Monthly Archives: June 2022

Colombia – A Death I Foretold

Posted on June 20, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Five years ago, when the political restrictions were lifted on Colombia’s terrorist guerilla murderers and kidnappers, I wrote about it, as I am wont to do. I assumed Colombia would fall in a generation. It fell in one election cycle. … Continue reading →

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Orient Express

Posted on June 14, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

I want to follow in the footsteps of John Dos Passos. A century ago, just as the Ottoman Empire was smoldering and Ataturk was reassembling his Turkish nationalist forces in the East and Constantinople was occupied by French and Italian … Continue reading →

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Hic Sunt Dracones

Posted on June 12, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

I often entertain conversations with colleagues one or two generations older than I about past adventures. Hitchhiking from Johannesburg to Cairo, bussing through northern Uganda and Southern Sudan and to Juba catching a boat to Khartoum and upward downriver. St. … Continue reading →

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The Arabists

Posted on June 11, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Wonder and curiosity. Long gone are the days when British colonialists or early American missionaries packed their meager worldly possessions into coffins to head out over the tameless horizon. T.E. Lawrence wrapped up like a marauding Arabian warlord. Gordon Liang … Continue reading →

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Prester John

Posted on June 1, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

We from the West believe that history stopped perhaps in Moscow, picking up again maybe in Beijing but probably more realistically in Tokyo. The expanse between, a wasteland. Stories of Siberian gulags and the endless windswept steppes. Then came Genghis … Continue reading →

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