An essential part of the magic involves turning everyone into an enemy, to ward off surprises.

The most that somebody in Mexico City will get paid for a job in construction is 100 pesos a day.

And, of course, millions of us cross the border to work in US homes and gardens and factories and carpentry shops and restaurants, and if you go to a restaurant pretty much anywhere in the United States, the chances are that the dishes will be washed by a Mexican.

Investigative reporting is the bone structure without which the journalistic body collapses. The Center for Public Integrity's constant and consistently enterprising investigative work is an invaluable contribution not only to journalism, but to society and to a healthy democracy

One does, after all, take on many of the givens of a society when one takes on its language.

I may not have a practical mind, but it's very fixated on concrete things. I like detail.

An essential part of the magic involves turning everyone into an enemy, to ward off surprises.