New Moon Boutique Storefront on Amazon

By Joshua | May 9th, 2008 | No Comments »

Browse the new Amazon.com Moon Handbook storefront, featuring pretty book covers and a fun collection of colorful photo essays and Q&As with a handful of authors, including yours truly for two of my titles.

Check out the main page, or go straight to my features:

• Nicaragua Photo Essay
• Q&A on Belize
• Main Moon Storefront
  

Tell President Bush not to Travel to Olympics

By Joshua | May 8th, 2008 | No Comments »

From AJWS:

“The approaching Olympic Games in Beijing offer an unprecedented opportunity for President Bush to urge China to help end the genocide in Darfur. For years, China has acted as both an enabler and protector of the government of Sudan.

The United States cannot stand idly by while one of its largest trading partners supports a genocide that is intensifying each day. The fact that China is hosting the Olympic Games provides the U.S. with a unique opportunity to demand changes in China’s relationship with Sudan. Please join us in calling on President Bush not to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games unless all of the following conditions are met:

• China ends all arms transfers to Sudan;
• China strongly and publicly condemns the atrocities in Darfur; and
• China demands that the government of Sudan comply fully with existing U.N. Security Council resolutions and rapidly facilitate the deployment of the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force.”

[Sign petition]

The Last Parandero: Belize’s Legendary Paul Nabor

By Joshua | May 8th, 2008 | No Comments »

I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Paul Nabor, Belizean music legend, when I last visited Punta Gorda, in 2006. It was good to run into him again today, in this Christian Science Monitor article. In it, Nabor strums his guitar and discusses the unique genre that is paranda, “at its core a traditional West African beat … fused with Spanish guitars and Garifuna instrumentation – mahogany drums, shakers, turtle shells, call-and-response vocals – to form a haunting blend. It is the blues of the Garinagu.”
[Link to the article]

[Link to Punta Gorda]

Boulder Gets its Freeze On: Pearl Street Flash Mob Among the Tulips

By Joshua | May 5th, 2008 | No Comments »

Yesterday in Boulder, at 12:45 pm on the pedestrian mall in front of the courthouse, everything went quiet, a sudden silence which at first was more noticeable than the lack of movement. Then you realized that within this block-long mass of frozen people were a hundred mini-scenes, and you could walk through them and around them, like a museum. One couple kissed, one danced, another fought, one trio staged a purse-snatching, others looked ahead in mid-stride, biting apples, sipping sodas, talking on phones, giving high-fives. After five minutes, motion, applause, a few hundred smiles, then the crowd melted and the flow resumed.

The first Frozen Boulder was performed by a loose group of 150 people who’d never met, but who’d all received the same invitation to join a “mission” by newly formed Boulder Improv. Equally stirred by the Frozen Grand Central Station video in the e-mail invitation, they were here to make town history—or at least do their small part to keep Boulder weird.

Video and links:

• Rocky Mountain News, by Monika Bunting
• Frozen Boulder, by Ryan Van Duzer
• Denver Post article, by Jenel Stelton-Holtmeier
• Frozen Grand Central Station

Pace of Development in Belize: Slow

By Joshua | May 3rd, 2008 | No Comments »

From the International Herald Tribune:
“A slow boom in Belize: One island stays funky South of the Yucatán, community balances growth and atmosphere”

The author of the article, Kevin Brass, after describing the still-”funky” atmosphere of Ambergris Caye, says, “But the water is too shallow for cruise ships and megayachts, and there are few of the all-inclusive resorts that lure the spring-break party crowd to destinations like Cancún or Jamaica.” Thank God. There is still plenty of construction, especially big (for Belize) “condotel” properties. Still, “Most of the developments on the island are in the 20- to 70-unit range. Government restrictions limit buildings along the waterfront to three or four stories.”

This goes along nicely with Belize’s overall small vibe–the vast majority of hotels have ten rooms or less, and the signs on the streets of Caye Caulker still say “GO SLOW.”

[Link to the IHT article]

[My links to Belize]

Learn a language online for free: Travel tips from Brave New Traveler

By Joshua | May 1st, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Speaking a foreign language while traveling or living abroad — or simply making humiliating, hilarious attempts to speak it — is one of the surest ways to make real connections with your hosts, opening ever deeper doors of travel.

Here’s a great roundup of language instruction programs to help you brush up before your next trip: “Eight Free Online Resources for Learning a New Language.” From the BBC’s online courses in French, Spanish, German, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, and Greek, to MIT’s “open course ware,” in which you can subscribe to RSS feeds from their academic classes, to courses in ancient tongues like Sanskrit — there are many options and no excuses not to learn at least a few phrases. Buena suerte! [LINK]

Tranquilo Tip of the Hat to David Arnold, Worldview Magazine Editor Extraordinaire

By Joshua | April 29th, 2008 | No Comments »

I’d like to belatedly join Peace Corps Polyglot (blog of the National Peace Corps Association) in wishing Worldview editor David Arnold well as he moves on. After 14 years of transforming and improving Worldview magazine, which as a result of his vision and work is so much more than a mere alumni rag, David has accepted the position of international supervisor for the Horn of Africa broadcasting service for Voice of America. He’ll be returning to the region where his career of service began in 1964 as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia. His final issue of Worldview, a special international volunteer edition (with an article on Guatemala by yours truly), is on shelves now (though not online yet). [LINK TO POLYGLOT POST]

[LINK TO WORLDVIEW]

Interactive Ansel Adams Tribute in NYT Travel

By Joshua | April 26th, 2008 | No Comments »

This is wonderful—a narrated slide show about how Ansel Adams shot each of his most famous Yosemite landscapes.

Travelling & Seeing: Johnny Just Come

By Joshua | April 19th, 2008 | No Comments »

Travelling & Seeing: Johnny Just Come, by Kofi Quanston, as found in the university bookshop in Accra, Ghana. I didn’t buy the book, already had too many things in my pack and I don’t remember what it was even about, but I took the picture to bust out and look at on a rainy day …

Lonely Planet “scandal” passes; guidebooks left in the debris

By Joshua | April 16th, 2008 | 3 Comments »

Now that Thomas Kohnstamm has revealed that the global uproar over his alleged “plagiarism” wasn’t really all that (he’d just done a “desk update,” which is occasionally standard in the fast-paced Lonely Planet production process), it’s obvious that gadling.com blogger Jeffrey White was right from the beginning: Who f-in cares? White, however, takes it one step further, rejecting the entire genre of guidebooks:

“The Kohnstamm revelation further cements in my mind—and I’m betting in a few of yours—the belief that guidebooks are by and large a sham … Guidebooks are the CliffNotes of travel writing, nothing more than a hand-holding exercise. They’re good for a few names and a few addresses, some initial info, and maybe even the surprising fun fact … Beyond that, they’re useless. They’re often wrong, more often skewed, and they seek to rob you of the only thing you have as a traveler: your impression.”

Read the rest of this entry »