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Spain struggles to close economic gap in a changing Europe
by: Hank Smith - printed on 01-31-2001
The final descent of my flight from Atlanta to Madrid was an amazing stress reliever. Gone were the common annoyances of any flight: the crying babies, the tiny seats, the airplane food. In their place grew my excitement for what was to come. Finally I had arrived in the land of Don Quixote, of bullfighting, the land of passion described by Hemingway. I stared out my window at the land below. Olive trees!
I spent my first week in Madrid with friends in Moncloa, a trendy, university-dominated neighborhood, experiencing the young, exuberant culture of a country catching up after 40 years of a repressive dictatorship.
Aisai bento
by: Yuri Nakamoto - printed on 04-11-2001
I’ve noticed that Americans misuse the Japanese word “bento”. My roommate thought bento was something over rice. You thought so, too? The Commons once served something called “bento chicken”! It actually looked like teriyaki chicken though. Bento is a boxed meal that some times it even includes dessert. Just like your lunch sack. But bento is not just leftovers. Maybe some of the items in your bento are leftovers, but bento is made for the purpose of taking your meal with you.
Dear Chairman Arafat and Prime Minister Barak,
by: Hank Smith - printed on 11-03-2000
122 people dead…over 2,000 injured…three weeks. By the time achieve any peace whatsoever is robbing people of their hope. What is the point of haggling over minute details of resolutions that will never lead to permanent peace when, in the meantime, people are dying? You are, as U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk put it, “condemned to live together.” Instead, you are dying together.
There are clear differences, even uninfringeable differences, between your two cultures.
Siesta Lessons
by: Brooke Anderson - printed on 02-28-2001
Siesta. A time to think, to reflect, to slow down, to relax . . . moreover, a time to simply breathe. When I first arrived in Spain, I wasn’t aware how deeply ingrained siestas were in the Spanish culture. I had heard the term before, but never considered it a practiced tradition in any country. I quickly learned that in the south of Spain, a siesta was not only a tradition, but a daily ritual. At exactly 2:00 every day, the stores pulled down their chain-link barriers, offering a sign that the siesta was approaching.
A quick fix denied
by: Meghan Molenda - printed on 04-24-2002
Last Thursday the U.S. Senate voted against opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling for oil and gas. It was a victory for both Democratic Senators and Americans Environmentalists, but for President Bush and the Oil lobbyists the defeat was a blow to their hopes of including this proposal in future energy legislation.
Forty-two years ago, President Dwight Eisenhower established the 1.
Service for a year, service for life
by: Andy Sherwood - printed on 02-20-2002
'It is so funny that I'm involved in a year of faith based service.'
That is exactly what I was thinking about during the President's state of the Union Address last month. When the President asked every American to give to years of their lives to service.
At first I gasped and thought to myself, 'please, not another year.'
But then I realized that GW was talking about making a life-long commitment to service.