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My cat Rosita has a better chance figuring out the New York Times crossword puzzle than the New York Times has figuring out Italian politics.

Breakfast view from the Marriott Renaissance Naples Hotel Mediterraneo

The first prize I ever won was this crucifix from the nun who taught the Holy Communion religious instruction class I took at Visitation RC Church near the Red Hook Houses where I lived as a child. Although I have heard many horror stories about nuns told by people who went to Catholic Schools, my public school Wednesday afternoon released time for religious instruction memories are distinctly fond ones.

In the fall of 2006 I gave a walking tour of New York’s Mulberry Street Little Italy for an Elderhostel group. This is one of the sights that greeted us on the trip. I interpret the display to mean that San Gennaro was a cigar smoker.

Somethings don't change. Here, at the turn of the 21st Century, is an Italian American village on Carroll Street, Brooklyn near the Gowanus Canal. It is not far from where my wife Suzanne's grandparents, the Giordanos, lived at the turn of the 20th Century.

When the Twin Towers fell, many New Yorkers felt the need to visually express their grief. Here on 7th Avenue in Park Slope one car owner used his rear window as a canvas.

Last year I walked around in Oslo, and as I have done in so many other places, I tried to visually capture the commonplace aspects of local neighborhoods there. This was a place where migrants from many different places had created a home. Anders Behring Breivik and I probably have different takes on this scene.

Wedding Photo Montmartre, Paris, June 2011

A parrot on the bird feeder in your backyard after a snow storm in Brooklyn, New York is surreal. Mob round-ups, Silvio Berlusconi's antics, and "Jersey Shore" are not.

I didn't have a picture handy of Silvio Berlusconi with his allegedly very close friend Vladimir Putin, so I thought one taken in Vlad's "Lennongrad" hometown (Leningrad/St. Petersburg) while I was there for a conference might be equally informative and ultimately damaging.