Whether you live near or far from the home where you grew up, there comes a time when you go down into the old family basement to haul remnants of your past to the dumpster. That time came for me on my most recent visit to New Jersey when my brother and I and some hired arms hauled several decades worth of half-buried memories up from the basement of the house where we grew up. Emptying a basement is often associated with mourning or natural disaster, but in this case our reason for… Read more

July 4, 2011 – Since I’m a few thousand miles away from the United States today I thought I’d celebrate the Fourth of July with a photo reportage of the major Statues of Liberty in Paris. Here below is the original 1/16th plaster execution model of Auguste Bartholdi’s statue La Liberté éclairant le monde (Liberty Enlightening the World) better known as The Statue of Liberty. It’s presented at the far end of a former chapel built in the 12th-century within the complex of the… Read more

To hear expatriate Americans talk about international politics, taxation, and major events in the United States you’d think that we would be the first to send in our absentee ballots come election time. But a relatively low number of Americans overseas not affiliated with the U.S. government (i.e. excluding military, embassy and other government employees) actually vote in general elections, and most likely very few at all in odd years. At least it’s assumed that few do—because no one… Read more