MSI Press Blog

    A Long Preparation My preparation for most of my fly in-fly out trips was often as little as 24 hours and typically 2-6 weeks. My first trip to Czechia was different. I prepared for that trip in general for 15 years: 1976-1991. First, in grad school, I took a couple semesters of Czech language instruction but had to stop for Cold War reasons best discussed in a different kind of book. So, my Czech went on hold quite early and for a very long time while still at a rather low level of proficiency. I also took courses for a certificate in East European Studies and in one course got deep into “discovery” related to Czechoslovakia. I was particularly interested in the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia (known militarily as Operation Danube) in 1968 that followed the Prague Spring, when Dubcek was beginning to bring greater freedoms into the country (Williams, 1997), but I had to stop sharing some of the discovery for the same Cold War reasons best discussed in a different k...

  One of the most famous people I have ever met -- and a very lovely person at that -- is Shirley Temple Black, who passed in 2014 after making the world better in several areas of using her talents at acting, diplomacy, and just good people skills. She genuinely liked people. I remember her taking time from a busy schedule to spend a break period from language studies to talk to my 10-year-old, a conversation he obviously will never forget, about our planned move to Monterey and about how she loved Monterey so much that she got married there. I bring her up in the Cancer Diary post because her birthday would be this coming Saturday (April 23, 1928), and, more important, because she was a breast cancer survivor. Her openness about cancer may have saved millions of lives. The more survivors, the more doctors learn. The more survivors, the more hope for others with breast cancer. And the more survivors, the more we realize that breast cancer does not take sides or pick victims -- eve...