September 29, 2009

Postcard from London: On climate change, new message is “Blame Canada”

Protesters demonstrating Canada's tar sands development outside the Canadian High Commission in London. Photo by Zoe Cormier. I was pretty sure I knew what the Canadian flag, held upside down, was supposed to represent. But I had to ask anyway. Last Monday afternoon, standing outside the Houses of Parliament in London in Parliament square, I held my cell phone aloft with a hundred other protesters,... [More >>]

August 17, 2009

Postcard from Lusaka: No smoking. Really no smoking.

When Lusaka went smoke free, they really went smoke-free. Photo by Michael Musenga. As the wheels hit the hot asphalt of the runway, I look up to see the frenetic expressions on the faces of my fellow passengers—a look that falls somewhere between anxious and anaphylactic, and it’s clear they’re desperate to get off the plane. It’s been a short and relatively painless flight from Nairobi, Kenya,... [More >>]

July 20, 2009

Postcard from Liberia: The Prisoner

Prisoner in Butuo, Liberia. Photo credit: Myles Estey On Christmas Eve, 1989, Charles Taylor’s band of rebels stormed the small border village of Butuo, Liberia, taking over the police station and sparking a civil war. Chief Inspector Morris Gonylee waves dismissively at the state of ruin the station now lies in, a common sight in a nation struggling to rebuild from this 14-year conflict. A tethered... [More >>]

June 2, 2009

Postcard from Tokyo: Rise of the (vending) machines

Japanese vending machines, at your service any time. Creative Commons photo by David Ooms. In North America, we barely notice vending machines. They dispense soft drinks, water, sometimes coffee (or laundry soap in laundromats). In Japan, however, vending machines have been elevated to a fine art. To an outsider, these machines, called jidoohanbaiki, are ubiquitous — incredibly, there is one vending... [More >>]