My buddy Dave had a running joke during our friend group's epic four-nation odyssey from Venice to Athens over two weeks: "You've seen one dusty old rock, you've seen them all."

Funny, but, of course, not at all true.

The trip took us to palaces, ancient ruins and towns that thrived millennia before this nation was a twinkle in our Founding Fathers' eyes, or anyone could imagine being mad about who played Helen of Troy in a telling of "The Odyssey."

We were more than 5,000 miles away, staring at some of the dustiest and oldest "rocks" I've ever seen, the day our nation celebrated its 250th birthday.

I was awed that day by Akrotiri of Thera (Santorini), the remains of a female-centric city founded roughly 7,000 years ago and abandoned after a volcanic eruption around 1600 BC. Ash helped preserve the frescoes, including the remarkable Akrotiri Boxing Boys, which we later saw at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

It was ironic to be in places where layers and layers of dust have been brushed away in the pursuit of understanding, considering the intellectual darkness enveloping our nation due to the push to bury the sins that still haunt us.

Racism, misogyny and other forms of intolerance are being fueled by those attempting to erase or rewrite recent history. And aside from the rich and often dismissed legacy of Indigenous people, everything about U.S. history is recent history.

As a result of the seemingly endless culture war, far too much energy is spent on the absurd in America. Lately, that includes fretting about the race and........

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