Can Obama save Uncle Sam's bank? He seems to think so. What do you think?

Tony's Macaroni and Mama Soprano's Gravy were given to me some years ago by an Italian American somebody in the business in California. They were promotional materials for the Sopranos HBO series. As with so much else about negative Italian and Italian American stereotyping it is self-inflicted and in this case at least, maybe you are what you eat.

I brought my camera and two of my daughters with me when I visited Auschwitz (Oswiecem) in the spring of 1997. After passing under the Arbeit Macht Frei portal I could not bring myself to photograph anything, but I did scribble this shoe that stood in a pile of "personal effects."

I wasn't invited to be part of the entourage when President-elect Barack Hussein Obama and Vice President-elect Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. retraced part of Abe Lincoln's 1861 "Inauguration Train" trip from Philadelphia to Washington DC, but I had made the journey many times before and witnessed the spreading rust and crumble along the route. Maybe the next time I ride Amtrak to The Nation's Capital, I'll start seeing something different. I sure hope so.