On a recent trip I noticed that my wife had one suitcase for clothes and another suitcase devoted wholly to shoes. No, her name is not Imelda. Her name is Elizabeth.

Since I habitually travel with one pair of black loafers and one pair of brown loafers, this seemed a mite excessive, but not surprising. The floor of Elizabeth's closet looks like it belongs to a well-shod centipede. So I suppose it's only natural that a large segment of that shoe population should travel with her.

Men and women appear to have significantly different shoe needs.

But not since Ferdinand and Imelda fled the Philippines leaving its economy in tatters and a closet stuffed with over 4,000 shoes has footwear been the focus of so much attention and concern. Now we have people smuggling explosives on airplanes in …