Even people who have been in Paris a time or three, for a month or 10, can sometimes forget all the fabulous parts of the city which lie outside the popular Arc de Triomph-Champs Elysees-Louvre-Marais stretch of town that runs above the No. 1 Metro line. An example: we had no idea that what a […]

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OK, so we don’t have a lot of imagination. Two weeks off … and we were on the plane to Paris. Yes. Just like last year. And, if things work out, like next year, too. I mean, it’s Paris. If it ever gets old … well, it’s hard to imagine. So, Thursday night, out to […]

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I am writing this from the terraced bar area of the quirky Bristol Hotel in the little Amalfi Coast town of Vietri. We left Sicily two days early and powered halfway up the Italian boot yesterday. Now, we’re back to overlooking the sea … near the end of our Italian vacation. In a few minutes, […]

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Another rough year for the economy. The world economy, the national, the state … People losing jobs. Unemployment of, what, 12.5 percent in California? Something like 10 percent in the nation? Even higher, when you include people who have stopped looking for work and the scads of people not fully employed. U.S. print journalism is […]

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President Barack Obama is traveling to Copenhagen this week to speak in support of Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid. The International Olympic Committee votes Friday on where the Summer Games will go for 2016. Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo also are in the running for what is expected to be a tight vote of IOC […]

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I am a marching band wonk. I conceded this long ago, and have written about marching bands several times. I played in a high school marching band, before I got to the varsity football team, and I was distinctive in that I like to believe I played the loudest clarinet in the history of American […]

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Bisous are what the French call that double-kiss thing they do in greeting. This side of the face, that side of the face, and often just an air kiss, and not between men if one of them is a foreigner … Anyway, this very French kiss-kiss thing struck me as weird the first time I […]

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This may have occurred to every Trojan and Trojan wannabe in the country, and been written here, there and everywhere, but hey I’m in Paris, and I haven’t spent much time thinking about college football. But this one thought has crossed my mind, and it’s not a pretty one for the cardinal-and-gold folks. USC can’t […]

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This wasn’t how this was supposed to play out for les bleus, as the French team is known. As noted in a couple of posts (below), I went out to Stade de France tonight, just north of Paris, to see France in its Group 7 qualifier against Romania. France has been struggling to score, but […]

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I’m sitting in the last row of press seating at the France vs. Romania match at the Stade de France, home of the 1998 World Cup … and just north of Paris. They’re about to play the national anthems. I don’t remember Romania’s, though I must have heard it at various Olympics. The female gymnasts, […]

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