Travel Blog
‘Great Orlando Wheel’ Announced With Hypnotic, Over-the-Top Promotional Video
by Michael Yessis | 07.01.08 | 12:03 PM ET
Oh, the hyperbole! I’ll bet the first minute and a half of this clip offers more entertainment than the 400-foot-tall Great Orlando Wheel ever will when it opens in central Florida in 2010. See for yourself.
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Five-Week Web Workout Plan for the Beijing Olympics
by Jim Benning | 07.01.08 | 11:48 AM ET
UC Irvine history professor and World Hum contributor Jeffrey Wasserstrom is determined to pump you up—intellectually speaking—for the Olympic Games. Last November, we noted his suggested reading list, which included no fewer than 12 books.
An Epic Account of the Naming of ‘Just About Everything in America’
by Michael Yessis | 07.01.08 | 11:23 AM ET
It’s all in Names on the Land, George Rippey Stewart’s soon-to-be-reissued 1945 book about how America’s “creeks and valleys, rivers and mountains, streets and schools, towns and cities, counties and states, the country and continent itself” were named. In Slate, Matt Weiland calls the tome “a masterpiece of American writing and American history.” Among the tidbits he highlights: “The original name proposed for the state that became New Jersey was Albania.”
Related on World Hum:
* What’s in a Place Name?
* Esquire Complains About Hotel Bar Names
Is Chinglish Just English ‘Happily Leading an Alternative Lifestyle Without Us?’
by Michael Yessis | 07.01.08 | 10:57 AM ET
Consider the numbers: By 2020, it’s estimated that 2 billion people worldwide will be learning or using English, yet only 15 percent of them will be native speakers. Thus, according to an intriguing story by Michael Erard in Wired, English will evolve, with pieces of Chinglish, Singlish and other mash-ups native speakers often poke fun at comprising large chunks of the world’s most dominant language. The fracturing isn’t unique. For instance, see: Latin.
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Busker Stunt Had Already Been Done
by Michael Yessis | 06.30.08 | 3:51 PM ET
In Chicago. In 1930. Gene Weingarten’s story, which chronicled what happened when “internationally acclaimed virtuoso” Joshua Bell busked for 43 minutes at the L’Enfant Plaza metro station in Washington D.C., unknowingly covered ground already trod in the Windy City.
Denver Group Wants You to Get High Before You Fly
by Elyse Franko | 06.30.08 | 3:43 PM ET
Got pre-flight jitters? Just light up a joint in the airport and you’ll be ready to go. That’s what a Colorado-based group called SAFER (Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation) is proposing, according to The Economist’s Gulliver blog. The folks at SAFER are advocating the creation of a toking lounge at Denver International Airport, pointing to recent cases of alleged alcohol-induced passenger belligerence as part of their argument. In the unlikely event that SAFER gets its way, there will be a lot more people misplacing their boarding passes during layovers in Denver.
Related on World Hum:
* Nine Great Ways to Get Thrown Off an Airplane
Please Don’t Hack the Earlobes Off Easter Island’s Big Stone Heads
by Jim Benning | 06.30.08 | 12:46 PM ET
Seriously. Archaeologists and others are worried that surging tourism on Easter Island is bad news for the island’s iconic Moais. We noted that, in March, a Finnish tourist cut an earlobe off one head. It turns out that’s but one of many threats to the big stone heads. “More tourism, more deterioration. More visitors, more loss,” an archaeologist tells the AP.
‘There Are no New Ways to Save Money While Traveling’
by Jim Benning | 06.30.08 | 11:42 AM ET
“None. Every conceivable idea has now been floated,” writes Tom Swick. So what are budget-minded travelers to do? Make money while traveling. He offers a number of, uh, possible approaches.
‘Good Teachers Make for Good Journeys’
by Julia Ross | 06.30.08 | 10:53 AM ET
In over 30 years as a foreign correspondent, the New York Times’ Howard French has struggled with his fair share of language lessons, taking on everything from Haitian Creole to Japanese. He recalls these sometimes exhausting attempts in his last “Letter from China,” written as he prepares to leave his posting in Shanghai to return to the U.S.
World Hum’s Most Read: June 21-27
by World Hum | 06.27.08 | 2:30 PM ET
Our five most popular features and blog posts this week:
1) How to: Use a Squat Toilet
2) Slumming in Rio
3) 10 Wanderlust-Inducing Summer Concerts (pictured)
4) One Man’s Odyssey into ‘Eat, Pray, Love’
5) How to: Break Bread and Brie in France
What We Loved This Week: NYC Waterfalls, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Euro 2008
by World Hum | 06.27.08 | 2:19 PM ET
Frank Bures
I was passing through the Brussels airport this week when I saw a copy of Dave Eggers’ book What is the What? It’s the story of Valentino Achak Deng’s life in Sudan’s civil war and beyond. I’d been avoiding this book, partly because a friend told me it was boring. But on the recommendation of Doreen Baingana, who I met in Entebbe, I picked up a copy, started reading and haven’t stopped. I really didn’t want to like this book, because it seemed like one of those quasi-celebrity-vanity-charity projects that I hate. But I have to admit, I was wrong. It’s wonderful, transporting and brilliant.
Windsurfing in Jesus’s Footsteps
by Jim Benning | 06.27.08 | 12:22 PM ET
World Hum columnist Rolf Potts recalls shredding the Sea of Galilee. Also in Forbes.com’ special section on water, World Hum contributor Jason Anthony explores Antarctica’s ice, and Elisabeth Eaves argues that sharks have more to fear from people than people have to fear from sharks. “Forty-four separate species of sharks and skates—among sharks’ closest evolutionary relative—are either endangered or critically endangered,” she writes.
Italy Resists Diversity, Despite Massive Wave of Foreigners
by Joanna Kakissis | 06.27.08 | 12:17 PM ET
European attitudes toward immigrants are hardening, especially in Italy, where the government has just proposed the most restrictive anti-immigrant law in Europe. There’s plenty of scaremongering—Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has suggested that Italians will end up like Native Americans on reservations if immigrants have their way—and the tactic seems to working, writes Michael Kimmelman in The New York Times.
The Battle Against Porn in Hotels
by Eva Holland | 06.27.08 | 11:50 AM ET
The Smart Set reveals the war various religious groups are waging against pay-per-view porn in big-name hotel chains—and why porn’s days in hotels may be numbered. “Recently,” writes Greg Beato, “representatives from Focus on the Family, Citizens for Community Values, and assorted other professional American finger-waggers met with the top brass at Marriott International in an effort to convince the hotel chain to banish porn from its properties.”
Ice at North Pole May Disappear by This Summer
by Michael Yessis | 06.27.08 | 11:15 AM ET
Travel through a viable Northwest Passage gets closer by the day. From the Independent: “The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic—and worrying—examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.”
Related on World Hum:
* The Implications of a Viable Northwest Passage
* Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet
