DURING the Nazi occupation of Europe, some cities were more unfortunate than others. 

They say Irving Berlin kept a musical genius chained up in his attic — starving, shoeless — and whenever the composer of White Christmas needed another hit, he lowered the Stira, climbed up and told his resident hit machine to crank out another one.

World-renowned thinker Jacques Derrida, a founder of the school of philosophy known as deconstructionism, has died, the office of French President Jacques Chirac said today.