Tag: Barack Obama
What We Loved This Week: Street Food, Obama’s Inauguration and More
by World Hum | 01.23.09 | 4:42 PM ET
Our contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days.
Frank Bures
I loved my new cookbook, The World of Street Foods: Easy Quick Meals to Cook at Home, which has everything from Tanzanian mango fritters to Thai tom yam to Libyan almond cookies to Mexican hot chocolate. Based I what I know, these recipes look like the real deal.
Jim Benning
Malcolm Gladwell’s hour-long talk on Book TV—you can watch it online here—about the role culture and communication can play in plane crashes. It’s utterly fascinating and changed the way I think about such things. (It’s also, it turns out, quite controversial.) Still, it makes me want to pick up his new book, Outliers: The Story of Success.
Valerie Conners
The inauguration of President Barack Obama, of course! But really, as I’ve tried to absorb the enormity of Tuesday, I’ve been moved by images from around the globe, particularly in this slideshow from Boston.com, which have offered such great perspective on how this moment has affected people well beyond U.S. borders.
Michael Yessis
Going to the National Mall and watching the inauguration. So, so cold out, but an overwhelming, beautiful experience.
Julia Ross
Of the many high points this week, I loved that Obama hightailed it over to the State Department on day two in office, bucked up our diplomats, and broke out his Indonesian. A global president = priceless.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzItalian vs. I-talian vs. New Yorkese
by David Farley | 01.23.09 | 9:47 AM ET
Missy Robbins, the new chef at the posh New York City eatery A Voce, was relatively unknown to the New York City fooderati. That is, until Barack Obama came along. Robbins was the chef at Chicago’s Spiaggia restaurant. Like A Voce, Spiaggia serves up lauded Italian cuisine in a chic setting. And Obama was a regular, thanks, apparently, to Chef Robbins’ wood-fired scallops, among other menu items. With the circus surrounding the Inauguration, I decided to dine at A Voce a few days ago, hoping I’d get a chance to taste what kept Obama coming back to Spiaggia again and again (he was just there last month, in fact).
Barack Obama and the White House Shaka
by Pam Mandel | 01.21.09 | 3:12 PM ET
REUTERS/Larry Downing Maybe you caught it. Our new president, Barack Hussein Obama—and his little daughter, Sasha—threw the “shaka” at the Punahou School Marching Band during the inauguration parade. If you’ve driven in Hawaii, you’ve seen the shaka more than once—when you let the guy merge in front of you or stopped to let someone cross the street to the beach. Wikipedia has the most consistent origin story for the greeting which means, depending on context: it’s cool, hang loose, right on ...
One theory according to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, prevailing local lore credited the gesture to Kalili Hamana of Laie, who lost the three middle fingers of his right hand while working at the Kahuku Sugar Mill. Hamana was then shifted to guarding the sugar train, and his all-clear wave of thumb and pinkie is said to have evolved over the years into the “shaka.”
I can’t help but wonder what other signs of island culture the 44th president is going to bring to Capitol Hill.
Times Square, New York City
by World Hum | 01.21.09 | 9:44 AM ET
Photo by Frank Murray A small crowd squeezed onto a median in Times Square to watch the inauguration ceremony for President Barack Obama projected on the large screens above the streets.
Aloha, Washington-Style
by Pam Mandel | 01.20.09 | 1:58 PM ET
It’s way too late now to get a ticket to the Hawaii Inaugural Ball, but if you’re looking to find some of the island spirit while you’re in D.C. today, National Geographic Traveler has the lowdown on Where the Hawaiians Hang Out. You might still be able to get in to the luau at the Hotel Monaco, just two blocks from the inauguration. Attire? “Aloha Formal,” of course.
Travel as History
by World Hum | 01.20.09 | 1:49 PM ET
REUTERS/Mike Segar The helicopter carrying former U.S. President George W. Bush leaves the U.S. Capitol following the inauguration of President Barack Obama in Washington. REUTERS/Mike Segar
Obama and the Departure Seen ‘Round the World
by Jim Benning | 01.20.09 | 1:00 PM ET
REUTERS/Mike Segar I wouldn’t have anticipated it, but for me, the most powerful moment of today’s inaugural events didn’t come during the swearing-in ceremony or President Obama’s speech. It came at the end: the moment former President Bush boarded the helicopter near the Capitol and departed, his chopper moving away from the seat of power, becoming ever smaller as it receded into the distance. We experience departures all the time, but few so symbolic for so many people around the world. What a sight. Travel as history.
The Traveler’s Guide to Barack Obama
by Michael Yessis | 01.20.09 | 8:39 AM ET
The next president of the United States is a traveler, and we love him for it. We first wrote about Obama on April 6, 2005, in a post about Bernard-Henri Lévy and Alexis de Tocqueville. We’ve been writing about him ever since. In honor of his inauguration, here are 21 of our favorite Obama-related posts from the World Hum archives.
- Streets of the World: Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
- President Obama’s ‘Green’ Inauguration?
- With Obama as President, Will Americans Get a Warmer Reception Overseas?
- D.C.‘s Obama Souvenir Trail: Good, Bad and Ugly
- Obama Tourism: Where to Go to Trace His Roots?
- Will Barack Obama Bring Buzz to the Hawaiian Plate Lunch?
- Chicago Is the New ... Crawford?
- President-Elect Obama and the Future of Canadian Flag Pin Sales
- Kenya to Obama Tourists: Bring it on!
- Videos: Venice Gondoliers, Mariachis and Bollywood for Barack Obama
- Barack Obama and ‘The American Wanderer’
- Hawaii: Too ‘Foreign’ and ‘Exotic’ for a Presidential Vacation?
- Obama, McCain and the Politics of a Vacation
- Obama’s Transatlantic Travels: Beatles-esque?
- What Does Obama’s Nomination Mean for American Travelers?
- Paul Theroux on Why He Likes Obama
- A Journey to Remote Kenya to Meet Granny Obama
- How Barack Obama Just Might Improve Your Vacation
- Air Travelers For Barack Obama!
- The 2008 U.S. Presidential Candidates Travel Scorecard
- Following Tocqueville
World Hum will be on the Mall in Washington, D.C., today for Obama’s inauguration. Follow us via Twitter.
Morning Links: Obama’s Places, Poe’s 200th Birthday and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.20.09 | 8:06 AM ET
- Barack Obama’s places: Six writers on six places the new president lived.
- Another Onion gem: ‘United Flight Crew Hits up Passengers for Gas Money’
- Modern Drunkard’s bars you won’t be going back to anytime soon.
- US Airways Flight 1549: A New York tourist attraction?
- JetBlue has added a few flights between Pittsburgh and Tampa to accommodate Steelers fans flying to the Super Bowl.
- Photos: Behind the scenes of the Tube in London.
- Happy 200th birthday, Edgar Allen Poe. Here’s where to go in five cities that claim his legacy.
- What’s it worth if you’re mauled by a javelina? A Dutch tourist believes $400,000.
Got a suggestion? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) your link.
Streets of the World: Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
by Michael Yessis | 01.17.09 | 5:08 PM ET
Photo by Michael Yessis. Michael Yessis captures some of the sights on Barack Obama's inauguration parade route.
See the full photo slideshow »
What We Loved This Week: Washington, D.C.‘s Inaugural Spirit, Dinosaurs and More
by World Hum | 01.16.09 | 6:42 PM ET
Photo by Michael Yessis. Our contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days.
Michael Yessis
I spent a frigid morning in Washington, D.C., walking up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. I brought my camera and stayed warm enough to snap some shots before the masses fill the bleachers lining the street. More images to come tomorrow in a slideshow.
Jenna Schnuer
While procrastinating this week, I became obsessed with this photo gallery of close-up images of sand from the book, A Grain of Sand. From now on, shell-collecting is out. I’m toting sand home. Then I’ll just need to pick up a high-powered microscope. I guess I’ll buy the book and stick with the shells.
President Obama’s ‘Green’ Inauguration?
by Joanna Kakissis | 01.16.09 | 1:10 PM ET
Photo by tifotter (Creative Commons). Depends on what “green”—that “it” word with the elastic definition—means. The event will no doubt leave a giant carbon footprint, since there will be lots of flying and driving to get the estimated four million people expected to attend the 44th president’s swearing-in to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20. But if green means less wasteful, then those organizing the Inauguration of Barack Obama and veep Joe Biden are taking a few thoughtful and symbolic steps. For one, Obama will be the first president in history to take the oath of office on a carpet made out of recycled material. The Inauguration committee has also recruited 6,000 volunteers to gather recycling along the National Mall and parade route, is offering electronic versions of media guides (less printing), and even plans to gather the manure from the event’s horses for a nearby farm.
Eat Like Abe Lincoln. Sort of.
by David Farley | 01.16.09 | 12:02 PM ET
Barack Obama’s taste in food has gotten a fair amount of attention in the last year: when it came out that he likes arugula, the anti-intellectuals of the country wrinkled their collective noses (and then wondered what the hell arugula was). And a just-surfaced video showed him waxing about no-frills Southern food. Then there was all the hubbub about whether or not he was going to tell White House chef, Cristeta Comerford, to go pack her knives, replacing the Filipino-born, Vienna-trained top toque of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with a big name all-organic locavore of a chef.
Now comes word that the Inauguration lunch is going to be Lincoln-themed: the 44th president has been reading the 16th president’s writings of late, and he’s even going to be sworn in on the Bible that Lincoln used at his Inauguration, so why not ape his food choices, too? But WWLE (What would Linoln eat), you ask?
With Obama as President, Will Americans Get a Warmer Reception Overseas?
by Rolf Potts | 01.16.09 | 10:07 AM ET
Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel and the world
Morning Links: A New Way to See the Prado, Cuban Tourism and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.14.09 | 8:00 AM ET
El Tres De Mayo by Goya (via Wikipedia) - An American in Spain writes about studying Euskera, the “clearest sign of Basque identity.”
- Greenpeace buys land in effort to halt a third runway at Heathrow. It’s now the prime minister’s move.
- Here’s an interesting project: Masterpieces from the Prado on Google Earth.
- Jonathan Raban on the best presidential writers. He notes some of the travel bits of Barack Obama’s “Dreams From My Father.”
- Cuba reported huge tourism numbers in 2008. It could grow if Obama implements the policy outlined by Hillary Clinton.
- A steady flow of flights from Europe—and “tightened restrictions in Thailand and elsewhere in Asia”—are fueling sex tourism in Mombasa, Kenya.
- A couple of long-term travelers share ten lessons of the road. No. 2: Smile.
- The BBC offers some tips on landing that best job in the world.
- Lawlessness reigns at San Diego’s skate parks. Given the city’s financial shape, officials decided not to staff them. Skateboarders have flocked to the parks for the “[f]reedom to smoke while they skate, drink beer, bring dogs, ride minibikes amid the skateboards and scrawl graffiti.”
Got a suggestion? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) your link.
What We Loved This Week: Barack Obama, George W. Bush and More
by World Hum | 01.09.09 | 5:16 PM ET
Photo by Micah Clark Eva Holland
Sleigh rides. I went on my first one in years this week, and while we weren’t exactly dashing through the snow (pictured), I really enjoyed the quiet, laid-back ride—and the cup of hot chocolate by the fire, afterward, too.
Sophia Dembling
I’ve met the the Mayor of Lajitas, Texas, Henry the beer-drinking goat. Now I want to meet Lou, the lifesaving mule in McMinnville, Tennessee. Sometimes the most interesting people you meet in your travels are not people at all.
Valerie Conners
Reading Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara. The book acts as a guide through ancient Celtic teachings, tales and spirituality. I spent a great deal of time in Ireland many years ago, and reading O’Donohue has unearthed old, dreamy memories of looming stone castles, craggy coasts and foamy pints of Guinness.
Jim Benning
Trucker Steve. I just stumbled across his videos on YouTube. Check out Steve in his cab holding forth on proper trucker nutrition:
Terry Ward
Marveling at Florida’s non-human snowbirds. The lakes near my house in downtown Orlando are barely larger than retention ponds, and they’re filling with wintering birds—ibis, moorhens, night herons. It’s amazing to watch Everglades-esque antics—like anhingas struggling to get fish off their needle-like beaks and down their gullets—with the city’s skyscrapers as a backdrop.
Joanna Kakissis
During my holiday vacation in Greece, I spent a few days listening to my cousins clinking triangles and practicing their renditions of the “calanda”—or carols. They sing versions for Christmas and New Year, and get money for their crooning. (Growing up in North Dakota, I missed out on this.) Here’s a taste of calanda cuteness.
Jenna Schnuer
While Flyover America took off on World Hum this week, I’m in, what, week eleven of being home? Sheesh. I need to get on a plane. Soon. But, through the stories at The Moth’s GrandSLAM, I did travel to several places in Europe; Phoenix; and Poe Cottage in the Bronx.
David Farley
I loved the video that surfaced this week of Barack Obama on a Chicago cable access food show in 2001 waxing about the Southern dishes at a restaurant called the Dixie Kitchen. It’s been said to the point of numbness now, but after eight years of an anti-intellectual square in the White House, I still get giddy when I hear Obama speaking intelligently about things.
Eli Ellison
George W. Bush. Love is perhaps too strong an emotion to feel for a man who should be thrown in jail come Jan. 20. But this week I begrudgingly give props to the outgoing prez for creating three new Pacific Ocean national monuments. I may never visit the atolls, tiny islands or pristine reefs that have been spared Dick Cheney’s seafloor mining drill bit, but it’s good to know they’re protected.
Michael Yessis
Tipicos El Encanto, a Mexican restaurant in Gaithersburg, Maryland. I was looking for a new, cheap lunch place near home, and I found one through the Chowhound boards. Tipicos serves the best tacos I’ve had in the Washington, D.C., area.
Bill Belleville
My friend Jen Chase told me about the progress of a musical she’s writing devoted to the contact between the early French colonists to Florida in 1564 and the native Timucua. She’d consulted a dictionary of the Timucuan language, and was using long-gone words of those Indians to describe symbolism in a dream she conjured for the play. French explorer Laudonnière returned to life, and birds and animals with Timucuan names again roamed the landscape. I thought, geez, what a wondrous gift to give to the memory of the original European visitors and “earth people” here who befriended them.
For Inauguration Travelers, Saner Options
by Julia Ross | 01.08.09 | 4:22 PM ET
As a Washington, DC, native, I’ve attended my share of inauguration ceremonies, usually braving a bitter cold to catch a fleeting view of the proceedings. My earliest inaugural memory dates to Jimmy Carter’s swearing-in in 1977. Despite my parents’ determination that I witness history, all I remember are the reams of red-white-and-blue bunting draped across the Capitol and a very distant Rosalynn Carter standing next to her husband in a blue coat.
This time around, I’m opting out. Today’s Washington Post warns of up to 3 million visitors on January 20, and I’d prefer to avoid the chaos. For inauguration travelers who are of like mind, the Washington Post’s Inauguration Watch blog plans to post a listing of venues that will screen the event live. I’ve already stumbled across one that might tempt me off the couch: the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland, will show a big-screen broadcast beginning at 10 a.m., free of charge. Access to popcorn and no metal detectors: hard to beat.
The Year in Eating
by David Farley | 12.23.08 | 4:44 PM ET
Food experts are rolling out their predictions for 2009 and they’re really going out on a limb forecasting, for example, that recession specials are going to be huge. Here’s what we think about eating in 2009: there will be no food because there will be no restaurants because no one will have much money to eat anything. Which will then make things that were previously unappetizing, very edible. (Yes, we’re looking at you dog!) Really, though, rather than look forward—after all, the future of eating doesn’t look so pink in the middle right now—let’s take a breather from all this fortunetelling and glance backwards to better times. This was the year of both Greek yogurt and mixologists. It was the year that Korean cuisine pissed all over Chinese food (Chinese will make a huge comeback in 2010, we think). And it was another great year for David Chang. But here are a few things we’d like to dwell on:
D.C.’s Obama Souvenir Trail: Good, Bad and Ugly
by Julia Ross | 12.22.08 | 1:35 PM ET
Photo by Julia Ross. There’s nothing like a presidential inauguration to stoke Washington’s entrepreneurial spirit. With the big event less than a month away, Obama souvenirs are multiplying like “real Americans” at a Sarah Palin rally. I’m keeping an eye out for particularly egregious examples, but here’s a snapshot of what I’ve seen around town thus far:
Morning Links: Jellyfish Gone Wild, Sedaris and More
by Michael Yessis | 12.15.08 | 8:35 AM ET
Catch up on links from our redesign break:
- Brave New Traveler lists The 6 Characters You’ll Meet At Every Expat Bar.
- Recession travel: Trade depressed stock for Caribbean resort stays.
- TSA critic Jeffrey Goldberg sat for an interview with Stephen Colbert.