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The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

- Serge Schmemann
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Serge Schmemann
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The fall of the Berlin Wall is very much a sequel, a continuation of the story about Eastern Europe emerging from war and Communism. The notion of presenting history as a story also appealed to me very much, since that is the way I look at the events I cover as a reporter.

Writing for adults and writing for young people is really not that different. As a reporter, I have always tried to write as clearly and simply as possible. I like clean, unadorned writing. So writing for a younger audience was largely an exercise in making my prose even more clear and direct, and in avoiding complicated digressions.

Our daily life is filled with electronic pianos, ring tones, the disembodied voice giving you your bank balance over the telephone. Even silence can be electronic, courtesy of sound-canceling headphones.

We all know that much of what we hear in life is not really so. Canned laughter and 'sweetened' applause have been TV staples for decades, and all the slamming doors, breaking glass and squealing tires you hear in movies are sound effects.

My own kids were with me in Berlin when Germany was reunited, and they were with me in Moscow when the Soviet Union collapsed. We talked about these things at the dinner table, at their schools, with their friends.

I guess what I'm really saying is something obvious - that there's a unique pride in watching a home team from rival turf, especially when we're not supposed to be any good.

There are many roads to journalism. My feeling is that your best bet in college is to study the subjects you will want to write about, whether politics, the environment or the law.

What Paris has done right is to make it awful to get around by car and awfully easy to get around by public transportation or by bike.

Definitely read a quality daily paper regularly, and use the Internet to check out the press around the world as often as you can.

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The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.