How many of you know that it is National Park Week in the US, April 21-29. Free Admission

National Parks Service

Oh, we Americans are a wild and crazy bunch: toiling hard and productively, spreading democracy by day…partying hard by night. Or is it partying day and night? According to a new report on travel trends, we Yanks are binge drinking, G-string snapping “debaucherists,” longing for the eternal spring break.

This report, put out by the UK research firm Euromonitor International, says the hot trend among the British is traveling with pets. Western Europe likes Slow Travel (an analogy to Slow Food) and South America “End of the World Tourism”inspired by “March of the Penguins.” For the Middle East it is Halal or Islam-safe travel. But we North Americans are cut from a different cloth. We pine for the lifestyles of the rich and vacuous, of Britney
and Kevin and the rest for whom life is one endless DUI. I’ll admit that I share the helpless anguish of millions of Americans about the state of our Union and have entertained the notion that finding a pal in Yukon Jack until Bush lets go of the football might be less toxic than watching cable news, but is this a for-real trend or a fashionable whack at US culture drawn from the backside of The Queen?

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It looks like a case for Hercule Poirot. The Economist wants to kill off Belgium. What is the motive, what will be the instrument of death? In an editorial this week, that venerable bastion of common sense in a world of cable news banshees suggests that Belgium should be allowed to just wither away. Not that it doesn’t carry some importance as the gearbox of the European Union bureaucracy, but after its last general election, Belgium is still without a government and, according to the Economist, the Belgians don’t give a fig. According to the prime minister designate, Belgians have nothing in common but “the king, the football team and some beers” (about 500).

What can you say about a country whose main symbol is a little boy pissing, that is responsible for brussel sprouts and the saxophone. A country of Walloons (French) and Flemings (Dutch) who don’t particularly get along, even though they don’t blow each other up as is the case in other divided countries. Maybe beer, fried moules and chocolate have something to do with their more gentle dispositions. I have enjoyed the few days I have spent wandering the street of Brussels.

Belgium does need some organization. (They have a reputation for waffling). Heavy pollution is attributed to a lack of it. So what is the Economist saying? How should Belgium deal with Belgium? Does the country need a “great decider?” We have one and don’t recommend that .

Maybe its just time to send up a trial Walloon.

Cats, as you are well aware, know more than we do. I asked both of our cats, Max and Moritz, about that and they responded with their inscrutable “I don’t suffer fools” look. Every time I travel, Max plants himself inside of my open suitcase marking my black sweaters with tufts of fuzz while Moritz frequently deposits a turd at the front door. I know they know I will be flying and I know they know that that will, in most cases, be an unsatisfying experience. Max crawled between me and my newspaper, the other day, as I read the University of Michigan’s Consumer Satisfaction ratings which placed US airlines far lower that cat food, even lower that the IRS.

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It is one of the best uses of music in a movie ever. In Stanley Kubrik’s classic “2001: A Space Odyssey, a bunch of crunky old rocket ships drift around space waltzing to the Blue Danube. Why does that make me think of airline baggage: “Look, there’s a flaming chunk of Samsonite reentering the atmosphere… and, over there, a big Tumi sailing past Saturn.” In fact, there’s an old joke that the rings of Saturn are made up of lost baggage. By some estimates, airlines lose 10 thousand bags a day.

Well the US Department of Transportation, steel jawed watchdogs that they are, want to do something about that. While you and me and the bag on the moon are crying for a passengers “bill of rights,” they are bravely raising the passenger baggage damage limit from $2,800 to $3,000 a bag. $200 bucks! How many people you know have actually managed to squeeze anywhere near that out of any airline?

But leave it to British Airways. If it you make it so damn expensive that you won’t check a second bag, then you won’t lose as many bags. Right? Brilliant! “The World’s Favorite Airline” (which has the ring of “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince” about it) will, starting February 13, charge up to £240 (US$470) for a round trip for that bag. Of course, that only applies to those who can least afford it, economy passengers. This was announced at the beginning of the year, and we are only hearing about it now. Next week passengers will show up at the airport and surprise!, if they are paying a deep-discount fare, that could just…double. British Airways calls it its “simpler baggage policy.” This means that you will probably not be doing much shopping in UK unless you can squeeze your new found treasures into one bag with all of the woollies you will need for London in February.

Baggage, by the way, is a major cost and this may be a sign of things to come. Spirit Airlines in the US is starting to charge $10 per checked bag. But $470?. With British Airways passengers, again, are caught holding the bag.