Froese biography

Doh, o doh, some tourist dough

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / / , , , , , , / 4 minutes of reading

ST. GILDEN, AUSTRIA ✦ OK, for the record, nobody rocks like Mozart. But Julie Andrews made plenty of Austrian stores come alive with the sound of ka-ching, after her famous opening to the Sound of Music, filmed 40 years ago on a mountain near this lake-district resort town.

The movie initially raked in a cool $165 million, about $800 million in today’s dollars. Now tourism cash still flows from it like a river, especially an hour from here in Salzburg, Mozart’s hometown, where the visitors never really leave.

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The view from 50,000 feet

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / / , , , , , , / 4 minutes of reading

SALZBURG, AUSTRIA ✦ I love my daughter, all 15 months of her, for many reasons. One is that she’s more like her mother than me. Especially while flying.

My wife Jean and I continue to be aid workers in the Middle East and Africa, so this is often. In fact, diaper-clad Elizabeth Katherine has already been on more than dozen flights and four continents.

The Squirt knows one word. Just one. It’s “hello.”

But words can be powerful things.

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Beautiful dreamers

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / / , , , , , , , , / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – June 12, 2004)

HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ Back in Hamilton from our most recent work stint in Yemen, I see a litre of Coke is now cheaper than a litre of unleaded.

In fact, since Jean likes to shop around for gas prices she can live with, sometimes on empty, I’m worried I might soon have to push the car.

It seems that Saudi Arabia, old and shaky as the kingdom is, has us all by the family jewels. It knows that North Americans are addicted to their oil like a drunk to his bottle. Yes, the oil gods have granted two-thirds of the world’s proven reserves to Saudi and a few neighbours. Hardly seems fair.

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Ugandans willing to face their problems

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / / , , , , , / 4 minutes of reading

This country is one of contrasts. Red-dirt roads cross lush- green landscapes. People familiar with war smile easily and greet you genuinely. Beauty meets ugliness, plenty meets want, and life meets death here. Uganda may be, as Winston Churchill said, the Pearl of Africa. But, if so, it’s a tarnished jewel.

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