Newley Purnell

My Burgeoning Culinary Skills
Anyone who knows me can testify that I’m a terrible cook. Or actually, it’s much worse than that: I don’t cook. I simply don’t do it.

But things’ve changed. With no TV or Web connection in my apartment, I’ve been forced to find new sources of amusement. Thus, my culinary skills are burgeoning of late. My friend Chris. D., who really knows his way around a kitchen, visited last month and showed me a thing or two. And I’ve been experimenting on my own, as well.

My most recent masterpieces include guacamole; a salad featuing tomatoes and cucumbers and onions and olive oil and balsamic vinagrette; pasta sauce from scratch (shocker: not from a bottle!); a burrito containing rice and beans and green and red peppers and other good stuff; and the other night, I delved into the world of puddings. Believe it. Up next: gardening. And then possibly knitting. I am truly a Twenty-First Century Man.

More on Iraqi WMDs–and Dissent from the US Intelligence Community
The New York Times’s Nicholas Kristof writes: “‘The Al Qaeda connection and nuclear weapons issue were the only two ways that you could link Iraq to an imminent security threat to the U.S.,” notes Greg Thielmann, who retired in September after 25 years in the State Department, the last four in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. ‘And the administration was grossly distorting the intelligence on both things.’”

And this Reuters report says that “a growing number of U.S. national security professionals are accusing the Bush administration of slanting the facts and hijacking the $30 billion intelligence apparatus to justify its rush to war in Iraq.”

Now, of course, the question is this: if these accusations turn out to be true, will the American public even care? With 41% of US citizens saying they think WMDs have already been found in Iraq, or that they’re not sure if they’ve been discovered or not (poll results, in PDF format, here), the point is probably moot.

The Bush Administration: Scarier By the Day
The Bush administration scares me more and more every day.

First, let me say this: I think it’s counter-productive and intellectually foolish for liberals to automatically hate everything the Bushies do. But my God I’m continuously amazed and discouraged with the White House’s seemingly Machiavellian ways. To wit:

–Where are the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction? That’s the main reason we invaded Iraq, right? But so far there’s no evidence of WMDs. (Related Bush administration linguistic evasion here.)

As the Times’s Paul Krugman notes, Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary, recently said WMDs were emphasized for “bureaucratic reasons . . . because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.” (Krugman, by the way, is on a roll this week: his Tuesday column, about the horrendous new Bush tax cut, is excellent. And just how bad is said tax cut, incidentally? Well, Warren Buffet hates it.)

–Why won’t the family of ex-POW Jessica Lynch talk about her rescue? Is it because the whole thing might have been made more media friendly than it needed to be?

–They might be building execution chambers down in Guantanamo Bay. Jesus.

–Remember that bunker in Bagdad we bombed during the first night of the war? The one that supposedly contained Saddam Hussein? Yeah, well, um…it…er, never existed.

“The Truth Will Emerge,” says West Virginia senator Robert Byrd. I hope so. (Buffett and Byrd links via Nick M.)

Deportivo Cuenca 1, Barcelona de Guayaquil 0
I witnessed a great soccer game last night. Or actually, I witnessed a somewhat dull game last night–but one that was played in an electric atmosphere.

Deportivo Cuenca, currently 4th in the table, shocked the first-placed Barcelona de Guayaquil by the score of 1-0. The stadium was way oversold; my friend and I stood and watched the action from behind a tall, barbed wire-rimmed fence, right next to a bunch of camouflage-clad Ecuadorian soldiers. A good time was had by all.

I Believe the Word is Incongruous…
Israeli PM Ariel Sharon met with Whitney “Crack is Whack” Houston and her hubby Bobby Brown the other day. The result: this ridiculous photo. What’s next? Ozzy Ozbourne dropping by for tea with Robert Mugabe?

Will Congo Be the Next Rwanda?
Thousands of innocent people are getting slaughtered in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (In fact, 3.3 million Congolese have been killed in wars in the last five years.) And the UN isn’t doing anything about it. (And obviously the US isn’t, either. There’s nothing to be gained from committing troops to save Africans.) Nicholas Kristof says our “children and grandchildren may fairly ask, ‘So, what did you do during the African holocaust?’”

You Have Got to be Kidding Me
Japanese costumes for cats!

For Rent: My Writing Skills
A quick note to let everyone know that my writing skills are for rent (or for sale, depending on what’s being offered).

I’m looking for freelance writing gigs; following are my areas of expertise: travel, sports (specifically soccer), Internet strategies and Web marketing, TEFL/ESL (teaching English to non-native speakers), book publishing, and Latin America (especially Ecuador and other Andean nations). I’ve also done some book reviews on a wide variety of topics in the past; I’d be happy to do more. And I’m also open, naturally, to subjects I’m less familiar with.

If you know of anyone who needs writing services that might be a good match for me, please let me know.

Byron Moreno: Suspended Again
Following his dismal performance last weekend (which I witnessed and described here), Ecuadorian referee Byron Moreno has been handed a one game suspension. (Thanks to Nick M. for the heads-up on this one.)

Real Men…
…raise and eat their own steers.

“Pygmies Want U.N. Cannibal Court”
CNN reports: “Pygmy activists from Congo are demanding that the United Nations set up a tribunal to try government and rebel fighters accused of slaughtering and eating Pygmies during fighting in the northeastern corner of the country.”

Bad Ex-Pat Writing, Cont’d
Follow-up on the godawful editor’s letter I linked to yesterday: Part of what I hate about it is that it reflects the worst in ex-pat attitudes–a vacuous approach to living, a lack of interest in local culture, and the romantization of drug use simply for the sake of drug use.

And so I like this related humorous piece: “Titles of Unwritten Essays Jotted Down While Living in Prague in the 90’s.” My favorite: “My Visiting Friend Is Not Impressed by My Broken Czech: You Have, He Says, Been Living Here for Three Years.” (All links via the excellent Gawker.)

So Bad it’s Almost Good. Almost
Purple prose + stomach-turning self-absorption + too much Hunter Thompson = this.

Byron Moreno, Quite Possibly the Most Hated Ecuadorian in the World
Last summer, during the World Cup in Korea and Japan, Ecuadorian referee Byron Moreno became famous for all the wrong reasons: his questionable decisions may well have decided the outcome of a crucial game. In this case, it was the round of 16 match between South Korea and Italy; his calls during the contest, in which Korea upset a tournament favorite, made him a reviled figure in Italy.

And then last September, he was suspended by the Ecuadorian domestic league for signaling 6 minues of injury time but then allowing the players to continue for 14 more, during which time one of the squads rallied from two goals down to win the match.

Well, I saw Moreno perform yesterday. And let me tell you this: he’s a poor referee.

The local pro team, Deportivo Cuenca, took on Deportivo Quito in an important league game. During the course of the 1-1 tie, Moreno handed out seven yellow cards and three reds; his calls were erratic, and he never assumed control of the game. (Of course, it didn’t help that he was mercilessly jeered all the while by the Cuenca fans–the result of the notorious 20-minutes-of-injury-time game last year was that Deportivo Cuenca didn’t qualify the championship; they needed the other team to win.)

Rolf Potts and Vagabonding
I recently read Rolf Potts’s excellent new book, “Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel.” I recommend it highly.

And I just came across an interview he gave to World Hum (which is itself an exceptional site devoted to high-quality travel writing) a few months ago. Quoth Potts: “…the only thing you really own in life is time. That is, if you can learn to find your wealth in time and experience instead of ‘things,’ you stand a much better chance of living life to the fullest.”