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James Kane

Stories from James Kane

06 Dr. Yalom
To Cure Man’s Despair
Irvin Yalom’s 1992 novel, When Nietzsche Wept, was selected for Vienna’s Eine Stadt, Ein Buch campaign
James Kane
01/12/2009

It’s 1882, and the specter of nihilism is stalking Europe. Despair runs rampant and unchecked through the population. Conventional medicine has precious little consolation to offer the suffering, and its alternative – religious mysticism – seems even less effective. Western civilization is in dire need of a new school of treatment for the depressive and hysterical.

14 Viennese Flower
Tagebuch: November, 2009
“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train” - Oscar Wilde
James Kane
01/11/2009

Dear Diary,

“4.”

If computers have last words – or last digits – mine had only this to say as it finally succumbed to a death that was both slow and painful. For both of us.

This was my laptop’s final message to life on Earth: white, bit-mapped text over an otherwise unmarred sea of noble blue, expressing two simple characters at the top-right:

A four, and a dot.

01 Opernpassage
Polishing Up Vienna’s Passages
A major facelift may give new life to the city’s historic underground walkways
James Kane
Franziska Nebehay
01/11/2009

A stroll through the subterranean Karlsplatz Passage by night is not, shall we say, totally prepossessing. It’s seedy and worn, hardly Vienna at its best – a place one Wiener Linien official characterized as being “primarily associated with drug dealing and homelessness.”

12 Tyn church, the Týnský chrám
The Pontiff, John Lennon and Me
A visit to the Czech capital reveals a secularized nation at odds with its religious past
James Kane
01/11/2009

“Prague, the city of a hundred spires” – that’s how the Czech capital was advertised to me in an e-mail from a friend, insisting I spend a free weekend to visit. Sure, why not? 4.1 million international tourists per year can’t be wrong, after all. One cursory Wikipedia search and a five-hour train ride later, and I arrive in Prague just around midnight. Incidentally, I am received by His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI himself. Sort of.

Dollar Devalued
U.S. currency hits bottom, but it isn’t that bad for all parties involved
James Kane
01/11/2009

On Oct. 21, the U.S. dollar dipped below the $1.50 threshold against the euro for the first time in 14 months, marking a 20% decline since last March. And it’s not over; experts predict the dollar’s precipitous decline will continue, possibly reaching $1.60 by early next year.

In the world of finance, some will be pinched by the drooping dollar while others will benefit – a devalued American currency does not equal a falling sky for everyone.

Some experts, such as C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, even claim that an “orderly decline” is healthy for the U.S. economy. The dollar rose 40% in value between 1995 and 2002, and Bergsten sees the current downturn as little more than a natural rebalancing.

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