review

Cool Internet sites

Aymara

http://www.crystalinks.com/aymara.html

Because Bolivia has some relatively untapped oil and gas deposits and its president was elected on a platform of not turning these assets over to American corporations and defending his country's ancient indigenous cultures, you hear more and more from Washington these days about this supposed new wheel on the "Axis of Evil," headed by a stalinoid coke freak. Ignore such ignorant slurs and start to learn about Bolivian realities by reading up on the Aymara people and culture, which were conquered by the Incas and then the Spaniards, and after all these centuries on the bottom of the social scale now have one of their own as a head of state in the person of Evo Morales.

Baghdad: the city's history from a Muslim perspective

http://www.islamweb.net/ver2/archive/article.php?lang=E&id=37307

You think that forces under the command of George W. Bush have been brutal in the things they have done in Iraq's capital? You probably think right, especially in light of modern international law. But then, when Tamerlane came through town his mistreatment of the citizens of Baghdad was really atrocious.

Greenlanders

http://www.greenlanders.net

Stuart Granoff is a cartoonist from Vermont, and he's spending a year in Panama. It's always good to see the place where you live from an outsider's perspective, and especially so when that outsider is a talented artist with a keen sense of social perception.

The Khyber Pass

http://www.paddydocherty.com/khyber.html

The Mongols came through here to conquer India, the British came through here in a failed attempt to add Afghanistan to their empire and some of Osama's boys used this as their escape route when US-backed forces defeated the Taliban. There's a lot of history in this 28-mile gap in the Hindu Kush.

The Malacca Straits

http://www.geocities.com/uksteve.geo/canal6.html

The rabiblancos and political hacks who run our economy, government and Panama Canal Authority like to hold up Singapore as the model of what they say they can make out of Panama. It's all a lie, of course --- people who act like they do in Singapore are generally not tolerated. But anyway, before you get starry eyed with Southeast Asian delusions of grandeur it would be a good idea to learn something about the important international sea lane to which Singapore is adjacent.

Also in this section:
Shorty & Slim's new CD
Movies, Apocalypto
Cool Internet sites