Welcome to my New Blog and the first post: Art DeFehr
You have received this blog message because you are on my email contact list. If for any reason you are not interested in receiving any future messages please scroll to the bottom and “unsubscribe” and that preference will be respected. The content of this initial posting will be the introduction of my website artdefehr.com. Please click on the access button at the end of this blog to get to Website.
I have received encouragement from friends to make my various written articles, essays, stories and travelogues more accessible and this website is the result. The website currently includes about 100 different articles. The earliest intervention is a poem “In His Steps” written immediately after my participation in the original Selma-Montgomery civil rights march. The latest article speaks to the problem of Christians as a persecuted minority in the current Middle East. The great majority of the articles are either essays on a subject or first-person accounts regarding an international experience or assignment. Some of those first-person articles could be useful as part of the reading list for a University course about a challenging global situation or just out of personal interest. The website provides guidance as to its organization and content. I will be adding additional articles as they are edited or in some cases written. I will also add several books such as the biographies of my mother that are out of print but retain an interest for many people. If you are interested in browsing a bit through my website I will make a few initial suggestions that provide a guide to the range of writing.
- My Mother A recent article that attempts to understand my own background through the experiences of a mother who successfully navigated some of the more challenging events of the early 20th century.
- Iran in Transition A widely – circulated report based on my April 2014 visit. The essay is an effort to offer a more nuanced view of modern Iran than is available in our Western Press.
- Field notes from a Revolution A series of Trip Reports from my interventions in the final years of the Soviet Union. The reports were written as events unfolded and offer interesting insights into the collapse of an empire – written while these events were taking place.
- There are a series of stories or travelogues that offer political and social comment on important events in our collective history. A few examples below:
- Night Train to Riga Social commentary at the very end of the Soviet Union
- A Weekend in Geneva 1980 Geneva Conference on Cambodia and some thoughts on how the global system really operates.
- Christmas, Peace and Other Subjects December 2013 experiences in Burma, Laos and Ho-Chi-Minh that includes a combination of travel with political and social observation based on my years in the region.
I hope you find some of these articles of interest and may wish to recommend the website to another person. The blog and the website will provide opportunity to sign up and we will be pleased to add such names and email addresses to the blog. The website is open and does not require a password. There will be opportunity to respond to myself through either the blog or the website but the responses will be private to myself and will not be displayed publicly. Thank you for your interest and welcome your feedback. If you do not wish to receive any future blog postings or similar messages please unsubscribe Thanks and best wishes from San Miguel de Allende in Mexico where Leona and I are spending the winter months – but connected to the world through the magic of the internet. Sincerely, Art DeFehr
