Posts Tagged ‘time’

“We don’t follow time”

So says a nomadic guide to Joe Ray, who wrote a nice article for the Boston Globe about his experience trekking the Sahara in southern Algeria. The piece captures the harsh beauty of the desert as well as the unique culture of the Touareg nomads who live in the region. The author on the desert: Desert [...]

February 18, 2009 why we travel 0 Comments

History, patience and fatalism in Egypt

Egypt has a history that stretches back thousands of years. It’s a boon for the tourist industry, which draws millions of annual visitors to the Pyramids, the Valley of the Kings and other such sites, but the country’s long past also has an interesting cultural influence as it seems to induce a sense of fatalism in the [...]

November 18, 2008 how we live 0 Comments

Diplomacy and culture

In the most recent edition of Newsweek, there is a story about Ryan Crocker, the new U.S. ambassador to Baghdad. In the middle of the article are some excerpts which indicate that Crocker takes the role of culture seriously and that he goes out of his way to learn about the country he is working [...]

June 15, 2007 politics/law 0 Comments

Mañana, Mañana

There is a famous quote about punctuality in Italy, which goes: “When you are an hour late, you are already half an hour early.”  That is less true of northern Italy than of the southern part of the country, and it is perhaps less true in general than it once was.  Nevertheless, it speaks to [...]

February 23, 2007 how we live 0 Comments

Running, horse racing and culture

Two different articles about sports caught my eye recently for their connection to culture. The first story was about the rise of women runners from Ethiopia.  It focused in part on Tirunesh Dibaba, the current world record holder in the 5,000 meters, and on the astonishing number of champion runners that hail from her region [...]

February 5, 2007 sports cultures 0 Comments

The future, what’s that?

Very interesting story in this morning’s news about a Stone Age-like tribe of hunter-gatherers that left the jungle behind and wandered into a Colombian city.  The article is interesting for its descriptions of the indigenous Nukak tribe’s collision with the modern world, but my favorite quote was the one that pointed out a very different conception [...]

May 11, 2006 how we live 0 Comments