I have a fascination for islands. It surfaced when this eight-year-old roamed Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’, castaway on the ‘Isle of Despair’. These penchants rise somehow from the depths of psyche, roused in me by childhood stops where island names ring like rhapsody: Hawaii, Formosa (now Taiwan), Honshu, Cebu, Penang, Java, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Then, … More Isle of Charms, Isle of Despair
Picture a holiday charity fundraiser under chandeliers, the well-heeled rubbing elbows midst chatter about Christmas markets in Bavaria and the beaches of Bali. My wife and I found ourselves there by some social accident last year, and, drinks in hand, worked our way to a quiet corner table where a 60-ish couple sat alee of … More Beneath Holiday Chandeliers: What Westphalia Offers Magnolia, Mississippi
The river steamers of yesterday, with a blast of their whistles, would cast off hawsers from the Hooghly River docks opposite Kolkata, and drift gently with the current past the grime and smoke of an Asian city into a gloaming of the world’s largest river delta, the Sundarbans. There the waters of the sacred Ganga, … More Tiger-Widows of the Sundarbans: Who Is Eating Whom?
Alarming scenes are coming in from game-rich northern Botswana this week, where the carcasses of hundreds of elephants are strewn across the lush plains having perished from some mysterious cause. This is not the work of poachers – the tusks are all still intact – and there is ample water and foliage available. Early speculation … More A Poacher’s Tears and Gratitude
The interface of the wild and the world of human settlement is dicey territory to be sure. Whether the elephants of the Okavango, the orangutan of Sumatra or the pangolins of Asia, wild creatures everywhere face unfriendly odds. Jacquie Oberg, now of small town Minnesota, should know. Some of those creatures ended up in her … More Two Cubs – and a Tiger Queen
A handful of lyrical lines can whisper to the traveler – how vast is the sea of creative beauty – how deep the wistfulness of soul – how strong the yearning in our sojourn – how paltry our grasp of the great yonder – how precious to find company midst ‘silent peaks’ _____________________________ Written On … More Du Fu: Pebble On the Tongue
As nations flail now for want of sage, moral leaders even while stalked by ruin, it would be fair to ask where we might turn our eyes. What moorings might serve as safe harbor for the fashioning of a hereafter? What landmarks can reliably guide us though peril? While the coordinates of that location may … More Contagion: A Leader Named Patience
Trapped in the talons of trouble, our impulse may be to search the horizon in hope of deliverance, a stroke of fate that would banish threat and summon back the bluebirds. Such a pity! Since the strength to prise open the grip of suffering might well lie unrecognized just over the back fence. It was … More Contagion: Backyard Answers, Humble Remedies
I sat listening in the courtyard of an elderly friend in the ramshackle outskirts of a Kalahari town. He was giving his account of the origins of the HIV pandemic. It went something like this: HIV has come to our country by design of ill-willed foreigners*. We know that diseases native to this part of … More Contagion: Foreign Origins, Distant Remedies
A saintly friend who ‘squandered’ much of her life caring for the disabled in the Kalahari once described to me what the HIV/AIDS pandemic had done to her settlement. ‘We are punch-drunk with sorrow and loss,’ she said, ‘as though pummeled by a heavy-weight fighter round after punishing round.’ This nun had no interest in … More Contagion: Resilience of the Backcountry Elders
