Iraq making the World Monuments Fund list of endangered cultural sites should come as no real
shocker to most of us, but I thought
this piece found at
CNN would serve as a good read for those not quite clued in on how much damage has been caused by the
war. Though many of the 55 sites that made the list recently were sites like a hut in Antarctica or a Modernist
building in NY, Iraq marks the first time an entire country has ever been placed on the list. Referred at
times as the ‘cradle of civilization,’ there is a lot of world heritage at stake claims the Monument Fund. Sites
where King Hammurabi enacted the first-known code of law at a temple precinct in Babylon are among one of the
tops. Looting amongst the natives has accounted for a great loss in artifacts dating 10,000 years back many of
which turn back up on the international market. At this point nothing can really be done until, well the war
stops. Sad.
Jane Goodall IMAX
Good old IMAX. I love the format, and wish they’d do even more with it. A while back I saw James Cameron’s Aliens of
the Deep, and let me tell you this film should be on the lesson plan of every student in America. Sure, you can get
your concepts of the underwater world from textbooks, but nothing beats a screen five stories high with 3-D glasses.
Well, depending on where you live, you likely have a museum of natural history or a science museum or something of that
ilk. Here in New York, we have the American Museum of Natural History, pretty much
the best of its species around. They’ve got a relatively new IMAX film showing there on Jane Goodall and her
chimps. Called Jane Goodall’s Wild Chimpanzees, the
film looks at Goodall’s forty year career of eschewing homo sapiens for chimps. Not that I blame her. I bring this all
up because it’s a hot Sunday here in the city and I was thinking a lot of folks probably don’t remember that an IMAX
theater is somewhere nearby, and catching these films is always a treat.
On Da Nang
One of the places I most want to visit in the world today is Vietnam. Everyone I’ve spoken with who has been there
has nothing but high marks for the country. The food is great, the people are friendly and some of the sites are truly
spectacular. The Detroit Freep has got a
feature on Da Nang that makes for a good read. The writer heads to China beach and seveal of the mountainous areas
in the vincinity including Ngu Hanh Son, better known as Marble Mountains, where Viet Cong troops watched what was
going on during the Vietnam war in Da Nang (the site, you will remember of several major battles). She chows lobster
and enjoys some history (from the Vietnamese perspective) of the war.
Penguin March on Cinematical
Our sister site Cinematical has
got a great post on a new film
called March of the Penguins. The film was picked up at Sundance 2005 by Warner Independent Pictures and National
Geographic Feature Films for around a million dollars…and then thoroughly de-Frenchified. That is, the film was shot by
Frenchman Luc Jacquet, who obviously injected a bit of his country’s cultural aesthetic.
To shoot the film, his crew visited the scientific center of Dumont d’ Urville, in Antarctica, to shoot the emperor
penguins in super 16mm. I look forward to seeing the film myself. You can catch the
trailer here.
Travelfish
Travelers interested in Southeast Asia, in particular Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, will be very interested in this site called Travelfish.
The site has very specific, traveler-written guides to these places, providing information on the best unspoit beaches, the best food, where to go in Laos to find “mist shrouded Lao mountains” and “luxury lodges for a hilltribe trek”. In some ways, I actually think the site is better than Lonely Planet, because for each place they actually provide listings and links to their recommendations.
So yes, the site is actually quite good. Well organized, nicely designed and chock full of good information. If you are planning a trip to this region, I urge you to check out Travelfish.