While President Vladimir V. Putin prepares an awards ceremony for the F.S.B. agents responsible for killing Presdient Maskhadov, I can't help but think he is merely giving "Hero of Rossiya" medals to a group of toy soldiers. For the Russian federation is a directionless psuedo-democracy. It's (Russia)maligned and sidelined by the American "Neocons" who have designs on a transcaucasian oil pipeline in the context of their "Greater Middle East" initiative.
Putin is a diminutive tyrant with a Napoleon-complex. However, when Napoleon invaded Misr (Egypt), he converted to Islam, though nominally, as a matter of astute strategy. Napoleon, had an idea of how to run an effective campaign of colonisation. In comparison, Putin is replused by Islam, at least in his coarse public discourse. In part, I have to blame the lackluster populace of Russia for allowing a petty former East German KGB agent to scare them into re-electing him on the basis of him being a strong leader. If strength lies somewhere in genocide, then we must deem the masters of war king. That would make the military their genoicidaires, it's conscripts their cannon fodder, and the people the object of a mass extermination.

I came back from some lame job interviews in Manhattan today to turn on CNN International to learn that Aslan Maskhadov, Chechnya's only democratically elected president, had been killed.

The thing about being into the world of news is that if you wait today, most likely what you are thinking about will be gone in the proverbial tomorrow, be it the WTC or a prominent Chechen resistance leader. It's what separates photojournalism from virtually any other intellectual pursuit. You wait, you lose, and with that loss, the world itself has lost. If it can be believed, the whole of the Caucusus region may descend into the inferno. Perhaps hardly anyone on earth cares about the devasted Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, much less that one of it's leaders has fallen in a hail of Kalshnikov rounds.

I don't know where the Chechens, their Caucasian bretheren, or myself and anyone that claims to care are to go from here. Allah-o-Akbar!

I'm back here in Big City. The trip's over and it‘s time to gets busy. Spain is far away now and Africa even farther but the world is getting smaller and more integrated. On the short hop from Barça to Madrid this morning, I met gorgeous girl from Paraguay who was coming back from Nueva York to her work in Madrid. It felt like our conversation was the door to the beginning of another adventure. This past weekend was likely the best of my 20's all told but unspoken. Now I must once again face the dreadful rat race that is NYC. The only thing left for me here is to aquire the financial instruments and look toward the next adventure. Romance in Europe? Adventure in Congo? Roll on.

I‘ve just concluded the final day of this all too brief trip. I can‘t help but say it went out with a bit of a bang. I landed a late-front foot impossible @ MACBA which I something I can do under only the best of conditions (ie being super psyched). That plus a line up and off the main ledge and one last snap of the gap and it was off through the sketchy warrens of El Raval to get some “Russian Beer“ @ the Russian shop. Now it‘s time to party one last night in the Anarchy Hostel. I‘m going to miss this place...literally perhaps as I doubt it will still exist in 6 months as both the police and the city have been by grumbling about shutting the place down. Which, of course, is in part to our behavior and the racket of sound we create. Argh.. Right on! May I never forget this day.

My time in BCN is winding down but not getting any less wild as it comes to a close. The anarchy hostel is somehow ratcheting up the level of anarchy and the appearance of total sketchy guys is increasing in frequency and veracity. Yesterday my friend Greg got mixed up with some nutcase from La Rambla and helped the guy wire 600 €‘s to Bosnia in order to not get his ass kicked. There is always something dramatic transpiring and I‘m lucky to leave here with my precious iBook intact (the hostel laptop was stolen last week)...

Well it's been quite a while since I've typed a new entry. In fact an entire leg of trip has lapsed (Granada, Andalucia). Back in Barca now and it feels good. I've been bouncing around betweena few different hostels here an ended up in a bizarre new one called "New Hostel" appropirately enough. However since it's name an reputation haven't been established I'm dubbing it the "Anarchy Hostel Ramblas" and hoping it sticks. There's enough smoke in the common room for a Kiss concert pyrotechnician circa '78. But that's just the start of it....

Today I picked up the international edition of the guardian here in essaouira to read at one of the outdoor cafes in the main square. I was reading an article about the wretched rape and pillage ghost armies roaming around the eastern Congo. Sitting next to me was a young nouveau riché Moroccan couple which I noticed in part because they were speaking French rather than Arabic. I was reminded by the article in front of me and the couple next to me that Africa is a, no, the, continent of contradictions.

Well, I haven't been blogging since I discovered that I didn't have nearly the amount of money or time to complete the trip. On a more positive note, the Iraqi elections are tomorrow and I want everyone to get out there to the polls. I'm personally casting my ballot for Abdul Aziz Al Hakim from SCRI. If any of my Iraqi Chaldean (Catholic) Liquor store owning friends in San Diego are reading this (which I seriously doubt), get yourselves up to LA to cast your vote (which according to the NYTimes, as ethnic Iraqi emmigres, you can)!

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Above: My laundry hanging high above the Medina.

Essaouira was a cool breeze after the hustle and bustle of Marakech. While known best as being a chillout place on Morocco's well trodden tourist trail, for me it evoked some of the opening scenes from the film Black Hawk Down, where according

I left sleepy Chaouen very early the other morning and trudged 12 hours south to Marakech kind of on a whim. It was the Thursday before the end of Eid Al Adha and the owner of the guesthouse said if I want to move on it was either early thursday or then monday. I took the 1st bus south which was headed to Rabat, Morocco's semi modern capital. A Catalan stoner named Kiki was insisting that the Mauritanian visa be obtained in Rabat contrary to everything I had read about getting it in Casablanca....