Dominick Dunne on His Daughter's Murder

This story moved me like nothing. I was reading the story on the tube and suddenly it became very dusty. 

As the old quote goes, no man should have to bury his child. That would be painful enough. But to have my child murdered? And then to sit through a trial like this? That would require the patience and forbearance of a saint. I wouldn't have been able to do so. My little princess being hurt? Wouldn't disembowelling and then shoving the living carcass into a diving chamber at full blast be an apt response? 

Dominick Dunne on His Daughter's Murder | Vanity Fair
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1984/03/dunne198403?printable=true

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Crime and Punishment

Justice

A father’s account of the trial of his daughter’s killer.

It was the beginning of a long hot summer. I flew to Los Angeles on July 5, 1983, for an indefinite stay. Throughout the flight from New York I engaged in diligent conversation with the stranger next to me, postponing as long as possible facing the feelings of dread within me. My two sons, Griffin and Alex, had preceded me out from New York. Alex, the younger one, met me at the airport, and we drove into Beverly Hills to the house where my former wife, Ellen Griffin Dunne, called Lenny, lives. Griffin was already there. It is not the house we lived in as a family. It is smaller and on one level. Lenny has multiple sclerosis and is confined to a wheelchair. We were gathering, a family again, for a murder trial.

The first time I saw Lenny she was getting off a train at the railroad station in Hartford, Connecticut. She was ravishing, and I knew that instant that I would marry her if she would have me. We had a large wedding at her family’s ranch in Nogales, Arizona, in 1954, and after living briefly in New York, we moved to Beverly Hills, where I worked for twenty-five years in television and films. We had five children, two of whom died when they were only a few days old. Long divorced, we have, rightly or wrongly, never become unmarried. Often I have felt through the years that our lives might have been better if we had just stuck out the difficult years of our marriage, but I do not know if she would agree with that. We never venture into the realm of what might have been. I refer to her in conversation as my wife, never my ex-wife, and there is not a day in which she does not occupy my thoughts for some period of time. We communicate regularly and mail each other clippings we cut out of newspapers, and I no longer resent, as I once did, addressing her as Mrs. E. Griffin Dunne rather than as Mrs. Dominick Dunne.

When the telephone in my New York apartment woke me up at five o’clock in the morning on October 31, 1982, I sensed as I reached for the receiver that disaster loomed. Detective Harold Johnston of the Los Angeles Homicide Bureau told me that my twenty-two-year-old daughter, Dominique, was near death at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. I asked him if he had notified my wife. He said he was calling from her house. Lenny got on the phone and said, “I need you.”

“What happened?” I asked, afraid to hear.

“Sweeney,” she answered.

“I’ll be on the first plane.”

Our Orgastic Future

An interesting article son on how bonobos are forcing us to change how we look at how we evolved. It looks like while we have evolved from chimps, we still have a way to go before we teach bonobos. At least in some behavioural patterns. 

Take the human distaste for homosexuality. Religious thick heads. Right wing morons. And other assorted idiots hate gays. Why? No intellectual coherent answer. Saying that god said so just tells me that you are simply a moron who does not have the capacity to think for themselves. In other words, they are below living beings. Thick as a stone.  Remember son, libertarianism. Liberalism. Individual rights. As long as your exercise of your rights does not impinge on somebody else's rights, you do what you want. 

Love

Baba

Our Orgastic Future - Lapham’s Quarterly
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/our-orgiastic-future.php?page=all

Precisely when the ancient primates who preceded us Homo sapiens actually turned the corner to become human is one of those running battles in anthropology. Theorists scrutinize the long arc of gradual evolution to find a slight nick in the curve and there, it’s argued, our glorious ascent begins: when we began to walk upright, when we grunted out the first phonemes of speech, when we fabricated the earliest tools. Simply invoke the phrase “savannas of Africa” and inside our minds blooms a tiny movie, the tale of humanity’s bloody contest with and eventual triumph over nature somewhere around the time we left the security of dense jungles for the more progressive world flourishing at the forest’s edge.

This little drama, our secular genesis myth, divides early humanity into male hunter-gatherers and fireside female domestics. The men boldly marched out each morning with their spears and clubs to bring down a mammoth, while the women tended the fire and kept up the stores of food and clothing. Some twenty thousand years ago, life was basically the painting Neanderthal by Frank Frazetta. It’s so easy to flatter ourselves with this cartoon—hunting aurochs and taking down mammoths sounds strong and macho, but alternate theories have long suggested that a great deal of early protein probably came from more manageable prey, like vermin or deer. Spearing rabbits wouldn’t inspire Frazetta, nor, apparently, the Paleolithic artists at Lascaux, either. Which is why we’ve been spinning some version of this PR story ever since the Aurignacian-Perigordian people of southern France first scratched the smooth walls of a cave with a piece of bone.

A recent theory from Robert Sussman and Donna Hart holds that perhaps a great deal of our finest human traits may well have been refined by our ability to “evade predators.” According to scientific estimates, Sussman and Hart argue, some “6 percent to 10 percent of early humans were preyed upon according to evidence that includes teeth marks on bones, talon marks on skulls, and holes in a fossil cranium into which sabertooth cat fangs fit,” and so we were under intense evolutionary pressure to develop a different kind of skill: running away. “Many of our modern human traits, including those of cooperation and socialization,” may have come from escaping predators, not hunting them. The glorious history of Homo sapiens may have less in common with the feral troglodytes found in The Clan of the Cave Bear than with Brave Sir Robin from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Wilful Ignorance – the case of Allah Hafiz

Note the usage of Allah hafiz son. Don't say anything to them but you know that they are people who don't know their culture and more importantly are suffering from an inferiority complex. The number of people who are more Arab than Arabs or claiming descent from the prophet are legion.  Fascinating. Heh. 

that said, the little I know of Urdu and Farsi leaves me constantly amazed. The amount of interactions we have had with Iran and its glorious culture is amazing. Speak to any Iranian and see how they react to Arabs but that’s just me being naughty. More seriously, I would say that a very significant part of the cultural history of India, specially with respect to the Mughal Empire, has a huge debt to pay to Iran and Farsi. Is that why India keeps on helping Iran with its sanctions? :)

Love

Baba. 

Wilful Ignorance | OPEN Magazine
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/arts-letters/wilful-ignorance#.UeVg_5QfKpw.facebook

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20 July 2013

Urdu originated as a mix of several languages spoken during the Sultanate era in Delhi. Those who reject the language now are rejecting their own legacy

BY Omair Ahmed EMAIL AUTHOR(S)

Tagged Under | Delhi | legacy | Urdu

LIFE & LETTERS 

Urdu was an eclectic mix of Turki, Farsi, Braj, Khadi Boli and other local dialects that emerged during the Sultanate era in Delhi and its environs from the 12th century onwards.

I know that it is a moral failing, but I have never been able to summon any sympathy for the ignorant. In this day and age there are so many ways and means of getting information that it takes a great deal of effort to stay ignorant. Those who stay without knowledge in today’s world are those who have made an effort not to know, and it is difficult to sympathise with this.

One example of such wilful ignorance is the increasing use of the term ‘Allah hafez’ among South Asian Muslims. This is a twisting of the Farsi term ‘Khudahafez’, which translates as ‘May God take care of you’ and is used as goodbye. In fact, ‘goodbye’ is itself a contraction of the old English term ‘God be with ye’, so it’s an almost exact translation. But for some people, ‘khudahafez’ no longer suffices, and instead of ‘May God take care of you’, they prefer to say, ‘May Allah take care of you’.

It is a distinction without a difference. ‘Khuda’ is Farsi for ‘God’ and the Arabic term ‘Allah’ is a contraction of the words ‘al ilah’—or ‘the god’. Insisting on ‘Allah, not khuda’, thus, is the equivalent of insisting on ‘God, not God’. At best, it signals a preference for Arabic instead of Farsi. What sounds silly is when an Arabic term ‘Allah’ is forced into a Farsi phrase, leaving it neither Farsi nor Arabic but a mockery of both.

So how did the Catholics respond to evolution?

A fascinating article.

This article discusses Catholic responses to evolution between 1859, the year of publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and 2009, the year in which the scientific world celebrated its 150th anniversary. Firstly, I will discuss how the Vatican initially responded to evolution in the period between 1859 and 1907, the year in which Pope Pius X issued the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis. Secondly, I will explore the responses of Catholic authorities and intellectuals and identify the local factors that influenced their responses. Also, I will demonstrate that, gradually, Catholics have shifted towards a more lenient position concerning evolution. Thirdly, I will demonstrate that, in the end, the Vatican has complied with this pattern. In general, this article shows that not only Protestants, but Catholics too have struggled to come to terms with evolution and evolutionary theory and that local factors had an impact on these negotiations.

One laughs at people who do not believe in Evolution. Seriously, no? they belong at the same level of people who believe the world is flat. But then, this is quite common. I mean, I heard somebody talk about how mountains had pegs inside them. No, seriously. Here’s the argument.

See those troughs? those are supposed to be pegs. Now I studied geography at the masters level while I was preparing for the IAS and my mum’s a professor of Geography. Do believe I have a nodding acquaintance with geography, plate tectonics and geomorphology. Here are few schematics which you may find more appropriate.

Ok so lets see some siesmological evidence on the Himalayas.

This is a seismic perspective of Yunnan South West China, the Eastern Himalayas. a depth of 17-56kms. Can you see pegs? If you are interested in mucking around with this topic, here’s a great overview. A step exists, but no pegs I am afraid.

Here’s another cross section.

So what does the blessed people say? I quote from the Islamic site:

This is how the Quran has described mountains.  God has said in the Quran:

Have We not made the earth as a bed, and the mountains as pegs?  (Quran, 78:6-7)

Modern earth sciences have proven that mountains have deep roots under the surface of the ground (see figure 9) and that these roots can reach several times their elevations above the surface of the ground.²  So the most suitable word to describe mountains on the basis of this information is the word ‘peg,’ since most of a properly set peg is hidden under the surface of the ground.  The history of science tells us that the theory of mountains having deep roots was introduced only in the latter half of the nineteenth century.³

Mountains also play an important role in stabilizing the crust of the earth.⁴  They hinder the shaking of the earth.  God has said in the Quran:

And He has set firm mountains in the earth so that it would not shake with you... (Quran, 16:15)

Likewise, the modern theory of plate tectonics holds that mountains work as stabilizers for the earth.  This knowledge about the role of mountains as stabilizers for the earth has just begun to be understood in the framework of plate tectonics since the late 1960’s.⁵

Could anyone during the time of the Prophet Muhammad  have known of the true shape of mountains?  Could anyone imagine that the solid massive mountain which he sees before him actually extends deep into the earth and has a root, as scientists assert?  A large number of books of geology, when discussing mountains, only describe that part which is above the surface of the earth.  This is because these books were not written by specialists in geology.  However, modern geology has confirmed the truth of the Quranic verses.

heh. Anyway, that was funny, I was hiccupping with laughter when I finally managed to close my mouth. But then when people believe in this kind of stuff as a faith item, then one cannot say anything, you can believe that the moon is made of green cheese and that’s fine. But don't give me the bumph about it being scientific. But then the argument remains, remember people who believe in the infallibility of religion go about doing some pretty bad things. We have seen so many examples of how people committed genocide because of religion down the ages. One chap even got sentenced to life in prison for doing that in Bangladesh. These are the people who believe in crap like this.

So how did the Catholics end up reconciling evolution with religion? It took time. It took almost a century since the publication of the On the Origin of Species in 1859 till middle of the last century for the Vatican to reconcile itself with Evolution even though it has serious issues still with evolution of human morality and intelligence. Similarly Islam and other religions will also evolve. If not, people will write more books like this and people will foam at the mouth like here. read the reviews of the people who object to the book. Hilarious. Before you object, there are other books like this, like this one for christians, and this one and this one for Hindus. Here’s an interesting one about Buddhism.

They had a project manager for the Duomo and Pantheon

I shared this article with the team the other day. I quote the abstract

This paper narrates the project management of the construction of the Florence Duomo by Filippo Brunelleschi in the fifteenth century. This was the most significant dome project in Europe in 1300 years, and possibly the most significant, innovative and complex project of the Renaissance era (Colombo and Lanzavecchia, 1997). It still stands as the largest brick dome ever built. In order to achieve what seemed technically impossible at the time, Brunelleschi researched and adapted the construction and project management of the Pantheon in Rome in the second century. The paper allows us in turn to learn both product and process innovation from this case study, both of which are essential to contemporary project management practice. The case is valuable in understanding key drivers of project management success, and illustrates the substantial potential for learning, and therefore knowledge transfer, from previous historical projects and experiences.

So I am a project manager as well, I deliver change. But even so, I cannot imagine project managing something like this.

this is the Pantheon. Well, the painting is better…the photographs don't show a good perspective. Massive structure. While I was there, I was dumbstruck…what an amazing building

And then the Duomo, I haven't seen this but its on my list, what an extraordinary building as well.

Now these architects and project managers are some to look up to! brilliant. One day I will deliver something like this I hope when I grow up!

Colleges’ Stealth Tax on Family Savings

Its just recently that the UK (specifically England) has started charging for college education. Now its up to £9k per year (ouch!). But here’s an interesting perspective and connection to the savings rate in the USA. I quote:

Consider two young people who have identical potential for success in college based on high-school grades, test scores and so on. Let’s say both are accepted at an upscale private school costing $50,000 a year, or $200,000 for four years. Both kids come from moderately prosperous families with $125,000 in annual income. Student A comes from a family that saved a lot for college by scrimping, buying a modest $200,000 house and paying it off. This family has managed to accumulate $100,000 to defray much of their child’s college costs.

Student B comes from a big-spending family that has a $350,000 house with a big mortgage, and a vacation condo and nice cars, all bought with borrowed money. This family has no college-savings account as a consequence.

Colleges exploit this situation with the assistance of the federal government’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid form, which requires the student to give detailed family financial and other personal information -- income, debts, alimony payments, number of other dependent children and their age, and so on. The college uses this information to determine what the student will pay (up to the $50,000 sticker price).

Tuition Discounts

My guess, based on considerable anecdotal evidence, is that the student from the free-spending family will get a tuition discount of perhaps $25,000, while Student A will get only $10,000. Because that will probably apply for four years, Student A will end up paying $60,000 more than Student B -- solely because of the $100,000 in accumulated savings. The college is imposing the equivalent of a 60 percent tax on the income saved for college.

Moreover, to save $100,000 for college, Student A’s parents would probably have to earn about $150,000 because of taxes. So out of $150,000 in earnings, their child gets only $40,000 closer to paying for college than Student B.

Between real taxes and the private tax imposed by the college’s anti-savings policies, the financially prudent family has to pay more than 73 percent of earnings, a crushing burden that the free-spending family avoids by consuming, rather than saving their money.

But that isn’t all. Student B is forced to borrow more via the college-loan program, which the federal government subsidizes. The implicit value of that loan subsidy is greater to Student B than to Student A -- the federal government implicitly discriminates against those who are frugal and fiscally responsible. This doesn’t even include other anti-saving provisions in federal tax law, such as the impact of double taxation of income at the corporate and individual level.

I was kicking this around and it sort of making sense. This is an interesting situation. I am still struggling with whether or not I should fund my child’s education or let him fund it himself with his savings and debt. Leave aside the issue of means testing (which currently doesn't apply to fees but does apply to maintenance grants).  At this moment, the repayment rate is about inflation plus 3%. Say 5%. frankly, from a pure financial perspective, its better for him to go into debt and then use the investments to get a return which will generally be higher than this rate. There you go, arbitrage zindabad.

Have your lettuce, it will put lead in your pencil

I didn't know this! I quote:

Lettuce has been harvested for millenia—it was depicted by ancient Egyptians on the walls of tombs dating back to at least 2,700 B.C. The earliest version of the greens resembled two modern lettuces: romaine, from the French word “romaine” (from Rome), and cos lettuce, believed to have been found on the island of Kos, located along the coast of modern day Turkey. 

But in Ancient Egypt around 2,000 B.C., lettuce was not a popular appetizer, it was an aphrodisiac, a phallic symbol that represented the celebrated food of the Egyptian god of fertility, Min. (It is unclear whether the lettuce’s development in Egypt predates its appearance on the island of Kos.) The god, often pictured with an erect penis in wall paintings and reliefs was also known as the “great of love” as he is called in a text from Edfu Temple. The plant was believed to help the god “perform the sexual act untiringly.”

I think teenagers will be more happy to eat this if they are told that its going to help them boink!

I saw Min in the Petrie Museum the other weekend.

people were not very happy with the display of the erect Phallus and when it was first displayed in the early 20th century, it was covered by a label!

Interestingly, for many many years, the idea of seeing the nude was anathema to Europe. We have so many instances that nude statues or even examples of Min like the above had the phallus hidden. I came across another article here. The abstract:

This essay proposes that we question the current understanding of the Italian Renaissance nude by examining contemporaries’ perceptions of nakedness. Despite the importance of the nude for the development of Western art, there have been few studies that consider how the revival of the nude form in  fifteenth-century Italy was understood by people at the time.Most scholars, understandably, see the new fashion for portraying naked figures in the fifteenth century as a direct reflection of the enthusiasm for classical antiquity during this era. Without denying the crucial importance of antique precedents, I wish here to investigate another possibility: that travellers’ accounts of naked natives encountered on European voyages of exploration, particularly those to sub-Saharan Africa, influenced the creation of what has been called a ‘Renaissance anthropology’ – debates about the nature of mankind.This provided a new conceptual filter through which the nude figure was seen – and in some cases, these accounts may have directly affected the iconography of otherwise puzzling images.

Here’s an example of an iconic image

Masaccio, Expulsion from
Paradise, 1426. Fresco, 208 ×
88cm. Florence: Brancacci
Chapel, Santa Maria del
Carmine

Interesting how our ideas of nudity change…this painting is in a chapel! So the painting was painted in 1425. Then around the 18th century, Cosimo Medici asked for fig leaves to be painted on the genitals to hide them. Then in 1980, the painting was cleaned and the fig leaves removed.

Welcome to Mogadishu

In one way son, Somalia should be a libertarian wet dream. Total or near total absence of the state. Which should leave individual rights all right? Self defence. Self reliance? And as this article says, the economy is ok with companies flourishing in the absence if the state. 

But then on the flip side you have a classic example of how societies cannot function when the mob takes over. It's the state that provides security. And that leads to durable institutions. Take the example of Egypt and Pakistan. Pakistan just completed one parliamentary term, despite the govt being totally corrupt. The new govt was sworn in. Best way forward. Institutions take time to build. At this moment, I have more hope for Pakistan than Egypt. Which basically has screwed itself. The promising beginning even with that idiotic Morsi was stopped in the middle. Now the secular liberal military backed idiots have basically created a bigger injury to Egypt than what Morsi and his beards ever could. 

Egypt has deep structural problems. And to think that a liberal secular new pm will be able to resolve exhibits a dangerous level of blindness. The incoming govt now has to deal with a pissed off large part of the electorate and the same if not worse economic and social problems, the financial aid from the gulf not withstanding. And given that its been established that mobs on the street can bring down governments for bad governance, the brothers will and can do the same. Result? Egypt's people have made a huge mistake. But revolutions,while exciting, take a very long time to repair the damage. All I can think is the quote, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. 

Love

Baba

Welcome to Mogadishu - FT.com
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e0c521b4-c8bd-11e2-acc6-00144feab7de.html#slide0

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Despite the threats from Islamist militants, the Somali capital is bursting back to life

©Petterik Wiggers

Boys repairing fishermen’s nets on Mogadishu seafront

You can see where their heads hit the roof,” says a member of Somalia’s bomb squad. He is showing me pictures of the latest co-ordinated suicide attack. Even in the mess that mingles body parts of victims and perpetrators, the explosives team finds it easy to collect a suicide bomber’s DNA: you just look up. Red stains, splattered flesh and a pair of earphones are all that’s left of two al-Shabaab bombers who – posing as soldiers of the national army – detonated themselves at the entrance of a courthouse in the capital, Mogadishu in April.

After the initial explosions, more gunmen wearing suicide vests entered the building and went from room to room, assassinating people before blowing themselves up when they ran out of ammunition. Court workers cowered in rooms before escaping by ladder; altogether 60 people were killed, estimates the man showing me the photos. The attack was the work of Islamist militants, allied to al-Qaeda, who emerged in the mid-2000s as the biggest threat to Somalia – 15 years after the former Italian colony started tearing itself apart in a civil war which has yet to end.

Celebrating Volunteers at Home Start Hillingdon

So we had the annual summer celebration of our volunteers at Home start Hillingdon. Its a wonderful occasion, we see the amazing ladies and gentlemen who have their own children but also take time out of their busy lives to help families in distress. More interestingly and very thankfully, we had the Mayor of Hillingdon who popped over to give the certificates to the volunteers. Along with his utterly delightful and fragrant lady wife, Mrs. Mayor who was wonderful. She just made sure we were all comfortable and both went around to each table making them comfortable.

As soon as I get the photo’s, I will post them. The stories they tell about the families we support. Wonderful people, all. Here’s a great story by a volunteer. We also celebrated the 10 year anniversary of our charity administrator. Wonderful lady, she is a quiet lady, but everything else is well managed and runs and hums smoothly. She is amazing, very impressed. We are going through a spot of recruitment for the charity. Are you interested to become a trustee? Let me know.

In other news, popped over to Manchester to lecture a wee bit. Also working on bits and bobs with Essex and Swansea. I realised that I didn't do much with Disha for some time now, but have asked Ma to find out if they need something, perhaps a library? that would be good. Also attended a mentoring session for start-up technology companies wanting to sell into the financial sector, I'm most probably going to end up mentoring couple of companies. What else? Mentoring of students from London, Essex, Manchester and Swansea goes on.

And I'm hoping we can do something with the abandoned animals at the Mayhew with the firm…lets see if I can arrange for a bit of a fund raiser at work..And here’s a great post on the Mayhew blog. See the eyes of this little doggie.

This is her story

Help Us Stop the Cruelty

 

It is generally said that Britain is a ‘nation of animal lovers’ but, sadly, The Mayhew feels we must question this claim in the face of growing levels of animal neglect and abandonment.

Instead of more animals finding happy homes we are admitting more stray cats and dogs, receiving more calls about animal abandonment and finding only a few microchipped animals that can be reunited with a caring owner.

Our Animal Welfare Officers and Clinic staff are helping increasing numbers of pet owners whose personal or financial circumstances have left them unable to care for their cat or dog and who need assistance with basic, preventative care.
This country’s financial difficulties touch all areas of everyday life and this is affecting innocent animals, with pets increasingly being considered ‘non-essential’ when it comes to spending money. The Mayhew strives to help both animals and their carers without judging their circumstances. We encourage owners to come to us for assistance to try and avoid devastating cases like Deirdre and Buddy; two animals who learnt first-hand exactly what it means to become surplus to requirement.

Make a one-off donation to help us fight animal cruelty

Set up a small monthly donation to The Mayhew

Deirdre’s story
Deirdre arrived in late April after she was found struggling and alone on the streets of London. Our vets estimated that she was around 13 years old and in dire need of medical attention. Without identification, there was no one around to provide this elderly girl with the care and treatment she needed. Deirdre was very malnourished, extremely weak in both her back legs and reluctant to stand up or move around. She was distressed, confused and clearly in pain. Even after pain relief medication, some tempting food, a warm bed and plenty of TLC, she was still at rock bottom.

Our charity’s ethos is to help every animal we can and so, regardless of her age and poor condition, our vets carried out a thorough health check and tests to see if we could give this girl a second chance at happiness. Sadly, in addition to a range of other debilitating illnesses, Deirdre’s tests indicated that cancer was likely. Despite the security, safety and comfort she was given at The Mayhew Deirdre simply refused to eat. Already withdrawn she shut down even further and it became evident that she no longer wished to face the life that had treated her so cruelly.

Our round-the-clock care ensured that Deirdre was comfortable and given the palliative care needed for her condition. However in the face of her mental and physical deterioration and, with recovery no longer being an option, our vets took the decision to give a peaceful and dignified end to a life that had become engulfed in suffering and misery.

It is always hard for us at The Mayhew when we see cases like these and even harder to tell our supporters about them, however these are the realities that we are dealing with on an increasingly frequent basis. It is vital that we continue to be there for those who cannot help themselves, who need us right at the end in order to bring them peace and relieve their pain.
But it is not only those at the end of their lives that need our help. We must also be there for animals who have hardly been in this world longer than the blink of an eye but who are already struggling with debilitating pain.

 

criminal!

Top 20 most visited museums in the world

From here. Sighs, so much to see and so little time

1. Louvre, Paris, France, 9,720,000
2. National Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C., 7,600,000
3. National Air and Space Museum, Washington D.C., 6,800,000
4. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 6,116,000
5. British Museum, London, 5,576,000
6. Tate Modern, London, 5,319,000
7. National Gallery, London, 5,164,000
8. Vatican Museums, Vatican City, 5,065,000
9. American Museum of Natural History, New York, 5,000,000
10. Natural History Museum, London, 4,936,000
11. National Museum of American History, Washington D.C., 4,800,000
12. National Palace Museum, Taipei, 4,361,000
13. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 4,200,000
14. National Museum of China, Beijing, 4,100,000
15. Centre Pompidou, Paris, 3,800,000
16. Musee d’Orsay, Paris, 3,579,000
17. Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 3,232,000
18. National Museum of Korea, Seoul, 3,128,000
19. Geological Museum of China, Beijing, 3,000,000
20. Science Museum, London 2,990,000

ok, i have to get myself to Washington and Beijing. And Taipei..well, to their museums anyway lol