the places in between

rory stewart, a scotsman, decided to walk across Afghanistan in January of 2002, on foot, by himself. if you'll recall, January 2002 was about 3 weeks after we installed the new government in Afghanistan. it was and still is a terribly unsafe place for westerners. as it turns out its even unsafe if you're an Afghani. Afghanistan is a country that is primarily still medieval: tribes based on ethnicity, religion, and location are constantly battling each other. this book is rory's travel diary of the trip, and in short i have a man-crush on this guy. equipped only with his knowledge of the local language and an amazing craft to avoid trouble when it is staring him in the face, he nearly dies (twice) and survives on a piece of bread daily for days at a time while hiking 60km a day. this was the look at Afghanistan that I was looking for that the Kite Runner only could provide in part.

fourth of a lie?

So in honor of it being fourth of July and all, I picked up Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" and read about the revolutionary war. All I can remember from American History in high school was the famous phrase, "taxation without representation." And that's bad, right? Well as is usually the case, war is more complicated than a simple phrase and the Revolutionary War was no exception.

Before the colonists' dissent was directed at Britian, it was directed at the upper class here at home. In fact a study of the Boston tax lists of the early 1770s shows that 5% of the population was controlling 49% of the city's assets. This imbalance led to many riots and ransacking of private property. This made the people with the private property - the rich - understandably nervous. As a whole, the colonists had a huge amount of natural resources, were tired of fighting wars against the Spanish and French in the name of Great Britian, and the ruling class in the colonies was worried about losing their own wealth due to this growing dissent. It is no wonder then that their main objective was to direct this animosity towards Britain. In fact this redirection of anger was so tenuous, many of the poor in the army were forcibly enlisted and there was often mutiny, abandonment, and riots. The few who did join the army on their own will did so out of a necessity to advance their financial position - just as is done today. We likely would have lost the war if it were not for the support of France.

So this fourth of July, when you're barbecueing and drinking your beer, definately enjoy them. But remember what you are celebrating - a successful redirection of animosity at a time when real revolution may have actually been possible. For the common man, the Revolutionary War was no different than any other war. The poor have the "priveledge" and "duty" of protecting the wealth and assets of the rich. Sound familiar?