Pietro

Returned to California

For security reasons I do not specify the dates and times of my travel to and from Afghanistan. However at this point my official duties to the Afghan government are over, and I am back in California for the long term. This is an important time for both places: both struggling with housing crises. Both […]

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Thinking ahead for the next U.S. Administration

Oprah Winfrey as President; Kamala Harris or Anita Hill as Attorney General (the other as Vice President); Bernie Sanders as Secretary of Labor; Tammy Duckworth as Secretary of Defense; Elizabeth Warren as Secretary of Treasury; Sherman Alexie, Secretary of Interior; Michael Pollan, Secretary of Agriculture; Bill McKibben, Secretary of Energy; Michelle Obama as Secretary of

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Trump through a post-colonial lens

Left-leaning journalism in the U.S. has settled into a consistent hostility towards the U.S. president. This blog posting was provoked by a Fresh Air interview of Evan Osnos, who astutely tracks the way that Xi Jinping of China is quietly taking over a geopolitical leadership role from Donald Trump. I don’t disagree with the details—I

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The Future of English

Today the Chronicle Vitae listserve sent a link to Nina Handler’s article, “Facing My Own Extinction.” In the article she described the dim prospects for English as an academic discipline, and questions the ability (and utility) of her and her colleagues adapting to a changing world in which English disappears as a scholarly discipline. I

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The Consequences of Conservatism

Over the past several days I have been researching National Urban Policies very intensively, as I work with a team of Afghan planners to develop the National Urban Policy for Afghanistan. During that research I came across documentation of the national urban policy of the United States. If you are American, you might even be

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November 8: Notes from Kabul

1. Journalists as superheroes The staff at Shamshad TV deserve the 2017 Global Prize for Courageousness from the Committee to Protect Journalists. Please look up CPJ and donate if you can, especially if you care about freedom of the press. American journalists are belittled and disparaged by the Trump administration for not selecting the facts

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