As we’ve noted, sites honoring Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement abound, including his childhood home in Atlanta and the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where King was assassinated. We’re taking the day off to mark the holiday. We’ll be back tomorrow.

One of the wonders of traveling is encountering all kinds of languages, especially ancient tribal tongues that have endured the ravages of colonization and globalization. But researchers at the Enduring Voices Project say indigenous languages are dying at an alarming rate of one every two weeks. That means that at least half half of the 7,000 languages spoken today could disappear in 20 years, John Noble Wilford reports in the New York Times.

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Apparently, he must burn again. At the annual Burning Man arts festival in the Nevada desert, the 40-foot-tall wooden Burning Man effigy went up in flames early Tuesday morning, four days before the traditional bonfire was scheduled to occur. A San Francisco man is facing felony arson charges in connection with the fire. 

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The victims of a suspected al Qaeda suicide car bomb attack at a temple in Yemen include seven Spanish tourists and their two Yemeni drivers and guides. They were reportedly concluding a visit to the 3,000-year-old Queen of Sheba temple, a popular attraction in Marib, when the attack took place. Six other Spanish tourists and two Yemeni guides were wounded. Reports Reuters: “Security sources told Reuters earlier the attack followed an al Qaeda statement last week demanding the release of some of its members jailed in Yemen and warned of unspecified actions.”

Vonnegut’s books have enriched our travels. On the long drive from L.A. to Las Vegas, we particularly recommend the audio version of “Slaughterhouse-Five.”

Good news. According to a Detroit Free Press report: “The student and youth travel market is a huge 20% segment of all the travelers in the world. Among the fastest-growing segments, it includes not only college students age 25 and under, but increasing numbers of middle- and high-schoolers and even elementary children on group day or overnight school trips for band, choir, church, sports or science, civics and language classes.” While the article doesn’t identify a study to support the data, it also insitsts: “Children who start traveling when they are young become lifelong travelers. They are more likely to travel in high school. They’re more likely to study abroad in college. And they’re more likely to carry their love of travel into adulthood.” Ah, addicts, just like us.

Nearly every country has to have a little war tourism, right? The U.S. has Gettysburg. Cambodia has the Killing Fields. Now El Salvador wants in on the action. According to the AP, the country is making the most of its 12-year civil war, which ended in 1992 and left 75,000 dead. “For a fee, former guerrillas will take visitors on tours of former battlefields or mountain hideouts, while museums display war memorabilia,” a story reports. Among the top destinations is Perquin, a mountain town where FMLN guerillas once established their headquarters. Visitors can stroll the “Museum of the Revolution,” which features uniforms and what remains of Soviet weapons. El Salvador is apparently the first Central American country to build a tourism business around its civil war history. What’s the hold up, Nicaragua? 

The December issue of Northwest Airlines’ in-flight magazine features a cover story on Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony. Yes, the same Carmelo Anthony who was just suspended for taking part in a brawl during a game over the weekend. As a result, the airline has decided to pull the magazine off its planes and replace it with the January issue. As the airline said in a statement, “Northwest does not want to appear to condone in any way the behavior of some of the players during Saturday’s game, including Mr. Anthony.” We at World Hum salute the airline and would like show our solidarity: We won’t be publishing any travel stories by Mr. Anthony or any of the other players involved in the brawl. Sorry, Mr. Anthony, but you’ll have to send any travel stories you may or may not have written elsewhere.

The Biblical town of Bethlehem should be a pretty big tourist draw for Christians right about now, but in recent years, Israeli-Palestinian fighting has sunk tourism. Gone are the tens of thousands of pilgrims who arrived each month before the Palestinian uprising in 2000. And now, with just a couple of weeks to go before Christmas, the town is barely decorated and you can still find “Islamic Jihad” graffiti around. But according to the AP, the Hamas government has vowed to pitch in $50,000 to spruce up the town for visitors. As Diaa Hadid writes, “Islamic militants may be in charge, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be Christmas this year.”

News shorts for curious travelers.
Egypt
Pharaohs’ Tombs Trump Village Homes
Reports the New York Times: “Bulldozers moved Saturday into an Egyptian village near the Valley of the Kings in pursuit of a long-delayed effort to allow archaeologists to begin studying a wealth of tombs in the area.” More than 100 houses have been cleared in the last week. Interesting. In Los Angeles, they’d more likely destroy historic tombs to build new houses.

USA
What’s your travel terror score?
Did you know you had one? “Almost every person entering and leaving the United States by air, sea or land is assessed based on [Automated Targeting System’s] analysis of their travel records and other data, including items such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered,” the Associated Press reports. Creepy.

Spain
Bona tarda or buenas tardes?
The Los Angeles Times explores the pitched battle over languages in Catalonia. “Some ATMs in Spain offer a choice of six languages, four of which are the Spaniards’ own.”

Japan
Ping, Ka-Ching, Ka-Boom!
Money raised from Japan’s pachinko habit just might be supporting North Korea’s nuclear program, the Los Angeles Times reports. “The machines rake in more than $200 billion a year, some of which finds its way to North Korea.” As a result, some players are souring on the game.

USA
Bright lights, big city, mucho vino
Novelist Jay McInerney has a great side gig: traveling the world to write about wine for Home & Garden. Now, a number of those columns have been collected in a new book, A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine. His interest in wine “started with literature, really—as with so many other things,” he says in San Diego Reader. Among the inspirational books: Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” and Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited.”

Yikes. From the Guardian Unlimited: “British Airways passengers were being sought tonight after traces of radiation were found on two aircraft as part of the investigation into the death of a Russian former spy. The airline said very low levels of radiation were found as part of the investigation into the death last Thursday of Alexander Litvinenko, whose body had traces of polonium 210, a lethal radioactive substance.” British Airways officials believe “the risk to public health is low.”
* Add: AP reports that officials “drew up plans to contact thousands of airplane passengers”; three planes have been grounded. 

And holiday travel tips. Lots and lots of tips. It is one of the busiest travel days of the year in the U.S. and the start of a long weekend. We’ll be posting light in the next few days, but we’ll be back strong Monday.