My father, when in college, majored in history. Primarily European history. Because of this, I grew up learning the succession of English Royalty alongside the list of US Presidents. Then in my teens, one of the first miniseries aired on television: "The Six Wives of Henry VIII." Thus, I was personally retrospective when entering the Tower of London on Friday. For those unfamiliar with The Tower, it is not a single structure (nor as many Americans imagine, a b...

So when I last left you ... The British Museum is itself a relic of the UK's now shrinking empire. It is no exaggeration to say that the Brits, lovely as they are, gained this ENORMOUS amount of booty by force and intimidation. (Alright, with a bit of trade and negotiation mixed in as well, but when you have force and intimidation waiting in the wings, what negotiations are truly fair?) But even knowing how this assembly of wonders came together, it's hard not ...

Language, particularly written language, uniquely sets human beings apart from our animal kin. Birds, chimps, whales & elephants are known to communicate with their voices. But unlike them, we humans can receive communication from the dead ... provided that, before they died, they happened to jot their ideas down. Shakespeare, Newton, Tennyson, etc. immortalized themselves in this way, and we, their afterlings, have been learning from them ever since. For al...

Not much can be said in favor of overnight travel. Perhaps flying during the wee hours prevents a waste of precious daylight. But when you sign up for a red-eye flight, you are enlisting to attempt sleep while shoe-horned into a space as small as a kennel cage ... and one that you share with three other squirmy passengers. So from the outset, let's agree that overnight travel has its drawbacks. But travel implies a destination, and sometimes the overnighter end...

After months of planning and negotiation, the excursion to the Western cultural meccas of England & France is about to begin. Tomorrow, at around 10 PM, I take off for London. (My friends and I will join up in France on Saturday.) Anyone on the mailing list is invited keep tabs on us, for as often as I can, I plan to upload pictures and keep a daily diary of the trip. I'll try to keep the writing riveting, the photos fresh, and the blogging brief. Yet I sti...