Sheriff Joe Arpaio Bans Inmate Mail

Arizona's favorite sheriff, Phoenix's Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, has proven yet again that tough sheriffs can get even tougher. The self-proclaimed "America's Toughest Sheriff" and author of the self-congratulatory autobiography America's Toughest Sheriff: How We Can Win the War Against Crime, has recently decided that mail delivery is not only not a prisoner's right, it's not even a privilege.

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Is Moscow the Most Expensive City?

When I saw the headline I couldn't believe it. "Moscow Ranks As World's Priciest City." The AP dispatch begins like this, "Moscow is the world's most expensive city for the second year in a row, thanks to an appreciating ruble and rising housing costs, a new survey reports." I have yet to travel to Moscow, and while I have known that things are changing in Moscow, from what I've been reading, I would have never imagined that it could possibly be more expensive than New York or London or Tokyo.

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Mozart Visits Prague

Most casual listeners of Mozart know that he was from Salzburg, Austria, and that he moved to Vienna as a young man in order to pursue musical fame. But what most people don't know is that Mozart had a very special relationship with the city of Prague, Czech Republic. Beyond his well known Symphony No. 38, which is commonly called the Prague Symphony, and Mozart's famous quote, "The people of Prague understand me," Mozart always felt a kinship with the Bohemian people of Prague. This, despite the fact that Mozart only spent about 110 days of his life in Prague over the course of three visits.

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Beer Drinkers Fear Sale of Budweiser Budvar

Last week, the European Beer Consumers Union (EBCU) held a press conference to denounce the idea of privatizing the Czech state-owned brewery, Budejovicky Budvar, brewer of the popular export beer, Budweiser Budvar (Czechvar in the United States). Basically, their only argument was that they feared that the quality of the beer may suffer as a result. And why? Because the brewery will clearly be purchased by the American brewing giant Anheuser-Busch, brewer of the beer that much of the world knows as Budweiser, within in the next year or two. They offered no evidence as to why the quality would suffer as result of Anheuser-Busch purchasing the brewery. Only inference.

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Searching for Isabella at the Isabella Gardner Museum

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts is one of the most unique art museums in the world. The museum, which contains nearly 3000 works of fine art from many of the world masters, was opened in 1903 and doubled as the private residence of Isabella Stewart Gardner, herself. The home was designed by her (with an architect), and each and every work of art was collected by her and located in the museum personally by her. The museum is her very personal gift to the world.

And a fun way to appreciate the personal side of the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum is to go in search of the " Isabellas," and other references to the name Isabella.

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Two Churches From Revolutionary Boston

Though sometimes confused by tourists visiting Boston, the Old North Church and the Old South Meeting House, despite their cosmetic similarities, cannot be more different. Their histories, architecture, and the roles these two churches played during the period of the American Revolution offer interesting insights to the conflict that would break out into war in 1775.

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Two Boston Churches by H. H. Richardson

Henry Hobson Richardson is, without argument, one of the most important architects in American history, and in Boston, Massachusetts, there are two of his most historically significant churches, the Trinity Church on Copley Square and the nearby First Baptist Church.

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