January 2017

There is also a detailed account of our trip full of travel tips and personal comments. First mounted July 4, 2006. All photos copyright Paul Brians.

When we were planning a trip to Spain I inquired online about local Spanish tourist agencies and got a tip to try Madrid & Beyond. I’m back to report that they are fabulous and to give some travel tips for folks headed for Spain. This is a long message, so if you don’t want to […]

Paul Brians & Paula Elliot June 3-14, 2003 Ireland has a lot to offer the traveler besides its famously green countryside and popular traditional music. It is rich in prehistoric and Medieval ruins, fine Georgian architecture, and art. For those interested in literature, it is also the homeland of a great many of the English […]

Trip to Japan, May 1998 Locations Visited by Paul Brians and Paula Elliot:

December 1992-January 1993 In 1992, the Washington State University program World Civilizations sent a group of teaching faculty to India led by history professor Fritz Blackwell. This was the second tour sponsored by World Civ to be funded partly by an NEH grant secured under the leadership of director Richard Law. The idea was to […]

May 17-June 14, 1993 My wife, Paula Elliot, and I joined a group led by Washington State University architecture professor Catherine Bicknell and her son Zac on a tour of Greece. Paula had gone on their first tour, eight years earlier, and had been wanting to go again since; and I was eager to go […]

On May 14, 1991, ten Washington State University faculty members were sent on a tour of China to prepare them for teaching the new World Civilizations courses being developed at WSU, with funding from a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The tour was led by history professor Tom Kennedy. We were […]

On May 9, 2000, Victory Day (celebrating the end of World War II in the former Soviet Union), former inhabitants of the Chernobyl “company town” of Pripyat were allowed to visit their old home. Aleksandr (Sasha) Sirota convinced his mother, the poet and anti-nuclear activist Lyubov Sirota, to accompany him and his friend Maksim on […]

Although the damaged reactor in its crumbling “sarcophagus” is still an extremely hazardous site, radiation levels in the town of Pripyat and in the surrounding countryside are considered safe enough for brief visits. Alex (“Sasha”) Sirota has visited his former home town several times and documented in these haunting photos images of a city drained […]

Lecture 2: Human Evolution (Duiker: Preface & other introductory material through p, xxxi, pp. 1-5) Questions for quiz: *In what sort of geographical environment did the first civilizations emerge? What common characteristics did the first civilizations have? *When and where do most scientists believe Homo sapiens sapiens first emerged? *What were the main characteristics of […]