When it comes to ranking restaurants, what works for Craig LaBan and Philadelphia magazine may not work for you or me. Good restaurants, like good friends, manage to fly beneath the mass media’s radar.

As I write, Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress is less than 24 hours away, and the suspense is killing me.

Should you stay in a successful job just because you can? By chucking their successful careers and starting over, Jon Stewart, Al Bagnoli, and dozens of others demonstrate the rewards of taking risks.

George Munger was a humble Penn football coach who produced arrogant teams. His bruising players grew up into genuinely gentle men just like himself. Bernie Lemonick epitomized the breed.

The NBC News anchor Brian Williams isn’t the first public figure to embellish the truth for the purpose of self-aggrandizement. Under the spell of “encouraged memory,” ordinary folks often become enablers for the myths that prominent people circulate about themselves.

During World War II, Protestant villagers in south-central France rescued hundreds of Jews and other fugitives from the Nazis. Were they an exception in a predominantly Catholic and anti-Semitic country? I’m personally aware of at least one French Catholic community that engaged in similar wartime heroics.

In which Hillary Clinton and Dan Rottenberg prove more prescient than an eminent columnist at the New York Times.

Was Marlon Brando a success or a failure? How about Winston Churchill or Joe Paterno? Sometimes a single deed can salvage a reputation — or destroy it.

I would defend to the death Charlie Hebdo's right to free expression. But let’s be clear about what we’re defending here. Poking fun at French Muslims, arguably France’s most despised and alienated minority, is not the stuff of Voltaire — more like Rush Limbaugh.

Terrorists seem forever preoccupied with sending messages or teaching somebody a lesson. But violence rarely seems to convey the intended message. How, precisely, does their strategy differ from governments like ours?