This is not to suggest that all negative reviews are fake, any more than the idea that all positive reviews are fake. Indeed, it may be that fan endorsements and hired shills mean that positive reviews carry a greater likelihood of fake-itude.

It was at Para also that we engaged Gomez and Manuel, two half-breeds from up the river, just come down with a cargo of redwood.

When King Philip II made Madrid his capital in 1561, the taberna was already well established. The city's streets teemed with people—from lowlife and riffraff to cloaked royalty and aristocrats seeking anonymity in the crowds—and in the finest democratic tradition, all took part in the life of the tabernas.

Once, before we had juvenile court here, I made the mistake of putting on probation a boy who had shoplifted, a boy of good family. That boy later shot a man.