by Minter Dial | Aug 28, 2010 | Travel
The media on both sides of the Atlantic have been feeding on two separate, but in my mind, related issues: the building of a mosque right nearby Ground Zero and the expulsion of “Roma” gypsies from France. At the core of both situations is a latent...
by Minter Dial | May 18, 2008 | Politics, Sports, Travel
I recently experienced first hand the consequences of bad diplomatic blood between the USA and Brazil. It’s a case of fingerprinting turned into finger-pointing…gone wrong. In short, the Brazilian Consulate did everything it could to delay my visa which...
by Minter Dial | Jan 25, 2008 | Podcast, Politics
In France, it was announced (see here in the NY Sun!) by INSEE, the Paris-based national statistics agency, that in 2007, for the first time, the number of babies born out of wedlock eclipsed 50% (hitting 50.5%). That sent me scurrying across the web to find...
by Minter Dial | Jul 30, 2007 | Travel
As my passport saga draws to a close (I picked up today the new 10-year passport, replete with 48 extra pages to last me through 2017), I thought I would comment one more time on the US Embassy experience. This time, notwithstanding high expectations in terms of...
by Minter Dial | Jul 20, 2007 | Travel
A little story that I didn’t talk about regarding our holidays and one that is, by nature, a tad embarrassing. Three days before going for our holidays in Turkey, I went on a business trip to London. After a day of meetings, on the Thursday night, upon arriving...