Anti-Americanism Editorial

by Erik Olsen on

We’ve been hearing so much lately about anti-Americanism, it’s almost a cliche as a story. Yeah, yeah, they hate us, we know it. What can we do? Somewhat lost in the debate are the reasons why there appears to be so much disgruntlement (nice word!) with the American way. Sure, the policies of the Bush Administration appear to be to blame…a lot of people around the world don’t like what we’re doing in Iraq. But as this editorial in the LA Times attempts to point out, there’s more to the question than meets to eye.

Julia E. Sweig is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of a new book called “Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century.” She points to a host of other issues that have caused people around world to get their panties in a bunch. The Cold war legacy, she says, left a residue of dissatisfaction with American policy. All that nasty business in Latin America and South east Asia, stuff that, she suggest, we’ve kind of forgotten (she nicely quotes Gore Vidal, who quipped we should be called the United States of Amnesia). Then there is the matter of our power. everyone hates the big guy, that’s just natural, so much of the antipathy has to do with being number one.

Let’s see, what else. Oh, yeah, globalization. We’ve run around telling everyone how great free markets are and then when some countries like Peru or Bolivia give the free market thing a try and come up more poor than they were before, they grow skeptical. Add into that equation all this business with American farm subsidies not really being free market after all, and you can see why there’s some doubting Thomasses out there.

My opinion is that this whole-anti-American thing will likely pass. We’re still a country whose heart is in the right place and is a wonderful place to live and visit . I suspect that once this nasty Iraq business is behind us and once the Arab/Israeli imbroglio hits a stasis again (as it will, though it will never be solved), folks will lighten up a bit about America. I could be wrong, but if America is still loathed in five years, I’ll be surprised.

In the meantime, what I suggest we do is hold a contest around the globe for some 5,000 people from every country. We’ll pay for them to come here and hang out with us for a few weeks. Then, when they go back, they’ll tell all their friends about what we’re really like.

Problem solved. See?

A VERY Big Book on Bhutan

by Erik Olsen on

And you thought the last Harry Potter opus was large. Well, guess again.

take a look at the work of Mr. Michael Hawley, Director of Special Projects and founder of MIT’s GO Expeditions program. Hawley is famous in creative/scientific circles (the Ultimate Third Culturean) and through his Friendly Planet program has created numerous educational materials that push the boundaries of technology. Among them is the largest book ever published. Called Bhutan, the book is a “visual odyssey” across the Asian kingdom.

Teams of photographers from MIT and Friendly Planet took over 40,000 photographs on four expeditions across the country. They traveled by helicopter, hoof and foot across the Bhutanese Himalaya, and took life-size pictures that were then compiled into this monstrous, but luscious tome. You really have to see it to believe it. And you can actually own it….the book will set you back $15,000 at Amazon, but just think what all your friends will say! You’ll be the most popular guy on the block.

Welcome WorldWiki

by Erik Olsen on

The good folks at Wikipedia – that is, Jimmy Wales, et al. – have taken their whole travel wiki thing up a notch. They’ve introduced a new site called WorldWiki, that allows travelers and interested parties to go in and edit information about travel destinations, hot spots, recommendations, etc.

This is a fine idea. If there’s any group other than Star Trek fans and lepidopterists who are passionate about their hobbies, it’s travelers. I expect this will be a very useful and informed resource…even if there is the possibility for Wiki-mahem. But if there is any model that should work nicely for finding the best bar in London or the cleanest hostel in Budapest, the Wiki system seems well suited to doing that. Right now, the site is in need of some contributors but I suspect it will soon catch on and could create some serious competition for dead tree guides. My guess is that the folks at Lonely Planet, et al, are watching this one closely.

As a side note: Wikipedia has been in the news a lot lately. The New Yorker had an excellent piece on the organization and I keep seeing more about it everywhere.

“New” Mark Twain Books

by Erik Olsen on

One of the first travel books I ever read remains one of the best I’ve ever read. Mark Twain’s Innocent’s Abroad helped define what I like in a travel tale: fascinating, novel information about a place, detailed interaction with others, and humor. Twain delivers all of these and more. And Innocent’s Abroad had me both giggling and mesmerized throughout its pages. If only every travel writer could inject humor into their work, the genre would be much better for it. Twain and Bill Bryson are probably two of the funniest travel writers alive, except that Twain’s dead. But that’s beside the point.

What I want to tell you about here is a piece over at Worldhum by Kristen van Tassel, who takes a look at several new books about Twain that focus almost exclusively on his itinerant habits.

Twain might be best known as a fiction writer, but the reality is he was a compulsive traveler. He went to the ends of the earth in the days when, well, they didn’t think the world was flat exactly, but much of the world remained unknown to most of the people. And these books seem a nice way to introduce oneself to twain’s travel writings. The books are called Mark Twain: On Travel, edited by Terry Mort, and Mark Twain’s Helpful Hints for Good Living: A Handbook for the Damned Human Race, edited by Lin Salamo, Victor Fischer, and Michael B. Frank of the Mark Twain Project. They appear to be more compilations of Twain material, which is fine by me. It would be nice if a new novel or travel book was discovered ,but as far as I’m concerned the world can’t get enough of Mark Twain.

Thailand Audio Tours

by Erik Olsen on

I lived in Bangkok briefly back in the mid-90s and remember the city as a buzzing, cacophonous, traffic-clogged metropolis where anything went. That is, as I once put it to a fiend: Bangkok is not a city for the undisciplined. I spent many an hour walking Bangkok’s dirty-foul smelling streets and wandering down blind alleys in search of interesting things to see and, well, to eat. Needless to say, I found many of each on every little expedition.

Now, it seems, given the benefits of technology, my meanderings would be somewhat enhanced…depending on how you look at it. A company has put together Bangkok walking tours called Siam Soundtrek that take you along historical, cultural and musical ambles through the city’s streets. The music helps carry along the narrative, which goes impressively deep. Now, you’re not going to meet a lot of interesting people if you walk around the city with headphones on, but these tours might be a nice way to start out in the city or for tourists who just want to get acquainted with the city in a short period of time.