Wolves: Oscar winning material and no longer endangered

by Jamie Rhein on

At the end of this year’s Oscar winner for Short Film–Animated, “Peter and the Wolf,” the wolf goes free even after he made Peter not too happy. (Sorry if that ruins it for anyone.) The tolerance for the wolf is one that has been hard won.

Tolerance hasn’t been totally won, although, through the Endangered Species Act, government regulations have helped the gray wolf population grow in the Northern Rocky States. The population has grown so much that Interior Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett said the gray wolf is a “conservation success story.” For this reason, the wolf is being dropped from the list of endangered species, perhaps never to return.

When we went to Yellowstone National Park a few years ago, we did catch site of a gray wolf, one of the animals we were looking for. Unfortunately, wolves like to eat livestock, so farmers and ranchers in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming aren’t thrilled with wolves who encroach on what they rely on for a living.

The wolf saga is an example of the push and pull between environmentalism and business. The tourist industry doesn’t have much pull in this battle, but maybe the wolves will get a hint that hanging around Old Faithful isn’t a bad idea.

JFK airport’s makeover: What to do with a stained glass window?

by Jamie Rhein on

As Terminal 8 at JFK is being taken down to make room for snowplow storage, figuring out what to do with its 900-pane stained glass window has been considered in depth. When the terminal was built in 1960, the window was a signature piece that pointed to the glory of air travel. Glory didn’t even last half a century.

There was an effort to save the window in its entirety, but that failed. For a mere one million dollars it could have been yours. Instead it’s being taken apart with sections of it being shipped to various locations. The folks who wanted to save the window aren’t too happy about it since the feeling is that has historic and artistic value. It might be the largest stained glass window in the world. It is the largest stained glass window to figure into a building’s design. Others believe that why save a stained glass window when airlines are struggling to meet costs?

Still, it’s too bad about the window. Although pieces of it will be quite lovely in their new locations, they won’t be the same as seeing the whole thing. One could also look at this change due to change as similar to a Buddhist sand mandala or a Native American sand painting. They aren’t made to last, but their beauty transcends. (Here’s a New York magazine post about former efforts to save the window. The photo is from 1961.) [via New York Times]

Maps: Changing your global perspective

by Anna Brones on

The way we look at the world often depends on where we come from. Take maps for instance. A typical map that most of us Americans had in our grade school textbooks is the North America-centered one, with our continent smack dab in the middle. Often these maps are not completely true to scale, which can lead to a misunderstanding over the true size of a country or continent. What about other maps that are not so traditional?

As avid travelers, we here at Gadling are pretty obsessed with maps so it’s no surprise that we’ve already written about ODT’s upside down map (or is it right side up??), but the map company also has population based maps as well as equal area ones. These maps put more than just where a country is located into consideration, giving us a better perspective of how many people are in one place, and the evolution of the global population over the years, as well as what size countries truly are.

As for North America-centered maps, they have those too, along with Pacific-centered and Africa/Eurasia-centered, all to make you question your own global perspective.

Disneyland, a place to see stars

by Jamie Rhein on

Last week, somewhere, I saw a picture of Harrison Ford with his daughter on a ride at Disneyland. Turns out, according to Marla Matzer Rose who details in an article where to see stars in Los Angeles, Disneyland is a place to keep your eyes open. Here’s a shot of Diane Keaton taken two years ago. Interestingly, the only celebrity I’ve seen in Los Angeles when I’ve gone there over the years is Diane Keaton.

From what Matzer Rose says, look closely at anyone with baggy sweats and sunglasses. I’d throw in a baseball hat as well. In order to see Disneyland like a star, she suggests the “A Walk in Walt’s Footsteps Tour.” This is a way to get the behind the scenes look at Disneyland’s beginnings which includes seeing Walt Disney’s apartment and a peek at Club 33, the members-only restaurant that Neil wrote about.

Even if you can’t afford the $400 a room price-tag for a night in the Grand Californian, the Disney resort hotel where stars frequent, you can go on a tour of it. Matzer Rose suggests calling ahead to find out when the tours are and to make a reservation.

My thinking is that if you don’t see a star, pretend that you are one. It might be kind of fun to wear dark sunglasses, baggy clothes and a baseball hat just to see if anyone might wonder who you are. My problem is, every time I go to Disneyland or Disney World it rains. Instead of looking mysterious, I end up in one of those plastic ponchos with Mickey Mouse on the back–not star material at all.

The other places Matzer Rose suggests for LA star sightings are: studio tours, coffee shops, upscale grocery stores, and independent movies. I saw Diane Keaton going to a movie. See? [via Columbus Dispatch] Here’s more about star spotting at Disneyland.

The English Project 2012

by Abha Malpani on

As part of the London Olympics cultural program, the plan is to build a museum tracing the roots of the English language.

In conjunction with BBC and the British Library, the museum will allow visitors to experience physically and virtually (holograms!) the global evolution of the language from when it was a mixed tongue of the Jute, Angle and Saxon tribes, to how it stands today as spoken by 2 billion people around the world.

Although being organized by and in the UK, I’m assuming that it will take into context English spoken as a first language in the US, South Africa and Australia.

I’d be particularly interested to see how the future of English is predicted. Language experts say that because of its global reach, new varieties are emerging and there is a possibility that English will evolve into a family of new languages — like what happened to Latin a thousand years ago.

The idea is not unique and just when I was wondering how is it that this hasn’t been thought of before, I find that it has — but for other languages, not purely for English, and on a much smaller scale.

There’s the Museum of the Portuguese Language in Brazil, the Afrikaans Language Museum in South Africa, and the National Museum of Language in the US that talks generally about world languages.

The English Project sounds like a monster project; one that would involve an extensive amount of research and careful articulation to represent a language that is so boundless today.