Word nerds travel the country correcting America’s grammar

by Aaron Hotfelder on

In his underrated novel Letting Go, Philip Roth describes one character, an English professor at a university, as a man “whose dedication to the principles of grammar could actually cover you with sorrow.” Last week, the Boston Globe described two men who fit such a description, lending still more weight (as if it were needed) to Oscar Wilde’s old aphorism that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

Not long ago, Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson embarked on a journey they’re calling the “Typo Hunt Across America.” Over the course of their road trip, which began in the northeastern US and has hit places like Charleston, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Albuquerque, the two men have searched for misspelled and ungrammatical signs in restaurants, stores, along the road, and everywhere else.

Carrying Wite-out, tape, markers, and pens, the men try to correct the offending signs as unobtrusively as they can. Says Jeff Deck: “We’re not going after people in a self-righteous manner, like fashion police. Or trying to make them look stupid. Instead, we’re addressing specific errors like confusing ‘its’ for ‘it’s’ or ‘you’re’ for ‘your.'”

Deck added: “Finding and correcting these, even every once in a while, is incredibly satisfying.”

Even as someone who has always been finicky about spelling and grammar, I find myself covered with sorrow by the preceding sentence.

This article is further proof that if you come up with a stupid enough gimmick for your next trip, your story might just land in a major newspaper.

Whole thing here.

The State of the Planet? Dismal

by Iva Skoch on

As I mentioned on Thursday, I attended the State of the Planet conference, hosted by The Earth Institute and The Economist magazine at Columbia University in New York.

I will try to give you some tidbits of information from the conference without making you run out and commit suicide immediately, just to save the world from over-population. According to some experts, it is too late for that anyway.

On poverty

As I mentioned in this blog last week, Kofi Annan opened the conference. To really get things going, he summarized the state of the planet as “dismal.” Among other things, Annan mentioned that even though the Millennium Villages program has been doing a great job, there are still 200 million people in Africa who go to sleep hungry every night.

On that note, Erik Reinert, author of the book How Rich Countries Get Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor, said that the problem with hunger in Africa is there is too much focus on agriculture and food production. I liked the paradox he used: “Famine occurs in those places in the world that specialize in producing food.” The most efficient farmers are actually in places where industry is much more prevalent and where people tend to die of overeating (US, Europe). At the same time, Europe and the US need state subsidies for agriculture. Same paradox applies to countries low in natural resources. They are usually the ones that get rich.

The two main reasons for conflict in the world are scarcity of local resources and scarcity of global resources. Mineral-dependent countries are the ones most prone to conflict (think Sierra Leone, Middle East…). For example, in Peru, one in every two people live on $2/day. However, in the “rich” mining areas, most people live on less than $1/day. The poor allocation of resources is what they call the ‘resource curse.’

Reinert also argued that we are not helping Africa much by “simply giving.” Giving water to the people “who say they need water” is one of the least effective ways to give. He said we need to learn how to teach them how to prevent these problems in the future, not just trying to fix the symptoms of those problems. Which brings me to my next point…

Climate Change

Africa’s landscape and climate has already been affected by global warming. Plants that used to grow in some regions no longer grow there because some areas have simply become too dry or mineral depleted. Different types of fish have already migrated north.

Experts, however, remain optimistic on climate change. At least those who believe that progress and innovation are the cure for everything. “One hundred years ago, the problem in Manhattan was horse crap,” said one of the panelists. Apparently, so many people used horses, there was literally horse droppings everywhere (not just all around Central Park as now). Back then, the alarmists used to say that the planet would end because it would be buried in horse crap. It didn’t. Instead, people invented a car.

The point being, of course, that now we are at the stage where we fear the car is the source of our imminent doom. Instead, we need to encourage innovation and let R&D experts come up with better alternatives to the car. Here, I especially enjoyed the not-so-popular argument of Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems and, hence, a billionaire, who said the US is going to solve the world’s climate change problem. “Who else is going to do it?” he said. “The UN in useless. Europe is even more useless.” Ouch.

Jeffrey Sachs, economist and head of the Earth Institute, closed the conference by saying that the world has changed to the point that America can no longer put its national interests ahead of international interests. That could be a problem. As Sachs said, “Part of America’s founding principles is that you don’t have to love your neighbor.” If we want to get anywhere in the next few years, that attitude will apparently have to change.

You can watch video of the entire event here.

Photos: Courtesy of The Earth Institute.

No Wrong Turns: Surfers Give Cars Away in Baja Road Race

by Kelsey Mulyk on

A few weeks ago I overheard a bunch of locals chatting about a group of American surfers who drove down to the tip of Baja California Sur and gave away everything they came with including their cars. I decided to do a bit of research and find out what this was all about.

A group of guys, who affectionately refer to their vacation time together as “TGT” (The Guys Trip) decided to switch up their rather typical surf vacations for a new kind adventure — a trip that would jar them out of their middle-class comfort zones and, as they put it, “require balls.” The trip was dubbed “The Baja 3000”.

“The Baja 3000” challenged the surfers to choose a teammate and a vehicle that would get them to the tip of the Baja in seven days. Each team had a budget of $3000 which had to cover the purchase of a vehicle, car insurance (US and Mexican), permits, food, fuel, toll charges, and their accommodation. The maximum budget that could be allotted to the car purchase was $1500, leaving the other half to cover the remaining expenses. I want to know where they found decent cars to drive in Mexico for $1500!

As if that wasn’t already enough of a challenge, they created a complicated contest, based on a point system, with a list of activities that had to be completed along the way. Each team was given a camera and film as well as journal to document their contest accomplishments. Points were given based on the activities completed. One of the top ways to earn points was to have village children paint the car (earn 5000 points). One way to lose a serious amount of points was to receive jail time (lose 100, 000 points…though I think losing points would be the least of your worries).

They even had a “Baja 3000” trophy along with a prize for the winning team. The prize involved never having to buy beer for the rest of the trip and well-deserved bragging rights.

And, though the trip was all in fun, these guys also wanted to give back to the community where they have spent dozens of years surfing. Teams donated cars, school supplies, books and much more to low income families as well as to local organizations like Classroom on Wheels and Communidad Biblica de Cabo San Lucas.

Sounds like a fun and socially responsible vacation to me…I wonder where they will head to next year.

Check out their website for more information.

“No Wrong Turns” chronicles Kelsey and her husband’s road trip — in real time — from Canada to the southern tip of South America in their trusty red VW Golf named Marlin.

US broadcasters threaten boycott of Olympics clichés

by Aaron Hotfelder on

As activists urge the US Olympic team to boycott the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, a group of US broadcasters are threatening to send China– and the rest of the world– a message the only way they know how: by boycotting their favorite Olympics clichés.

Bob Costas, NBC’s anchor for the channel’s Olympics coverage, is demanding change in China’s controversial relationship with Tibet. Said Costas: “If China remains unwilling to grant Tibet its independence, I will boycott the use of phrases like ‘For so-and-so, making it here is a dream come true,’ and ‘This is what the Olympics are all about.'”

Other announcers at NBC have followed Costas’ lead, threatening to eliminate from their repertoire well-worn statements like, “There are no losers here today,” and “This is a David versus Goliath matchup.”

Veteran play-by-play man Dick Enberg, who will be covering tennis and basketball at the Beijing Games, believes the threatened boycott is a unique opportunity for broadcasters to make a difference on a global scale. “If I refuse to say that an athlete is an inspiration ‘on and off the court,'” said Enberg, “it’s not really the Olympics.”

Chinese president Hu Jintao was visibly shaken when he first received news of the proposed boycott yesterday afternoon. The president reportedly said through an interpreter: “I simply must hear Mr. Costas declare that a person has ‘overcome a lot of adversity’ and is ‘on top of the world.'”

The Chinese president was then reportedly overheard telling a top aide, “Set up talks with Tibet immediately.”

Hundreds killed after villagers drink from Nalgene bottles

by Grant Martin on

UPDATE: This was an April Fool’s post and bears no semblance to reality.

In a small Guatemalan town one hundred miles north of Guatemala City, a mass grave lies just outside of the city square. A mass grave full of people. Dead people.

The town is called La Estancia de Garcia, and it’s population is now 7, down from 149 earlier this year.

It all started with good will visit and donation from Nalgene, the New York based water bottle manufacturer. To show that they were a well-rounded charitable company, they chose the quaint Estancia de Garcia as the model town to send Jonathan Kieliszak, Director of Public Relations, down for a photo shoot and the donation of two hundred one-liter Nalgene branded bottles for charity.

The problem is that these bottles were made of Lexan, a potentially dangerous polymeric material that could have dangerous side effects because it contains the compound known as bisphenol-A. We posted on these potential threats ad nauseum last year.

As a result of the controversy, Nalgene has modified the chemical composition of their trademark water bottles to include a slightly modified compound called polymethyl methacrylate which is completely harmless to humans. But the water bottles they sent to Guatemala contained the old, hazardous compound.

Shortly after Mr. Kieliszak left town, Guatemalans started getting ill. At first they thought it was the flu until children started vomiting a thick black mucus and getting high fevers. Their family members next became violently ill, then most of the entire village. Soon, 142 of the 149 villagers were dead. The other seven happened to be on a hunting expedition that week and not consuming liquids out of the bottles.

Now, J. Kieliszak and the polymer lobby are working hard in Washington DC trying to cover up the affair. They claim that the village became ill due to “natural causes” and that Nalgene did nothing wrong. And they’ve quietly returned to Estancia de Garcia to collect used water bottles and bring them back to the states for “testing”.

Who knows what the effects of concentrated amounts of bisphenol-A did to the Guatemalan villagers? Will we ever find out what the real cause of their deaths was? Nalgene has been tight lipped on the topic, and as the lobbyists work hard in Washington, the story slowly fades into the limelight. But for these Guatemalans, my Nalgene water bottle has now been retired.