| Happy Halloween! And congrats to the Washington Nationals for their first World Series win. (As R&K's resident Toronto Blue Jays fan, I had to come to terms early in the season with the fact that this just wasn't our year—for the 26th time). In other news: another week, another Brexit delay. The best summary of the mess, as these things often go, comes from this Tweeted clip from one of the UK's most popular soap operas, Eastenders.
Right now you can barely trace your fingers across a spinning globe without hitting a place where people are protesting, and protesting hard—now even in Halloween garb: Hong Kong. Iraq. Chile. The UK. (Does the sound of a whole stadium booing Trump at the MLB World Series—the pinnacle of America's pastime—count?) And of course, Lebanon, which is having its biggest and most ambitious protests in 15 years. To find out what's different this time—and what might not be—in the latter, we got our long-time R&K contributor Anthony Elghossain to report from the center of the protests in Beirut. As one protestor/reveler tells him—referring to the government's proposed taxes on WhatsApp phone calls that was one of the catalysts for the unrest—"This is not a fucking WhatsApp revolution." And the revolution is not just in Beirut. As Anthony notes, "Everyone is protesting everything, everywhere, in every way imaginable." And because a lot has happened in the few days since we published his dispatch, Anthony wrote an update for this newsletter. Over to you, Anthony: | | | Hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon have mobilized. They've achieved some success—for now, triumphs of form over substance and short-term results instead of longer-term transformation. For instance, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea withdrew his ministers from the cabinet when protests began, citing a lack of will to reform. Then, after stalling for a week with two other important Lebanese leaders, Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri resigned. He didn't want to continue leading an unpopular government increasingly propped up by problematic parties engaging in thuggery, with hundreds of goons going so far as to smash up protests sites and beat people in the heart of Beirut. Even so, protestors and those trying to harness their discontent to drive change face a long, long road ahead. Not only do the president and speaker of parliament remain in office, but the recently-resigned premier and ministers will retain their positions in a caretaker cabinet that will conduct affairs until these same leaders form a new government, or call for elections of a new parliament—where, incidentally, they control 90 percent of the seats. Moreover, at a deeper level, the half-dozen men who really rule Lebanon remain atop the system, with their cronies and clients saturating the state, controlling much of the economy, and still serving as Lebanon's intermediaries to the world. No technocrat, be he a diligent constitutional lawyer or be she a whip-smart financial guru, can fix any of that quickly—let alone all of the consequences of decades of piss-poor governance, even if they're put in a position to try. Lebanon pushes forward, with promise and peril ahead. | | | | On The Trip podcast, we finished off our Portugal sessions. We drink Cabo Verdean ponche in Porto with Ansel Mullins, a Lisbon-based Chicago native who spent over a decade discovering and writing about Istanbul's incredible food scene, earning him the labels "food sherpa" (and the rather intriguing "backstreet gourmet"). With his partner, Yigal Schleifer, Ansel founded Culinary Backstreets, an online treasure trove of food guides and reporting that also runs intimate, gluttonous food tours drawing on local writers, meatball vendors, and booze-slingers in 13 cities. If you want to eat well in Tokyo, Istanbul, Beijing, Lisbon, Tbilisi, Athens, and more, spend some time with Culinary Backstreets. Enjoy! In our final Portugal episode, we get a glimpse into the unusual mind of Ana Aragão, a Porto native and architect-turned-illustrator who crafts obsessively detailed, magical drawings of parallel worlds, reimagining buildings or architectural wonders—all by hand, sometimes with nothing fancier than a Bic pen. Host Nathan Thornburgh cracks open a bottle of Port wine with Ana, and talk about her unusual background, how her hometown serves as her muse, and the wonderful idiosyncracies of Portuguese culture. | | | And finally, there's still time to enter our contest—in partnership with Atlas Obscura—to win two spots on their sold-out Turkmenistan and the Gates of Hell trip next spring. It includes $750 towards flights, all accommodation and transport, and most meals. Plus, you'll have expertly guided tours of the capital, Ashgabat, explore surreal deserts and dunes, swim in underground thermal lakes, and eat shashlik next to the Gates of Hell, a crater that's been burning for 50 years. Turkmenistan has not been very open to visitors for a long time, so this is an unmissable chance spend time there. Good luck!
Until November.
—Alexa | | | | |
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