Category: TRAVEL

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

This week: The resilience of U.S. democracy / Preparing for death out of a love for life / The magic of kokedama / Amanda Shires builds her post-divorce life / ‘Platoon’ was Charlie Sheen’s Vietnam

Most of these items come from my social media networks. Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism. Learn more about my academic background here and about me here.

1. Six Ways to Start Early and Lift Your Mood
By Arthur C. Brooks | The Atlantic | September 2025
“Try my protocol for a happy start to the day and see what works for your own well-being.”

2. Transform your houseplants into art with this Japanese gardening technique
By Jessica Damiano | Associated Press | September 2025
“The Japanese method of growing plants in a living planter made of a moss-covered ball of soil, is a simple, DIY project that elevates common houseplants into works of art. They make great gifts, too.”

3. Amanda Shires Tells Her Side of the Story After Divorce From Jason Isbell: ‘I’m Not Scared’
By Natalie Weiner | Texas Monthly | September 2025
“The Lubbock-raised singer-songwriter-fiddler’s new album, Nobody’s Girl, is a raw and revealing look at falling out of love and finding resilience.”

4. I Tested How Well AI Tools Work for Journalism
By Hilke Schellmann | Columbia Journalism Review | August 2025
“Some tools were sufficient for summarizing meetings. For research, the results were a disaster.”

5. American Democracy Might Be Stronger Than Donald Trump
By Jonathan Schlefer | Politico Magazine | September 2025
“Yes, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. But the country has a few attributes that make it more resilient than you might think.”

6. We Are Watching a Scientific Superpower Destroy Itself
By Stephen Greenblatt | The New York Times | September 2025
“We are currently governed by a leader indifferent to scientific consensus if it contradicts his political or economic interests, hostile to immigrants and intent on crippling the research universities that embody our collective hope for the future. The menace now is within. And with very few exceptions, the leaders of American universities have done little more than duck and cover.”

7. ‘I love life:’ The man who has scheduled his death so he can enjoy living
By Amandas Ong | Al Jazeera | September 2025
“Despite Alzheimer’s, Alex Pandolfo leads a full life. But when his health declines, he plans to have an assisted death.”

8. Historian Jill Lepore explores the Constitution and its interpretations in ‘We the People’
By Geoff Bennett | PBS News Hour | September 2025
“Originalism is often countered by the idea that the Constitution is a living, breathing document meant to be interpreted and changed along with the times.”

9. What If the Next Democratic President Governs Like Trump?
By Matt Ford | The New Republic | September 2025
“Between a permissive Supreme Court and his own governing innovations, the president has greatly expanded executive power. Liberals, take note.”

10. Cats and Dogs in History
By Christopher Rose, Joan Neuberger and Henry Wiencek | 15 Minute History :: UT Department of History | 2014-2020
Also see: Indian Ocean Trade and European Dominance | Indian Ocean Trade from its Origins to the Eve of Imperialism | Ukraine and Russia | Urban Slavery in the Antebellum United States

11. Charlie Sheen’s Lifestyle Couldn’t Kill Him. ‘Platoon’ Nearly Did.
By Charlie Sheen | The Hollywood Reporter | September 2025
“In 1986, well before the sex scandals, the crack and the tiger blood, the 20-year-old actor embarked on the most intense shoot of his career. In an excerpt from his explosive new memoir, Sheen reveals how Oliver Stone’s epic Vietnam War film changed him forever.”

12. Theaters bet big on massive screens, booming sound and recliners to lure movie fans
By Harshita Mary Varghese and Dawn Chmielewski | Reuters | September 2025
“Auditoriums with enhanced visual and video formats, such as IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and ScreenX, account for a record 14.9% of all tickets sold in the U.S. and Canada this year, up from 9.8% in 2019, according to data from research firm Comscore exclusively compiled for Reuters.”

13. Orchid Fever
By Susan Orlean | The New Yorker | January 1995
“How seductive are orchids? Connoisseurs spare nothing for a rare bloom — the issue in a battle between Florida, the Seminoles, and a man with a passion.”

14. The South’s Inner Civil War
By Eric Foner | American Heritage | Summer 2025
“The more fiercely the Confederacy fought for its independence, the more bitterly divided it became. To fully understand the vast changes which the war unleashed on the country, you must first understand the plight of the Southerners who didn’t want secession.”

15. 6 More Things E.R. Doctors Wish You’d Avoid
By Jancee Dunn | Well :: The New York Times | September 2025
“Stay out of the emergency room with these tips.”

16. Strawberries in Winter
By Adrienne LaFrance | The Atlantic | September 2025
“Most Americans do not want civil war. Anyone who is declaring it should stop.”

17. Why your nose could be the perfect window into your mental state
By Gillian Forrester | New Scientist | September 2025
“Diagnosing mental health conditions like anxiety and depression can be difficult, but it turns out that your nose could help doctors understand when you are feeling the strain.”

18. ‘We wanted to make it real:’ How ‘Goodfellas’ reinvented the gangster film
By Myles Burke | BBC Culture | September 2025
“Martin Scorsese’s crime epic was released 35 years ago. In 1990, the director and his stars, Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta, revealed its secrets to the BBC.”

19. Laughing in Hell: How We Tell the Stories of Other Peoples’ Suicides
By Sarah Adler | LitHub | September 2025
“I was drawn to memoirs about suicide even before Rebecca’s death, probably because when someone you love travels often against the thin curtain between life and death, these stories can feel like windows.”

20. Echolocation
By Melvyn Bragg | In Our Time :: BBC 4 | 2016-2018
Also see: Animal Farm | Agrippina the Younger | The Sikh Empire | The Gettysburg Address

    Recommended reading / viewing / listening

    This week: How to survive an earthquake / New life in a coral reef cemetery / Resisting Obama / The best Texas bourbon / David Simon’s secrets

    This week: How to survive an earthquake / New life in a coral reef cemetery / Resisting Obama / The best Texas bourbon / David Simon’s secrets

    Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.

    1. Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father
    By David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner | The New York Times | October 2018
    “The president has long sold himself as a self-made billionaire, but a Times investigation found that he received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s.”
    Also see from the Columbia Journalism Review: The Times Trump investigation and the power of the long game

    2. Traveling to Find Out
    By Hanif Kureishi | London Review of Books | August 2018
    “Legitimate anger turned bad; the desire for obedience and strong men; a terror of others; the promise of power, independence and sovereignty; the persecution of minorities and women; the return to an imagined purity. Who would have thought this idea would have spread so far, and continue to spread.”

    3. The Marines Didn’t Think Women Belonged in the Infantry. She’s Proving Them Wrong.
    By Thomas Gibbons-Neff | The New York Times | August 2018
    “As Lieutenant Hierl issued orders against the din of rifle fire, she dropped her usually reserved, soft-spoken demeanor for a firm tone that left no doubt about who was in command.”

    4. Forget Doorframes: Expert Advice on Earthquake Survival Strategies
    By Robin George Andrews | Scientific American | August 2018
    “Indonesia’s Lombok quake revives the question of taking cover versus running outside.”

    5. A coral reef cemetery is home to life in the afterlife
    By Kelli Kennedy | Associated Press | August 2018
    “[T]he Neptune Memorial Reef is home to the cremated remains of 1,500 people, and any snorkeler or scuba diver can visit.”

    6. Blood and Oil
    By Seth Harp | Rolling Stone | September 2018
    “Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry — infiltrating the national oil company, selling stolen fuel on the black market and engaging in open war with the military. Can the country’s new populist president find a way to contain the chaos.”

    7. He Was the Resistance Inside the Obama Administration
    By David Dayen | The New Republic | September 2018
    “Timothy Geithner’s refusal to obey his boss has had long-term political and economic consequences.”

    8. Six Texas Bourbons to Drink Right Now
    By Jessica Dupuy | Texas Monthly | September 2018
    “Enjoy them straight, on the rocks, or in an inventive cocktail, such as the Tejas Ponche from Treaty Oak in Dripping Springs.”

    9. The Guy Who Wouldn’t Write a Hit: An Interview with David Simon
    By Claudia Dreifus | NYR Daily :: The New York Review of Books | August 2018
    “In the world of cookie-cutter television program-making, writer and producer David Simon is a creative maverick. For a quarter of a century, Simon, now turning fifty-eight, has been making unconventional dramas about the political and social problems of modern America.”

    10. 7 strategies to keep your phone from taking over your life
    By Chris Bailey | Ideas :: TED.com | August 2018
    “We’re distracted like never before — and our phones are probably the biggest culprit. But there is a way you can live with one and still get things done.”

    Recommended reading / viewing / listening

    This week: Fidel Castro’s love affair / Celebrating the brilliance of “Scarface” / The secret power of ISIS / Molly Ringwald looks back / The British Empire’s shadow on today’s world

    This week: Fidel Castro’s love affair / Celebrating the brilliance of Scarface / The secret power of ISIS / Molly Ringwald looks back / The British Empire’s shadow on today’s world

    Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.

    1. ‘My Dearest Fidel’: An ABC Journalist’s Secret Liaison With Fidel Castro
    By By Peter Kornbluh | Politico Magazine | April 2018
    “The untold story of how Lisa Howard’s intimate diplomacy with Cuba’s revolutionary leader changed the course of the Cold War.”

    2. Revisiting the Controversy Surrounding Scarface
    By Jason Bailey | Vulture | April 2018
    “It landed on VHS and Betamax the following summer, at what may have been the perfect moment, as home video reached a penetration point and videotape rentals were becoming part of the average moviegoer’s diet.”

    3. End of the American dream? The dark history of ‘America first’
    By Sarah Churchwell | The Guardian | April 2018
    “When he promised to put America first in his inaugural speech, Donald Trump drew on a slogan with a long and sinister history — a sign of what was to follow in his presidency”

    4. How Trump Moved the Mexican Border North
    By Emily Gogolak | Politico Magazine | April 2018
    “It started in Texas. And the rest of the country is next.”

    5. The ISIS Files
    By Rukmini Callimachi | The New York Times | April 2018
    “We unearthed thousands of internal documents that help explain how the Islamic State stayed in power so long.”

    6. ‘The Clock Is Ticking’: Inside the Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades
    By William Langewiesche | Vanity Fair | April 2018
    “A recording salvaged from three miles deep tells the story of the doomed ‘El Faro,’ a cargo ship engulfed by a hurricane.”

    7. What About ‘The Breakfast Club’?
    By Molly Ringwald | The New Yorker | April 2018
    “Revisiting the movies of my youth in the age of #MeToo.”

    8. 5 Reasons Why a Writer Should Move to Tampa
    By Arielle Silver | LitHub | April 2018
    “Welcome to the lightning capital of North America.”

    9. My Caribbean trip opened my eyes to the legacy of the British empire
    By Lenny Henry | The Guardian | March 2018
    “After Brexit, the Commonwealth could play a crucial trading role. But the historic associations with slavery still resonate.”

    10. Essential Writing Advice from Virginia Woolf
    By Emily Temple | LitHub | March 2018
    “Woolf was a once-in-a-generation mind, and as both a writer and publisher, she had strong opinions about what made a piece of literature great (or, more often, mediocre). Luckily for us, she wrote many of her ideas down, in some of the many essays and letters she penned over the course of her life.”

    Amerikan Rambler: Podcast 48: Dr. Mehdi Aminrazavi

    From April 2017: “He and Colin talk about Islam: how it developed, its central beliefs and practices, and how it has evolved since the time of Mohammad.”

    Mehdi Aminrazavi is Professor of Philosophy and Religion and Co-Director of the Leidecker Center for Asian Studies at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. A native of Iran, he received his education in the United States and has lived and taught in Virginia for decades.

    via Podcast 48: Dr. Mehdi Aminrazavi — Amerikan Rambler: Everybody Has a Story

    Recommended reading / viewing / listening

    This week: Secrets to San Antonio / Houston’s dolphins / Tarantino’s ‘Star Trek’ / The best Texas playlist / Kirsten Gillibrand in the spotlight / Robert Caro and LBJ

    This week: Secrets to San Antonio / Houston’s dolphins / Tarantino’s ‘Star Trek’ / The best Texas playlist / Kirsten Gillibrand in the spotlight

    Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.

    1. Insider’s Guide to San Antonio
    By Lauren Smith Ford | Texas Monthly | December 2017
    “Join the dapper Mike Casey for a bicycle tour of his favorite bars, restaurants and more in the funky, charming King William neighborhood.”

    2. Galveston Bay dolphins struggle to recover from Hurricane Harvey
    By Alex Stuckey | Houston Chronicle | November 2017
    “Researchers observe lesions covering the marine mammals”

    3. Pulp science-fiction? How Quentin Tarantino could save Star Trek
    By Luke Holland | The Guardian | December 2017
    “The tepid recent installment left Kirk and co needing direction, dialogue and a decent baddie. Luckily Hollywood’s grandmaster of profanity has one more film to make.”

    4. Hundreds of dams in Texas could fail in worst-case flood
    By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz | Austin American-Statesman | November 2017
    “Texas applies its strictest safety standards only if a dam’s failure would probably cost seven or more lives.”

    5. Winston Churchill Got a Lot of Things Wrong, But One Big Thing Right
    By Matt Lewis | The Daily Beast | December 2017
    “He contemplated using poison gas on German civilians. He wanted to keep England white. And more. But he had the quality Britain needed most at exactly the moment it was needed.”

    6. Kirsten Gillibrand’s Moment Has Arrived
    By David Freedlander | Politico Magazine | December 2017
    “The New York senator has made sexual assault the focus of her political career. Now, the world has caught up with her.”

    7. Oil and gas industry is causing Texas earthquakes, a ‘landmark’ study suggests
    By Ben Guarino | The Washington Post | November 2017
    “An unnatural number of earthquakes hit Texas in the past decade, and the region’s seismic activity is increasing. In 2008, two earthquakes stronger than magnitude 3 struck the state. Eight years later, 12 did.”

    8. You May Want to Marry My Husband
    By Amy Krouse Rosenthal | Modern Love :: The New York Times | March 2017
    “He is an easy man to fall in love with. I did it in one day.”

    9. Listen to the Ultimate Texas Music Playlist
    By Katy Vine | Texas Monthly | November 2017
    “We set out to hear what our state sounds like. We brought back the latest and best of Texas music — so listen up.”

    10. Robert Caro: Rising Early, With a New Sentence in Mind
    By John Leland | Sunday Routine :: The New York Times | May 2012
    “I always remember Ernest Hemingway’s advice to writers: always quit for the day when you know what the next sentence is.”
    Also see: Robert Caro’s Big Dig | Robert Caro’s Painstaking Process

    Amerikan Rambler: Podcast 32: The Revolution of 2016

    From Nov. 2016: “Colin’s recent visit to Fredericksburg took place in the wake of what historians should be calling the Revolution of 2016.”

    Fredericksburg is a nice place to spend a day thinking about and experiencing history. It’s also a good place to get a cup of coffee. But Colin’s recent visit to Fredericksburg took place in the wake of what historians should be calling the Revolution of 2016.

    via Podcast 32: Fredericksburg. The Revolution of 2016. — Amerikan Rambler: Everybody Has a Story

    Amerikan Rambler: Podcast 28: Ira Berlin

    From Oct. 2016: “Ira Berlin has been called ‘one of the greatest living historians of slavery in the United States.’ “

    Dr. Berlin talks about his first plane ride, activism in the 1960s, and why he chose to exchange a lab coat for the historian’s garb. Also, Ira and Colin share their thoughts about the 2016 election.

    via Podcast 28: Ira Berlin — Amerikan Rambler: Everybody Has a Story

    Amerikan Rambler: Podcast 27: William C. Davis

    From Oct. 2016: “William C. Davis is one of the most prolific and prodigious of American historians.”

    Over the past forty years, he has focused on the Civil War era and southern history, writing about everything from Jefferson Davis to the Texas Revolution to — as he shows in his newest book — a New Orleans prostitute who claimed to be a Confederate soldier.

    via Podcast 27: William C. Davis — Amerikan Rambler: Everybody Has a Story

    Amerikan Rambler: Podcast 25: Daniel Crofts

    From Sept. 2016: “He is the author of ‘Reluctant Confederates’ and more recently ‘Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery.’ “

    Here, he talks with Colin about growing up in Chicago, studying under C. Vann Woodward at Yale, and his adventures teaching in China, following in the footsteps of his missionary grandfather.

    via Podcast 25: Daniel Crofts — Amerikan Rambler: Everybody Has a Story

    Amerikan Rambler: Podcast 22: ‘Narcos’ and the South South of the South

    From Sept. 2016: “Colin uses the Netflix drama ‘Narcos’ as a jumping off point for talking about his fascination with the deep, deep South: the Caribbean and South America.”

    Colin uses the Netflix drama “Narcos” as a jumping off point for talking about his fascination with the deep, deep South: the Caribbean and South America.

    via Podcast 22: Narcos and the South South of the South — Amerikan Rambler: Everybody Has a Story

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    North River Notes

    Observations on the Hudson River as it passes through New York City. The section of the Hudson which passes through New York is historically known as the North River, called this by the Dutch to distinguish it from the Delaware River, which they knew as the South River. This stretch of the Hudson is still often referred to as the North River by local mariners today. All photos copyright Daniel Katzive unless otherwise attributed. For more frequent updates, please follow northriverblog on Facebook or Instagram.