Entries in Life

Out There: People Who Live Without TV:

“I interviewed one guy who was 31, single, an artist living in Boston, who saw himself as countercultural,” Krcmar told LiveScience. “The next day I had an interview with a religious woman with ten children who lived in the Midwest. These people seem like they would disagree about almost everything, but if you ask them about television the things that came out of their mouths were almost identical.” [...] “It’s sort of counter-intuitive, because people think their kids would drive them nuts without TV,” Krcmar said. “But parents found that kids became very good at entertaining themselves and didn’t need to be entertained all the time by something that was lively and active. They didn’t complain about being bored.

Oh how I wish I didn’t have one (sometimes). (Just realized: I got this from Dan Lyke.)

Bikes to Rwanda « je vais où?:

These people are doing good things… if you like coffee you should definitely give this video a look.

I love a good cup of coffee.  And I love bikes.  Bikes to Rwanda combines this with my personal interest in the welfare of Rwanda to help support coffee growers there with inexpensive utility bikes.  That’s a charity that I can really get behind.

Renewed fighting threatens Congo gorillas:

“The army had also stationed a tank on the main road that borders Rwanda, with the gun pointing at the Rwandan hills.”

That explains the armed escort we had.  Though, I wouldn’t expect the escort to help much against a tank.

“Next time, we won’t leave”:

But if the enduring image of Gustav is a U.S. soldier with an M-16 denying a citizen the right to return to his home, then you can pretty much write off the next “mandatory” evacuation.

Looks like, as is typical of New Orleans and the feds, they’re mishandling the situation. I’m very glad that Gustav didn’t hurt people like Katrina did.  The authorities need to recognize this and let people get back to normal as soon as possible. If you’re looking for some first-hand accounts of Gustav, I would point you to a few Twitterers GambitWeekly, NOLAnotes, and MarkMayhew. You should also check out Mark’s photostream on flickr especially Cafe du Monde as you’ve never seen her: empty. Twitter has a lot of problems, but the one thing it is really good at it getting people’s thoughts and impressions published as quickly and easily as possible.  In a situation like Gustav where people don’t have time to compose blog entries or even full sentances, the stream-of-conciousness that Twitter enables really gives you a feeling for what is happening on the ground. While I did check out a couple of news sites, most of my information about Gustav came from Twitter via TwitterBerry.