Monthly Archives: April 2012

The Outer Cape’s European work and play ethic [op-ed CCT 29 June 2005]

In a recent column, Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, knocks European workers for “trying to preserve a 35-hour work week in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day.” Lazy Germans and French have “grown used to six-week vacations.” Oh, the decadence. It’s been 15 years or more since […]

The sizzle and steak of the election [op-ed 23 September 2008]

Oh, I’ve tried to resist the siren call. I’ve done my best to avoid writing about the Palin phenomenon. I’d rather write about a local story. But the thing is, it is the local story, it’s all we’re talking about. It’s irresistible. I feel myself inexorably sucked into it as into a black hole. In […]

Sacrificing for the greater good; or not [op-ed CCT 17 April 2012]

In recent years we’ve bought ourselves a lot of nice items here in Wellfleet. Expensive, but nice. A quantum leap of a DPW facility, $7.68 million worth of state-of-the-art fire station, a beautiful senior center about 10 times as big as the old one, a spiffy remodel of the pier with perimeter promenade for taking […]

Free expression has built-in risks 15 feb 2006 [ CCT 15 February 2006 ]

“Can’t the cat look at the queen?” This is the saying my mother invoked to deal with surly teenage attitude. It was, of course, a rhetorical question. Darn right the cat—one’s mother—has the right to pay unsolicited attention to the self-declared royalty of a hypersensitive teen. It came to mind in connection with the controversy […]

Rethinking the running movement [ op-ed CCT 3 April 2012 ]

On April 16 the famous Boston marathon will be run once again. 30 thousand or so people will be heroically pounding the hell out of their joints over 26.2 paved miles, almost all for the sheer fun—and celebration of health and vigor—of it. They will be widely admired by millions of other runners and couch […]