The Old Lone Ranger

Behind the Garbage Truck

By Rich Marin | September 23, 2026 by Rich Marin

Yesterday I traveled cross-country on what may have been the worst travel day for the air traffic control system in recent memory. Yesterday (Monday, Sept 21) a major air traffic control outage hit the Northeast. What happened was an air traffic control communications failure in Philadelphia forcing the FAA to restrict arrivals at several major airports, affecting JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Philadelphia International, and Teterboro. Ground stops began at Newark, Teterboro and Philadelphia around 10:00 local…

Cruisapalooza

By Rich Marin | September 23, 2026 by Rich Marin

Having just finished our Rhine River cruise with a wonderful outcome and lots to commend it, we are already looking forward to our next Viking cruise, which is the eleven-day Greek Odyssey cruise through the Aegean in late February and early March (decidedly off-season, but appealing to us for the obvious reasons of less crowds in the Mediterranean). The way that cruise has shaped up is that we are a group of eight. We are…

Memoir

The Tyranny of Apple Memories

By Rich Marin | September 22, 2026September 20, 2026 by Rich Marin

In 1972, while rushing what was to become my college fraternity (a.k.a. a place to live for the next two years in a college town short on student housing), I got picked up by a fraternity brother who drove a Chevy Impala that looked, even by standards of the day, like a boat on wheels. This guy, named Steven Kantrowitz, was, like most people at Cornell, a smart guy, but also brash and unorthodox to…

Memoir

Autumn on the Brain

By Rich Marin | September 21, 2026September 20, 2026 by Rich Marin

My brain is going back to 9th grade earth science with this one…Astronomical autumn begins with the autumnal equinox on September 22 in the U.S. I will be in Manhattan for that. Meteorological autumn, which meteorologists use for record-keeping, started September 1 and runs through November 30. I was in Amsterdam for that. Meteorological seasons are built for convenience, while astronomical seasons follow Earth’s orbit. Meteorological seasons simply group whole calendar months into three-month blocks:…

Politics

The Authoritarian Playbook

By Rich Marin | September 20, 2026September 19, 2026 by Rich Marin

There are several specific things on my mind this morning regarding authoritarianism. Let’s start with a proper definition. Authoritarianism is a system of government in which power is concentrated in a single leader or small elite that isn’t meaningfully accountable to the public. It typically limits political freedoms, suppresses opposition, and restricts independent institutions like the press and courts, while often still allowing some private economic and social life. It differs from totalitarianism, which goes…

Fiction/Humor Memoir

Me & Buddy

By Rich Marin | September 19, 2026 by Rich Marin

I don’t very often get asked to do a full Buddy watch. Kim and I have an unwritten rule that I’m OK spending the evening with Buddy or several hours in the day with Buddy while Kim goes off to do whatever she has to do, but I very rarely am here at home all alone with him, being his one and only caregiver. There is nothing so very hard about it all, but its…

Business Advice Memoir

Techno-Ergonomics

By Rich Marin | September 18, 2026 by Rich Marin

I am home again this morning after two and half weeks of traveling to five countries and what I would call eight cities (one Dutch, one German, one French, four Swiss and one American). It’s good to be home and back on my sofa this morning typing away on my iPad, which is one of my favorite plantar to be…smiling across at Kim (busy doing her games and reading) and Buddy frolicking at my feat…

Memoir Politics

Rethinking Reparations

By Rich Marin | September 17, 2026September 12, 2026 by Rich Marin

One of the advantages of traveling internationally is the fact that I get to reconnect with CNN, which is the new source of choice in hotels around the world. This morning I am watching an analysis of the disaster in Nepal and it’s all taking on an interesting new angle. The foreign minister of Nepal was just interviewed by Anderson Cooper and the point he was making was that the billions of dollars needed by…

Memoir

The Stinky Onion

By Rich Marin | September 16, 2026September 16, 2026 by Rich Marin

Today is my Chicago day. I have free time and have decided to take the Chicago Architecture Center (CAC) River Cruise aboard the First Lady cruise ship. Seems like a fitting end to a river cruise vacation (as in Rhine River cruise). It’s widely considered the best of these tours since it’s the only one run with CAC-trained docents rather than generic tour guides. I really did get a good overview of the city history…

Memoir Politics

Wellbeing

By Rich Marin | September 15, 2026 by Rich Marin

As I prepare to leave Switzerland, I was listening to CNN as they interviewed a Swedish academic on his explanation of the political rebalancing underway in Sweden. It became a discussion of what the Swedes care about as they consider the issues most relevant to themselves. In many ways. Sweden ranks near the top of most global prosperity measures. According to the Legatum Prosperity Index, Sweden was ranked 2nd globally in 2023 with a prosperity…

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