The observation that everybody is a TV critic was made a long time ago, but in the last few years I’ve also noticed that most people think they know how to travel — both how to book a trip and how to handle all aspects of the journey.
At the same time, we keep hearing and reading horror stories about mistreated and overcharged passengers, ruined vacations, missed weddings or funerals. Those tales often end with the affected travelers’ solemn pledge never to fly the airline that wronged them again. But are the airlines the only ones to blame or should travelers share at least part of the responsibility?
Having flown almost 2 million miles and visited more than 80 countries, I’ve seen it all –- airline agents who offer completely different answers to the same questions, and others who simply make up rules to avoid dealing with an issue; flight attendants whose dislike for their job is evident in everything they do on board; rude and demanding passengers who fail to recognize when an airline employee actually does them a favor… MORE
Continue reading about Time for travel school — you are invited
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has delighted reporters repeatedly during her travels by speaking off the cuff, but is she also speaking off the mark?
Compared with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the former first lady and senator from New York has committed only minor diplomatic gaffes. Still, twice during her trip to Asia last month, Mrs. Clinton made comments in which the accuracy was questioned by specialists and later had to be “clarified” by the State Department.
At a press conference in New Delhi on July 20, she was asked by an Indian reporter whether the United States opposed the transfer of sensitive reprocessing and enrichment nuclear technology from India to other countries…
Continue reading about Clinton goes off script abroad, ‘clarifications’ follow
Flying more than 22,000 miles in a week filled with dozens of official meetings, public events and media interviews didn’t seem to have taken a toll on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during her much-publicized trip to Asia. How does she do it?
I’ve been asked the same question about three of Mrs. Clinton’s predecessors I’ve traveled with — Condoleezza Rice, Colin L. Powell and Madeleine K. Albright. My answer is always the same, but it’s not the queen-size pullout sofa in their plane’s private cabin, though having a real bed in the air certainly helps.
It’s what Mrs. Albright’s former chief of staff, Elaine Shocas, used to call the “fire in the belly”…
David Hyde Pierce is already thinking post-”Frasier”, even though the popular TV show, in which he plays the title character’s snobbish psychiatrist brother Niles, has just been renewed for another three seasons. After long and at times painful negotiations, Paramount, the studio that produces “Frasier”, reached an agreement with NBC earlier this month to keep the hit series on the network.
But the new contract is no reason for Pierce to stop exploring other artistic opportunities — in fact, since he had a “blast“ in a two-week run of the musical “The Boys from Syracuse” in LA a year and a half ago, he has decided to look seriously into musical theatre as his next potential career move.
“It is something I’ve never really done,” he says, “and I got so excited about it. It’s a whole new country. I’ve done movies and I keep thinking that’s what I should be doing, but I don’t enjoy movies. I like having an audience. So I’ve been taking regular voice lessons. I’m about to start rehearsals for a play in which I have a lot of dancing, so I’ll also have to take dancing lessons”…
Rob Lowe’s comeback story is of a peculiar kind. For his audience, seeing one of 1980s-Hollywood’s highest-profile heartthrobs in a serious, political role, in an award-winning TV drama series about life behind the scenes at the White House, has provoked a reaction just short of shock. But for the 37-year-old actor and ex-Brat Pack member, whose career had slipped over the past decade, playing deputy communications director Sam Seaborn in “The West Wing” is a logical turn that shows “everything I can bring to a part”.
“It taps more into my abilities as an actor than any other part I’ve done,” says Lowe, whose looks typecast him as the invariable romantic youth from the start of his career. “This is a role on which my physicality has no bearing whatsoever. Sam could have been played by anyone. The hallmarks of this character aren’t physical but verbal and cerebral”…
