Larry Memmott's Blog

Got an email today from Justin Shuster at Yale University’s The Politic: The Yale College Journal of Politics.  They have just published Diplomatic Discourse, a collection of over 100 interviews with United States Ambassadors, examining careers in the Foreign Service and contemporary issues facing American policy overseas.  I was interviewed for the book back in 2013.  You […]

Reading Bill Meara’s account of his experiences with the Central America wars of the 1980’s I came across a great line.  He says a “crusty old SF (Special Forces) sergeant told him they were players in a “Low Intensity, High Per Diem War.”  What a great phrase for the Central American wars, and, for that […]

  This is one of the must-see sites in Bolivia, in my view.  The 28 almost life-sized paintings of angels displayed at the church of Calamarca represent the most complete series of angels still together in Bolivia, or likely anywhere.  They are spectacular, and well worth the small trouble of turning off the road.  The […]

Despite its focus on chapels and its brevity, German Ambassador Philipp Schauer’s guide to rural churches (Guía turística de/Tour guide of Iglesias Rurales: La Paz y Oruro, by Schauer, Philipp, Teresa Gisbert) is my favorite printed guide to the Altiplano.  With lots of maps and photos, Spanish and English directions to, and descriptions of the churches, […]