The economist brings us another article of interest to fans of Tim Powers. This one concerns local beliefs in the Jinn among the people of Somalia and Afghanistan.
THERE is a cleft in a stone hill outside Qardho, in northern Somalia, which even the hardest gunmen and frankincense merchants avoid. In the cool dark, out of the bleached sunshine, there is a pit, a kind of Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole, which is said to swirl down into the world of jinn. Locals say jinn—genies, that is—fade in and out above the pit. Sometimes they shift into forms of ostriches and run out over the desert scrub.
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First post of my South Africa vacation 2009 travelogue. A summary of the last few days in brief. Sunday 05/31 - We left home remarkably earl... -
The New Statesman brings us a review by Mark Bearn of a recent translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. He gives us a rather unflatteri...
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The mountain man and the surgeon - economist.com Relative levels of poverty, using examples from Appalachia and the Congo. The internet is ...
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