Recently my 22-year-old nephew demanded in his own special way for me to name what was my favorite adventure destination. After a bit of hemming and hawing, I finally succumbed, but explained that everyone's concept of favorite is subjective. . Plus bad weather and even your emotional state at that given moment can play with your judgment.

It is not often that a toilet and a tea ceremony form perfect metaphors for the culture of a country, but so it is in Japan. The toilet falls into the realm of delightful personal discoveries – albeit all of them in the hotel bathroom of the Kyoto Park Hotel.

While I generally don’t begin a review citing production values, I’m compelled to send a love letter to Chanya Button both for the screenplay, co-written with Dame Eileen Atkins, and for her delicate, but commanding direction of this historic, fascinating true story.

In Washington, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Except when they get worse. The recent Democratic Party Presidential Debates had me thinking on the enclosed essay on campaign finance, fished out of the wayback machine, that appeared in Barron’s. Way back, over two decades.

King of the Hill: Disclosure alone won’t topple campaign money as the ruler of Congress – Not Long ago the Clinton Administration crowed about agreements with a number of countries to curb bribery in business abroad. Wide implementation of measures such as tax-deductibility of bribes is still a long march away.

One day Einstein has to speak at an important science conference. On the way there, he tells his driver that looks a bit like him, "I'm sick of all these conferences. I always say the same things over and over."