Travel

"Political conventions attract strange bedfellows. Over the weekend preceding the Republican Convention, two other conventions met to talk about issues that were almost polar opposites to those of the Republicans. Both were held in black Baptist churches. The traditional Sunday protest march was small and peaceful."    more »

Regarded as one of Brazil's most accomplished contemporary artists, Varejão often references cultural and historic research through an intense investigation into anthropology, colonial trade, demography, and racial identity. She is especially influenced by theories of mestizaje (a term for the mixing of ancestries) and cultural anthropophagy — as proposed by the Brazilian poet Oswald de Andrade. more »

Sonya Zalubowski writes: Seafood, seafood, seafood. As if you'd need another reason to want to visit Martha's Vineyard, the small, picturesque island off Massachusetts' Cape Cod. It is nearly inundated by tourists come summer with a population that swells by more than six times to over 100,000. I had the good fortune to visit in mid-May, right before the crowds, to tour the awakening island with chef Christopher Gianfreda who had returned for his seventh season of cooking here. more »

In the ceaseless war of man versus rattlesnake, the rattlesnake has long been the loser. Now, some states are trying to give the sometimes deadly pit viper better odds of survival. The shift follows a dramatic decline in some US rattlesnake populations, as habitats have been lost to development and the reptiles have been killed, accidentally and intentionally. And it is threatening old traditions and forcing people to come to grips with animals many would rather avoid.   more »