Alternate Vision

Wine tasting at an aquarium is definitely a highly underrated activity. Throw in a live jazz band, finger food and plenty of Argentinian, Chilean and Portuguese wines and you have yourself a novel concept. Think high society, for free, at the aquarium. Brilliant, simply brilliant.

Lauer's mixes can be streamed live here

This may be the insentive I need to throw down a little dough and invest in a sweet bike, although by then if all goes to plan I will be in a different continent altogether. Come summer, I will be sure to switch transporation modes. Schenley park is all of 5 minutes from where I live. Now that the weather has warmed up, I try and average 2 to 3 runs per week. The day before I managed a 3 mile run (huge step for my weak lungs) that left me immobile for the rest of the evening, but it was worth it. I managed to pick up a quick game of soccer too at the end. The weather has been most enticing.

The last time I bought a bike, it got stolen from right outside my front door within 12 hours of purchase time. Atleast Pittsburgh isn't ranked in the top ten cities for bike thefts in this country. Back to work now. ESL Friday night in the capital...inshallah!

I am a sucker for documentary films. By chance, I stumbled upon Journey to Planet Earth on PBS, narrated by Matt Damon. This is the sort of thing that everyone needs to watch, whether you are a CEO, politician or the world's biggest rockstar.

At the rate we (human race) are going, there is a chance that half the world's wildlife will become extinct within half a century or more, probably by the time we (my generation) become grandparents. The decisions we make in the next few years will be critical in determining whether or not we can avoid "the sixth great extinction of the world's animals."

"Loss of farmland to urban development, the pollution of the Earth’s rivers, inadequate housing and water resources for those living in the world’s mega-cities — these are just some of the topics covered in Journey to Planet Earth."

Brazil and China
China, unable to cultivate enough farmland to feed its population, recently overtook Japan as the world's largest importer of meats. As China rapidly loses cropland, Brazil is gaining it at a dangerously fast rate making it one of the world's largest food exporters. Brazil is one of the only countries that has a vast land area that can potentially be cropped. Economic and political pressures forcing Brazil to increase its cultivated land area are growing stronger.

This pressure only means that environmentalists worst fears could be realized. "In our increasingly integrated world, the fate of both Brazil's Amazon basin and the cerrado - a savannah like region the size of Europe on the basin's southern edge - can no longer be seperated from the family planning decisions of hundreds of millions of couples outside of Brazil and the aspirations for a better diet of billions more." - Earth Policy (Brazilian Dilemma)

Some men of learning declare that there is no such thing as a 'musical' gene and that musical prowess cannot be passed down through the generations by physiological means alone. They obviously haven't heard the story of Mohammed Hashmi Khan Bangash, an Afghani horse-trader, who settled in India in the mid seventeenth century and created the Bangash dynasty of musicians.

Hashmi Khan's virtuosity was inherited by generations of revered musicians, many of whom were in the employ of the Maharajah of Gwailor and today it inhabits the dextrous fingers of his direct heir Amjad Ali Khan, a man who's name is synonymous with the sarod in the minds of all true Indian music cognoscenti. -BBC





I watched the Ustad perform along side his two sons at the Carnegie Music Hall last night. Priceless....

I could go for some Adana Kebap, corba, kofte, hamsili pilav and ayran. I may have to settle for the mad-mex happy hour instead..

"I asked to whom the contract was given. They said no one really knew, but rumors had it that it went to the Minister's son. "Which Minister?" I asked. "The Minister of Science and Technology," they replied. "But did the Internet connection work in the past?" "Yes, it did. Then we used a dial-up connection. But since our bills rose beyond our means, the telephone company came and removed the phone lines." -Chippla

Over a couple of pitchers at PHI last night, Benjamin ( a former Peace Corps. trainee to Lesotho) and I conversed about, amongst other myriad things, the obstacles involved in integerating technologies into developing communities. While addressing the alarmingly low absorption rates of most Africant nations, a few things became obvious. The prerequisite to the creation of an information-based economy is the existence of an efficient telecommunications infrastructure. Apparently, there are only about 2 main telephone lines per 100 persons in Africa, compared with 7 in Asia, 10 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 37 in Europe and 66 in the United States.

Though most African nations do have internet links, access is retricted to major cities and thanks to the inefficiency of telephone services it is quite expensive making it available to only the elite few who have the funds. The montly cost of an internet account in Africa is estimated to be about seven times higher than that in North America.

Dismal statistics aside, there is unique hope to improve the situation assuming the appropriate steps are taken, and efficient management isn't crippled by nepotism and corruption. A publication I recently read from the techbridge initiative that corelates to a speech recently given by the Secretary General of the OAU talks about how countries built with pre-digital technology , with little networking between broadcasting, wireless, and point-to-point communications are faced with a mammoth task of updating their telecommunications technologies. The lack of even the basic, now obsolete technology in Africa could prove to be useful in the adoption of the latest technologies without having to deal with this additional burden. The proposition here suggests the continent could leapfrog decades of development in this area.

Easier said than done. Chippla's post presents reality for what it is. Whether talking infrastructure development, FDI, sequencing and pacing or security, proper governance and all the other mantras that stem from this community, the ubiquitous obstacle that has the capacity to stall any effort is corruption. So deeply engrained is it into society that it is you who stands out for not conforming to what is a norm. What you are now fighting against is a mindset; a way of life;an accepted norm.

The fact that it is accepted for a foreign expatriot roaming the streets of Lagos to take advantage of the system by doling out a 100 Naira bill to the street cop just so he won't be hassled. Or how about the speculation that suggests that 80% of the Nigerian Government's revenue comes directly from oil, over half of which is from Shell, keeping in mind that most of those funds are embezzled and that any opposition to this "way of life" is quickly silenced or bought out. Like Chippla says, "morality is then defined by what the majority sees, even if the majority happens to be mad."

Become a Republican. You want it so bad you don't know it

With an increasing number of consumers in the developed and developing world having access to a larger disposable income, we seem to be entering a new paradigm of global consumption. Trendwatching has branded this MASS CLASS, referring to the millions of global consumers looking for the next best deal - "a democratization of luxury". Here is a term that puts an average shopper in Austria, Shanghai and the U.S on the same playing field. More on the "Mass Class" generation that has come to replace the global middle class here.

With this desire for outstanding quality goods and services, comes a greater desire for exlusivity and status - a need for respect and privilege for which humans will go above and beyond to achieve. This 'exclusivity of the masses' is coined "Massclusivity" - a buzzword that describes the inherent need in this consumption driven society to gain access to privileges and stand out from the masses. (the sort of thing that broadens the disparity between haves and have-nots, if you ask me). "MASSCLUSIVITY is NOT about exclusively opening up Harrods or Macy’s late Sunday night for a Hollywood super-celeb looking for a last-minute party dress, but rather about setting up special in-store coffee lounges or luxurious fitting rooms for members only. "

The perfect example of this is Privatair with their 'no coach' flights in Europe.


And finally, your last lesson for the day. GRAVANITY - an entire industry catering to the obsession of ordinary citizens wanting to leave ‘something’ behind in print, audio or imagery, preferably in the public domain.