Approximately one month ago, Houston, Texas was inundated by the storm surge caused by hurricane Harvey. In an unprecedented series of Atlantic hurricanes, Harvey was followed in quick succession by hurricane Irma which struck Florida, hurricane Maria which devastated Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, . . .
In my long life, I’ve witnessed several major technological revolutions. In my early music years of the early 1960’s, all musical instruments were acoustic. Then in the late sixties, Jimi Hendrix led the way to an electric guitar revolution, and music was changed forever. The Hammond B3 . . .
Shinto is Japan's "native" religion, dating back at least two thousand years. The Shinto temples in Kyoto date from the eighth century, when Kyoto was the most powerful city in Japan.
Welcome to Israel Arriving in Israel less than a week ago for a short visit on the way to the conference in Jordan, their first question was: “What the _______ (insert appropriate word of your choice) is going on in the US?” To which we replied, “What the ______ is going on in Israel?” It’s complicated. I hardly know where to start. But we have to start somewhere, to bring attention to what’s going on in these turbulent times...
Our Viking China cruise continued to three port cities I had never heard of before. The Chinese government seeks to increase tourism, and our cruise is one of the first collaborations with the Chinese government and Viking Cruises. The ship's staff is 100% Chinese, and the entertainers are all Chinese. So this particular cruise is different from the usual Viking multi-national staff.
Our ship, the Yi Dun, is named after the first Chinese commercial ship launched in 1872, the Yi Dun.
This blog was written during our ten-day visit to Israel. My wife Susan’s sister Aliza has lived in Israel for decades. In our thirty-five years of marriage, Susan and I have visited Israel at least a dozen times. Israel is a dynamic society of high-achieving hard-working people.
The world is a big place…I was picked up at 3am to travel to the Mumbai airport for a 6:40am Turkish Airlines flight, which flew seven hours from Mumbai to Istanbul. After a couple of hours in the chaotic, crowded, and very international Istanbul airport, I flew two hours to the Ben Gurion airport outside Tel Aviv Israel. Met by Susan, we traveled half an hour by taxi to the town of Rehovot, where Susan’s sister and her husband have lived for many years. . .
I first heard of Cape Verde Islands in the title of a jazz composition by pianist Horace Silver, The Cape Verdean Blues.
