Last weekend, despite misgivings, I shelled out $7.75 and saw “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” A mockumentary, the film purports to follow Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev as he travels across the U.S., hoping to learn enough to propel Kazakhstan from second to first world status. Reviews, both published […]

Nothing brings back the past as powerfully as the scents we inhale. This is not a new idea; Marcel Proust hammered it home in seven volumes. Walking along a darkening street in the late afternoon with the aroma of dry leaves in the cold air adjusts my metaphysical clock as surely as “falling back” to […]

We now know a Congressional bill’s name often has little to do with its content. Often, there’s an inverse relationship between a bill’s name and its intended effect. The Patriot Act and the Help America Vote Act are two recent examples. Fraudulent as those bills were, at least their passage attracted some attention and well-read […]