Posting on this blog has been sparse, to say the least, and the majority of posts in the last year have been Peace Corps and/or travel-related. But I felt that a recent story in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh was so incredible that it was worth taking time out of my busy schedule (not) to [...]
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Just when you thought spring had arrived… boom. Winter came again. It’s the end of March, and there were a few days I was convinced that we were done with the snow, slush, and cold. I even walked to the next village in sandals one afternoon. Then it snowed about a foot. Well, I’m now [...]
That’s “Yerevan” written in Russian letters. It the capital city of Armenia, but it is also the name of a magazine written for Armenians in the diaspora. I wrote it in Russian letters because I just found out that the Russian edition (there is also an English and French edition) of this magazine recently had an [...]
My winter vacation began just before the new year when I left for Tbilisi with several other Peace Corps volunteers. This was my second trip to the city, though this experience was quite different. We stayed in a rented apartment outside of the city center, which was both cheaper and more comfortable. Our New Year’s [...]
Thanksgiving is over, which means Christmas is just around the corner. After Christmas, the new year. And the new year means just 5 more months of working at my school (which is in many ways signifies the end of my service. So, when you think about it, I have about 6 months left of Peace [...]
Last year’s harvest in Armenia was extremely poor due to (I think) a late cold spell and hail. The fruit was particularly scarce. Not this year! I’ve spent much of the last ten days cutting my apples and pears into slices to make dried fruit for the winter. Some of the slices I simply put [...]
With the arrival of October and the cold weather I got so used to last winter, I am sitting in my house next to my electric heater. I would prefer to be starting my fire right about now, but wood has still not arrived in my village. The beginning of this month also marks the [...]
One of the most visible of the daily inconveniences Palestinians face in the West Bank is the numerous checkpoints that are set up along their roads, many of them internal to their own internationally-recognized territory. As of now, there are nearly 100 fixed checkpoints within the West Bank and along its borders. They are all, of course, [...]
Of all the tourist attractions I visited on my trip, the Dead Sea was probably the coolest. I was able to visit it twice. The first was an experience I will likely never have again. Near the beginning of my ten-day stint in Ramallah some people I had met decided to go as a group [...]
Before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, there were a few different military units that were active for a number of years. The largest was known as the Haganah, the forerunner of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), whose members came mostly from the kibbutzim. Another group became known as the Irgun, the [...]
It’s now been 18 days since I arrived in Tel Aviv. This trip is winding down, as is the summer that has been extremely hectic, though incredibly rewarding. Too much has happened since I’ve arrived here to fully describe in one post, and though I know I’ve said things like this before to myself, I’d [...]
I haven’t had too much computer time recently, but I am currently ın Rıze, Turkey, and usıng a very strange keyboard. Austın and I have been travelıng through Georgıa and randomly chose a town next to Batumı to vısıt. It turns out that the town ıs the border town between Turkey and Georgıa so we [...]
I’m cautiously optimistic about my chances of increasing blog posts this summer. School has finished and I will be engaged in more interesting activities, thus providing more material to write about. Currently, a project is underway known as Border2Border that is taking me across half the country on foot. You can read a little bit [...]
There are many chores and activities which in America would take mere minutes to complete. Those same tasks can be a much more tedious process here in my home in Armenia. It just so happened that several of those chores needed to be completed today. Cleaning the dishes: happens just about every day, but now [...]
On April 15, Obama, along with Cameron and Sarkozy, stated in an op-ed that bombing in Libya will continue until Gaddafi goes. On April 20, a ABC News/Washington Post poll revealed that just 32% of the American public think the goal of our military actions should be to remove Gaddafi, while 62% either thought we [...]
One of the highest peaks in the southern region of Armenia (Syunik Marz) is called Aramazd. As it is located at the end of the valley in which my village is placed, it is also partially visible in the header of my blog. As I was skimming through a book on Zoroastrianism in Armenia, I [...]
For anybody reading this post that is interested in my Peace Corps experience, you should check out this blog. It provides information about a project I am involved with called Border2Border. Basically, two groups of 6 volunteers are walking from opposite ends of the country of Armenia and meeting in the middle to raise awareness [...]
For anybody following the events in Wisconsin, a recent NYT/CBS News poll shows that the gap between public opinion and the policies favored by those in power is quite wide. It is indeed indicative of the state of American democracy. There are many other issues similar to this that show a largely social-democratic population being [...]
My first successful bathing experience has taken place at my current residence. Though I moved in halfway through December, I have avoided taking buckets baths because the bathing room is incredibly cold. I’ve instead opted to shower only when I visit Sisian in the showers of the apartments owned by other volunteers. The problem is [...]
As I’m sure anyone who has the ability to check this blog will know, there are some incredible things going on in North Africa and the Middle East. Tunisia and Egypt are experiencing full-fledged revolutions, though as of now only the former has succeeded in ousting its dictator. Hopefully Mubarak will soon follow. Massive protests [...]
Many of my conversations with Armenians cover the same topics: what I’m doing here, if I have a mother and father, if America is good or here (literal translation), etc. Things that are generally not interesting, so I’ve never bothered to really blog about them. But I’ve finally had a conversation I think is worth [...]
We’re a significant way through winter now. Hard to believe it’s already 2011 and that I’ve been here for almost 8 months. It has been surprisingly mild, at least from how it usually is and what I expected. My wood stove keeps me plenty warm at home and I usually don’t even need to start [...]
It’s been a few days since I moved into my new place, a small house in the center of the village. I have two bedrooms, one of which is closed because I don’t need it and it is holding all of the belongings of the owner of the house. There is a front room that [...]
Wouldn’t that be big news in the US? Of course it would, because it would be Israel that’s being attacked, and that is always big news in the US, though usually it’s a dinky rocket that lands in the middle of nowhere. It would no doubt be portrayed as a terrorist attack and as further [...]
Reading columns by Thomas Friedman on the Middle East is a frustrating endeavor. In the American political spectrum, he takes the standard elite-liberal opinion on the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is to say one that does not accord well with the historical record and rejects the national aspirations of the Palestinians. His most recent column on [...]
The annual All-Vol conference held in Yerevan every year was this past week. I don’t know if there was anything that was particularly necessary at this event, but it was good to see the other volunteers I typically don’t see. We stayed at a nice hotel in the city, which allowed me to shower (almost) [...]
Neo-conservatives tend to be extremely bloodthirsty aggressive when it comes to foreign policy (Iraq, Iran, etc.), so it’s no surprise that I found a recent op-ed in the NYT by John Bolton and John Yoo to be pretty ridiculous. They appose the START treaty signed by Obama earlier this year, but which hasn’t been ratified [...]
It’s worth noting that this is the 19th vote in a row in which virtually the entire world has condemned the US embargo on Cuba, with only the US and Israel voting against the resolution. The reasons are clear – it is illegal, has done massive amounts of harm to the Cuban people (including denying [...]
This past week was fall break for the schools in Armenia, and I used it as an opportunity to travel around my marz (Syunik) to see other volunteers and explore some new cities. I went with two other volunteers that live around Sisian and started on a Saturday, not knowing how far we would get [...]
It is surprising to see the number of articles written about the relationship between religion, science, and morality by people who seem to have very little knowledge of the philosophical nature of the debate. In a recent commentary in the New York Times, the author makes some of the same familiar mistakes. He asks: Perhaps [...]
Things have been picking up this week. I started my after school English groups on Tuesday, which run for about 2 hours, and held them the following two days as well. It was great to work with the kids in small groups (one-on-one up to groups of four), and their motivation was really encouraging. The [...]
When private companies that operate with only one bottom line – profit – run services that are vital for human flourishing, problems arise. A perfect example is the fact that the US is allowing insurers to raise fees for sick children, reported two days ago in the NYT. Now, if one truly does not care [...]
I’ve been away from the news for a while, but what glad to hear about the report that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights put out regarding the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla that left 8 Turkish and 1 American citizen dead. And yes, people were indeed “summarily executed” in this attack. Glenn [...]
Indeed, it had been raining quite a bit the last few days. It’s also gotten significantly colder. But these are not why I have failed to post in the last few weeks. It’s been a combination of things. First, I went to counterpart conference about 2 weeks ago up in Tsakhedzor, about an hour outside [...]
Here is an interesting analysis of the recent announcement from Cuba that 500,00o state workers would be losing their jobs and moved to self-employment and cooperatives. I found this section of the Q&A article to be quite illuminating: The Media largely describes what is taking place in Cuba as a turn to capitalism–away from socialism. [...]
Novel experiences certainly make life exciting. Yesterday was an interesting day for a number of reasons. First of all, I was still not feeling to well, but getting over a cold. For this reason, I was hoping to leave right after my last class (which was supposed to end at 11:30ish). The schedule is still [...]
It’s incredible that this type of logic is being used by American diplomats. The US supposedly backs the idea of a Middle East without nuclear weapons. But when the Arab states demand that Israel, the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, actually sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, this, we are told, jeopardizes [...]
A passage from David Harvey’s A Brief History of Neoliberalism gives a fair summary of the connection between the neoliberalism and US foreign policy. Harvey has just described how the Reagan administration deregulated just about everything (corporate taxes were lowered from 70% to 28%!) and “so began the momentous shift towards greater inequality and the [...]
An editorial in the New York Times is urging countries that are “enabling” Iran for political/economic reasons to read the most recent IAEA report. A couple comments: 1. What is there in this report that would lead the author of the editorial to think it rational to tighten the already harsh sanctions against Iran? Iran [...]
Via Juan Cole: And if the chart wasn’t clear enough: Inter alia, the chart shows that both the Great Depression of the ’30s and the present crisis were immediately preceded by great buildups in inequality. When ordinary people lack the wealth to buy things– houses for example–the system crashes.
The federal government will soon try a case against Global Horizons Manpower for its exploitation of hundreds of workers from Thailand. The company, Global Horizons Manpower, is accused of abusing the federal guest worker program, known as H-2A, in 2004 and 2005 and luring workers with false promises of steady work at decent pay. The [...]
Score 1 for the good guys: tasty vegan cupcakes doing well on the Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars.” And new desperately-needed rules for the meat industry are being proposed by the Agriculture Secretary.
Allowing poor immigrants into the country is not only a good decision morally (especially since American policies are partially to blame for their unemployment), but also economically. This study suggests that it actually increases the income of the average US worker, expands the economy’s productive capacity, and that immigrants are not taking American jobs. And [...]
From the editor-in-chief of The New Republic, a supposedly “liberal” magazine: But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I [...]
Martin Indyk, former ambassador to Israel, recently had an op-ed entitled, “For Once, Hope in the Middle East.” Because the reasoning was so flawed, I was going to write a post about it, but a good reply was already written here. One point worth emphasizing is this. Indyk says that because “violence is down considerably [...]
Teaching in an Armenian school is an interesting experience. I started late last week because the first day of school is always September 1st (Wednesday) and classes actually began on Thursday. My counterpart has been in Yerevan taking some exams, so I’ve been teaching by myself, though my host mother (also a teacher) introduced me [...]
There are two very different ways people can choose to describe post-WW II American power. While most rational people examining the historical record would quickly see the US as an imperial power, some choose the more benevolent term “superpower.” Thomas Friedman uses the latter, and as someone who strongly supported the Iraq War (remember “Suck [...]
An recent op-ed from Richard Cohen in the Washington Post demonstrates why so many people are misinformed when it comes to the Middle East, and Israel/Palestine in particular. Aside from the questionable introduction, Cohen’s piece has some serious factual errors. First, he states the following: What the Arab world seems to appreciate is that America [...]
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