A side-effect of the digital revolution may be the death of cursive writing. Though some may argue that pure utilitarianism is a trap, students must be prepared for a different future.
Category: blog
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Freak Lightning Storm In Chile Kills 67 Cows
RÍO BUENO — Sixty-seven cows were killed earlier this week after they were electrocuted by a lightning bolt during a powerful electrical storm in southern Chile. Local news sources reported that the single bolt on Sunday night was so strong it split a tree in two, and caused internal burns on the animals that proved […]
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Is Europe’s Criticism Of Iran Toothless?
What does Iran see when it looks at Europe? Not necessarily a Union at all. It was reported this week by the Iranian press that the Netherlands ambassador in Tehran told Iranian authorities not to worry about the European Parliament’s recent vote condemning Iran’s handling of human rights. The official IRNA news agency cited ambassador […]
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Hindu Hues
You never forget the colors of India. The intense gaze of this pilgrim in the foreground takes me back instantly to ghats of the Ganges.
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A Disney Hairy Tale
Looking at slides of the 15th anniversary parade at Walt Disney World in Florida, it occurs to me that change is often for the best. Flashy tracksuits, visors and the hair. And yes, that’s a keytar.
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Tacky Architecture
Not everything famous French architects build is tasteful. Jean Nouvel, the Pritzker Prize winner behind the Arab World Institute in Paris and Barcelona’s Torre Agbar, is also responsible for this “colorful” Las Boas complex on the Spanish island of Ibiza.
GHENT — When the Volvo factory in the Belgian city of Ghent hosted China President Xi Jinping last week, along with the Belgian king and queen, the facility was covered in red Chinese knotting, a decorative Chinese folk art. It was a festive touch meant both to welcome the Chinese leader and to celebrate the […]
A French reporter is the first Western journalist to get inside the village of Lukqun where in June 2013, 27 people were killed under unclear circumstances before access was shut off.
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A Transylvanian Burial
When you’re in Transylvania, you really can’t help but think about vampires. So you can imagine how it felt to suddenly see a funeral procession approach…
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Another Kind Of Fly Fishing
Fishing often makes for nice pictures, no matter where in the world you may be. Here in Southern China we learned about the ancestral and peculiar art of cormorant fishing, where the “rod” stays in place and birds are cast off to do the work.
Have you ever heard a peacock’s cry? It kind of sounds like a cross between an angry cat and a hungry baby. Now, imagine that video’s audio on an endless loop – for four years. That’s what a couple in Marseille had to listen to, only interupted by the cry the bird makes when it’s […]
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Who Built That Bridge?
My wife Claudine was asking our daughter Cécile to guess which architect built the Garabit viaduct we were looking over, in France’s Massif Central region. Does the wrought iron structure look familiar? It should: The railway bridge was constructed by Gustave Eiffel, 10 years before a certain Parisian tower made him famous worldwide.
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300,000 Miles Without A Scratch
I find it amazing, in hindsight, that over the 300,000 miles or so I’ve driven during my lifetime, I’ve only had two flat tires — one in France and one in Czechoslovakia. That’s it. No accident, no bumping into a hippo in South Africa or a camel in Algeria.
BUENOS AIRES — A pending amendment to Argentina’s Hunting Act will consider packs of wild dogs in rural areas as harmful, allowing them to be hunted or captured. This has caused much discussion among animal rights groups, which claim that this amendment is would allow only authorized agencies to shoot or trap the animals, La […]
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Very Old Habits
I don’t remember what the lady in the foreground was doing, in front of Teotihuacan’s majestic Pyramid of the Sun. Maybe she had come up with an early version of the e-cigarette, trying to break free from her Mayan ancestors’ tradition of smoking tobacco …
BERLIN — Anyone caught writing about Chuck Norris should tread very carefully because, according to one meme, the Texas Ranger has threatened to switch off the Internet if he finds any more stupid jokes about him posted online. This threat is not to be taken lightly: according to another post, the only reason why there […]
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Egypt Targets Both Islamists And Atheists
This week’s Egyptian court ruling imposing death sentences for 529 Muslim Brotherhood members was widely condemned abroad as a troubling sign for the health of the nation’s democracy. But Cairo’s continued escalation against the Islamist organization might also give outsiders the false impression that religion in general is under attack in Egypt. In fact, another […]
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Ancestral Shade
Fellow travelers from our organized tour were catching some rest in the shade of the tongkonan, the ancestral houses of the Toraja people in southern Sulawesi (the Indonesian island formerly know as Celebes). This was one of the first package holiday tours we went on, after having started to experiment with this form of group […]
Ten people have been arrested for suspected animal trafficking after 1,500 tortoises and 80 caimans were discovered on a boat in northern Colombia. The animals are both on the South American country’s endangered wildlife list. Police stopped the boat on a river in the Mahates region, which is full of lakes and swamps, and is […]
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Period Costumes
This is how Nazaré’s fishermen used to dress every day, back in the 1950s. What was then an unassuming fishing village has become the Portuguese equivalent of France’s Saint-Tropez. The throngs of tourists looking for a little authenticity can still catch a glimpse of the traditional costumes today — courtesy of the town’s visitor center.
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Mystery From Up High
Travelling the world for more than 50 years as we did, you are bound to see some incredible sights. The Nazca Lines, in southern Peru’s Nazca Desert, rank high among these unbelievable wonders. No one really knows why and how the geoglyphs — some of which are over 200 meters across — were made … […]
While many news outlets have been wondering what will happen to the Ukrainian navy in Crimea, the question that everyone has really been wondering about has finally been answered: The dolphins in Sevastopol’s combat unit will indeed become Russian. The combat program trains these hyper-intelligent mammals to patrol open water and attach buoys to items […]
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Going The Distance: Loved-Up Storks Edition
While this may sound like something from a Disney film, we assure you that it is nothing less than true love: A male stork flies 13,500 kilometers every single year to be with his beloved. This year, for the twelfth time, the male known as Klepetan has made the journey all the way from southern […]
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An Oasis Of Tradition
At Ouargla’s traditional market in southern Algeria, this merchant was selling wooden bowls carved from single blocks of wood. Even though palm trees are ubiquitous in the several oases surrounding Ouargla, Saharan craftsmen prefer to use Atlas Cedars, found in the nearby Algerian mountain range of the same name.
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It Doesn’t Get More Irish Than This
A pint of Guinness maybe?
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A Forest Without A Tree
Fires caused by people are thankfully still relatively infrequent in the vast Yellowstone National Park, with just six to 10 per year. Most wildfires, such as the 1988 blazes that destroyed almost 40% of the park, are instead caused by lightning. In 1994, driving through a recently burned patch, we could only imagine what that […]
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Soviet Disobedience
At the end of WWII, several monuments were built across Berlin to commemorate the Soviet soldiers fallen during the war. As imposing as this memorial in Treptower Park seems, I was unimpressed: I’ve always been circumspect about soldiers. So was my wife Claudine, who looks like she’s turning her back to these Soviet occupiers, who […]
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Fishing Through The Ages
Among the most beautiful countries I’ve explored is my own. This is what we call la France profonde, literally “deep France” — the heartland. Aptly enough, the Château de la Bussière in the background is nicknamed the Fishermen Castle and features a collection of works of art related to freshwater fishing. There is still a […]
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Death Sentence For Fake Doctor
A 64-year-old man was sentenced to be hanged in Tehran after a court found him guilty of sexually abusing female applicants for the post of lab assistant in what turned out to be a fake medical practice, Jomhuri-e Eslami daily, reported Tuesday. Iran’s Mehr news agency reported that at least four female witnesses accused the […]
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Bright China
I remember being mesmerized by Shanghai at night — maybe even more than by Las Vegas. Twenty years ago, the Chinese city also seemed to be at the vanguard of technology. That’s where I saw people using cell phones in the street for the first time.
MILAN — The economic crisis isn’t affecting just bipeds. Our furry four-legged friends have also been struggling, as many have been abandoned or neglected when their families no longer had the resources to care for them. Italy has launched its first food bank for animals to help with this problem, thanks to the volunteer group […]
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The Lion’s Share
We haven’t seen much of Sub-Saharan Africa over the course of our travels, except for Zimbabwe, Swaziland and South Africa, where I took this picture, in one of the continent’s largest game reserves. This lion was feeding on giraffe remains by the side of the road. As grim as it sounds, there is something about […]
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Stairway To Heaven
This is the famous Dashashwamedh Ghat in Varanasi — the city also known as Benares, the holiest of the seven sacred cities in Hinduism and Jainism. “Ghats” are a series of steps leading pilgrims to the Ganges River to perform ritual ablutions (while tourists on a moving boat try to take non-blurry pictures).
Given Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, Western diplomats and hedge fund managers alike are well aware of the risks of punishing Moscow with sanctions after its strong-arm tactics in Crimea. Tehran, meanwhile, may be calculating the stakes in a somewhat different way. The daily Aftab-e Yazd asked Thursday how could European states and the United […]
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Portuguese Passersby
Going through all my slides, I’ve noticed some recurring themes in the thousands of photos I’ve snapped. One of them is “women carrying things on their heads” — like in this Portugal street scene in 1958, when the country was still under the authoritarian rule of Prime Minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.
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The Llama Guarantee
There are llamas and alpacas everywhere in Peru. Contrary to what people may think, they are very docile creatures and their infamous bouts of spitting are apparently quite rare. More to the point, both animals produce high-quality wool, which I can attest to: The bedspread I bought in Peru on this trip is still as […]
BEIJING — The Tibetan mastiff is a breed of dog prized for its hardy build and exotic beauty. (photo: Pleple2000) Though now domesticated, it traces its origins to ancient times when it roamed the highlands of Central Asia. Here’s one in its native stomping ground on the Tibetan mountain of Gonggar. (photo: Dennis Jarvis) But […]
TEHRAN – A senior general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards issued a blunt warning Tuesday to Israel, saying Iranian forces and weaponry “can destroy all points controlled by” Israel, with “any volume of firepower.” General Hassan Salami made the declaration during a conference on the role of the Islamic religion on global power relations, the official […]
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Parthenon Like It’s 1961
In 1961, my wife Claudine could still walk freely inside the Parthenon — the world-famous temple on the Athenian Acropolis. Actually, we didn’t even have to pay an entrance fee. The government didn’t begin restoration efforts, at which point it limited tourist access, until 1975. Up until then, there were no fences around most ruins […]
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When Poverty Is ‘Picturesque’
Brazil’s Nordeste was written about in the 1990s as one of the poorest regions in the world. What travelers find out is that photographs in the middle of poverty risk looking “quaint” and “charming,” losing that feeling of desolation that we felt there. That seems to be the case looking at this shot 22 years […]