Musical Mondays: Jekyll and Hyde

As it gets closer to Halloween, I thought we’d celebrate with scary musicals! Well, maybe not scary, but at least gothic or horror inspired, if not exactly horrifying, all of which can be applied to Jekyll and Hyde at some point in its long career. Continue reading →

Kashgar Bazaar and the Karakoram Highway

Kashgar is an ancient oasis town on the western tip of China. The area is home to Uyghurs, a Turkic speaking, Muslim community. It is in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The region is by no means autonomous and is quickly filling up with Han (China’s dominant ethnicity). Through a combination of modernization, repression, and flooding the area with Han immigrants, the Uyghur people and culture are slowly being snuffed out.

I am a huge Silk Road buff. And Kashgar is Silk Road Central. My plan is to visit the Sunday Bazaar– the largest in Central Asia– and to travel the Chinese section of the Karakoram Highway. The highway crosses the Pamir Mountains and connects Pakistan with China. Bin Laden’s hideout, in Abbottabad, is along the Karakoram. A few miles to the west of the highway are the borders with Tajikistan and Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor. Continue reading →

A Huge Endeavour on the Streets of Los Angeles

On your left you see the space shuttle Endeavour, shortly after its touchdown at LAX earlier this week.

Endeavour flew 25 times between 1992 and 2011. In daylight photos you can see how battered it is. Honourable wounds gained doing honourable work.

Today, it is on its last journey as it continues inching its way through the streets of Los Angeles towards its final home, the California Science Center in Exposition Park. Continue reading →

As the Election Heats Up the Racists Take their Cue

We’ve apparently reached the part of the 2012 election where all the racist assheads emerge from the shadows in full bigoted regalia.

While not surprising, it does just make us….well, what? What does this particular demonstration make us feel? This may seem like an easy question, but maybe it isn’t so easy. Is it enraging? Sure. But by this point it’s also so cliché and mundane that it’s almost like expecting the jerk after the tap on the knee. It’s not that we thought these folks went anywhere after the 2008 election. No, of course not. Due to the Tea Party, which has been noticeably absent during much of the 2012 campaign, we saw the many, many, racist signs and slogans and t-shirts and whatever the first time around. So, where has this guy been? Continue reading →