Allahu Akbar Anyone who travels to the Middle East has heard the call to prayer many times during their stay. It always begins with the beseeching cry of Allahu Akbar, which means God is greater. It is, perhaps the most succinct statement of the optimism of religion one can hear. It is less about power and more about the importance of the good life and why it should trump all else. It is one of…
Luxor Today we had to start our day rather early. We were to be in the lobby at 4:15am ready to go. We had all the best intentions of going to bed early and getting a solid night’s sleep in the shadow of the Great Pyramids and it started out just that way. Despite a very comfortable bed in the Marriott Mena room, I woke up at 12:30am with some very stiff legs and joints.…
Getting Your Cartouche Cleaned The other day we took a ride around the Borghese Gardens in an enlarged golf cart. It wasn’t part of a plan, but the cart showed up when we got out of our cab and it was hard to pass it up as a way to see the entirety of the lovely gardens before ambling down the Via Veneto to the Cappucin Crypt Church on the Piazza Barberini. One of the…
Back in the Kabubble I watched some movie or other five years ago that was about a journalist that ws covering the war in Afghanistan. It seems that it is always the case that journalists in war zones hang out at the same western hotels where they commune with one another and both check notes with one another and stay connected to a world they can recognize rather than the one that’s going on around…
Stanley Tucci Go Home There are certain actors and actresses that everyone likes. That can’t be said for all actors and actresses. I have always found it interesting that while Tom Cruise and Kevin Costner have drawn lots of controversy, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep have stayed above it all and are beloved by all. That’s all a little easier to understand with star-quality actors and actresses who get paparazzied to death on a daily…
The Many Me I have had a difficult day today and it is for the thinnest of reasons, but perhaps also, the most fundamental of reasons. This morning I did what I always tend to do when traveling, which is to get up somewhat earlier than Kim. As I usually do, I went down to the breakfast room ahead of her and proceeded to get started without her. I tend to do a full, what…
The Real Rome Kim booked us for a tour of the working side of Rome. I can only assume that I have done a good job of showing her all of the regular tourist stuff that constitutes the bulk of the Trip Advisor tours she can find on the internet. What she did instead of that was find a woman who proposed a tour of the Testaccio and Ostiense areas of the city, areas that…
The Best Seat Ever I am, once again midway over the Atlantic Ocean on my way to Europe. For the first time, Kim and I are flying directly to Europe from San Diego. We are on our way to Egypt and Jordan for a few weeks of pure tourism. We are with Mike and Melisa and have all decided that the best way to do this is to fly to Rome and spend a few…
The Frustration of Open-mindedness In teaching my ethics course, I spend some time telling students that one of the benefits of the course will hopefully to help them learn the value of keeping an open mind to the views of others, even when they are quite different from their own. I say that the value comes from both gaining the respect of those you interact with and in broadening your own views. The problem I…
We Come and We Go There are two schools of thought when it comes to personality. One is we are who we are and that we never change. I guess you would call that the “nature” camp. The opposite would logically be the “nurture” side which believes that we are all a function of our environment and that we are constantly changing. While I am certain that people think about these issues in the context…