The New York Times (whoa!) wrote Tuesday about the Xavier Alvarez case and the interesting issue it raises: Can a lie be criminal? Experts weigh in on both sides of the question.

You remember Alvarez, of course, the Pomona water board member who claimed to have a Congressional Medal of Honor, but didn’t. He’s being prosecuted under a 2005 law that, explains the Times, “makes it a crime to lie about having received certain medals.”

Note the photo is by the Daily Bulletin’s Therese Tran — congratulations, Therese! — and that this newspaper gets name-checked toward the end of the story. In fact, the quote is from my Oct. 21 column on Alvarez.

It’s probably the closest I’ll come to making the New York Times. (We already know from reader Dick, in his comments about my Three Forks visit, that I’ll never write for the L.A. Times. Perhaps a career at the Los Gatos Weekly Times awaits.)