Adventures of Isabel

Despite warnings from police that Jakarta might face election riots, today’s vote seems to have gone quietly in the city, with all exit polls showing incumbent president SBY giving the competition a solid trouncing.

A man shows his inked finger — proof he voted in today’s presidential election — as he leaves a polling station in [...]

It’s always  a little sobering to hear about bombs going off in places I’ve recently been.

Khan al Khalili, January 2009.

Al Hussein Mosque

Al-Azhar area
It’s interesting, though, that because I subscribe to the Jaiku feeds of several Cairo-based journalists and bloggers, by the time I woke up this morning I had more detailed and complete news sitting [...]

I’m not entirely certain what winding mental path led me to the rectory of St. Catherine’s Church in Carcar, Cebu. Some of it has to do with reading for a course on literature of social movements in the Philippines — it was to Carcar that the Visayan revolutionary Leon Kilat went seeking reinforcements for [...]

On my last day in Egypt, I finally made it to the pyramids at Giza. (I had seen them on the way to an interview, but only through the window of a moving car, which doesn’t quite do them justice.)

The whole scene is a rather unpleasant mix of corrupt police, touts, and tour busses, but [...]

Views from Al-Azhar Park

My multimedia slideshow on the Jack London Aquatic Center’s crew team for Oakland youth is now up at OaklandNorth.net.
More to come…

After days spent immersed in the arcane minutiae of municipal bond markets, it was nice to take a short day assignment that basically involved hanging out with kids in a neighborhood park.
(Of course, I do still have to write the bond piece.)

Breakdancers, rocking it for the camera on Dipolog beach.
I’m leaving again for the mountains early tomorrow morning. This time, I’ll be well and truly off the grid — 12 km hike in, no cellphone signal — so I’ll be out of touch for at least the next 2 days.
Geeky digression: the only Tagalog [...]

Some photos from the May Day march in San Francisco
More, and more to come, on my flickr account

The (semi)final cut of my series on the drag show at Marlena’s Bar in Hayes Valley:Check out a few more from the series on my flickr acount