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Egypt’s Battle to Control the Nile Waters

My newest piece, on the struggle for control of the Nile. Here’s the lead:

I was standing inside a colonial-era circuit house in a sprawling, malarial city called Malakal in southern Sudan. I had come to see a man about a river, but the man, an Egyptian hydrologist, wasn’t talking.

“It is forbidden,” he said solemnly, “to speak of the Nile.”

I pointed towards the window. “But it’s right there,” I said. This was, after all, a measuring station of the Egyptian water ministry, one of several it maintained in Sudan and Uganda to track the volume of the world’s longest river.

The hydrologist didn’t need to look out the window. He knew where the Nile was–he’d devoted his life to its study. But there was nothing he could say to a stranger about something so important to his nation’s survival. I might have had better luck inquiring about Tehran’s nuclear program.

You can read the whole article here, and check out other great writing on the environment at the NatGeo News Watch blog.

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The Black Nile “highly recommended” by Library Journal

“Morrison’s narrative combines reporting and travelog in a way that brings readers to this most unlikely destination, a place of complexity, tension, struggle, and pain, where shreds of tradition and community are still visible.

“Verdict: Morrison’s account transcends the travel genre to provide authentic and timely information on a complicated part of the world. Highly recommended.”—Melissa Stearns, Library Journal

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Atrocity in Kampala

There’s a reason so many Westerners – tourists and humanitarians alike  – visit Uganda in such numbers, and it goes beyond the stunning variety of natural wonders and the equally stunning toll of HIV and the Lord’s Resistance Army. It’s a wonderful place, full of wonderful people trying to eke their way out of often difficult circumstances.

Despite a modern history of war and trauma that would seem more appropriate to the capital of a much bigger country, Kampala is light of heart. It breathes. And while a sense of innocence lost may be inevitable after Sunday’s terrorist attacks, I hope the people and the government will resist a slide into fear and anger. (It may be too much to wish that this tragedy will not be used as a political cudgel. It was certainly too much to ask in the United States after September 11.) But I hope Ugandans will keep those urges and at bay.  Here’s a piece I wrote analyzing the bombings for Slate.

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Why is F.A. Hayek #1 on Amazon?

I have no idea.

The New Deal and the Great Society didn’t turn America into fascist Italy or Nazi Germany, as some followers of the Nobel laureate economist predicted. Despite that fizzled prognostication, and the fact that he’s been dead since 1992, Hayek has the the  number one book on Amazon right now. What’s the deal? Did Glenn Beck talk him up? (Yes he did.) Or is it because of Hayek’s skills as a rapper? When he puts it in rhyme I find I have to agree with him over John Maynard Keynes. The boom makes the bust.

UPDATE: Champagne corks must be popping at the University of Chicago Press, where The Road To Serfdom went out of stock June 10. Amazon sold more than 13,000 copies in one day, according to The Hayek Center.

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Nick Clegg is no Harry Perkins.

The surge in popularity by Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats ahead of Britain’s general election is the kind of story an American can get behind. Fresh face, clean values, no nukes, green as green, come out of nowhere — etc.

We love that stuff.

As brought home by recent statements on the part of his boarding school subordinate,  Louis Theroux (ask them, not me), Clegg is a fully-paid member of Britain’s ruling class. But the notion of a relative political outsider coming within shooting distance of power recalled to me the brilliant career of my favorite British prime minister.

Now, the fact that Harry Perkins never lived is no reason discount his achievements. Continue reading “Nick Clegg is no Harry Perkins.”