When a moving train decouples, there’s danger ahead. Which is why decoupling is the wrong word to describe the trade conflict between the United States and China. What’s actually happening is that bi-lateral trade is being rebalanced, correcting inequities that have long favored China. The Phase One agreement that was signed January 15th is a big step in the right direction. It promises a … Continue reading Rebalancing China US Economic Relations
GALLIPOLIS, OH: In the summer of 1849 several hundred people along the Ohio River between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati perished from an outbreak of cholera. Red dot, rural southern Gallia County in Appalachian Ohio Among those who died was Catherine Williams, aged 48. Living in rural Gallia County in southern Ohio, she lasted two months while her 21-year-old son succumbed quickly, dying the horrid cholera death of uncontrolled … Continue reading Hardship and Patriotism in 19th Century Southern Ohio
BRADENTON, FLORIDA: Bob Blanchard, who will soon be 79, is about to ride his heavily laden Trek to Key West. He expects the 475-mile trip to take ten days, averaging about 50 miles per day. The most direct route would be 100 miles shorter but, as always, Bob will be doing things his way. Bob Blanchard, Peach’s Restaurant, Bradenton, FL, … Continue reading Ten Days to Key West
In March 1990, when there was still a communist East Germany, I spent ten days traveling from East Berlin to Leipzig, Dresden and places in between. One dreary evening I arrived late in historic Weimar only to find the hotels fully booked. But in a makeshift office near the station an enterprising easterner had set up an agency that paired travelers with locals seeking hard … Continue reading East Germany After the Wall
MILAN, OHIO: There are surprises when visiting Thomas Edison’s birthplace in northern Ohio. The great inventor was born in this pleasant village between Cleveland Toledo in 1847, the 7th and youngest child in a family with roots in Canada. The Edisons’ sturdy two-story brick home was a cut above the neighbors, revealing their relative prosperity. Thomas’s father made roofing shingles. A further surprise is that … Continue reading Thomas Edison: Character Forged in Ohio and Michigan
ULYSSES, Kansas: How good it is to occasionally be away from the nation’s capital and out in the open spaces of western Kansas. It’s a different world. The terrain is flat, mile after mile of pencil-straight highways, fence rows and power lines, fields of corn yet to be harvested, stubbled wheat fields, grazing cattle, few people. To an easterner unused to the great plains it’s … Continue reading Postcard from the West
When Mark Twain explored the Neckar in the summer of 1879, he extolled its soft, peaceful beauty. The Neckar, he wrote, was “gentle, gliding, smooth and noiseless.” One hundred 40 summers later the Neckar remains serene, a refuge from a chaotic world. We were nine cyclists, all in our 70s, from Germany, France and America. We began in Mannheim close to where the Neckar dissolves … Continue reading Cycling the Neckar in Southern Germany
