“There are cultures that believe having your photograph taken steals yo...” — Susan Orlean Quote

There are cultures that believe having your photograph taken steals your soul. I don't think there is a stolen soul in a picture, but still - why is it so hard to throw them away?

Why, I wonder, should the popularity of a news story matter to me? Does it mean it's a good story or just a seductive one?

The semiology and phenomenology of hashtaggery intrigues me. From what I understand, it all began very simply: on Twitter, hashtags - those little checkerboard marks that look like this # - were used to mark phrases or names, in order to make it easier to search for them among the zillions and zillions of tweets.

Having animals in the city is entirely different from having animals out in the country. For one thing, it's more social. When you live on lots of acres without neighbors within a stone's throw, your dog-walks are usually solitary rambles over hill and dale.

I'm Italian and the privilege of working in my home country would fill me with pride. However, the opportunity to work in a variety of countries, learning new cultures and footballing mentalities, is also very valuable.

One thing that I noticed is having met some former Taliban is even they, as children, grew up being indoctrinated. They grew up in violence. They grew up in war. They were taught to hate. They were, they grew up in very ignorant cultures where they didn't learn about the outside world.

My experience of living with people of diverse religions and cultures taught me that one will never be at peace with the other if one is at war with oneself.

We stand strong together - as Americans - many cultures, races and faiths, but one nation under God.