Islamic State is destroying the common patrimony of the human race

…Palmyra is one of a handful of places on the planet — along with Machu Picchu, Petra and the Taj Mahal — whose presence can't easily be conveyed through a camera lens. You don't get a proper sense of it from the Discovery Channel. You have to see the rosy pillars rising from the trackless desert for yourself.

The thought of those ancient remains under the sledgehammers of the jihadi iconoclasts is almost unbearable.…