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What really strikes me in the clip of Mike Brzenzinski refusing to lead with a Paris Hilton story is the refusal of her co-presenters to take her seriously. Sexism is clearly alive and well, and something to be broadcast to the world on MSNBC.
June 2007 Archives
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Interesting consideration of which cities may disappear, but would be better if it considered potential impacts of oil shortages and carbon rationing. I wonder if such trends could save Detroit as suburbs become more difficult places to live? (via cityofs
For as long as we've been planning our current trip we knew we'd only have time for the most cursory of experiences of each place. Driving through New Zealand is a great way to see the country, but it's also a good way to get a sense of how much you're missing. In the end it was good that we hadn't planned to go further south than Christchurch as the far south was largely blocked off by snow, but we now know we very much want to go there eventually.
So we knew it would be hard to leave, but we had no idea that it would actually be so complicated. First, at checkin we were told that all the advice we had received was wrong and that we needed visas to enter Australia. As far as we can tell that's only the case if flying from New Zealand, and thankfully the airline was able to furnish us with them, though the 'free' visas actually came in at $60 thanks to 'service fees.'
We also discovered that the airlines, despite including airport taxes in the ticket prices, hadn't been passing that money along to the airports so the New Zealand airports are now charging passengers $25 a piece in order to depart. That sounds rather like fraud to me—I'll definitely be following up to find out if we were double-charged.
After all of that we found Emirates a significant improvement on Air New Zealand, and the food was definitely above par. And now we're in Australia, preparing to head out to Hunter Valley for a little more wine tasting.
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It seems like a number of threads are coming together: the attorneys scandal, Dick Cheney and use of torture not only on "enemy combatants" but potentially at least one US citizen...
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Danah Boyd argues that use of MySpace vs. Facebook is divided along class lines.
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"The CIA conspired with a Chicago gangster ... in a bungled 1960 attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro, the leader of Cuba's communist revolution, according to classified documents published by the agency yesterday."
Everything you've heard about New Zealand's beauty is true. Driving between Auckland and Wellington over the past few days we've been constantly taken aback by the scenery and we're told by reliable sources that the South Island (to which we're headed on the ferry I'm now aboard) is even more dramatic.
What they don't have in such abundance is public wireless internet access. Most towns have a scattering of internet cafes or kiosks where you can use a public computer to get online, but scouting out a place to connect a laptop is considerably harder. Cafe Byzantium in Ponsonby had free wifi, our hosts in Cambridge had a network of their own, and we were able to pick up a for-fee network in from our hotel in Napier. But try as we might we could not find reasonably prices (less than NZ$10/hr) access in the capital city of Wellington.
I'm also missing big cups of coffee. We've had some very good coffee, but a regular coffee seems more expensive than a latte, and usually smaller. So I guess it's pricey espresso drinks for me for the next few days. The cafes really are great, but a little more coffee and wifi would be nice.
Which is all really to say please excuse the slowing of the flow of photos onto flickr. There are plenty yet to come, but getting them there is trickier than I'd expected this early in our travels.
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Very nice piece about the foodie details in Ratatouille. Makes me wish we'd been able to afford and get a reservation at French Laundry when in Yountville recently...
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The best myspace page ever (and an amazing example of how well they can be customized)
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Yet another article on how the US imposes different standards on developing countries than it experienced during a comparable stage of development, along with some good insights on the place of intellectual property in trade
Blogging while travelling isn't proving nearly as frequent an event as I'd expected. Too much to see and do, and too few hotels/hostels with good internet access. For regular updates it's probably better to keep an eye on my flickr stream than this blog, but I'll try to keep this place up to date.
We're currently in New Zealand, staying with the wonderful Riddells in Cambridge, a couple of hours south of Auckland. I'll write more on New Zealand when we've been here longer, but first step back to California with a couple of highlights.
The thing I most appreciated about Petaluma, California is that the traffic seemed to always stop for pedestrians. We wondered if there's a city ordinance about it. I've been very struck over the past few years by the degree to which US laws and road practices privilege cars over people, and it was wonderful to be in a town which seemed to have flipped that around.
The highlights of San Francisco were mostly culinary. Between Tartine Bakery, Farmer Brown and a number of other wonderful cafes and restaurants we seemed to spend most of our time eating or drinking, which was a great way to see the city. Kari's going to have more notes and photos on that up on her blog soon, so I'll link to that when it's ready.
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A good overview of the lunacy that is the governance of the World Bank
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Statements like "the US favours a diplomatic track" seem sadly naive
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A very sensible appraisal of the curious reports that Iran is supplying the Taliban in Afghanistan
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Yet another fascinating-sounding Postopolis talk. This one on slum cities and their potential. Useful comments from Dan Hill too.
As of 1pm Eastern time yesterday, we're homeless.
Having agreed the sale of our house in March and completed the process three weeks ago, yesterday we packed up, cleaned up, and drove away in a bright yellow van (not the one pictured).
This is of course a chosen homelessness, and we have plenty of places to stay and support structures to rest on. This weekend we're in Chicago with Kari's family. Tomorrow we fly to California, and from there to New Zealand, Australia, and on into Asia.
The movers are downstairs, gradually emptying our house, and we can finally begin to emerge from the task-oriented tunnel vision that has been a necessary part of the past fortnight. As more and more people asked me whether I was excited about the trip that will fill our next two months, I've generally had to answer that I was trying not to think about it other than logistically. There was too much to do to allow such distractions.
Now that the house is nearly empty we can begin to anticipate it without reservation.
When I have been excited, it's largely been thanks to the Lonely Planet citiescape guides, a series of portraits of cities that can be easily read in half an hour or so.
By trying to communicate the mood, rhythm and pace of cities rather than cram in every details of every museum, they build anticipation without being overwhelming, and hopefully give some sense of how to 'be' in those cities rather than how to 'see' them. The portraits probably aren't sufficiently nuanced, and caricature their subjects, but in 100 short pages there's not much else that can be done, and for me they've been a great way to prepare.
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"A top US climate official said the G8 should not dictate members' policies, but President Bush said he still had a "strong desire" for a post-Kyoto plan." -- the double-speak is remarkable. The G8 is not an entity that can dictate to
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"The same is true for Cheney himself and for Karl Rove, Bush's political adviser. They are all traitors who betrayed an undercover US operative who was attempting to work against the ayatollahs in Tehran."
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It's seemed for quite some time now that Dick Cheney was undermining Condoleeza Rice's statements in the middle east, and here's more evidence. Not that I support much of what Rice has to say, but I'd probably take it over Cheney's PfNAC imperialism.
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'the "Evil Empire" and the poster-child for neverending hostility have become our models for freedom and security.'
I've been resisting the temptating to chronicle every example of the combined inanity of the Bush administration and certain US media outlets, but in the midst of the busy-ness of this week a cheap shot just couldn't be resisted.
This headline appeared over the weekend in USA Today. I was really hoping for a follow-up the next day along the lines of "other leaders ask if invitation was lost in mail."
It just seems to be one of the strangest headlines I can imagine coming four days before the start of a G8 summit that's due to discuss climate change. The fact that such a call was reported straight says something—something bad, but not surprising—about at least one newspaper.
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"Rethinking sustainability beyond LEED certification should involve calculating the total energy cost of the building. Every piece of steel used in construction comes out of a blast furnace, which uses a vast amount of energy. In stating that the gre
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New Sufjan, by Sufjan (not yet another cover). And I doubt it's what many of us were expecting.
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Another site I've been working on -- went live today
