In Baghdad, It’s Time to Shop

by Josh Lew on

Bombings in public spaces are fewer than before in Baghdad, but still not uncommon. However, the threat doesn’t seem to be stopping local residents from shopping at the city’s markets. Vendors at these retail meccas are staying open later and stocking more goods in their market stalls than before. The city’s central market district could be considered “bustling” for the first time in a long time.

Just how much has the situation improved? It’s hard to tell, because Iraq is still a largely cash based society so there is no way to track sales numbers. A man with a clothing stall in Souk al-Araby Market explained the reason behind the apparent surge in retail to a Reuters reporter: “Iraqis have got used to [the violence]. Till when are we supposed to stay at home? We Iraqis are used to war by now.” The proprietor of a nearby shoe stall mentioned the success he was having with higher priced footwear: “We didn’t sell Mizuno trainers last year. There was little demand as they were expensive, but more people have money and decent salaries.”

So while tourists won’t be rushing to book a shopping junket to Baghdad anytime soon, there is plenty of evidence that things are looking up.

Echoes from across the world

by Annie Scott on

Know what’s weird? Woices.com.

Woices.com is a website where you can upload echoes you’ve recorded anywhere in the world. That includes the parking ramp.

Echoes have been recorded in cathedrals, canyons, and everywhere you can imagine. These 48 echoes were all recorded at Cerdanyola del Vallès in Spain alone!

What’s the point? We’re not sure. But the idea is pretty neat. It’s certainly a new kind of information you’re not used to getting without visiting a place!

Woices is still small now and needs your help. What a good excuse to call out the names of your loved ones or curse your ex-girlfriend over a cliff! Shout something somewhere and record it. Why not?

Ryanair flight collides with flock of birds

by Jeffrey White on

You don’t read about this often: A Ryanair flight that originated from Frankfurt to Rome had a rocky landing on Monday after the descending plane collided with a flock of birds.

Starlings, specifically. Several got sucked into the plane’s endings and damaged the plane’s landing gear, according to the New York Times. The plane reportedly had to slide to a stop on the runway. One turbine fell of the plane.

Several crew members and passengers were treated on the scene for minor injuries.

Some how, envisioning this I come back to that scene in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” in which a Nazi plane is brought down by sea gulls.

Big in Japan: Do video games make kids aggressive?

by Matthew Firestone on

Disclaimer: I grew up playing horrifically violent video games such Mortal Kombat and Doom, and I certainly turned out fine (at least I think so!). On that note, today’s column is all about whether or not violent video games make kids aggressive…

I’m certainly not one of those archconservative types who thinks that Grand Theft Auto is the harbinger of the apocalypse, and that the Nintendo Wii remote is too phallic for young girls to play with.

Feel free to disagree with me, but I really believe that it’s the job of parents and not Playstation to raise the next generation, which is why I’m hesitant to wag my finger at the video game manufacturers for the increasingly violent content in video games.

Furthermore, everything in my opinion is alright in moderation, and so long as children are taught the difference between real and virtual, a few splashes of blood across the hi-def TV screen really isn’t all that bad.

Of course, there are people who disagree with me, and they’ve got a few things that I don’t have, namely doctorate degrees!

Keep reading as you might be surprised by what you learn…

According to a new study sponsored by Iowa State University’s Center for the Study of Violence, both American and Japanese kids became more aggressive after playing video games over a period of 3-6 months. Specifically, it was found that exposure to violent video games was a causal risk factor for aggression and violence.

According to Dr. Anderson: “Basically what we found was that…a lot of violent video game play early in a school year leads to higher levels of aggression during the school year…”

The study has drawn its fair share of international spotlight, especially given that Anderson has recently started to collaborate with a number of prominent Japanese research bodies. Anderson is of the belief that Japan’s cultural differences with the U.S. make it attractive for the comparison studies.

Dr. Anderson explains: “The culture is so different and their overall violence rate is so much lower than in the U.S. The argument has been made…that all our research on violent video game effects must be wrong because Japanese kids play a lot of violent video games and Japan has a low violence rate.”

He continues: “Is it the case that Japanese kids are totally unaffected by playing violent video games?’ [They] aren’t. They’re affected pretty much the same way American kids are.”

Once again, it’s worth emphasizing that violent video games are not the sole cause of dysfunctional behavior in kids, and that ultimately, good parenting can make all the difference in a child’s self-actualization.

However, these recent studies do suggest that violent games are a part of the puzzle in understanding rising rates of aggression in both America and Japan.

What do you think? Feel free to chime in on this highly controversial but equally fascinating topic.

** All images are copyrighted by Rockstar Games, and are presented here for the purposes of product identification and critical commentary. They were sourced from the WikiCommons Media Project **

Ten things you didn’t know about Dublin

by Grant Martin on

Visiting any city for the first time is an exercise in setting expectations. You can only read so much about the culture, nightlife and food in a guidebook before you need to experience the locals first hand, order a pint of Guinness or eat shepherd’s pie and really visit a destination. Setting foot out into the city streets, you begin to compare your first hand experiences against everything that you thought you knew about a destination. In some facets, you’re surprised and impressed by the difference; in others, you’re underwhelmed.

Taking advantage of some weekend work in the Emerald Isle, I recently spent some time in the capital city for my first trip to Ireland. I was moved most by the ten things below:

  • You’re never going to want to eat Shepherd’s Pie at your local Irish pub again. No, Dublin isn’t known for its pinky-up food culture, but the things that they get right they really get right.
  • The city revolves around drinking. To that end, bar crawling in Dublin can be performed quite literally. One only needs to mosey down two or three store fronts before he or she discovers another pub almost identical to the one that was just left. It’s disorienting enough having a bar on all four corners of every intersection in the downtown area – now try doing it with 17 pints of Smithwicks in your stomach. Currently, the drinking problem has become so profound that there is a massive public effort to curb binge drinking, the majority of which is found in telly and bus ads trying to guilt people out of overindulging.
  • There isn’t really that much to see besides the 976,000 bars. Yes, Dublin has a couple of excellent museums, Trinity College, Phoenix Park and the Guinness factory (does that even count?), but compared to some of the heavy hitters in the EU like Rome or Paris, Dublin’s “cultural” fodder is a bit anemic — which isn’t to say that the city isn’t worth visiting, either. I’m personally a bar and cafe sort of person, so I found the area quite charming.
  • Temple Bar is not an enormous tourist trap. It’s a tourist trap, yes, but in the same sense that Times Square is. Just like everyday New Yorkers visit 42nd street, real Irish can be found in the district just south of the river, you can get a good shepherd’s pie and there is plenty of cultural flavor in the area. Make sure you stop by at least once during your stay.
  • Phoenix park is the largest city park in all of Europe. Just Northwest of the hailed Temple Bar, you can walk around Phoenix for an hour and barely scrape the surface of the massive plot. Much of the perfectly tailored grass is on limits, so you can feel free to walk awry from the winding paths, take your shoes off and really absorb the fertilizer into your bare feet. Contrast this to the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, where hundreds of locals pull up chairs to the edge of the path just to watch the grass silently sit there undisturbed.
  • Skyscrapers are nonexistent downtown. In fact, the tallest series of buildings around town happen to be in the network of Guinness buildings. Which leads us to:
  • Guinness sponsors everything. In addition to their near omnipresence in every pub (and hence on every corner in the city,) the beer company also has independent retail stores where you can buy branded underwear and sheets, sponsors athletic teams and appears to be the impetus behind 9 out of 10 business deals in the country.
  • Shamrocks, Leprechauns and pots of gold are all out. We think that Guinness bought the patent on each of these ideas and swallowed them into the beer empire.
  • It’s going to rain. Really. They don’t call it the Emerald Isle because it’s known for arid plains and rolling deserts. It rains here like the heavens just broke up with their long term girlfriend. A good rule of thumb is to take any precipitation forecast you saw on the news and multiply it by four.
  • Riverdance is ridiculous. But it does happen. And people eat it up like pigeons fighting for popcorn. Several of the more touristy hotels even offer the spectacle nightly, where hundreds of tourists amass during the evening hours to watch a few poor sots dance their hearts out and spin in circles. If you’re really interested in finding something of this sort in Dublin, just follow the mess of fanny packs at around 9PM and you’ll inevitably reach a venue.