anti-americanism

i just read this in the ny times.

Fawaziah al-Bakr, who promotes educational change and women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, helped organize women to protest the Israeli attacks. “Nobody is talking about reform in Saudi Arabia,” she said. “All we talk about is the war, what to do about the war. There is no question that the U.S. has lost morally because of the war. Even if you like the people and the culture of the United States, you can’t defend it.” The statement by Ms. Rice — during a fleeting stopover in Beirut last month — is being juxtaposed with the mounting carnage to rally popular opposition against all things American. Anti-U.S. Feeling Leaves Arab Reformers Isolated

it certainly made me pause as it speaks directly to lara's comment. as things get increasingly worse in the middle east and lebanon it seems the line separating american politics and "all things American" will not be as clearly drawn. what do you all think?

out like trout

just to let you all know (that is those still reading this) i am heading into the mountains of northeast turkey in a couple of days. i will be heading to the black sea coast near the georgian border and then into the kackar mountains. i want to hike, relax, work on my turkish, and eat some rare (and supposedly psychedelic) honey. from there i will make my way to the armenian border to check out early christian churches (for you ruth) and eventually ending up at mt. ararat to search for noah's ark. i hope to also hit lake van, mt. nemrut, cappadocia, konya, bursa, and finally back to istanbul. i should be out for about a month depending on money, time, and all that rot. i am going to try to keep this updated with what is happening and what i am doing. so please keep reading and commenting.

tear gas in the classroom

in the middle of teaching my intermediate students to the many ways we make predictions in english i was once again interrupted by a protest walking down the main pedestrian street on which my school sits. this happens every weekend and always consists of a small group of protesters outnumbered by riot police 10 to 1. so i though nothing of it (even though it was monday). but the students always like to look out of the 5th story window and check it out (they are easily distracted). so as the chants grew louder, and the protest closer, i asked for an interpretation. "murder america!"; "down with israel!"; "we don't want to be israeli soldiers!" now i am interested. i look out the window and see a line of about 75 riot police squared off with a group of about 100 protestors. we try to continue the lesson, making predictions about what is going to happen outside our window. the protest builds over the next hour and our lesson finishes early so that the students can get out of the building before things get out of hand. that left three foreign teachers wondering what to do. we watched from the window to gauge the situation and watched the protest grow and intensify. then the surge, and the tear gas, and the police beatings, and the scattering protestors. the tear gas clouded the scene and filled the classroom so we decided to sit on the fire escape, drink bourbon, and let it clear. now i am wondering how bad it is going to get?