Free Republic

An angry tourist smashed two ancient sculptures at the Vatican after being denied a chance to meet with the pope. It's just the latest in a series of instances of visitors behaving badly in Rome. Read on to find out what happened, what authorities said about the man, and how long it will take for the ancient works to be repaired. The incident happened around lunchtime in the Museo Chiaramonti, which is part of the Vatican Museums. It holds about 1,000 works of ancient statuary and Roman portraits. The man demanded to see the pope, the newspaper Il Messaggero reported....

The simple hyphen. It’s safe to say that no other punctuation mark in the history of mankind has created as much controversy, misunderstanding, distrust and anger as the hyphen. It’s definition is even oxymoronic: To hyphenate is to “divide” or “connect.” Hyphens are used in “compound modifiers,” meaning that two or more words are joined together to modify the meaning of another word. By this definition, the hyphen can add “not quite” to the original word, such as “semi-hard” or semi-pro.” Hyphens are also used to give the component words a combined meaning, such as “mother-in-law” or “water-bottle.” This brings...

It was the United States Census. "Do you live here? What is your name?" As I said it, a gleam came into his eye. "Are you a Ukrainian-American?" he asked. It wasn't always like this. When we moved from Venezuela to America in 1956, the United States government was concerned that I become an American without ethnicity attached. The immigration agent at LaGuardia Airport wanted to change my name to Walter. He explained that it would be easier for me to have a name that sounded American as I grew up. My mother refused. The government did not give up...