IN THE United States, we're serious about our voting. Sure, on November 4, 2008, you can expect about half of eligible voters to avoid the polls, but for the rest, casting a ballot represents the culmination of a two-year battle for the highest office in the land in a process that is at once unbelievably preposterous and distinctly American.
CRUISING through the COD on a recent Saturday night I got a little disoriented. There's so much there, and so little to guide us, it's as if down is up and north is south. That may not be far from the truth.
CLOAKED in the shadow of a lonesome alley, a transaction is made. This scene may go unnoticed, but it repeats itself night after night across the globe, the product of a human behavior stretching back to the beginnings of civilization.
I HAVE some surprising news, dear readers. Recently, I went on safari throughout northern Africa, a journey that took me past the pyramids, down the Nile and into the seedy nightlife of Cairo.
THOMAS Jefferson called it the "opening south" -- that vacancy on one end of the Lawn, unmarked and untouched, that preserved the panorama of the Blue Ridge to the landscape of his Academical Village.
TUCKED away behind the mountains, cut off from the outside world save for a narrow pass and gravel-strewn road, a dictator rules his people with a steely resolve and terrifying power.
