Dear Blog-Friends, Discuss: Can one ever have too many books? Lee is packing box number 7 as we speak and is not half-way done. He did allow me to give away a couple of William F. Buckley’s spy novels and a few George Will books, but that’s about it. Abby

As I mentioned, my friend Patrick lives in Berlin and knows his way around Rome pretty well. Here we are outside of his favorite trattoria near the Colosseum: Here’s the Colosseum at night: Rome is for … romance! Enjoying a late-night beer at an outdoor cafe:

Saturday it was off to the Vatican! First we went to the Vatican museum and saw, among other things, the Sistine Chapel. No picture can do it justice, so it’s probably just as well you couldn’t take pictures in there. You are allowed to take photos elsewhere in the museum, though: Here’s a view of…

On Friday we took a guided tour of some of the highlights of ancient Rome, including the Colosseum, the Forum and other central areas of the ancient city. A view of part of the Colosseum where the outer wall is missing. Contrary to what I used to think, Christians were not killed in the Colosseum,…

Let’s split this into a few posts. First, pics from Rome. Keep in mind that this was our first trip to Italy, so this is Italy 101. Your scribe arriving in Rome last Thursday morning on roughly one hour of sleep. This day consisted of a lot of bleary-eyed wandering around the area near our…

We had a wonderful time, visiting Rome for four days and Florence for three. Lots of walking around gaping at magnificent Roman architecture, marvelling at Renaissance and Medieval masterpieces, peering into Baroque churches, enjoying the beautiful Italian weather, and consuming a lot of pasta and red wine (if red wine is really good for your…

Blogging will be more-or-less nonexistent over the next week or so as the missus and I are headed off to Italy! I’m very excited, never having made it to continental Europe before now. Almost as exciting is the fact that I’ll miss the inevitable blog-mania surrounding the release of the Da Vinci Code movie. I…

That’s one description of Bill Kauffman’s just-released Look Homeward America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front-Porch Anarchists. Based on what I’ve seen, it continues the project Kauffman started in his earlier America First! of tracing a counter-tradition of American politics that dissents from the bipartisan consensus on the mega-state, corporate capitalism, and global interventionism.…

I used to really love the Red Hot Chili Peppers. At one time I would’ve put them among my top three favorite bands. Unfortunately, ever since the disastrous One Hot Minute – disastrous despite the promising addition of former Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro – they’ve pretty much been going downhill into middle-of-the-road, radio-friendly “alterna”…

I’m glad Chris Daughtry got voted off American Idol last night. He’s a decent singer, but he turns everything he sings into some kind of bland late-90s “alternative” rock. (And I still haven’t forgiven him for his unutterably bad rendition of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line.” *shudder*) Personally, I’ve been rooting for Elliott for…