Halfway down the Danube

Ta Mok: A Handshake Away

From the Washington Post:

"Ta Mok, known as "The Butcher" for his brutality as military chief of the communist Khmer Rouge, died July 21 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, his lawyer said. He was believed to be 80.

"Ta Mok had been in and out of consciousness since last week at the military hospital in the capital, where he was being treated for high blood pressure, tuberculosis and respiratory complications, attorney Benson Samay said. Ta Mok had been in government custody since 1999."

What caught my eye: the name of the lawyer.

Ta Mok: A Handshake Away

From the Washington Post: "Ta Mok, known as "The Butcher" for his brutality as military chief of the communist Khmer Rouge, died July 21 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, his lawyer said. He was believed to be 80. "Ta Mok had been in and out of consciousness since last week at the military hospital in the capital, where he was being treated for high blood pressure, tuberculosis and respiratory complications, attorney Benson Samay said. Ta Mok had been in government custody since 1999." What caught my eye: the name of the lawyer.

Can't get there from here

In comments to my last post, Colin Alberts asked about international rail travel in the Caucasus.

Short answer: not much.

Back in the Soviet days, there was a pretty good integrated rail network. The region is very mountainous, but the Soviets loved that sort of thing -- big-ticket, concrete-intensive civil engineering challenges got them excited. So they blasted tunnels, threw bridges, and ran rail lines all over the place. By the time they were done, you could go from any town in the region to any other town fairly quickly. You could go to Istanbul, or -- in a roundabout way -- to anywhere in the Middle East. And, of course, you could go to Moscow.

Then the Soviet Union collapsed.

Can't get there from here

In comments to my last post, Colin Alberts asked about international rail travel in the Caucasus. Short answer: not much. Back in the Soviet days, there was a pretty good integrated rail network. The region is very mountainous, but the Soviets loved that sort of thing -- big-ticket, concrete-intensive civil engineering challenges got them excited. So they blasted tunnels, threw bridges, and ran rail lines all over the place. By the time they were done, you could go from any town in the region to any other town fairly quickly. You could go to Istanbul, or -- in a roundabout way -- to anywhere in the Middle East. And, of course, you could go to Moscow. Then the Soviet Union collapsed.

A minor incident

Some idiot attacked my parents and my sister on the Chicago El. I say 'idiot' for a number of reasons, not least because this person started a fight over her own bad manners, nor that she attacked them with a CTA person in the next car, but mainly because she let my parents get the drop on her, with the result that this crazy woman ended up with her legs pinned to the floor of the car by my mom, and her arms held behind her back by my dad.

Anyway. It's funny (although my sister got a hank of hair pulled out, interceding). But, gentle readers, you would not believe how angry it made me. I have not been that angry in a long time. And, as some of you may have figured out, I'm already kind of an angry guy. I've repressed it, most of the time. (Now it comes out as 'pissy'! Woo.)

"But," as Carrie from Bad Mama said, "you haven't maimed anyone." Which is a common career path for very angry people from our neck of the woods. I did unconsciously twist an innocent coat-hanger into a small metal ball while brooding about this incident, which freaked the hell out of me. The proximate cause of this post.

I believe I've mentioned before that I dislike being angry? There are some bloggers who thrive on it, who go out of their way looking for reasons to be outraged. Apparently their lives are that inane! Junkies.

Me, I like other things. The anger is secondary.

Also, the troll magnet? It's hereditary.

To Arabkir Station

So I took a walk along the train tracks.

The tracks run right past our house, just on the other side of our street. They're not very busy. There are just two scheduled trains per day, around 8 in the morning and 8 at night. They're reasonably punctual, which is nice: when the morning train passes, it's time for me to dress for work; the evening train comes right around the boys' bedtime.

Walking along the tracks was more interesting than you might think.

A minor incident

Some idiot attacked my parents and my sister on the Chicago El. I say 'idiot' for a number of reasons, not least because this person started a fight over her own bad manners, nor that she attacked them with a CTA person in the next car, but mainly because she let my parents get the drop on her, with the result that this crazy woman ended up with her legs pinned to the floor of the car by my mom, and her arms held behind her back by my dad. Anyway. It's funny (although my sister got a hank of hair pulled out, interceding). But, gentle readers, you would not believe how angry it made me. I have not been that angry in a long time. And, as some of you may have figured out, I'm already kind of an angry guy. I've repressed it, most of the time. (Now it comes out as 'pissy'! Woo.) "But," as Carrie from Bad Mama said, "you haven't maimed anyone." Which is a common career path for very angry people from our neck of the woods. I did unconsciously twist an innocent coat-hanger into a small metal ball while brooding about this incident, which freaked the hell out of me. The proximate cause of this post. I believe I've mentioned before that I dislike being angry? There are some bloggers who thrive on it, who go out of their way looking for reasons to be outraged. Apparently their lives are that inane! Junkies. Me, I like other things. The anger is secondary. Also, the troll magnet? It's hereditary.

To Arabkir Station

So I took a walk along the train tracks. The tracks run right past our house, just on the other side of our street. They're not very busy. There are just two scheduled trains per day, around 8 in the morning and 8 at night. They're reasonably punctual, which is nice: when the morning train passes, it's time for me to dress for work; the evening train comes right around the boys' bedtime. Walking along the tracks was more interesting than you might think.

Laffer blogging

Noel Maurer is a genius.

Laffer blogging

Noel Maurer is a genius.

Sure is quiet

Claudia and the boys are in Germany, so I'm alone in the house.

It's quiet.

Days are long and bright and hot; I spend most of them in my office, which is air-conditioned. When I come home, the house is cool and dark inside. In the evening, odd gusts of wind rattle the tin rood and throw dust at the windows. Nights are clear and the summer stars seem low and close.

Here's a poetic image you must have seen a hundred times: "The fruit hangs heavy on the vine". Well, our house has an arbor in the front, with grape vines twined around it. Now they're full of grapes, still green and hard but getting bigger every day. I was coming in the door one day and I realized I had to dodge around these dangling vines. They were trailing down in loops from the arbor, pulled down a little lower every day by the weight of the grapes. The fruit is hanging heavy on the vine. And it's going to get heavier yet.

Sure is quiet

Claudia and the boys are in Germany, so I'm alone in the house. It's quiet. Days are long and bright and hot; I spend most of them in my office, which is air-conditioned. When I come home, the house is cool and dark inside. In the evening, odd gusts of wind rattle the tin rood and throw dust at the windows. Nights are clear and the summer stars seem low and close. Here's a poetic image you must have seen a hundred times: "The fruit hangs heavy on the vine". Well, our house has an arbor in the front, with grape vines twined around it. Now they're full of grapes, still green and hard but getting bigger every day. I was coming in the door one day and I realized I had to dodge around these dangling vines. They were trailing down in loops from the arbor, pulled down a little lower every day by the weight of the grapes. The fruit is hanging heavy on the vine. And it's going to get heavier yet.

Congratulations, whoever won!

Wow, YouTube is fast. The highlight clip from the Eurovision Amateur Theatrical Free Throw Contest.

Congratulations, whoever won!

Wow, YouTube is fast. The highlight clip from the Eurovision Amateur Theatrical Free Throw Contest.

Digital camera blog beg whatever

Recently came into a small chunk of change from a spokemodel gig -- not a joke -- and was wondering about a good cheap digital camera. I am so out of the consumer electronics loop. Assume that the primary user will be a miserly idiot savant who likes industrial landscapes and interesting women. And uses Windows, if that matters.

(We will return to regular guest-blogging shortly. On deck: Noel Maurer.)

Digital camera blog beg whatever

Recently came into a small chunk of change from a spokemodel gig -- not a joke -- and was wondering about a good cheap digital camera. I am so out of the consumer electronics loop. Assume that the primary user will be a miserly idiot savant who likes industrial landscapes and interesting women. And uses Windows, if that matters. (We will return to regular guest-blogging shortly. On deck: Noel Maurer.)

Walking, reverb, collapse

One recent headache: one of the holes for one of the pegs of one of the shelves holding my art books decided to split, causing shelf after shelf to pancake downward in a manner immediately familiar to all New Yorkers.

Fortunately, there were no casualties, not even the strange but cute little doll in a glittering rubber dress that a certain commenter gave me, which I had put on one of the shelves, although her handbag was flung for yards in the collapse.

But the aftermath turned my "to read" pile topsy-turvy. And it was an odd thing, how the first two books I read in the rebuilt pile paralleled each other: Patrick Leigh Fermor as a young man walking through Europe, down the Danube valley towards Constantinople in the 1930s; Harry Partch as a composer whose grant ran out, homeless on the open road on the West Coast in the 1930s. Hallelujah I'm a bum.

Fermor's book, A Time of Gifts, is one of the great travel books. It has lauds enough. I'll quote from Partch's Bitter Music, on the comparative musicology of homeless shelters:

Walking, reverb, collapse

One recent headache: one of the holes for one of the pegs of one of the shelves holding my art books decided to split, causing shelf after shelf to pancake downward in a manner immediately familiar to all New Yorkers. Fortunately, there were no casualties, not even the strange but cute little doll in a glittering rubber dress that a certain commenter gave me, which I had put on one of the shelves, although her handbag was flung for yards in the collapse. But the aftermath turned my "to read" pile topsy-turvy. And it was an odd thing, how the first two books I read in the rebuilt pile paralleled each other: Patrick Leigh Fermor as a young man walking through Europe, down the Danube valley towards Constantinople in the 1930s; Harry Partch as a composer whose grant ran out, homeless on the open road on the West Coast in the 1930s. Hallelujah I'm a bum. Fermor's book, A Time of Gifts, is one of the great travel books. It has lauds enough. I'll quote from Partch's Bitter Music, on the comparative musicology of homeless shelters:

More cheap election irony

From "The Haitian Political Situation and Its Effect on the Dominican Republic: 1849-1877," William J. Nelson, The Americas, vol. 45, no. 2, (1988), page 227:

The Dominican Republic, which has once again exhibited the fragility of its political institutions by taking over two weeks to ascertain a winner in its last presidential election...

This paper also uses the phrase, "one of the worst politicians in all of Latin American history". No, it's no one you're likely to know.

Incidentally, if you were writing a short summary of Trujillo's reign, would you put Trujillo's Rwandan-style machete massacre of several tens of thousands of Haitian-Dominicans in 1937 at the forefront (worst act of a despicable man), in the middle (chronologically), or as a passing aside twenty pages later (Jared Diamond)?

More cheap election irony

From "The Haitian Political Situation and Its Effect on the Dominican Republic: 1849-1877," William J. Nelson, The Americas, vol. 45, no. 2, (1988), page 227:

The Dominican Republic, which has once again exhibited the fragility of its political institutions by taking over two weeks to ascertain a winner in its last presidential election...

This paper also uses the phrase, "one of the worst politicians in all of Latin American history". No, it's no one you're likely to know. Incidentally, if you were writing a short summary of Trujillo's reign, would you put Trujillo's Rwandan-style machete massacre of several tens of thousands of Haitian-Dominicans in 1937 at the forefront (worst act of a despicable man), in the middle (chronologically), or as a passing aside twenty pages later (Jared Diamond)?

Guest-blogging with Leon Maurer, part one

HDTD readers may know Noel Maurer as an occasional commenter and guest poster here. Some of you may even know that he and I have been working on a project together. But most of you don't know Noel's dad Leon; and you should. The word 'raconteur' was devised to describe him. I remember sitting spellbound at a diner on Broadway, listening to the man's tales. He was a young man in World War Two:

Did I tell you the story of how I was picked on by the gumba Mafiosi tough guys when I first arrived in the company and had to beat up a punk twice my size to get my reputation as someone to contend with in the company? Besides the supply sergeant named Goldstein, I was the only other Jewish guy in outfit, but they soon forgot all about that. The rest of the outfit were Midwesterners and Southerners whom I got along with easily. The gumba guys later became my buddies too when I told them all about Meyer Lansky, Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, Lucky Luciano and the rest of the Brooklyn mob that were my Dad's high school buddies.

But maybe we should start at the beginning. Mr. Maurer?

Well, the story goes like this...

It was around February 1944. There I was, hanging out at the overseas staging camp in Newport News, Virginia, waiting for a bunk on the next departing ship.

Guest-blogging with Leon Maurer, part one

HDTD readers may know Noel Maurer as an occasional commenter and guest poster here. Some of you may even know that he and I have been working on a project together. But most of you don't know Noel's dad Leon; and you should. The word 'raconteur' was devised to describe him. I remember sitting spellbound at a diner on Broadway, listening to the man's tales. He was a young man in World War Two:

Did I tell you the story of how I was picked on by the gumba Mafiosi tough guys when I first arrived in the company and had to beat up a punk twice my size to get my reputation as someone to contend with in the company? Besides the supply sergeant named Goldstein, I was the only other Jewish guy in outfit, but they soon forgot all about that. The rest of the outfit were Midwesterners and Southerners whom I got along with easily. The gumba guys later became my buddies too when I told them all about Meyer Lansky, Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, Lucky Luciano and the rest of the Brooklyn mob that were my Dad's high school buddies.

But maybe we should start at the beginning. Mr. Maurer?

Well, the story goes like this... It was around February 1944. There I was, hanging out at the overseas staging camp in Newport News, Virginia, waiting for a bunk on the next departing ship.

Cairene guest-blogging 2: Don't Eat at Rick's, the first part.

Wow, this retreat has been less like a spa, and more like a fighting withdrawal from the very concept of relaxation itself! (With added hot migraine action.) Anyway, I have a backlog of guest posts to fill, so here is Luke S., filling us in on Egypt's cuisine:

When I arrived in Cairo, I was treated to a long nosebleed from my host, the American University of Cairo, about how at many places it wasn't safe to eat. A few of them were the same as the US -- street vendors -- as there are no health codes in Egypt, but the storefront places are also a deadly threat.

So, in my first two weeks here, I wandered over to the 26th of July Street, the main drag on posh Zemalik Island, where I live. It's Fifth Avenue gone neon and Bladerunner, with lots of tacky shops offering just about everything. In the early, highly paranoid days of my arrival in Egypt, there were two places I went to get safe food: La Bodega and Maison Thomas.