Category: News Squib

News Squib: Soup Fills Empty Bowls in Palm Beach

It’s Squib Saturday. Time to share the best, most interesting (or most entertaining, or most outrageous) tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from all the stuff I’ve read –or done– this week: Top Palm Beach Restaurants Provide Soup for Empty Bowls  

 

 

Imagine that you hand over just $25, and then go to eat a bowl of soup at every best, exclusive restaurant in town  — for no further cost.   Well, that’s more or less the idea behind the Empty Bowls annual fundraiser in Palm Beach — a town that has more exclusive restaurants per square mile than probably any other town in America.  Except that, once you arrive at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church to pick up your handmade ceramic bowl, you find that all the restaurants have brought their most delicious soups to you. Continue reading “News Squib: Soup Fills Empty Bowls in Palm Beach”

News Squib: Murder in Palm Beach? Not In This Century!

It’s Squib Saturday. Time to share the best, most interesting (or most entertaining, or most outrageous) tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from all the stuff I’ve read –or done– this week:  Local Paper Celebrates 20 Homicide-Free Years in Palm Beach

 

People are always getting bumped off in Palm Beach, the exclusive, upscale island playground of the rich, beautiful and famous on South Florida’s Atlantic Coast. But only in novels and movies. For my first thriller, Scandal, I chose the North End of the island as the scene for the murder of a TV talk show host while she was swimming in her oceanfront pool. Better-selling authors like James Patterson, Lawrence Sanders, Stuart Woods, and Lawrence Block as well as local authors with the Palm Beach Writers Group, like Erik Brown, have also set murder mysteries on the ultra-rich island.

Murder Milestone

In real life, however, the 5 square-mile island of Palm Beach is virtually crime-free. Where else could you have a front page headline in the local paper proclaiming: “Last island homicide occurred two decades ago.” Even then, the Palm Beach Daily News, known locally as the Shiny Sheet, got it wrong: The last homicide occurred more than 20 years ago in June 1996 when wealthy widow, Geraldine Pucillo was found strangled in the shower of her home on Seaspray Avenue. Continue reading “News Squib: Murder in Palm Beach? Not In This Century!”

News Squib: Language Rules: Why You Are A Silly Old Fool & Not An Old Silly Fool?

It’s Squib Saturday. Time to share the best, most interesting (or most entertaining, or most outrageous) tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from all the stuff I’ve read –or done– this week: The Language Rules We All Know But Don’t Know We Know

I came across an English language rule (actually two of them) this week that I had never learned in more than 60 years of studying and using the language.  The information came to me courtesy of my brother Michael in Prague. He sent me a link to a story that appeared in BBC Magazine last year about a tweet that went viral from BBC Culture editor (@MattAndersonBBC) who copied a paragraph from a book titled The Elements of Eloquence. Continue reading “News Squib: Language Rules: Why You Are A Silly Old Fool & Not An Old Silly Fool?”

News Squib : A miracle herb for aging well ? Seriously?

It’s Squib Saturday. Time to share the best, most interesting (or most entertaining, or most outrageous) tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from all the stuff I’ve read –or done– this week. Today: Rosemary with Anchovies, Anyone? 

 

After you reach a certain age, it’s always a relief to find that you’ve made it to a new year. Then, immediately comes the thought: Will I still be here for the next one? And, on its heels, the more important question: What shape will I be in? Will my knees be my own? Will I still have my memory? Will I still be able to pout and look insulted when the airport security guy asks me if all my parts are my own –or will medical hardware holding knees and hips together set off the metal detectors? Continue reading “News Squib : A miracle herb for aging well ? Seriously?”

News Squib#15 – A High for the Holidays

It’s Squib Saturday. Time to share the best, most interesting (or most entertaining, or most outrageous) tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from all the stuff I’ve read –or done– this week. Today: Brave New Weed – the perfect book gift for anyone who ever wanted to smoke a joint– and now lives in (or is visiting) a state where it’s legal.

 

Joe Dolce, the author of this terrific tome, subtitled Adventures into the Uncharted World of Cannabis, begins by setting out the conundrum which has perplexed me (a Sixties flower child who once enjoyed hard liquor and tobacco) and those members of my generation who have for decades resisted lighting up a joint.

Namely: “If pot is as benign as its adherents claim, and such a miraculous and versatile medicine on top of that, how did it acquire such a bad rap?” Continue reading “News Squib#15 – A High for the Holidays”