"At a much deeper, more metaphysical level, foreign news should offer us a means by which to humanize the Other -- that is, the outsider from over the mountains or beyond the seas who instinctively repels, bores or frightens us and with whom we can't, without help, imagine having anything in common. Foreign news should...

"As Alexander the Great was passing through Corinth, he sought our Diogenes and finally found him sitting under a tree, dressed in rags, with not a drachma to his name. When the most powerful man in the world asked the philosopher if he could do anything to help him, Diogenes replied, 'Yes, if you could...

"If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest -- in all its ardor and paradoxes -- than our travels. They express, however inarticulately, an understanding of what life might be about, outside of the constraints of work and of the...

It's not a likely scenario, but it is one that provides food for thought of our dependance on these hydrocarbon-burning aluminum tubes that we pack ourselves into like sardines to get from point A to point B as fast as possible, placing our faith in well-maintained aircraft, pilot training, physics, and luck. The eruption of...