Gori, Georgia- I hopped in a marshrutka (giant, ubiquitous post-Soviet sphere minibus) today in Tbilisi to make the pilgrimage to the birthplace of the original “Man of Steel” Ioseb (Georgian (which is actually Kartuli in its endonym) Dzugashvili aka Joseph…
Has Georgia Just Slipped into Partial Irrelevance?
Tbilisi, Georgia- I’ve just completed a mostly sleepless journey from Ezrurum, a dull, cold city in eastern Turkey, to the lush, rolling hills of temperate Tbilisi. At the border at 1am, I joined an already rolling bus from Trabzon and…
Georgia on My Mind
Erzurum, Turkey- En route to the next geopolitical basket case. Oil pipeline politics, Russian recognized republics and NATO issues; sounds like a real party! Georgia is a favorite proxy backwater of plenty of people on the Hill.
Back in the Deep State
Mardin, Turkey- After a long two weeks in Iraq, I’ve returned to northern Kurdistan a.k.a. southeast Turkey. I wasn’t able to update the site much while in Iraq as the poorly named Hawler Palace Hotel did not have an internet…
Changing the Status Quo in Kurdistan
Erbil, Iraq- I have a piece in today’s Asia Times about the Change movement and the state of Kurdistani politics that can be read here.
A Friend’s Gambian Gambit
A friend of mine from Anglistan aka merry old England is doing a massive bush walk in one of Africa’s most obscure post-colonial constructs, The Gambia. He and his team will be blogging about it on the cleverly titled A…