Recently updated blogs

Shoemaker Farm (now called Ramona Fresh Fruits) will open for the 2024 persimmon picking season on Thursday, October 30. The farm address is 18131 Traylor Road, Ramona. After opening day, they will be open from 9 AM to 4 PM on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays until the fruit runs out. Bring cash to pay for […] The post Persimmons u-pick: Shoemaker Farm in Ramona, San Diego County appeared first on …

From the vibrant rhythms of cumbia, salsa and mariachi at quinceañera parties to the countless taco trucks across the country, Latinos — both immigrants and U.S.-born — have been grappling for generations with the challenge of preserving their identity while navigating American culture. Despite their long-standing presence, political clout and rising purchasing power, Latinos remain mostly outside the mainstream, writes author and journalist Marie Arana in her new book, “LatinoLand: …

I just finished reading a beautiful book called The Mysterion by Kabir Helminski. The book is a wonderful introduction to the Sufi lens on spirituality, and how to find connection with our inner selves and those around us in an increasingly disconnected world. What I liked most about Kabir’s writing is that he offers a practical mindset to the nature of Self, and how to manage our inner world. In …

Once upon a time, Henry and Lily were happy. They bought a beautiful house in the kind of suburban neighborhood that affords its privileged inhabitants a healthy dose of privacy and set about giving their home the kind of fancy high-end trappings befitting their careers as a robotics engineer and a tech entrepreneur respectively. But…

For many people, eating a diet of nothing but potatoes (or almost nothing but potatoes) causes quick, effortless weight loss. It’s not a matter of white-knuckling through a boring diet — people eat as much (potato) as they want, and at the end of a month of spuds they say things like, “I was quite surprised that I didn’t get tired of potatoes. I still love them, maybe even more …

I meant to link to this earlier this year, but just stumbled upon it again in an open tab (yes, from August, so shoot me) and remembered how good it was. Sam Kriss takes on the now-ubiquitous “book lists”, taking aim first at the middlebrow blandness of Barack Obama’s, then the angsty teenage boydom of Reddit’s: “What we’re looking at isn’t really a list of the greatest books ever written, …

A drawing on a rock at Empire Shopping Center in Burbank. For more of my photos, follow me on Instagram.About | My Book I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Consulting I Email

September 2024 Day 2 of my coast walk and after breakfast the first thing to do is get back to the point I left the coast yesterday. First I walked along the coast until near Koper than cut inland to a bus stop just south of Koper by a main road, where Google told me the bus stopped. It was correct and it was only about a 10 minutes journey …

Fifteen years ago, courts generally avoided categorical pronouncements about the legitimacy of competitive keyword advertising. That produced a string of waffly or irresolute rulings, such as the appellate rulings in Rescuecom v. Google (2d Circuit) and Rosetta Stone v. Google (4th Circuit). Whatever legal ambiguity might have existed then has been decisively resolved, at least with respect to competitive keyword ads that don’t use the trademark in the ad copy. …

Our review of The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943, by James Holland, first published in September 2023. An in-depth investigation into a few months in the Battle for Italy: we get a sense of what it was like for the soldiers and civilians that lived through the battles.Highly recommended, both for WW2 buffs and those of us like me who don‘t read much military history. ★★★★☆ This book …

How the African Risk Capacity (ARC) helps protect African countries following extreme weather events. This year marks the 10th anniversary of ARC Group, a specialised agency of the African Union. It provides technical assistance and rapid prearranged finance following an extreme weather event, such as drought, tropical cyclone and soon fluvial flood, to various African countries through its regional risk insurance pool. It provides both sovereign insurance to African governments …

I like to think she was looking for better reception by the window. There were so many tourists in Florence — including me — that I was consciously looking for photos without any people in them. This one seemed right to me though, a single person living their life in a city that felt overwhelmed with people. Photograph tags: europe, florence, colour, travel, italy, x100t, architecture

The other night at Rosh Hashonah dinner, my stepbrother was playing my guitar and found his way into “Black Peter.” This was not because he had ever sat down and learned it, but because it’s embedded so deeply in his unconscious that he could teach it to himself in real time. This is yet another Dead tune that I loved as a kid without knowing why, and then didn’t think …

Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 7: Death Croons the Blues (2024) is, as of this writing, one of the recent additions to the ambitious, ongoing project to restore James Ronald's crime, detective and pulp fiction to print – scheduled to conclude next year with vol. 14. The headline novel of this collection is the second of three novels about the morally flexible, ace crime reporter of the London-based Morning …

by Zahid Fayyaz Former winner of Taskmaster and Celebrity Mastermind, and following regular appearances on Frankie Boyle’s New World Order and The Last Leg, Sophie Duker tours her new show to London this month. This is the sequel to her award-nominated 2019 debut, But Daddy I Loved Her, a play on the trademark phrase from Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, is a loud, brash and electric show from Duker. …