No matter how many years – decades, now! – I’ve lived in Russia, clearing Customs (passport control) for me, as a foreigner, is at best a destabilizing experience.  Russians are not a howdee-big-smile sort of people to begin wi...

Can you remember as far back as the US federal government’s sequestration-induced temporary shutdown of services?  (‘Government services’ – now there’s a juicy oxymoron.)  The best part of the sequester and forced furlough...