By James Aitchison When Hollywood was simply a dusty backwater of fledgling studios and orchards, and Los Angeles an uncultured outpost, America’s film capital was New York City. The great Broadway theatrical stars were simply a taxi ride away. Even…
By: Jad S. Karkout In writing Dubliners, Joyce aimed to present a historical account of Dublin and create a vivid portrayal of Irish life. To achieve this, he centered Dublin as a hub of paralysis that afflicted most of…
By James Aitchison They called phrenology a science, but it was pure quackery, a pseudoscience that tragically labelled thousands of innocent people as criminals or mentally defective. By running their hands over a person’s skull and judging its shape and…
By: Christopher Johnson Glacial Park Conservation Area in McHenry County, Illinois–some 45 miles northwest of Chicago–is a stunning example of the Midwestern landscape. In the space of 3,400 acres, you hike through a restored prairie and past a bog and…
By James Aitchison We were touring Northern Ireland, my wife and I, tracing some of my Irish ancestors to the seaside town of Ballycastle. There, on the north-eastern tip of Ireland, we had booked a rather interesting cottage from the…
(Part of the Yin & Yang of Travel Series) By: Mark D. Walker Share our similarities, celebrate our differences. — M. Scott Peck Over the last fifty years, the why and where I travel have changed radically. In 2013, my…
By James Aitchison It all began in 1775 when Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele invented a stunning new pigment — a green more vibrant, more luminous, than anything seen before. The secret? The miraculous new pigment was copper arsenite, also…
By James Aitchison In London, just five miles east of Buckingham Palace, a mysterious underground language has evolved. An English language wherein words such as “frog”, “soldiers”, “Aristotle”, “whistle” and “butchers” do not mean what they are supposed to mean!…
By James Aitchison He was known as the king with the funny name, a self-appointed Muslim ruler who survived 55 assassination attempts, a dictator who fled to The Ritz in London and died in obscurity in France. And while history…
By James Aitchison He was born a British prince. His father was Queen Victoria’s youngest, brightest son. He was educated at Eton. Lewis Carroll, a family friend, dubbed him a “perfect little prince”. Yet he was denounced in Britain as…