Zoo Sex Tours

by Erik Olsen on

OK, granted this would have been a better post for Valentine’s Day, but better late than never I always say. I mean, it’s about the information ,right? You seek knowledge and edification, don’t you dear gadling readers? And if the question before us is one having to do with the bids and the bees…aka, how animals do it…then we shant pass up any opportunity to learn more. Who knows what lessons for our own lives lurk in the behaviors of other species? Can you say doggy style?

Ahem.

And so I take you to this article from AP on the rather interesting phenomenon of Zoo Sex Tours. Yes, you read that right. Zoos are taking advantage of our prurient interests and offering tours whereby gawkers can observe the various and multitudinous mating habits of animals. Oh, the places you’ll go. Like the San Francisco Zoo, where you can spy penguins doing it in a fashion that has been desribed (by the concept’s brainparent no less) as “bowling pins making love.” If that doesn’t make you hot, I don’t know what will. Or, did you know that manatees have orgies? That they are bi-sexual?

You see, these are the valuable tidbits we offer you on this chilly Friday. Aren’t you glad you stopped by?

Related article: SF Zoo Sex Tours

Real Time Birth/Death Rates by Country

by Neil Woodburn on

Here’s a cool site I discovered while leafing through Outside Magazine yesterday.

BreathingEarth.net is a world map which displays the real time birth/death rate and CO2 emissions around the planet.

Click on the United States, for example and see how the population of 299,102,661 is decreasing by one person every 12.8 seconds while another is born every 7.5 seconds. In addition, 1000 tons of CO2 are emitted every 5.4 seconds. In Norway, on the other hand, a person dies every 12 minutes and another is born every 9.9 minutes. It takes the Norwegians almost ten minutes to pump out 1000 tons of CO2.

The map also shows how many births and deaths have occurred since signing on to the site. Watching how fast the birthrate is overtaking the death rate is rather frightening. In the time it took me to write this post, 4460 people were born but only 1930 died.

Grand Canyon Skywalk: Marvel or Eyesore

by Erik Olsen on

I recall that we’ve blogged a few times before about the Grand Canyon Skywalk, a cantilevered, see-through deck that will jut out 70 feet beyond the canyon’s edge on the Hualapai Indian Reservation just west of Grand Canyon Village. Part of me thinks this could be a pretty amazing attraction and a cool experience for visitors…how cool to gaze a thousand feet down into the maw of the canyon! Another part of me thinks this will be an awful, cartoonish eyesore that will wreck the magnificent natural beauty of one of the greatest places on earth.

It seems I am not the only one who feels this way.

The Los Angeles Times has got a piece on how controversial the new attraction is, with supporters and detractors going at it like, well, cowboys and Indians…albeit with a rather odd twist. You see, the project is the brainchild of the Hualapai Indian Tribe…and aren’t the Native American groups the ones who usually try and stop projects like this? Well, OK, there is the casino issue. Good point.

Of course, part of the problem is that the Skywalk is only a small part of what tribal officials say will be a massive development that includes hotels, restaurants and a golf course. And just like with casinos, they say the development will be a fine way to address the economic and social problems on the reservation, where the 2,000 residents struggle with a 50% unemployment rate and widespread alcoholism and poverty.

The cantilevered structure opens to the public next month. It is buttressed by 1 million pounds of steel and supports 90 tons of tempered glass. It will cost visitors some $25 to walk over it, and those who spill coffee or drop gum on the floor will be severely beaten. OK, or at least ticketed. OK, I don’t even know if that’s true, but it seems to me like these things could be a problem.

Dirty Ganges

by Erik Olsen on

Two and a half years ago or so I took a trip through India. I found it to be one of the most amazing trips I’ve ever taken. Like so many who make a trip to this massive subcontinent, I wish I could have stayed for a year or more. There was so much to see and do. One of the most fascinating places I visited was the city of Varanasi, said to be the oldest living city on earth. it is hard to describe Varanasi. The city is old, but it is also very much live, very dirty, but also beautiful. It sits on the Ganges and is the place where thousands of Indians come every week, literally, to die.

I did a video on my experience in Varanasi that ran on Al Gore’s Current TV. The Ganges is the lifeline of the country, it’s spiritual spinal cord. But it is also a filthy, highly polluted body of water. I came across this article just now while browsing around that reveals just how dirty it is. And things for the most part are not getting better. Scientists, in fact, say that sewage and pollution have devastated the 1,550-mile river, which spills from a Himalayan glacier and cuts through India’s plains before flowing into the Bay of Bengal. There are places near Varanasi with a fecal bacteria count nearly 4,000 times the World Health Organization standard for bathing.

I like to see that people are calling attention to the state of the Ganges, because the Indians are in need of help turning things around.

Donating Bikes to the Third World

by Neil Woodburn on

How many times have you seen this while abroad? Some poor native walking for miles with an enormous load simply because he had no other form of transport than his feet.

Here in the developed world, we take the transportation of goods for granted. I have a nice spacious trunk in my Honda and if that’s not large enough, I call my buddy Mike who has a pickup truck. Even if I’m not hauling stuff, I can drive, take the bus or hop on my bike.

All of this is a luxury for a good portion of our planet. Simply buying a bag of rice, for example, may involve a mile walk to the nearest store and then a grueling trek back hauling a sack of goods on your head.

Stop for a moment and think how much a simple bike would help out.

That is the philosophy behind Pedals for Progress, a non-profit that seeks to put bikes under the bums of needy people around the world. The concept is easy. People like YOU pull out that old bike that has been sitting in storage since high school and simply donate it.

Since its inception, Pedals for Progress has received more than 100,000 donated bikes which they then deliver to “poor people overseas [who] need cheap, non-polluting transportation to get to jobs, markets, customers, and schools.” Pretty cool!

So, next time you’re in Sri Lanka and see some kid tool by on a Schwinn ten-speed, stop and wave. That just might be the one I rode in high school.