Rapid Travel Chai

The FT this week has great pieces of the world unraveling:

• End of the Ottoman empire on how WWI tore apart the empire and the region.
• ‘Army and Nation’, by Steven Wilkinson, on how India has avoided military coups.
• Nigeria unravelled on the $2bn textile smuggling industry that has destroyed the domestic textile industry and tens of thousands of jobs.
• China treads more cautiously over maritime disputes, they seem to have noted that ticking off all their numbers doesn’t work, unless you are Russia.
• Speaking of Russia, Georgia wary of Moscow deals with South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

More news:

• Novelist Gary Shteyngart spent a week doing nothing but watching Russian TV (CBC As It Happens).
• How 25 years of Photoshop changed the way we see reality (Washington Post).
• In which Americans again steadfastly fight to be ignorant, The bizarre war against AP U.S. history courses (Washington Post).
• Saudi King Unleashes a Torrent of Money as Bonuses Flow to the Masses (NYT).

Travel:

• The Most Disappointing Fruit Ever: Dragon Fruit (Efficient Asian Man). First time I saw the purple version was a revelation. I once told my wife it is great with chocolate sauce, she countered, “So is anything.”
• Egypt: The Planning Stage (Point Princess).
• MONA: Tasmania’s biggest tourist draw is a controversial museum featuring a poo machine and the chocolate-coated entrails of a suicide bomber (Slate). See also the longer 2013 New Yorker article on the same, Tasmanian Devil. I love Tasmania.
• The countries where your strong dollars (and miles) go furthest in 2015: get to Brazil, Australia, Canada now (MileCards.com). This article looks at the past year, if you take a longer view, countries like India have become incredible values.