Tax cheaters stopped in their Ferraris on Italy's streets

In Italy it’s no longer much fun to drive a Lamborghini or a Ferrari. That’s because the police are now regularly stopping these sleek cars and forcing their drivers to show if they’ve paid income taxes. Surprise, surprise, many of these cool cat drivers have been opting to sell the sports cars to avoid this scrutiny.

An ABC News story said that Italy’s tax strapped government is working hard on changing the country’s attitude about paying taxes. TV ads are running that depict tax cheats as parasites, people sucking the life out of the rest of the honest citizens.

There are so many used Ferraris on the market that prices have dropped about 20 percent!. But there has been a violent backlist, with more than 250 attacks on tax offices, including throwing molotov cocktails into the buildings. Many Italians, like a plumber in Pescara, try registering the cars in their mother’s names.

“The culture of Italians is changing,” Attilio Befera, the Italian tax agency’s director, told reporters recently. “Fiscal evasion is seen as a bad thing for everyone, not a cunning habit anymore.”

Change. It's what life is all about

Our lives are made up of transitions and eras. The other day as I contemplated my new life here at my house without my housemate family of seven years, Mary and I discussed an idea of taking down a wall and opening up this 1920s house into a more modern open room arrangement. She was surprised I was enthusiastic about the idea. "I thought you hated that!" she said. But I explained that above all else, I am never reluctant to accept and create change.

I have had many different careers in my 53 years, each with arcs that parallel my relationships. I was once a newspaper paste-up artist, then a reporter, then a salesman, now a publisher. I know many people like me, who used to do this, or once did that, and now spend their time much differently. During a walk with my cousin we talked about a fellow who often talks with pride about how he "used to work there, and there, and there." What happened? How come now he works in a low paying factory job, with only memories of great, higher paying jobs to brag about?

The arc rolls on....once my old friend and webmaster Joe Obeng used to live in this house, along with my son Sam. Now Joe is recovering in a hospital room and with a trach in his throat, can intently listen but can't utter a word. He mouths the words as if I could understand, I hand him a clipboard and pen but he still tries to talk. Seven years ago, they moved out and the kids and family moved in. Seven years ago Joe was telling me over and over again how we had to modernize our website. While he was in the hospital this week, this work began, and I was excited to tell him, amazed that we actually did it.

Now in 2012, a new house has been purchased seven miles away in East Deerfield. It's exciting for my daughter and son in law to have a place of their own. So gramps will wake up in this big house alone. That's not so bad, really. Change. It's what life is all about.

Book publishing on line is a great big crazy ride

Change can be scary, and then again, sometimes it can feel like surfing down a big glorious wave. A few things that happened over the past few weeks convinced me of this.

GoNOMAD publishes a line of travel ebooks called Plane Readers. We started the project last April, and now we have five titles on Amazon, BN.com and Kobo in Canada. The price of the 278-page ebooks has always been $2.99, which has yielded pretty good sales.

But there is one title that outsells all of the rest, it's the book about Italy. So we decided to raise the price last month to $4.99. Imagine being able to change the price of a hardcover book after you've had it in the bookstore The bookseller could do it. But the author could not.

We increased the price and sales stayed strong. WOW! We don't want to go above $5 but at this point we were able to squeeze another 60% worth of revenue out of our most popular title. The result? We went from selling about 10 copies a day to just under 8. Worth it.

Later on I got a reality check when I my friend Ed told me he had asked his old friend, a military book writer if he had ever heard of ebooks. Nope. He had no idea what we were talking about. We have an idea about publishing one of his books as a future title, but first we'll have to explain that in our version, the camouflage in the photos will be in color, not in black and white.

From a Reddit post, a big time screenwriter emerges

James Irwin answered a question to a post on Reddit a few years ago. It would change his life. The question, explained in a story in Wired Magazine asked how a group of US Marines would do if they were taken back to ancient Rome and had to do battle with the emperor's troops.

At work in Des Moines Iowa, Irwin only had a little while during his lunch break to compose what he called "Day One." In the post he laid out the scenario and began the story. The comments, upvotes and praise on Reddit were overwhelming. They wanted more. And they wanted it right now!

So Irwin kept writing, posting Day Two, and then a few days later, Day Three. Commenters went nuts, thousands of people weighed in, telling Irwin how much they loved what he was writing. Also taking note was a Hollywood agent, who read the posts and saw great potential.

A week later the agent had good news. Join the Writer's Guild, Irwin was told. We're sending you a six-figure advance. He quit his job and now, despite how surprised he is, he's no longer working for the software company.

The only thing Irwin said he misses is that he can no longer post the stories on Reddit, it's no longer ok to give away the writing that's now bringing him fame and fortune.

In praise of in person instead of the virtual

There is no substitute for visiting someone and talking to them face to face. I often think about this after a satisfying lunch meeting, or a few drinks with a friend, or a romantic rendezvous with my partner. That despite all of our interconnectedness, despite now much we get to know our friends by following their actions and comments on Facebook and Twitter, these interactions, no matter how seemingly intimate, are not the same as seeing them in person.

Having a conversation that goes around and around up and down and then sideways is what you can do when you're seated across from your friend at a restaurant, like I did today with my pal Jim. Running into people in the flesh, people you like but haven't seen in a long time, feeling a hug and looking into their eyes, this is all stuff you gotta do in the REAL WORLD.

You just can't run into an old friend on line, nor can you dance from topic to topic with no random order, no then it's all lineal, and much more reliant on following the conversation through. Yet it in these random assorted topics where I find the most interesting things out about people.

My friend Jim told me that he's so glad that I'm always asking him to get together, that I'm one of those people who organizes these 'in the flesh' visits. "Keep doing that!" he said.

I made a commitment after I closed my office that I'd get out of the house more, and make regular lunch dates, or bike riding dates, or walk dates. That I would reach out for more of these real world exchanges, and not let the virtual world rule my life. I have found great solace in sharing my anxieties and my triumphs with friends like Jim and Ed, and I'm never not glad I made the effort to get in my car and show up.

They drop socks to help shivering North Koreans keep warm

Here is an excerpt from a very moving article we are publishing on GoNOMAD. Talk about a worthy cause!

"The foreigners gather around as Mr. Lee and two burly assistants leap onto the truck and unload the unsealed boxes, dropping them to the ground. Demonstrating deftly, Lee loosens a yellow ribbon on one box, releasing the bottom flaps and sending a cascade of socks onto the cold concrete.

A timer attached to the ribbon loosens it three hours after launch, and the socks tumble ten thousand feet through the raw winter air.

With luck, they will be found by enterprising North Koreans, who will wear them to stave off frostbite, or trade them for a month’s supply of corn. Mr. Lee then reads one of the attached missives, with Sunny translating. Mr. Lee wrote them himself. They do not lambaste the Kim regime or extol the virtues of democracy—they simply seek to give hope to the hopeless. “Remember that you are not forgotten. Keep trying. Do not give up. We love you.”

What's it like to be a small town selectman?

I had dinner last night at the home of a small town selectman. I have always wondered what it's like to be a member of a town governing body like this, making those small decisions that ultimately are what it takes to run a town.

I asked her what her 13 year run as a board member has been like. What is the best part? "I like being part of a team," she said. "I like being able to give people, say the ones who come in when there are complaints about dogs, the chance to really explain the whole situation. A chance to be heard."

She's become the peacemaker, she said, sometimes having to be the calm voice of reason when things get heated. She also likes knowing so many things ahead of time, getting notices about state initiatives and upcoming programs that would affect her small town.

She's only been opposed a few times during her tenure, for most of the time the three-year terms are unopposed. In these cases the whole board gets signatures to run, they don't have to mount a campaign and go door to door. It seems like fewer people are willing to serve, which makes it easier to remain in office for many years.

Macy's fights Amazon by turning their stores into shipping centers

After a bruising fight during the past year against Amazon, officials from Macy's realized they needed more warehouses to ship their on-line purchases from. Then it hit them. They've got 800 buildings, far more than Amazon will ever have, so why not use them?

Now a new move to build shipping centers has turned the back rooms of 292 Macy's 800 stores around the country into de facto distribution centers. When someone orders a black pair of women's shoes size 5, a worker will stroll out into the Macy's sales floor, find the item, and bring it into the back and ship it. Since the buyer lives close to the store, the shipping is peanuts. And in some cases, the shoppers come to the store and pick up their order in a yellow plastic Macy's bag.

While Amazon uses robots to fetch items and bring them to people in their cavernous distribution centers, and the machines never fail to read exactly what book, or what size and color, the item should be, the story in the WSJ by Dana Mattioli hinted that Macy's is taking on a Herculean amount of labor and a lot of frustration. People aren't as good at finding thousands of items a day as the mobile robots are.

A Macy's executive explained why this move makes sense when he cited a special Chanel perfume that went on sale on their website only, and sold out in just one day. Yet stores across the country had to discount the fragrance to get it off their shelves. The policy of taking hot-sellers off the website once they were gone left lots of unsold inventory, and now, they can find anything people want to buy from their own store shelves.

Tips on saving money on your European vacation

As the Greeks protest austerity and elect representatives who will push back against Germany and put their heads in the sand, once again, things look pretty grim for the European economy. Yet Americans still want to take vacations in Europe, how could they not? It's still full of reasons to visit, whether to see the ancient buildings and monuments or to just live that relaxed European lifestyle, even for a week.

I got an email from my cousin Rob who asked me advice about where to go. He has a week in August and last summer he spent a month in Costa Rica learning Spanish while living with a family. My reply?
Barcelona!

Spain is a wonderful destination....and Barcelona has got to be one of the world's most fun cities. I suggested to him that he go down to his local bank and buy euros. The rate now is about $1.30 which is an all-time low. And unless Greece is your vacation destination, you will always be able to use the money later. Buying euros before you leave avoids the uncertainty that I often get when I go abroad. When am I gonna change money? How much will the commission be? What if I have to buy them for $1.60 each, that sucks!

The other advice I gave Rob is to check out Airbnb.com. Pulling up Barcelona, I found dozens of apartments and rooms that people rent out there...all vetted with comments and lots of photos. It's sure a lot cheaper than a hotel. And you can get an apartment and cook meals while you visit.

Another tip--Don't buy your airline ticket through Expedia or Travelocity. I have found again and again that going direct to the airline is a much better idea. These middle men create a lot of barriers and make changing the ticket a big pain. Delta, American, Iberia, they all fly direct and it's a better deal to just call them than try to do it all on line alone.

It’s the Hawaiian good luck sign. Honest!

This morning I was happy to wake up in the rain and learn something from my friend Fred Lepide’s wonderful website. One of his entries was about a long-ago episode in espionage, when the USS Pueblo, a spy ship, was captured by the North Koreans and the crew was held hostage for 11 months in 1968.

During their captivity, the crew was forced to watch many propaganda movies extolling the virtues of the great communist state. In one shot in London, a bus full of DPRK soccer players passes by a man who gives it the finger. Later on the same thing happens, Londoners flipping off the commies. The censors left these snips in the movies, demonstrating to the Pueblo crewmen that North Koreans had no idea what the erect middle finger meant.

From then on, every time the crew was photographed, one or more of the white uniformed men would give the camera the finger. Later on they were asked about it by their captors and they lied, telling them that it was the Hawaiian Good luck sign.

But Time magazine decided to run a photo and printed an explanation of the real meaning of the term, “a hand symbol of extreme derisiveness and contempt.”

The next day when the Koreans found out what it meant, the crewmen were tortured. “Thank you Time magazine,” wrote the crew.