I just read a great quote from a writer named L.P. Hartley:  "The past is a foreign country;  They do things differently there."

He wrote it about 60 years ago.  But I'd never read it.  So, to me, it's like breaking news.

During the five years I spent as a writer for America's leading news anchor, Peter Jennings, he advocated approaching stories in America as if they were in foreign countries.  When you approach a place as a foreigner, even if you think it looks familiar, you discover important things you may have missed.  That applies to our own lives too.

Yet, as I look at the  baby picture which I've used to introduce myself, some things feel familiar, and others very foreign.

I don't wear berets any more, because my mother is not alive to choose my clothes.

And, I'm proud to say, my bladder control is greatly improved.

But I feel like I still wear that same expression -- curious and eager to learn.

When that photo was taken, Fidel Castro had just begun his long reign in Cuba. 

And my father, a professional standup comic, would go on stage in a fake black beard and machine gun screaming, Castro-like, "I am not a Communist.  I never was a Communist.  I never will be a Communist.  I am a Russian democrat!"

If there is one thing I'd love you to read to get to know me, it's the obituary I wrote when my father died.  You'll understand why when you read it.  And it will help explain why I look for the humor in stories that don't necessarily seem funny on the face of it.

I am not going to lay out my resume here except to say that I spent the past 17 years as a Senior Executive Producer at CNN, where I also did quite a bit of writing for cnn.com, on air stories for numerous CNN shows, and where I've been hosting a weekly podcast called CNN Profiles with some of the most fascinating people imaginable.

I hope you enjoy sampling my work here on wavemaker.me.  What you survey on this site is very much of my past and present.

But this is the place where I hope to impact journalism's future.

On Michael Schulder's Wavemaker, the future is a foreign country. 

I'll do things differently here.