I'll vote for the candidate with the best cookies

Sorry to not write for so long. It'll be a little longer yet for anything substantial. I'm in the middle of processing a bunch of things (my research, job applications, the meaning of life...) so I haven't given much thought to story-telling here. In short, all is good. In the past few weeks I have been in a 1,200 year old mosque, strolled along the Mediterranean, applied to grad school, smoked Red Bull shisha, drank Tuskers with my mom, danced in a Nairobi burger joint turned night club, made two homemade pumpkin pies, ate Thanksgiving turkey and lost my phone and camera. I'll analyze-verbalize it soon enough.

In the meantime, I have found confirmation for my strongly held belief in the power of cookies. From The New Yorker:

At each caucus, any candidate who does not gain the support of a certain percentage of the attendees—typically, fifteen per cent—is considered nonviable, and supporters may disband and align with other candidates. “Realignment” is a chaotic moment when campaigns descend on each other’s groups and try to poach from them. The arguments used during realignment are notoriously haphazard, ranging from the high-minded (“Join my group because my candidate opposed the war”) to the pedestrian (“Join my group because I loaned you a snow shovel last week”). This, Waliser explained, is why every Obama group needed a corraller—to ward off the poachers. “This person will in a polite and respectful manner physically contain the Obama group and ask them to stay in their place,” she told her precinct captains. She suggested feeding them in case they got restless. “The name of the game on caucus night is stand and stay, so this is where the chocolate-chip cookies are crucial.”

See, it's not just me.