In the mosaic of America, three groups that have been unusually successful are Asian-Americans, Jews and West Indian blacks � and in that there may be some lessons for the rest of us.

Ingo Angermeier almost gave those attending the 16th annual Toast of the Town more than they wanted to see.

Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System’s president and CEO began to gyrate, removing his jacket, tie and shirt to a jazzy showgirl tune, before stopping at his undershirt, which had the Salvation Army’s logo on the back.

For a crossword puzzle addict, this is nirvana.

I�m in the lobby of the Brooklyn Marriott Hotel, which resembles nothing so much as a combined Star Trek/Mensa convention. Wandering the halls is a grizzled middle-aged man clad in crossword-themed regalia. Plunked down in lounge chairs are throngs of crossword aficionados, deep into today�s brain-twisting New York Times puzzle.

SPRINGFIELD � If I think of it in mid-swallow, a scene from the 1978 film “Foul Play,” can still make me shoot milk out my nose.

While solving a mystery, co-stars Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn are on a fire escape peering in at two elderly women playing Scrabble. On the board, the smiling old ladies have plunked down the mother of all hyphenated bad words.

I fear this memory may have put me in an odd frame of mind for the first Altrusa Club Scrabble tournament.

An explosive new vocabulary builder

For every tactic tried by energetic educators, some subjects just aren’t fun to learn. Vocabulary words seem to be one of them.

Yet it’s hard to imagine that something called Wordgasm could be tedious. Or that this “steamy program” – that’s how the vocabulary-building CD set is billed on its box – would fail to keep you alert. Apparently, hearing poems about hunks you lusted after in high school can help you grasp the meaning of words like lachrymose and invidiousness.

Every fortnight, Israelis with IQs in the top two percent of the general population meet at caf�s and households around the country to discuss matters of common interest.

Barrera’s law degree is just another of boxing’s quirks

Boxers are more rounded than we suspect. Some have kept pet snakes � some have even been friends with Rasputin

One of the many pleasures of English is the imaginative, poetic use of its collective nouns. A crowd of people. A charm of hummingbirds. A herd of elephants. A flange of baboons. A nitpicking of Southern Baptists.

The loss of gifted and talented students to programs elsewhere has prompted districts to shore up and expand curriculums and courses to keep the kids — and state funding.

Strapped for money, school districts are adding or expanding programs for gifted and talented students, who have begun deserting traditional public schools and taking their state funding with them.

In the last 150 years, life expectancy has doubled from 40 to 80, and according to Aubrey de Grey the Cambridge gerontologist, the first person who will live to be 1000 is already alive and 150 is eminently achievable.