old/new/bookreview

I thought snow-shackled Easterners loved visiting Southern California. But if I were to take a time machine into the early parts of this year, I would receive an e-mail photo surprise, revealing that relatives who had spoken of visiting (finally! being visited!) had abandoned their trip to the West Coast in favor of enjoying tagines in Marrakesh. For food's sake... (Speaking of restaurants, I'm reminded of a time several years ago, when coworkers at my restaurant job told me that their language, Amazigh, was banned in favor of Arabic when they were growing up. This discussion happened after boarding various shuttles to attend an academics' conference, where the focus had been on the overpowering French in that part of the world. This was demonstrated by all of the panel laughing and speaking in French the entire time. Well, I didn't understand most of that, but I guess a low-paying restaurant job can be good for learning about some things. Then again, perhaps there's a chance that the panel did mention Amazigh, but I didn't have enough French to quite catch it...) Shortly thereafter, this book appeared at the dollar store: http://www.azaniansea.com/2011/01/book-review-sultans-shadow.html. I decided to get it (only a dollar!) but haven't looked through too much of it yet...