Listening to Gov. Sarah Palin today announce her resignation, I couldn’t help but be impressed with her selflessness in saving Alaska from the trauma of her continuing in office. Now that she has decided not to run for reelection, she has also decided to hand over the keys to the governor’s office to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, because, as she described it, she is not the usual sort of politician. She believes she can fight for Alaskans with more success from the outside than the inside as a lame-duck governor, flopping around in her office in Juneau with no power, subject to the terrible mean-spirited partisanship that characterizes modern political discourse.

- With the total number of cases in the USA estimated to have passed a ballpark one million we can be re-assured that in its present makeup the swine flu has a very low fatality rate.

The UK is seeing numbers rise above 4,500, but the methodology of diagnosis and reporting is fluid across England and Scotland.

Sunshine, especially its ultra-violet properties, usually prevent the spread of influenza in summer as people are outside. However, it is obvious that the virus is continuing to spread. WHO's latest confirmed figure globally is approaching 60,000 as at June 26.

Sean Paul is back! And he’s jet lagged. Which means for the next two weeks he’s going to be awake at 3:00 a.m. with nothing to do but catch up on late night American TV. Imagine what he’s missed in just one year – the shock could be overwhelming. As a public service for Sean Paul and other insomniacs, I am providing you with a quick introduction to late night TV, American style – but be warned! Late night television is inhabited by people who want your money, and what could be more American than that?

Buy! Buy! Buy! (But first look at these Boobies!)

There was a time when late night TV would entertain you with old movies or reruns of sitcoms. That’s all gone now; everyone has sold out to the infomercial, that peculiar blend of cheesy production values and gripping personal stories of desperate people who discovered the secret to wealth and who are so civic-minded that they want to share this secret with you for $39.95 (plus shipping and handling).

Sean Paul will be unable to avoid a namesake of his, the ubiquitous Jeff Paul and his $hortcuts to Internet Millions. In this half hour infomercial you don’t meet Jeff Paul right away, because first you want to feast your eyes on Carmen and Stacey, two beautiful girls who are our hosts for half an hour at a fabulous resort somewhere in Southern California.

You’ve seen Carmen and Stacey before, on other infomercials or other TV shows. For a while Stacey was Chuck Woolery’s sidekick on the game show Lingo, but she was let go, apparently for being a little too flirtatious with Chuck. Because Carmen and Stacey are at a luxurious resort, swanking it up around the swimming pool, they get to wear skimpy outfits that reveal their alluring boobies, which are collectively the four assets the two of them bring to this enterprise. Well, that’s not really fair – Stacey also has something indispensable in selling TV products to gullible Americans: a British accent! Never mind that she sounds like she is from somewhere down in the Antipodes; Americans think all Australians or New Zealanders sound just like Queen Elizabeth and must be as dignified.

Did you see that article back in February that predicted this Iranian revolution? No? Neither did I. As far as anyone can tell this revolution was unexpected. When millions of people in Iran take to the streets to shout “death to the dictator” – meaning President Ahmadinejad – and when hundreds of demonstrators are injured with many killed by roving militias, something of great significance is occurring. Too bad the world was unprepared for this.

In the United States it is easy to blame the press. After all, this trouble in Iran was brewing right during the middle of American Idol, when the US takes time out to vote for the least objectionable amateur singer. The UK was equally preoccupied this year what with all the fuss over Susan Boyle. It was only a week before the election in Iran than most people who follow the news in the US or Europe even heard about Moussavi vs. Ahmadinejad. But you had to search for the news – the main stream press coverage was spotty or non-existent.

Canberra | June 17

Agonist Exclusive - Over the next 48 hours Australia is moving into a new national pandemic level, "protect".
Following consultation with state and territory health officials and WHO, the consensus is that many Australians will contract the virus over the winter months. The new "protect" level is a solution on how to deal with a mild pandemic

Officials are hoping that the majority of cases will only have a mild influenza illness. Therefore the Australian health authorities have requested that anti-virals such as Tamiflu and Relenza are not to be prescribed to those with the illness, in order to maintain the stockpile of anti-virals. The stockpile is only to be used if a second more serious wave of infections occurs.

During 1979, a sequence of events dating back to 1963 finally came to a conclusion. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; a Nelson Mandela like figure for the millions of Iranians who welcomed him back to Iran in February that year; oversaw the establishment of an Islamic Republican Government.

Spurned earlier by Iraq, and in ongoing conflict with the West, the new Iran and the Ayatollah changed the face of Islam, creating a third political "force" extending from Africa through to Indonesia, as "neither east nor west", and separate to nations aligned to the USA and former USSR.

The invasion of the USA embassy and subsequent prolonged hostage drama, war with Iraq, and ongoing attempts to overthrow middle-eastern state monarchies with Islamic republics, alienated Iran from most of the developed world.

As I was walking home from the Christening Party this afternoon I saw a wonderful field of flowers. I was reminded of my good friend Jeff with whom I traveled in Malaysia and his habit of stopping to smell the flowers. It is a good habit to pick up. Really, how often do we all just stop to enjoy the little things in life, those things that are totally and completely free and untainted by all the associations that Madison Avenue and 'normal' life throw at us? So, that is just what I did, smelled the flowers and took this shot.

Today Sienna Anemone Noble was christened and I am her Godfather. It's pretty cool. If you are so inclined there is a massive photo dump of the full day, here. I haven't been around much, lately. But I will be heading off to Finland in a day or so and the journey will continue.

“I feel like I went to sleep in one country and woke up in another." So said a Western reporter about the riots that have swept Iran following the disputed election for President between Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hussein Mousavi. Following weeks of increasingly animated, large demonstrations in favor of Mousavi as a reform candidate, and despite polls just before the voting that showed Mousavi with a lead, Ahmadinejad emerged with a “landslide victory” from the Ministry of Interior’s election commission, which counts the votes and which conveniently reports to Ahmadinejad.

The crudity with which the voting has been conducted defies common sense. Ministry of Interior officials who were suspected of favoring Mousavi have been purged in the weeks leading up to the election. The election results are reporting districts with curiously even numbers of votes in favor of Ahmadinejad, such as 1,000 here, or 5,000 there. Districts where reform candidates reside went suspiciously in favor of Ahmadinejad. Mousavi himself has disappeared – some fear he is under house arrest – and internet social sites like Twitter and Facebook have been shut down, as has Mousavi’s website.

Well hooray! Ten US banks have been given permission to repay their TARP loans from the federal government - $68 billion worth. This governmental Seal of Approval may mean these banks are healthy and safe and ready to do business, but what it certainly means is that the executives running these banks want to escape any government control over how much they pay themselves.

What’s in it for us the taxpayers? Not much. The government still needs to borrow trillions and trillions of dollars, which means interest rates aren’t going down. No fundamental reforms have been imposed on the banking industry – just some tweaking around credit card rules – so you still will have a very hard time getting credit. You’ll also earn about 0% interest on your bank deposits, but pay 30% or more for credit depending on your financial condition. This is certainly not going to get the consumer spending or the economy moving, so what is it going to take to enact real change to our financial system?

Our own Zuma has come across a potent set of proposals for real reform from the author William Greider. You’ll want to check out both Zuma’s report on the Diaries page, as well as Greider’s article on Alternet (printed originally in The Nation). The gist of these reforms is radical in today’s political climate – it is nothing less than a legal cap on interest rates. No bank or finance company would be able to charge you more than this cap – to do otherwise would be considered usury. What would our economy look like if we had laws against usury?

June 11

Agonist Exclusive - After years of international concern about an avian flu H5N1 pandemic; the world is awaiting the 6pm Geneva time WHO press conference, at the WHO boardroom where it is expected that the Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan will announce that the world is officially dealing with the novel H1N1 influenza (swine flu) at pandemic level. Scotland's Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon told Scottish lawmakers "A move to level 6 is not a verdict on the severity of the virus," she said. "It simply means that the extent of global spread now fulfills the definition of a pandemic." WHO considers a disease pandemic when transmission between humans becomes widespread in at least two regions of the world.

Emerging in Mexico and California in March 2009, the novel H1N1 influenza, commonly known as swine flu, has achieved what many feared Avian Flu would do since November 2003, spread rapidly 'around the world in 80 days', with sustained transmission on several continents, especially in Australia.

...And we have a pandemic! ~ h/t raja

Two big photos dumps can be found here and here. Most of my time has been just hanging out with my new best friend: Sebastian Alister Noble. I tell you: he's awesome! Denmark is so laid back, so easy going, it's impossible not to fall into a very lazy rhythm. And that's exactly what has happened. Camilla, Stuart and I hang out with the kids, go up to the garden house, build a little, have lunch, hang out with Sebastian, goof off and generally do little or nothing all day. Sure, I'm heading down to Odensee with Stuart on Friday to see some stuff. And then early next week I am heading up to Finland to visit friends I met at Lake Toba and to see that amazing 24 hour mid-summer's day. But other than that: I'm content to do little or nothing, especially as the day is soon coming when I'll turn decidedly Westwards and make my way home. I plan on returning to Austin by September 1, 2009. It's time and had you asked me nine months ago if I would be excited about returning home I would have laughed at you, but I am.

I could go on for another six months, but I've found, by and large, what I came out here in the world to find. As I wrote a family member today: "I may not be rich. I may not have a fancy car. But my life is full, full of wonder, joy, confusion, sadness, loneliness, sometimes regret, and more often than I ever imagined, bliss. The bitterness and the 'darkness' are gone."

Here's to a wonderful little boy who in just three days has filled my life with more joy than I thought possible. He is by and large the best thing Stuart has ever done.

And so, I sit by a window watching late evening sunset magenta clouds race across a Baltic horizon and I know the past is behind me, the future is unknown and am content with the now.

From the travel journal:

Budapest to Berlin Train: River metaphors seem appropriate right now. Crossed the Danube. Leaving Hungary. Was it from Priene where Heraclitus looked out on the Meander and asked if we can ever really cross the same river twice?

Last night I began reading Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time For Gifts" to analyze his prose but the tale sucked me in immediately and I was lost, swept away in the reverie of an old man remembering his youth. "Give me whiskey, give me wine, when I recall that my youth was divine," or so Tennyson wrote. If my youth was divine (and it was) then what is this?

I'll cross my fiftieth border in a short time. Borders and rivers and time, melted into a whole. Did I ever imagine, that cool June day in 1993 when I first landed in London, on my first journey, that I'd be where I am today? I have finally, in the words of Magris, "left the enigmatical fabric of the universe to look after itself." What a hard won lesson it has been.

More after the jump.

When it's good, it's just good.

So, I'm sitting in a cafe, having a coffee, reading Magris' book Danube. I usually start books at the beginning but I decided yesterday to read his thoughts on Budapest. Mind you, Magris' travel book really isn't a travel book in the conventional English or American sense. It's very Mitteleuropa. He's a scholar of German literature, who taught in Trieste, which, although it is in Italy, is a Central European town. It's much more a survey of the intellectual life of the Danube, and at times although a bit dense, it is excellent and thought provoking reading.

Yesterday I read a passage about Budapest and the author Gyorgy Konrad. I was very fascinated by Magris' retelling of Konrad's life and works so I googled him while sitting in this cafe today. And then I noticed an older gentleman having a glass of wine, scribbling away in a smallish Moleskine journal just like mine.

"No fucking way," I thought to myself. "It can't be."

But it was. Sitting before me was the man himself, Gyorgy Konrad.

"Working on my next novel," he said, when I asked what he was writing.

"And you, young man, I see are a writer," he asked.

"Nothing special, sir," I said. "Just thoughts about a very long journey I have undertaken."

For the next two hours I sat in rapt attention to the tales of a dissident who participated in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956.

Seldom is serendipity so kind.

I will be on the Chris Duel Show tonight at 6:08 pm central time, barring any unforeseen problems. Please tune in!

Here's something totally random. I've taken 14,752 photos on this journey, so far.

So, until this evening I am going to sit along the Danube and read my new Patrick Leigh Fermor book.

Life is good.

From the travel journal:

Some Euros seem to have this conceit stuck in their head that Hungary is the gateway to the East, although admittedly not as bad as the 'Wogs begin at Calais' sort. I imagine if I was heading south from Denmark, through Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia into Hungary I might agree. But I'm not. I'm heading north, towards the North European plain and this city is nothing like an Asian or Eastern city. Budapest has much more in common with Trieste, Vienna and Prague than it does with Bucharest, Sophia, Moscow or Athens for that matter. This terra icognita is Mitteleuropa for me.

Met Joao, a young man from Portugal studying in Bucharest with the Erasmus program, on the Bucharest-Budapest train. He talked about the girls in Romania, the nightlife and economics. Needless to say, we had lots in common, economics, that is. He was a nice kid, handsome in the bug-eyed, Latin kind of way.

More after the jump. Budapest photos can be found here.

Damn, this language here is way beyond me. I can't make heads or tails out of any of the signs or any of the menus. Good thing everyone speaks English here. Damn.

Travel journal, undiluted:

One pleasant surprise is the significant amount of urban renewal going on in throughout Bucharest. There is a lot more happening here than in say, Moscow. The streets are filled with new buses, not the old East-bloc types. New model Skoda's, Benz's, BMWs, Opels and Toyota's clog the streets. The traffic isn't nearly as bad as Istanbul, however. I've only seen a handful of Ladas and Volgas. The metro has been revamped and is so comprehensive that I got lost on the damn thing. It's as complicated and convoluted as the Paris metro. There are no maps in the stations and they all have that damp, musty subway smell. The train station has been somewhat restored. It has a few nice new shops--multinational book chains and a KFC and McDonald's. About 50% of the trains are now German made, shiny and new. The old Eastern-bloc Soviet types still run, but are very beat up.

I was on a mission yesterday when I walked down to the Radisson SAS Hotel for breakfast. (A meal there is probably as much as my hotel was, near the train station. Bucharest photos can be found here, by the way.)

"What would you like for breakfast, sir?" The waiter asked me.

"Two scrambled eggs, toast and eight strips of bacon," I said.

"Excuse me? Eight slices?" He asked.

"Yes, eight," I said. "If you have a whole pig back there I'll take it, actually!" I smiled.

He frowned, a puzzled look coming over his dark Gypsy eyes.

"Listen," I said. "I've been traveling in Muslim countries for almost six months and I want pork!"

"Okay," he said, taking a step back from the strange American.

"You have bacon, yes?"

"Of course," he said.

More after the jump.

The train pulled out of Sirkeci Station at 10pm sharp, bound for Bucharest. Within an hour the slow rocking of the train put me to sleep. Sometime around 300am the train stopped, the conductor rapped on the door, shouting "immigration" and the passengers filed out in a stupor. Passport stamped I climbed aboard and went back to sleep. Thirty minutes later there was another sharp rap on the door: "customs!" The officers tore my cabin apart, like cops back home with a warrant. Finally, after fifteen minutes of pillage they left, satisfied there was no contraband in my meager belongings. I fell alseep, only to be awakened again thirty minutes later by a huge, semi-toothed Bulgarian border officer. "Passport?"

I handed it over. He glanced at it long enough to realize I was American, snorted and handed it back. "Okay," he said, "good night."

"That was easy enough," I thought and went right back to sleep. I don't know how much time passed, but once again, I was awakened by a hard thump, followed by two quick knocks on my door, like rapid gunshots.

"What now!" I exclaimed in frustration.

"Eet iz passport kontrol," came a woman's voice behind the door. I fumbled with the lock on my door as images of a snaggle-toothed, heavy Bulgarian matron danced through my head. I flipped on the light, and slid open the door.

More after the jump.

It took a while for me to figure out why everything so was so calm and peaceful. (Mind you, this is very relative.) But as I was walking down the very European streets of Bucharest this afternoon (and very communist city planning it is) it came to me: I've been in the east for a very long time. A week or two shy of a year. It's just strange being in Europe. And like I said, being in Romania is very relative. It's still a pretty wild place. But, compared to my time in Bulgaria almost ten years back, it is crystal clear that accession to the European Union has drastically changed Bulgaria and Romania for the better. There is a lot of wealth here now. And the former Eastern bloc countries, while the people can still be very grim and unhappy, have a measure of stability. And it's definitely not the East. The smells are different. The lifestyle and the stares, the driving habits, the architecture, a thousand different little subtle things, plus the food are just flat out different. Seriously, I've only seen one Lada, and that was in the countryside of Bulgaria this morning! How can it be Eastern Europe and have no effing Ladas?!?

It's a strange adjustment for me to make. I've spent so much time the last 10 years in the East--I haven't been to 'Europe' except for a short stint in 'oh-so-civilized Denmark' in 2007--that I find it odd. I'll probably have a wicked case of culture shock when I get to Germany in a week or so. Oy!

Took the train from Istanbul to Bucharest last night. It was a fun train ride. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

I knew tearing myself away from this city was going to be difficult, but I had no idea I would spend my last full afternoon in a terrible state of what the Turks might call, "hüzün." If I did not have to be in Denmark in mid-June I would not leave. Soon I'll head down to the train station and have a last uskumru sandwich and watch ferries dance across the Bosporus.

I arrived on April 1, 2009 and in the blink of an eye this magical city has wooed me, wowed me, saddened me beyond measure and lifted me to the highest of heights. I will look back on this time just as I do Lake Toba, but for altogether different reasons. Toba was about disconnecting from the world in a way I'd not done in years. It was an escape, an idyll, an exotic dreamscape of guitars, new friends, peace and the warm waters of the lake I bathed in each morning. Toba was a place for me to bury the past, the obligations of home and family and in their place plant seeds that would, I hoped, spring up into a new life.

More after the jump.

From my travel journal:

May 26, 2009: We left İstanbul at noon. Navigating İstanbul traffic from Sultanhamet to the Yenikapi ferry port wasn't too hard. Getting the ferry ticket and embarking was a cinch. The ferry to Yalova took about an hour. Amanda and I listened to the music on her iPod as the wine-dark waters of the Marmara skimmed beneath us. We disembarked, gassed up and sped off into the Bithynian hills. We stopped for lunch along Ulubat Golu, a pretty lake just west of Bursa. Watched a young family play futbol along the shores and shared an Iskender kebab. Lots of tea, as always! We stopped at a pastanesi--sweet shop--about 3/5ths of the way to Izmir. Honey and pistachios. How can one go wrong?

As promised, here are the photos from Ephesus and Priene. A big shout-out to MJSteckel, for the suggestion to visit Priene.

Ephesus was a great site. And very big. But Priene, well, the view was fantastic. And the site, because it's less curated, let my imagination run wild. It was wonderful.

Enjoy.