3 and 1, he knew he could only […]