Hasta El Papel Higienico Siempre?

So, the EYM just returned from two weeks in Cuba.  There were apparently some difficulties.

But there were some remarkable observations, also.  Here is the picture of the iconic image of Che Guevera.  Haven't exactly had the "victoria siempre" yet:

Here is the graph of membership in the CDR, the Castros' house brown-shirts: "en cada barrio," indeed:

And here is the ladies' room at the CDE headquarters/museum (the men's room was hors de combat).  I should note that the phone book with the pages torn out mean exactly what you think that means.

Now, think about that.  This is the museum and headquarters of the CDR.  And THEY don't have toilet paper in the ladies' room. (EDIT:  As commenter Joe Biby notes, "At least you can't leave the seat up."  Because there IS no seat.  Nice.)

Just like in Venezuela.  Socialism:  The cure for toilet paper...

Ayer, Santiago! Hoy, Concon!

Got in to Santiago yesterday, Saturday.  Spectacular day.  Had lunch at one of my favorite places, El Galindo; had humidas and Kross #5.  Then a delightful dinner at Tiramisu, and helados and coffee at Fragola.  Spent the night at the Tulip Inn, in the Cuarto Matrimonial (!).  Having not slept the previous night of plane travel, we were not as "matrimonial" as the honeymoon suite would normally require.

Today, to Concon, and the Radisson Concon, right on the water.  Will likely have dinner at one of two intriguingly named restaurants:  "Aqui Jaime" or "Donde Jacobo?"

Afghanistan or Oklahoma?

Faculty photo in Romania

So, our group picture, at the Craiasa Muntilor near Brasov.

That's Virgil Storr, Dave Schmidtz, me with the hat, and Jerry Gaus in back, threatening to hold Mihai Titienar hostage for more of that great bread.
 

Caption Contest: TSA Version

Pelsmin sends this photo.  Suggests it would be a good caption contest, and then tells the story.  He's right!  So, please do submit your favorite caption, in comments:

Please do click for a more intrusive image....  And then, the story.  As Pelsmin tells it:

I loaned my wife my old Hartmann bag for a trip to her High School Reunion.  I repeatedly assured her that I had carried the bag onto hundreds of flights over the years, although I always limited myself to three days clothing including one pair of shoes.  For her, three days meant three days times three outfits a day, and that meant at least 8 pairs of shoes.  Long story short, she ran into a jam long before the overhead bin came into play.

As Hamlet put it, or would have, if he had seen this...

Heaven and earth,
Must I remember? Why, she would pack more shoes
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on, and yet, within a weekend—
She hardly wore any of them!—Overpacking, thy name is woman!—

Seattle Food Quick Hits

Several nice meals in Seattle.  A quick review of four of them.  This is pretty long, so I'll continue below the fold.  In the meantime, here is the YYM at Safeco.  Mariners have overcome their sadness at losing Ichiro by playing their best ball of the year.  Pretty fun, beautiful place.

Food reviews below...

umm....this kind of stuff happens all the time

Headline on Yahoo this morning condemning "human zoo" where indigenous people danced for tourists in exchange for food.

People, to different degrees, this happens all the time all over the world. Mrs. A and I have seen it advertised in Africa, Asia & Latin America. Heck it happens in Hawaii quite a bit!

I don't like it. We avoid such suggested outings, and have at times simply left our hotel when groups were brought in to perform. I feel like the people must hate doing it and that makes me embarrassed to watch/listen. (I have enjoyed gamalan concerts in Bali and traditional dance performances in Bali though (at places where you went and bought a ticket) so maybe I am a hypocrite here?) It is usually very hard to convince local people that you don't want to go to the "show".

But, food is good. Money is good. If the "performers" aren't slaves and choose to do their thing in exchange for the offered remuneration, how is it like a zoo? By my refusal to attend, am I sending people home to be hungry?

Every day, all over the world, millions of people voluntarily do things we generally consider unseemly or unsafe or undignified. This is one reason why, to me at least, global economic growth is still imperative.

Can I be an honorary gorilla too?

Mrs. Angus and I have been on 4 mountain gorilla treks and saw this same group of gorillas in Bwindi this summer. However, we had to hike for over 3 hours to reach them. This video is AMAZING. OK, the blathering guy for the first minute is a pain, but it gets real good around the 1:55 mark and just keeps getting better from there.

If I ever go again, I'll be sure to wear a black shirt and have plenty of gray hair (one way or another).

KPC Dallas summit

Mungo and I converged on Dallas yesterday to take in game 4 of the WS. We warmed up by eating a pile of pupusas (the official food of KPC by the way) and then headed to the game early, to see STL take BP (which was pretty much the only time they hit the whole game). While the outcome was disappointing, the experience was tremendous.

The Rangers have a great ballpark, super fans and a fun team. Their only real drawback is GEORGE F. BUSH, who threw out the first pitch to a standing O!

Some foties:

Attn: West coast KPC fans

I, Angus will be giving a talk tomorrow at Claremont College.

Title is "Beyond Twin Peaks: Development and Polarization in the World Income Distribution".

The time is 10:30 - 12:00 the place is Kravis 367.

Be sure and say hi if you are a KPC reader.

Don't call me Shirley!

Unbelievable story out of Malaysia that "authorities" had to rescue an Orang from a provincial zoo at least partly because she'd become a heavy smoker.

Really.

Here's part of the AP story:

Government authorities seized the adult ape named Shirley from a state-run zoo in Malaysia's southern Johor state last week after she and several other animals there were deemed to be living in poor conditions.

Shirley is now being quarantined at another zoo in a neighboring state and is expected to be sent to a Malaysian wildlife center on Borneo island within weeks.

Melaka Zoo Director Ahmad Azhar Mohammed said Shirley is not being provided with any more cigarettes because "smoking is not normal behavior for orangutans."

Ya think?

I know there are serious arguments in favor of having zoos, but stuff like this really makes me question their existence.

I hope that the wildlife center on Borneo is Sepilok. Mrs. Angus and I have visited, and it's an amazing place.

The old man & the gorilla

What does a 53 year old academic look like after clambering straight up the side of a volcano covered in rain-forest vegetation chasing a family of gorillas?

Well....like this (clik the pik for an even more tired-looking Angus):

photo is courtesy of the de Leeuw family from the Netherlands, who we met and trekked with in Bwindi.

They also sent us this great shot from Ishasha:

Uganda trip report #3: The big Kahunas

We went on two mountain gorilla treks in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in southwestern Uganda. Compared to Rwanda, there are fewer habituated families to see, the hiking is, if anything, tougher, and the rangers are less professional. It's also less crowded and you can pick the group you want to visit rather than being randomly assigned when you reach the park. In both countries, the maximum group size is 8 and the time allowed to be with the gorillas is one hour.

I enjoyed my gorilla experience more in Uganda than in Rwanda, even though (or maybe because?) is was my second time. I was less frantically taking pictures and more soaking the whole thing in. That said, we did get some good photos (clic the pics for more glorious images):

You can see more gorilla photos from the trip here.

Uganda trip report #2: Kazinga channel cruise

For a long time, I've wanted to canoe down the Zambezi river among the hippos and other riverine creatures, but Mrs. Angus wants no part of it. The closest I've gotten so far is the pontoon boat ride down the the Kazinga channel, a 30 km "river"which connects lakes George and Albert in the northern part of Queen Elizabeth park as seen in this aerial photo:

You can see loads of hippos and buffalo, along with Nile crocodiles, monkeys, lizards, a profusion of birds, and sometimes even elephant and lion. We saw pretty much everything but lions on our trip (we did see 11 lions at other times in the park though).

Here are a couple pictures (as always, clic the pic for a more glorious image):

We have a singer!

The video portion of this recording is poor (it was cloudy and the water was fairly rough), but the audio track captures a humpback whale singing! The high notes caused my camera housing and armbones to vibrate and the low notes resonated in my chest (like when the bass is too forward at a music club). It was a remarkable experience.

No one knows why these whales sing.

Martin Comes Through

KPC friend and sometimes acerbic commenter Martin sends this terrifying video, made for Leavenworth, WA.

And, yes, Germany was just like this. Not.

China loves Federer

Let me just let Roger tell it:

“[Fans are] very creative here in this country giving gifts,” Federer said Thursday. “Obviously many think of my twin girls. Many think of Switzerland, maybe give me a cow or something like that. Others create great books about me and my career, places where they've been, pictures they've taken with me, souvenirs that I've signed for them, they've taken pictures of it. It's very nice.

"It's very different, to be honest. Not everywhere do I get such nice and creative gifts. I always need to pack in the extra suitcase to take all the gifts back. That's the only small problem, but it's a good problem to have, so I'm happy about it.”

Holy crap, people. Has China gotten so far ahead of us that they've made a cow that fits in a suitcase? Like the giraffe in the DirectTV commercial? Thomas Friedman will have a heart attack when he hears about this!

Angus does Canyon Road

The Santa Fe art scene is not all native american and spanish colonial. There is some excellent modern stuff here.

We saw two new to me artists' works that I really liked this morning. One is Hilario Gutierrez. Here's a sample:

The other is Ted Larson who works with scrap metal in a very painterly way:



Then there is one of my very favorite young painters, Nigel Conway, who I've blogged about before. I am making a fool out of myself lobbying Mrs. A over this piece:



Sadly, I am not making much progress.

Underwear, and Rowing

Went to the regatta in Tampa, for the YYM's rowing team.

I should note that the Mungowi have a custom. When we travel, the LMM brings three large suitcases, but forgets something, something important. Famously, when we were travelling to Fundman's wedding, with Neanderbill she forgot (wait for it) HER DRESS. So we were flopping about like fish, searching malls. That story has been told, before.

This time? Underwear. She didn't bring any underwear. (I'm playing this straight, not going to any of the obvious places I might go.)

(And I should note that the lovely Ms. Angus likewise once arrived in NC without undies (except the ones she was WEARING, I hasten to add.) So the Angii and I went to a Kohl's or something, and there in the ladies underwear aisle, a place I had not been before, we saw a very heavily veiled and robed Muslim woman, completely covered, shopping. She was shopping for some amazingly racy thongs and lacy little nothings. Holding up those little g-string looking undies to the light, while she was totally hooded in heavy black cloth. Strange. Anyway, Ms. Angus got some sensible American made-in-Mexico underwear, and we were off.)

So I had to find a Tar-shay, or something like that, and buy the LMM some undergarments. I did find a Target, and this time in the ladies undies aisle there were two elderly women, Brits from their accents, arguing fiercely about whether the double panels in the enormous granny style, come-up-to-your-neck, panties would "control spotting." EEEEWWWWWW! They were loud, and pulling back and forth and holding up the crotch panels to the light. (This, ladies, is why men don't like to buy that sort of stuff. One elderly Brit-women-arguing-about-spotting wipes out at least five Muslim-woman-holding-up-thongs experiences.)

Anyway, all is well, and the LMM no longer has to travel commando. (Or "true Scotsman"). But as soon as we get to the regatta site, we see ....this! Nice!

The regatta site is huge, and crowded. It looked like this, for more than a mile, solid.

Hard to see the actual races, out on the lake. But the YYM rows in a 4-boat, like this one:

Back at the airport, spirits were high. The YYM was dressed all in black, with sunglasses. He's in the middle.

One of our boats, the lightweight 2 men, made it to Nationals, by coming in 2nd in the finals and winning a silver medal. (Our team is Triangle Rowing Club, btw). Yay! Very exciting.

Whale-y boy

I wasn't going to touch the whales. I told myself, look, these are wild animals and deserve respect. If they come close to the boat, observe and enjoy, but don't touch.

As a point of reference, there were people on the trip announcing their goal of hugging and kissing a whale!

So the first couple times a baby came close to the boat, I didn't try to touch. On the last afternoon though, a particularly playful baby was romping back and forth between our boat and another while his mom rested nearby. He came up to the front of the boat where I was and tilted his body so he was looking right at me! At that point the thought hit me that the little dude WANTED me to touch him.

So, the next time he came by, I did. Here are some photos taken by someone in the other boat:

In the picture above, that's Mrs. Angus's arm in the red reaching out to touch the calf.

I wouldn't call it a spiritual experience, but it amazed me how these creatures seem to want to interact with humans. Even some adults approached our little boats to be seen and touched. It's even more amazing when you consider that within the lifespan of some living gray whales, there still was whaling going on in this exact spot!

The NY Times Magazine recently had a great story on whales including a description of a trip to Laguna San Ignacio, where Mrs. Angus and I were.