Juniorbird.com - Wade Armstrong's Blog

Whither Syria?

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:42:24 -0700

About a year ago I correctly predicted the outcome of the “Arab Spring.” Pats on the back for me. Now the Syrian state is on the ropes, and we’re all wondering: when will it fall? We can use the same tools as earlier to answer that question. Also, I can use the word “whither” in a headline which, let’s face it, I never get to do. So, let’s get to it!

When the Arab Spring initially broke out, I predicted that Syria would fail to fall based upon strong group identification by its citizens as “Syrian”; the fairly recent record of military success in Lebanon; and the “liberalization” policies Bashar Assad[^1] put in place early in his regime. But it’s been a year, and it’s worth revisiting and seeing where we stand here.

Decision Chain

Our first stop is this (sadly low-quality scan, sorry!) diagram that looks at the overall process in an individual’s choice to join a revolution.

Walking through this in the context of Syria reveals changes in the last year. Of course, at the first level, citizens of Arab countries can now see truly how deprived they are, thanks to outlets like Al Jazeera that show them the opulence of the Gulf states and the everyday life of people elsewhere; but what’s changed is the context of joining in the revolution.

And the #1 Mistake Our Audience Voted That Dictators Make Is…

Especially in the wake of the Arab Spring — although, indeed, ever since his accession to power — Bashar Assad has pursued policies to “consolidate” his power[^2]. The problem with power consolidation in any political system is representativeness. A military dictatorship may not seem like a representative government, but the reality is that every government represents some group of people; it’s just that, with a democratic form of government, that group is much, much wider.

So dictatorships are never just arbitrary implementors of the will of one person without any regard to the needs of others; it’s simply that the dictator doesn’t have to feel the need to express will and desire in terms of society, broadly.[^3] However, in order to take power initially, the dictator does need a pretty large direct support base — enough to exert either military or moral force, or some combination of the two, in sufficient quantity to defeat opposition. That means that the initial policies of the dictator need to represent the will and desires of some good-sized chunk of society.

In Assad’s case, his father came to power with a core group of supporters from the same religion and region, but also broader support within the military and broad swaths of the Syrian power elite. When people talk of Bashar Assad “consolidating his power,” they always talk about how he’s increased the power of individuals who share his religion and region. But empowering one ingroup means creating a new outgroup, and, in this case, the new outgroup is made up of the former regime supporters who just didn’t match the right ethno-religious profile. That’s worth saying again: the regime has supposedly increased its power by shrinking the circle of individuals it represents and who can expect positive outcomes from that regime.

So are the new power centers more reliable and less likely to ever break with Assad? Sure. But the old groups who were marginally in power and now in the outgroup? They’re entirely sure to break with Assad, because the regime is no longer representative of their wills and desires. The return they might get on investing in the long-term stability of the Syrian government is sure to be zero.

Revolution or Not?

The next diagram looks at individual vs. group orientation and how the way groups express their perception of the world.

It’s interesting to think about this in the pre-Arab Spring context and in the current situation for the new outgroup member described above. Pre-Arab Spring, the group context was pan-Arab, and the injustice frame involved blaming Israel. Power Discontent was steered towards acts of terrorism against Israel, and occasional wars.

Now we clearly have groups within Syria that have been able to attract the affiliation of a wide variety of individuals, individuals who have taken up arms against the Syrian state. So, in this case, we can easily work backwards and see that these groups have been able to walk their members through each of the steps above. For the individuals “consolidated” out of power, we have a new injustice frame that never existed before; discontent with power that they couldn’t have had before because they had access to that power; and a collective orientation forced on the individual by the rationale behind power consolidation. (The only question is: where did these anti-regime groups come from in the first place?)

Violent or Not?

The flip side of the Pan-Arabist strategy pursued by Syria for so long is that they ensured that any discontent would go down the extrapunitive path. With power consolidation blocking all opportunities, a violent uprising is guaranteed.

In this case, Assad has decreased his options with his power consolidation — he’s removed his options to create open opportunities for individuals to effect change within society.

Now: will Syria fall?

This is the tough question. As we saw from Saddam Hussein-era Iraq, clearly a consolidated state can survive for years after it would appear to be ready to fall. In the case of Iraq, our aggressive sanctions probably paradoxically strengthened the group identification of Iraqis as Iraqis, which short-circuits the whole “group challenges legitimizing frame of status quo” thing.

So then the question is: will we do something like this for Syria? The good news is that, to the extent the Arab League takes the lead, all that work that the Syrian regime did to make Syrians identify with a pan-Arab community should prevent an Iraq-style regime hardening. If things really start looking up in Libya and Egypt, then broader swathes of the Syrian polity may start perceiving relative deprivation vis-a-vis other, similar Arabs.

But that’s a lot of ifs. On the flip side of all of those, Assad has the firepower to put down the rebels, and we probably can’t deliver enough counter-firepower to make a difference in any brief period of time, short of actual airstrikes. So time is against the groups rebelling against the regime. If Assad can beat these groups and then de-consolidate under the banner of complying with Arab League instructions — and the former certainly seems likely — then he has the opportunity to liberalize slightly and create a quasi-one-party democratic state, under the protection of the military; really, an Egypt-style outcome.

Ironic, huh?

[^1] Hey, compared to what was there before, “liberal” isn’t a hard moniker to earn.

[^2] In fact, for the first couple of years after he took over, I believe it was mandatory to mention power consolidation in every article about him.

[^3] Although one does see dictators, such as Pinochet in Chile or Franco in Spain, who have broad support and represent the will of some substantial plurality of the populace.

The Man Who Broke Atlantic City - Magazine - The Atlantic

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 15:43:27 -0700

The Man Who Broke Atlantic City - Magazine - The Atlantic:

(via Instapaper)

thedailywhat: Infographic of the Day: Of course the MPAA...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:34:45 -0700

thedailywhat:

Infographic of the Day: Of course the MPAA doesn’t want people to see Bully. If people stopped turning a blind eye to bullying the MPAA could no longer exist.

[thanks jill!]

Also amen!

Newsweek: High School & Trayvon

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:33:41 -0700

Newsweek: High School & Trayvon:

newsweek:

All of this focus on Trayvon Martin’s character after his getting suspended in high school—for an empty bag of weed, no less—is disconcerting. Anyone can get suspended for the silliest of offenses. Your tumblr was threatened with an in-school suspension in middle school for throwing a pencil…

Amen!

On Trayvon

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 09:00:05 -0700

The death of Trayvon Martin is probably one of those things that will be hashed and rehashed for generations. It’s sad all around, but one thing that’s not come up is that George Zimmerman went out with a tool that’s good for only one thing: killing someone:

Guns, Hey, Good God Y’all, What Are They Good For?

This isn’t your standard liberal “let’s take away all the guns!” post. I’m prepared to agree that the possession of a firearm has value as a political statement, and that, further, it’s important that we live in a world in which the government knows it’s dependent on the non-guaranteed assent of its citizens. (Although: good luck taking on the US military with your handgun!) Second Amendment? Whether it means we should have guns in the closet or a people in arms or just a shotgun here and there to protect against Indian raids, it’s an important part of our Constitution.

But there’s a difference between guns as a political statement and guns as something you carry around on a day-to-day basis. Face it: a gun has one mode of operation, and that’s to propel a small piece of metal into something at a very high rate of speed. There’s no stun mode, shoot-to-wound is only a myth, and the value of a gun as a threat only lies in its potential use to kill. So, when Zimmerman went out, he went out with a tool designed specifically and only to kill. He might not have planned to kill that day, but that strikes me more as a misunderstanding of the tool than anything else.

The Soft Bigotry of Not Packing

Now, Trayvon didn’t have a gun. Which apparently means that he wasn’t, in the legal sense, standing his ground: Zimmerman was. But a reasonable interpretation of events seems to me to be that Trayvon felt threatened, turned to confront his assailant — I presume that he had no legal requirement to avoid the conflict — and the two ended up in a physical altercation. Perhaps Trayvon went for Zimmerman’s gun and Zimmerman shot him. Apparently, because Zimmerman was packing, he was defending himself: Trayvon was the attacker.

This comes back to the issue of the purpose of a gun: in this altercation there was a tool that had no purpose but to kill. If Trayvon knew that there was a gun there, then he of course went for it, because he knew there could be no purpose to it but to kill him. If Trayvon went for the gun, Zimmerman had to shoot him, because there could be no purpose to Trayvon taking the weapon but to kill Zimmerman. Someone was ending up dead.

(Although I suppose there’s an argument for everyone having a gun in this conflict: perhaps if Trayvon had drawn down, there would’ve been a stand-off and the police would’ve arrived in time for everyone to live. Perhaps there’s an issue in the disparity of force that itself drove the situation.)

So Whose Fault Was It?

Being a good liberal, I probably sound like I’m blaming Zimmerman here; but really I’m not. It’s common to think that carrying a gun adds to security, but really all it does is give you a threat, and then one additional level of response that really you must use if you’re called on that threat. Most people don’t appreciate that part of the reality.

No, what I think we have here is a poor man — probably mentally ill, actually, based on the descriptions I’ve read of him — who tried to find some level of authority and meaning in that threat and promise of security that a gun can provide; and a second poor boy who perceived that threat and responded aggressively.

Why I Sympathize With Trayvon

Sure, I sympathize because I used to live in a bad neighborhood and I’d walk to the Jack in the Box at midnight wearing my USC hoodie. We all look scary in hoodies, I guess. But more than that I sympathize because I’ve been confronted with force before (although not a gun pointed at me) and I’ve responded with aggression myself, pretty consistently, and I can see myself attacking a guy with a gun who threatened me. I’d perceive that as my best self-defense, and I’m pretty sure that everyone reading this would, if I did defend myself this way, compliment me for having stood up to the other guy. I mean, it’s the modern ethos of self-reliance and self-defense, right?

So there’s the thing: if you pointed a gun at me, I’d try to take it away from you. (And I know how.) And then you’d have to shoot me, because otherwise I’d shoot you. That’s why I sympathize with Trayvon: he didn’t start the situation, but he responded the way I think I would have, and he paid with his life because someone else had chosen beforehand, for no good reason, to bring a tool to the tussle that required someone die once combat ensued.

So What’s the Solution?

To not carry a gun around, silly. I’m not saying don’t own a gun, just don’t carry it around unless you intend to shoot someone with it. That’s a simple rule, no? You can’t really threaten with a gun unless you intend to use it, and you shouldn’t intend to use it unless in self-defense, and almost nobody is going to walk down the street and be able to effectively use a firearm against an attacker. (That mugger will have a gun to your head before you can draw down.)

So don’t carry a gun. And, if for some reason you do, take responsibility for whatever it is you do with that gun. Make sure that shooting the person you shoot is important enough that the consequences are worth it.

The Problem With Tech as a Hobby

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:28:06 -0700

Is that a casually-initiated tech project less than 100% done is most often much, much less than 0% done.

That chest of drawers you were half built? Useless, probabaly, but only an obstacle in the garage. The half-knit sweater? The dog dragged it out from under the chair and he loves it. Your novel you never got around to the second draft of? Just takes up a few bytes on your computer.

Almost done migrating your e-mail to a new host? Sorry, messages sent to you disappear into the aether until you flip that last switch. Most of the way through setting up an OpenID server? Can’t log into anything at all. A quarter of the way through migrating your blog to Wordpress? Well, have you clicked on the archive links to the right?

Oh technology, you’re such a tease!

Fever Break

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 01:26:51 -0700

I know the moment I shook off the stomach flu: 12:30am, Tuesday, March 20. That was when my eyes - eyes that had been sound asleep for more than two hours, now - popped open. And my brain said: “let’s get at it!”

We’d had big St. Patrick’s Day plans; that’s what happens when you marry an Irish woman. But I was excited about them: we were going fun places, eating delicious and indulgent food, and who cares if I’m not a beer guy? green makes everything funner!

But, oh, then my stomach. I won’t inflict the details upon you - by “you” I mean ” co-worker who’s only vaguely familiar with me but has tracked down this blog - but I’m sure you can project a story from your own experiences that was only somewhat worse and far, far funnier to you and your direct acquaintances.

Anyway, this stomach flu kept me napping all Sunday, and quiet all today, and I came home threatening early bedtimes until the realities of life - working late, feeding the dogs, keeping the parrot entertained, cultivating my Pinboard - intervened.

Ok, so I didn’t make it to bed by 9, but my eyes were closed by 10:30. So imagine my shock when I woke up at 12:30 and my brain said, clearly, to my disbelieving body: time to do all those things we planned to do this weekend.

At 1am? On a school night? Said my body, as it tried to roll over and go back to sleep.

Yes, said my brain, affecting a proper British headmaster’s accent, to get it’s point over.

And that’s why I’m up at 1:30 working on a writing project, of which this blog is only a side effect. But at least I know when I beat that darned flu!

El Cocinero

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 23:21:13 -0700

So I usually think of myself as a good cook, but — I think I might’ve mentioned — I’m slow. Glacial. Weeknight meal? Sure, I’ll have that up for you in four hours, straight away.

Yeah, doesn’t work. So, I think I mentioned in my New Year’s Resolutions that I was going to take a cooking class. After a bunch of research I decided on a local school’s intro to cooking class.

Right. Intro. Time to suck up my pride. I learned back in tae kwon do that you only get to be fast by being perfect to start, so I figured, hey, let’s make unfounded generalizations. So far it’s been fun. I’ve been playing the role of super-nerd, asking every possible question (yes, it’s a role! don’t look at me like that!) and getting tons of perspective. And tons of chances to cut things up. And, best of all, tons of chances for the instructors to tell me what to do or not.

The first class was on salads. We paired up and my team ended up with the caesar salad. It was a little easier than I’d hoped but, hey, we took some care and it ended up real nice.

Today was harder: we made a red snapper green curry.

I was really excited for this week, because, despite all my foodie pretensions, I’m as scared of cooking fish as the next guy. I always choose slow, moist fish-cooking techniques that leave me with no risk of burning or sticking; but here I had to cook the snapper fast, over very high heat, to get nice browning. And, as the instructor said, “expect it to stick.”

Well, we got compliments on the doneness and texture of the fish. I have to say, it turned out everything I could hope. And everyone else deserved compliments too, with dishes like these:

And, best of all, my team finished quickly enough that we had time to practice various techniques and to just jaw a bunch. A little speed? Yes please!

Bounty

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:54:36 -0800

We have this lemon tree in the backyard. Every year, it gave a bounty of lemons; we hardly had to buy a one at the market. Except for last year; last year, somehow it didn’t give us but one or two. It’s an old, dry tree, and we wondered if it was just getting ready to pass on. Well, it answered us this year: this year, it produced all last year’s lemons, all at once.

Confronted with all of these lemons, we’ve been cooking delicious marinated meats and lemony dressings, but it’s about to get out of hand. So I decided to go old school on it: I bought a bunch of canning jars and went to pickling.

First I harvested a big batch of orange-sized lemons. I cut off the stem end, cut them in quarters almost all the way through, and packed them with salt on the inside, in the Moroccan fashion.

Then I planned to stuff them in the jars; except these jars were sized for a lemon-sized lemon, not something that dwarfed our measuring spoons. So I quartered the lemons all the way through, packed in more salt, and added coriander seeds, cinnamon, and chills — all from Zanzibar!

Now it’s a few weeks before we know how things turn out, but I’m excited. Updates as acid- and salt-related cellular changes follow.

Why Every Entrepreneur Should Self-Publish a Book - TechCrunch

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:07:23 -0800

Why Every Entrepreneur Should Self-Publish a Book - TechCrunch:

(via Instapaper)

New Year's Resolutions 2012

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:33:25 -0800

In years past, I’ve posted my New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of the year and then reviewed them at the beginning of the next year. While I wasn’t exactly around for the start of the new year, that’s not exactly an excuse for not doing my resolutions. So, here they are, and may I be held accountable for them!

(I don’t seem to have made resolutions last year, which makes this an easy blog entry to write, because I only need to do this year’s resolutions, rather than revisiting last year’s as well. So, here we go.)

Get better at photography, particularly by addressing at least one of the following two problems:
1. I’m fairly weak at shooting people
2. I have very little experience or education in shooting in anything but bog-standard natural daylight
Become a faster cook — I’m a very good cook, but you’d better give me an afternoon to do it in!
Get back to running, or find some other cardio that I love
Finish up my novel
Get back into blogging
Be a great husband in all of the new ways that having a normal job with a predictable schedule allows me to, that I couldn’t do when I was self-employed.

So that’s that. Let’s check in next year and see how I do!

My Advice for Your Safari in Tanzania

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:05:01 -0800

Let’s lead off with my first suggestion here: definitely 100% you should go on a safari, and I highly, highly recommend Tanzania for that safari. It’s a place where there are amazing animals that you can get so close to; where there are friendly and happy people who will help you have an incredible time; and where you’ll likely find yourself imbued with magic powers, like my wife who always knew what time it was to within two minutes, despite not having a watch, and who always knew how to get where we wanted to go, even though, at home, her sense of direction isn’t good enough to successfully walk out the door she just walked in. We had an astounding time — truly the trip of a lifetime — and I’m confident you will too.

Why Tanzania?

We picked Tanzania for three reasons: 1. It has the vast majority of the animals you’ll wan’t to see 2. It’s quite safe and stable 3. I’m a bit of an admirer of the “father of the nation,” Julius Nyerere

Number one was important to us because we like to settle down and really take some time to explore in each place we stop. This is a lot easier if you can spend at least two nights — which means a full day — in any destination, and that, in turn, is a lot easier if you minimize your overall travel time. We never took a flight much more than 2 hours once we were inside Tanzania, and that meant that, even on a travel day, we were able to fit in a safari first thing in the morning, before our departure, and in the evening, after we arrived at our next stop. That basically means we tripled the number of trips into the bush we could take, versus longer travel-time destinations.

Number two kind of speaks for itself. Tanzania is vastly safer than South Africa — which, near as I can tell, may actually be less safe than Baltimore or Palms — and somewhat safer than Kenya. You have noticeable crime in some of the bigger urban areas, but we didn’t have the slightest problem anywhere we stayed. That counts for a bit, especially with other plausible safari destinations including Burundi, South Africa, and Malawi.

Number three was a bonus just for me, although my wife’s embroidered initials, CCM, on her bag caused a bunch of second looks. I’d learned to admire Julius Nyerere in a college class on sub-Saharan African politics, and I was certainly glad to hear Tanzanian after Tanzanian tell me what a good job he’d done, especially in making them all feel like Tanzanians, rather than members of their tribe, first. I can’t lie, I enjoy going places whose politics I understand a bit!

What’s Tanzania Like?

Probably the hardest thing to get used to about Tanzania was that they’d say “hakuna matata” to you and mean it. Then there’s the parents taking their little tykes on safari: you see them point at a lion and say “look! There’s Simba!” and you just want to tell them, listen here, this isn’t some Disney movie, this is real nature, appreciate it for what it is, with the tragedy and violence, and stop lying to your kid there, ok? Except then you realize that the Kiswahili word for “lion” is “simba,” and the parents are just teaching their child a new language and helping them become a better citizen of our global society, and you’re the asshole in this one.

Oh, and Tanzania’s hot and sunny. So, so hot and sunny: even little doesn’t-tan’-doesn’t-burn me was wearing not my usual SPF 15 but SPF 50 to make it through the day. But the truth is that you hardly notice the heat when you’re 20 feet from a pride of lions. Excuse me, from a pride of simba.

Where Should I Go in Tanzania?

Short answer: anywhere. Long answer: we really enjoyed our stops — the Mahale Mountains, Ruaha, and Selous — that were a little bit away from things. In general, we found staying in camps and getting up early and going out tracking and exploring on safari with the guides there was an amazing experience. The solitude of being with just a few people in a small camp in the middle of nowhere really made me feel like I was closer to nature. Were we to go back again, I don’t know that we’d plan the Serengeti, which is much busier.

For mainland Tanganyika, we’d go to Kwihala in Ruaha, Selous Impala, or Nkungwe in Mahale again. In Zanzibar, we loved 236 Hurumzi, but it was very much a place you love or hate, so I recommend you do your research. Given the sand and water we saw, I can’t imagine any beach spot in Zanzibar being a bad choice (we chose ours based only on availability).

When Should I Go to Tanzania?

We went during the Little Rainy Season, which is a good time to go. From October through the end of December, you’re most likely to be rained out for a half day at most, or even just drizzled on, which is just fine. Also, not many people come during the little rainy season; we were the only two at in the entire Mahale Mountains National Park, and the only two at our camp in Ruaha during our first day there.

Many people come to Tanzania in the main dry season, late January through March, which can be a great time to see the big predators, but a tough time for the chimps — whereas we saw 20-30 at a time at an hour or 90 minutes from camp, the chimps go up into the mountains to seek out scarce forage during the dry season, so you’ll see at most a handful and that after four to six or even more hours of trekking. Our guides recommended August-October as a time that was good for seeing game and predators and also not too busy.

What Camera Equipment Should I Pack?

I was rather surprised at my photo experience at the end of the whole thing — the gear I’d expected to be the most-used never got touched, and the gear I left behind because I didn’t think it would be appropriate would’ve turned out to be tremendously useful.

Every single source I read said “bring a beanbag for your camera!” Perhaps because my longest lens was 300mm — the maximum length for hand-held shots in fairly bright daylight — I was able to do without. (My bad shots were bad, but they didn’t have motion blur in them.) Most of the angles I had to shoot at didn’t have a metal bar to hook my beanbag to anyway. So, I might’ve skipped that entire half kilo out of my 15-kilo weight limit.

On the other hand, I didn’t bring my very cheap but very long 500mm mirror lens. I figured it was slow; too long to hand-hold; and hard to focus; all adding up to something I couldn’t ever get a shot with. Well, I was wrong: those animals, they didn’t move as much as I thought they would. I’d had troubles shooting the dogs in the backyard with that lens, but lions? They’re lazy. Definitely take your long, cheap, slow lens to Africa.

And my nifty fifty? I brought that in case the jungle at Mahale was too dark and I needed that f/1.8 speed. Nah, my everyday 18-50 f/2.8 let in plenty of light for that at ISO 800.

So, I’d say: cover 24-as high as you can go and you’re fine. (The panoramas are so wide that you don’t need your wide angle to get that shot.) Don’t worry about having the fastest lens; cover your range. Oh, and don’t forget your circular polarizing filters, to catch the green vegetation and the azure water right.

What Should I Pack for My Safari?

I actually plan to write an entry on “how to pack” soon, based on experiences over the past ten years or so, but my advice for safari is: * Long sleeves to protect yourself from the very hard sun * About three times as much sunscreen as you think * A broad-brimmed hat, again for that sun * A safari vest. I bought the cheapest plausible one I could find, and guess what: I fell in love. Who cares about camera bags (I bought a neat new one for this trip)? Carrying your lenses in a vest? Filters, too? OK, that was my idea of heaven. * Oh, and little tiny toilet paper rolls. Not those, the biodegradable kind. For when you need to potty on safari.

What About Malaria Pills?

I had never taken malaria pills before, and had traveled all around the most malaria-ridden parts of Latin America without any worries, using this great stuff to keep me safe; but everyone told me “take your Malarone!” in Africa. Well, despite the repellent, I got bit up by old anopheles time and time again. Good thing for those magic red pills!

Where Should I Book My Safari?

We booked with Africa Travel Resource, and never regretted it for a moment. In fact, several of our guides looked at our itinerary and commented how great it was. And it didn’t even sound like they were blowing sunshine up our you-know-whats. They were helpful and got us the right vacation at the right price.

So that’s about it. The only other advice I can give you is: plan your safari now, you’ll never forget it!

And Now for Something Completely Different

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:20:49 -0800

After our trip through the Selous, the driving about the Ruaha that came before it, and dusty Arusha, and the mud and jungle of Mahale, it was time to recover from our vacation. From 5am wake-up calls to afternoons out in the bright sun and hundred-degree heat and hours spent peering into the foliage for a moment’s sight of a brightly-colored bird or a rare, stalking predator, we were tired out. Yeah, I know, us poor folks on a once-in-a-lifetime safari half the world away.

But there were no two ways about it: we were tired out, and we’d seen enough animals. So it was time to leave the mainland and jet — or, rather, the usual 12-seat turboprop — our way over to the Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar. Once the center of a vast and wealthy Sultanate that controlled East African trade, Zanzibar is a verdant pool in the midst of bright blue water; so of course we went to the beach to relax with drinks with umbrellas in them. And it was everything we’d hoped for: azure water, friendly staff, delicious drinks, and a lagoon as warm as a bath with cabanas floating in it for the delicious drinks the staff had served you on the beach.

We even were able to celebrate the new year on that beautiful beach, dancing with the happy staff of the resort, around a bonfire in the stiff sea breeze.

It was all a relaxing delight, even the massages. Oh, of course the massages would be good — it was what they made you wear during the massages that was odd. For modesty’s sake, it seems, they prefer you to wear disposable undergarments, which I suppose I could see being modest if they weren’t completely transparent black mesh, the kind of thickly-waled, wide-gapped black mesh that I’m pretty sure is quite à la mode in Berlin’s finest S&M techno clubs. But, hey, I managed not to laugh and the masseuse hopefully managed not to be mortified by my nudity, so I suppose it was a win for everyone.

After wearing our — well, I don’t know what you’d call them, gayderhosen? — we felt ready to rejoin society. And that was our next stop: the old Zanzibari capital of Stonetown.

Stonetown is a beautiful city, a warren of streets built before automobiles and far too thin to fit anything larger than a motorbike. It has a beautiful market with fresh fish and meats and some of the best spices anywhere, and this translates into absolutely delicious restaurants. And history is everywhere, from the ornate touches of India and the Middle East in architecture to the 16th century Portuguese cannon that the Sultanate captured and then, ten generations later, tried in vain to use against British battleships in the shortest war in history (it took the Sultan only 45 minutes to have all of his stuff blown up and surrender).

Once a fabulously wealthy city, the slow decline of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, revolution, and poverty hit Stonetown hard, however, and a shocking exhibit in the local museum — a building called the House of Wonders, the Sultan’s former palace and the only part of his landholdings not blown up by those British battleships — stated that 60% of the buildings in Stonetown were in danger of collapse. Looking at them, I wasn’t surprised; in fact, there were gaps here and there where a building had fallen down already.

Decay or not, Stonetown was an adventure. Perhaps a bit alien — the bustle of the market, with vendors all pitching their wares, the smells of butchery, and the yelling of cabbies overwhelmed the two of us just a bit — but the people were lovely and the artisans made beautiful work everywhere. Two days, and probably ten showers in the dusty, hundred-degree weather, we were finally able to start our 39-hour trip back to the US. You know, the part of the trip where we ended up in a cab driven by a guy who didn’t speak English and didn’t know where we were going, so he had to pull into a dark dirt alley in the middle of the night and ask a hooker for directions.

Actually, that sounds a lot like riding in a cab in LA. So, welcome home it was indeed, and welcome back to civilization for sure!

These Are My Teeth!

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:38:15 -0800

We arrived at the Selous right ahead of a storm, just as we had at Ruaha. We could feel it too: as our unpressurized Caravan made its landing turn, hot, humid, close air burst through the ventilation system, filling the cabin with languor and the promise of rain. Again, just as at Ruaha, the sun was shining and the sky clear as we landed, but there was a vast, dark cloud in the corner of the sky, and the wide horizons of Africa made it easy to see that rain was streaming out of it. At Ruaha, we started back to camp as if on a game drive, but then dark clouds emerged from two other corners of the sky, and then we sped back to camp to try to get there before the storms converged from three sides.

At Selous, we had less of a worry if we would beat the weather, because our afternoon safari was planned to take place in a covered boat. We’d head down the broad, muddy Rufiji river, keeping our eyes peeled for birds, hippos, and, yes, crocodiles, returning at sundown to clean up in our tent.

And it was some return. The Selous Impala camp, where we stayed, offered the only fan we had in any of our safari stops. Courtney, who loves keeping cool and had been quite the trouper to put up, uncomplaining, with day after day of 100-degree-plus weather. She quite literally almost hugged the fan as soon as we walked into our tent.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Impala was a very, very different place than Kwihala — or any other place we’d been. Impala is owned by Italians, who, it’s fair to say, have their own set of priorities. For instance, in the middle of nowhere, with no source of power or anything other than diesel they truck in, they have this:

Dinner was served in a grand style, too, in a lovely setting as well:

There was even the house hippo, Andrea, who loved to hang around the place:

Andrea was quite the challenge: while having him around was exciting and scenic, the reality is that hippos are cranky, cranky animals and, if you were to unexpectedly stumble upon Andrea, the reality was that he would almost certainly trample you to death. Us urban types have few skills related to not stumbling upon hippos, so, rather than deal with a ton of dead tourists they have to hide, Impala employs a bunch of Maasai warriors who escort you from place to place. You just stand outside and yell “Jambo Masai!” and they come and get you, pointing out little animals (and, of course, Andrea if he’s around) along the way.

We had just one driving safari in Selous, but it was a humdinger: a tracker had found a lion pride, and our driver was on top of it:

Most of our time we spent on river safaris, going up and down the Rufiji. The river teemed with birds of all sorts, like this bee-eater:

And this kingfisher (hot tip: I love photographing kingfishers, no matter what part of the world we’re in):

And even this egret — the local egrets seem to like standing on the local water buffalo:

But of course what we came to see were the hippos, like this one who took a serious look at us:

And this one who wanted to tell us: these are my teeth!

And, of course, the sinister crocodiles:

The sunsets? They were a bonus!

Along the way (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:21:19 -0800

Along the way (Taken with instagram)

The Most Into Poo I've Ever Been in My Life

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:16:19 -0800

I never expected I would care about dung beetles, or that I would even see them on this safari: but, apparently, get a bunch of scarab beetles rolling around and then burying their very own balls of elephant dung, and I can’t hold myself back. They’re just such hard-working little buggers, fighting for their dung, rolling it into a ball, climbing to the top every once in a while to make sure they’re rolling it in the right direction, then finally burying it so that it can incubate the next generation of poo-oriented scarab beetles. Intrepid indeed! So naturally I was on my belly getting photos of them working hard, silhouetted by a gigantic pile of elephant spoor.

Our trip to Ruaha was very much about the little things. Sometimes that was literal, as with the dung beetles, or the swarms of inch-long bullfrogs, or the many-colored dragonflies, or the super-adorable (if unfortunately-named) dikdik.

But it was also about the little matter of the manner in which we appreciated the safari. After Mahale and Manyara, we’d truly seen the vast majority of the incredible animals we’d come to see. Sure, we were hopeful we’d spot leopards or lions or wild dogs, but the reality was that Ruaha would offer mostly the elephants and giraffe and impala that we’d already seen. So we could be bored, or we could go to Ruaha to do something different.

And that was what we did. We stayed in Kwihala Tented Camp, a mobile camp of large, frankly luxurious tents that moves several times a year to stay near the wildlife. But it’s still just a bunch of tents in the bush, and you need an escort from the main lounge tent to your tent at night. All night long you hear the snorts of impala, the low booming of lions, the snuffle of warthogs, sometimes just outside your tent — you feel a bit alone in the middle of Africa, which is great.

All day long — and I mean all day long — we safaried by vehicle. The friendly team woke us up at 5:30 every morning with juice and coffee, then by 6 we were on our way, seeing the park at sunrise. Then we’d stop for tea and a breakfast of fruit, toast, eggs, and bacon at around 9:30, returning for lunch at noon. At 3:30 we’d head out to do it all again, not coming home until the sun was well down, just in time for an 8:30 dinner call.

Exhausting? A bit. An incredible chance to see the animals? Definitely. Our guide Steve found us tons of those great small buggers, and a lot of beautiful birds. But he also found us the good big game. There were elephant just outside our Land Cruiser, real live wild elephant playing and suckling and eating and knocking down trees and walking close enough I could’ve touched them if I were sitting on the hood. We saw young male impala fighting, we learned all about giraffe behavior, and we found a pack of baboons and watched their babies play.

Sure, there was that one time Steve parked us in the middle of a tsetse fly-infested swamp to get a better view of some animals, but I can forgive him that. Because he also found us this incredible lioness. She was old, and injured, and clearly hadn’t eaten for weeks; she was skin and bones, and was hiding in the shade. Anyone could’ve missed her (in fact, others on safari drove past us right after we saw her and didn’t stop). But Steve spied her sleeping, and we waited around, and we saw her get up and walk and saw her limp and understood that was why she was emaciated and used that to understand lion pack behavior.

So that was this part of the vacation: seeing real wild animals in their real habitat acting naturally, and understanding why. There’s not much better reason for a safari than that! Next stop is the Selous (say see-lou), with its famous river boat safaris to see the hippos and crocodiles and its equally famous pool in the midst of camp to cool off in. Which would be great, because it’s hot here. Africa hot, as the locals say.

"‘For instance,’ [Meryl Streep] says, forking at a bread-crumbed oyster, ‘we are taught about..."

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:22:01 -0800

“‘For instance,’ [Meryl Streep] says, forking at a bread-crumbed oyster, ‘we are taught about Benedict Arnold, the first traitor in America, but I’ve never heard—until I went onto the [National Women’s History Museum] Web site—about Deborah Sampson, the first woman to take a bullet for her nation. She was 21 years old in the Revolutionary War. She enlisted on the American side under a man’s name, wore boys’ clothing, was cut with a British saber across her forehead, and took a musket ball in her thigh.’ She’s a good storyteller, with a warm, urgent voice. ‘And her compatriots carried her six miles to the doctor’s, and he stitched up her head and she wouldn’t let him take her pants off—because he would discover she was a woman!’ So did she die of her wound? ‘No—she was very good with her needle, so she cut the musket ball out and sewed her own leg up and served another eighteen months. In 1783 she was discharged, went home and had three children.’ Sampson was granted £34 by the state of Massachusetts for exhibiting ‘an extraordinary instance of feminine heroism by discharging the duties of a faithful, gallant soldier, and at the same time preserving the virtue and chastity of her sex unsuspected and unblemished.’ Amazing story. ‘And I am 60 years old and I learn this story,’ says Streep. ‘I should have learned that story in the fourth grade. Because it helps you as a child to know that it is not just Paul Revere riding a horse and calling, ‘The British are coming, the British are coming.’ It’s not just Benjamin Franklin and George Washington and the battles won, it’s the bravery of all these people that are undiscovered, unknown.’”

- “Meryl Streep: Force of Nature,” Vogue (via thatluciegirl)

I just read this to Chris and started crying.

(via meganwest)

Chain Link Confined (Taken with instagram)

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 04:47:55 -0800

Chain Link Confined (Taken with instagram)

How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body - NYTimes.com

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:42:04 -0800

How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body - NYTimes.com:

(via Instapaper)

Arusha, I Can't Quit You

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 08:00:05 -0800

I’m writing this blog entry on my third flight out of Arusha — we keep leaving, but we can’t seem to stay away. Even after yesterday, after we drove out of there.

We overnighted in Arusha after leaving the Mahale Mountains, the easiest convenient flight being, of course, to the city we can’t leave. The next day, we drove out in a big Toyota Land Cruiser under the watchful eye of Christopher, our Maasai guide for the next two days. (Note to Rover executives: when Toyota replaces the Range Rover as the safari vehicle of choice in an image-conscious former British colony, you’ve made a lot of bad moves.) He drove us out through Arusha’s busy, seedy downtown, into the Maasai steppe and even past his own hometown, into the little Manyara reserve, for our first vehicle safari.

In general, we’ve tried to avoid the Northern Circuit on this safari holiday — it’s migration season in the Serengeti, which is supposed to be astounding, but also apparently brings with it as many tourists in Land Cruisers as it does antelope and lions. Rather than fight the lines to see a lounging lion, we’re headed to the Southern circuit, where we’ll be much more alone. (If the fact that we’re the only two people on this flight means anything, much much more alone!)

Manyara was a great introduction to the vehicle safari: easily accessable and with many animals that were generous enough to come close to the road. The park started us off right with an elephant who tentatively stuck his head out and then walked across the road right in front of us.

We then were introduced to antelope and giraffe, both as graceful as on tv. The giraffe somehow a slow-motion version of a horse, gliding over the landscape almost like a special effect. But I think my favorite hooved animal in Manyara was the zebra:

The hooved animals had a lot of competition from the monkey side of things, and the monkeys were really representing at Manyara. The small, cute side of things was held up by the blue and the black-faced vervet monkeys:

Meanwhile, at the large, mischevious end of things, the baboons were moving around in large packs. (Make sure to lock your doors and close your windows! Apparently they’ll reach in to steal your stuff!) With their long, silky-looking fur and inquisitive nature, they pretty much stole the show:

And they had backup in the cute department too, what with their young’uns:

At the end of our first game drive, we drove up the outer escarpment of the Ngorongoro crater to stay at a working farm. And, when I say “working farm” I mean “place that grows the vegetables it serves at gourmet meals, while having luxurious huts for dozens of guests.”

First thing in the morning, it was onto a flight to the vast Ruaha game preserve in the south. Or so we thought: it turned out to be another flight into Arusha, where our local carrier, Coastal Air, would drop us and then figure out how to get us to the Ruaha. And I can’t complain, because, as I said, I’m writing this on my third flight out of Arusha, and we’re the only two people on this sleek, silver Pilatus streaking south high above the clouds, rakish French pilot speeding us towards our next stop: a tented camp in the middle of the bush.