Afghanistan
I write about news, music, culture, travel and other topics. Bylines: Outside, Esquire.com, Esquire Classic, Men's Journal.com, The Morning Call, The Lafayette Student Newspaper. I live in the greater New York area.
News
On Monday, President Donald Trump traveled to Salt Lake City and shrank two national monuments: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. After giving a speech at Utah's capitol building, Trump signed two proclamations that removed federal protections from 85 percent of land that was once Bears Ears National Monument and roughly half of what was Grand Staircase-Escalante, opening the region to potential drilling and exploration for other natural resources.
As early as last Wednesday, rain began dumping into the Havasu Falls area of the Grand Canyon, turning the renowned and typically placid turquoise water into a muddy flash flood. One visitor told The Arizona Republic that almost in an instant the winds picked up with "sand blowing everywhere" and the pools of water beneath the base of the waterfalls filled and sent people scrambling to higher ground.
Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke's review of 27 national monuments came to a close Thursday, resulting in recommendations to shrink the size of at least three monuments. Only the summary of Zinke's report to President Donald Trump, which does not discuss any specific changes to the monuments, has been made public.
Faculty voted overwhelmingly to urge the board of trustees to uphold the tenure review committee's recommendation to grant professor Juan Rojo tenure in a special faculty meeting Tuesday, several sources confirmed.
Andrea Bonilla ’20 said she had mixed feelings when she saw that President Alison Byerly signed a statement last week in support of undocumented immigrant students in response to students’ fears of changes in immigration laws.
Although it has been more than five years since Lafayette College agreed to reduce its carbon emissions, the progress it has made is hazy.
Hundreds of people gathered last Saturday for an open house at Islamic Center of Muslim Association of the Lehigh Valley. Food was served from several Muslim cultures. When a call to prayer occurred during their visit, members of the association allowed them to stay in the prayer hall.
A senate committee gave President Donald Trump's nomination for the second-highest ranking position in the Department of the Interior the go-ahead last week to move to the final step in the confirmation process. If confirmed as Deputy Secretary of the Interior, David Bernhardt will act as Secretary Ryan Zinke's right hand, supervising the DOI and heading it in his absence.
On Monday, the senate approved David Bernhardt by a vote of 53-43 for the number-two position in the Department of the Interior. As deputy secretary of the interior, the Coloradan hailing from Rifle will look over the DOI and take the helm in Secretary Ryan Zinke's absence.
Lou Reda Productions of Easton has been nominated for an Emmy for its film "Brothers in War," which follows the personal and combat stories of Vietnam War veterans fighting in the same company. It is company's ninth nomination.
Students at the State Theatre Acting Camp Wednesday learned more than vocals, music and dance. They recited multiplication tables and relearned some grammar with Bob Dorough of Mount Bethel, a veteran jazzman and the primary composer for "Schoolhouse Rock," an educational Saturday morning television cartoon that aired in the 1970s and 1980s.
Music
Eddie Palmieri, 81, performs Saturday at Lehigh University's Zoellner Arts Center, featuring tunes from his recently released album "Full Circle." In December he releases another album, "Mi Luz Mayor," dedicated to his wife, who passed away four years ago, featuring tunes the couple danced to.
Storied jazz pianist and composer Fred Hersch brings his trio to the Williams Center for the Arts at Easton's Lafayette College. Hersch, who almost died from HIV 10 years ago, was one of the first jazz musicians to publicly acknowledge he was gay.
It's not often you hear of a blues artist playing arena shows. But guitarist Joe Bonamassa, 39, is no ordinary blues artist. He has released 16 solo albums in 14 years on J&R Adventures, his own label. On top of that, he has played with everyone from Eric Clapton to Buddy Guy and Derek Trucks.
It has been a very long time since Robby Krieger played guitar for one of rock's most famous bands, The Doors. He's 69 and The Doors only lived for eight years - 1965-1973. Krieger was the man behind some of the group's biggest hits - "Light My Fire," "Touch Me," "Love Me Two Times," "Love Her Madly," although singer Jim Morrison was the band's charismatic face.
After announcing that the Celebration of the Arts Festival (COTA) Orchestra would be playing a fourth song from the band's 1997 album "Celebration," saxophonist Jay Rattman gave the audience an explanation. "Well, it was a damn good album, for one thing," he said from the stage to a crowd of roughly 200 at the 39 th Annual COTA Jazz Festival Saturday night.
Comedy
Comedian Judy Gold isn't afraid to tell you what she really thinks. Political correctness? It's gone too far, she says. President Donald Trump? Not a fan. Less than a minute into the interview, she says, she flipped Trump Tower the bird when she walked by the building the day before.
Be distinct. That is one of comedian Roy Wood Jr.'s mantras. As a correspondent on "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah," it's a necessity. Today's media landscape is filled with satirical news shows. To break through the noise, a humdrum bit about the day's breaking stories won't cut it.
John Hodgman didn't know what to do after he ended the world he created in his third book of made-up knowledge, That Is All. "I panicked," says the one-time The Daily Show contributor. But he took the advice of comedian Mike Birbiglia, booked a weekly spot to perform at Union Hall in Brooklyn and decided to see what would happen.
Paul Lyons didn't walk onto the small stage June 26 at the Wisecrackers Comedy Club at the Ramada Inn in Whitehall. Instead, the balding middle-aged comedian ran onto the stage and did a jig to upbeat music before beginning his routine. Lyons, who has headlined around the world, connected with the mostly middle-age audience, figuratively and literally.
Culture/Travel/Other
Humans have a special place in their hearts for megafauna, alive or extinct. Zoogoers line up for elephant and tiger exhibits, and millions flock to the latest Jurassic Park installments. Sometimes, though, people get a little too obsessed with these creatures and find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
In 2001, a man walked up to Hampton Sides in Virginia, as he signed copies of Ghost Soldiers, his book about the rescue of Bataan Death March survivors during World War II. The man put a card on the table that read "The Chosin Few."
Since we last talked to Philippe Cousteau, grandson of the late explorer Jacques Cousteau, he was taking a break from real life adventuring to play an oceanographer in " The Aquatic World," an irreverent and informative online video series.
Like many of us, Joe Romeiro was afraid of sharks after watching Jaws. But that fear turned into curiosity when he and his grandfather caught a shark on one of their many childhood fishing trips. That was a good thing for his chosen profession: filming sharks.
The good news is that it's extremely unlikely that you'll be bitten by a shark, especially unprovoked. But, hey, if you're at a beach that is frequented by sharks, it's good to be on the safe side. We talked to the experts to help us prepare - here's their advice.
Pumpkin spice's time has come. A couple weeks back, the Chicago Tribune suggested that pumpkin spice, seated comfortably atop of the ruins of other autumn flavors, may soon topple and meet a long overdue end. But what will replace it? Maple will. Specifically, maple syrup.
The holidays are over. If you're lucky, you got some extra cash to make those awkward encounters around the family dinner table worth it. Don't let that spare change burn a hole in your pocket; instead, think about investing. Sure, there's bitcoin -but who knows if and when that bubble will burst.
After being torn apart by winter storms and landslides, Big Sur is open for business - sort of. Pfeiffer State Beach, Julia Burns State Park, and Sykes Hot Springs, some of the most iconic places in the region, are closed alongside big sections of Highway 1.
Inside the Grossman Gallery in the Williams Visual Arts Center at Lafayette College are pictures, sketches and models of sculptures that, when finished, would be compelling outside on the Karl Stirner Arts Trail in Easton.
Gas versus charcoal, it's the classic grilling debate. So which one is better? We put the question to Victor Albisu, who was raised in a butcher shop and now owns Del Campo, a South American grill in Washington D.C. "Meat and grilling has been a part of my life since I was a child," he says.
From California to Georgia to New Hampshire, these are the climbs that make America a cycling destination.
The Nat King Cole trio: Nat King Cole, Oscar Moore and Wesley Prince. January, 1945 Imagine Sherlock Holmes at a Grateful Dead concert. That's what music writer Ralph J. Gleason looked like when a young Jann Wenner met him in 1966. As Joe Hagan writes in his new biography of Wenner, Sticky Fingers, Gleason had...
Jim Morrison wasn't cool. That's what Eve Babitz wrote in the March 1991 issue of Esquire ("Jim Morrison is Dead and Living in Hollywood"), which came out at the same time Oliver Stone released his turgid biopic, The Doors. New York Times reviewer Caryn James wrote Stone "uncritically bought into the myth of Morrison as a...
Between the Lines (Outside Magazine)
Fact-Checked Stories
About an hour before midnight on Mother's Day in 1986, a group of teenagers assembled at an Episcopal high school in Portland, Oregon, to embark on an expedition. Their goal was to summit Mount Hood, completing an adventure program that was required for all sophomores.
Cross Coburn was 19 years old and only four months into his political career when the envelope that threatened to destroy it arrived at Groves City Hall. A drama major at Lamar State-Port Arthur, Coburn had wanted to go into politics since he was a child.
Smithsonian Magazine | These were the early fighters, mostly men, a few women, their faces and thin frames captured in the watercolor portraits hanging in a hallway at Action Wellness in Philadelphia. They're all gone now, lives cut short by a plague.
"No hay sinónimo para Dios más perfecto que la Belleza." John Muir's dictum, originally published 80 years ago, rolls nicely off the tongue in Spanish. (Translation: No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty.)
For more than 40 years, tribal chief and artist Roy Vickers was obsessed with a totem pole that was taken from a remote native village in British Columbia. He decided to make a replica, and all he needed was will, skill, and a 17,500-pound tree.
On November 2, 2010, surfer Andy Irons died alone in a hotel room at Dallas-Fort Worth airport's Grand Hyatt while heading home from a competition in Puerto Rico. If you spent any time working on the ASP World Tour that year, as I did as a reporter, you knew that the 32-year-old superstar had a substance abuse problem.