Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Get out of Berlin!
The September issue of National Geographic Traveler has a brief piece of mine recommending several fun day trips people can take from Berlin. Although it's not available online, if you get the magazine or are at a newsstand the section is helpfully entitled "Day Trips." My article is on page 119.
The extra-short version -- Spreewald (mustard pickles), Leipzig (classical music), Potsdam (Prussian palaces). I wanted to include Frankfurt an der Oder and Slubice, for the sheer border-crossing fun of it, but couldn't think of much to do there besides walk across the bridge to Poland for cheap vodka and cigarettes and walk back, which doesn't quite fill up a whole day.
It is fun, though.
Polish politics
I was in Warsaw in early August to report a piece on the new Polish political scene for the Christian Science Monitor. It was published today.
In case you haven't been following the news out of Central Europe closely, Poland's two most powerful positions (president and prime minister) are held by identical twin brothers.
Their socially conservative policies are also causing a divide in the country that kept reminding me of the infamous red/blue America debates -- they're widely disliked in big, prosperous cities, and heavily supported in the countryside.
In case you haven't been following the news out of Central Europe closely, Poland's two most powerful positions (president and prime minister) are held by identical twin brothers.
Their socially conservative policies are also causing a divide in the country that kept reminding me of the infamous red/blue America debates -- they're widely disliked in big, prosperous cities, and heavily supported in the countryside.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Scythian mummy
I had my first byline in Science magazine today. I wrote about a partially mummified warrior the head of the German Archaeological Institute found this summer in the highlands of Mongolia. It was a really cool find. The preservation was so good they found the meal that had been placed in the grave to sustain the warrior in the afterlife, still on the plate.
What I appreciated most is that they did two summers' worth of boring, difficult survey work before digging at all. The popular image of archaeology as full of shocking finds and eureka moments is so often off base -- in science, as with so many other things, you usually make your own luck.
What I appreciated most is that they did two summers' worth of boring, difficult survey work before digging at all. The popular image of archaeology as full of shocking finds and eureka moments is so often off base -- in science, as with so many other things, you usually make your own luck.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Merkel-cast
Germany's prime minister, Angela Merkel, is the star of her own weekly video podcast. While Americans have been making do with radio addresses from our fearless leaders since the days of "Silent" Cal Coolidge, the Land of Ideas is using the iPods to get the message out. I wrote about this exciting development in statecraft for Foreign Policy's September/October issue. As far as I could tell, she's the first head of state to get on the Mac bandwagon.
Cut for space was one of the funnier aspects, a video parody done by Berlin comedian Ivo Lotion. It's sorta funny even if you don't speak German.
Cut for space was one of the funnier aspects, a video parody done by Berlin comedian Ivo Lotion. It's sorta funny even if you don't speak German.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Local heroes
Back in 2003, I wrote a few pieces on the history of flight for the 100th anniversary of the Wright brother's Kitty Hawk takeoff. It's a fascinating chunk of history.
With any big invention, agreeing on who was first is difficult. The question is all the more thorny in the case of flight, which took the accumulated labors of many, many minds before a few people made the crucial conceptual leaps forward.
Definitions are also important, of course: the Wright brothers were indisputably the first to successfully conduct a powered, controlled heavier-than-air flight, but other people got off the ground before them. One of them was a German, who launched his glider from a specially-constructed hill on the edge of Berlin. I wrote about him, and the controversy, in the latest issue of U.S. News and World Report. If you 're interested -- really, really interested -- in the era, the Otto Lilienthal museum at Anklam is a neat little spot.
With any big invention, agreeing on who was first is difficult. The question is all the more thorny in the case of flight, which took the accumulated labors of many, many minds before a few people made the crucial conceptual leaps forward.
Definitions are also important, of course: the Wright brothers were indisputably the first to successfully conduct a powered, controlled heavier-than-air flight, but other people got off the ground before them. One of them was a German, who launched his glider from a specially-constructed hill on the edge of Berlin. I wrote about him, and the controversy, in the latest issue of U.S. News and World Report. If you 're interested -- really, really interested -- in the era, the Otto Lilienthal museum at Anklam is a neat little spot.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
The Nile
Is really just a river in Egypt. And Sudan. And Ethiopia. And Uganda, and Tanzania, and Rwanda. In fact, it's the longest river in the world, and it's obsessed explorers for thousands of years. Read about it in my most recent article, for U.S. News and World Report's "Who Was First" summer issue.
