MONOCLE has a really interesting slideshow about "narcotecture" in afghanistan. if you're not sure what they mean by that, the short story is that all these buildings have been bankrolled by the heroin trade. now that afghanistan is a little less awful and it has been "liberated," tacky nouveau riche motherfuckers can build themselves palaces shaped like wedding cakes and lit with colored neons.
one of the most amazing things about the slideshow is hearing the narrator describe the way in which her and her photographer were perceived: because they were europeans taking pictures in ruins that serve as schools, they automatically become arms of the "liberators" and are therefore harrassed for taking pictures instead of rebuilding.
it's also itneresting that the narrator seems to place a fair amount of the blame on the male heads of households for such tacky displays of poor taste, as if including the also-nouveau-riche wives in the process would somehow have tempered the need for stuffed kitten table arrangements.
here is the link to the slideshow.
