At Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, you will find the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. For nearly 40 years, Curator David Pilgrim has collected what he calls “racist garbage”. It is his belief that “forms of intolerance can be used to teach tolerance”. The museum displays a...
I’ve been pretty quiet on the blog these last few months. Sorry about that. You know, life…it happens. In case you were interested, one annoying thing that happened recently - I cracked my phone twice in a 48 hour period, which I didn’t think was possible. I had to replace...
It’s a well-known fact that Michigan is known for cars. More than 2.3 million cars and trucks rolled off Michigan assembly lines last year. And let’s not forget Detroit is called the “Motor City”. So it’s not a surprise the state has a number of car museums, like the Automotive...
We interrupt our regularly scheduled July 4th programming to honour another patriotic holiday, Canada Day. Nearly one-hundred years after the United States gained independence from the British, three colonies were united into a single country called Canada within the British Empire (Canada still exists…the British Empire is now called “Brexit”)....
Tây Ninh, about 50 miles outside of Saigon, Vietnam is home to the headquarters of the Cao Dai religion, founded in 1926, which engages in prayer, ancestor worship, nonviolence and vegetarianism. Supposedly there are millions of Vietnamese adherents. Their temples are quite common in the country. But the Holy See...
In the middle of northern Illinois is the teeny town of Franklin Grove, home of Vietnam veteran Anthony Parks, who enjoys fixing old radios and record players. He enjoys it so much that he has his collection on display at Tony’s Old Ladies Vintage Radio Museum, which you admit is...
This glass toothpick holder from 1892 has inscriptions of both Americus Vespucius and Christopher Columbus. It is on display at the Brooklyn Museum.
More than half of British tourists visit the same destination each year. I like to call them “monogamous travelers” as opposed to “an adventurer” like me, who never goes to the same place twice. My friend’s husband is the former. He visits Disneyland (or anything Disney-related) every single year for...
I don’t know if this scary or sad or both? A puppy, deformed from radiation due to a nuclear reactor gone wrong, is part of the exhibit on display at the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum. I can’t believe it’s been 30 years since that horrible event happened.
Old churches usually have beautiful, and sometimes unique, statuary. But nothing beats the gilded sculpture of the skeleton of death trying to cut down an innocent cherub, who symbolizes the thread of life, with what appears to be a pair of scissors at Asamkirche (Asam Church) in Munich, Germany. Officially...
