Category Archives: Uncategorized

Insects and me

My long history with insects has mostly been one of unrequited love. They always seemed to want to crawl all over me, but the feeling was not mutual. My earliest memory of insects was playing placidly in our leafy suburban … Continue reading

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The Danger Down the Road

The current controversy over NSA oversight of, well, everything, seems a bit shortsighted. What worries me is not that the government is monitoring everything everyone is writing or saying electronically (still technologically impossible, given available resources) or that they are … Continue reading

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Chiqui Gone But Not Forgotten

Chiqui FeldmanA Prince Among Pussies, a King Among Cats According to several of the world’s great religions, and backed by abundant empirical data, life as we know it consists largely of pain and suffering, salted with moments of enlightened inspiration … Continue reading

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Once Upon a Time in China

BEIJING — In a bizarre move, China’s television censors have issued new guidelines that all but ban TV dramas featuring time travel. In a statement (available here in Chinese) dated March 31, the State Administration for Radio, Film & Television said that … Continue reading

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London Burning

LONDON — The rioting and looting that convulsed poorer sections of London over the weekend spread Monday to at least eight new districts in the metropolitan area and broke out for the first time in Britain’s second-largest city, Birmingham, in … Continue reading

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Riot Redux

RICHARD SENNETT and SASKIA SASSEN from the New York Times say it much better than I did:  America is in many ways different from Britain, but the two countries today are alike in their extremes of inequality, and in the … Continue reading

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Authentic Ecuadorian Viche

This is the true, original recipe for shrimp “Viche”, a superlative seafood soup found only in the Ecuadorian province of Manabi, on the Pacific coast of South America. Although this version uses fresh shrimp, it is also made with crab, … Continue reading

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Manta Diary 3: Why are we here?

Ah, Manta. A jewel by the sea, combining (almost) all that I love about modern South America: an alternative reality to the Northern half of the continent, retaining that unique American robust and irreverent forward motion yet somehow sedate, private, … Continue reading

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The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of the Queen of the Highway

Although not a big country, Ecuador features sizable sections of the three main ecosystems found in South America: the dry coastal plain, the towering Andes mountains, and the vast Amazon jungle.  The roads connecting these environments are among the most … Continue reading

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Manta Diary post 2

This morning it was still dark outside when I awoke to the sound of a downpour on a tin roof next door, and the smell of a fresh rain rinsing off the dry dust that habitually covers this sunny resort … Continue reading

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Dowbrigade South Online Again

After a week on the road, we are setting up shop in a lovely little apartment, three blocks from the beach in the midsized city (pop. 200,000) of Manta, Ecuador. We should be reachable here for the next 5 months, … Continue reading

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The Boot Knows No Bounds

By JOHN F. BURNS Published: August 26, 2010 in the New York Times LONDON — With his canary yellow Ferrari at rest in the forecourt of one of the most expensive hotels in London’s upscale West End, its eight-cylinder, race-bred … Continue reading

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