Imagine if Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria gave a press conference. What would it sound like? Beria, as you may remember, was head of Stalin's secret police during one of the most infamous periods in Soviet history, the Great Purge of 1938. As head of the NKVD, or Soviet secret police, he was responsible…

I must confess: I know nothing about politics. That much is clear after I completely misread the outcome of last week’s presidential election, one that I thought for sure was going to end up in a victory for Democratic challenger John F. Kerry. I knew it would be close, but I thought Kerry had it…

Lee Gough won’t be paying her federal income taxes this year. That doesn’t mean, however, that the artist and part-time temp worker won’t be setting money aside for April 15th – just that the federal government won’t be getting any of it. The 37-year old Brooklynite has decided to make 2004 the…