EVERY 100 years, Mexico seems to have a rendezvous with violence as again the country gathered on Wednesday night for the ceremony of the “grito” — the anniversary of the Revolution…the call to arms that began the war for independence from Spain in 1910. As they have on every Sept. 15 for 200 years, Mexicans […]

A bit of information about the formation of the individual and national consciousness of people in the U.S. Sorry for length, but this is mostly for people who are not “United Staters.” :)) We all know that the US was settled by people who had already rejected religious and political persecution. My own Polish great […]

I read travel warnings and take them into consideration. They are useful if detailed, recent and taken together with other sources of information. But in my opinion they are primarily a cover-your-ass thing. They are used by tour companies and exchange programs for the same reason…to mitigate against extreme criticism and lawsuits in case anything […]

New York Times The Summer That Ended All Summers By JOSH WEIL Published: August 21, 2010 Leverett, Mass.

No one — not the doctor in Cairo with his egret-feather hair and bad-news eyes; not the spinal surgeon, with his broad Egyptian shoulders and eagerness for the knife — knew how it happened. It might have started during […]

As death toll rises, Mexico rethinks drug war strategy By TIM JOHNSON McClatchy Newspapers MEXICO CITY | The drug war in Mexico is at a crossroads. As the death toll climbs above 28,000, President Felipe Calderon confronts growing pressure to try a different strategy — some are even suggesting legalizing narcotics — to quell the […]

Then. How to read a book:

Now. How to read a computer:

As for me, the best kind of traveling for Pico Iyer, the travel writer, is when he is searching for something he never finds. “The physical aspect of travel is for me,” he says “the least interesting…what really draws me is the prospect of stepping out of the daylight of everything I know, into the […]

Taken from NarcoNews: The Real Battle for Oaxaca: Who is Permitted to Earn Money, and Where? “The lesser officials manage the street scene, but also the professionals, vendor bosses, who run a crew of ten or a dozen” By Nancy Davies Commentary from Oaxaca August 17, 2009

A plague of ambulatory vendors annoy the tourists sipping cappuccinos in […]

Wondering around in the Zocolo (plaza) Monday, my friend Paula, who has lived here before, was approached by some young girls with a questionaire for tourists and asked if she had been to the Guelaguetza…or if she had been to see the reenactment of the Princess Donaji legend or any other official  related event of […]

Futbol, as Spanish speaking countries call it, is the national game in Mexico and all Latin American countries and Oaxaca is no exception.  Americans call it soccer, I think mostly to distinguish the game played with a round ball from the game played with an oblong pointy one that refuses to roll on the ground […]

To all foreign men who visit Thailand in search of a beautiful Thai girl who will “love you long time.”

The video is good but the comments are best.

I have begun asking myself, why is it so hard to put aside our assumptions that we have the corner on the truth and the other guy is dead wrong. (besides ego of course.) I just read an essay in the NY Times by Erroll Morris, the filmmaker who made “Fog of War” (interview of […]

This cartoon originally appeared on womensEnews.org.  Check out more of the New Yorker cartoonist’s work at lizadonnelly.com (“How I Do and Don’t want to be Helen Thomas.”) and on her Open Salon blog . 89 year old Helen Thomas, a virtual institution in the Washington Press Corp, when ambushed by a rabbi, growled that Israel should get the hell […]

Embedding is disabled but remember this

LBJ election TV ad when Johnson ran against Barry Goldwater in 1964? 

It ran only once and then was banned.

The “Royalists” (PAD Party), also called the “Yellow Shirts,” supports the King of Thailand and is in opposition to the mostly up-country “Red Shirt” farmers who support ex-prime minister Thaksin who has been indicted for corruption and is in exile. The “Reds” charge “the Bangkok elites” with being condescending and derisive and too fond of […]