Taloqan Donkeys
Lots of donkey riding going on in Taloqan. Obviously, in one of the poorest countries in the world, you don’t expect everyone to be cruising around in Toyotas, but it’s still always surprising to see guys riding donkeys through town.
Pictures and Words
Check out Nomadagraphs!
turn-of-the-century brownsville
Reunion Redux
So, after going to my first high school football game in ages (Nicholas’s first ever!), attending a family picnic on Saturday and dolling up for the official 20 year reunion dinner Saturday night, I have only one thing to say:…
The incident occurred last Friday, and the official announcement came from U.S. Peace Corps headquarters tonight.
Peace Corps Mourns the Loss of Volunteer Thomas Maresco:
Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams is saddened to announce the death of Peace Corps volunteer Thomas “Tom” Maresco in Lesotho. Tom, 24, died as a result of a gunshot wound on Sept. 3 in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. The investigation into this incident is ongoing, but at this time it appears it may have been an attempted robbery.
Lesotho has been one of the Peace Corps’ most dangerous locations, and has a long record of violent criminal attacks on volunteers.
Volunteer safety is basically an intractable problem for the Peace Corps, given the nature of volunteer work in very remote and frequently unsettled places.
Patricia Sharpe over at the blog Whirled View wrote a very interesting and very well written post about Immigration and Birthright Citizenship a few days ago. I was very impressed with it, so I decided to post a link to it. Check it out.
Only a matter of time?
According to a new article in Proceso, “Explosion de violencia”, the rate of narco-executions in the greater metropolitan area of Guadalajara has risen to 60 in the last month, in comparison to a total of 84 for all of 2009. The spike appears to be related to the death of Nacho Coronel, of the Sinaloa cartel, here in the city at the end of July. The ensuing power struggle has been accompanied by a slew of problems with and for the local police, who are both victims and accomplices of such violence.
Guadalajara has long been sheltered from the narco-violence shattering other regions of the country, but at the same time, that does not mean that this is untainted ground. Rather, Guadalajara was a kind of safe zone, where the Sinaloan cartel held the peace, and narco-families, at least the wives and children and perhaps a few other relatives, could enjoy the good schools and relative calm of the city. As I noted in the previous post, there are plenty of signs that the narcos are happily disposed to spend money here too. Since Nacho’s death a month or so ago, all the speculation has been about whether or not GDL would go the way of Monterrey, once one of Mexico’s premier cities in terms of industry, medicine, and overall development. So far, the violence in GDL has not appeared to make much of a mark in the city’s more prosperous neighborhoods, as it has for some time in Monterrey (imagine sitting at a posh restaurant at your neighborhood mall and seeing a lawyer shot at a nearby table while you were eating lunch). But unfortunately for Guadalajara, it may be a matter of when rather than whether or not that slide into “la inseguridad” begins.
Less is More
We are renting a house that has a large kitchen. Lots of counterspace, which is nice, and tons of cabinets. The greatest joy for me is that most of the cabinets are empty, and I have discovered of late how much I simply love looking at empty cabinets. Now, don’t get me wrong; it’s not that we don’t have plates, cups, utensils, etc. It’s just that because we’re still waiting on a lot of our stuff to arrive from Serbia, and because we intentionally haven’t unpacked most of the things that we left in storage here, we have only the bare necessities in our kitchen, and it feels GOOD. We have what we need; nothing more, nothing less. It will be an objective of mine over the next year, and before we move back into our real house, to get rid of all of the stuff/junk that we have that we simply do not need. I will keep family heirlooms and china, etc. I will keep some things from when the kids were little (I’m a sucker for all that sentimental stuff!) But, I’m going to try my darndest to actually get rid of the stuff that we just don’t need. In my view, less really and truly is more, and it’s so liberating not to have one’s life cluttered up with so much unnecessary stuff.
Less is More
We are renting a house that has a large kitchen. Lots of counterspace, which is nice, and tons of cabinets. The greatest joy for me is that most of the cabinets are empty, and I have discovered of late how much I simply love looking at empty cabinets. Now, don’t get me wrong; it’s not that we don’t have plates, cups, utensils, etc. It’s just that because we’re still waiting on a lot of our stuff to arrive from Serbia, and because we intentionally haven’t unpacked most of the things that we left in storage here, we have only the bare necessities in our kitchen, and it feels GOOD. We have what we need; nothing more, nothing less. It will be an objective of mine over the next year, and before we move back into our real house, to get rid of all of the stuff/junk that we have that we simply do not need. I will keep family heirlooms and china, etc. I will keep some things from when the kids were little (I’m a sucker for all that sentimental stuff!) But, I’m going to try my darndest to actually get rid of the stuff that we just don’t need. In my view, less really and truly is more, and it’s so liberating not to have one’s life cluttered up with so much unnecessary stuff.
I just couldn’t let the Emmy Awards pass without taking a moment to praise Jim Parsons and congratulate him on his Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.
For those of you who don’t know who Jim Parsons is, well… he is the 37 year old actor who portrays Dr. Sheldon Cooper on ‘The Big Bang Theory’… a show so smart, funny and entertaining, you almost forget it was created by the same guy who brought us ‘Two and a Half Men’.
‘The Big Bang Theory’ is one of the best sitcoms on television and hands down, IT IS the best sitcom on television filmed in front of a live studio audience.
Truthfully, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I only just started watching ‘The Big Bang Theory’ last spring. Numerous friends had been recommending it to us and for some reason Serena and I never gave it much thought… we are loyal fans of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and… well… we just hadn’t thought about ‘Big Bang Theory’.
Then, in late spring when most of the shows Serena and I watched religiously began to end for the season, we decided to give it a shot. I downloaded the first seasons from iTunes and well… by the time we left for home leave we had burned through all three seasons… and we both agreed. ‘The Big Bang Theory’ is better than ‘How I Met Your Mother’. We are hooked and we are HUGE fans.
Everything about the show is perfect… especially Jim Parsons. It’s hard to single out one performer in an ensemble show packed full of such talented actors… but… well… Parsons is a lucky bastard… a role like Sheldon Cooper… a character who bridges the gap between being completely annoying yet loveable, and intelligent while constantly showing endless ineptitude… he’s a character that isn’t supposed to exist. Sheldon Cooper is the Holy Grail character for comic actors… and Jim Parsons is a lucky bastard… because not only does he get to play the part… but he gets to make it look easy… Sheldon and Jim are the perfect marriage of character and actor.
Although, I have so many gushing things to say about Jim Parsons performance as Sheldon, if you had asked me, “do you think he’ll win an Emmy.” I would have said ‘No’ every time. Certainly not because he didn’t deserve it… but because ‘The Big Bang Theory’ isn’t the type of show the Emmy’s honor… at least anymore… and Jim Parson’s isn’t the kind of actor they honor either… or so I thought.
