Travel Blog
Is Passenger Security Really Worth the Cost?
by Elyse Franko | 08.01.08 | 9:43 AM ET
Not if the federal air marshal program is involved, say the guys at the Freakonomics blog.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzQ&A With Tom Swick, a Travel Editor Let Go
by Jim Benning | 07.31.08 | 5:03 PM ET
Every week brings more news of layoffs and downsizing in newspaper newsrooms across the United States. This week, one of our favorite travel editors and writers, Tom Swick, learned that his services were no longer desired. For 19 years, Swick edited the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s travel section, publishing an engaging mix of articles, columns and essays. His was among the best travel sections in the country, and Swick was the only newspaper travel editor whose own writing frequently appeared in “The Best American Travel Writing” anthologies. His layoff comes as part of a 20 percent cut in the Sun-Sentinel’s editorial staff. Swick cleared out his desk Tuesday. I chatted with him by phone today.
World Hum: Sorry we’re talking under these circumstances. Were you surprised by the news?
Saying Goodbye Again to the Audio Cassette (and Road Trip Mix Tapes)
by Eva Holland | 07.31.08 | 2:35 PM ET
Wait a minute. We kissed cassette tapes goodbye years ago, didn’t we? The New York Times reports that the once-mighty tape received the final nail in its coffin this week—never mind that most people thought that particular coffin was long since buried—when a major New York publisher released its last audio book in cassette format. Audio books had been the last bastion of the cassette, perhaps in part because the majority of American cars on the road still have built-in tape decks—though obviously, that number declines every year.
Trekking on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Border
by Eva Holland | 07.31.08 | 2:24 PM ET
This week, the Observer’s Howard Marks is the latest travel writer to brave a trip to Afghanistan, for a trek along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier. The most striking thing about his return to the country, 20 years after his last visit? The nonchalance of locals. “There have been great changes since your last visit,” one old acquaintance told him. “So, would you like to buy a gun?”
A Shocking Email From JetBlue
by Jim Benning | 07.31.08 | 11:27 AM ET
The note just landed in my inbox: “Thank you for jetting with JetBlue Airways on flight #185 from Kennedy on July 25, 2008. We apologize that the DIRECTV(r) was inoperable during your flight. As a gesture of apology and goodwill, we have issued each customer on your flight a $15 JetBlue electronic Voucher. ... JetBlue Vouchers are valid for one year and can be applied towards airfare on JetBlue Airways reservations.” Oh, JetBlue, I didn’t know you cared.
Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell: ‘The Same Man’
by Jim Benning | 07.31.08 | 11:13 AM ET
A new book, The Same Man: George Orwell & Evelyn Waugh in Love and War, explores the two writers’ similarities. The New York Sun has a review. Observes Eric Ormsby, “Both men were, in their way, imposters, but they were imposters with a twist: The deliberate ambiguities of their lives sharpened their appetite for the truth.” (Via ALDaily.com)
Related on World Hum:
* Big Brother in Burma
More Affairs To Remember: 10 Favorite Euro-Romance Movies
by Eva Holland | 07.31.08 | 10:55 AM ET
Countless single travelers hope to realize the romance of a foreign fling. Hollywood knows it, offering audiences a wide variety of flicks with a European affair for almost any taste. Eva Holland sifts through the classics, along with a few more recent releases, and offers up her favorites:
1) Before Sunrise
A young American backpacker meets a French girl on a train. Sparks fly, and they both hop off the train for one magical night in Vienna.
R.I.P. Papa Wendo, Father of Congolese Rumba
by Jim Benning | 07.30.08 | 6:03 PM ET
A recent Village Voice story called him “perhaps the most beloved musician that the Democratic Republic of Congo has ever known.” According to the BBC, he died in Kinshasa. He was 82. You can sample his music here—it’s good stuff.
Related on World Hum:
* The Sound of Sunshine
Shteyngart on ‘New Berlin’: It’s ‘Easily Europe’s Coolest Metropolis’
by Michael Yessis | 07.30.08 | 12:29 PM ET
Yet “it’s still okay to be excited by things” there, writes Absurdistan author Gary Shteyngart in a fine story in the latest Travel + Leisure.
Related on World Hum:
* Lou Reed’s ‘Berlin’: Do His Songs Still Resonate in the City That Inspired Them?
* Jan Morris in Berlin: ‘Ooh, That’s Nice!’
Parisians Improving Their Sharing Skills
by Elyse Franko | 07.30.08 | 12:23 PM ET
Though some may deem Paris a backwater, the City of Light is certainly progressive when it comes to implementing clean-energy transportation strategies. After seeing great success in 2007 with Velib, the citywide bikeshare program, the Parisian government is hoping that a new city-sponsored electric carshare program will be another hit.
Related on World Hum:
* Denali National Park Buses Going Hybrid?
Photo by frankh via Flickr. (Creative Commons)
In Japan, Asian Tourists Spending Like Drunken Sailors
by Michael Yessis | 07.30.08 | 12:07 PM ET
The number of travelers from South Korea, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong to Japan has apparently doubled in five years, reflecting a new reality: “[A]s Japan’s economy stalled for the last dozen or so years, rapid development in countries like China and South Korea raised living standards there,” writes Martin Fackler. So they’re using their spending power in Japan to, among other things, “splurge at the nation’s department stores.” Sounds kinda familiar.
Are Americans Intoxicated by ‘Our’ China?
by Michael Yessis | 07.30.08 | 11:31 AM ET
Interesting piece in the Washington Post by novelist Nicole Mones, who argues that the U.S.‘s enchantment with the country’s historical sites and the “mystery of China” has blinded us to the realities of the rising power. “Americans are infatuated with ‘our’ China,” she writes. “We prefer a nostalgic, exotic, vanished land that has little to do with China today.”
Remembering ‘Flight’s First Fatal Trip’
by Michael Yessis | 07.30.08 | 11:03 AM ET
September 17 will mark the 100th anniversary of the first-ever death of an airplane passenger, Thomas E. Selfridge. Orville Wright piloted the plane, and Matthew L. Wald looks back at the tragic flight (pictured) and its legacy. Air travel, as we’ve noted, has become very safe.
Guns and Planes: Et Tu, Jerry Lewis?
by Michael Yessis | 07.30.08 | 10:47 AM ET
The 82-year-old actor, comedian and telethon host is the latest celebrity to have a firearm confiscated at the airport.
Related on World Hum:
* Has Your Favorite Celebrity Tried to Smuggle a Gun Onto a Plane?
* Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport Still ‘Gun-Free Zone.’ For Now.
NASA Celebrates 50 Years In Space
by Eva Holland | 07.30.08 | 10:09 AM ET
As private outfits like Virgin Galactic look ahead this week to the future of commercial space travel, NASA looks back, and celebrates 50 years in existence. Wired has an in-depth essay about the space agency’s history, scientific achievements and cultural impact—most notably, the iconic Cape Canaveral liftoffs of the 1960s, when news anchor Walter Cronkite “made it clear to his audience that they were taking part in something momentous, something that not only represented the flowering of a great technological achievement but stirred the human soul as well.”
