It’s heed-taking time

It’s heed-taking time

How does seeing the U.S. flag make you feel? When it’s flying? When it’s draped over a coffin of someone who put themselves in the line of fire? I travel and live all over the world, I’m a pro-peace lefty who likes the idea of socialized medicine,...
Notional zebras and the big red bus: stories from an evaluation

Notional zebras and the big red bus: stories from an evaluation

Kilimanjaro from the air Two months in Nairobi, though it seemed like more. It’s bad form to say so… but driving around Nairobi never put anyone in a good mood. Mostly it puts you at a standstill. And how come I was always on the side of the car with the...
Designed to hurt

Designed to hurt

You can’t pretend that what was designed to hurt other human beings was  sort of accidental, because it happened a long time ago. Damn the apologists, damn Kavanaugh and damn Northam and damn Confederate Memorials. I’m not buying it. When Ralph Northam was...
Things you learn (or remember) in East Africa

Things you learn (or remember) in East Africa

Kampollyball I love volleyball. I haven’t played for a long while, but I had occasion to play in Kampala again after a years-long break. Volleyball is my jam, despite the obvious hiccup that I am not very good at it. That fact is completely in character:...
Mom’s nails

Mom’s nails

Mom had perfect fingernails. In the pic above we’re comparing the paint job to the color of the marble in a Roman palace we visited when she was 72. Her nails were better. Always. No matter what was happening around her. What’s more, she had the hands to...
Where am I now?

Where am I now?

Let’s start where the last post left off… That was June, I’d been to the U.S. and back — twice in two months — and I needed my zombie time. But we’ll skip forward a bit, as zombie time is boring. Messy fun vacations, on the other...