Morning Links: State Department Recommendations, Guano Seen From Space and More

• The State Department has just updated its list of no-go countries, and several popular tourist spots—among them, Nepal, Colombia, Kenya and Israel—made the cut. Arthur Frommer has a critique.
• Ten new emperor penguin colonies have been located in Antarctica—and all thanks to patches of “excrement-stained ice that are so large they are visible from space.”
• Here’s a shrinking planet story for you: Meet Alfonso Ramirez, the Mexican immigrant who is Glendale, California’s hookah master.
• One of the stars from the entrance to Coney Island’s Astroland has been donated to the Smithsonian—it will be on display in the National Air and Space Museum.
• Travel writer Alain de Botton notes the absence of fiction devoted to our modern working lives, and calls for “an ambitious new literature of the office.”
• In an eerily timed article, Esquire looks at two new memoirs from plane crash survivors.
• Like us, Robert Reid is sick of that s-cation word. He offers 19 alternative -cation formulations. My favorite? The Kevin Bacation.
• Over at Reason Online, Josie Appleton argues that pointless regulations are ruining British pub life.

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