Road tales on a budget

Matt Gross, the New York Times' "Frugal Traveler," is moving on to something else. After four full years of writing travel articles for the newspaper, of blogging and videotaping his budget-wise, globe-trotting ways, Matt has decided to take off his backpack. (If you'd like a little background, see the posts entitled "Rome and Malta" or "Bucharest rising" in this blog.)

Before moving on to his next assignment, he wrote one last blog entry that summarizes what he's learned from being a traveler on a tight budget. He says one of the key lessons that will stay with him is that the amount of money spent on a trip does not determine the quality of the experience. What instead is much more valuable is having an open mind and being willing to go outside of one's comfort zone. Matt says meeting new people and establishing new friendships are the real reward for travel, regardless of budget or destination.

He explains his reasons, his joys and his regrets. The blog entry also has some embedded video samples of some of his experiences. You can read his last post here.

The "Frugal Traveler" column, however, isn't dead -- it merely has a new protagonist: Seth Kugel will be picking up where Matt left off. This summer, Seth will be travelling on less than $500 a week from Sao Paolo to Manhattan. The writer of the "Weekend in New York" column will offer some unique insights from the road. You can read some of Seth's previous work on his website, linked here.

"The best obtainable version of the truth"

For those embarking on a journalism career, certain iconic figures stand out as role models.

Probably the most famous are Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters who won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for their investigative work on the break-in at the Watergate hotel and office building, a story that followed a money trail and unveiled a cover-up that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Since then, both Woodward and Bernstein have gone on to write numerous best sellers. Bernstein is also a contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine. Recently, Bernstein was invited to speak at a public forum on journalism in Rome, a city he knows well from his days researching a book on Pope John Paul II.

During the forum, Bernstein said some things about journalism which provide a unique insight into the passion with which he has embraced his profession. His remarks offer useful lessons for those who are considering a career in the media, and also for consumers.

Talking about the shift of journalism from older models of media to the newer forms of communication, Bernstein reflected on the need to bring over the best of the old traditions. He defined good reporting as the process of communicating "the best obtainable version of the truth." A simple phrase, he said, yet "something very difficult to accomplish."

Bernstein went on to explain that in North America we seem to have created a "mythology" about media objectivity. According to Bernstein, reporting is not objective, but instead is "the most subjective of activities." This is because journalists and editors themselves decide what is news and what is not. Reporters collect facts and string them together to provide context. He stressed the need to do thorough research and present the facts in a responsible manner.

Bernstein has been at it a long time. He started working as a journalist in 1960 at the age of 16. Asked to share his thoughts about the profession, he offered this summary, on looking back:

What is we do? We're not here to be prosecutors. That's for prosecutors. We're not here to change the results of an election. We're here to present information about how we live and how our fellows live. We're here to describe our community, our government, our sports, our entertainment -- always with the idea of this best obtainable version of the truth, so that those who read us, see us on television, on the web, put their trust in what we do and learn which of us is worthy of that trust, which institution is worthy of that trust, which individual reporters are worthy of that trust, so that we can help people know things.

That's really all our job is: to help people know things, so they can make up their minds about what's around them. It's very simple. [But] it's probably the hardest thing you can do because there are so many ways to get it wrong, to take shortcuts. The bad part of the web is the pressure on us time-wise, to get it out there right away, right away, right away... without checking it out, without trying to see how one fact weighs against another and putting it into context."

I would say, particularly in the informational cacophony that we have today, that if I were a young person and I could do anything, this is what I would do.

Bernstein may inspire a new generation of journalists to rise above all the noise and make difference.


Photo credit:
Image by Larry D. Moore, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License. More info here.

If you dream it...

Here are some perspectives on the strength of the human imagination, from some notably imaginative types:

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. " - Henry David Thoreau

"Live out your imagination, not your history." - Stephen Covey.

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." - Michelangelo

"Imagination rules the world." - Napoleon Bonaparte

"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking. " - George S. Patton

(Patton always make me smile.)

Notes:
Quotations are from brainyquote.com

Europe at the crossroads

Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive officer of automakers Chrysler and Fiat, was speaking to reporters recently and said something about the economic challenges in Europe that caught my attention. As we've been reading in the news, the concept of European union is at a critical stage. Talking about the looming debt issues, Marchionne made the observation that while both Europe and North America desire unity in their respective regions of the world, they've adopted separate paths towards that end. Europe, faced with many national differences, decided to first establish a strong shared currency (the Euro), hoping that the single currency and its benchmark economic requirements would eventually lead to political union. But those requirements of monetary union and the differences between national economies now risk tearing Europe apart.

Marchionne noted the North American model is different. Canada, the United States and Mexico first negotiated a free trade agreement. They chose to not bind national currencies together. The value of the currencies has been free to float. As a consequence, political union, if desired and possible, could be developed as a separate phase. Countries have been freer to pursue their own policies. Specific national economic issues to date have not been a grave threat to the agreement.

Financial observers say that many of the world's nations have been living too deeply in dept for too long. Now Europe faces significant social and economic upheaval, as Greece is forced to make great sacrifices to enact an austerity plan that threatens its social fabric. The global downturn of 2008-09 may only have been the first phase of a continuing crisis. All eyes are on how the European Union and the world's bankers are tackling the big challenges of this latest financial dilemma.


Notes:
Der Spiegel magazine offers a detailed portrait of the economic situation in Europe. See Huge National Debts Could Push Eurozone Into Bankruptcy.

A seal and a ferry in the Strait

The seal was swimming in the middle of the Strait of Georgia, the body of water that lies between Vancouver Island and the mainland. The Strait is about 25-30 kilometers wide, and the seal was right in the middle of the channel, a long way from land. It simply popped it's head above water and watched as the large ferry headed directly towards it. I was on the deck of the ship looking down. Just as it seemed we would bear down on it, the seal effortlessly ducked under the surface of the water and swam a few meters off to the side and then popped it's head out again, whiskers dripping wet, and looked up at the deck as the ferry sped past.

This happened also with a different seal in another part of the same crossing we were making between Nanaimo and Horseshoe Bay on the mainland.

While many people on the West Coast are used to these types of encounters with nature, this is still marvellously new to me. It's a thrill to find other forms of life coexisting with humans. It always serves as a reminder that we humans are but one player on this stage, only one aspect of a complex ecosystem.

Standing there on the deck of this gigantic steel machine, an intruder in the ocean world, we had a connection, that seal and I, that lasted just a few seconds. We looked at each other; but it was a moment that linked us as living beings - partners - on this planet we both call home.

Eloquent words

Much has been said and written about the U.S. Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson and signed by Congress in 1776. The document was the fruit of many days of difficult discussions between the representatives of the original colonies, the thirteen States.

Every time I read it, I'm struck by the powerful sentiment so artfully expressed by Jefferson in the second paragraph. Much of the original draft was modified by the founding representatives who participated in those early sessions of Congress. But this paragraph, we're told, is all Jefferson. The words somehow reach down and reflect something within the human spirit that seems to resonate still:

"...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

I never tire of seeing these words and reflecting on how powerful they are, how much they've guided western democratic ideals, and - sadly - how sometimes we've drifted from them.


Notes:
The full text of the Declaration of Independence can be read here.
More on the thoughts and writings of Thomas Jefferson here.

Feeling at home

I recently spent a few days in Newmarket, Ontario, about an hour's drive north of Toronto. We had gathered for the funeral of a close family member. It was an emotionally trying time but also an opportunity to reconnect with family, friends and acquaintances. At the reception, talk turned to the topic of home.

Since we've moved out to Vancouver, many people have asked me, "So, how do you like Vancouver?" I always respond by saying that I'm enjoying living on the West Coast and I'm starting to feel at home here. But almost in the same breath I say that for me home is relative. Home is where I am, where I rest my head after a heavy day and where my family is. Home is not that necessarily related to a specific location.

The more I travel, the more I realize that while geography offers us the infinite variety of the natural world and clues to understanding local history and culture, it is also represents simply an aesthetic aspect of life. Life, for most of the week, revolves around work, spouse and family, shopping, food and rest.

As beautiful as the country may be, so much of our daily experience looks the same after a while that in the end it doesn't matter so much whether one lives in the Rockies, the Prairies or the Maritimes. Offices are more or less the same, shopping centres offer the same types of stores and merchandise pretty much everywhere, restaurant franchises are copies of each other, and many of these companies are also national: think about brands like Tim Horton's or The Bay, for example. When you factor in the effects of network television programs, the availability of the Internet, portable music tracks that become the soundtrack of life, and the use of social media, then geography begins to matter less and less.

So as we share similar life experiences across the country, then "home" comes down to our routine and the relationships we form -- relationships at work, relationships in the house and how we stay in touch with extended family members. That emotional "place" is, for me, where home is. And, accepting that, one can, in theory, live just about anywhere in this vast country and find a way to feel at home.

Will the volcanic ash cloud cool the planet?

While the volcanic eruption in Iceland has been very disruptive for air travel, one possible benefit of the enormous ash cloud is that it may contribute to global cooling.

The spreading of suspended particles of ash in the atmosphere, particularly if they are rich in sulfur, can actually create a protective haze in the high atmosphere. The sulfur particles mix with water vapour to form clouds with sulfuric acid droplets. These are said to stay aloft for years and contribute to the cooling of the atmosphere by absorbing solar radiation and reflecting it back into space. This may give scientists and governments a little more time to find ways to reduce the harmful impact of increasing carbon dioxide emissions from human activity. Even as we struggle to find ways to reduce these emissions, scientists are starting to turn to "geoengineering" looking for ways to shield the earth from the harmful rays of the sun.

While volcanoes may damage the ozone layer, it's also very clear that certain significant eruptions in the past have contributed to recorded periods of cooler weather.

The 1991 eruptions of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines and Mount Hudson in Chile released a gigantic sulfuric oxide cloud that scientists say caused the reduction of global mean temperatures by as much as one degree Celsius for the following two years. It may not sound like much, but such a reduction is significant. To appreciate the change, let's look at the opposite scenario: think of what would happen if the temperature were to swing the other way. An increase of the global mean temperature by one degree takes us to the edge of fateful precipice: many climatologists say an increase of just two degrees would spark an unstoppable chain reaction of global warming that would increase the amount of methane in the atmosphere, choke our food supply and rapidly doom our planet. So, in contrast, a reduction of global temperatures by one degree is a big deal.

A similar global cooling phenomenon was recorded after the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa (Krakatau) in Indonesia when the world experienced very cool weather and dramatic sunsets.

Notes:

The image shows the smoke plume from the Mt. Etna volcano, in Italy.

For information on climatic effects of volcanic activity, including the two eruptions cited above, click here.

For a primer on climate engineering, click here.

The story of the Krakatoa eruption is here.