I’ve been critical of “Hillbilly Elegy” and other theories that made the rise of Trump more the result of economic disparity than white supremacy. It’s the same argument that populism is a reaction to a dying Republican party, a “death rattle” as the party becomes smaller and has to resort to extremes to win. The […]
Tag: Peace Corps
Quarantine, Day 58
The world outside my window just seems so surreal, the way it’s picked up and continued as though there is nothing deadly and invisible all around us. From my window, you would think nothing had changed. From my window, though, my worldview is so incredibly limited. It’s within the house that I’m painfully more aware […]
Quarantine, Day 50
The longer this pandemic flows on, the more it seems the days grow somehow quieter, eerily quiet in fact. The bar beneath us hasn’t made a peep in well over a month. There are fewer cars on the street below, fewer voices on the corner with no one waiting for the bus. I know it’s […]
Quarantine, Day 13
Right after I returned from twenty-seven months of Peace Corps service, the next three years were absolute mental hell. I had actually returned by boat, leaving from Barcelona and landing in Fort Lauderdale, and maybe it’s because of the sea legs I couldn’t shake for nearly a month, but I began to believe in the […]
Stories from Morocco, or Remembering My Encounter with the Muslim Faith
With all that’s been said about Islam lately, I thought I’d take a moment to republish something I wrote after returning from my time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco. This is a slightly edited version of a talk I gave to local churches and a local rotary club in Tennessee: Act 1. Arrival. […]
Autumn on Shelter Island
Shelter Island is brimming with the colors of autumn. The trees are surrendering their leaves eagerly, and gold and crimson paint the landscape against a still-green grass. Needless to say, I am mesmerized by it, caught up in an awe that leaves me wandering around the island – quite literally – as though I’ve been […]
Peace Corps on Shelter Island?
At the risk of sounding like I’m boasting, I’ll avoid any overuse of the words “idyllic” or “bucolic” or “precious” to describe the little island I recently moved to on the East End of Long Island. But it’s hard not to have this strange overwhelming sense of awe when I drive around Shelter Island – […]
God [Bless] You
A week or so ago, on my way to the metro in downtown St. Louis for a ride to the airport, I was stopped by a man who begged me to buy him a meal. I don’t usually say yes, partially because I don’t have anything to offer. Every once in a while, though, I […]
Challenging Assumptions About the Modern Arab Myth: an Exploration of Moroccan Cultures and Traditions
Earlier this month, I gave a lecture to a group of United Methodist Men (and later to a local Rotary Club) about my experience with the Peace Corps. I am publishing that lecture here with only a few edits. I have also spliced in Wikipedia links every here and there. Please don’t regard those links […]
Silence of the Lambs, or what I like to call, Abdelqader Day
“Fouaaad. Fouaaad,” Soufianne chanted my name from his bike as I walked up to the gate of his house. Calling it a ‘gate’ makes it sound like a nice, walled-in community of some such. It’s technically the gate to the local fish market, of which the house is just conveniently connected. I yelled at Soufianne […]
