Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Chariots of Rubble
by Joanna Kakissis | 09.21.07 | 6:34 AM ET
Photo by JOVIKA, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
Antiquity trumps Art Deco, at least in Athens, where ancient glory is both identity and economy. Two buildings—a 1930s landmark and a house owned by “Chariots of Fire” theme composer Vangelis Papathanassiou—are scheduled to be razed in order to clear the view of the Parthenon for visitors at the New Acropolis Museum, says the AP. The plan has enraged Athenians who believe Greece spends too much time lingering over its antiquities instead of appreciating (and preserving) its modern treasures. Neighborhood residents and architects have begun a feverish Internet campaign to save both buildings. So far they’ve gotten a lot of attention and e-mail support from all over the world.
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Yahoo! BuzzKate Hanni: ‘The Ralph Nader of the Skies’
by Michael Yessis | 09.20.07 | 6:05 PM ET
Kate Hanni (pictured) is the founder of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights, and she’s so committed to federal legislation in support of air travelers that she quit her job and took out a $200,000 line of credit on the California home she owns with her husband to spearhead the fight, according to a new profile of her by Joe Sharkey for Portfolio.com. She did so after being stuck in an American Airlines plane on the tarmac in Austin, Texas, for nine hours last December in one of several well-publicized stranding incidents.
Mexican Rockers Maná Make Los Angeles Arena History
by Jim Benning | 09.20.07 | 8:19 AM ET
Southwest Airlines to Families: No More Early Boarding
by Jim Benning | 09.19.07 | 4:43 PM ET
Beginning Oct. 2, people traveling with small children will no longer be allowed to pre-board Southwest Airlines flights. It’s all in the name of fairness, the airline says. Reports the Los Angeles Times: “Children under 5, and those traveling with them, won’t be stripped entirely of privilege. If they and their entourage don’t get boarding passes in time to be part of group A, they’ll be allowed to board right after that group, before B and C.” The airline had received complaints about the policy from other travelers. In other news, the airline has apparently reconsidered its pre-flight lecture policy for travelers in short skirts, too.
Related on World Hum:
* AP Editor: Kids on Planes More Controversial Than Hillary Clinton
* When Are Children Old Enough to Travel Abroad?
* Southwest Airlines Veers Into Fashion Controversy—Again
Photo by Ack Ook via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Savoring Those ‘Shining In-Flight Moments’
by Jim Benning | 09.19.07 | 12:00 PM ET
Sure, there are countless reasons to complain about air travel these days—security lines, delays, ridiculous fashion controversies, just to name a few—but what of the pleasures? Thomas Swick reminds us this week of those rare, precious moments when our worries can disappear: “There’s something about the lightheadedness produced by free food, piped-in music, fussing flight attendants and wine at 30,000 feet that makes you susceptible. Especially when it’s added to the relief of finally being airborne and free, at least for a few hours, of all responsibilities. You enter a strange and wonderful stillness, suspended, literally, between earth and heaven, past and future, home and abroad, the deadlines of departure and the confusions of arrival.”
Related on World Hum:
* The ‘Salmon-Thirty-Salmon’ and the Rise of ‘Specialty Aircraft’
* Three Travel Tips: Fly Like a Professional Dancer
Photo by contraption via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Studio 360 Goes On the Road with Penn, Kerouac, Friedlander
by Michael Yessis | 09.19.07 | 8:13 AM ET
Photo by Nrbelex, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
Just when you thought our celebration of the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” was (finally) over, here we go again. Only briefly, though. This week Kurt Andersen‘s excellent radio program Studio 360 featured newlyweds Hillary Frank and Jonathan Menjivar—he had a scribbled-in copy of “On the Road” he’d read when he was 17; she’d never read it—debating the merits of the book and, as the promo says, provoking “a little marital tension in the process.” It’s an interesting look at a book that, as World Hum readers know, has been examined every which way during the last month.
Former Boeing Engineer Questions Safety of 787 Dreamliner
by Michael Yessis | 09.18.07 | 5:47 PM ET
Boeing’s highly touted new 787 Dreamliner isn’t scheduled to carry its first commercial passenger until next year, but it’s already facing tough criticism. A former Boeing engineer who was fired “under disputed circumstances,” according to the Seattle Times, says the 787 Dreamliner’s innovative carbon-fiber composite body may make it unsafe because it “will shatter too easily and burn with toxic fumes” during a crash. Vince Weldon, a 46-year-veteran of Boeing, according to the Times, will air his views tonight on Dan Rather Reports, an HDNet program.
The Eiffel Tower: A View From Underneath (Pig Fat Included)
by Terry Ward | 09.18.07 | 10:27 AM ET
Photo by rayced, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
A story from the always intriguing Time Zones series in the Washington Post gives a view of Paris few tourists see—and from the city’s most iconic landmark, no less. Molly Moore’s foray into the inner workings of the Eiffel Tower, as experienced alongside the head of services for the tower’s operations, one Fabrice Fevai, gives a ground-up view of Gustave Eiffel’s coup de grace. “People enter the Eiffel Tower as though it’s a monument with lots of iron,” Fevai tells Moore, while threading his way through a sea of milling tourists. “But the Eiffel Tower is like a factory—they don’t even realize what’s underneath.”
Vardo, Norway: Life at the Arctic Edge of Europe
by Michael Yessis | 09.17.07 | 12:13 PM ET
Boston Globe writer Tom Haines gave us a hint of what life is like in Vardo, Norway last month, when we caught up with him there for a Where in the World Are You? post. He wrote of thick fog, climate change and pizza with shrimp, green pepper and scallion. His Vardo story for the Globe has now surfaced, and it’s a detailed look at the 700-year-old village “anchored atop a treeless island just off the eastern edge of the mainland” that’s beginning to deal with the changes brought forth by global warming.
Plane Carrying Tourists Crashes in Phuket, Thailand
by Michael Yessis | 09.17.07 | 9:34 AM ET
More than 80 people were killed, including more than 50 foreigners, when an MD-82 operated by the budget airline One-Two-Go crashed Sunday on Phuket, Thailand’s popular resort island. News reports vary on the exact number killed and injured, but many note that it was Thailand’s worst air disaster in a decade.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: It’s Elemental
by Michael Yessis | 09.14.07 | 12:50 PM ET
Where in the World Are You, Joanna Kakissis?
by World Hum | 09.13.07 | 5:53 PM ET
The subject of our latest nearly up-to-the-minute interview with a traveler somewhere in the world: Joanna Kakissis, a new contributor to the World Hum blog. Her response landed in our inbox yesterday.
World Hum: Where in the world are you?
The ‘Salmon-Thirty-Salmon’ and the Rise of ‘Specialty Aircraft’
by Michael Yessis | 09.13.07 | 11:10 AM ET
When I was a kid, for a short time I used kid logic to justify the safety of flying in airplanes: I thought that if they were painted with at least one color that occurred regularly in the sky, they belonged in the sky. Hence, no crashes. In the ‘70s, that seemed to cover pretty much every airplane I could see at LAX, the airport where my dad worked and I spent a lot of time. If I still employed this sort of logic, I might now have some issues with flying. As USA Today’s Ben Mutzabaugh points out—and shows off in a terrific photo gallery—from “Delta’s breast-cancer-awareness-themed plane to Alaska Air’s ‘Spirit of Disneyland’ jet, U.S. airlines have been busy rolling out specially painted aircraft over the past few years.”
Rebranding Libya: We’re Eco-Friendly!
by Julia Ross | 09.12.07 | 4:25 PM ET
Talk about rebranding. In a surprise move earlier this week, Libya rolled out a plan to transform a swath of its Mediterranean coast into the “world’s largest sustainable region.” British architect Norman Foster has been brought in to design three “green” luxury hotels near the ancient ruins of Cyrene, while additional initiatives in the Green Mountain region will focus on archaeological conservation, eco-tourism and production of organic food and drink.
Restaurant Criticism: Is Anonymity Possible, Post-Google?
by Jim Benning | 09.12.07 | 3:47 PM ET
Many restaurant critics treasure their anonymity, slipping into restaurants and sampling dishes without fearing they’re getting special treatment. But as Regina Schrambling writes in today’s Los Angeles Times, that’s becoming increasingly difficult to do in a post-Google environment. “After Google, the rules are being rewritten by the hour,” she writes. “When any human being is searchable online not just verbally but visually, how can a critic possibly hope to retain anonymity long enough to give a restaurant a fair evaluation? Throw blogs into the mix and it’s a mashup of Facebook and a masquerade ball. In the last month, a youngish but old-style critic adamant about his anonymity has been involuntarily outed for all of cyberspace and thousands of magazine readers to see, while a blogger-turned-critic happy to bask in the limelight has been hired by a newspaper that puts her pulchritude on prominent display with every review.”
