Travel Blog: News and Briefs
‘Dancing’ Matt Harding: The Commercial Angle Remains ‘a Bit of a Mystery’
by Michael Yessis | 07.09.08 | 12:07 PM ET
Advertising Age takes a look at the Matt Harding “Dancing” phenomenon through the lens of the video’s sponsor, Stride gum. As the New York Times noted the other day, “in this era of shameless commercial tie-ins, Mr. Harding is not obliged to wear a Stride T-shirt or deliver a little pitch for the product. Exactly what connection the company sees between gum and a guy dancing, but not chewing, remains a bit of a mystery.”
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Long Descent: US Airways to Cut Movies on Domestic Flights
by Michael Yessis | 07.09.08 | 11:47 AM ET
The airline says few people are wiling to shell out $5 for headsets anymore. No surprise there. Eliminating in-flight movies will save the airline $10 million a year. Among the reasons why: Just removing the player systems, which, according to Bloomberg News, weigh about 500 pounds, will help save fuel. (via Today in the Sky)
Related on World Hum:
* The Long Descent: US Airways to Charge $2 for Soft Drinks
Youngtown: Neil Young’s Hometown Gets Its Own Rock Museum
by Eva Holland | 07.09.08 | 10:29 AM ET
It’s been a busy season for rock ‘n’ roll museum openings. First we noted the debut of the Woodstock Museum, and now the National Post brings us this article about the new Youngtown Rock & Roll Museum in Omemee, Ontario—Neil Young’s childhood home. Omemee is about 80 miles northeast of Toronto, and it helped to inspire the “town in north Ontario / with dream comfort memory to spare” that Young sings about in “Helpless.” Here’s video, also featuring The Band and Joni Mitchell:
FDA Slaps Warning on Cipro
by Elyse Franko | 07.09.08 | 10:25 AM ET
This goes for all of you who rely on Cipro to eradicate the nasty stomach bugs you pick up from undercooked meat in foreign countries: The Food and Drug Administration has ordered drug companies to add a black-box warning, the agency’s strongest warning, to Cipro and other antibiotics due to risk of tendonitis and tendon rupture. If you want the basics in language that you might actually understand, read the report at CNN.
Related On World Hum:
* Tall, Short Passengers at Greater Risk for Thrombosis
Photo by blmurch via Flickr, (Creative Commons)
A Danish Isle Weans Itself From Fossil Fuels—and Flourishes
by Joanna Kakissis | 07.09.08 | 9:33 AM ET
Spam Conquers the World (Sort of)
by Joanna Kakissis | 07.08.08 | 11:48 AM ET
Spamburgers, Spam tacos and Spambalaya—the canned pork loaf everyone loves to hate is leaving its indelible taste on dishes around the globe. In Spam-loving Hawaii, Japanese-American chef Muriel Miura has a new cookbook, “Hawaii Cooks With Spam,” which offers recipes for Spam sushi, Spam pancit and Korean rice with Spam. Um, yum? If yes, then try Spam in ratatouille pie, curried rice, lasagna and even Heidelberg casserole.
The Old West’s ‘Non-Renewable Resources’ In Peril
by Eva Holland | 07.08.08 | 10:47 AM ET
When it comes to the preservation of historic landmarks, it’s often “the grand, the notable and the notorious” that get the attention—but sometimes it’s the structures built for everyday use that tell us the most about history, the AP observes. According to this story, in places like Utah and Colorado, it’s those everyday buildings—the remnants of early frontier settlements—that are slowly disappearing. “You could tell this was a place where they were doing everything they could to make it,” one archaeologist said of a historic homestead near Salt Lake City. “That’s the story of the American West for me right there.”
The All-American Train Ride?
by Eva Holland | 07.08.08 | 10:45 AM ET
Doesn’t have the same ring to it as “the all-American road trip,” does it? With the possible exception of the (nearly lost) art of freight train hopping, riding the rails in America has never been mythologized the way some other modes of travel have. Guardian writer Ruth Fowler recently rode the train from New York to Los Angeles, and in this essay she argues that we’ve got it all wrong: Amtrak really is the way to go, and not just because of the high price of gas.
Michael Palin: Travel Makes One ‘Less Afraid of the World’
by Julia Ross | 07.08.08 | 10:40 AM ET
At lunch with the Financial Times, the amiable BBC travel host chats up a Moldovan waitress, expounds on his love of atlases and tells tales about filming on the Pakistan border.
U.S. Airports are Hotbeds for Laptop Loss
by Elyse Franko | 07.07.08 | 3:29 PM ET
Flustered flyers leave behind an astounding 12,000 laptops in U.S. airports each week, according to a recent study (pdf) sponsored by Dell. But here’s the really scary part: The Economist’s Gulliver blog reports that less than 35 percent of those lost laptops are returned to their owners.
World’s Worst Tourists?
by Julia Ross | 07.07.08 | 1:55 PM ET
Once again, it’s the French, Indians and Chinese, according to an annual survey of hoteliers by the French version of Expedia. The latest poll of 4,000 hotel employees in Europe and North America calls the French out for being impolite and unwilling to communicate in foreign languages, deems the Japanese most liked and declares the Italians best dressed.
Berlin Embassy: Critics Not Impressed
by Julia Ross | 07.07.08 | 11:27 AM ET
German architectural critics are having a field day with the new U.S. embassy in Berlin (pictured), skewering the design as “banal” and “monstrous.” It’s an unfair rap, says University of Maryland architectural historian Jane Loeffler.
Slate’s ‘Guide to the Hitchhiker’s Galaxy’
by Michael Yessis | 07.07.08 | 11:19 AM ET
World Hum received a shout out this weekend as a “repository of fine travel writing” in June Thomas’s comprehensive look at the “best books, articles, and Web sites for planning your vacation or living vicariously through others.”
The Making of an ‘It’ Music City
by Eva Holland | 07.07.08 | 11:03 AM ET
There’s an interesting tidbit in this Maisonneuve article about the second wave of Montreal indie rock, explaining how the music industry’s spin machine creates the latest “it” city. “Here’s how ‘it’ works,” Michael Chadwick writes. “Every three or four years, the music press comes to a consensus on a city. Magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin assemble a few bands from that city and classify them to a rigid ‘sound,’ no matter how accurate that designation is. The press, in conjunction with the labels, market them ad nauseum until there is an inevitable backlash, at which point they report on the backlash. They then move on to a new city. Rinse, repeat.”
Jack White’s Poem for Detroit
by Michael Yessis | 07.07.08 | 10:33 AM ET
The singer and songwriter for The White Stripes penned Courageous Dream’s Concern in an effort to make clear that he bears no malice toward his hometown and to express the “Detroit that is in my heart. The home that encapsulates and envelops those who are truly blessed with the experience of living within its boundaries.” The Detroit Free Press has the exclusive. Lyrically, it’s no “My Doorbell” (listen below), and that’s a good thing.
