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 30 Jun 2010 @ 14:51, by jhs. Travel
After three days full of soccer, heaps to eat, and lots of heated discussion, our sweet family came back from my mother-in-law who resides in a safe distance of more than 120km from the Grove. We survived the welcome-back kisses of our Rottweiler and Shepherd with only one blue eye and two torn shirts and I'm back in business again. Thanks to Mortimer, I got reminded of the grim prospects of the 'real' world, the oil still flushing out in the Gulf of Mexico, a fact much worse than Mexico's loss against Argentina on the soccer field.
The parallels are frightening: as on the soccer field, the players are running around like crazed chickens and nobody is stepping up to take a decisive action. TIME IS RUNNING OUT and and the rules are not as clear as to whether Nature will grant us humans an overtime or not.
Like in this worldcup what is lacking is 'der Wille zum Tor!", the 'Will to score', the will to take a concrete action to bring about a decision.
We're not talking just about good intentions here, not about wishful thinking or or public declarations. This 'field of dreams' is real, and large parts of it are under water now, water mixed with oil and hitherto unknown chemicals.
Is it simply the inability of the players on the field to put an end to the drama or is there a hidden strategy behind this? Some spectators begin to ask themselves who may be the coach behind the team of global players, and if those are perhaps just puppets on a string. As I mentioned in the 'worldcup for dummies', Italy's coach coaxed the downfall of his own team by ignoring the most simple archetypal strategies [link] of the soccer game until the last 20 minutes of the knock-out game. With only a few minutes more his late wisdom would have born fruits, but alas, time was running out and the acting world champion joined the fate of vice-champion France: going home early.
Unlike in the worldcup, though, mankind does not have a place to retreat to and rest: our playing field is Earth and it is the only field of dreams we have for now.
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6 Jan 2008 @ 15:34, by planeta. Travel
ANNOUNCEMENT
Planeta.com announces that Tourism and Climate Change is one of our spotlight topics for 2008. Participants will share research, personal stories, photos and videos about the environmental impact of transportation, climate change research and the slow travel movement.
Tourism depends on the natural environment and climate changes are making a substantial impact on travel. Likewise, travel contributes to carbon emissions that alter the global environment. The relationships among tourism, climate change, sustainability, biodiversity and economic development are complex and until recently have not been studied in depth.
Tourism and Climate Change http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/climatechange.html More >
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 5 Dec 2007 @ 17:25, by koravya. Travel
"Le Bateau-Lavoir was a squalid block of buildings in Montmartre, Paris situated at 13 Rue Ravignan (Place Emile Goudeau). The place is famous because at the turn of the 20th century a group of outstanding artists lived and rented artistic studios there. . . ."
[link]
Just another day grading final research papers. Variations in the English language that one would be perplexed to imagine. Possibilities for meaning through series upon series of interconnected semantic associations; what more can one say? Create a well-rounded little essay from opening through close to a development that explains in so many words what exactly you are talking about. More >
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27 May 2007 @ 01:49, by ming. Travel
Wow, I wish it really were like that when I lived in Los Angeles. Would have made the city feel completely different. Here you find the bigger version. If you're not familar with L.A., it is not like that at all, it is an elaborate imaginary exercise. L.A. does have a subway, but for most people in the city, it isn't very relevant, because most people live nowhere near a station. I've never even taken a ride on it. I wanted to, I meant to, but strangely didn't get around to it, because there was nothing really useful I could do with it, and it would take a bit of travel to get to a station. Now, if it had been like on the map, I can right away see how I would have used it. For years I commuted from close to where that Verdugo Rd station would be to 7th street in downtown. Took about an hour to get home on the bumper to bumper freeway.
The funny thing is that Los Angeles used to have an electrical rail system very much like the imaginary one. Or, rather, that's not funny at all, it is rather tragic. Take a look at the Red Car line that existed in the early 1900s. You can read its story on Wikipedia. There were various reasons for its demise, including that it didn't work very well and was in need of serious modernization. But a greatly contributing factor was the well-known conspiracy between General Motors and Standard Oil, forming a company that bought up rail lines in order to shut them down and replace them with cars and busses.
(Via BoingBoing)
Now, looking at the current Mass Transit System for Los Angeles, I notice there are new developments since I moved. Like a fast bus line through San Fernando Valley where I lived. But the Map is still very unimpressive compared with cities that have a good mass transit system. Somehow it doesn't feel like a very relevant system. And, wow, while I lived in L.A. I was under the firm belief that there was a subway from downtown to Santa Monica along Wilshire, and I just realize that it never was finished. Strange. I clearly remember when they were working on it, and there's even been movies about it, and it doesn't even exist. Some polical maneuvering held up the funding for it and it was never completed. More >
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4 Apr 2007 @ 18:54, by swanny. Travel
04 04 2007
Canada
Wednesday
THE CROSSING
I was intrigued by the word "the crossing" today for some reason.
Some how it had a certain ring to it and yet I couldn't quite place and then
ah yes I remembered my "Train Ride" in spring of 1977 accross Canada from London Ont
to Edmonton... Alberta
Ah yes it was a two or 3 day journey on the train and we pulled out and shared our
guitars and played and sang and watched the scenery unfold as we trekked slowly accross the "great lands."
A sense of fellowship soon developed with help of the music and we shared our meger resources, food and stories and the hopes and dreams of us young people returning home from school or just journeying to destinations anew.
Hadn't really realized the impact of it. Meeting people from every part of the country and developing close bonds in such short times and then each of us bidding adue and on to a different path but richer and "changed" perhaps for the meeting and sharing.
All and all though tedious at times a good adventure for a young soul on his own.
But I suppose wits are well advised to be on alert as some goods went missing but still the fond memories outweigh them by far and are still there I see.
ed More >
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27 Mar 2007 @ 12:04, by ming. Travel
A guy named Bob has a couple of pictures from when the A380 came to Los Angeles recently. And he gave this nice overview: The Airbus A380, the largest passenger plane in history, landed at LAX (Los Angeles airport) on March 19 2007. This eight-story-tall (80 feet from bottom to the top of the tail), 1.2-million-pound jet- “Airbus 380”, more than 239 feet long, which can carry 555 passengers and has a 261-foot wingspan, was making its inaugural test flight from the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, France. It carried only 22 crew members, but was full of added instrumentation for the test flight.
An identical A380 (this had about 550 passengers aboard and tested all boarding/flying procedures) landed in New York within minutes of the Los Angeles touchdown. A 380 has two decks.
End of 2007: Singapore Airlines becomes the first carrier to put the A 380 in the air with paying passengers, with about 480 ticket holders; Summer 2009: Lufthansa begin flying the plane with about 549 passengers.
The European made Airbus A 380 produces half the noise of a Boeing 747, mostly because of its state-of-the-art Rolls Royce engine. Its designed to have more than 850 seats in the future if necessary. I see A380s almost every day. They start and land constantly, for testing, and we live next to the incoming flight path. And we know quite a few people who work on it at Airbus. But it is still something new to see it in L.A. Not that this particularly looks more like L.A. than anywhere else.
I ought to feel like Los Angeles was still my hometown too, but somehow I don't. Felt like home when we lived there, and it was even something to be a bit proud of. But every time I landed there in a plane, after having been gone a few weeks, it felt sort of strange. You land into a brown soup of city as far as the eye can see in all directions. And it never felt exactly friendly to arrive in LAX, even if it usually was warm. Long passport check lines, an endless stream of courtesy vans, taxis and police cars, and then out on the wall-to-wall freeways. But after a few days it felt normal again. More >
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 11 Jul 2006 @ 21:50, by b. Travel
Today in Mumbai, India, in the city once called Bombay, trains blew up and hundreds may have been killed. A short few months ago I was living there and saw first hand the contrasts between the Hindu and Muslim's way of life. Hindu's are a happy peoply who love their unity and harmoney.
Muslim women are covered from head to toe and masked. Muslim men for the most part wear distinctive clothes that sets them apart from other Indians. Muslim's lives are dictated to by Koranic rule. All life actions are referenced by one book. There are over 800 million Hindu's and 200 million Muslims in India. In 1948 Muslims were able to chop off part of India and call it Pakistan. Many Muslims emigrated to their new country and Hindu's came back to India.
The real contrast is that Muslims came into India in the form of Arab raiding, migrating, conquering. It was from these Arabs that took over Hindu temples and made mosques of them is how Islam came to India. Muslims who are influenced by Iran Shia are coming in conflict with the native Arab Muslims.
Both sects have a revisionist historical perspective of India that is not shared by the Hindu majority. Thus clashes.
The filthy violent eruption of explosions against innocent passengers on trains today is an example of extremism taken to the final measures by Muslims. These people who did this want to threaten Hindu's into submission to their policies,historical perspective, doctrines and dogma. More over the perpetrators of crime against humanity want to dictate India foreign policy, tax Hindu's and control Hindu religious sites. They also want another part of India broken off to form yet another Muslim country.
It is not going to happen. The trident of Hindu religion is sharp and Hindu's are not afraid to use it. In India there is rule of law. Not Sharia law. I think that the world will see that India has good police and a strong military who will swiftly bring these perpetrators of violence and murder to justice. Can Allah really want to embrace Muslims with the blood of innocents on their hands and in their heart? More >
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 8 Jul 2006 @ 18:09, by judih. Travel
It's a fantastic descent, taking a road from the Negev city of Arad and moving down past signs that tell you how low you go. More >
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 10 May 2006 @ 22:52, by hgoodgame. Travel
What may seem to be a message to turn back is often a test to see just how determined one is to take on a particularly difficult challenge.
This happened to me after moving here to my home; a tree fell across the bottom of the driveway, fortunately I knew someone (my ex) who cut it up and took it away, was coming back from visiting our son when we discovered it and so with a saw from the back of his truck, it was soon dismantled and out of there. (If a tree falls on your driveway and no one is there to hear it, did it really fall? hehe, I can tell you from experience, the answer is YES!) Then another fell into the pool where the water system partially originates, fortunately I'd met a young gardener who'd been helping me with clearing out the thickets, so I hired him take it out of there. Like I said, I get by with a little help from my friends. ;) After a few more hurdles, the path smoothed out. More >
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 25 Apr 2006 @ 11:57, by ashanti. Travel
The problem with not getting round to writing up an experience while it is still recent is that you become tangled with a million things, and tend to lose the potency of immediacy. Ah well. I'm going for stream-of-consciousness here, because if I try and structure it, I'll get bored and not finish it.
I was in Rome in February (God, FEBRUARY?????? Time is speeding up even faster now) for work. My work took me right into the Vatican - not kidding - and that was quite an experience. Which I'm not going to write about. Except to say that it is all very impressive - all the collections of things and so on. Magnificent, is the word. The obligatory tour of St Peters happened, and the sheer opulance of gold and marble and finest polished woods, the Pietra (safely behind glass), the magnificence and quality of the artwork, the sheer CONTRAST with the cheap tacky throw-away trash of 21st century culture was all very overwhelming.
The castles and old buildings everywhere, the Roman Empire Himself, right at my disposal. On the surface, ebullient and friendly Italians, great sense of style, the best expresso in the world, and still vibrant and passionate.
Figured the two highest selling products in Italy are 1) the Holy Spirit (there are more bars, coffee shops, and corner cafes selling alcohol than I have ever seen anywhere) 2) Brake-pads (the traffic is a kalaidoscopic infinite fractal of near-misses, artfully within a centrimetre or so, mobius-strip style).
Loved the energy of the place - again, a sense of an intellectual landscape that I could comfortably adapt to - a sense of tradition, history, a PAST, that while bloody, was at a higher level than what we have now. Definite remnants of a ruthless empire. Definite evidence of more than meets the eye.
I enjoyed it, would like to go back and explore more of Italy - not just Rome. But not yet. South Korea is next, in a while. Do love contrasts...... More >
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