In our “year of the great travels” a given span of time can easily seem confusing. Calendar time just doesn’t match up with my sense of how long ago something happened. But the autumnal equinox of yesterday put down a marker. I’m amazed to realize that it was only six…

I’ll admit it. I love doing nothing. But I should be so lucky as to actually accomplish things in the process. Like an insurrection for example. For those 187 minutes that man did his best Emperor Nero imitation, twittering while the riot in the dome burned. Set aside all the…

Our guide Emil called for the water taxi to pause in the small strait next to Agilkia Island. He had the pilot shut the engine off and instructed us to take some time in silence before we disembarked. The early pre-dawn light suffused the yellow sandstone of the islands and…

Starting in Luxor, we first found our dear dahabiya the Afandina by riding a water taxi across the Nile from the east shore. We discovered it tucked against the shoreline behind two other dahabiyas. …

When we reached the exit from airport security we found our guide Ahmed holding a sign with our names on it, a sight we don’t see very often being generally averse to traveling on tours. He greeted us with “Welcome home!” which I thought was just a charming version of…

Back in the old days (the days are old, not me) I remember lots of discussion about “peer pressure” and whether or not we were being true to ourselves or just trying to stay in some social club. Now of course we’ve put all that behind us and act as…

We enter into another’s suffering at great risk and with uncertain reward. Yet we must go. The only option is the sterile isolation of narcissism. When put that way it is really a necessity rather than a choice that draws us there. Yet it is also the paradox of a…

Our culture is all bollucksed up in confusion and chaos around the concept of individualism. We tend to view it as an unalloyed good. The concept is so ingrained in every aspect of our behavior that any proposal for a program of solving our manifold problems must first clear the…

Driving through Texas is always rough. Traffic is horrendous. And their penchant for having the longest established permanent floating crap game construction zone doesn’t help. A spell of Texas traffic is great for learning all the wrong lessons. I was watching lane-burner-speed-demons fly around me and weave within a hair…