Witness the latest campaign from the Barbados tourism authority: The Barbados Perfect Weather Guarantee.

Yup, from May through December, Barbados promises “perfect” weather — defined, specifically, as 78 degrees or higher and less than a quarter inch of rainfall — every day.

If the temperature drops and the skies open up, the tourism authority will cough up a $100 refund for each day of imperfection.

Ingenious move? Marketing gimmick? A bit of both?

Either way, it’s certainly an attention-getting offer.

What do you think? Would a perfect-weather guarantee have you booking a flight? What do you think the tourism industry can do to keep travelers on the road during the recession?

Community Connection:

Recession travel deals, and special offers like this one, are everywhere these days. But there’s more to recession travel than just the chance to save some cash. Be sure to check out Why You Should Travel During the Global Recession.

If you decide to take the Bajans up on their offer, don’t forget to read up on the Best of Barbados.

Photo by jenschapter3 (Creative Commons)

For all the aspiring and working travel writers out there: our friends over at BootsnAll have just launched two new paid travel writing outlets.

BootsnAll feature articles will pay $50 — here’s the skinny:

…Your article should potentially appeal to a wide audience, rather than just those interested in going to a particular destination. They also need to be visually appealing, so we need to be able to use photos throughout in order to help tell the story in the text.

We are also interested in new and creative list articles as well as what we call Photo Features where the collection of images itself is the star of the show. There are unlimited ways of being creative, even with lists, so pitch us your best ideas and we’ll tell you what we think.

Meanwhile, BootsnAll expert travel articles will fetch $30. Details:

Expert Articles need to be about something that other travelers are already researching. We will include these articles in our Traveler’s Toolkit, so the audience will have a chance to find them over time…

We appreciate creativity on these, so don’t hold back. If you know a particular aspect of travel very well, chances are your knowledge will really help others out there. We can’t use topics that are widely covered elsewhere (like tips on packing light, for example), but we are open to hearing any ideas.

Check out the complete guidelines, and get writing!

Photo by Advanced Source Productions (Creative Commons)

Behind them, the real Atlantic City is easy to spot. Rows of dilapidated houses and apartment blocks peek out from between the hotel towers, just a few steps away.”

So I wrote in the Matador community blog a few hours after arriving in Atlantic City, NJ.

I’ve since had the chance to explore that “real” side of things, and the city’s glitzy front, too.

The contrast between the two, the immense gap between the frivolous spending at the high rollers’ tables and the daily realities of most of the city’s residents, is stark.

See for yourself:

Welcome to Atlantic City…

Home of the Donald, and his Trump Taj Mahal.

Almost 24% of Atlantic City’s population lives below the poverty line.

“It’s gotten a lot better around here,” a woman in the hotel elevator told me…

“since they knocked all them projects down.”

McMansions along the boardwalk, north east of the casino-hotel strip.

I guess these guys won big?

All photos by Eva Holland

Hooters to go in Atlantic City.

And they say NYC is the spot to order any kind of take-away you can imagine…

(Photo by Eva Holland)

Of course you do.

Which is why our friends at Wend Magazine are offering a one-year digital subscription, which includes access to their adventurous archives, for the obscenely low price of $5.

You can’t even get a coffee and a muffin at Starbucks for five bucks!

Go ahead. Sign up now. That is all.

Photo by donjd2 (Creative Commons)

Oftentimes when I’m planning a trip, I check up on various hotels online and wish it was easier to put them into perspective, location-wise — both in terms of their location in the city and their location in relation to each other.

Well, the internet has a funny way of creating a niche site for your every desire these days: behold, SeeYourHotel.com.

It’s a simple Google Maps-based site. You plug in your destination, and orange pins pop up marking the locations of hotels across the city; blue stars represent the destination’s landmarks and attractions, another handy feature.

Then, you can filter your search by price range or star-rating, or search for a particular hotel name.

Clicking on any given property gets you a detailed description, links to TripAdvisor reviews, pictures and the relevant Google street view, plus the option to book a room or check availability.

Ordinarily I’d have a handful of tabs open to check all these things — SeeYourHotel does it all in one, while remaining uncluttered and easy to use. I’ll definitely be back next time I’m hunting for accommodation.

Photo by Olof S (Creative Commons)

Over in Slate, in a piece titled Terrorists, Dissidents and Copy Editors, Christopher Hitchens tracks the shifting language used by journalists to describe the perpetrators of violence in both Iraq and Northern Ireland.

Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia (AQM), he notes, is now being referred to simply as a “a largely homegrown terrorist group,” when it was once known as “a largely homegrown terrorist group that American intelligence says is foreign-led.”

There is some debate as to whether AQM is a spontaneous local response to the American occupation, or a more calculated, opportunistic group with ties to Al-Qaeda proper — and, as Hitch writes, “at least this ponderous formulation expressed the ambiguity.”

Dropping that ambiguity, he argues, lends the group greater legitimacy.

Similarly, the perpetrators of the recent attacks in Northern Ireland, splinter groups of the IRA who refuse to participate in the peace process, are now being referred to as “dissidents” — a term which, Hitch writes, “describes only attitudes and not actions, and it is most famously associated with the intellectual opposition to Soviet totalitarianism.”

He goes on: “Plainly, something has been lost when such a historic term of honor and respect is loosely applied to homicidal thugs who shoot a Catholic policeman in the head and use pizza delivery workers as human shields.”

…If you want a quick definition of euphemism, this would do: It consists of inventing nice terms for nasty things (perhaps to make them seem less nasty) and soft words for frightening things (perhaps to make them seem less scary). We should have learned by now that this form of dishonesty is also a form of cowardice, by which some of the enemy’s work is done for him.

Fine points, all, and I’m glad to see someone is carrying on Orwell’s mission to monitor the use of language, and its enormous consequences.

But I’d be a lot more convinced that Hitchens really means what he says, if he didn’t refer to the US-led invasion of Iraq as “the coalition intervention” throughout the article.

What was that about “inventing nice terms for nasty things,” again?

Photo by ItzaFineDay (Creative Commons)

Wrong.

Behold, several Fox News “comedians” mocking Canadian troops in Afghanistan, within days of four more Canadian soldiers being killed in the field:

The homophobic overtones (”Leslie? That’s an odd name for a man,” the host sneers at one point) are the icing on this tasteless, ignorant cake.

The clip has touched off a firestorm in Canada: it’s one of the lead stories on most every paper today, and the Canadian government has used strong words in its demand for an apology.

Defense Minister Peter MacKay said:

It’s crass, it’s insensitive, it’s in fact disgusting, given the timing. There should be an apology – to the families in particular, and to the Canadian Forces and to Canada generally – given the sacrifice and the commitment that we’ve demonstrated in Afghanistan.

A spokesman for MacKay added that he wanted the apology to come directly from the people in the segment itself:

These are despicable, hurtful and ignorant comments. I think that so-called comedian should stare in the camera at his first opportunity and apologize to all of the families of people he’s hurt with these despicable comments.

Meanwhile, one of the comedians, Doug Benson, has had an upcoming string of gigs at an Edmonton comedy club cancelled. (That’s my own original research, there! I called, outraged, to demand that they can him, and learned they already had.)

Anyone out there holding their breath for an apology from Fox? I wouldn’t bet on it.

“Support our troops,” indeed.

The Dalai Lama has been denied a visa for a major international peace conference to be held in Johannesburg this week.

A spokesman for the President claimed the move was intended to prevent any distractions in the lead-up to the FIFA World Cup, being held on the African continent for the first time next year — but the truth behind the move came out when he added that South Africa has benefited greatly from a strong trading relationship with China.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, famed anti-Apartheid activist and — like the Dalai Lama — a Nobel Prize recipient, has announced that he will boycott the conference in response.

Former President F.W. de Klerk, another Nobel laureate for his role in releasing Nelson Mandela and ending the Apartheid era, joined Tutu in condemning the move and vowing to boycott. From his statement:

The decision to exclude the Dalai Lama is irreconcilable with key principles on which our society is based including the principles of accountability, openness and responsiveness and the rights to freedom of expression and free political activity. South Africa is a sovereign constitutional democracy and should not allow other countries to dictate to it regarding who it should, and should not admit to its territory – regardless of the power and influence of the country.

There’s been no response as of yet from Mandela, yet another Nobel Prize recipient who’d been slated to attend.

I’d be curious to hear his thoughts, though — after all, while he spent decades in prison, many of his fellow leaders in the anti-Apartheid resistance were in exile overseas, trying to raise awareness and stir up support for their cause.

I think I know what he would have said, then, about any country that bowed to the Apartheid state’s demands to deny them visas.

Photo by reurinkjan (Creative Commons)

The spiraling popularity of “daggering” — a “lewd” dance style with accompanying, explicitly-lyric’d dancehall tunes — has led the Jamaican government to take an unprecedented step: an all-out radio and TV ban on songs and videos with blatantly sexual content.

Here’s the background, from MOJO blogger David Katz:

The storm began brewing when a series of “daggering” hits gained widespread airplay… To the uninitiated, “daggering” is a super-lewd “dance” that leaves little to the imagination, in which groin-locked couples enact rapid-speed dry-humping. “Daggering” dancers basically enact simulated sex, since the term is roughly the Caribbean equivalent to “cabin stabbing.”

(Am I the only one who paused at this point to google “cabin stabbing”? And regretted it?)

Grumbles about the craze were already building, and things came to a climax (har har) when the Vybz Kartel and Spice duet, Rampin Shop, hit #1 on the local charts.

Katz again:

Five days later, the Jamaican Broadcasting Commission took the unprecedented step of banning all songs with explicit sexual content from radio and television, as well as songs that glorify gun violence, murder, rape or arson. The ban is absolute, meaning that such songs can no longer be aired as “clean” versions that make use of “bleeping.”

Responses to the ban have been extremely mixed. Some feel the government’s stance is hypocritical: Given that human rights campaigns have fallen on deaf ears for years, why should it take a bit of dry-humping to bring action?

I’m torn on this one.

On the one hand, I’m never a fan of censorship — and this full-on ban seems to be casting a pretty wide net. Who gets to decide what constitutes “explicit sexual content,” after all? If we let them come for our daggering tunes first, will they be after our Marvin Gaye albums next?

But on the other hand, I do worry about the overly sexualized world kids seem to be inhabiting these days. (I bet there are a lot of young’uns that wouldn’t have had to google “cabin stabbing”…) Jamaican reggae singer Horace Andy is quoted in the MOJO blog post: “I don’t think it’s right to play those kind of lyrics on the radio, cause if you beep it out, the kids still know. My daughter is four years old, and she knows every word of ‘Rampin Shop’.”

Check out a few examples and see for yourself.

Here’s Bragga’s “Dagga Dat”:

And Mr. Vegas, “Daggering”:

Finally, a homemade daggering demonstration, to the hit track “Hundred Stab”:

Call me desensitized, but they don’t seem much more objectionable than your average rap video. (But of course, just because we allow tracks like “Candy Shop” to play in prime time doesn’t mean Jamaica necessarily should, too…)

What do you think of the “daggering” craze? Harmless or sinister?

Top photo by sick of goodbyes (Creative Commons)
Bottom photo by Alex Barth (Creative Commons)

Lately it seems everywhere you look — in print or online — you’ll find someone sermonizing about the death of print and the inexorable, irresistible rise of the internets.

The funny thing is, a lot of these articles seem to view the two sides as completely distinct, when the reality is a lot of hard-bitten, old school news reporters are embracing new technology to help them do their jobs.

For instance, in the last week Twitter has helped me re-connect with some of my favorite Canadian foreign correspondents, who I’d largely lost track of when I stopped keeping a Canadian residence (and the newspaper subscription that came with it).

Here they are; if you’re interested in global news, they’re all worth keeping an eye on:

Mark MacKinnon

Mark MacKinnon is the Globe and Mail’s current Beijing chief, former Moscow bureau chief, and former Middle East correspondent. He’s as “serious news reporter” as you get — having won national newspaper awards and filed stories from war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, and Lebanon — and yet, here he is on Twitter, writing St. Paddy’s Day haikus and talking hockey.

His blog, Points East, complements his more formal dispatches from across East Asia.

Stephanie Nolen

I know, I know — I never shut up about Stephanie Nolen.

But in her five years as the Globe and Mail’s Africa correspondent, she was a must-read from the continent. Now, as the Globe’s new Delhi-based South Asia correspondent, she’s filing in-depth stories from the world’s rising superpower. Here’s her latest, explaining the cultural nuances behind the seemingly intractable problem of infant malnutrition.

She twitters @snolen. And she’s keeping a blog, too: check out Subcontinental.

Doug Saunders

Okay, so my bias is showing — but yes, Saunders is yet another G&M trooper, the European bureau chief. Apart from being a bright and thoughtful political columnist, he’s also a foodie and culture-watcher — and I’ve blogged about his travel essays more than once, too.

Here’s his latest dispatch, on Britain’s curry crisis, and here he is on Twitter, too.

Who are your favorite reporters worldwide? And where can we find them online?

Photo by Praziquantel (Creative Commons)

Photo by Del Far (Creative Commons)

Just about everywhere, it turns out.

And I don’t just mean every corner of the physical world, either — they can be spun out of even the most unexpected moments, thoughts and connections in our own lives.

Case in point: last night I attended a reading featuring several contributors to The Best Travel Writing 2009, the latest in the popular series of Travelers’ Tales anthologies.

The readers — Jill Paris, Peter Wortsman, and Matador member David Farley — all shared their contributions to the book, and guess what?

None of them had to journey to the ends of the earth to find a compelling travel story.

From shopping for traditional Austrian attire, to a less-than-wild expat unexpectedly finding his inner cowboy through the expectations of his French in-laws, and even to a long walk in Italy bringing the writer back to his childhood “special ed” classes, each story stemmed from wholly individual experiences and insights.

None required major external drama — a coup, or a near-miss on a mountaineering expedition, say — to function as free-standing narratives.

It was a great reminder — for me and other aspiring writers — that when we’re in search of our next story, we shouldn’t forget to look inward, too.

Got a story to tell? Check out the submission guidelines for Travelers’ Tales, and don’t forget about our own Notes from the Road submissions call, too!

And hey, while we’re at it, take a look at My Chinese Clown, one of my favorite travel stories Matador has ever published.

If you’re like me, you spend some time wishing and hoping that your less-nomadic friends and family could catch up to you for a visit, or even join you on your travels, a little more often.

Our friends at Wend tipped us off to a web site that helps make that happen: Please Visit Me is a shockingly simply little site that lets you nudge the people in your life to, well, please visit!

Here’s how it works: input your name, email address and nearest airport, and the same info for the friend(s) you’re hoping to lure away.

Submit your info, and Please Visit Me emails your pals with the latest, cheapest airfares.

As Peter writes on the Wend blog:

It’s a fast, easy way to distract yourself from your dwindling vacation days and hold out some hope that someone from far far away will bring tales of adventure in an exotic accent. And in the time it took you to read this, wishing that someone would come by just to break up your day, you could have invited four people to visit you.

Amen!

Photo by mckaysavage (Creative Commons)

Behind, Germany’s frozen Obama-Fingers:

Sweet’n’sour sauce, anybody?

(Via Spiegel and the American Presidents Blog)

Two weeks ago we blogged about the assassination of Guinea-Bissau’s President, Joao Bernando Vieira, by members of the army.

Details in the media have been scarce, so we asked Kota Tabuchi, a Matador member and Africa Program Director for Mountain Travel Sobek, to shed some light on the killing and its aftermath.

Guinea Bissau has all but vanished from the news since the word that the President had been killed. Any idea of who’s in charge? Is there a Vice-President who’s taken over? Is the Army running the show?

Former Parliamentary Speaker and lawyer, Raimundo Pereira, is currently serving as the Interim President of Guinea Bissau. He’s been urged by the international community to organize a free and fair election to return the country to constitutional democracy; a country that has been historically, and still is, plagued with corruption, famine, disease etc.

Also keep in mind that this wasn’t the first attempt at the President’s life. Back in November 2008 (quite recently), an attempt was made at his life at the Presidential residence.

Government instability is nothing new to Guinea Bissau, it seems. Do you get a sense of how people reacted to the President’s death? Was there shock and fear, or was it closer to “business as usual”?

Without having been on the ground myself, much of what I’m about to report is what I’ve heard from my partners on the ground and a bit of speculation. Coming from the Western world, I think it’s difficult for us to put ourselves in their shoes and see the world through their lens.

This is a country plagued with corruption, poverty, drug trafficking (yes, one of the major drug routes to Europe) with life expectancy below 45.

In addition, much of the population lives outside the city of Bissau in remote areas with no access to news etc. In particular, Bijagos Archipelago, off the western coast, is an area detached from the mainland and makes up a good % of the country’s land mass.

The arms of the government simply don’t have a strong enough grasp on these remote islands (kind of like how some of the remote inhabited islands of the Philippines / Indonesia aren’t affected by mainland politics and poorly managed etc.).

With that said, the situation on the ground is reportedly calm, borders remain open, and nobody is fleeing the country. According to my sources, most citizens are not overly concerned, in shock or living in fear. This incident is a result of a power struggle within the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), not of civil unrest.

However, I wouldn’t go as far to say that this is “business as usual”. I’d speculate, based on my experience in Africa, that incidents such as what happened in Bissau definitely have at least a slight impact on the country and its morale; simply not to the extent of what we’d feel here in the US.

At the end of the day, they’ve got bigger fish to fry like getting food and surviving.

Two weeks on, is there a tangible impact on the streets? Or have people’s lives more or less gone back to normal?

Normal is such a relative term and I hesitate to say that life is ever ‘normal’ in Bissau.

Remember, this is one of the world’s poorest nations and they’ve just gone through a massive cholera outbreak several months ago as well as their key political figures being assassinated.

Hardships like this occur in places like Bissau all too often. They deal, cope and move on.

Are people in Guinea Bissau aware of how little international media attention their country receives, and if so, how do they feel about it?

I don’t think international media is even on their radar. Entirely speculation.

And finally, any sense of what comes next in Guinea-Bissau?

Guinea Bissau is a failed State in every sense of the definition. Massive government corruption, extreme poverty, poor infrastructure, lack of education, disease/sanitation, access to clean water, low life expectancy and so on…

I hope for a fair and honest democratic election of the country’s next President. I fear that reality will be much different. Look at what has happened in Kenya (a ‘model’ for African democracy) last year and more recently in Zimbabwe. Many of these States, unfortunately, are doomed for failure and will take a long and involved process to ever get out of the hole.

Am I optimistic of Bissau’s future? Absolutely not.

With the lack of foreign interest or investment, I don’t think the country is headed in a good direction. For example, how many Americans can locate Guinea Bissau on a map, let alone have heard of it? And after the initial blast in the few news sources, how much more have we heard about Bissau (as you mentioned above, things have gone ‘silent’).

Hard times ahead for the people of Guinea Bissau…

Top photo by Pedronchi (Creative Commons)

Bottom photo by Pedronchi (Creative Commons)

Welcome to a new, occasional feature here at Pulse: “Three Stories from Under the Radar” will showcase global news stories that aren’t necessarily making the front pages.

Ongoing Unrest in Madagascar

A few weeks ago we brought you the news from Madagascar, where a power struggle was dragging the country into chaotic paralysis.

In breaking news this afternoon, the chief of the military police force has announced that he has stopped taking orders from the government. The BBC article also has a good timeline of events leading up to this point.

On Twitter today — which, by the way, has been a key source for people following the crisis — Travelers’ Tales founder James O’Reilly said it all, in 140 characters:

Friend in Madagascar sending wife, daughter away bec of strife. “Anyone who thinks govt is a bad thing should try getting along w/o one.”

Madagascar didn’t even make the front page of the “World” section of the New York Times site today, let alone the front page proper.

Excommunication in Brazil

From Brazil — home to the world’s largest Roman Catholic community — comes a grim story of rape, abortion and excommunication.

A 9-year-old girl became pregnant with twins after being repeatedly raped by her stepfather.

Abortions are permitted in Brazil only in case of rape or serious risk of death to the mother, and — both those boxes being ticked in this instance — a legal abortion was performed.

Now, the Archbishop of Olinda and Recife has excommunicated the girl’s mother, her surgeon, and the entire medical team that was present.

The girl was exempt because she is a minor; the stepfather was also exempted, with the Archbishop declaring that abortion is “a graver act” than rape.

Hideous as the case is, it’s prompted some thoughtful discussion in Brazil about faith, medicine, and the limits of church power in a secular state.

Global Voices has reaction (in Portuguese and English) from around Brazil.

Eco-Disasters Worldwide

Okay… a little shameless self-promotion to wrap this one up!

If you haven’t yet, wander over to Matador Change to read up on 6 Ecological Disasters You’ve Probably Never Heard Of — and add more overlooked toxic hotspots in the comments!

What are some under-the-radar news stories you’ve been following this week?

Madagascar photo by oledoe (Creative Commons)

Photo of Brazilian girl by babasteve (Creative Commons)

The people of Northern Ireland have been hitting the streets this week to protest the recent murders of two soldiers and a police officer.

The killings come after several years of progress towards stability and peace; the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, both rebel splinters of the Irish Republican Army that reject the peace process, have claimed responsibility. Harsh condemnation has come quickly from political leaders in London, Dublin and Belfast, and even the Pope has weighed in, describing the murders as “abominable acts of terrorism”.

More than 10,000 people have turned out for marches and silent vigils.

Said a Derry police inspector:

We are massively grateful for the people of Derry who’ve turned out to support the police. They know what service we give them, and when they’ve seen one of our colleagues brutally murdered, the people of Derry are standing here today.

They have come to show solidarity, I believe, with the police and to send a very clear message out to the people who killed Constable Stephen Carroll and the two soldiers that they do not represent them.

British politicians have attempted to frame the attacks as a last-ditch attempt to disrupt the peace process by a fringe refusing to accept that things have changed for the better.

Here’s hoping that they’re right — and that these murders remain a blip on the post-Good Friday timeline, rather than the renewal of violence in Northern Ireland.

Photo by jimmyharris (Creative Commons)

Looking for some quality travel writing to stir up your wanderlust?

Check out the winners and runners up in this year’s Narrative Travel Writing Contest from our friends over at Transitions Abroad.

The big winner, Ancient Wonders and Desert Hallucinations, is a Libyan travelogue — accompanied by some fantastic photographs — that’s sure to get you thinking about a visit to the formerly taboo African nation.

If you’re a writer yourself, consider entering the 2010 competition!

First prize is $500 and publication on Transitions Abroad. Stories running from 1000 to 3000 words are eligible — the complete guidelines are at the bottom of this page.

And don’t forget, too, if you’ve got some shorter travel stories to tell, that we’re now soliciting 400-800 word pieces for our Notes from the Road series!

Photo by crucially (Creative Commons)

Is the decade-long conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo “Africa’s invisible war”?

Some fascinating number-crunching from Social Design Notes compares the numbers of fatalities in Darfur and the Congo — roughly 500,000 and 5.5 million, respectively — and then notes the enormous disparity in the media coverage of the two.

In the last 10 years, the New York Times has averaged 13.5 stories on the DRC’s war annually. Darfur, on the other hand, averages 151.6 stories in the pages of the Times each year.

An accompanying graphic starkly illustrated the gap. But what’s behind it? Blogger John writes:

Do the Arab Muslim bad guys in Sudan make a more convenient target for Western Islamophobes? Are China’s competing industrial interests in Sudan easier to finger than US corporate interests in DR Congo?

Are the deserts of Darfur simply more accessible than the forests of Northeastern Congo?

Or is Darfur a simpler story with clearer victims and perpetrators? A story closer to Western ideas of genocide than Congo’s messier regional war?

And in a thoughtful follow-up, a Human Rights Watch rep has the following response:

I fear that the Congo conflict receives less coverage because many outsiders have bought into the preconception that Congo is the ‘heart of darkness’ as characterized by Joseph Conrad’s book by the same title.

The book has often been used to refer to Congo’s plight today, as if the country is somehow predisposed to dark atrocities and violence, and hence there is nothing new to report.

Yet many have misunderstood the real message of Conrad’s book. It is not Congolese barbarism but rather the greed of outsiders that have plagued this country’s history.

Of course, none of this is intended to belittle the suffering in Darfur or to suggest that its ugly conflict should receive less coverage — only to point out the disparity, and wonder why the largest violent loss of life since the Second World War is being so thoroughly ignored?

(Via Scarlett Lion)

Photo by Ana_Cotta (Creative Commons)

Photo by openDemocracy

Grim news from Zimbabwe:

The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, who recently entered into a power-sharing agreement with despot Robert Mugabe, has been injured in a car accident.

His wife, Susan Tsvangirai was killed in the crash.

This BBC story notes that Zimbabwe has no divided highways and that accidents are common, but considering the dark history of Mugabe opponents turning up dead or wounded, it’s hard — with early reports lacking much detail — to view this as strictly coincidence.

Tensions had been ratcheted up between the two factions of the “unity government” since the arrest of MDC politician Roy Bennett on the same day that the new government was formed.

More to come, stay tuned!

Big news today: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been formally charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

The arrest warrant was issued in relation to the ongoing conflict in Darfur.

According to a court spokeswoman, President Bashir is suspected of “intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians and pillaging their property.”

Yup, that about sums it up.

So what does this mean for Darfur?

Well, of course I’m thrilled to see one of our picks for the World’s Worst Leaders being officially recognized for what he is, but obviously Sudan is not about to hand over their sitting head of state.

An aide to the Sudanese president has already contemptuously dismissed the charges, saying that the ICC was “created to target Sudan and to be part of the new mechanism of neo-colonialism.”

Writing in the Daily Beast, George Clooney (yes, seriously!) has a thoughtful piece about visiting Darfur’s refugee camps in Chad and struggling to keep the world’s attention on the crisis. His take on the arrest warrant?

How effective these indictments will be is now in the hands of the rest of the world. Will his government turn him over? Not likely. Will the UN go in after him? Doubtful.

Even if he’s caught travelling outside the safety of his country would his government be much better with other equally dangerous leaders like “The Sudanese Six”—Harun, Taha, Kushayb, Hilal, Minawi? If I were a refugee I wouldn’t bet my life on it.

So then why is this such a significant moment? Because it tells the 300,000 brutally killed and 2.5 million displaced and raped and maimed that justice must always prevail. That the rest of the world sees their struggle and stands up and demands justice.

This is the moment. And if the UN can’t use it to insist on tougher sanctions, and the United States can’t use it to pressure China, and China can’t feel the eyes of the world looking to them for leadership in the country that they profit so greatly from, then the court and the rule of international law is lost.

Here’s hoping this indictment is the first step towards real consequences for the architects of the killing in Darfur.

Top photo by wanderingzito (Creative Commons)

Bottom photo by hdptcar (Creative Commons)

Joao Bernardo Vieira, President of the small West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, has been shot and killed by a group of “renegade soldiers,” the BBC reports.

The army chief of staff had died under suspicious circumstances just a few hours earlier — the President’s killing is believed to be an act of revenge by military loyalists. However, the army denies that a coup is under way.

Guinea-Bissau has been rocked by a series of coups since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974 — including one led by President Vieira in 1980. The country is one of the poorest in the world, and is dominated by the traffic of cocaine en route to Europe.

The African Union will hold an emergency meeting today to review the situation.

Are you on the ground in Bissau? Know anyone who is, or who is very familiar with Guinea-Bissau politics?

Let us know! We’d love to hear from anyone closer to the source.

Photo by hdptcar (Creative Commons)

The winners of the third annual Solas Awards, honoring the best travel stories of the year, have been announced — and a few Matador members are in the mix!

Congrats to all the winners, but special shout-outs go to Matador Goods editor Lola Akinmade, who took the bronze in the “Travel and Shopping” category (and also landed a couple of honorable mentions), Matador member Darrin DuFord, who received second place in the “Travel and Food” category, and Matador member Dana Hill, who also received an honorable mention.

The Solas Awards are put on every year by Travelers’ Tales, a San Francisco-based publishing house dedicated to literary travel writing and travel storytelling at its best. If you’re an aspiring travel writer, consider sending in your best stories for next year’s Solas Awards, and check out the submissions page for the latest Travelers’ Tales anthologies, too.

To learn more about what Travelers’ Tales is looking for (and to read some great writing — one of the best ways to keep learning!) give The Best Travel Writing 2009 or The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2009 a read.

Congratulations again to Lola, Darrin, Dana, and everyone else! And if we missed your name on the winners’ list, because we only know you by a Matador nickname, please let us know!

Keep writing, everybody.

Photo by tnarik (Creative Commons)

Over the past few years, after decades of tension and on-again off-again violence, the disputed, war-torn Indian territory of Kashmir has been on a slow road to recovery and stability.

And today, the BBC reports on the latest sign that the area is finding a fresh start:

They’re skiing in Kashmir.

From the story:

There is a crowd outside the ski shop in Gulmarg where young girls and boys accompanied by their parents are all dressed for slaloming down the slopes. For the first time, local Kashmiris outnumber foreign adventure tourists here. All are enjoying a welcome respite from the years of bloodshed that have meant recreational activities such as this have not been possible.

The whole story is worth a read — the anecdotes about Kashmiri kids snowplowing for the first time just might make you choke up a little.

And hey, if you wind up powder-hunting in Kashmir, let us know how it goes!

Photo by Prabhu B (Creative Commons)

Travelers — are you looking for businesses to support on your travels that do tourism right?

Or do you know a worthy individual who has put his or her heart into a sustainable endeavor?

Well, you’re in luck. National Geographic and Ashoka’s Changemakers are just getting the second annual Geotourism Challenge started, seeking out and honoring individuals devoted to “tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place — its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage and the well-being of its residents.”

Sounds about right, doesn’t it?

Head to the competition website to nominate worthy innovators, check out the other nominees, and engage in a constructive discussion about sustainable travel. The nomination phase closes May 20, 2009.

After that date, the competition’s panel of judges will create a shortlist of finalists — and after that, it’s back to us to vote!

Photo by m o d e (Creative Commons)

If you’re a traveling film-maker, or just a big fan of travel videos, and you haven’t yet discovered Tripfilms, the travel-focused video sharing website, then now’s the time to venture over!

Tripfilms is currently putting on the first annual Trippy Awards, to honour the best videos from its community members. The categories are fun and thoughtful: take the Hop On A Plane Award, for instance, which will go to the most inspiring or wanderlust-inducing video.

The nominees have already been selected, but you can still check them all out and vote for your favorites — the ballot closes on March 1st.

Meanwhile, if you’re still learning, and looking for the skills to compete for a Trippy Award in future, be sure to check out this excellent, helpful article: 8 Useful Online Tools for Traveling Filmmakers.

Photo by MK Media Productions (Creative Commons)

Check out this really unusual “video” — it’s 1400 still images from a day at Quebec City’s winter carnival, spliced together to form a moving picture, without the use of any video capture technology!

Besides being a very cool medium, it also gives a great sense of the city and its world-famous festival.

To learn more about the photographer behind this clip, check out Scott Achs Photography.

Feature photo by A Well Dressed Bullet (Creative Commons)

So, admit it. At some point, you’ve been sitting on the couch at night, watching the contestants on ‘The Amazing Race’ tearing around the world, and you’ve thought:

Man, how cool would that be?

Then one of the contestants has gotten stressed, or tired, and has broken down. Their face scrunches up; the tears start to fall — and the camera zooms in for the kill. The next day, all the gossip blogs run close-ups of the unlucky racer’s un-photogenic misery.

And you think: Nah…

Inevitable trials and frustrations are part of what makes travel so fulfilling; the challenge is commensurate with the reward, right? — but for my part, I could do without the reality TV humiliation. Which is where Competitours comes in.

Competitours is a travel competition pitting 17 adventurous twosomes against each other in a two week race around Europe. Teams cover 5 countries in 14 days, completing a quirky array of daily challenges each designed to highlight that day’s locale.

The requirements? Nope, you don’t have to be especially good-looking: the rule is, You Pay, You Play. There’s a fee to enter — paid after the race, incidentally — which includes your airfare, accommodation and rail pass.

Oh, and the prize? A package designed for a serious travel spree: 40 nights at Starwood hotels, 4 international flights, and more than six grand in spending money.

That sounds worth racing around Europe for, to me.

Intrigued? Check out Competitours for more info. Oh, and if you decide to give it a shot, be sure to let us know how it goes!

We might even blog about you and your adventure — but no public humiliation. We promise.

Photo by Martineric (Creative Commons)

Could Iran have a shot at some change we can believe in, too?

High-profile pro-reform politician Mohammed Khatami, who served as President of Iran from 1997 to 2005 — when power passed to the more belligerent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad — has announced that he will run again in the country’s upcoming elections.

(Iran’s presidents are permitted to serve two consecutive four-year terms before stepping down, but they are free to run again in future.)

Khatami’s candidacy leaves Iran’s reformers, and much of the West, eyeing the tantalizing possibility of the country adopting a more conciliatory tone at the very moment that President Obama is doing the same.

The result? Maybe, just maybe, a new era in US-Iran relations.

During his last turn in office, Khatami worked to increase both political and social freedoms — though many of his efforts, including an attempt to loosen press restrictions, were blocked by hardliners. His supporters hope that the last four years of tension have fueled the desire for change.

Said one close ally:

People feel the need for change because of Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy and economic policies. Therefore we think people will vote for Khatami, for change… With Khatami running, the election will be polarized.

Of course, nothing is certain: Ahmadinejad retains a great deal of support, especially among the more hardline clerics and in rural areas, while Khatami’s failure to deliver on past promises led some reformers to give up on him.

The Iranian election is slated for June.

Photo by Please! Don’t Smile. (Creative Commons)

A: When everybody gets home safe.

Yup, it seems that the remarkable story of Flight 1549 is the chance comedians have been waiting for. Jokes about the dramatic Hudson River landing are sprouting up across the internets, and some of ‘em aren’t half bad, either!

Check out this Huffington Post classic, for instance, dubbed:

“The real difference between First Class and Coach.”

Or get a giggle from this clip with Steve Martin, on Letterman last week.

(Betcha didn’t know Martin was on board, did you?)

Sure, I suppose it might seem a little irreverent to some. After all, the Hudson crash could easily have been a very, very different story. But it’s natural to celebrate an event like this any way we know how — laughs included.

And after all, how could a story with a hero named Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III not land a punchline or two? Am I right, or am I right? Zing!

The Problem

The Globe and Mail reports that some sweeping changes to Canada’s citizenship laws could have a serious impact on the country’s expats, foreign aid workers, even foreign-based students — basically, anyone living abroad, no matter how temporarily, outside of the military and the diplomatic corps.

The new legislation is aimed at cutting down on the so-called “Canadians of Convenience” — the descendants of immigrants who landed citizenship before returning to their home countries, and passed along the citizenship for multiple generations.

It stipulates that citizens who go abroad may pass their citizenship along to their foreign-born children, as before.

However, if those foreign-born children go on to have foreign-born children in turn, Canadian citizenship will not be granted to them automatically.

The idea is to prevent generation after generation of people, who may never have even set foot in Canada, from claiming citizenship.

(It’s a response, in large part, to a controversy that erupted during the Hezbollah-Israel conflict of 2006, when thousands of Lebanese residents with Canadian passports popped up in Beirut, requesting taxpayer-funded Canadian rescue efforts.)

But the broad sweep of the legislation — there are no exceptions for temporary stays abroad, and no consideration of how long a given citizen has spent in Canada, before reproducing abroad — threatens to catch thousands of expats in its net, too.

“Hundreds of thousands of Canadians will be affected by these rules,” said the head of the Canadian Expat Association. “These people may be working or volunteering abroad temporarily.”

My own children will be affected. They were born abroad, but, of course, live in Canada. As bilingual (English-Japanese) children they hope to work in international trade in the future. Do I honestly need to tell them that if they have kids while working abroad, they will not be Canadian?

Other expat advocates pointed out the potential impact of more restrictive citizenship rules on Canada’s competitiveness in the fluid global economy — by creating a disincentive for workers to go abroad with multinationals.

My Take

Personally, I have trouble even getting worked up about the “Canadians of Convenience” side of things. Complaints on the subject mention our citizenship being “watered down” as a result, but nothing can water down my pride in my citizenship, least of all the idea of my tax dollars going to rescue civilians (Canadian or otherwise) from a war zone.

Beyond that, though, it’s clear this legislation goes too far.

Even if you accept that these “Canadians of Convenience” are a problem worth addressing, this is not the place and time to be punishing Canadians for working abroad, volunteering abroad, studying abroad, and so on. We need to be more engaged with the world, not less.

As people who spend an awful lot of time overseas, Matadorians, what do you think?

If you knew you were risking your children’s citizenship by starting a family while abroad, would you think twice about doing so?

Photo by TheDreamSky (Creative Commons)

‘Tis the season for lots of snow-filled photos. Oh, and for winter jackets, too.

Conveniently enough, our friends over at Wend have decided to combine the two!

All this month, anyone who submits a “snow day” photo to the Friday Photo Contest has a shot at winning either a Burton Green Mountain Project Women’s Traction Jacket or an Outdoor Research Men’s Elusive Jacket.

Slick!

The photo parameters are broad.

Says Wend: “Skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, hell, we’ll even take snow angel photos!”

So go ahead, get outside and snap away.

Then submit your finest shots to win a pretty new jacket. Full details here.

Photo by Marco Adams (Creative Commons)

In all the discussion about President Obama’s planned closure of Guantanamo Bay and other special prisons, one order has gone largely unnoticed: the one that preserves the practice of extraordinary rendition.

According to the Portland Independent Media Center, Obama opted to sign an order retaining rendition — in which terror suspects are detained without charge and then deported to a third party nation for interrogation, keeping US hands (technically) clean — while simultaneously shutting down the CIA’s secret prisons, restoring the ban on torture, and of course closing Gitmo.

Said one anonymous administration official:

Obviously you need to preserve some tools — you still have to go after the bad guys. The legal advisors working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice.

Since rendition’s best known as a back-door method of allowing suspects to be tortured, it’s hard to see what those parameters might be — or how it squares with the new administration’s stance on torture by American hands.

Interestingly, though, Human Rights Watch is on board with the new order, noting that there’s room for rendition “within limited circumstances.”

Interesting. I do genuinely have faith in President Obama’s scruples on this issue, so I’ll keep an open mind for now — but I’ll be keeping a wide open eye on the news, too.

(Via the HumanRightsNews Twitter feed, which you should most definitely subscribe to if you want to get beyond the MSM on things like Darfur, Gaza, Sri Lanka, and other hotspots.)

Photo by nyghtowl (Creative Commons)

The latest issue of TAZine, the Transitions Abroad webzine, is out, and this month’s installment is all about that oh-so-hot topic these days: eco-travel.

If you’re interested in the environment, travel, and sustainability (and as Matador readers, I’m guessing the answer’s yes for most of you!) then there’s lots of thought-provoking material to chew on in here.

A few of the highlights:

Matador’s own Nora Dunn offers Eight Ways to Become Part of a Community Abroad Within Two Weeks.

Friedel Rother shares advice on the art of “wild camping”.

Perceptive Travel editor Tim Leffel checks in on Iceland’s quest to ditch the foreign oil and go geothermal.

Alison Gardner helps us come to terms with the oft-mocked and maligned voluntourist.

And much more, too. So get reading!

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

Don’t forget, Matador also has plenty of eco-content for your reading pleasure.

Check out Hal Amen’s photo essay of disappearing glaciers worldwide, or watch an inspirational roadtrip in the video, The Road to Sustainability.

Photo by darkpatator (Creative Commons)

Yup, you read that right. The Digital Photography School has teamed up with Lenovo to offer a $50,000 prize in the Name Your Dream Assignment competition.

Here’s how it works: submit an idea for your dream, never-done-before photo shoot; there’ll be a voting phase to narow things down, and then a panel of judges will select the eventual winners.

In addition to the $50,000 grand prize, there’s a slew of addition stuff up for grabs: camera goodies, a Lenovo Thinkpad (optimized for photographers), and more.

The contest opens March 3rd — which leaves lots of time to think up your dream assignment. Go ahead, get brainstorming!

Photo by Pear Biter (Creative Commons)

Big news out of Central Africa today, where a messy, many-sided, on-again-off-again war has been bubbling along for the better part of two decades.

Laurent Nkunda, the leader of a rebel faction in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has been arrested in Rwanda.

Nkunda is a one-time ally of the Rwandan government whose predominantly Tutsi forces have been tussling with Hutu militias in Eastern Congo since the latter fled Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide.

He was initially approached by a joint Congolese-Rwandan force on the Congo side, but was only arrested after fleeing across the border.

It’s an interesting power shift: the Tutsi-led Rwandan government, whose forces have entered Congo hunting the Hutu militias several times since the end of the genocide, had been a longtime supporter of Nkunda.

Now, it appears they’re more willing to work with the official authorities in the DRC — and they’re not the only ones.

From the AP story:

Earlier this month, Mr. Nkunda suffered a major blow when his ex-chief of staff, Bosco Ntaganda, formed a splinter movement and last week announced his forces would work together with Congo’s army to fight the Hutu militias and eventually integrate into the army.

The rebel group’s splintering may have been the key to the new cooperation between DRC and Rwandan authorities:

Rwanda has been under international pressure for months to use its influence over Tutsi rebels to end the conflict and the breakthrough agreement may have been borne out of the split within Mr. Nkunda’s movement that both Congo and Rwanda were quick to exploit.

So now, with the DRC government, the Rwandans and some of the rebels all (temporarily, at least) working together, will we finally see some progress in the seemingly-intractable problem of the Hutu militias in Eastern Congo?

Well, hopefully this will at least mean a reduction in the level of fighting in the area, and some relief for its citizens. But as far as the militias go, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Many of the key figures behind the Rwandan genocide remain leading figures in the militias. And when you have nothing waiting for you besides a high-profile trial for genocide and crimes against humanity, there’s not much reason to lay down your arms.

Photo by Julian Harneis (Creative Commons)

Despite being in the news more or less constantly, the Middle East is an area that most outsiders — even those of us who travel frequently — don’t know very well.

Need proof?

Check out this Middle Eastern geography quiz. It extends beyond the Gulf into North Africa and Central Asia, and synching up the country names with their spots on the map may prove trickier than you think!

The quiz landed in my inbox as a forward. Scrolling through the email chain, I saw words like “educational”, “humbling” and “makes me feel dumb” used to describe it.

Give it a shot, and let us know how you do!

To learn more about the region, check out Matador’s recent article, What Every American Should Know about the Middle East.

Photo by HORIZON (Creative Commons)

But beyond the formal celebrations, Americans across the country were paying tribute in their own way, too.

Here are a few photos from yesterday’s festivities that, hopefully, you haven’t seen yet:

Washington, D.C. prepares for the inauguration.

Photo by AnyaLogic (Creative Commons)

In San Francisco, pranksters change the sign marking the end of Bush Street to “Begin Obama”.

Photo by candiedwomanire (Creative Commons)

Inauguration cupcakes on sale in New York City.

Photo by calculat0r (Creative Commons)

D.C. was prepared for vast crowds — and everything that comes with them.

Photo by AnyaLogic (Creative Commons)

Every precaution was taken.

Photo by victoriapeckham (Creative Commons)

A moving portrait from Times Square, where crowds turned out to watch the ceremony.

Photo by tristanbrand (Creative Commons)

Captain America celebrates on the streets of Los Angeles.

Photo by Al Pavangkanan (Creative Commons)

Back in D.C., a musician makes the most of the day.

Photo by ktylerconk (Creative Commons)

Welcome to the new President and First Lady. It’s been a long time coming!

Photo by Army.mil (Creative Commons)

Blogger Scarlett Lion recently offered up some really thoughtful, motivational tips on becoming a correspondent in Africa.

She knows a thing or two about it, too: she’s been writing, snapping photos and blogging from Africa since 2006. Beyond her personal blog, Scarlett Lion (whose real name is Glenna Gordon) also blogs for critically acclaimed Canadian mag, The Walrus.

The whole Google document is worth a read — it covers local internships, wire service work, and freelancing, and then adds some more general thoughts.

I’ll quote a couple of those last thoughts here:

I truly believe journalism is a battle of attrition. I’ve been around for a few years, so I’ve got experience, and I’ve gotten better at what I do. I work hard and consistently. I work every day, regardless of whether or not I have an assignment. I read widely, google a lot, look at as many photos as my internet connection will allow, and think about my work and how to get better at it.

Google, and you shall find. Get in the habit of googling everyone and everything and you’ll learn about things you didn’t think you even needed to know.

Filing on time is more important than spending extra time to make something perfect. It can never be perfect, but it can be on time.

Well, what are you waiting for? These tips are applicable well beyond Africa. Read Glenna’s thoughts, and then get going!

Looking for more exciting ways to earn your living on the road? Check out Matador’s archive on some of the world’s best travel and adventure jobs, and how to land them.

Photo by DanieVDM (Creative Commons)

My family was a little puzzled when my cousin announced, in the lead-up to her nuptials, that instead of wedding gifts she’d prefer contributions to her honeymoon.

That’s not traditional, aunts and uncles whispered. Why doesn’t she do a normal gift registry?

Non-traditional they may be, but increasingly, honeymoon registries make a lot of sense – whether for people who are getting married a little later than our parents’ generations, and so don’t need the traditional household basics of good kitchenware and towels, or even for those who (gasp!) just aren’t that into place settings.

Here’s the deal: honeymoon registries, set up through sites like Buy Our Honeymoon, allow for newlyweds to request specific experiences and gifts within the honeymoon umbrella.

It’s not like just forking over cash towards a trip — guests still get the satisfaction of selecting a particular event or activity, whether that means a scuba diving lesson or a special meal out, that the couple will remember (and, presumably, associate with the gift-giver) forever.

I haven’t got any wedding plans lined up at the moment (though any Yanks up for a greencard wedding should drop me a line!), but — as someone who spends nearly every penny I can spare on travel — I love the idea of receiving travel experiences as gifts, in lieu of the usual housewares.

To learn more, check out Buy Our Honeymoon.

Not convinced yet?

Check out Honeymoon Registries: Because You Already Have Enough Bath Towels.

Photo by gaminrey (Creative Commons)

We’ve been following Zimbabwe’s increasingly dark economic and political story here on Pulse for some time now, and I’ve got to say, I didn’t think things could keep getting worse indefinitely — they have to hit bottom eventually, right?

But somehow, Mugabe’s regime keeps finding new ways to sink lower.

Take today’s news: forget about the 100 billion dollar note that the country released this summer, because now, there’s a 100 trillion dollar note in town.

Yes, you read that right: One hundred trillion dollars.

The note will be worth roughly $33 USD, and will also be accompanied by 10 trillion, 20 trillion and 50 trillion dollar bills.

What are the chances that it helps to reduce sights like these?

Photo via Joe Jet

Global media giant the BBC has launched a Persian (or Farsi) language television station, available by satellite in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The company already offers Farsi radio broadcasts, as well as a website at BBCPersian.com.

Despite the popularity of the radio channel (10 million listeners are reported to be tuning in), the Iranian government sees the new TV station as — how do I put this? — unnecessary, and unwelcome.

“We do not consider this network as suitable for the security of the country,” said Iran’s Intelligence Minister, “and will take the necessary measures with regards to it.”

The BBC has warned its potential viewers to use caution in participating in phone-ins and other interactive events.

Photo by Aaron Escobar (Creative Commons)

It’s still early in the 08-09 ski season, but it’s already been a season of tragedies for British Columbia’s winter sports community — and there are signs that the recent slew of deaths may have repercussions for backcountry use more broadly.

Canadian news agencies were transfixed over the past two weeks by the story of 8 snowmobilers killed in a series of avalanches near Fernie, BC. The men, all experienced backcountry riders, set out in a group of 11 — the 3 survivors made the agonizing decision to walk out without their friends when repeat slides threatened to bury them all again.

Meanwhile, at Whistler-Blackomb — already stinging thanks to global reporting of its recent gondola collapse — two visitors were killed in the week leading up to Christmas. Both had ventured onto closed courses, or beyond the areas marked as safe.

The resort, which is due to co-host the Olympics in just over a year, is now contemplating ways to discourage boarders and skiers from disregarding the posted routes.

“We can’t build a Berlin Wall, that’s not practical,” said one resort representative. But Whistler has suspended all issue of backcountry passes, and is considering season bans for anyone caught outside the marked areas.

As the Canadian Press writes: “For season pass holders, that could mean losing their $1,800 pass with no refund.”

Some B.C. resorts already bill out-of-bounds riders for the costs of their rescue when they get into trouble. And beyond Whistler, the B.C. provincial government itself is considering new measures, including government-mandated fines for those who venture out-of-bounds.

This Globe and Mail article includes responses to the proposal from some of Canada’s highest-profile skiers and boarders.

Ross Rebagliati, who won the first-ever snowboarding Olympic gold medal at Nagano, pointed out the importance of distinguishing between true backcountry, and simply going out of bounds at a commercial resort:

In ski resorts, it’s marked out of bounds for a reason. They have to try and maintain a certain amount of order out there… [But] one of the great parts of skiing and snowboarding is powder and fresh tracks. That’s really what it’s all about. They’re really going to be walking a fine line.

What do you think?

Would you risk a season-long (or even lifetime) ban to chase some out-of-bounds powder? Do you think riders who knowingly go out-of-bounds should be on the hook for their own rescue costs?

And does the recent string of tragedies change your view of backcountry adventures?

Photo by bernhardjeff (Creative Commons)

Oh, and did I mention it’s a rap?

Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari is just 18 years old, and a student at Edinburgh University. She wrote and produced the track herself.

Billy Johnson Jr., blogger at Hip Hop Media Training, was impressed by the rookie effort.

“I wasn’t expecting much,” he writes. “But I was surprised by not only her candid lyrics, but her pitch and conversational rhyme flow.”

See for yourself:

Well, it sure looks that way.

One tourist-hungry British village is already accepting the currencies at par, hoping to attract for Irish and continental European visitors, and a financial expert quoted by the BBC recently called official parity “almost inevitable”.

The BBC story notes that at least one high-profile Forex, 100 euros will currently set you back £99.11. Sure, it’s not quite parity — but it’s close enough, right?

This is good news for European travelers interested in visiting the United Kingdom, but bad news for the Brits who love to flock to the Canaries and the beaches of Spain each winter.

It could also be bad news for continental European tourism industries.

When the Canadian dollar broke even with the US dollar (and eventually surpassed it) last fall, cross-border shoppers rejoiced. But for the Canadian travel industry, which relies for large chunks of its business on American tourists who view the Great White North as a discount holiday option, parity was nothing to cheer about.

Of course, US-Canadian parity didn’t last long, and our trusty CAD tumbled back down again this past summer. Our scenario was a blip, a product of immense American economic uncertainty on the one hand and sky-high oil prices (hurray for the tar sands?) on the other.

The Euro’s ascendancy, on the other hand, could be a longer-term reality.

What do you think?

If the European Union currency remains at par with Sterling, or even surpasses it, will the Brits consider joining the Euro-fold?

Does parity help or hinder your European travel plans?

Photo by Andrea Guerra (Creative Commons)

Helen Suzman, the lone anti-apartheid voice in the South African parliament for more than a decade, died today. She was 91.

Suzman served as a South African MP from 1953 to 1989, and was a vocal critic of the state’s policy of apartheid — or strict, institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination — long before the global community, and other whites in South Africa, began to turn against the system.

She is probably best known outside South Africa for her visits to Robben Island, when Nelson Mandela and large numbers of other political prisoners were held there.

Mandela wrote in his autobiography, Long Walk To Freedom:

It was an odd and wonderful sight to see this courageous woman peering into our cells and strolling around our courtyard. She was the first and only woman ever to grace our cells.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu called Suzman “indomitable”, and a “powerhouse in the struggle against apartheid”.

The BBC has video recapping Suzman’s career.

Photo by g-hat (Creative Commons)

Literary agent Nathan Bransford recently held a contest on his blog, seeking the best first paragraph he could find.

He’s just announced the winner — and, along with the announcement, he’s offered some feedback on what makes a good first paragraph, and what makes a bad one.

The advice is aimed at fiction writers, but (as is so often the case with writing advice!) it’s equally applicable to narrative nonfiction, including travel writing.

Here are Bransford’s three first-paragraph patterns to avoid:

1) Surprising sentence.

Well, not the surprising sentence per se, but rather the surprising sentence is made more complicated by the fact that it is followed, in fits and starts, by conversational prose that, in its casualness, contrasts with the shocking statement and sets a breezy tone despite the shocking statement. That is, until the reversal.

2) Small, finely rendered observation.

This is followed by the particular shape of the moon or the wisps of grass and the particular temperature that still night or perfect sunset that lulls us into a sense of place and setting. And then we linger in that scene still longer to see one more even more finely rendered detail, and still another, leading us to the very thing the author seeks. That is, until the shocking statement.

3) The tough protagonist shudders against whatever bad weather they are enduring.

They check their timepiece, or weapon, and go back to the task at hand. Pithy comment. It’s not easy being the tough protagonist.

Sound familiar? Yeah, we’ve all been there.

Thanks to Nathan Bransford for the friendly reminder!

[Via The Book Bench]

Photo by mezone (Creative Commons)

Well, tough economic times may be upon us, but at least one large-scale employer is looking for fresh blood — and travel experience is a plus. Yup, the US Foreign Service is hiring!

According to this New York Times story, the State Department is seeking funding to fill 800 positions this year, almost 200 of which are brand new (rather than jobs opened by internal turn-over).

There are a lot of factors at play in the hiring of new diplomats-to-be, but travel experience is certainly in the mix.

From the story:

Felix Salazar, hired as a junior officer by the State Department in September, said that during the interview process he felt “a sense of urgency, that they were actively hiring and really valued my experience.” Mr. Salazar, who spent three years in the Peace Corps, leaves in February for his first posting, in South Africa.

For more on the foreign service, check out my post over at The Traveler’s Notebook, The Life of a Diplomat.

The NYT story also has some solid, practical information and useful State Department links, so be sure to give it a thorough read.

Good luck, and let us know if you wind up throwing your hat into the ring!

Photo by Sekimura (Creative Commons)

A US pre-trial hearing for a Canadian child soldier (sorry, make that child “enemy combatant”) who’s been held in Guantanamo for six years will go ahead after all — just one day before Barack Obama becomes President.

Omar Khadr is currently scheduled to appear in one of Guantanamo’s much-maligned military commissions on January 19 (Martin Luther King Day, for those keeping track), the day before Obama — who has pledged to close the prison camp at Gitmo — takes office.

Said Khadr’s Pentagon-assigned lawyer, Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler:

These people are so desperate to get the train moving in some form or fashion that they’re going to start this case on Martin Luther King Day and continue through the inauguration day…

It shows desperation and you can almost interpret it as a thumb in the eye of the incoming Obama camp.

Khadr was just 15 years old when he was captured after a firefight in Afghanistan, and has been imprisoned ever since, waiting to face charges of “war crimes” and “murder”, based on allegations that he threw a hand grenade (in said firefight) that killed a US soldier.

(Incidentally, the soldiers that captured Khadr initially found him unarmed and wounded, and shot him in the back. They only took him into custody when he survived the bullets — but they have yet to face charges of attempted murder. In fact, they’ll be among the chief witnesses for the prosecution.)

The Khadr family is extremely controversial up here in Canada.

Omar’s father (who was killed in Afghanistan) was a well-known fundraiser for Al Qaeda, said to know Osama Bin Laden personally, while the mother has frequently been in the news in recent years, complaining about the Canadian government’s inadequacies while publicly supporting Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

But all of that — far from making me believe Omar is getting what he deserves, as some do — only makes me feel the injustice of his case more strongly.

This is a boy who was sent to Afghanistan by his parents for terrorist training before he’d hit puberty — truly a case of child abuse if ever I’ve heard one.

And yet, instead of trying to protect or rehabilitate him (and even the staff at Gitmo believe he is a perfect candidate for rehab), the Canadian and US governments have responded by stripping him of his rights, torturing him, and putting him on trial for “murder”, a bizarre charge to level at someone in a war zone where (as his captors made clear when they tried to finish him off) it was kill or be killed.

Why are child soldiers from Sierra Leone or Uganda viewed as victims, but Omar Khadr is instead treated as a war criminal?

And why are US prosecutors so intent on seeing his case through, even as a new President arrives who’s made it clear he wants no part of the mockery made of justice in the last 8 years?

The answers to both questions are the same: as with Abu Ghraib, third-party rendition, and everything else, too many high-level US administrators have become so intent on “winning” the War on Terror, that they’ve lost all sight of what they are supposed to be fighting to protect.

Namely: liberty, democracy and justice.

Barack Obama’s inauguration day really can’t come soon enough.

Unfortunately for Omar Khadr, it may come one day too late.

Photo by art makes me smile (Creative Commons)

The BBC reports the latest ravings from Zimbabwe’s resident lunatic megalomaniac:

I will never, never, never surrender. Zimbabwe is mine, I am a Zimbabwean. Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans… I won’t be intimidated. Even if I am threatened with beheading, I believe this and nothing will ever move me from it: Zimbabwe belongs to us, not the British.

Mugabe also said that the international condemnation of his handling (er, non-handling) of Zimbabwe’s ongoing cholera epidemic was “a pack of lies”, and that an African Union military intervention in his country would be “an unnecessary war started in a foolish manner because of foolish persuasion coming from foolish sources.”

It’s times like these that a dictator like Mugabe begins to look almost comical — except for the very serious consequences of his rule.

Who was that wise man who once said something about the banality of evil?

Photo by www.steveconover.info (Creative Commons)

It’s that time of year again.

Rolf Potts’ Vagablogging.net is seeking two new writers to contribute a couple of posts per week, on anything and everything vagabond-related!

The site doesn’t pay, but it’s a great platform for aspiring travel writers, with plenty of exposure and lots of opportunities to make contacts.

I’m actually one of the writers being replaced — I’ve been writing for the site for about 15 months now, and am ready to pass the reins. I’d be thrilled to see another Matador member on the blog, so please, check out the full application details and think about applying!

Writing for free is a bit of a controversial issue in travel blogging circles: for more, check out my post on Vagabondish, Writing For Free: Is It Worth It?, the debate over at Written Road that prompted my response, and a more recent post from Matador member Christine Gilbert, Want to be a Travel Writer? Don’t Write for Free.

Also, be sure to check out my recent interview, Rolf Potts: On His New Book, “Letting It Flow”, and the Stories That Never Got Written.

Photo by morbuto (Creative Commons)

More than 18 years later, three of the leaders behind the Rwandan genocide have been convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and sentenced to life in prison.

Theoneste Bagosora, a one-time senior figure in the Rwandan government, and Anatole Nsegiyumva and Alloys Ntabakuze — both former Rwandan military commanders — were found guilty by the UN’s international criminal tribunal of planning the genocide and organizing the Interahamwe militia which carried it out, killing nearly 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.

The current Rwandan government has expressed its satisfaction with the verdict, the BBC reports.

“The court ruled that Bagosora had the authority over the killers,” a government representative said. “It is the most important thing… There can never be genocide without planning.”

It’s an important step, and a long time coming. But it’s also worth remembering that many of the militia leaders themselves remain on the loose. The Interahamwe is still active in the Congo, where they continue to clash with Tutsi militias and the Rwandan government, helping to de-stabilize all of Central Africa in the process.

Sadly, this ugly story isn’t over yet.

Photo by mrflip (Creative Commons)

Our friends over at Wend Magazine are putting on a fun new writing competition: the Traveling by Alternative Transportation Essay Contest.

Got a story about an unusual mode of transport?

Almost anything goes — Wend notes that they’ll accept stories about “anything that doesn’t require fossil fuels to run” — so think back over your travels, dig up your best stories, and get writing!

Maximum length is 1000 words. The prize is a customized TimBuk2 bag, along with some other cool goodies. Essays are due to contest[at]wendmag[dot]com by January 23.

C’mon, Matador community! I know we’ve got a lot of great stories between us: send ‘em in and let’s take home the prize!

And hey, without giving too much away, why not drop us a comment about your wackiest form of transport ever?

Mine’s a toss-up between a camel safari in India, and my two summers as a part-time rickshaw runner here in Ottawa.

Photo by travlinman43 (Creative Commons)

Photo by Julien Harneis

You can become numb to the lives being disrupted and destroyed, not only in those far-away obscure places but at home, too.

Then one day, a headline catches your eye: Canadian UN Envoy Missing in Niger

You don’t plan to click the link, but you skim the two-line teaser anyway. And that’s when the story really grabs your attention:

A retired Canadian diplomat and his aide have disappeared in west Africa while on a United Nations mission.

Robert Fowler’s empty car was found near the capital of Niger on Sunday evening, said UN spokesman Farhan Haq.

Pretty generic intro to a pretty generic story, right?

Sure, except for just one thing: I know Robert Fowler.

I went to school with his daughter for years; he was the Deputy Minister of Defence, then, and kind of a big deal on the playground. Not for his government credentials, but because every holiday, without fail, saw Bob Fowler walk into our classroom midway through the day with enough Dairy Queen ice cream cake to go around.

The man was a legend for his ice cream cakes.

That kind of thing can really make an impact on a kid. A few years later, Fowler was implicated, in some quarters, in the infamous Somalia Affair, the beating death of a Somali teen by Canadian soldiers on a UN peacekeeping mission.

The incident only came to light after an apparent cover-up effort by the Department of National Defence (DND), and needless to say, it was one of Canada’s most shameful moments.

Anyhow, at the time I can recall overhearing some grownups talking. Robert Fowler had been the second-in-command at DND throughout, and I remember hearing them say gleefully that they hoped Bob Fowler would land in prison for the whole mess.

I remember the sick, awkward feeling I had, overhearing that conversation — how could anyone wish harm on the man who brought us ice cream cake every Valentine’s Day? how would my classmate feel if her dad went to prison? — and I had that same, sick feeling tonight, learning of his disappearance.

I can only hope that he’ll be found, safe and sound, as soon as possible.

I used to really, really hate traveling by bus, for a variety of reasons (among them, that the contraptions make me a little queasy) — so it just goes to show you how dreadful flying has gotten, and how unreliable trains have become, that in recent years the long-distance coach has become my travel happy place.

The simplicity of bus travel is beautiful: show up 10 minutes before scheduled departure, pick up a reasonably priced ticket, toss your bag in the pile next to the bus, hop aboard and take a seat, any seat. On the other end, you grab your bag from the curb and you’re on your way.

No taking off shoes, no awkward pat-down by a strange man, no metal detectors, no bag tags, no nonsense.

But no more.

Starting tomorrow, Greyhound Canada is set to ban all carry-on luggage (excluding purses) from their buses, in the wake of a string of stabbings and — of course — this summer’s horrific beheading/cannibalism incident.

I can well appreciate the need for increased security measures (currently up here, there is not even the token security screening of U.S. Greyhound operations) but banning carry-on is absurd, and here’s why:

1. It won’t make us any safer.

How many knife-wielding assailants do you know who carry their weapons in their wheelie bags? None? Yeah, me neither.

Everyone I know who carries a knife (and, admittedly, that’s not a whole heap of people) does so on their person. So simply banning carry-on, with no accompanying pat-downs or metal detectors, doesn’t do a damn thing to prevent knife crime on buses.

2. It puts all our valuables at risk.

When the hapless young clerk at the station informed me of the new policy today, the first words out of my mouth were, “But what about my laptop?!”

Greyhound Canada doesn’t actually expect me to let their drivers carelessly chuck my laptop bag (also jammed with camera equipment and electronics) under the bus, and then dump it on the curb at the end of the ride, for anyone to walk away with while I’m still on the bus, waiting for Susie Slow to zip her coat up in the middle of the aisle?

Ummmm, to quote Cher from Clueless, “As if!”

No way, no how. Without a secure check-in system, asking us to put our most important valuables under the bus is completely unreasonable.

3. It ignores the realities of long-distance travel.

This summer, I took the bus from New Orleans to Los Angeles — a forty-hour ride that was tough enough as is, but which would have been pure hell under this new policy.

Besides knives, let’s take a quick tally of the things Greyhound Canada has just banned: books, laptops, snack foods, water bottles (unless it fits in your purse), diaper bags, changes of clothes, deodorant/toothpaste/hairbrush/etc (again, unless it fits in your purse), ohh, I could go on and on.

Last time I checked, the only amenities available on board a Greyhound bus were the ones you carried on yourself. Goodbye, amenities. Hello, vastly increased discomfort.

4. It’s a complete corporate cop-out.

Note that both actions suggested above — incorporating metal detection and pat-downs, and creating a secure check-in system — would require staff and money. While simply banning carry-on, putting all the responsibility on passengers, is free.

I’m no fan of pat-downs and bag tags. The past few incidents have been tragic and upsetting, but I’m willing to take my chances with the psychopaths of this world — so long as I can keep my laptop and a snack handy. But if Greyhound Canada was serious about our safety, about preventing these incidents, airport-style security measures would be the way to go.

As it stands, all they’ve managed to do is inconvenience the vast majority of their customers, and put our belongings at risk, without making us one single whisker safer.

Way to go, Greyhound. I can tell this policy came straight from the finest minds in the transportation industry.

Photo by njt4148 (Creative Commons)

Stephanie Nolen, the Globe and Mail’s one-woman African bureau, is one of my favourite journalists — heck, one of my favourite writers in any genre. For the past five years, I’ve been following her stories from the Congo, from Rwanda, from Mali, and from her base in Johannesburg, South Africa.

So I was saddened today to read that she’s leaving Africa, and instead moving to a new Globe India bureau in New Delhi. India will be lucky to have her, and I’ll look forward to her dispatches, but I can’t help but be sorry that South Africa is losing such a powerful voice.

The Globe and Mail has just posted Nolen’s final thoughts from Jo’burg, and a few of my favourite passages are below.

I’ve quoted at length because Nolen’s excellent farewell essay is likely to be behind a subscriber wall pretty soon. If you do get a chance to read the whole thing, though, please do so!

On the crush of foreign press outside the Taj Hotel during the Mumbai attacks:

In five years as this newspaper’s Africa correspondent, I found myself in such a crush of reporters just three times — at the 10th anniversary of Rwanda’s genocide, the controversial 2005 elections in Zimbabwe and the ousting of South African president Thabo Mbeki as head of the African National Congress a year ago. Ninety-nine per cent of the time, I was alone.

Even on really big stories — like the start of the latest war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in which 350,000 people have fled their homes — there was exactly one other foreign correspondent with me at the front line.

On the recent outbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa:

Five years slipped by. Then one day this past May, I found myself in the township of Ramaphosa, just a 20-minute drive from my house, looking at a charred, smouldering heap of ash where a mob of South Africans had beaten a man to the ground and then burned him alive hours before, because he was a foreigner…

This was the kind of story I covered in other countries — Congo, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe. Not here. Jo’burg was the place I came home to, the place that kept me hopeful. How could this be happening?

Photo by thomas_sly (Creative Commons)

And on the post-election violence in Kenya:

There was no shortage of reasons to despair. A few months earlier, I had been in Kenya — lovely, peaceful, stable Kenya, another country that usually offered respite. But this time Kenya was the story: Frustration at a rigged election ignited decades-old anger over land rights and political marginalization.

Soon, 1,300 people were dead, most of them killed with machetes or bows and arrows, and 350,000 were homeless, including a woman I interviewed who was in early labour and sheltering in a horse stall in an old fair ground. Again, I had that sense of being in a familiar, well-loved place I could no longer recognize.

On the lack of change in some countries:

When I began to plan the last trips I would take in Africa, the World Food Program was urging me to go to Ethiopia, where 12 million people are now critically short of food. There is a risk of a famine on the scale of the infamous starvation of 1984, the LiveAid famine, when a million people died. But I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t go to Ethiopia for a fourth time and write about incipient famine — not again.

On positive change, and one of the first South African AIDS activists she ever interviewed:

The first time I interviewed Zackie, he was charming and helpful, but chalky and sweaty; he moved with a sort of trepidation, as if he had ground glass in his shoes. He had not long to live. But a few months after I moved to Jo’burg, he won: Drug companies slashed prices of AIDS medications for Africa. The government announced that it would provide treatment free in public hospitals. And Zackie took his first handful of antiretroviral pills.

I remember writing the last words in that first article, the electric, unexpected happy ending — and I remember the conversation I had the next day with my friend Sisonke Msimang, an AIDS activist, about the government’s backtrack announcement. She said, “This country always comes right in the end.”

Photo by Mara 1 (Creative Commons)

On good news and bad news:

I realized that in my bleaker moments, I was doing what I often chided others for — seeing Africa as an unchanging disaster and not realizing that between this coup or that rebel insurgency, change was happening — sometimes almost imperceptibly slowly, but definitely, defiantly happening.

I started this job well aware of the preponderance of negative coverage of Africa in the Western media. When I arrived in Jo’burg, I had to face the suspicion of African journalists who were sure I was there to serve up more bad news based on a limited understanding of the place. So I was determined to tell the good news, as often as I could, even if famines and mass rape did demand my frequent attention.

On what she’ll take with her after five years in Africa:

I take other things away from Africa, such as patience — there’s nothing like the Nigerian Ministry of Information to teach you patience.

I also found a greater capacity for rage, although my partner Meril gently points out that mine was already considerable. It drove me nearly mad to spend weeks in the depopulated villages of Swaziland or barren clinics of Malawi and then fly home to Canada on a rare visit and find that no one knew or cared that the people I had just spent time with were going to die, for no reason other than that they were African.

Many died. But others got well. Ibrahim Umoru, a Nigerian AIDS activist whose bean-pole legs were covered in scabs and scars when I met him four years ago, e-mailed me pictures of his brand-new baby this week.

I leave Africa knowing how little I know about what’s possible.

You can find several of Stephanie Nolen’s African dispatches on her website. Stay tuned for her reports from India, in the Globe and Mail beginning next month.

I don’t think Keith actually pauses for breath in this spectacular rant on what he views as Dubya’s true legacy:

Feature photo by tanakawho (Creative Commons)

Before you ask: yes, I’ve already grasped the irony of raising this subject on a blog.

Anyway, irony aside, I’ve been noticing different threads of a similar conversation in several articles around the web, and they all boil down to this question: Can a writer blog, tweet, digg, vlog, tumbl, and whatever else – and still get down to the actual business of writing, too, with the same effectiveness?

We all know social media can be a great networking tool: it helps us make contacts, collaborate with other writers, set up meetings, and even land gigs.

But what about the impact of the ever-growing social media in our lives on the purely literary side of our efforts?

Over at the Poetry Foundation’s online journal, Adam Kirsch writes:

The Internet has democratized the means of self-expression, but it has not democratized the rewards of self-expression. Now everyone can assert a claim to recognition—in a blog, Tumblog, Facebook status update. But the amount of recognition available in the world is inexorably shrinking, since each passing generation leaves behind more writers with a claim on our memory. That is why the fight for recognition is so fierce and so personal…

If that is the case, then the best strategy for writers in the age of the Internet may be to ignore the Internet and look down on it. If print is a luxury, make it a rare and exclusive one; if literature is antidemocratic, revel in its injustice. Make sure that the reward of recognition goes to the most beautiful and difficult writing, not to the loudest and neediest.

Responding to Kirsch on the VQR blog, Jacob Silverman agrees:

I would recommend that writers avoid the internet (for few can skip over it entirely, except for someone living off the grid like Carolyn Chute or a member of the established old guard, perhaps no better personified than in the quasi-prophetic voice of Cormac McCarthy, calling from a mountaintop) not because by immersing themselves in the Web they meet their critics on their own ground, becoming caught in the same muck they ostensibly hold themselves above, but because more than anything, such activities are simply a waste of time….

[B]efore one works one’s way out, how many hours are wasted? How much stress and emotional concern and how many thousands of words devoted to, say, a litblog vs. lit mag showdown that concerns no one beyond the immediate participants and their friends?

In a separate thread at Poets & Writers, Frank Bures has also been pondering the impact of all this digital communication on writing.

“As a writer, I have always strived to carve out this place where I can think my own thoughts, where I can let all that’s rolling around in my mind congeal into something (hopefully) new and interesting,” Bures writes.

But if that was difficult to do two decades ago… it’s a million times more difficult now. Today, it seems that we have access to an unlimited amount of information all the time, and for those of us who want to be alone with our thoughts, that information is getting harder and harder to avoid.

…What does all this mean for writers? It means that from the comfort of our own chairs we can research the hell out of whatever we’re writing, while keeping up on the latest celebrity scandals, political polls, and the flood of e-mail. But a growing body of research shows that we pay a price for this constant stream of information.

And that price, according to Bures and some of the writers he interviewed (including a favourite travel writer of mine, Tom Bissell)?

Flow.

Obviously I’m hardly anti-blog (please see above-noted irony) but I do think there’s something to all this. If I’m working on a longer piece – a personal essay, say – I always close my email, all my browser windows, sometimes I even unplug the high speed entirely.

I only do that rarely, though, under special circumstances. The rest of the time I bounce between Word, Google Docs, Twitter, email, and an assortment of blogging platforms.

Does my writing suffer as a result? Does yours?

Photo by sindesign (Creative Commons)

In breaking “is this the death of print?” news, the New York Times reports that the Tribune Company, the publisher of both the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, has filed for bankruptcy.

I’m one of those traditionalist folks who can’t imagine life without newspapers and books (and no, a Kindle won’t do) and I generally assume that the frequently prophesied Death Of Print is greatly exaggerated.

But this is big news.

The serious financial strain that the newspaper industry is very clearly under these days could have (and indeed, may already be having) a major impact on the news that we receive daily.

As the Times story notes, many newspapers have been slashing jobs and paring down their newsrooms: eventually, this cost-cutting has to have an effect on the quality and quantity of the reporting of news from around the world.

Would a report on the terror attacks in Mumbai have the same power if it was filed from Los Angeles? Can someone in New York truly understand what’s happening in Zimbabwe?

Gathering world news is expensive; that’s a reality.

But it’s also very important: in the same way that travel helps us to better understand our neighbours, real, on-the-ground reportage brings us closer to the heart of events in other countries.

Granted, blogging, Twitter, YouTube videos and other online tools of citizen reporting can help to fill the gap – but they’re not (at least, not yet) a complete substitute for a seasoned reporter with regional expertise.

The online community tends to have little sympathy for the mega-media empires that produce our daily newspaper and television news. We often view them as dated, irrelevant, “dead tree” publishers that lack the up-to-the-nanosecond speed of the web.

But they still play a vital role in the global dissemination of news. Without them, we risk losing some of our connection with the outside world.

[Via Kim Mance of Galavanting]

Photo by Hamed Saber (Creative Commons)

Darren Cronian of Travel-Rants chose the nominees, but the winners were selected by online voting — so thanks Darren, and a huge shout-out and thank you to everyone who sent some ballot love our way!

Congrats also to our fellow-nominees, BootsnAll, Lonely Planet, and WikiTravel.

It’s great to see the array of quality content offered here at Matador seeing some recognition. If you’re new to the network, or have only browsed a couple of our sites before, why not take a moment to look around?

We’re home to a thriving online community of travelers, and an interconnected network of informative and inspiring travel blogs, covering everything from hot nightlife to studying abroad to spiritual travel, and more.

Here’s a video introducing the Matador Network, from our YouTube channel:

It’s been 19 years since the infamous Montreal Massacre, when Marc Lepine killed 14 women at an engineering school in the Canadian city before turning his gun on himself.

For those who aren’t familiar with the grim story: it was no “ordinary” school shooting (as if such a thing exists): Lepine took the trouble to separate the male and female students before opening fire on the women.

In a suicide note, he claimed his attack was a battle against feminism.

Tomorrow, as they have every December 6th since the massacre, thousands of people across the country will hold candlelit vigils in a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

The massacre was a Canadian tragedy, and the National Day of Remembrance is a uniquely Canadian event, too — but violence against women is a truly global problem. Wherever you are in the world tomorrow, I’d urge you to take a moment to pause, reflect, and remember.

The CBC’s original television coverage of the massacre is here.

Photo by aloshbennett (Creative Commons)

Photo by dearbarbie (Creative Commons)

Yup, it’s Zimbabwe Day again here at Pulse.

A few months back, I noted that Botswana’s government had broken ranks with the other African nations by refusing to recognize Robert Mugabe’s “victory” in the latest round of Zimbabwean elections.

This week, we have the latest sign that some African leaders have had enough of Mugabe and his destructive governance:

Kenya’s Prime Minister speaking out in the harshest language yet by a leader from the continent.

“It’s time for African governments… to push him out of power,” the BBC quoted Prime Minister Raila Odinga as saying, in response to the ongoing political turmoil in the country.

“Power-sharing is dead in Zimbabwe and will not work with a dictator who does not really believe in power-sharing.”

Odinga, who apparently also held talks with ANC President Jacob Zuma, emphasized South Africa’s role in forcing a solution in Zimbabwe:

“I do believe strongly that if the leadership in South Africa took a firm stand and told Mugabe to quit he will have no choice but to do so.”

Meanwhile, a major cholera outbreak is also sweeping Zimbabwe.

The good bloggers over at Frommers would like to remind all of us aspiring travel writer types about the upcoming Key West Travel Writing Workshop.

There’s still time to sign up for the workshop, which actually takes place twice: first, from January 30 to February 1, and again from February 6 to 8. The cost is $275.

Sounds like a good excuse to head south, right?

I’m a big fan of writing classes and workshops: I don’t believe that writing can be “taught”, exactly, but I do think that for some writers, a little bit of structure and motivation — not to mention new perspectives from both instructors and classmates — can go a long way.

A year or so ago, I wrote about my experience at the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference for Brave New Traveler: check out 9 Things I Learned About Travel Writing at Book Passage.

Photo by jiashiang (Creative Commons)

File this news story under “out of touch”.

Remember when Napster first came on the scene, and everyone in the music industry was in a great big hurry to shut it down?

Of course, they did shut it down successfully.

But then LimeWire came along, and Kazaa, and SoulSeek. And so on.

The music industry carried on trying to take each one down, guns-a-blazin, until finally someone at Apple had the bright idea that electronic music sharing wasn’t going anywhere, so the industry might as well try to get a piece of the pie.

Enter iTunes, and you know the rest of the story.

Sorry for the digression into recent music-sharing history, but I promise, it does relate.

See, my point is, the music industry couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that things were changing, that people were listening to music in a different way. They couldn’t adapt, and to the extent that they could see the change coming, they could only see it as a threat. They couldn’t imagine that they might be able to co-exist with the change – or even profit from it.

I was reminded of the music industry’s war on MP3s when I read this story, about Ontario’s private coach companies attempting to shut down a popular rideshare website.

From the Globe and Mail story:

Bus line operators such as Trentway-Wagar Inc. – which launched the formal complaint against PickupPal – argue that Mr. Dewhirst’s company is facilitating the operation of an illegal transportation service. Last week the Ontario Highway Transport Board agreed and fined the company more than $11,000 for infractions of the Public Vehicles Act…

[A company representative] said Trentway-Wagar is not opposed to carpooling but simply wants all commercial operations offering public transportation to be treated equally.

Um… huh?

A website that links up drivers with passengers willing to chip in a few bucks for gas is suddenly an illegal transportation service?

Better lock up all the soccer moms who’ve ever shared rides too, while you’re at it.

The bus companies aren’t just desperate to save their (allegedly threatened) business, either. They, and the government board that’s just sided with them, appear to be completely unaware of the way technology has evolved around them:

At one point in the proceedings, Mr. Dewhirst had to explain to the board that an online forum is an Internet site where people can go to discuss a particular topic. In another instance, members of the board were flabbergasted when they suggested a change be made to PickupPal and Mr. Dewhirst offered to make the update on his computer right there in the room.

Ouch.

I don’t think I could name another more useless waste of government time, than sitting around trying to shut down ride-sharing forums – particularly with concerns about climate change pre-occupying much of the world. Shouldn’t the government actually be encouraging this sort of thing?

They may manage to take down PickupPal here in Ontario, but that won’t mean anything in the long run.

As PickupPal’s founder said in the story: “The government has been blindsided by the technology, and the world has changed around them.”

Photo by Drown (Creative Commons)

Here’s a piece of news that reads like a dark satire:

A Wal-Mart employee on Long Island was killed this morning by crazed, stampeding shoppers, who actually broke down the doors of the store at its 5:00am opening time.

According to Reuters, four shoppers — one of them a pregnant woman — were also injured in the rush, and taken to hospital.

I don’t even know what more to say about this, beyond the fact that it’s a pretty sickening, real-life allegory for our consumerist addiction.

One American family suddenly has a whole lot less to be thankful for.

Photo by Brave New Films (Creative Commons)

Sports events can be a great way to connect with local culture when you travel.

And now, they can be a great way to learn about recession politics, too.

In New York City, two council members are proposing that the Mets’ new stadium, CitiField, be re-named Citi/Taxpayer Field – in reference to CitiGroup’s latest federal bailout.

Said one of the councilmen:

Perhaps a name change is in order, since it will be the taxpayers of the country who will foot the bill for not only part of stadium, but for the company itself,” Mr. Ignizio said. “The taxpayers are spending billions for this company to maintain its operations and deserve the recognition for their largess.

Seems fair to me. While we’re at it, why not change a few other names, too?

CitiGroup itself could become Citi-TaxpayerGroup. Bear Stearns could become Bear “Taxpayer” Stearns. Heck, Wall Street could become Taxpayer-Milking Street.

But then again, if every major financial corporation to get a piece of the bailout changed their named to Taxpayer, that’d get really confusing, wouldn’t it?

Photo by Bob Jagendorf (Creative Commons)

Reports are confusing, but it does seem clear that militants (or gunmen, or terrorists, or insurgents – take your pick) have attacked a dozen or so targets in the city.

So far, more than 100 people, including civilians, police and militants, have died in the resulting clashes.

Most of the media coverage is focused on the Taj and the Oberoi hotels, two five-star joints that have been seized with hostages inside.

This video is dated already (the story is moving fast) but gives some sense of the chaos on the ground:

India’s largest English-language daily, The Times, has non-stop, comprehensive coverage on their website, including video and pictures.

The Globe and Mail is streaming regular audio/video updates from their all-star reporter, Stephanie Nolen, who is on the ground.

Slate’s “Today’s Papers” column has a good round-up of the Mumbai coverage in the major US newspapers.

The BBC’s news homepage is pretty well entirely devoted to covering the attacks today – it includes photos, live updates, video and more.

Do you have any useful links to keep tabs on events in Mumbai? Drop them in the comments!

It’s been 40 years since the iconic Beatles album was released — and hey, in honor of the milestone the Vatican has even sent a present, of sorts.

Vatican City’s daily newspaper appears to have forgiven John Lennon for his notorious quip about being more famous than Jesus.

Reuters quotes the daily:

The remark by John Lennon, which triggered deep indignation mainly in the United States, after many years sounds only like a ‘boast’ by a young working-class Englishman faced with unexpected success, after growing up in the legend of Elvis and rock and roll…

The fact remains that 38 years after breaking up, the songs of the Lennon-McCartney brand have shown an extraordinary resistance to the passage of time, becoming a source of inspiration for more than one generation of pop musicians.

Nice to hear they’re willing to, y’know, forgive.

Still, I doubt if “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road” will be getting much air time on Vatican radio any time soon.

Here’s my favorite track off the legendary four-sided album: Revolution 1

So unless you’ve been living in a yurt somewhere, you’ve probably heard about the Saudi super-tanker that was hijacked by modern-day pirates off the East African coast last week.

In honor of the event (which is, by the way, a pretty big deal – and not just because of the potential for hilarious pirate puns*) the CBC has posted this thoughtful, comprehensive look at pirates and piracy through the ages – from the ancient Phoenicians through to the Barbary Coast, Captain Jack Sparrow and beyond.

Check it out.

*Hilarious puns aside, what this really means (besides big oil taking the opportunity to knock prices up a notch or two) is further proof that Somalia is a total basket case, a failed state, and that basket case nations aren’t good news for anyone. Least of all their own citizens.

Photo by Jan Tik (Creative Commons)

There have been a couple of pretty exciting archaeological discoveries worth noting in recent days:

First up, a new pyramid has been discovered in Egypt. (Well, not new. Hella old, actually. But new to us. You know what I mean…) The structure is estimated to be 4,300 years old.

It’s been worn down to its foundation, so tourists won’t be posing for dramatic photos with it anytime soon. Still, it’s a significant find, coming in an area near Memphis that has yet to be fully explored.

From the CNN story:

[Egyptian antiquities chief] Hawass’ team has been excavating at the location for two years, but he said it was only two months ago when they determined the structure, with sides about 72 feet (22 meters) long, was the base of a pyramid. They also found parts of the pyramid’s white limestone casing — believed to have once covered the entire structure — which enabled them to calculate that the complete pyramid was once 45 feet (14 meters) high.

The pyramid is the 118th discovered so far in Egypt. “To find a new pyramid is always exciting,” said Hawass. “And this one is magical. It belonged to a queen.”

Meanwhile, in Bulgaria, a 1,300 year-old bronze-covered chariot has been discovered, in what’s believed to be a Thracian aristocrat’s burial mound.

It’s just the second complete chariot to be unearthed in the area – and that’s where this story turns a little grim.

An archaeologist interviewed for the story noted that his and other teams can’t keep up with better-equipped, better-funded teams of looters in Bulgaria, who make the finds first and sell their findings on the black market.

According to the AP:

Some 10,000 Thracian mounds — part of them covering monumental stone tombs — are scattered across the country.

…[But] up to 90 percent of the tombs in the region have been completely or partially destroyed by treasure hunters who smuggle the most precious objects abroad.

It’s a sobering reminder that no matter how many discoveries are made, there are thousands more pieces of that historical jigsaw puzzle that we may never be able to retrieve.

Photo by Bruno Girin (Creative Commons)

A little bird over at National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel Blog tells me that this week is Geography Awareness Week.

This excites me, because I’m a big fan of geography. I was a pub quiz regular back in my wild youth, and I’m not too modest to tell you that I won a few gift certificates in my day.

To celebrate, I’ve pulled together a few of my favourites from the vast number of online travel/geography quizzes out there.

Give them a try! And hey, let us know how you did in the comments.

How Many Countries Can You Name in Five Minutes? tests both your knowledge and your typing skills. [Via Vagabondish]

TravelPod’s Traveler IQ Challenge offers a whole range of quizzes, with escalating levels of difficulty. How Well Do You Know Your World? is the classic, but World Capitals and UNESCO Sites are both fun, too.

Finally, over at Gadling Aaron Hotfelder has an ongoing Tuesday Travel Trivia game – here’s today’s installment, but check out the archives to see how you fare with them, too.

Have fun! Happy Geography Awareness Week!

Photo by Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL (Creative Commons)

Quick follow-up to yesterday’s post about the Proposition 8 protests in California and across the States this weekend:

Meg Massie over at Gadling reports that at least one gay rights activist, John Aravosis, is calling for travelers to boycott Utah this ski season.

Utah, of course, is home to the headquarters of the Mormon Church, which reportedly poured tens of millions of dollars into a campaign in favour of California’s Prop 8.

Meg wrote: “[Aravosis is] calling for skiers to choose anywhere but Utah this winter, and he’s even urging Hollywood to back out of the annual Sundance Film Festival, which makes up a huge part of Utah’s $6 billion annual tourism income.”

It’s an interesting idea – I have no idea whether it will take hold, but it’s worth noting that the passage of Proposition 8 seems to have awakened a new spirit of protest in the gay rights movement, with a feistier edge to it than I can recall seeing in recent years.

Case in point: another blog post I came across just a few minutes after Gadling’s:

“I strongly support civility in this struggle,” the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan wrote in a post titled The Mormon War on Gay People. “Religious services and practices should be scrupulously respected.”

But when a church, like the Mormon church, makes a concerted effort to enter the public square and strip a small minority of basic civil rights, it is simply preposterous for them then to argue that the Mormon church cannot be criticized and protested because they are a religion.

I have never done anything – nor would I do anything – to impede or restrict the civil rights of Mormons. I respect their right to freedom of conscience and religion. In fact, it is one of my strongest convictions. But when they use their money and power to target my family, to break it up, to demean it and marginalize it, to strip me and my husband of our civil rights, then they have started a war.

And I am not a pacifist.

Hmm. Like I was saying. Them’s fighting words. This issue isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

Photo by msn678 (Creative Commons)

The results are in for the latest round of Responsible Tourism Awards, and New Zealand was the year’s big winner.

NZ took the overall prize because, as the judges wrote, the country consistently proves “that it is possible to develop a national strategy which uses tourism to help make better places to live and to visit.” Amen to that.

New Zealand also won Best Destination, because of its track record of “identifying and then attracting those tourists who contribute most to the economy, focussing on yield rather than merely on numbers of arrivals, spreading the benefits of tourism and fully integrating environmental issues into its quality standard.”

Sounds like an approach the world could use more of, huh?

You can see the full list of winners here.

Photo by Chris Gin (Creative Commons)

Nicknamed Mama Africa, Makeba was known throughout the world not only for her singing but for her stand against South Africa’s apartheid regime. As this BBC story notes, Nelson Mandela has called her both the “mother of our struggle” and “South Africa’s first lady of song.”

Miriam Makeba was the first black artist to win a Grammy award, in 1965.

Here’s one of Makeba’s signature tracks, The Click Song, and another famous one, Pata Pata:

Finally, here are a couple of performances from Paul Simon’s final stop on the Graceland tour, a massive outdoor show in Zimbabwe in 1987.

First, Miriam Makeba performing Soweto Blues, and then a group rendition of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, the anthem of the anti-apartheid movement and now a part of South Africa’s official national anthem.

It wasn’t an angry attack, though, but an eloquent and surprisingly emotional plea for all those who voted “Yes” to Prop 8 to examine their motivations, and think again about why they feel the need to deny the right to marry to people who are in love.

A salient point to keep in mind? The “definition” of marriage has never been static. It has evolved as our society became more enlightened.

The last two instances of marriage being “re-defined” in America were the alterations to the laws that first, permitted slaves to marry, and second – and much more recently – finally permitted inter-racial couples to marry.

And yeah, that’d include President-elect Barack Obama’s parents, right?

Feature photo by T U R K A I R O. Photo above by racoles.

I hate to be a downer. But as many people around the world celebrate the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, it’s worth remembering that there are still many countries badly in need of a little hope and some change they can believe in.

We’ve come a long way, and we have reason to celebrate.

But there’s also a long way still to go.

Here, as a grim reminder in this happy post-election honeymoon, are five of the world’s worst leaders.

The Big Five

Photo by garybembridge.

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe

Accusations of vote-rigging. Opposition leaders beaten and arrested. Farms seized by gangs of roving “war veterans” who kill owners and workers. Oh, and did I mention that what was once one of the strongest economies in Africa is now among the worst in the entire world?

Robert Mugabe has a lot to answer for in Zimbabwe. His betrayal of his people is all the more bitter because he was once a hero, revered for his part in the country’s fight for independence.

To read more about Mugabe’s descent from hero to villain, check out Robert Mugabe and the Death of Zimbabwe.

Omar al-Bashir, Sudan

There aren’t many sitting leaders today who can claim to have supervised a genocide among their own citizens. Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir is one of them.

In fact, he achieved a sort of milestone of notoriety this past summer, when the lead prosecutor at the International Criminal Court called for his arrest and prosecution on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was the first time the court had called for the prosecution of still-sitting head of state.

Congrats, Omar. You’re in the record books.

Photo by SouthbankSteve.

Than Shwe, Burma / Myanmar

Than Shwe is reported to be the lead general in Burma’s ruling military junta. That means we have him to thank for the ongoing imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s continuous crackdown on information and dissent, the violent dispersal of protesting monks last year, and the blocking of aid to the desperately needy in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.

Kim Jong-Il, North Korea

North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il is notorious for living lavishly while his nation starves. He’s also known for his aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons, and his threatening behaviour towards South Korea and Japan, among others.

In his younger days, he was the head of North Korea’s special forces, and as such has been linked to several large-scale bombings of civilian targets.

Jong-Il presides over one of the most closed-off countries in the world. Freedom of movement, an independent press, and the right to protest are all unknown.

King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia

Photo by André Gustavo.

Saudi Arabia often gets a free pass from the West because its government tends to cooperate with US and NATO aims. But in truth, there aren’t many places on earth that I’d be less inclined to call home.

The dismal state of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia is well known: women are not permitted to interact socially with men, rape victims are punished while their rapists run free, and the country only recently permitted women the simple freedom of driving a car.

Less well-known are the country’s other human rights abuses – the treatment of vast numbers of imported workers, largely from poor Asian countries, and its frequent use of the death penalty – including beheading and crucifixion – which Amnesty International has found is used disproportionately against the country’s poor, and against those same foreign workers.

Dishonorable Mentions

Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus

Thanks to Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus has become known as ‘Europe’s last dictatorship’. He’s been accused of rigging elections, harassing or imprisoning some of his opposition, and perhaps even being responsible for the disappearances of others. In the most recent election this September, Lukashenko’s party took every seat in a vote that was widely viewed as corrupt.

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela

Since a 2002 coup briefly took him from power, Hugo Chavez has steadily undermined Venezuela’s democratic checks and balances: namely, the independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press, and the rights of workers to organize themselves.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran

Photo by HerbaZ.

Iran’s Ahmadinejad likes to stir the pot – and has a high international profile as a result. He’s best-known for his inflammatory statements about Israel and the Holocaust. His domestic abuses – accusations of torture, repression of opposition activists, restraints on the freedom of the press, and a sky-high execution rate, including the execution of juveniles – are less well-known, but equally repugnant.

Note: Somalia would be on this list if there were any clear leader to blame for the hardships that country (or rather, failed state) continues to face. Take your pick of a range of warring factions.

Similarly, the Democratic Republic of Congo certainly deserves a mention – again, if only I could figure out who to blame. The “official” leadership of the DRC, the Congolose rebels, Ugandan rebel forces, and the governments of Burundi and Rwanda (just for a start) can all take a share of the guilt for the largest loss of life since the Second World War.

Oh, and did I mention the international firms that are hounding for this shattered country’s vast natural resources?

Sadly, there’s no shortage of bad leaders in the world. In this list, I’ve focused largely on those who abuse their own people, rather than their neighbors.

Let me know who I missed in the comments!

Community Connection:

For more opinions on the countries and leaders covered in this article, check out Hidden Kingdom: Understanding Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia, A Common Language: Discovering Baseball in Iran, or Tales from the Road: Focus on Burma.

To refresh your memory: On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, in 1918, the end of the Great War – not yet known as the First World War, since at the time no one knew there’d be a Second – was declared.

Today marks the 90th anniversary of the war’s conclusion, and the events this year seem to have a special urgency and power.

The number of First World War veterans remaining worldwide has dwindled to a handful – there will most likely be none left to mark the centenary in 2018.

There are monuments to the Great War all around the world. Here are shots of a few:

India Gate, New Delhi’s monument to the Indian fallen of World War One

(Photo by Shashwat_Nagpal)

Graves for a few of the 1.5 million soldiers killed during the Battle of the Somme

(Photo via Wikipedia)

London’s Cenotaph

(Photo by Steve Cadman)

A detail from the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge, France

(Photo via Wikipedia)

The Turkish memorial at Gallipoli. There are also monuments for Australia and New Zealand here.

(Photo by QuartierLatin1968)

The Menin Gate at Ypres, Belgium

(Photo via Wikipedia)

A German cemetery in Belgium

(Photo by FaceMePLS)

[Via Joe Jet]

It’s a major setback, especially coming in a place with as liberal a reputation as Cali.

So what’s a pair of lovelorn guys or gals to do?

Well, to start, I suppose there are some further legal steps to be taken. I’m none too well-versed in Californian constitution law, but I’m sure the state’s gay rights movement doesn’t plan to give up the fight.

And beyond that? Well, a destination wedding, of course!

Cape Town, South Africa

South Africa legalized same-sex marriage in November 2006. So where better to head for an overseas wedding than the country’s capital of culture, beautiful Cape Town?

While you’re in town, be sure to stop by Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent years imprisoned under the apartheid government, and contemplate the hope and possibility that this spot and its story represent.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

This Dutch city was the first place in the world to see a legal same-sex marriage take place, way back in April 2001.

Looking to party on your honeymoon? You can certainly do that here. Art? History? Architecture? Check, check and check. Amsterdam has it all.

Vancouver, Canada

Canada’s hippest West Coast city was already a popular destination for gay travelers long before same-sex marriage was legalized across Canada in June 2005.

This is your spot for an active honeymoon: whether you like to ski, snowboard, surf, hike, or hit the open water, Van City has something for you.

Ibiza, Spain

Spain surprised many people when it legalized same-sex marriage in 2005. After all, this Mediterranean country was a one-time Catholic heartland.

Well, the Pope may not have been thrilled, but gay-destination-wedding-planners everywhere should be: Spain is one of the only warm-weather countries to have made the move! Head to Ibiza, one of the world’s greatest party islands, for unbridled hedonism on the beach.

Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Don’t want the hassle of an overseas wedding? Head to this classic Massachusetts seaside spot for saltwater taffy and summer nuptial fun.

Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriage, in 2004. More importantly, the state made it legal for out-of-staters to join in just this past summer, in July 2008.

Bergen, Norway

Beginning in 2009, same-sex marriage will be legal in Norway. Celebrate the change – and your wedding! – by heading to hauntingly beautiful, fjord-bound Bergen. Pack warm clothes.

Cape Town photo by DanieVDM (Creative Commons)
Amsterdam photo by huees (Creative Commons)
Vancouver photo by jonrawlinson (Creative Commons)
Ibiza photo by ST33VO (Creative Commons)
Cape Cod photo by roytsaplinjr (Creative Commons)
Bergen photo by mozzercork (Creative Commons)

I know, I know.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

There are still hours of nail-biting waiting to come.

But, in the possible (probable?) event of Barack Obama declaring victory in the Presidential election tonight, The Root offers some humorous etiquette tips for black and white folks alike:

Five Things Black People Shouldn’t Do If Obama Wins

Five Things White People Shouldn’t Do If Obama Wins

My favourite? The #1 thing white people shouldn’t do:

1. Don’t personally congratulate all your black friends.

Black people are not a sports team, and Obama did not win the Super Bowl.

Here’s hoping I get the chance to apply these tips tomorrow…

Photo by bobster1985 (Creative Commons)

Photo by stricklin_family (Creative Commons)

There’s more televised election coverage airing tonight than you can shake a stick at – but not all networks are equal.

A recent study attempted to track the American public’s knowledge of current affairs, and to find out whether there was any correlation between the average citizen’s level of knowledge and their preferred news source.

The study’s results?

Well, they may surprise you.

Regular viewers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report – yes, the fake news shows – clocked in at the top of the findings, with 54% of the audience falling into the “high level of knowledge” category.

National Public Radio’s audience hit the 51% mark, while CNN can claim 41% of viewers with a “high level” of public affairs knowledge.

As for Fox News?

The network landed second from the bottom, with 35% of viewers qualifying for a high level of knowledge. The only news source with a worse record than Fox: network morning shows. Ouch.

Of course, there’s no causation implied here. Stewart and Colbert’s faithful viewers don’t necessarily gain their greater knowledge by watching the two shows; they may simply have good taste as well as a solid grasp of current affairs.

Nonetheless, whether they’re learning from the shows or not, America’s most well-informed citizens are watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Says something about the state of mainstream media when that core audience of engaged viewers are turning to satire instead, doesn’t it?

For those of you who might be interested: Comedy Central’s Indecision 2008 election special airs tonight at 10pm Pacific Time.

For everyone else: Who are you watching tonight, and why? How do you choose which network gets your “vote”?

(Har har.)

Happy election day, everybody!

2008 seems to be the year of the low-cost regional express bus service. (Catchy, huh?)

BoltBus, Megabus, and Neon have all rolled out new routes in the US North East.

The features? All three make near-identical boasts: wi-fi, extra leg room, “premium” service. They bill themselves as a quasi-luxury express service, for busy business travelers who need to rush between major cities with no milk-run stops along the way.

Well, last night I gave “Neon” – Greyhound’s new express service between New York City, Syracuse, Buffalo and Toronto – a try. And let me tell you, luxury was the last word on my mind.

My ticket noted that I was required to be at the station one hour before departure. Trouble is, Neon doesn’t run out of Toronto’s main bus terminal. The “station” was a street corner in downtown Toronto, which was bad enough last night, when the temperature hovered above 0 degrees celsius. Think how cold it’ll be in January!

I showed up 45 minutes before departure time and joined a ragged line of shivering passengers. There were no signs to direct us or to indicate that we were in the right spot. A Neon employee eventually came and took our passport information, and tried to separate the Megabus passengers from the Neon passengers – turns out, we were all mixed together in the same lineup.

Just before our departure time, there was still no sign of our bus. Then a Megabus vehicle rolled up and parked. The driver switched off the engine, closed the doors and walked away, into a coffeeshop, ignoring our Neon girl’s shouts.

Right on schedule, our bus showed up – and had nowhere to park. It pulled up a block ahead, at which point the passengers at the back of the line broke into a mad dash, leaving the people who’d been waiting in the cold the longest to shiver some more at the back of the new line.

It was no Indian train station, obviously, but it was as chaotic a scene as I’ve experienced in Canadian public transit in my life.

Once we were boarded and under way, things settled down. The wi-fi was slow but functional, the electrical sockets worked. (Though if there really was much extra leg room, I didn’t notice it.) We were delayed for an hour or so at customs, while one passenger got a serious interrogation, but that’s not the company’s fault.

After that, we had a quiet, smooth night’s ride, and rolled into New York City just after 6 am this morning.

The verdict? It’s all about expectations.

I bought into the hype, and expected this overnight bus ride to be less unpleasant than every other overnight bus ride I’ve ever taken. When really, apart from the wi-fi (which is pretty cool) this is standard Greyhound fare. It’s cheaper than flying, it’s faster and more reliable than the train, and the overnight option means you don’t have to waste a day.

If that sounds like what you’re looking for, by all means give it a shot.

Neon runs between Toronto and New York City every morning at 8:45 am, and again overnight, departing at 8:45 pm.

Photo by mudpig (Creative Commons)

I think it would be fair to say that trust is an important theme here at Matador: Trust the locals, trust yourself, trust your companions, trust karma — and you’ll get more out of your travels.

It’s a message that comes through again and again, in our coverage of Couchsurfing or home swaps, and in articles like 10 Travel Risks Worth Taking and How To Travel the World for Free.

To my mind, it’s a message we could all remind ourselves of when we’re at home, too.

When I was growing up, trick-or-treating on Halloween was one of the highlights of my year. My parents would walk me all around the area where we lived, we’d pass friends from school, knock on doors and actually recognize the people who answered. When I got a little older – say, around 8 years old? – I started exercising a little more Halloween freedom. My parents would wait at the corner while a friend and I worked a whole block alone, and soon enough October 31st meant my friends and I had the run of the entire neighbourhood.

Of course, we made sure to get home safe before the older kids came out and started smashing pumpkins, and of course, our parents sifted through our pillow cases full of candy in a cursory check for that mythical razor blade. But generally, nobody worried much. We may have been dressed in creepy costumes, but Halloween night wasn’t really about being afraid.

Seems to me that a lot has changed since then. I don’t see as many kids out trick-or-treating any more, and those that do often pile out of a minivan driven by a watchful adult. There isn’t the same freedom that I experienced — instead, I see a lot more fear.

Some might not see this as much of a loss. After all, Halloween is yet another over-commercialized holiday that forces people to buy, buy, buy, and – worst of all – fills kids up with junk food, right? Well, sure. I guess.

But while the candy may not be a loss, the trust that it represented – the same trust that lets us surf a stranger’s couch, or accept a dinner invitation from a local – certainly is.

*

Stepping off my soap box, and on a vaguely-related note, here’s the Onion’s latest hilarious video: Has Halloween Become Overcommercialized?

In The Know: Has Halloween Become Overcommercialized?

Photo by Paul Keleher (Creative Commons)

Matador’s own Tim Patterson popped up in an interview on Written Road this week — you can read it here — and the discussion (with another Matador member, Anna Brones) got me thinking about all the great interviews out there on the interwebs.

About a year and a half ago now, when I had just come home and started working an office job that I hoped would pay my way into the world of travel writing, I spent a lot of time cruising the net and trying to figure out the “secret” to making it.

I read a lot of interviews with writers in that time, and while I eventually realized that there is no “secret”, I did learn an awful lot.

So, to accompany Tim’s excellent interview, here are a few more favourites:

Pico Iyer: On Travel and Travel Writing — This in-depth interview with Iyer, from World Hum, is jammed full of useful insights and fascinating biographical bits and pieces.

In this May 2006 installment of Rolf Potts’ monthly travel writing interviews, San Francisco Chronicle travel editor John Flinn is as helpful and funny as always.

David Miller’s interview with Outside Magazine’s Eric Hansen always stuck with me for, among other things, Hansen’s anecdotes about looking for one story, and finding another, in Italy.

Tim Patterson’s interview with Perceptive Travel editor Tim Leffel, over at Brave New Traveler, is another one that stayed with me, for its blunt take on the differences between alternative, online travel writing and mainstream print publications.

Read up when you get the chance, and for more interview fun, check out the World Hum Q&A archive, the Written Road interview archive, the Rolf Potts Writers archive, and the BNT interview archive.

And after you’re done all that reading, make with the writing already!

Photo by rachel_thecat (Creative Commons)

Think how surprised I was to see this news clip land in my inbox:

Or to learn that voting McCain is kind of like the new drunk driving:

And finally, I never liked those Wassup guys, but even they don’t deserve this fate:

Seen any other funny political ads lately, for either side? Drop a link in the comments!

Apparently, even Sir Richard Branson is no match for the mighty Triangle.

The billionaire called off his attempt at setting a new trans-Atlantic sailing record on Friday, after being met with nasty weather and 40-foot waves off Bermuda.

From the Globe and Mail story:

In a live interview with CNN, Mr. Branson said the waves “hit us from behind and took one of our life rafts.”

“Fortunately, everyone was harnessed in and nobody went with it,” he added.

He told the network he called off the effort after his boat’s main sail was ripped.

“So, we decided to abandon it on this occasion and fight another day.”

Branson had recently taken several years off from record-chasing (you know, to focus on space travel and general world domination) and the trans-Atlantic crossing was his first dip back in to the wealthy-adrenaline-junkie pool.

Photo by FlyNutAA (Creative Commons)

Here’s an interesting exercise:

Take two media accounts of the same news event, and compare them.

Step 1: Read what the Globe and Mail had to say about an incident on the Syria-Iraq border this weekend:

U.S. military helicopters launched an extremely rare attack Sunday on Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq, killing eight people in a strike the government in Damascus condemned as “serious aggression.”

A U.S. military official said the raid by special forces targeted the foreign fighter network that travels through Syria into Iraq. The Americans have been unable to shut the network down in the area because Syria was out of the military’s reach.

“We are taking matters into our own hands,” the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.

Straightforward, right? A U.S. military incursion into Syrian territory, eight killed.

There’s not a whole lot of ambiguity here.

Step 2: Now read the New York Times’ version of the same event:

Syria’s state-run news channel later reported that United States helicopters had attacked an area within Syria, near the town of Abu Kamal. The official news agency, SANA, cited an anonymous official as saying four American helicopters had “launched aggression on a civilian building under construction,” killing eight people, and that the Syrian deputy foreign minister had summoned the chargé d’affaires from the American and Iraqi Embassies in protest.

A senior American military official, however, said United States military helicopters were not involved in the incident.

This one tells a story of doubt, confusion. Conflicting reports.

The two stories paint very different pictures, and neither one references the other’s contradictory sources.

So which one is true?

It’s tough to say. Both are reputable newspapers.

The New York Times hasn’t been afraid to criticize the Bush government, so there’s no reason to assume that they would obscure the truth about an American incursion. On the other hand, the Globe and Mail is pretty middle-of-the-road — not the type of paper to be seeking any and every opportunity to pounce on and exaggerate a potential American faux pas.

I’ll keep an eye on the news to see if the details of the incident get straightened out. In the meantime, let’s call it a valuable lesson in critical reading: question everything in the news, and pay close attention to the words the reporter chooses.

I know I’ll be making sure that I read 2 or 3 different sources on each major story for the next little while.

Photo of US Army helocopters in Iraq by Army.mil (Creative Commons)

A team of scientists in North Dakota has successfully created jet fuel from plant oils, Scientific American reports, and the resulting product is “indistinguishable from the conventional kind.”

I’ve been waiting for this news for a long time.

Of course, a reduction of our consumption levels is the first step, and of course, bio-fuels aren’t perfect by any means. But every time I read another article about how we all need to stop flying, I think to myself: Isn’t anybody doing something to make commercial flight less harmful?!

Sure, I’ll cut down on short-haul flights that could easily be replaced by a few hours on a train or bus. And sure, even for longer hauls I’ll go overland sometimes when I have the time and means. But, even setting aside my personal travel ambitions, I’ve got family spread out from Nova Scotia to the Yukon to Arizona. There’s no way I can quit my flight habit entirely.

Scientific American has the details on the project, as well as the other ongoing efforts at creating plant-based jet fuel. And as for the future of the project?

“The thing that needs to happen is a purchase order to come through from the Air Force so we can get [the] investment to build that first plant,” said the CEO of another company, hard at work on jet fuel made from algae scum.

“We could get a plant operational in two to five years if there were a commitment to buy the fuel.”

Photo by Al Pavangkanan (Creative Commons)

One woman expressed herself recently by attempting to handcuff the notorious ex-Bush administration strategist, Karl Rove:

(See, she’s implying that he’s a crook, get it?)

Looking for some tips for your first couchsurfing experience?

Check out my post over at Vagablogging, How To Score Some Sweet Couch.

The French language has been in the news a lot lately – in part, because this weekend saw the 2008 summit of the Francophonie – an organization of French-speaking nations, loosely equivalent to the British Commonwealth – take place in Quebec City.

Here are a couple of interesting stories that came up during the summit:

Rwanda Says Au Revoir To French Language

Last week, on the eve of the Francophonie’s summit, the Rwandan government announced that French would no longer be the language of instruction in schools. Instead, most classes will be taught exclusively in Kinyarwanda or English.

The move is a complicated mix of pragmatism (since English is viewed as a more global or useful language) and post-genocide backlash against the French government, which has been accused of aiding the Hutu militias responsible for killing nearly 1 million Tutsis in 1994.

The Globe and Mail has a good article on the move, and the events leading up to it.

Sarkozy Steps Into Quebec Quagmire

French officials are scrambling to quell an angry backlash in the ranks of Quebec’s separatists following Nicolas Sarkozy’s apparent endorsement of a unified Canada during the summit.

“If someone tries to tell me that the world today needs an additional division, then they don’t have the same read of the world as me,” Sarkozy said on Friday. “I don’t know why a fraternal love of Quebec would have to be nourished through defiance toward Canada.”

You might think that a foreign leader’s support for an existing country would be a given, but in fact Sarko’s comments were a break from French presidents past, who’ve often voiced sympathy for the fight for a Quebecois nation. (See, most infamously, Charles de Gaulle’s “Vive le Quebec libre!” speech.)

Said an incensed separatist politician: “I hope the President of the republic poorly expressed himself and that it is not the way he actually thinks. If the President of the French republic came and interfered in our affairs and took a position against the independence of Quebec, well then it is extremely serious.”

Of course, the separatists have no issue with the French presidents who’ve “interfered in our affairs” by taking a position in support of Quebec independence…

Meanwhile, In The Developing World

Many of the poorer member nations of the Francophonie expressed concerns this weekend that their problems would be forgotten by Western countries preoccupied by the crisis on Wall Street.

“It’s a crisis that will ultimately strike us, we will see development falling away, we can anticipate prices for our commodities dropping, there will be much less enthusiasm for helping us,” said President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso.

“It’s countries like ours, countries on the road to development, that will take the hardest hit,” added Denis Sassou Nguesso, the President of the Republic of Congo. “At this moment, we don’t really know what that hit will be.”

Photo by Rene Ehrhardt (Creative Commons)

Are scooters really that much greener than cars?

Wired’s Mr. Know-It-All has the answer, and it boils down to this: It depends.

He writes:

Older scooters with two-stroke engines emit far more smoggy pollutants per mile than their four-wheeled counterparts. True, you probably get double the fuel economy of a Chevy and can thus crow about your ride’s smaller carbon footprint (and thus smaller contribution to climate change). But your tailpipe may also be belching out 10 to 15 times more smog (nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbons) than that Chevy, to the severe detriment of your city’s air quality.

Scooters from 2006 on, on the other hand, do a little better – and models with catalytic converters are best of all.

Something to keep in mind before you roll up on a Vespa and start carbon-bullying your pals!

Photo by antmoose (Creative Commons)

I’ve been so wrapped up in the American and Canadian elections these past few weeks, I’ve gotten a little slack in monitoring the news in the rest of the world.

Well, here’s the first step to remedying that: an update on the political situation in Zimbabwe.

A lot of things have changed since my last post about the country’s troubles – but at the same time, far too many things have stayed exactly the same.

Last month, outgoing South African president Thabo Mbeki managed to get both sides in Zimbabwe – Robert Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF party, and Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) – to agree to share power and bring an end to the country’s poisonous and violent electoral cycle.

Now, the MDC is arguing that Mugabe has given all the most powerful cabinet positions to ZANU-PF ministers, leaving the MDC representatives out in the bureaucratic cold.

Control of both the police and the military has been retained by Mugabe. Tsvangirai is threatening to pull out of the deal, and Mbeki (who is no longer President in South Africa) is rushing to Harare to try to salvage the situation.

This BBC article has a good summary, as well as an update on Zimbabwe’s unbelievably bleak economic status.

So what does all this mean?

Well, I’m sure there were plenty of MDC supporters who weren’t thrilled about the power-sharing deal to begin with. After all, Mugabe is a despot who’s wrecked the country’s economy and turned to violence and vote-rigging to control his sham elections – he has no business remaining in power.

But a legit power-sharing deal would have at least put an end to the violence. With Mugabe’s attempt to keep control over the military and the police, I’m sure the MDC are worried that even that small bit of progress is being lost.

Thabo Mbeki has taken a lot of heat over the years for his handling (or non-handling) of the Zimbabwean crisis. The power-sharing deal was a last chance at a positive legacy in the region – it should be interesting to see if he manages to salvage any of it.

Photo by SqueakyMarmot (Creative Commons)

The excellent Wend Magazine has just introduced a new online section called iWend, which will – among other things – feature a series of “Postcard” pieces.

iWend’s Postcards will each consist of a single, compelling travel photo with an accompanying narrative of no more than 600 words.

The Postcards will be unpaid, but especially for newer writers they could be a great way to gain some exposure and get your name on Wend’s editorial radar.

Full details from Wend associate editor (and Matador member!) Anna Brones here.

Interested in writing other pieces for Wend, too? Check out the complete submission guidelines.

Not familiar with Wend yet? Does “literate adventure travel” sound like your thing? Matador’s thrilled to offer a special subscription offer for our readers.

Subscribe now, and enter the promotional code matador08 at the end of the online sign-up, and you’ll get a one-year subscription for $21.

Not only that, but a portion of that money will come back around to Matador — so you’ll be supporting your friendly neighborhood travelers’ network, too!

Photo by frozenchipmunk (Creative Commons)

A man in London is reporting that he was shot three times while attempting to flee a threatening gunman — and all because he was wearing a Barack Obama t-shirt.

The gunman had previously approached the victim, Dube Egwuatu, and shouted racial slurs in relation to the t-shirt. After Egwuatu walked away, the man followed him to his car and opened fire.

From the UPI story:

“I couldn’t believe it was happening — and just because I was wearing an Obama T-shirt. He was trying to make me walk somewhere quieter, saying: ‘I’ve got something for you,’ and ‘I’m going to kill you.’”

Egwuatu was able to drive away while being fired on, and is in stable condition.

Photo by luckywhitegirl (Creative Commons)

An innovative tour company is bringing visitors closer to the cutting-edge of design in London – and best of all, most of those new design trends are green!

Here’s how Insider London describes their “Cutting-Edge Green” tour:

This tour takes you straight to the most exciting and innovative sustainable retail concepts, buildings and designs that London has to offer. Travelling on foot and by public transport, we’ll show you the numerous sexy, innovative ways that sustainability can be brought to life, from gorgeous shops to futuristic architecture and inspiring communities.

Sure, the tour seems largely aimed at industry types who want to take notes for their own greenification, but if you ask me that just makes it all the more interesting.

What better way to see a new side of London than to take a tour that’s not actually for tourists?

Another Insider London tour that’s focused on sustainability? The Ethical Fashion Tour.

Photo by peter pearson (Creative Commons)

It’s always a little strange to see the mainstream travel media latch on to a not-quite-new phenomenon and glam it up with a fancy title.

Exhibit A: Cyber-Hitching

It’s hip! It’s edgy! It’s a green travel solution to your recession-prompted money woes!

And it’s also… better known as ride-sharing. It’s been a popular feature on Craigslist for years.

Still, while I might poke a little fun, this trend piece from the Guardian does offer a sweet collection of ride-sharing websites that I hadn’t heard of before.

Next time you need to stick out your cyber-thumb, check out

carshare.com
liftshare.org
avego.com
hitchwiki.org
pickuppal.com

Have you ever set up a ride-share? Which site did you use?

Was it a good experience, or bad? Let us know!

Photo by Alpha Tango Bravo / Adam Baker

A friend recently pointed me to this fascinating online electoral project: VoteForEnvironment.ca.

The site’s basic premise is that, regardless of their differences, all four Canadian Opposition parties (the Liberal, New Democratic, Bloc Quebecois and Green parties) view the environment as a serious issue that is worthy of their attention.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the incumbent Conservative Party, on the other hand, are viewed as a threat to the environment.

From the site:

We believe that the Harper Government’s collusion with the Bush White House to obstruct progress on climate change at recent international summits does not reflect how Canadians want their leaders to behave on the world stage…

All the other major Parties have programs that seriously address our critical climate concerns and are talking about them in this election. If those of us who care about the environment don’t work together across party lines, the pro-environment vote will be split as it was in the last election and Harper will be re-elected.

It’s basically an “ABC” position: Anybody But Conservatives.

The idea is nothing new in Canada, where the center and center-left parties have been agonizing over how or whether to split its vote for years, with all sides accusing the others of watering down the large moderate vote and allowing the Conservatives to take power with only minority support.

But VoteForEnvironment does more than just spread the standard anti-Harper rhetoric: it actually helps voters decide where their vote will count most.

The site offers up-to-date riding-by-riding predictions of which candidates have the best shot at toppling a Conservative front-runner.

That way, environmentally-minded voters in a given constituency can pool their votes together behind the strongest challenger.

In ridings where one candidate (whether Conservative or not) is considered a shoo-in, the site lets voters know they’re safe to vote their conscience.

There’s also a “vote-swap” system to ease voters’ worries about crossing party lines.

For example – an NDP supporter who votes Liberal where necessary can be matched up online with a Liberal supporter who voted NDP, and both can feel as though their preferences (beyond “ABC”) were served.

Intrigued?

Be sure to check out the site and find your riding, and don’t forget to tell your friends!

Environmentally-minded Americans: you can help, too! Spread word of the site to any and all Canadians you might know.

This is a crucial election. But with the help of VoteForEnvironment.ca, every vote really can make a difference.

For more on the Canadian election, which takes place October 14th, check out my blog post over in the Matador community: The OTHER Election.

Photo of Lake Louise, Banff, by AlphaTangoBrave / Adam Baker (Creative Commons)

Photo of young moose by jhoc (Creative Commons)

So what’s the biggest threat to the United States of America these days?

Is it terrorism? The economy, or the lack of affordable health care? Wealth disparity, or the poisonous partisan divide in Washington?

Answer: Well, maybe, none of the above.

Instead, it just might be the terrifying, towering ignorance and hatred of too many people just like this.

Photo by paul goyette (Creative Commons)

Are You Friggin Kidding Me – Watch more free videos

Incidentally, this might be the first time I’ve ever repeated something I learned from Fox, in any context other than a punchline…

Photo by Tina Keller

I’ll be honest –

I’ve always been a little skeptical about the cross-cultural etiquette advice that crops up in guidebooks and on travel sites across the web.

The guidelines offered tend to be a little too black-and-white for me.

When a guide is written by one “expert” (usually a foreigner) there is not always room for nuance, for variations across society, or for the host’s understanding that visitors are just that: visitors, and therefore allowed some cultural leeway.

For example (and this is my personal hang-up, as a lefty): Will every single person in India really be horrified if you use your left hand to eat or, say, touch your face – or does the strength of the tradition vary according to education and income levels, rural vs. urban divides, and so on?

I was thrilled to hear about CultureCrossing.net, because it addresses exactly those concerns.

Culture Crossing is more of a travel etiquette wiki than a strict guide – the advice is constantly evolving, created and added upon by community members who also have the option of interacting with each other directly.

Got a question not fully addressed in the guide? You can ask the relevant community members directly, or post a question in the forums, for the whole group to discuss.

Like Matador, Culture Crossing is harnessing the interactive aspects of the internet not only to spread useful travel information, but to create dialogue, community and greater understanding.

In an organized action, the pastors endorsed Senator John McCain during their sermons and urged their congregants not to vote for Barack Obama.

By doing so, they broke a law that prohibits tax-exempt organizations, such as churches, from actively engaging in US politics.

The IRS is investigating. Here’s video:

A few years ago, a controversy erupted in Canada over the church’s role in our debate over same-sex marriage. Our Prime Minister at the time was a Catholic – as were a large number of our elected representatives in Parliament – and a number of Roman Catholic officials suggested that those officials wouldn’t be true Catholics if they approved a law legalizing same-sex marriage.

Given that a majority of Canadians approved of gay marriage at the time, the hubbub begged the question:

Do politicians owe allegiance to their religious authorities of choice, or to the citizens who elect them?

It’s a complicated question. Where does freedom of religion end, and obligation begin, for public figures, and – in this case with the pastors – where does the separation of church and state end, and freedom of expression begin?

I’m not sure, but I do know one thing: the Bible doesn’t say a word about voting for John McCain over Barack Obama.

If these pastors want to express their own views, that’s one thing. But suggesting that God himself endorses John McCain? Well, that’s something else — charlatanism.

No American political campaign in my lifetime has stirred up as much passion as Barack Obama’s race for the White House.

From Hollywood celebrities to anonymous bloggers or callers on phone-in talk shows, it seems that everyone is looking to share their views, change some minds, make a statement.

America’s artists are no exception.

Whether using digital photo editing techniques or a plain old can of spray paint, they’ve been making their voices heard – or rather, their images seen.

Here are a few stand-out selections from across the country:

Yes We Can: Bushwick, Brooklyn

Photo by EricaJoy

We are the people we’ve been waiting for.

Photo by springhill2008

08′AMA in Charlottesville, Virginia

Photo by cornexo

Suburban yard art: Whoever said Obama can’t connect with Middle America?

Photo by bradthedesigner

Obama has a posse in Los Angeles, CA.

Photo by Lord Jim

Simple yet powerful.

Photo by nakano.photography

Spotted in Los Angeles: Abraham Obama

Photo by Lord Jim

Barack Obama is speaking to America. Get it?

Photo by whorange

Even the arts’n'crafty types on Etsy are feeling the change.

Photo by whorange

Hope in Houston.

Photo by jetheriot

Obama fans take to the streets in Mission Dolores, San Francisco.

Photo by benchun

Top photo by [nati]

HarperCollins recently introduced a new way for prospective authors to get their books noticed, and it’s way Web 2.0.

Authonomy.com lets you upload your manuscript (or partial manuscript – at least 10,000 words must be uploaded), where it’s available to be read by editors, publishers, agents, and your writing peers – as well as anyone else who feels like checking out the site.

Visitors to the site then rank their favourites, and once a month the top 5 books get sent to a team of HarperCollins commissioning editors for consideration.

The idea is to “beat the slush pile,” but reaction to the initiative has been mixed.

Written Road thinks Authonomy represents an exciting opportunity:

Your uploaded travel book or books will be sitting on the doorstep of one the world’s largest publishers. Your work is also ripe for discovery by talent scouting agents, not to mention other publishing houses that may dip into the site from time to time spotting the next best thing for their list before HarperCollins themselves get to it.

The Guardian’s books blog, on the other hand, takes a more cynical view:

I remain unsure whether this really provides a great service for writers or whether it will level the playing field. I imagine that the hearts of those behind Authonomy are in the right place, but it’s hard to ignore the suspicion that what they are really doing is outsourcing the unlovely task of sluicing through the slush pile. Of course, outsourcing is totally within publishers’ (and agents’) rights. Reading and responding to the slush pile doesn’t generally make them any money, with the cost of the time spent most likely outweighing any profit made from finding a very, very occasional diamond amongst all the rough.

Being realistic, I think Authonomy may end up being a nice polite way for the publishers to say that they’re not accepting unsolicited submissions anymore. If the launch goes well, I’d wager that anyone asking about submissions will be directed to hit the site, keeping editors’ (and editorial assistants’) desks clear for them to get on with the books agents have sent them, the ones they are genuinely interested in.

As for me, of course I love the idea of being able to cut straight through the hassle and have my (imaginary) book manuscript voted right on to an editor’s desk.

But I’ve also always figured that if you’ve got the skills and the right idea, you’ll be able to find yourself an agent – and that agent will find you a publisher.

The thing is, short-cuts rarely work, especially when the voting public is involved.

How many American Idols have managed to put together award-winning, lasting music careers? How many Top Model winners have actually become, well, top models?

And, I wonder, how many Authonomy.com manuscripts are ever going to hit the New York Times bestseller list, or even get published?

Call me jaded, but this strikes me as more false hope than legit opportunity.

That being said, I’ll be thrilled for the lucky writer who proves me wrong.

What do you think?

Photo by gadl (Creative Commons)

The way the flights ebb and flow between Western Europe and North America, and around the US, is pretty amazing, no?

As we’ve noted before here on Pulse, the world is watching the ongoing American election campaign very closely.

And now, all of us interested outsiders get a chance to have our say!

The Economist has created a worldwide poll – the Global Electoral College – to see whether the citizens of other nations would choose Obama or McCain on November 4th.

From the mag’s publisher, Ben Edwards:

Votes are cast on a country-wide level. Each country is assigned a number of votes according to the size of its population (we call these “electoral-college votes” on the model of America’s actual electoral-college system).

Then all the countries’ votes are tallied, to determine each candidate’s worldwide total. You can see at a glance which countries are pro-Obama or pro-McCain, along with their respective vote percentages. The candidate with the most electoral-college votes will win the worldwide election.

Think of it like that model election project you did in high school, but on a global scale.

Fun, right?!

I’m gonna go ahead and predict that Obama will stomp McCain in Europe, for a start. But it should be interesting to see how other countries will land.

Who will Pakistan vote for? Canada? Vietnam??

Stay tuned to find out, and don’t forget to vote, too!

It seems that anti-malarial nets are all the charity rage these days – but this is one trend that I genuinely hope will last.

Nets are cheap and effective – an efficient malaria prevention strategy if ever there was one.

And now, Nets for Ninos, one of a number of charity groups that make net distribution their business, is offering an amazing travel opportunity: the chance to personally deliver mosquito nets to families with at-risk infants in the Amazon.

Contact rusty@amazondetours.com for more information, and if you’re not headed to South America any time soon, stop by Nets For Ninos to buy a net!

They cost just $10 each, and they save lives.

Photo by bishii (Creative Commons)

How do you like them apples, Mrs. Palin?

It’s been interesting to watch (and, heck, participate in) the ratcheting up of tension and hostility in this campaign since the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate.

Before Palin joined the team, I think many folks on the Democratic side of things had a grudging respect for McCain. I certainly thought of him as the least dangerous of the potential Republican candidates; I especially appreciated his stance on torture, in its stark contrast to the present administration, and was pleased when he clinched the nomination.

McCain was, for a lot of people, a sort of best-case scenario for the worst-case scenario. But with the addition of Palin, a real element of fear has entered the campaign. Not just fear that Barack Obama might lose, but fear of the consequences if he does.

For people on the left side of the political divide, the stakes just got a LOT higher.

Republicans can dismiss it as sexism all they want, but I think it’s that element of fear (and fear, of course, translates easily to anger) that explains most of the attacks on Sarah Palin.

Oh, and Matt Damon, if you’re reading this: You had me at hello!

The Guardian has a quick, ten-point quiz to test your knowledge.

It’s heavier on (pop-)cultural trivia rather than geographical, so geo-buffs beware: your in-depth knowledge of national capitals, Central African rivers or desert ecological zones won’t help you here!

Your humble blogger scored a perfect 10/10, on just the second try…

Photo by pintaa (Creative Commons)

Photo by jfeuchter (Creative Commons)

Drinking and driving is a bad idea in any country: it’s stupid, easily avoidable, and puts the lives of everyone on the road at risk.

But in much of the world, getting caught after one too many won’t result in serious punishment – which is probably one reason why it’s not seen as much of a crime by so many drivers.

It’s a whole different ballgame in Norway, though, where fines for these sorts of violations are calculated based on the driver’s income.

Back in January, a real estate mogul was caught driving with nearly four times the legal limit of alcohol in his blood.

The fine? A jaw-dropping $85,000 USD.

That bad boy wasn’t the first to get hit in the wallet, either. A few years back, another Norwegian businessman paid $30,000 for his sins.

Feeling any sympathy? Not me. After all, it’s not like these millionaires can’t afford a cab.

Since then, he’s been published in the travel world’s most respected publications, racked up awards and appearances in the annual Best American Travel Writing anthologies, and produced a book – Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to The Art of Long-Term World Travel – that has inspired countless readers to make more time for travel.

Now, Rolf’s second book, Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Revelations From One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer, has just been released.

To celebrate, he’s put together a virtual book tour (alongside a physical one), and today’s tour stop is none other than Matador Pulse!

We’re thrilled to have Rolf Potts here to talk about being a travel writer vs. just being a writer, some adventures that haven’t made it to publication yet, and his plans for the future.

Matador Pulse: Established writers often seem keen to warn newcomers off travel writing, pointing out that it’s not the “dream job” the aspiring writer imagines.

Some, like Chuck Thompson, paint a pretty grim picture of the industry. Others – Paul Theroux for instance – emphasize that they are simply writers, not “travel writers.”

What about you? Any urge to dissociate yourself from the “travel writer” label any time soon?

Rolf Potts: Travel writing is definitely not the “dream job” fantasy that so many people envision it to be. I touch on this a bit in my new book — particularly in the endnotes — and for years I’ve been trying to promote a more practical and realistic view of the genre through the “Writers” section of my website, which includes Q&As with nearly 100 working travel writers.

As for me, I sometimes call myself a travel writer, and other times just a writer, since I write on non-travel topics for outlets like The Believer and the New York Times Magazine. I’m sure Theroux calls himself a “writer” for the same reason, and in this way it’s more a matter of descriptive accuracy than distaste for the genre.

I find no embarrassment at the term “travel writer,” but some established writers feel the genre is too closely associated with subsidized “press trips” and brainless destination writing. This is not a new sentiment.

As Jason Wilson noted in a 2000 Salon article called “Trip Lit,” travel writing has been regarded as a lesser genre going back to the 19th century, when writers like Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote travel books less as a serious literary pursuit than an easy way to augment their income.

As you mentioned in your World Hum Q&A last week, there are two sides to travel writing: the more artistic, literary stories, and the consumer pieces.

I think most new writers aspire to end up on the literary side of things eventually – but realistically, the consumer content is much easier to a) produce and b) sell.

I know you plunged right into essay writing back in your Salon days and have hardly looked back, but for the rest of us, any thoughts on bridging that divide?

Is it a matter of choosing one or the other, or is there a way to strike a balance between selling Top 5 lists for a living and cultivating our inner essayists?

I don’t think you have to choose one or the other. Even though I was publishing literary essays early in my career, I’ve still done a fair amount of consumer writing over the years. Since consumer writing pays comparatively well, I regard service items and destination articles as a kind of “day job” that helps support my more serious writing.

I intentionally included one of these consumer articles (a story about Grenada) in my new book so I could use the chapter endnotes to comment on the limitations of pre-assigned destination stories, the ethical challenges of press-trips, and the idiosyncrasies of working with photographers.

So for those who are just starting out, I’d recommend developing your literary chops even as you research and sell consumer articles. Researching superficial service articles needn’t compromise your ability to write about richer human themes someday down the line.

Marco Polo Didn’t Go There has an unusual feature: a commentary track accompanying the essays, that reveals “the ragged edges behind the experience and creation of each tale.”

I was impressed by the self-awareness you must have when you write, to have been able to produce that commentary.

Do you think that being conscious of your artistic decisions when writing – as opposed to just letting it flow – is an important part of good story construction?

Would you advise new writers to strive for that sort of awareness?

All the chapter endnotes were written well after the essays themselves, which means none of the stories were written with a “commentary track” in mind. I reassembled the endnote information retrospectively, using spare notes and memories of the experiences in question.

It’s interesting that you mention “letting it flow,” since it’s never that simple for me. Even when my writing is flowing, it’s doing so in the context of a deliberately structured narrative. Beginning writers sometimes forget about the importance of structure — I know I did when I was starting out.

George Orwell admitted that his most effortless-sounding prose was actually the result of painstaking effort. This applies to many writers, including me — and the passages of mine that seem to flow down the page didn’t necessarily flow that way onto the page.

In this new book, and in your whole body of work, readers get an up-close look at your travel highs and lows, personal moments and misadventures. But I’m wondering about the stories that never got written.

Have you had any especially memorable travel experiences that you’ve tried to write about – and been unable to do so?

Yes, definitely. I’ve been going to Latin America every winter for the past three years — largely in an attempt to learn how to dance — and I am currently at a loss for how to write about this increasingly quixotic endeavor.

Eight years ago I walked across Israel just a few weeks before the latest intifada — and I’m still trying to figure out ways to make this bucolic stroll sound relevant in the context of a post-9/11 world. The next year I rode a bicycle down Burma’s Irrawaddy valley, and to date I’ve only published snippets of that experience.

I’m just optimistic enough to think I’ll find a way to get all these adventures down on paper someday. Chapter 11 of my new book, which describes my attempt to track down a friend in Thailand who may or may not have been dead, was written in this way: For years I was too close to the experience emotionally, so I didn’t make it into a story until four years after it happened.

Finally, I know you’ve just wrapped up this book – and have a North American tour coming up – but looking ahead, are there any more large-scale projects on the horizon?

There are lots of possibilities, though I have yet to settle on a single one. I have an idea for a travel book set in North America, as well as a memoir set in the 1990s. I’ve been exploring some documentary television opportunities as well. And one of these days I should probably get back down the South America and learn how to dance properly.

But right now I’m just looking forward to coming back to Kansas in December and unwinding for a few weeks. I’ve literally been on the go since May, and the pace of all my recent projects has been more urgent and micromanaged than I’d prefer. So my first big task will be to rest on the prairie for a while, read my way through a stack of books, spend the holidays with my family, and try to figure out my next big journey.

We’ll look forward to reading about it. Thanks, Rolf!

You can follow the rest of Rolf Potts’ virtual book tour online, or see him in person at one of 20 cities nationwide as he celebrates the release of Marco Polo Didn’t Go There (Travelers’ Tales, 2008).  We encourage you to ask for the book at your favorite local bookstore or Amazon.com, and follow Rolf’s tour diary at Gadling starting Sept 29th.  Tomorrow’s virtual book tour stop will be at Brave New Traveler. To read Friday’s tour stop, go to The Lost Girls.

Hundreds of Alaskans rallied in Anchorage this week – but not, as you might think, to support their Governor in her Vice-Presidential bid.

Instead, participants in what was reportedly the largest protest gathering in Alaskan history took aim at McCain/Palin, and made it clear their governor does NOT speak for them.

Take a look:

Great to see “Hockey Mama For Obama” representin’ for the greatest (ahem) sport on Earth!

Amen, sister.

Polar bear moms speak out.

Up with community organizers and down with Exxon justice!

Now there’s an image for you…

Does the fact that this even needs to be pointed out scare anyone besides me?

I always love a good “bare/bear” pun.

McTrue.

Vote Issues, Not Gender.

‘Nuff said.

To see the full-size screenshot, plus “Obama’s” trash folder, click over to the Onion, truly America’s Finest News Source.

In kinda-funny-til-you-really-think-about-it (then-it-gets-really-sad) news, a young Asian elephant, Xiguang, has recently returned home to China after undergoing three years of drug rehab.

Yes, this is for real.

Xiguang became addicted to heroin during a stint laboring for smugglers along the China-Burma border, the AP reports. After a lengthy course of methadone treatments, he has apparently fully recovered.

I’d really like to make a crack about Just Saying No at this point, but for some reason Xiguang’s story touched me, and I don’t have the jokes in me.

Maybe that’s because elephants are such amazing, dignified, graceful creatures; I have trouble understanding how someone could abuse them this way.

Welcome home, Xiguang, and stay clean.

If you’re in the NYC area and a fan of Matt Gross, the New York Times “Frugal Traveler” columnist, you’re in luck.

He’ll be speaking about his recent Grand Tour at Idlewild Books on September 18th (yep, that’s tomorrow) and again at the New York Historical Society on September 23rd.

Details below. If you’re able, check one or both of these out!

First up: A talk at Idlewild Books about the Grand Tour, literary travel, frugal travel and so on.
• Thursday, September 18 at 7 p.m.
Idlewild Books
12 W. 19th St., near 5th Ave
(212) 414-8888
Admission: Free (includes wine & cheese after the talk!)
See idlewildbooks.com for more details.

Next: The evolution of the Grand Tour, at the New-York Historical Society.
• Tuesday, September 23 at 6:30 p.m.
The New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West, at 77th Street
Admission: members, $10; non-members, $18 (includes wine & cheese after the talk!)
See nyhistory.org for more details.

Photo by kennymatic (Creative Commons)

In Utah’s Garfield County, the sheriff’s office has revealed that they found remnants of a major marijuana operation – apparently shut down by a bear.

“Deputies found food containers ripped apart and strewn all over, along with claw marks and bear prints everywhere,” the AP reports.

“Don’t call him Smoky,” the AP writer added, while the Sheriff declared that if he could find the bear responsible, he’d give him a Deputy’s star.

Careful pinning that one on, Sheriff.

Looking to smoke a bowl or two without interference from bears or sheriffs?

Check out Matador’s list of 7 Amsterdam Coffee Shops That Are Good To Go.

Photo by Thadeus Protz (Creative Commons)

Hey, I got an email from Barack Obama yesterday!

It was about the importance of getting out and voting – and, of course, the importance of registering to vote.

Since I’m not an American, I can’t vote in this US presidential election. But I sure wish I could.

For those of you who can: don’t waste this opportunity!

Obama’s campaign has put together a sort of one-stop-shop for all your voting registration needs – and that includes, for all you travelers out there, an application to vote as an absentee.

Here are the details, straight from Obama:

Photo by Philgarlic (Creative Commons

VoteforChange.com makes it easier than ever to register.

Barack

No, Barack, thank YOU!

C’mon, American voters. Get registered and get out there.

The whole world (or at the very least, this Canadian blogger) is counting on you.

Top photo by Tony the Misfit (Creative Commons)

“When I have recovered I will jump again,” Lange told the AP. “It all comes down to better planning. It’s a fantastic feeling to fly along a mountainside.”

Feeling voyeuristic? Here’s the eerie, jumper’s-eye-view clip of the whole thing:

Because as everybody knows, there’s nothing sexier than exploited female sweatshop laborers.

Kelsey at Where Am I Wearing? keeps a sharp eye on the garment industry, and I came across this campaign on his blog.

Check it out to learn more, get a list of reasons why this is so inappropriate (in case you can’t come up with plenty on your own!), and hear about Ecko’s response to Kelsey’s complaint.

When you’re done reading, if you – like me – find this campaign at all objectionable, contact eckomfg@ecko.com or call 917-262-1002 (ask for Ecko Manufacturing).

Then, in the years that followed, something funny happened: that same movie became, in the words of Rolling Stone, “the most worshipped comedy of its generation.”

That flick was called ‘The Big Lebowski’ – and on its tenth anniversary, I’m pleased to announce that I finally know why I, and many other theater-goers, just didn’t quite get it when the Dude first walked onto our screens.

So why the dramatic shift in popularity?

Like so many geniuses, the Dude was simply ahead of his time.

According to Rolling Stone’s Andy Greene, the Dude represents everything that we long for in the post-Y2K world.

Sure, those yearnings existed in 1998, but before 9/11, Blackberries, and reality TV, they weren’t quite so powerful or finely honed.

Greene writes:

Early in Lebowski, the narrator (a cowboy named the Stranger, played by Sam Elliott) intones, “Sometimes there’s a man, who, well, he’s the man for his time ‘n place.” The odd truth is this man — the Dude — may have been a decade ahead of his time.

Today, as technology increasingly handcuffs us to schedules and appointments — in the time it takes you to read this, you’ve missed three e-mails — there’s something comforting about a fortysomething character who will blow an evening lying in the bathtub, getting high and listening to an audiotape of whale songs.

He’s not a 21st-century man… The Dude doesn’t care about a job, a salary, a 401(k), and definitely not an iPhone. The Dude just is, and he’s happy.

Slate’s David Hagland agrees that ‘Lebowski’ was ahead of its time, but sees the movie’s relevance today in even more specific terms. The Coen Brothers, he argues, accurately and eerily created the sort of character who would later dominate American politics:

The Dude is indeed a fantastic character. Ten years on, though, the movie’s most striking role belongs to John Goodman as Walter Sobchak: a hawkish, slightly unhinged Vietnam vet and the Dude’s best friend and bowling partner.

Watching The Big Lebowski in 2008, it becomes clear that appreciating Walter is essential to understanding what the Coen brothers are up to in this movie, which is slyer, more political, and more prescient than many of its fans have recognized. Perhaps that’s because Walter, with his bellowing, Old Testament righteousness and his deeply entrenched militarism, is an American type that barely registered on the pop-culture landscape 10 years ago.

He’s a neocon.

Grab a White Russian and click those links – both essays are well worth reading in full.

Oh, and of course you’ll need background music! Wired provides the ultimate 21-track salute to ‘The Big Lebowski’.

Happy birthday, Jeffrey Lebowski.

Even back in 1998, you knew us better than we know ourselves.

Dates are still tentative, and more locations (possibly including Montreal, San Diego, Baltimore and DC) could also still be added. Here’s the schedule thus far:

KANSAS

* Thursday, September 18th, Salina, 7:00pm, Salina Public Library

* Friday, September 19th, Wichita, 7:00pm, Watermark Books

* Saturday, September 20th, Salina, 1:00pm – 3:00pm, Waldenbooks

* Monday, September 22nd, Manhattan, 1:20pm – 2:30pm, Kansas State University

* Tuesday, September 23rd, Topeka, 7:00pm, Washburn University

* Wednesday, September 24th, Kansas City, Noon – 1:00pm, Johnson County CC

* Saturday, September 27th, Lawrence, 2:00pm – 3:00pm, River City Reading Festival

CHICAGO

* Wednesday, October 1st, Chicago, 7:30pm, Bookslut reading series

* Thursday, October 2nd, Chicago, 7:00pm, Book Cellar

NEW ORLEANS

* Tuesday, October 7th, New Orleans, 5:00pm, Garden District Book Shop

* Wednesday, October 8th, New Orleans, 7:30pm, Loyola University

MINNEAPOLIS

* Saturday, October 11th, Minneapolis, 10:00am -5:00pm, Twin Cities Book Festival

* Monday, October 13th, St. Paul, 7:30pm, Common Good Books

NEW YORK and NEW JERSEY

* Monday, October 20th, Manhattan, 7:00pm, The Half King

* Tuesday, October 21st, Manhattan, 7:00pm, Book Culture

* Wednesday, October 22nd, Camden, NJ (near Philadelphia, PA), 7:00pm, Rutgers-Camden

* Thursday, October 23rd, Manhattan, 7:00pm, Book Culture

PACIFIC NORTHWEST

* Saturday, November 8th, Portland, time TBA, Wordstock Festival of the Book

* Tuesday, November 11th, Portland, time TBA, Powell’s Books

* Friday, November 14th, Bellingham, 7:00pm, Village Books

* Saturday, November 15th, Seattle, 4:30pm, Elliott Bay Book Company

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA

* Sunday, November 16th, Corte Madera, time TBA, Book Passage

* Tuesday, November 18th, San Francisco, 7:00pm, Books, Inc

LOS ANGELES AREA

* Thursday, November 20th, Redlands, time TBA, University of Redlands

* Monday, November 24th, Pasadena, time TBA, Distant Lands

If you’re in any of these areas and can make it to a reading, I highly recommend it. Rolf is not only a great writer, he’s also a really entertaining speaker and an all-around nice guy.

You can find more detail (including venue addresses and contact information) here.

Stay tuned to Pulse for tour updates and more essential Rolf Potts info!

It’s a familiar story:

A finite, precious resource, long taken for granted in North America, but now coming under increased demand from the emerging middle classes of the developing world.

No, we’re not talking about oil. We’re talking about fresh water.

And what makes it even worse?

There is no leftover-from-fast-food solution to humanity’s need for hydration.

Goldman Sachs estimates that global water consumption is doubling every 20 years – a rate of growth that it describes as (duh) “unsustainable”.

More on the looming water problem, and its shorter-term impact on industry, from the Economist.

Photo by Pear Biter

Alaska’s been on my lifelong must-see list since long before the state took center stage in the current Presidential election.

Here are just a few reasons why:

5. Jaw-dropping, snow-capped scenery.

Photo by Unhindered by Talent (Creative Commons)

4. Haunting coastline.

Photo by Steve Deger (Creative Commons)

3. Cedar-planked wild salmon. ‘Nuff said.

Photo by woodleywonderworks (Creative Commons)

2. Killer wildlife.

Photo by Paul Resh (Creative Commons)

1. The Northern Lights, of course!

Photo by zhengxu (Creative Commons)

Clearly, the state packs a powerful punch in terms of travel appeal.

So what could possibly throw me off?

Just one crazy lady: Sarah Palin.

As far as I can tell, the new Vice-Presidential candidate stands for guns, abstinence-only education (how’s that goin’ for ya?), overturning Roe v. Wade, hockey (okay, I’m with her on that one), drilling for oil in Alaska’s wilderness refuges – and, of course, being pretty.

Give that ex-beauty queen a new tiara and a sash: she takes the prize for Scariest Up-and-Coming Politician on the scene in ‘08.

Note: The above pic is photoshopped and is not legit.

But I’d bet it’s how “2nd Amendment Barbie” pictures herself in her dreams…

You’ve heard of Rate My Professors, right?

Well now, a new travel site offers a similar service – for local tour guides.

OurExplorer.com let’s you browse listings for hundreds of guides in dozens of countries, read reviews from other travelers, and rate your own guide after your trip.

The idea isn’t to get everyone signed up on large-scale bus tours – instead, OurExplorer aims to support local small businesses and independent guides, strengthening the grassroots economy and increasing interactions between locals and their visitors.

I’ve never been one for guided tours, but that’s a pretty compelling pitch, don’t you think?

Photo by Randy Son Of Robert (Creative Commons)

Putin gets the job done.

You know about the facts, right?

Here’s a favorite:

Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise.

Or the always classic:

Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.

Well, look out, Chuck Norris.

There’s a new manly-man in town: Vladimir Putin.

Small nations fear him. Unusually flexible gymnasts fall at his feet.

And today, we learned, even the mighty tiger – the king of the jungle – was no match for his courage and skill.

According to Reuters, Putin was visiting a national park and tiger habitat when one of the cats escaped from its handlers and turned on the camera crew.

Putin’s alleged lady friend, Alina Kabaeva.

The politician, clad in camo for the event, leapt to the rescue and quickly shot the beast with a tranquilizer gun.

So here’s a Vladimir Putin fact for you – hopefully, the first of many.

Vladimir Putin CAN take a tiger by the toe. And even if he hollers, Putin never lets him go.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

Yep, one of the world’s major oil powers will be home to a planned city – complete with solar, wind and geothermal energy, and a zero waste policy.

“Masdar City” will be located just outside Abu Dhabi, and is intended to represent the Emirati capital’s commitment to a diversified, post-carbon economy and a transition to renewable energy sources.

But is this for real? Is the UAE – known worldwide for petro dollars, and little else – really committed to new energy technologies, or is this a ploy to show that Big Oil is kinda sorta getting with the program?

If it’s a ploy, it’s an elaborate and pricey one. But then again, it wouldn’t be the first time the Emirates spent millions on a super-sized show.

I’m reserving judgment for now. Here’s promotional video for the city:

I’ve stayed in a few unusual hostels in my day: a couple of lighthouses, and an old prison.

But a hostel in a Boeing 747? Who’d have thought?

That’s just what a Swedish entrepreneur has in mind, and he’s even got an old plane in place near the Arlanda airport in Stockholm. If all goes well, the hostel could be open by December.

Are you a hostelling fan? Check out our lists of the 20 Craziest Party Hostels Around the World and the Top 10 Hostels in Europe.

What’s the strangest hostel you’ve ever visited? Let us know in the comments!

Photo by bhollar (Creative Commons)

Yeah, we didn’t either – until now.

I’m not sure how we missed it the first time around, but hey! What better time to revive some slightly stale gossip about a Russian President and an abnormally flexible young athlete than now, with the Olympic Games having just wrapped up in Bejing?

Alleged ladies’ man Vladimir Putin

So here’s the deal: for some time now, rumors have been flying that former Russian President Putin has been plotting to dump his wife for former Russian Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva.

Kabaeva at work…

Kabaeva won gold in the all-around competition for rhythmic gymnastics in Athens in 2004, and also took a bronze in the same event in 2000. More recently, she became an MP in the Russian Parliament.

…and at play.

Notes the Daily Mail dryly:

The gymnast is one of a number of young and beautiful Russian dancers and athletes who, under Mr Putin’s patronage, have lately become deputies in the Duma – Russia’s lower parliament.

During her gymnastics career, Kabaeva was best known for her extreme flexibility – see for yourself in this clip, and then insert the dirty joke of your choice.

But does it still beat the life of the cubicle jockey?

I’m betting the answer is: Yes!

Sick of the office life? Want more adrenalin (with or without polar bears) in your day?

Be sure to check out the Traveler’s Notebook series on Travel and Adventure Jobs, and how to get ‘em.

Photo courtesy of Abram Plaut at Yo! Japan.

Photo by Mulling It Over

Drought conditions in the Black Rock desert could mean burners are in for an even wilder ride than usual at Burning Man this year.

According to this Wired story, serious dust storms could cause chaos at the week-long festival – but the severity of them will depend on the strength of the winds.

From the story: “…it’s still too early to tell whether the winds will bring the pain to Burning Man. Not that it will matter much to attendees, who can’t do much more than hunker down and wait the storms out.”

“They are sort of a captive audience when the dust storm comes up,” said one researcher of the burners on the playa. “In a more typical situation, you just get the hell off of it.”

Undeterred by dust storms big or small? Headed to Black Rock City this week?

Be sure to check out Matador’s First-Timers Guide to Burning Man.

Yup, in playing cards.

The answer? 140,000.

Check it out:

And it seems the card-stacker in the top video isn’t the only one into teeny tiny models of the Olympic Village.

Here’s the whole thing – right down to the sailing venues – in Lego:

A news crew caught the resulting clip. The thrill-seeker survived and is in hospital – lucky for him, otherwise he’d be a shoo-in for a Darwin Award.

Fay is currently still going strong over central Florida, and could re-emerge in the Atlantic as a Category 1 hurricane sometime Wednesday.

[Via LiveLeak.com]

Would it be too dramatic if I said that ‘Ghost Train to the Eastern Star‘ is the most anticipated travel book of the year?

Maybe. But for me at least, dramatic or not, it’s certainly true.

It’s been nearly 35 years since Theroux’s travel classic, ‘The Great Railway Bazaar‘, was first released – and in those years, I can’t be the only reader to have been electrified by those famous opening lines:

“…I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it…”

In the intervening years, Paul Theroux has covered plenty of other ground, in well-loved books like ‘The Old Patagonian Express‘ and ‘Dark Star Safari‘. But now, with ‘Ghost Train’, he re-traces his steps on that first, famous journey.

I haven’t gotten my hands on the book yet, but this Q&A, courtesy of World Hum, is a great appetite-whetter.

Photo by Sarah Giesecke

Remember those essays you used to write in the first week back at grade school, “What I Did On My Summer Vacation”?

Well now, the Guardian is giving you another shot at those early travel writing efforts of yours, with their Summer Holiday Travel Writing Competition.

Essays should be 500 words, and fit within one of the five categories. Each category includes a different free trip as a prize, with destinations as diverse as Syria, New Zealand and New York.

Winning essays – along with some runner-ups – will also appear in the Guardian’s travel section, in the August 30 issue.

Hurry! The deadline is Friday, August 22.

You must be a UK resident to enter. Details on categories and more here, the fine print on eligibility, etc, is here.