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...
View ArticleManta 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleManta 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...
View ArticleAuthentic 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...
View ArticleRiot 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...
View ArticleLondon 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...
View ArticleOnce 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...
View ArticleChiqui 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
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