Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

Water in Africa

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

Woman collecting water in Apac

I took this photo of a woman we met in Apac who was on her way to fill her plastic jerry cans with water from a public pump from one of the town’s wells. One of the ongoing subjects Moses has been documenting during our trip is how water is used by people in East Africa. He’s gathering images for an organization called Clearwater Initiative which works on water issues here. Every town has at least one public well with a pump from which people collect water for drinking and often washing clothes as well. We didn’t have a way to test the quality of this water so we purified it with my Steripen or iodine before we drank it ourselves.

In addition to the public pumps, many buildings here include systems for catching and storing rainwater from their gutters on the roof. This water is usually only used for washing.

Pride and Prejudice

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

In this morning’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd recasts our presidential race in classic chick lit terms:Frontispiece illustration from the 1903 American edition of Pride and Prejudice

Like the leading man of Jane Austen and Bridget Jones, Obama can, as Austen wrote, draw “the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien. …he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased.”

While she does no great service to addressing really pressing issues of this campaign, it’s a nice distillation of questions concerning Mr. Obama’s character, and of ours as a nation of suitors.