Results for “Ethiopia” 155 found
Monday assorted links
1. Coleman Hughes is starting a podcast.
2. How textbooks vary across Texas and California (NYT).
3. Personnel recruitment and retention in the U.S. military.
4. World Bank forecasts 6.3% growth for Ethiopia.
5. Hilary Hahn on daydreaming as a form of practice.
6. Tribute to Roger Scruton. And a short excerpt from my 2011 debate with Scruton on friendship, here is the whole thing.
7. Randian response to Greta, over the top, not recommended.
Sunday assorted links
2. Ethiopia projects 10.8% growth for the coming year.
4. John Cochrane on wealth and taxes, overview.
5. Bestselling albums of the last decade, Abbey Road #1, Michael Jackson #6.
Places to go in 2020
Here is the mostly dull NYT list. Here is my personal list of recommendations for you, noting I have not been to all of the below, but I am in contact with many travelers and paw through a good deal of information:
1. Pakistan, and Pakistani Kashmir. Finally it is safe, and in some way it is easier to negotiate than India. The best dairy products I have eaten in my life, and probably it is the most populous country you have not yet seen, or maybe Nigeria, but that makes the list too. Islamabad is nicer than any city in India, and watch the painter trucks on the nearby highway.
2. Eastern Bali. Still mostly unspoilt, the perfect mix of exoticism and comfort. This island is much, much more than Elizabeth Gilbert, yoga, and hippie candles.
3. Lalibela, Ethiopia. Has some of my favorite churches, beautiful vistas and super-peaceful, and the high altitude of Lalibela and Addis means you don’t have to take anti-malarials. I know a good guide there, here are my Lalibela posts. the central bank forecasts 10.8% growth for the country for next year, so Lalibela is likely to change rapidly.
4. Lagos, Nigeria. A bit dangerous, but immense fun, wonderful music every night, and not nearly as bad as you might be thinking. Africa’s most dynamic city by far and a new modern civilization in the works. Here are my earlier Lagos posts, including travel tips.
5. Odisha [Orissa], India. Sometimes called India’s most underrated cuisine, that is enough reason to go and so now it is on my list for myself.
6. Sumatra, Indonesia. Surely a good place to understand the evolution of Islam, and supposedly to be Indonesia’s best food. I hope to get there soon. First-rate textiles and lake views, I hear.
7. Warsaw, Poland. No, not a fascist country (though objectionable in some regards), and rapidly becoming the center of opportunity for eastern Europe and a major player in the European Union. First-rate food and dishes you won’t get elsewhere, at least nothing close to comparable quality. Nice for walking, don’t expect too many intact old buildings, but isn’t it thrilling to see a major part of Europe growing at four percent?
8. Baku, Azerbaijan. The world’s best seaside promenade, and wonderful textiles and food, in the Iranian direction, here are my travel notes. Feels exotic, yet safe and orderly as well.
9. Macedonia, or anywhere off the beaten track in the former Yugoslavia. Then think about the history and politics of where you are at, and then think about it some more.
10. Quito, Ecuador. One of the world’s loveliest cities, including the church, wonderful potatoes and corn for vegetarians too. There are some iPhone snatchers, but overall safe to visit. Very good day trips as well, including to the “Indian market” at Otavalo and volcano Cotopaxi.
Countries where the average person was richer in 2009
Libya, Yemen, Equatorial Guinea, Greece, the Central African Republic, Sudan, East Timor, Lebanon, Greece, and Trinidad & Tobago. In Syria and Venezuela data collection has stopped altogether, but they would make the list too.
Ethiopia had the highest growth rate of the decade, with Nauru, Rwanda, Ghana, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Laos, China, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Myanmar as other winners too. Note that the numbers for Turkmenistan are disputed, especially for the last few years of the decade, but still the country had a strong performance early on.
Here is the full FT piece by Steve Johnson.
Best movies 2019
I am happy to recommend these selections, the links going to my earlier remarks about them:
Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse (animated)
Campernaum (Ethiopian refugee in Beirut)
Us
Ash is Purest White (Chinese, obscure)
High Life (best science fiction movie of the year?)
Long Day’s Journey into Night (big screen only, Chinese obscure)
Woman at War (Icelandic, wacky)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (duh)
Booksmart (full of energy on the screen)
Echo in the Canyon (L.A. music scene in the 1960s and beyond)
The Farewell (American-Chinese, about a dying relative)
Honeyland (Macedonian, about bee keepers)
Inside Bill’s Brain (Bill Gates, short documentary)
Parasite (Korean, the Straussian reading is anti-egalitarian)
JoJo Rabbit (modern-day anti-Nazi comedy, mostly they pull it off)
Marriage Story
The Rise of Skywalker
A Hidden Life
From those my top picks would be Marriage Story — the American redo of Scenes from a Marriage, and then Honeyland. Overall it was a much better year for movies than last year.
As for marginal choices, Ad Astra and Knives Out were two movies I liked, and came close to making this list, but didn’t.
As for historic cinema, I am very glad I purchased the complete Blu-Ray set of Ingmar Bergman movies, spectacular transfers and the American viewer can watch the true, complete version of Persona for the first time.
As for the rest of the year, I have high hopes for The Souvenir, Little Women and also the new Adam Sandler movie, but I have not yet seen them. The documentary For Sama has potential too.
What am I forgetting?
What I’ve been reading
Peter Gatrell, The Unsettling of Europe: How Migration Reshaped a Continent. A very nice history of earlier post-war European migration, such as Turks and Greeks moving to West Germany, Cape Verdeans settling in Portugal, and so on. Excellent background for the current debates.
Cristiano Bianchi and Kristina Drapić, Model City Pyongyang. An excellent picture book, mostly of architecture, presenting Pyongyang as yet another installment in the 20th century series of deeply weird cities.
Jason Lyall, Divided Armies: Inequality and Battlefield Performance in Modern War. Perhaps the most thorough look at how cohesion has made some armies and fighting forces stronger than others. For instance there is a chapter “African World Wars: Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo on the Modern Battlefield.” I view this more as a cohesion story than an “inequality” story (current U.S. forces seem pretty sharp), in any case a good integration of military history with modern social science.
Paul Blustein, Schism: China, America and the Fracturing of the Global Trading System. Given the import and timing on the topic, I am surprised this book has not received more attention. It is “more boring” than Blustein’s earlier works, such as on Argentina, but full of facts and substance on every page. For now it is the go-to book on this topic.
Four very good books!
When is it too dangerous to travel to a particular place?
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt:
As I’ve grown older, I have become more cautious. That has meant more time walking, especially in cities, and less time in moving vehicles. This has allowed me to continue my travels to countries that are considered relatively dangerous. In the next year or two, I hope to make my sixth trip to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, and I’ll probably stay in the city confines.
As I write this, I am sitting in the Grand Canyon Lodge at the northern rim of the Canyon. The surroundings are idyllic, but it took me a five-hour drive to get here. I’m still wondering if this was a reckless trip.
Over the last few decades, initially as part of my research for a book, I have made 20 or so visits to rural Guerrero, in Mexico, near drug gang territory, and they have all passed without incident. Still, I get very nervous when I am in a “collectivo” on a mountain road and the driver appears to be no more than 15 years old and is fond of loud music and beer.
And there is always this:
Which leads me to my final point — and maybe you won’t find my wording reassuring: Most incidents don’t kill you or cripple you.
Recommended. One point I did not have space for is that often you should avoid water contact. During my first Ethiopia trip, the scariest moment came, on the shore of a lake in central Ethiopia, when I was asked: “Would you like to go out in our small boat and see the hippopotamus?”
Tuesday assorted links
1. Dreher and Betty on Houllebecq. Recommended.
2. Ethiopia plants 350 million trees in 12 hours.
3. Shame is perhaps Rushdie’s best novel, though it is super-rude, here is one overview.
4. Should Indonesia get a new capital city?
5. “So why do the English-speaking countries have persistent CA deficits?“
*Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century*
By George Packer, I thought this book would be dull, but in fact it is interesting throughout. Holbrooke, if you don’t already know, was a lifetime American diplomat, but much more than that too. Here is one excerpt:
After the evacuation of dependents and the arrival of ground troops in 1965, South Vietnam became a vast brothel. But even before there were half a million Americans, sex was an elemental part of the war. “I have the theory that if the women of Vietnam had big copper spoons through their noses and looked like Ubangis,” a reporter once said, “this war wouldn’t have lasted half as long, and maybe wouldn’t have even started.” The whole scene repelled the Boston Puritan Henry Cabot Lodge. “I not only don’t wanna,” he said, “I don’t wanna wanna.”
A vivid passage to be sure, but two points. First, why call the one sensible guy a “Puritan”? (Yes, the Puritans in fact were great, but I don’t think the remark is to be taken in that spirit.) Second, it seems to me that many Ubangi women are likely quite beautiful, and probably I saw some of them while in Ethiopia. Furthermore, at least these days, it is optional whether they wish to take on the famed “lip plate.”
In any case, I would describe the book as “rollicking.” You can order it here.
For the recommendation I thank Mr. C. Weber.
Why do right-wing authoritarian regimes allow so much citizen exit?
Derek Bonett emails me:
I’ve been considering the differences between left-wing authoritarian regimes and right-wing authoritarian regimes throughout history. One particular difference springs to mind that I do not believe has been explored:
Left-wing authoritarian regimes very frequently restrict emigration. Legal emigration from the U.S.S.R. and the Eastern Bloc was very difficult, same with Mao’s China, Castro’s Cuba, the DPRK, “Democratic Kampuchea”, Ethiopia under Mengistu, the list goes on.
But, strikingly, it seems to me that with the partial exception of the Third Reich, fascist/ultranationalist/right-wing authoritarian regimes generally do not restrict emigration. In the Third Reich, it seems that even Jews were allowed to emigrate until 1941. Mussolini’s Italy didn’t impose extensive emigration controls either. And, accordingly to my admittedly casual familiarity with these regimes, neither did Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Pinochet’s Chile, nor the more generic authoritarian regimes of Chiang Kai Shek’s Taiwan or Park Chung He’s South Korea.
Does your much more comprehensive reading of history confirm this difference? Has someone already written about this?
Perhaps the more “right-wing” regimes tolerate different sorts of income inequality. Cuba and the USSR had plenty of inequality, but the main earners, in terms of living standards, are restricted to people within the state apparatus. That means a lot of the talent will want to leave. Many fascist regimes, however, are quite willing to cultivate multi-millionaires and then try to co-opt them into supporting the state. Since you can still earn a lot in the private sector, exit restrictions are less needed.
What would be other hypotheses?
Friday assorted links
Tuesday assorted links
1. Will space colonization be fully automated?
3. Earlier 20th century criticisms of the Electoral College, maybe not what you think.
4. “Two-thirds of roads in Sweden are privately operated and managed by local Private Road Associations (PRAs).” Link here.
5. High-speed rail Addis Ababa to Djibouti (NYT, recommended).
Tuesday assorted links
Saturday assorted links
1. The old blogosphere vs. current social media. (He should have blogged it, however.)
2. The Singapore chewing gum ban.
3. Training teachers how to shoot.
4. Hidden insults in an on-line Taiwanese game?
5. The golden age of the piano is now.
6. Ethiopia’s coffee ritual is being exported to China and Japan.
Abiy Ahmed in a nutshell
He is the Prime Minister of Ethiopia:
In that time, he has overseen the swiftest political liberalisation in Ethiopia’s more than 2,000-year history. He has made peace with Eritrea; freed 60,000 political prisoners, including every journalist previously detained; unbanned opposition groups once deemed terrorist organisations; and appointed women to half his cabinet. He has pledged free elections in 2020 and made a prominent opposition activist head of the electoral commission. In a country where government spies were ubiquitous, people feel free to express opinions that a year ago would have had them clapped in jail.
Here is more from David Pilling and Lionel Barber at the FT. Don’t forget that until the ascent of Abiy Ahmed, the internet was basically shut down for most of the country.