Searching for Italy: Sardegna

Week Two of CNN’s Searching for Italy, hosted by the ambulatory actor Stanley Tucci, took us to Sardegna (aka Sardinia), the large island off Italy’s coast frequently described with adjectives like rugged, mountainous, and implacable. Or as, Tucci’s...

Caruso Confounds the Woke

The city of Los Angeles is in the middle of a mayoral election pitting two Democrats against each other.  One candidate is a Black woman, her opponent is a White man – or is he? During a televised debate last week, the moderator summed up the contest as between...

Don’t Throw Christopher Columbus Overboard

The never-ending battle over Columbus Day brings to mind the world’s second oldest profession. As Harry S. Truman noted: “My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.”...

House of Tucci

Part Two of Season Two of CNN’s Searching for Italy began on Sunday, October 9th, the day before Columbus Day. And the first episode was auspicious: the series’ star and tour guide, actor Stanley Tucci, visited the ancestral region of both sets of his...

Islands in Between

Christopher Columbus was a deluded man – thank God!  He convinced himself that he could island-hop his way to Asia.  And many fellow Italians provided the maps that fed his delusion. It started with his own experience as a young sailor venturing out into the...