Several years into my father's journey down the narrowing road of Alzheimer's, when he was still going out for walks, I looped my arm through his one afternoon and walked with him along a leafy street near my parents' home. A few people recognized him, waved and called out, "Hello, Mr. President" and "God bless you." He smiled and waved back. Then he looked at me, confused, and asked, "Do I know them?" No, Dad, I said. "They ...

The year of the revolutions began in January, in a small country of little importance. Then the protests spread to the region's largest and most important state, toppling a regime that had seemed firmly entrenched. The effect was far-reaching. The air was filled with talk of liberty and freedom. Street protests cropped up everywhere, challenging the rule of autocrats and monarchs, who watched from their palaces with fear. That could be a description of events in Tunisia and ...

One of the more depressing and outrageous revelations of the massive Wall Street scandal was the news that the previously Olympian ratings agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's, were incompetent at best; at worst, they were in bed with the investment banks whose bonds they were supposed to be evaluating. Both agencies, for example, bestowed AAA ratings — the highest possible — on laughably flimsy mortgage-backed bond contraptions, whose demise almost sank the global economy. In an actual market, no one would trust these ...

A gang film called The Warriors attracts off-screen rumblesStaring from the poster, they looked like a nightmare of what might be, that terrifying day when the street gangs take over the city, any city. Some of them wore leather vests over bare chests. Others had on Arab headdresses. A few, their faces painted harlequin colors, wore baseball uniforms and carried bats. Massed as far as the eye could see, all looked menacing, and the threat was underscored by the text above the picture: "These are the ...

Down Mobile way, darkies croon to the night on soft spring evenings, grin, tip hats, as they shuffle past white "gemmen," still their noble lords if not their masters. Fortnight ago, Clarence Darrow, keen-witted, sharp-tongued Northern lawyer, stopped in Mobile, Ala., made speeches to wide-mouthed black men attacking Negro lynchings. On street corners hot-blooded white men gathered, muttered curses on Mr. Darrow, "damned Yankee" agitator. At Negro schools, able Lawyer Darrow repeated his speeches to the "new Negro." Klan circulars ...

CUBA Communiqu No. 4: The invading mercenary army which occupied Cuban territory for less than 72 hours has been completely crushed. The revolution has emerged victorious though paying a high toll in courageous lives of fighters who faced the invaders. A part of the mercenaries sought to leave the country by-sea in a number of boats which were sunk by the revolutionary air forces. The remainder of the mercenary forces suffered heavy casualties, dispersing ...

Though the signs outside identified it as a hotel, the Cavendish was no place for the unsuspecting tourist. Most strangers who ventured into the dim, cluttered lobby at 82 Jermyn Street were sternly told to try elsewhere. Others, if they were lucky enough to remind the proprietress of some long-vanished Victorian buck or Bostonian pooh-bah, would be clasped to her shapely bosom and regaled with surrealistic reminiscences about old Lord Droopy Drawers and Lady You-Know-'Oo, or "the time we went ...

Is there anybody out there investors can trust? Wall Street was pondering that today as markets were hammered following last night's announcement that WorldCom had inflated profits by a staggering $3.8 billion over the past five quarters. The Dow skidded towards the 9,000 level, while the news pushed the NASDAQ to near post-Sept. 11th levels. The accounting slight-of-hand was accomplished by calling some ongoing costs, like network maintenance, capital expenditures — a move that let the company spread costs over several years, thus ...

I sat in our suburban home in Shanghai and read online the excerpt from Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. My reaction to it was straightforward: Maybe a little over the top, but, yeah, that's about right. My wife's reaction: "I guess I'm not the toughest Chinese mother after all." Our daughter, age 6, is in first grade. She's bilingual . She takes violin and ballet lessons. And she ...

A week after Nintendo's Wii debuted in November, the Wall Street Journal reported that the gaming console was leaving some users as sore as the gym often does. Unlike traditional hand-held video games, where users sit on the couch exercising little more than their thumbs, the Wii features digital sensors that let users virtually play the game. In Wii Sports, a game that comes with the console, users mimic the ...