An Italian Name Worth Practicing

By ERIC ASIMIOV
Published: September 17, 2008

ALL right, class, summer vacation is long gone and school is well under way, but I’m forced to interrupt our curriculum for a quick review session.

Why is this? Because it’s come to my attention that a crucial word in the lexicon of Italian wines has fallen by the wayside.

That word is aglianico, which, just to be clear, is pronounced ah-lee-YAHN-ee-koh, and which is the name of the leading red grape of southern Italy.

Yet the entire category of aglianico wines seems to pass unnoticed by most people, which is a shame because they have so much pleasure to offer. More

Who Knew?

GW Bush was a Communist?

Cinnema Shorts

@ BLB

The problem with Neanderthals...

Supreme Court’s Global Influence Is Waning
By ADAM LIPTAK

WASHINGTON — Judges around the world have long looked to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court for guidance, citing and often following them in hundreds of their own rulings since the Second World War.

But now American legal influence is waning. Even as a debate continues in the court over whether its decisions should ever cite foreign law, a diminishing number of foreign courts seem to pay attention to the writings of American justices.

“One of our great exports used to be constitutional law,” said Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. “We are losing one of the greatest bully pulpits we have ever had.” More