Up Front With Martin B. Deutsch for 2007

December 20: MYSTERIES OF THE ROAD (EXPLAINED)
The year-end holiday season has us in its thrall, which means you still have plenty of time to do your friends, your family, your business colleagues and yourself--especially yourself--some small gift favors. And these will help solve some mysteries of the road.

November 15: MAKING BOOK AND DINING WELL
I've always been a faithful admirer of the literary spy and espionage genre. In the last year, I've also read several other books in the spy field that I can recommend without any reservations. I have also come across a few Civil War books of note. But since man cannot live by literature alone, I'll end this particular column with a modest restaurant review.

October 25: MEDIA MADNESS AND THE JOE TORRE STORY
Joe Torre, the former Yankee manager, rejects an incentive-laden contract and Martin wonders why Torre and airline chief executives aren't that interested in tying their compensation to performance. But, mostly, the media madness surrounding The Torre story allows Martin to play sports columnist during the World Series.

August 23: AIRLINE DELAYS: DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN
Distressing statistics on airline delays released earlier this month by the Department of Transportation (DOT) vividly bring home a persistent plague in the road warrior's life. Exactly 20 years ago, in Frequent Flyer magazine, I wrote a column highlighting your anger at the mounting delays. It's amazing how little has changed in two decades.

June 28: A VERY SPECIAL WEEKEND AT THE OPERA
Once on a Thursday evening, I flew on Alitalia, New York to Milan, to catch an evening of opera at Teatro alla Scala--a pilgrimage I have always wanted to make. Like all good weekends, it was all too short. I was back on the ground--literally and figuratively--at JFK by mid-afternoon Monday.

June 14: IN THE MIDDLE EAST, VERY LITTLE CHANGES
More than 25 years ago, I penned a column about the "recent troubles" in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iran. I also talked to a leading hotelier about how difficult it was to run good hotels in Beirut, Kabul and Tehran. A quarter of a century later, if only finding a hotel was the biggest challenge in those cities.

April 19: THE MODERN AMERICAN OBSESSION: FOOD
The American obsession with dining in and dining out has reached pandemic proportions. Food and its preparation, both at home and in restaurants, from fast food to five-star, now dominates a plethora of television channels, plies the radio waves, inhabits the Internet and gives flavor to the print media.

March 29: REMEMBRANCE OF IMPORTANT PLANES PAST
Once the Airbus A380 finally enters commercial service, there is a philosophical question: Will this $300 million behemoth, of which only 156 have thus far been ordered, exert the same impact on commercial aviation that we experienced with the coming of jets in the late 1950s, the introduction of the Boeing 747 in early 1970, and the debut of the beautiful, but short-lived, supersonic Concorde in the mid-1970s?

March 1: CRUISING TO AN AMBITIOUS, LAUDATORY PROJECT
After months, if not years, of complicated preparation, Royal Caribbean International is partnering in the launch of an ambitious and laudatory project to recruit minorities into the travel-agent business. Royal Caribbean International has taken a sizable stake in the Magic Johnson Travel Group, a franchise business that will set sail, so to speak, by the end of March.

February 15: BACK TO THE PRESENT OF BUSINESS TRAVEL
A double whammy of computer problems and a visit to the past of business travel has diverted Martin's attention in recent weeks. But he's back in the present and has some pithy observations on the high cost of 15 minutes of fame; the Whole Foods phenomenon; and a very trendy restaurant in Manhattan.

Copyright © 2001-2007 by Martin B. Deutsch. All rights reserved.