After 9/11, I found my way to Juan Cole’s site, Informed Comment. He is one of our foremost experts on the Middle East. An Arabic speaker, he’s spent half his life in that part of the world. So while wars were blooming around us in the early naughts, Cole became an important source – for me anyway – in trying to figure out whatever was going on.
And just now, planning to link to him, looking around his site, I find there is no bio. He’s a very geeky academic type (if you’ve ever seen him on TV, you know this already), so that’s surprising. His numerous awards and affiliations however are mostly there. You can go look and marvel.
Today, he muses about Haiti and contemplates the Wall Street bonuses, and suggests these dudes tithe their bonuses to the relief effort. Heh. This particular line struck me:
” . . . the bonuses of the six biggest banks are now estimated to come in at $150 billion. Ten percent of that would be two years worth of Haiti’s gdp.”
He’s written an entire column on the subject at NPR.
One does not stand still looking for a path. One walks; and as one walks, a path comes into being. – Mas Kodani
