Tom Cruise has become sane, and this is a sign from the gods. The year 2012 -- which those who channel Mayans for a living tell us will be trulyincomprehensible and unpleasant -- will be nothing of the sort: It's going to make sense. And it's going to be a blast.

You don't have to be a cannibal to be truly unnerving. Director Guy Ritchie is at his best suggesting the insanity of the century to come, and the place of Professor Moriarty in the scheme of world war: the Professor intends to start one. In short, the film gets the gunpowder right.

Over the weekend, a cat belonging to an Arkansas Democratic campaign manager was found dead with the word "Liberal" spray-painted across its side. If this crime does not matter to you, then you do not care about the nature of your democracy. You do not care about what kind of country you live in.

You are as likely to have your head removed against your will in my town -- Oaxaca -- as you are to be murdered by roving, machete-crazed gangs in Martha's Vineyard. In fact, you are a whole lot safer in the state of Yucatan than you are in Canada.