Somewhat of a mixed grilled rogues gallery on my foreign and domestic language dictionaries book shelf.

Monuments to Christopher Columbus are ubiquitous in America, or as they say "as American as pizza pie." This one is mostly unnoticed near an entrance to State Road 8 in Torrington CT, so efforts to tear it down are unlikely.

Celebrating the Dog Days of Summer in North Canaan, Connecticut

The only good thing I can find about The Donald is that some of his hair matches that of my late Rosita.

'desolation' is the post-election mood among my friends and colleagues so i have chosen it from among thomas cole's five part series 'the course of empire' desolation. i preferred john martin's 'sodom and gemorrah' but my wife thought that implied too much blame for the voters. maybe if he is re-elected?

For our readers, I-ItalyNY provided a table with updated figures for Italian American residents in each borough with the 2016 Presidential Election votes for Clinton and Trump left blank to fill as results become available on election night.

Campaign website photo of Frank J. Barbaro in his unsuccessful bid for the United States House of Representatives New York District 13 in 2004. It captures the smile I remember best.

I didn't have a picture of Donald Trump, but this copy I painted of one of Vincent Van Gogh's many sunflowers has pretty much the color of his hair.

Chicago's Taylor Street Little Italy was one of the many places in America to which Italian immigrants were directed or misdirected. Some of my wife's relatives from Laurino ended up there. This is one of few more or less "authentic" stores I found during a recent visit. It has little to do with this article but I thought it was semiotically interesting.

Although this was taken during my daily jog the morning after a record crowd of 30,0000 Bernie Sander's supporters cheered him in Prospect Park's Nethermead, it could easily be titled "Italian Americans lining up for Sanders rally. "I must note however that Danny DeVito was there to represent the r/best of us.

I took this photo at the Norwegian Day Parade in Brooklyn's Bay Ridge neighborhood in May 2008. They are all "Americans" even if they might not like apple pie.

This is a Naples Bike Lane. My Neapolitan friend said the European Union gave funds to promote biking and the local authorities painted these so they didn't have to send the money back. In five days of walking, four or more hours a day, I didn't see one person riding a bicycle. There's a political lesson to be learned here but I don't know what it is.