review, books

The World's Most Dangerous Places

Robert Young Pelton’s The Wold’s Most Dangerous Places is worthy of being added to the “books that will make you a better human being” list. Different from RYP’s autobiography, DP is adrenaline-filled and hard-hitting. That I read its 1057 pages in little over a week is probably the highest praise I can give.

The bulk of DP acts as a guidebook to the countries profiled, but there are other sections included. When people asked me what I was reading, I found it great fun to read off a couple chapter titles to them: Bribes, Drugs, Getting Arrested, Guns, Kidnapping, Land Mines, and Mercenaries are just some of the more interesting ones.

This 5th edition, published in 2003, can at times feel extremely dated. For instance, the Iraq chapter is pre invasion of Baghdad. The Mercenaries chapter doesn’t mention Blackwater, I think one of the most prominent merc groups, but I guess few knew of them before Fallujah. Pre Ariel Sharon coma, pre Hamas victory. The U.S. chapter even has profiles of Powell and Ashcroft (and, of course, the profile of Cheney mentions nothing of his marksmanship).

The political analysis and history is single-minded and the humor dark, but that’s to be expected from someone who has experienced all that RYP and his contributors have. At times his more compassionate side comes through, making it evident that he’s still part human under that large, bushy mustache.

Despite its shortcomings, DP includes detailed information on locations that you’ll never hear about it in school or the news. Where journalists fear for their lives, RYP is admired and respected by rebel groups, dictators, and special forces groups alike.

Hard-core readers of DP... seek the stone-heavy truth of experience and the wisdom-inducing perspective of intense emotional experience, tempered by the cool intellectual framework of research. Welcome to DP: No walls, no barriers, no bull.

Forest Ethics

I went to a presentation by Forest Ethics about the Inland Temperate Rainforest (the only one in the world) today. It’s a pretty amazing region, in some ways like the Amazon, but is being destroyed by clearcutting. Forest Ethics puts pressure on logging companies by annoying people like Victoria’s Secret (who put out 1,000,000 million catalogs a day) and hardware stores to stop doing business with loggers who operate in the region.

For those interested in training and discussion in more direct action, and aren’t afraid of the FBI, Forest Defenders is hosting a Cascadia Action Camp this weekend and Wild Earth is a 4 day conference happening this June in B.C.

They better not delay the trains

Northern Thailand is flooding. You know what the funny part is? It’s not even the rainy season yet. The rainy season starts in June/July, exactly when I’ll be kicking around the North.

I suppose that’s one way to put my fancy moisture-wicking clothing to the test.

Update

You’ll notice things are looking a bit different around here. I’ve rewritten the whole thing, from the ground up, using only vim. I’m still fiddling with things here and there, but figured it was mostly decent looking enough to move it over. As time allows, I’ll move all the other pages over to this template. Hopefully this next weekend.

I’m not sure I like the text wrapping around the sidebar. That may change.

Water to Air

Last night was my first time NightWalking since the Redwoods. It seemed much darker than it ever was in California and I was afraid I’d fall off the ridge I was walking on, but, as always, my feet found the path.

It really does work.

Fourth World

I just got back from hearing Ward Churchill (who’s a registered Republican) speak. He was amazing. The lecture wasn’t really on anything in particular – he went all over the place. He doesn’t use notes, powerpoint, any of that, but you can really feel the passion in him. He shakes, cries, laughs, everything.

He also invited one his friends from the audience, a member of the Black Panther party, to come up and speak for a bit. Among a few other things, he described the morning he was walking around the sand-bagged Seattle Panther office with a riot shotgun and got the call that Fred Hampton had been assassinated. Not something you hear everyday…

Churchill is going to be speaking again tomorrow morning on a panel. If I wake up early enough (doubtful), I’ll go.

Oh, and he’s even larger in person.

quote

More on Death

...lighten up. It's only death. We all get to meet him (or her?) at some point. Why not get to know death a little earlier, buy him a drink, slap him on the back, and fake him out? There are things worse than death, such as a full-compliance tax audit by a dyslexic IRS agent or maybe even discount prostate surgery in Monrovia. It helps to look at the big picture when understanding just what might kill you and what won't. It is the baby boomers' slow descent into gray hair, brand-name drugs, reading glasses, and a general sense of not quite being as fast as they used to be that drives this whole survival thing. Relax: You're gonna die. Enjoy life, don't fear it.

-Robert Young Pelton

Read a book

Yesterday, for my Anthropology class, I read a short excerpt from Mark Plotkin‘s book Medicine Quest, meant as a brief introduction to entheogen use in indigenous cultures. In it, the author gives a small introduction to Ayahuasca and documents a trip he took in the Amazon. I was happy that this was assigned reading – that information like this is getting out to people other than us crazies who pursue it on our own – but the professor’s lecture on entheogens today reversed my mood into depression. At times she just annoyed me, attributing Aldous Huxley quotes to Allan Watts, mispronouncing Ayahuasca, etc. But at other times, her misrepresentation of facts (and including opiates in the same lecture) was insulting.

People should be required, at the bare minimum, to at least read a well-informed book on the subject before they’re allowed to lecture on it. It makes me shutter to think that today’s lecture may have been someone’s first introduction to entheogens.

On the other hand, I never thought I’d be given a college lecture with photos provided by Erowid.