Newley Purnell

Postings will be sparse for the next week or so.

Our classes just ended, so tomorrow morning I’m heading down to the beach town of Puerto Lopez, which is supposed to be beautiful. (And it’s whale season, so I hope we’ll spot some humpbacks.)

Then, on August first, I leave for home (Beaufort, South Carolina) and then I’ll be visiting friends in Boston and DC. Here’re my approximate dates and locations:

Fri., August 1st-
Wed., the 6th: Beaufort, SC

Wed., August 6th-
Sun., Aug. 10th: Boston

Wed., August 13th-
Sun., Aug. 17th: DC

Mon., Aug., 18th-
Sat., Sept. 13th: Beaufort, SC

Sept. 13th-
TBA (at least until Christmas): back in Ecuador to teach (after a side-trip to Bolivia)

On another note, I’m looking for a job for the month I’ll be in SC. If any of you Lowcountry denizens have any ideas or leads, please email me.

The Columbia Journalism Review profiles Sy Hersh, the legendary investigative reporter.

Guys: tired of paying top dollar for fancy razor “systems”? Here’s a radical new solution.

–The New York Times weighs in on the Shining Path’s resurgence;

—eight international climbers appear to have been killed by an avalance on a mountain in the Cordillera Blanca range;

–and (spoiler alert! spoiler alert!) the more than $140 million the US is spending to eradicate coca in Peru this year…(are you ready for this?) isn’t keeping cocaine out of the States.

Reuters: “Ecuador’s President Lucio Gutierrez dismissed Education Minister Rosa Maria Torres on Monday, a move that could weaken his fragile coalition because of her close ties to the nation’s powerful Indian movement.”

The New York Times magazine on Peter Olson, chairman and CEO of Random House: “Although he has never edited a book, discovered a writer or masterminded a marketing campaign, Peter Olson is the most powerful man in book publishing.”

This appears to be some sort of strange German graphical online community/art project. “It’s easy at 1, 2, 4…”

“Reading the wrong thing in public can get you in trouble.” Just ask Marc Schultz.

Bolivian Ramiro Blacutt, the coach of our underachieving pro soccer side, Deportivo Cuenca, has resigned.

The accused pedophile, on the run for six years, was shipped back to Miami and will face charges in Tyler, Texas.