Thursday started out in a bit of frustration, but turned out okay after all. The plan was to head out by tram to the Naval Museum, then double back to one of the university museums to see a map show, and then wander around the Galata area. The first two were a bust, sadly. First […]
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Traveling to Istanbul (II)–the Harem and other delights
Whenever I want to learn about a place, or a different time, I usually go the mystery route—find some good mysteries about whatever I want to know about, and read them. Sometimes this is more a happy accident than by design. Such was the case with Jason Goodwin’s series about Istanbul in the 1830s, with […]
Traveling to Istanbul (I)
This is farther east and still in Europe than I’ve ever been, outside of Moscow—farther than Bucharest, farther than Athens. A lot like both, though—even though the place has been Islamic for five hundred years, it still feels pretty Orthodox as well—you can’t just disappear that 1,300 years of Christianity. What it mainly feels like, […]
The La Jolla Canyon Run: down and out in the Malibu hills
I am flying across America to participate in a race that isn’t. The race is the La Jolla Canyon Run—31 miles of trails, up 5000 feet of elevation gain. It’s traditionally held in early March in the Santa Monica Mountains just north of Malibu. This year it was cancelled because the organizers got crossways with […]
Postcard from Edge of the Earth: Tucson
We are a family that thinks “relaxing vacation” is an oxymoron. We have climbed mountains, kayaked, cycled and scuba dived our way around the world. Even though we’re no longer the youngest and strongest on these tours, my wife and I were pretty confident this year when her coach convinced us to sign up for […]
U2′s music and Seussian trees: a visit to Joshua Tree National Park
As beautiful as the landscape is as I near Joshua Tree National Park, the picture somehow doesn’t seem complete. Where are Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr.? Their 1987 album first introduced me to Joshua trees—those desert-stunted twisty trees that look like Dr. Seuss might have drawn them out here in the […]
Uganda Journal: heading home
Standing on the Equator, I’m as centered as I’ve felt during my entire journey. A few feet to my left, in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s a sign that says “Did you know?” with a shallow bowl that drains into a bucket. In the Southern Hemisphere: same thing. Did you know, in the north, water drains […]
Uganda Journal: Africa’s darkest heart
Final words, written in shit: “I never for my husband was killed….” Scrawled on concrete, marred by blood: “Cry far help me the dead.” The lost voices of 300,000 dead, forgotten beneath the earth. These are Idi Amin’s torture chambers—five concrete bunkers burrowed into the mountainside beneath Mengo Palace in Kampala. Amin, the notorious dictator […]
Uganda Journal: making matooke
Because he’s back home from secondary school for the holiday, Simon is in charge of the kitchen at the Bethlehem School this month. Although only seventeen, he’s easily one of the best cooks whose food I’ve ever eaten. “In Uganda, it’s considered a disgrace for a man to cook unless he trains to be a […]
Uganda Journal: a walk to the well
The well at Nakagongo sits in a low valley, with a web of trails that lead down to it from the surrounding hillsides. It’s not an especially grueling walk and not especially steep, but it’s a five-minute hike downhill from the road. On days like today, when it rained for a couple hours in the […]
Toilets of the world
Between August and December of 2012, I traveled from the United States to six different countries. Before I left, several people asked, “what will the toilets be like where you’re going?” I decided to let you all see for yourselves. These are the toilets I used around the world:
Uganda Journal: the double tragedies of Kasensero
The Rwanda Genocide Memorial in Kasensero sits high atop a limestone bluff that overlooks Lake Victoria, which shimmers gray-blue against the horizon a half-dozen kilometers away. In 1994, the bodies of more than 10,000 genocide victims washed up on Victoria’s shores after floating nearly a hundred kilometers downriver from the killing grounds in Rwanda. The […]
Uganda Journal: the safari (part two of two)
The second of two parts The first thing we see on our boatride along the shores of Lake Mburo is a pair of African fish eagles, which look like streamlined bald eagles but with the white extending from the head and neck down to the chest. Our park ranger, Moses, tries to fill us in […]
Uganda Journal: the safari (part one of two)
The colonial King of Ankole, Omugabe, loved his impala. The capital of Uganda, Kampala, had been named for the graceful antelopes—but the growing population in the city began to squeeze the impala out of their habitat, and they were being hunted relentlessly. The king knew he had to protect the impala he so dearly loved. […]
Uganda Journal: the sunrise
I know it seems counter-intuitive to put a disco on the first floor of a hotel, but someone in Kyotera apparently thought it was an excellent idea. I have a corner room, and one of my windows opens on the same side of the hotel as the disco, three floors and a thousand thumping beats […]
Uganda Journal: the market
One of the best ways to see how the locals live, I’ve found, is to visit the market. Alas, on such a trip, words fail me—mostly because I don’t always know what I’m looking at and a language barrier prevents a lot of question-asking. So I’ll let some pictures do the talking this time:
S&R Honors
Click here to learn more about past honorees...- “Useful Enemies”: U.S. admitted not just Nazis after WWII, but their sadistic collaborators
- The time a source has to respond to request for comment? Virtually none.
- Profiling the Tea Party: In defense of the IRS. Sorta. Or not.
- Saturday Video Roundup: “Imagine the Band,” by John Lennon and Wings
- The Rest is Noise (6)—Descent into the Maelstrom
- Mystery Unraveled: How a white, moderate, married, churchgoing, middle-class, middle-aged woman could vote for Obama
- An open letter to Burt Rutan, regarding his WSJ commentary on human-caused climate disruption
- Meet the men of Match.com: Really, guys, are you serious?
- Climate scientists still besieged
- Pelosi on Bush: “He’s not worth impeaching”
- Carnival of Cities for 15 May 2013 | Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff: […] Turkey Scholars & Rogues present…
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Samuel Smith: I try not to draw too many conclusions about peopl…
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Frank Dilatush: Sam, allow me a moment of off point please. In a s…
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Cat White: "To him, obviously, the Tea Party is a viable poli…
