If you’ve got panties, you can contribute to world peace!

by Abha Malpani on

First it was those ugly yellow rubber peace bands that became a fashionable accessory because it flaunted your inner most desire for world peace (!?), now it goes ‘inner’ as you can buy panties for peace, but hopefully you won’t be flaunting those too many places.

Jokes apart, if panties can shudder a superstition and bring peace, why the hell not.

Mahatma Gandhi took a vow on celibacy because he believed that if you could control your sexual desire, you could control anything in the world. Perhaps the Asian belief that ‘women’s intimate clothes can take away your power’ has some relation to that thinking(?), which is why an activist group in Burma might make some headway in their protest against the current anti-democratic regime. (See our current series, A Keyhole Into Burma for more on this topic!)

140 panties were delivered to the Burmese embassy in Geneva, but so far it seems no reactions from the embassy have surfaced. Wouldn’t it be priceless candid-camera just to see the faces of Burmese officials as they open boxes of underwear!

Since anything remotely to do with intimacy gets media coverage, not to mention numerous and repeated search hits on the world wide web, the panty-flinging act might just have been a great ploy to get more exposure in the international media.

If you over analyze this mode of activism, there maybe an inspiring lesson for us to learn: if you can grab the intention of all those people who don’t give a rats about peace, be it with panties or whatever tickles your fancy, you can contribute to world peace. Way better than wearing a yellow rubber band, no?

Travel Photo Tours

by Erik Olsen on

I switched to digital photography years ago, having purchased one of the old Nikon CoolPix cameras and I have since upgraded to one of the superb Nikon D70 XLRs. As happy as I am with this camera and its 6 megapixel images, the newest Nikons shoot in 10 megapixels and more. What can you do? Well, I suppose one thing you can do is improve your shooting overall. Even ten-plus megapixel images don’t do you any good if they suck. So why not consider a trip dedicated entirely to learning how to shoot.

I’ve ALWAYS wanted to do this. While I have shot my share of photos from all over the world, I know that there is plenty of room for improvement in my own travel photography skill repertoire. And so I was looking around for Photography Expeditions, trips where you go out and get the hands-on knowledge and skill from a bona-fide professional photographer. Turns out, there are LOTS of trips and packages available.

Travelimages.com for example, offers a selection of U.S. based and international tours in 2007 including destinations like the Galapagos, Scotland, the European Alps, New Zealand, Venice, Yellowstone and Vermont (where I am now!). Another possibility is Joe Englander’s Landscape and Travel Photography Workshops and Tours. With Englander, you’ll head to far-off places like Bhutan, Norway, Tibet and Burma. Along the way, professional photographers will take a look at your work and critique your composition and technique. It ain’t cheap, however. The trip runs $3,000, but would be the perfect way to kick your shutterbug skills up to professional levels. And who knows, if you take enough great shots, you might be able to sell them to magazines and cover your costs. .

(via Frommers)

NPR and Book on Burma

by Erik Olsen on

I remember reading George Orwell’s Burmese Days when I was living in Bangkok and how much the book made me want to book a trip to Rangoon to see the country for myself. Burma, or Myanmar as it is officially called, is a complete mess. The ruling junta there is known for its brutality, backwardness and sociopathic secrecy. And they make lousy pancakes.

Like North Korea, Burma is an anachronism, an oddity, a pariah among nations, granted a less dangerous one, and it remains one of the most closed societies on earth. Now out in paperback, the book uses Orwell’s story there as a backdrop for exploring the country as a whole. Called Finding George Orwell in Burma, the book is now out in paperback. Written by Emma Larkin (a pseudonym), it examines this bizarre, yet alluring place. NPR has got a nice feature on the book that is worth checking out. Oh, and if you are interested in reading Burmese Days, you can also download and read the whole book for FREE from this site.

Friday Funny: Lifestyles of the Rich and Fascist

by Erik Olsen on

For today’s Friday Funny, we bring you an entertaining, tongue in cheek piece from Radar Magazine on how the rich and autocratic live.

From Libyan dictator Muammar al-Quaddafi, whose personal bodyguards are made up of an all-girl Amazonian unit alleged to be virgins to Myanmar’s repressive Senior General Than Shwe, who has been taking cooking classes with a leading French chef in Rangoon, to North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, whose escapades and eccentric tastes have been well documented, the list is a wonderful slice of egotistical life. There are ten dictators in all. Be sure to collect all ten! I have no idea how accurate this stuff is, but it IS funny in a sick kind of way.

Voices of the Globe

by Erik Olsen on

The site Global Voices Online has go a lot of pretty informative stuff in their series of blogs. Global Voices Online is a non-profit global citizens’ media project, that was sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School. They provide access to conversations and ideas appearing around the world on other blogs or podcasts and posts links to these websites on a daily basis. Check ou the Global Roundup Archive to get a sense of the type of information available including news and commentary on blogs in Senegal, Kenya, Estonia, Oman, Burma and countless other places. It’s an excellent alternative news resource that world travelers can turn to for first hand accounts of politics, economics and culture in countries that often don’t receive adequate coverage by mainstream media.