"Jack Weatherford awarded Mongolia's highest national honor"

"Jack Weatherford has been awarded the Order of the Polar Star by President Nambaryn Enkhbayar and the parliament of Mongolia. Weatherford is the author of The New York Times best-seller Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Weatherford will travel to Mongolia to receive the award in person in February."

-Macalester College

furry traditional costumes

"When I was told about them, in my mind, I somewhat had painted a very bias picture of what to expect of people from Mongolia. I pictured them in their furry traditional costumes living in tents of the mountaneous Ulaan Bataar. . .

"Well, they certainly proved me wrong of everything I'd imagined them to be. They were very fashionable and way more advanced than many of us in terms of mentality and technology. They were very open and assertive about issues deemed taboo here. . . True, they were playful at times but they made up for it through their diligence and eagerness to learn."

-Soleiliana's Diary

Andrew McLaughlin at Slate: tech commentary from 2003

"Ulaanbaatar is home to a surprisingly cosmopolitan cultural mélange. . .

"In the area of Internet and communications, I am left with the agonizing sense that Mongolia is poised to squander an incredible opportunity. . . .it's suicidal for a government to try to force particular services to be channeled restrictively to particular elements of infrastructure, using the law to bludgeon everyone into compliance. . . With its well-educated population, relatively free markets, and open society, Mongolia could embrace the Internet's potential to supply cheap, reliable, ubiquitous communications for all."

- http://www.slate.com/id/2084072

Spider-Man by Jay Pinkerton

JayPinkerton.com

Singing Sands

"One knows these modern travelers, these over-grown prefects and pseudo-scientific bores dispatched by congregations of extinguished officials to see if sand-dunes sing and snow is cold."

-Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, 1937