On September 14, 1985, residents of the Polish city of Toruń watching the popular James Bond ripoff 07, Call In (in which a blond and ideologically correct Citizen's Militia officer fights crime from within a series of tight sweaters) were surprised to see the show briefly overlaid with block white letters reading "Solidarity Toruń: Boycotting the election is our duty,"…

One of my earliest childhood memories is the peppy Solidarity stickers that were ubiquitous in Poland in 1981. A third of the population had joined the first indepenent trade union in the Eastern Bloc, and the country was still flying high from John Paul II's 1979 visit, when crowds in th…

Who can imagine New York City without the Mission burrito? Like the Yankees, the Brooklyn Bridge or the bagel, the oversize burritos have become a New York institution. And yet it wasn’t long ago that it was impossible to find a good burrito of any kind in the city. As the 30th anniversary of…