Letter From The Editor

One of my favorite writers, Amy Hempel, has a short story called The Man In Bogota that tells of a man who gets kidnapped and held for ransom for months. This guy’s an overweight chain smoker, so to make sure he lives long enough for them to get the money, his kidnappers put him on a strict diet and force him to quit smoking. After he’s released, it turns out he’s healthier than ever. Hempel ends this story with a line that has always stuck with me: “He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn’t good.”

I was reminded of that story recently when I met with Henk Rogers, the video game tycoon who’s responsible for introducing the now-globally-known game Tetris to the world. For years, he ran a successful video game developing and publishing company, and then in 2005, he had a heart attack.

It was after that that Rogers figured out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life — to support clean energy and end the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. The nonprofit that he founded, Blue Planet Foundation, is working hard to do just that.

When I spoke with Rogers’ daughter Maya, who took over as CEO of his software developer and publisher Blue Planet Software in 2014, she said this: “Unfortunately, it took this life-threatening experience, but I think it was meant to happen. This was his calling.”

See page 8 for the full story.

In other news, Metro has been having some internal changes as of late. Last week, we were sad to say goodbye to our music columnist Roger Bong, who’d been with us since our very first issue. Roger shared his passion with us each week and we already miss him!

We are however, glad to introduce a new columnist, staff writer Paige Takeya. You may remember that Paige filled in for tech writer Christa Wittmier for a stint. Now, we’re bringing her on as a regular columnist who will cover all things pop culture. Check out her first article on page 5. Spoiler alert: It’s about spoilers.