AROUND THE WORLD IN 23 YEARS~KAZAKHSTAN

I didn't take this photo, but I could have!

Kazaks living outside of Almaty and Astana, their two largest cities, often live on the steppe, that vast wasteland, and trade route between Europe and Asia.

Here, life is hard, but life is real. The people respect each other and support each other, there are no fences. On the steppe, there are no police, no courts, no lawyers. These people take care of their own, both good and bad. Disputes are settled on the spot.

Once I was visiting a cotton farmer on the steppe, I asked him about lawlessness on this vast land far from the authority of cities? His toothless grin preceded a story about a horse-thief. On the steppe animals range free, the horses, sheep, goats, yaks, and camels wander miles from the farm but always find their way back to water and feed. There are no branding irons, farmers know their stock, even when there are hundreds or thousands of them. When a thief is caught there is negotiation, usually an exchange of another animal, or a rug. If the thief is destitute, he is invited back to the owner's farm and given a meal and lodging. This is Kazakhstan justice.

I was invited to hold an eagle on my arm. The Kazakhs hunt on horseback with eagles, their national bird. These birds can weigh up to 50 lbs, imagine riding a horse at full gallop with a 50 lb eagle on your arm. Women, as well as men, do this, like falconry in Saudi Arabia, where it's a national pastime with annual competitions.

I experienced things and met people in Kazakhstan like no other place on earth, it was an education in extremis, seeing, hearing, doing. You can't buy this.

Next stop Montenegro.

Comments

SILENCE IS APPROVAL~Jewish Meme

How often do we learn something awful, clam up, and ignore it, hoping it will go away. It never does, it just gets worse and our silence becomes its enabler. Life is like that, we don't want to get involved. We have enough to worry about and ignorance, after all, is bliss. Wrong, ignorance is acceptance. The easy analogy is governance. We sit in a management meeting or a board of directors where we become aware of something nefarious and keep silent for fear of being disloyal. To speak up takes courage and courage has consequences. When a whistleblower comes forward they are vilified, they become the victim of power and power corrupts. We've seen this in Washington for years, management teams being selected for their weakness rather than their strength. Weakness breeds indecision and silence, strength breeds courage. A new administration always starts with a ray of hope that the management team, aka the cabinet, will be outspoken and advise and consent with courage, no...

CHAOS REVISITED

" a state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order." Isn't four years of this enough, seriously? The constant media drumbeat, TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP, dominating the headlines, the news shows, and our conversation. This did not happen by accident, this was a calculated strategy by a certified narcissist. "Narcissism: a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others." The Trump supporters say that "this is just Trump being Trump" that, my friends, is precisely the problem. Now that he's lost the election and his sycophants in Congress have replaced their horns with silence, if not acceptance, wouldn't you think the man would suck it up, acknowledge the inevitable, exhibit a modicum of humility and devise an exit strategy that would highlight his accomplishments not feed his addi...

A TALE OF TWO CITIES~A REIGN OF TERROR

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." Charles Dickens Paris in the 18th Century was in turmoil, it was the reign of terror, the French revolution was raging the atmosphere was chaotic. Washington, DC in the 21st Century is in turmoil, the pandemic is raging and the atmosphere is chaotic. Is this an analogy? Maybe, but we need to fill in a few gaps. Paris in 1789 was suffering from unemployment, hunger, and p...

Search This Blog