Daydreams of far places

Recent exchanges in the comments of a couple of other blogs got me thinking about travel.  I haven't done any traveling since my visit to Ukraine in 2007 -- almost twenty years, the longest time in my whole life without taking a trip somewhere.  I went to Britain numerous times as a minor (because of my parents frequently going back and forth between their country of birth and their adoptive one).  I've been to Syria, Jordan, and Egypt in 1979, to Germany in 1984, to Japan in 1995, and to Ukraine in 2007.  I've also been to various places within the US, notably Texas in 2002.

My interest in travel hasn't changed, but personal circumstances have.  During the nine years I was focused on taking care of my mother, taking a trip somewhere else was obviously out of the question.  Even after that, financial and health issues rendered it impractical.  The money situation has since improved, the health situation has not.  Enduring a long plane flight might be beyond me; the kind of extensive walking around cities which I used to relish certainly would be.

Still, I sometimes think about where I would go if circumstances allowed.  Five places in particular stand out:

1.  Italy.  For history and architecture, nowhere else compares.  This is the land that launched both the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, and the physical traces of both are still thick on the ground there, to be seen and experienced.  To walk the streets of Pompeii, to see where Galileo lived and worked..... I really should have done this already.  And so much monumental architecture still stands, from the Roman Pantheon to the Colosseum to the incredible works of the Renaissance, the visible proclamations in stone of our civilization's re-ascent from the darkness.

The one negative would be that I know almost no Italian and it seems like a rather challenging language to study.  (I reject the attitude of "don't bother, everybody speaks English anyway" -- not everybody does, and this kind of arrogance is part of what gives other people a bad impression of Americans.  I always try to learn enough of the local language to at least handle basic practical things.)  Also, I'm now sixty-five, and language-learning ability declines with age.

2.  Iran.  Obviously this would be out of the question until the current regime is gone and a stable civilized government is in place, but that could happen even within a year -- things are very much in flux now.  Like Italy, Iran in ancient times built a great empire which played an important role in the rise of Western civilization, and far more of the roots of Western culture (and the monotheistic religions) trace back there than most Americans realize.  And like Italy, it boasts a great abundance of impressive historic architecture, including some ruins from ancient times and many more examples from within the last few centuries.  I posted about the country here.

I can speak a little basic Persian, and it was certainly the easiest language I've ever studied, with very simple and logical grammar compared to most (the large number of Arabic loan words would be an obstacle for most Americans, but I already knew a fair bit of Arabic before I started studying Persian, so to me it was less of a problem).  If there's any language I could still get up to a useful level in, it's probably this one.  On the minus side, I have a very bad physical reaction to cigarette smoke, and I get the impression it's hard to completely avoid it in Iran.

3.  The land of my ancestors.  Family visits as a child are not nothing, but I'm sure Britain has changed a great deal in the almost fifty years since I was last there.  There is a huge amount of interesting medieval and Renaissance architecture, as well as more Roman relics than you'd think (one of my few somewhat-clear childhood memories is of walking Hadrian's Wall), as well as libraries and museums without parallel.  And, of course, language wouldn't be a problem.

It is, of course, where my family originated and mostly still lives.  Everyone who actually remembers my visits as a child must be dead or elderly by now, and most of my living relatives would have no idea who I even was, but it might be possible to make a few connections.  There is one person in particular I would want to look up, though he must be at least in his seventies by now.

4.  France.  It has a similar range of architecture and history as the UK, with more Roman traces in the south, and is the home of the second most influential culture in the modern West after the Anglo-American.  It's also much more modern and advanced than most Americans think, being a leader in areas like high-speed trains and nuclear power.  One of my favorite blogs, Cas d'intérêt (sadly now apparently defunct) had many posts about travel in France and helped stimulate my interest in the country.

I know only a little French, but while it's closely related to Italian, it seems more accessible somehow, probably because so many English words come from it and the French originals are thus familiar.  The French people, however, have a reputation for being notably intolerant of those who don't know their language or are bad at it.

5.  India.  My counselor is fascinated by India and has been there more than a dozen times; talking with her about it led me to take more interest in it as well.  While its culture is far less related to our own than are those of the other countries on this list, it is incredibly variegated.  The Taj Mahal is the most Persian-looking structure I've ever seen, while there are old temples in Chennai and elsewhere (especially in the south, the most developed and interesting part of the country) which look like nothing else in the world.  Also, this is the future.  If the US is ever superseded as the world's leading country, it will probably be by India, with its demographic vigor, open society, and strong democracy, rather than by China with its imploding birth rate and its paranoid, stodgy, totalitarian gangster-regime.

Learning "the" local language would really not be an option -- almost every state has a different language, and all of them seem complex and difficult, from what I know about them.  English, however, is widely used for communication between speakers of different Indian languages, so I would be able to take advantage of that, and hopefully still not come across as an arrogant and ignorant American.  A bigger concern would be hygienic safety in what remains, by Western standards, a largely underdeveloped country.  I'd be concerned about how safe things like restaurants or hospitals would be.

For any country, of course, local attitudes toward Americans are a potential issue.  Everything I know about Iran recently suggests that most people there have a favorable view of Americans -- they know the US is an enemy of their ghastly regime, and this feeling will presumably become even stronger if we actually help them overthrow it.  For the other countries listed, I don't know how much blowback ordinary Americans can expect from Trump's relentless trashing of our country's international image and reputation.

I'd be particularly interested to hear from any readers who have been to any of these countries, especially recently.

Image round-up for 19 May 2026

More pictures from my collection -- to see any image at full size, right-click and open the link in a new tab.

[For the link round-up, click here.  For the anti-Semitism video, click here.]

Special delivery for a certain fellow blogger

I'd guess this is from Germany (in German, Gift means "poison")

According to the place where I found this, the dumbass in the pickup truck was fiddling around on his phone instead of paying attention

Audrey Hepburn

Norway

The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, seen from above

Rural Britain

Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Athens, built in 161 CE and still in use

Southwestern edge of Las Vegas

Noisy-le-Grand, France (yes, that's what it's called)

Amsterdam

Toledo, Spain

Video of the day -- the ancient evil

As the Holocaust passes out of living memory, the ancient evil of Jew-hatred is re-emerging -- in somewhat new forms, but still easily recognizable -- among the worst vermin of the left and right.  Indeed, there is no meaningful difference between the anti-Semitic left and right.  They are the same.

All of the bad things Trump has ever done, all put together, are insignificant compared to this monstrous evil of reviving anti-Semitism.  Yet very few on the right, and almost no one on the left, condemns it or even acknowledges it.  Our culture is becoming profoundly corrupt and sick.  One can only be grateful for the few like Bill Maher who do call it to account.

Link round-up for 16 May 2026

Various interesting stuff I ran across on the net over the last week.

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Cats just love their cardboard boxes.

She threw away a log, but it had its revenge.

These are signs of the times (NSFW blog, requires Blogspot login).

Monkeys react to (sometimes very annoying) humans.

Dumbth is always entertaining.

Staying asleep can be really hard work.

A watch that works like this would be very handy.

This is a baby platypus.

This is the Dawes Arboretum in Ohio (right-click pictures and open the link in a new tab for full size).

See a humane intervention for two seals.

An experiment in raising children to be experts was successful, but doesn't actually tell us much about how expertise works in most cases.

There's now an antiviral pill to prevent covid after exposure.  So far only Japan has approved it for actual use.

A senior scientist at Google has published a paper arguing that the tech we call "AI" today is inherently incapable of ever becoming conscious.

The problem of microplastics contamination is probably hugely exaggerated.  An elementary error led to false results in earlier studies.

There's evidence that slower, low-stress exercise builds muscle better than the intense and exhausting workouts in favor today.

What are you doing to your cells?

Minors are finding online age verification comically easy to defeat.

If you get an unexpected package, it may be a "brushing" scam.

Most pointless innovation ever -- you can now cheat at jigsaw puzzles.

Be wary of being condescending.  You may not even realize when you're doing it.

YouTube has developed a bug that can freeze your system.  The link explains how to neutralize it.

Some doctors are now using "AI scribe" programs to produce records of patient visits and treatment, resulting in official documentation riddled with errors.  Check your medical visit summaries and other records carefully.

Endlessly escalating safety precautions eventually becomes counterproductive (this is important).

Japan is producing cardboard military drones that can be mass-produced cheaply and therefore can be deployed in enormous numbers.

So, what's the real story on Chinese electric cars?

"Smart" glasses are being used to extort money from women by invading their privacy.

When men get obsessed with "AI", their wives feel abandoned.  Consider trading up, ladies.

"You can't shame someone into supporting you."

We need the enrichment provided by cultural diversity.

Here's how an elderly protester in Portland pwned ICE in court.  If she did it, others can.

The Hawaii legislature has passed a bipartisan law intended to neutralize the effect of the Citizens United decision.  If they can make this stick, presumably other states will do the same.

A win in South Carolina:  an election-rigging gerrymander was stopped in the state senate as a few Republicans joined all the Democrats in voting it down.

Here are some intelligent thoughts from Roger Ebert about mass shootings.

The Supreme Court is protecting access to mailed abortion pills, for now.  They may realize that Republicans are playing with fire here.  Access to abortion pills by mail provides a work-around for forced-birth laws, which women and girls in states with such laws can use fairly easily, so they still have de facto access to abortion, taking the issue off the front burner for most.  If that is really taken away and abortion becomes genuinely inaccessible in large parts of the country, then it will suddenly become a major issue in elections again, as voters suddenly feel an urgent need to resist a massive attack on personal freedom.

House Democrats, along with a couple of Republicans, are forcing a vote on Ukraine aid, bypassing Johnson's obstruction.

Whether today or in the 1930s, people believe what they want to believe.

Yet another new study -- from researchers at Microslop, no less -- affirms that "AI" cannot do most of what human employees do in office environments.  If they can ever get "AI" to actually work, the results may be more than they bargained for (note the choice of image for that post -- people are waking up to the fact that we're in a class war).

A groundswell of environmentalist opposition stopped a data center in northeastern Wisconsin.  The company cited a lack of support from local officials, but I'd bet those local officials took one look at how their voters were reacting and realized they'd better stop this thing if they wanted to keep their jobs.

This is not only tacky but flagrantly unconstitutional.  If you want a religious government, move to Iran or Saudi Arabia.

Independent House rep Kevin Kiley is trying to force a vote on banning midcycle redistricting.  What we really need is a ban on gerrymandering, but perhaps he felt that that had no chance of passing in today's grossly corrupted and anti-democratic political environment.

With anti-Semitism and hate for Israel on the rise, the Democratic party is an increasingly hostile place for Jewish politicians.

Ho Feng-Shan deserves to be remembered.  So does Irena Sendler.

Graduates who used "AI" at college are coming out with such bad work skills that some employers are actively avoiding them.  One company is even hiring humanities graduates instead -- even if their degrees are irrelevant to the job, they have intact critical thinking abilities.

A man whose daughter was murdered is harassed by a mob of thugs at a supposed cultural event.

"Someone there who didn't dare speak listened and heard you."  Speak the truth even when it seems useless.

Fewer and fewer Americans are training to become pastors or priests, suggesting a growing shortage in those fields in the future.

An "AI" bot was put in charge of managing a coffee shop, resulting in a series of ludicrous and money-losing decisions.

"There was no attempt to engage.  No appearance of curiosity.  No indication that they had come to listen.  They had come to perform."

Officials of a township in Michigan voted to reject a data center nearby, as residents wanted.  Then a billionaire who stood to gain sued the township and forced it to accept the data center.

This judge, a former chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic party, has left the party and re-registered as an independent due to the party's coddling of anti-Semitism.  The left-activist fringe doggedly refuses to acknowledge this problem, but that won't make it go away -- it just makes it worse.

A graduation speaker from the business world was shocked when students ferociously booed at her pro-"AI" sentiments.  The people pushing this shit have no clue how much everybody hates it.

The Trumpazoid in charge of the Department of Agriculture is harassing employees with religious propaganda.

The actual construction of data centers is running far behind industry claims.  This analysis concludes that most of the data center capacity allegedly being built is just smoke and mirrors and will never actually materialize.

Fetterman reminds us that he's "strongly pro-choice, pro-weed, pro-LGBT, pro-SNAP, pro-labor".  Anyone who thinks he's a de facto Republican is just nuts.

"It's like we have to learn all over why we separated prisons by sex to begin with."

The Trumpazoid candidate trying to primary Thomas Massie got caught clumsily faking a social media post with "AI".

UK prime minister Keir Starmer is as clueless about women as he is about most other things.

The leader of the UK Conservative party, at least, is unequivocal about the wave of anti-Semitism sweeping the country.

A "Sudeten German" group is planning a conference in Brno in Czechia, a hugely provocative move which has already caused international tension.  The expulsion of Sudeten Germans from then-Czechoslovakia happened in 1945, so any actual expellees, even if they were small children when it happened, would be at least eighty-one now.  Attempting to make an issue of this today implies a stance that refugee status is inheritable by descendants -- the exact same nonsense that keeps the fake "Palestinian refugee" problem ongoing in the Middle East, generations after the 1948 population exchange.  Europe is supposed to be more mature.

A new film documents the struggle to honor the memory of Samuel Paty, the French schoolteacher murdered by a Muslim thug in 2020 (I posted about the murder at the time).

Russian military trucks go kaboom.

Watch a Ukrainian drone with a shotgun destroy Russian drones in flight.

The Russian town of Engels is suffering a "fecal apocalypse" as its sewer system fails.  More here.

A Ukrainian drone plus a Russian ammunition stockpile equals a spectacular explosion.

See several more Russian targets destroyed (the video is below the first picture).

Modern weapons make any troop concentration suicidal.

A Russian POW describes how he is treated in Ukrainian captivity.

the Ukraine-Russia stalemate is now clearly shifting in Ukraine's favor.  Ukraine is now a formidable asset and ally to Europe, not a burden on its resources.

A former US ambassador to Russia assesses the growing weakness and instability of Putin's dictatorship.

Here is what aid to the Palestinian Authority (in the West Bank) is paying for.

A new report documents the atrocities of October 7 (link from commenter NickM).  Even the Nazis almost never reached such extremes of gleeful sadism.

Israel will take legal action against The New York Times over its scurrilous blood libels.  Here is some background.

As expected, the Iranian regime is using the ceasefire to import military equipment from Russia and rebuild its capacity for future aggression, while Hamas rearms and reasserts its control over Gaza.

India's prime minister Modi calls for more working from home and online meetings to minimize use of fossil fuels.

More links at Red State Blues and Comedy Plus.

My posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, and how I lived my whole life without religion.

[Image at top:  Jerusalem]

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Note:  I am no longer linking to posts or articles which (a) support gerrymandering, by either party, for any reason, or suggest that gerrymandering can ever be justified or legitimate, or (b) oppose the overthrow of the Iranian regime.  Both of these positions are absolutely morally abhorrent to me.  Gerrymandering is a unique bipartisan attack on democracy in that it means the dominant party in a state, rather than the voters, determines the make-up of the state's Congressional delegation.  The only moral position is to relentlessly oppose every attempt at gerrymandering, in any state, by either party.  As for Iran, too many Americans are quite willing to see the regime there remain in power, subjecting ninety million people to murderous barbarity which those Americans would never tolerate or defend if it were happening here, because they think it's more important to score points in the petty game of US domestic politics.  I try to be tolerant of differing viewpoints, but some things cross a clear line into genuine evil.

I've made one exception in this round-up because it's a post that also covers many other things, and the blogger has always been supportive of me.  But I can't continue to do so going forward.  You have to draw the line somewhere.

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I'm seeing a lot of wingnuts around the net proclaiming that they refuse to take hantavirus seriously and will ignore any proposed precautions against it.  It's not clear yet how serious hantavirus will be, but if it turns out to be a major killer like covid, we'll see yet another demonstration of natural selection in action.

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She's talking about the UK, but the same applies here.  Nobody owes loyalty to a political party.  If the party acts against your interests or principles, then you have every right and reason to abandon it.