SACRAMENTO – American activist Dr. Nguyen Quoc Quan has been released after 9 months of detention in Ho Chi Minh City by the Vietnamese government. Vietnamese authorities claimed the California software engineer and former teacher was engaged in terrorist activities due to his association with Viet Tan, a pro-democracy group that works “inside Vietnam […]
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Why Having No Smartphone For a Month Was Awful or How I Outsourced My Brain
I have recently been re-reading the historian Barbara Tuchman, who back in 1986 posed this rather topical question: “Are we smarter than our technology?” The eminent historian was worrying about teleprompters, at the time a still relatively new technology that some worried gave undue advantage to dim Ken dolls harboring aspirations of ultimate power and […]
Consider the Southern Sandwich: Dairy Center, Mt Airy
Dairy Center – Mt Airy, North Carolina 407 W Lebanon St, Mt Airy, NC 27030 Consider the Southern sandwich. Dairy Center is a North Carolina burgers-and-sandwiches joint that would be absolutely heaving with bored-looking foodies if it were located in a major metro area, the sort of folks who of a weekend find themselves seeking […]
Help Me Identify These Alabaster Sculptures from 1979 Kabul, Afghanistan (please)
My grandparents visited Afghanistan in 1979, during perhaps the last possible burst of leisurely travel possible before the Bad Years descended. They purchased a number of interesting items, but have never been able to find out much about these small alabaster heads, which alternately fascinated and concerned me since I was 3 or thereabouts. Anyway, […]
Dark day for free speech in Vietnam: 13 activists jailed
A rotten week for freedom of speech in Vietnam. Wrote about it for GlobalPost and hoping to do something else for UN Dispatch today. Vietnam Convicts 14 Activists of ‘Anti-State’ crimes After Two-Day Hearing – GlobalPost Fourteen bloggers were convicted of “anti-state” crimes today in the central Vietnamese city of Vinh, after a swift two-day-trial […]
Ruminations On The Horrors of Frozen Quesadillas
(Reposted from my Tumblr). Dear Internet: why would anyone buy a frozen quesadilla? Is it that difficult to make one? I have made many quesadillas in my time, and the basic procedure involved is: frying pan, tortilla, cheese, butter or cooking spray, 5 minutes. Is that too damn hard? If all you have is a […]
Narwhals, dangerous motorcycle riding, and Beate Gordon: Recent Globalposting
It’s been a banner week for my GlobalPost work. I would expect January 3rd to be a lousy news day, but instead I’ve got narwhal smugglers, modest Indonesian motorcycle usage, man-biting-dog, and the woman who helped draft the Japanese Constitution at the tender age of 22. Not to mention the Year in Women (not the […]
22 Square: distinctly un-Paula-Deen eats in Savannah
22 SQUARE 14 Barnard Street Savannah, GA 31401 Website Facebook page—with a copy of the menu Savannah’s culinary scene is inextricably linked with Paula Deen, the slightly wild-eyed Empress of Butterfat whose culinary stylings wage gleeful warfare against the forces of heart-healthy diets and tempeh. This means that tourists in Savannah almost invariably find themselves […]
What I Do At the End of the Year: Fallout Shelters, Fake News, and The Best Memes of 2012
I love my job at GlobalPost extra this time of year: the time of the year when our restive world begins clamoring for end-of-the-year wrap-ups of really silly things. Add in an impending Mayan apocalypse, and you’ve basically got my idea of career heaven. If only we could have a towering inferno and a hotly contested […]
Why Backpackers Tend to Hate Each Other
I hate backpackers. They suck. You know what I’m talking about. They sit in authentic-seeming cafes that are secretly made just for them, wearing technicolored tie-die pants and scribbling seriously away in twee Moleskine notebooks. They congregate in great hordes in backpacker-approved areas, drinking beer out of strange, unwashed receptacles and showing one another their […]