U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken came to Tirana, Albania. He did not stay long. Not long enough for a state dinner. He would eat in Munich, his next stop. The Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama chastised him for this diplomatic slight. While Blinken was in...
I read To The Lake: A Journey of War and Peace by Kapka Kassabova, about her roots trip circling two ancient lakes that border Albania, North Macedonia, and Greece. Kassabova rejects the nationalisms that poison the region while celebrating the magnetism of a Lake...
In Albania, time folds, though the marching chronology of the country’s last 130 years appears stark with fundamental change: The Ottoman Empire, Nationalist Monarchy, Italian Fascism, Enver Hoxha’s Stalinism, Enver Hoxha’s Maoism, Enver’s Hoxha’s Enverism— a...
First impressions are precious and dangerous. Precious because you see things that later you gloss over. Dangerous because you make quick assumptions based on slim evidence. Shqiperia at first glance looks to me like an in-between place: part Southern Europe, part...
Getting off the train in Madrid we followed the crowds into the dark city. Our train companions formed a line for taxis, but we crossed the street and miracle of miracles, got on the right bus with backpacks and naked guitar, off at the right stop, and to the right...
Among my friends and acquaintances are the full spectrum of opinion on the war between Hamas and the Israeli government. My Facebook feed is a dotted with blue/white, and red/green/white. Many of the flag wavers do not justify mass bombings of civilians, but some do....
