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A few months ago, I purchased a Turkish language learning programme to, not surprisingly, learn some Turkish. Living with a wonderful Turkish woman who is soon to be my wife, it was high time to get a better grasp of what exactly she was saying about me to her [...] When it comes to cookie-cutter standardization of global urban environments, it would be pretty hard to outdo developments over the past decade. Whether in the retail world (Starbucks *cough cough”) or in highrise design, it has become increasingly common to find the same shapes, sights and logos across much of the urbanized world. [...] Doris Duke, the famous American tobacco heiress, kindled her passion for Islamic art collecting on a globe-trotting honeymoon in the 1930s. At its end, she also happened to visit, and fall in love with, Hawaii. The result? A stunning palace of cultural confusion nicknamed Shangri La, her private residence and winter retreat on [...] Given the inordinate amount of media attention lavished on Beijing over the past few years, it is not surprising that the city’s traffic congestion has gained a certain level of global infamy. During the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, Beijing’s clogged transportation arteries became veritable stars in their own right, receiving a good [...] Beyond all the big state hob-knobbing in Asia and the canned prophecies of American central bankers, something important took place today largely outside the realm of mainstream media obsession: the new head of Greenpeace International, Dr. Kumi Naidoo, finished his first day on the job. Dr. Naidoo, whom I had the pleasure of hearing speak [...] As Canada rings in its 142nd birthday today, a new report has come out that puts it dead last among G8 countries in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We’ve even managed to come in behind Russia, a country which is planning to grow its emissions 30% by 2020. To beat that takes real [...] In case you missed the story on page A9 of your newspaper, the US House of Representatives recently passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act. Apart from the actual contents of the climate change bill itself, the very fact this even happened is a small victory in itself. Yes, opinions vary widely on the [...] Despite the financial and economic meltdown of the past few years, the infamous ‘American consumer’ remains front and center of many mainstream storylines. Will they return to the malls in droves, or will they save every penny? If they collapse from retail and interest rate exhaustion, who will pick up the overconsumption torch? [...] Just my luck: as I’m knee deep in final exam preparations, without the faintest thought given over to blogging, GM announces it is in talks to sell Hummer to a Chinese company. If there was ever a story to resurrect favourite ‘China Rising’ memes such as the nouveau riche, car culture and/or consumer delight, it [...] 2008, if anything, was the year when the crazy questions of “…what if ?” gave way to the sudden realities of “what now!?”. Everything that was never supposed to happen did: the Western consumer put away the credit cards, the Chinese economy hit a wall, stock markets plummeted, commodities collapsed and globalization and [...] |
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