Pilgrimages and Sacred DestinationsIt’s Official: Trump Is Now Using Straight-up Nazi TalkRed Sea | Middle East, Marine Ecosystems & GeologyVideo shows “world’s most dangerous bird” emerging from ocean, stunning onlookersWoman recovering after she was bitten in the face by great white sharkWhat You Need to Know about Thanksgiving in America4 Ways Canadian Thanksgiving Differs From U.S.A.’sHadrian’s Wall Damaged by Sycamore …

One reason I joined the National Press Club in 1995 was that on various occasions before Hong Kong’s handover I’d darkened the door of the FCC. I hoped that the NPC’s substantial oblong bar might be cousin to the FCC’s main bar with diverse central casting characters including criminal barristers of the Rumpole flavour, cargo shippers, pilots, politicians and others seeking what was in the wind as journalists’ tongues loosened, and vice versa.

The midterm election is just around the corner. Whether living conditions have improved or not since the last election is the normal gauge of whether one votes one way or another. In other words, if things got better since the last election, you re-elect the current establishment. If things got worse, you vote for the other guy. Simple, right? No. Not really.

After a sick and sordid 50 year career of cheating, stealing and lying, corruptly conning banks, employees, associates, vendors, and ordinary people out of their money, ruining thousands of lives, running multiple businesses into bankruptcy, and so much more (sexual predation, incitements to mob violence, etc), mob boss wannabe Donald Trump, now buried under a mountain of lawsuits and pending criminal indictments, I believe, is certain to face trial and likely be convicted of serious crimes. Viewer discretion advised.

Since ancient times, new beginnings – that’s carnival. It’s our craving to shuck memories of the slings and arrows that paralyze us. New Year’s resolutions disappear in the first head wind, but carnival has been serious about new beginnings since the Greeks partied to praise Dionysus and the Romans thanked Bacchus for wine and flora, fertility heavy on their minds.

Are you mourning this year’s lack of Carnival’s spiritual cleanse, its satirical sorting of society’s woes to give us perspective? I am. And so I retreat now to past frolics. It’s hard to overstate how rotten the past year has been, in so many ways, or the dim prospects it left us, as we await whatever next escapes Pandora’s Box.

Here's some trivia for the month: the Latin Quarters in Paris, the world’s first floating space hotel launching in 2021, a whiskey lover's dream gift, a bridge linking Ireland and Scotland, cruise ships, dynamic ticket pricing, Anthony Bourdain, adventure personality, the Travel Guys.

My wife has these days when she wants us to "talk about things." We were discussing aspects of our future so when it was my turn I asked her, "What will you do if I die before you?"