This program (14 mins.) focuses on New York State's colonial background, especially the Finger Lakes and Adirondacks

"Ceaselessly the river flows, and yet the water is never the same, while in the still pools the shifting foam gathers and is gone, never staying for a moment. Even so is man and his habitation." -- Kamo no Chomei (poet, 1155-1216) The Mekong Delta’s tributaries in southern Vietnam, between Ho Chi Minh City and the Cambodian border (Kampuchea), transfer huge volumes of water drained from the Himalayas and passing almost 5,000 kilometers (2.5 thousand miles) through China, My

“The swallow has set her six young on the rail, and looks seaward.” James Lee’s Wife (1864, pt 3 st.1), Robert Browning Before Autumn takes over the North American landscape, a quick look-back at one summertime highlight deserves mention. Ghosts abound in Maine, so if you are interested in observing one go to the Captain Lord Mansion in Kennebunkport, Maine, along the Atlantic sea shelf. Captain Nathaniel Lord, a shipbuilder, had the home built in 1812, and his family lived

Cuba Connection — 2018 (*Photos have been selected at random) A Metaphor Walking the streets of Havana in March 2018, I spied a man in a white tee shirt watching a spontaneous soccer match below his crumbling apartment. Beneath him a pallid woman lies prone, staring perhaps in a trance; or maybe she is ill. The soccer ball occasionally bounces off her body without moving her. This woman is Cuba, subdued and motionless, but looking skyward and hopeful. She sees the failure

In the wilderness about 200 miles south of Tehran is a place called “Half of the World.” Ishfahan, twice the capital of Persia, was the highlight of my journey to Iran in 2017. If Ishfahan is half the world, then Shiraz, even further south is the other half. But to get to these cities of over a million persons each, it is necessary to negotiate the Zagros mountains, a range of rocky cathedrals of stones and rocks spanning about 990 miles from the eastern edge of the Fertil

I arrived at the ruins of Persepolis, near Shiraz, with great anticipation. The skies were clear and the sun burned hot even in September. It was immediately evident that the former palaces had been erected on an enormous raised platform of earth and rock, making what could be described as a giant stage. Today it looks like the show is over, the cast and crew have left, but the props scattered over a wide area had not been removed. Fortunately for mankind, those props are