36 shootings, 9 homicides. A weekend in Chicago

by Iva Skoch on

I first saw this story in the International Herald Tribune. It made the list of Top 10 Most Popular stories. Europeans–myself included–have a morbid fascination with America’s gun culture.

I clicked on the article and read: “An outburst of gunfire rattled Chicago during the weekend, with at least nine people killed in 36 separate acts of violence…They included gang shootings, drive-by attacks, and even one case in which someone used an AK-47 to shoot up a plumbing supply store”. Wow. It reads like fiction.

During the same weekend last year, there were “only” 19 shootings, including four homicides, and 21 shootings were reported during the same weekend in 2006. Overall though, we are told we are much safer than we were a 100 years ago. Good to know.

Why the fascination with guns? Lately, I have had a few European friends request I take them on a tour of the “bad neighborhoods” of US cities. They have already seen the safe neighborhoods and felt like they were missing a piece of Americana. They wanted to see the movie-romanticized gun culture first hand.

I wonder if I should get my “urban ghettour” trademarked.

Paris Hilton says airplanes give her acne

by Grant Martin on

Like, these 777’s totally make me break out.

So claims our favorite hotel heiress, who was recently seen ducking into a Virgin beauty salon at London‘s Heathrow Airport. Her explanation of her trip to the salon was that she was racking up too many miles in the sky and that the canned air was bad for her skin.

Sorry honey. I’ve logged about a zillion miles this year and my skin is in pretty good shape. Perhaps you’re eating too much fast food?

Maybe things will be better when you start chartering 787s for your jetsetting party lifestyle. Boeing claims that their new atmosphere system is supposed to be superior to today’s aircraft with tighter humidity and temperature control so that your beautiful tanned skin can breathe properly.

Until then you can always take the Greyhound.

Photo of the Day (22.04.2008)

by Martha Edwards on

As far as photography subjects go, sunsets and sunrises are about as original as young celebrity starlets ‘accidentally’ showing off their ladyparts in public. In other words? It’s been done before.

But every now and then, you come across a sunset photo like this one from Tarik B that kind of takes your breath away for a moment. It’s just that good, you know? I love everything about this photo, from the surfers in the foreground to the divine-looking orange rays jutting out from the fluffy clouds. Truly awesome work.

Got a photo you think is just as fantastic? Submit it to the Gadling Flickr pool.

Bolivia’s “Highway of Death” kills US mountain biker

by Iva Skoch on

A thrilling ride down the “Camino de la Muerte,” or “Death Road,” has become a popular adventure destination in Bolivia. I, personally, get nauseous just looking at the photo.

A 56-year old U.S. tourist, Kenneth Mitchell, was killed here in mountain-biking accident after tumbling from his rented bicycle and falling down a 200-foot cliff. Mitchell is the 12th cyclist to die on the road in the last decade.

The highway east from La Paz, the world’s highest capital city, winds dramatically down the face of the Andes, dropping 11,800 feet in just 40 miles. According to IHT, the narrow dirt track earned its nickname for the frequency with which Bolivian buses would plunge off its 3,300-foot cliffs, killing hundreds a year until a new paved highway opened 2007.

The cause of the accident is unknown. Mitchell’s bike, left behind at the cliff’s edge, was in perfect working order. Strange.

Could biofuel cause starvation?

by Catherine Bodry on

My friend has a sticker on his bike that reads “I don’t need a war to power my bike.” Indeed, it seems that biking (or good old-fashioned hoofing it) might be one of the last conflict-free modes of transportation. As alternative fuel options are explored in order to lessen the world’s dependency on oil, it appears that the same old problems aren’t going to go away.

Take biofuel, for example.

The managing director general of the Asian Development Bank, Rajat Nag, suggests that governments who subsidize biofuel production are contributing to global starvation.

“Giving subsidies for biofuels … basically acts as an implicit tax on staple foods,” he says.

What this means is that if a country is focused on producing fuel, then it’s not focused on producing food. With riots erupting over the past few weeks over food shortages in the Caribbean and Africa, it’s obvious that the world is approaching a crisis point. The U.S., for example, is the largest producer of ethanol, which is produced from corn and other grain crops. The U.S. government has heavily subsidized ethanol production, paying farmer to produce ethanol.

I love the idea of running my car on recycled vegetable oil, and it seems like that is what the grass-roots biofuel movement is all about. But turning the world’s fields into ethanol producers does not seem like a long-term solution.