“The Twelve Days of Christmas” is an English carol first published in 1780 that enumerates  a series of increasingly grand gifts given on each of the 12 days of Christmas.

The decade-long Mexican Revolution divided a nation, left thousands dead and spawned an authoritarian political system that dominates society even today.    

Few activities were available when Phyllis Rauch moved to the lakeside area with her late husband Georg in 1976.  “Had there been more to do, Georg probably would never have written the memoir of his World War II experiences as an Austrian-born Jew inducted into the German Army,” she says.

Humor often translates inadequately into other languages, and can even fail to connect when crossing borders into countries that share the same lexicon.

The issue of road safety has again raised its head in the wake of the death of a seven-year-old girl who was struck by a city bus that careened off the street and plowed into a group of children waiting outside a primary school.

“I was a wild child” Victoria Ryan told me one stormy Patzcuaro summer afternoon. “I was certified by the State of California as incorrigible.”