For an acquisitive Wall Streeter, the money saved by choosing a practical car can be put toward the cost of some pricier means of mobility - like a plane.

In the Eisenhower era, when earnings over $400,000 were subject to 91 percent taxes and the world was a smaller place, you could count the truly wealthy on one hand: Getty, Dupont, Mellon, Rockefeller, though even those fortunes were being dispersed to children as the old robber barons died off.

The fashion industry is often charged with having kept its blinders on as one Seventh Avenue company after another lost employees to AIDS. Consumers, it was feared, would shun the racks of designers whose names were associated with the disease. And to stand up against AIDS would, in many minds, confirm the business's stereotypical image.

Directly after Rock Hudson's death came the fears that gay writers and actors and directors would be denied jobs; who knew if they would live long enough to finish a feature film or television series? And would the unions force directors to give blood tests and ban actors who tested positive?

Finally my dream came true in that there was a possibility that I could travel to the International Space Station. I've gone through the medicals and the training and now I'm officially, by the Russian Space Federation, a cosmonaut in training.

Once you're in the game and it's a part of your life, you never want to leave it. But you have to be committed to be able to travel and do the things you need to do to be successful in whatever role you're doing.

You must know that Iran has a great number of productions. Many films are released. Most of them, like in the rest of the world, are commercial and shallow films. These are the most popular ones. And there are a few ones that actually develop more profound and thoughtful aspects of life. Only some of these films travel out of Iran.

There are few places you can find silence. Air travel could be the last fortress of solitude.