I am a Russian immigrant from New York. A bit chliché'd, I realize, but this is where it stops (or so I flatter myself).

When I said "Russian" there, I was using the term loosely: I am not a citizen of Russia, nor of any other member of the former USSR.

I do not live in the Brighton Beach area.

I do not own a Tula samovar, nor any samovar for that matter, knicknacks being one of my pet peeves.

I do not feel that I am required by law to make periodic trips to Russia. In fact, I have not gone back since I left in 1989 at the age of 13.

I still remember my Moscow address and telephone number, though.

I speak fluent, grammatically correct, strait-laced, old-fashioned French -- owing largely to the fact that I am a sick perfectionist. Alas, I did not learn French from my grandmother, a doe-eyed, willowy Russian ex-countess.

If you are curious about my thoughts on the Russian mafia - I have none.

If you are curious about my thoughts on contemporary Russia - I have very few. I don't hate Russia. I don't particularly love it, either. But most of all, I don't miss it.

There are only three things which I remember specifically about Russia. The first thing is the culinary axiom that anything a la francaise necessarily involves a warm, abundant, guey sea of melted cheddar and mayonnaise. The second thing is that claiming noble lineage is a popular hobby among the residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg, a little less popular than hockey and a little more popular than canning home-made jams. In fact, it is a past-time enthusiastically embraced even by those Muscovites and Petersburgians whose grand-parents were knitting tallises in a Ukranian shtetl less than a hundred years ago (they were Plantagenets in disguise, don't you know). In any event, no self-respecting Muscovite or Petersburgian would ever admit to anything as scandalous as having descended from a semi-literate menial worker, who was sweeping up metal shavings at a factory at the very moment when the cruiser Aurora sang its swanky little tune. The third thing I remember is that I always had a cold.

As I was saying, my grandmother, the gorgeous ex-duchess, did not teach me French. I learned it in a mundane university environment in the United States, where I kept Jacqueline Ollivier's La Grammaire Francaise under my pillow for four years. This is very prozaic indeed; I was, however, Queen of Paris for about six months.

I am an attorney -- and a litigator. Put in my place by Julia Roberts' obnoxious comments in Erin Brokovich, directed against female lawyers, I hereby report that I wear elegant shoes. This is an act of true fashion-related heroism, since this season's love-of-my-life Jimmy Choo is coolly indifferent to what I have to go through every day: treading New York City's notoriously tattered sidewalks, my frail embrace locked around a veritable forest of dead trees, inscribed with people's legal woes. In deference to Erin Brokovich, I try to be very glamorous, but I fear that I don't quite project the requisite bouncy insouciance when I am sprinting down Centre Street in the middle of the day, eyes wide with frenzy, one hand clutching a file folder, and the other -- a hot dog smothered in onions n' sauce.

While we are on the subject of fashion, I confess, albeit without any feelings of guilt, that I love schmattehs much more than is considered appropriate for a studious, myopic girl like me. Alas, I am yet to win that zillion-dollar verdict, so that I can replicate the enviable wardrobe of Sex and the City, whose Carrie Bradshaw, by the way, seems to have made a very judicious shift from wacky Prada to the more girly French labels.

I am an amateur gourmet cook. I don't believe in "quick" cassoulet or "quick" rouille -- I don't make "quick" anything. I bend feisty tarragon, fickle egg yolks, and rebellious fois gras to my will as masterfully as a seasoned cowboy tames a wild mare in a novel by Mayne Reyd. While Michelin is still debating whether to grace my humble kitchen with its holy three stars, my life-altering bouillabaisse has been praised as far away as Kyrgyzstan - a landlocked, mountainous country to which I have never been, but which, I am told, is only slightly less glamorous than Lichtenstein.

And now, to the unpleasant stuff, or, more particularly,

How I rate (or why Verbatima is such a horrible *****-on-wheels):

I think that most of us, Epinions regulars, know the basis for honest ratings of product reviews – with the understanding, of course, that a book by Murakami is not quite the same as a lawn mower. A rating reflects the overall impression made by a review and its many components – accuracy, writing style, grammar, organization, thoroughness, and analysis.

I have repeatedly gotten in trouble, however, over my ratings of and comments on Writer’s Corner non-fiction pieces. Although I contribute to that part of the site, I find, to my chagrin, that it is the place where virtually all standards of quality reviewership are flushed down the drain. It seems to be an unspoken rule in Writer’s Corner that, unless a review contains copious amounts of gutter language or textbook examples of hate speech, the public is virtually under a moral obligation to rate it “Very Helpful” ; any rating below that provokes incredulity and outrage. This trend has led a number individuals to flood Writer’s Corner with mediocre, plagiarized, or just plain awful essays in search of cheap VH’s – all of which, needless to say, lowers the overall quality and standards of writing on this site, and buries good Writer’s Corner contributions under heaps of garbage. Although as a lone rater, I am unlikely to inhibit this practice, I nevertheless refuse to rubber-stamp such essays.

The cardinal principle which I follow in rating Writer’s Corner pieces, and one over which I have crossed swords with many a contributor, is that opining is not a defense for inferior writing or a license to indulge in offenses any one of which would have gotten the author buried in Movies or Books – such as intellectual dishonesty, misrepresenting facts, failures of logic, lack of substantiation, argumentativeness, and other such charming practices. All opinions are not equal; an opinion does not deserve a VH simply for being posted. People may differ in their perceptions and analyses of the world around them, but a worthy opinion is one which, at a minimum, clearly articulates a rational basis firmly grounded in relevant and verifiable facts. Any statement which fails to do so is not an opinion, but a mere expression of creed or bias, foreclosing any possibility of a fruitful intellectual debate – and I rate it accordingly.

Here is a list of some of the things which will cause me to lower my rating of a Writer’s Corner contribution, or to give it an outright NH:

1. Abusing the reader’s trust or taking advantage of bias by passing off opinion as fact, or inability to distinguish between the two.

2. Demagogy – from the right, from the left, or from anywhere in between (though, truth be told, demagogy is not really a centrist thing).

3. Posting an essay which consists entirely or substantially of the work of another – even if the authorship is acknowledged and the essay is posted under the pretext of “sharing”.

4. Failure to substantiate extraordinary factual statements with references to reputable, publicly accessible sources. (And, by “sources”, I mean factual sources, not similar unsubstantiated claims made by others.)

5. Posting an essay about a work, document, law, etc. with which the author has no first-hand familiarity – on the same basis that most would consider worthless a review of a movie the poster has not seen, a book he has not read, or a country he’s never visited.

6. Incompleteness. Although there is great flexibility in how good essays are structured or what they include, they should pay at least a token due to the basic elements of a well-rounded piece: introduction, exposition, argument, conclusion. While I don’t rate by the inch, a posting which is in the nature of a mere comment, forum message, or disorganized rant is never more than SH to me.

7. Gross errors of logic or ignorance of crucial relevant facts.

8. Failure to address adequately any discrepancies between the author’s statements and well-known facts or commonly held beliefs about the subject matter of the essay.

9. Lack of originality, i.e. mere regurgitation or parroting of news editorials or other mass publications.

10. Cursoriness, i.e. failure to address all major facts and issues relevant to the subject of the essay.

11. Persistent grammatical or stylistic errors.

Notice that my list of objectionable factors does not include partiality, subjectivity, insensitivity, or political incorrectness. In other words, I will give a high rating to an essay with whose conclusions I disagree, or a low rating to one which is in line with my own convictions, all based on criteria which are content-neutral.

I hope this will clear up any misunderstandings.