Colombianidad II

Thanks to Felipe, again.

Our deepest data set is sport

Sure, smart men can't jump, but they sure can blow the cover on rampant stupidity (or, euphemistically, "lack of innovation") in professional sports. This exchange between Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell on ESPN is delightfully all over the map, but prompted in part by Gladwell's recent study of the full court press.

Add to this the pleasure of watching recent Michael Lewis profile subjects Shane Battier and Michael Oher perform, and you have yourself a veritable sport-think jamboree.

What we need next is a Gladwell-Lewis-John Lee Anderson hybrid to launch out beyond the American sporting landscape into the third world, to tell us about sport and society there. Someone besides Evan Osnos, that is.

All I Ever Wanted

Killing the Buddha has a second installment of work on my extended family, this time from the sucrose-beached confines of Club Med Punta Cana.

The downturn means I’m broke, not that I’m supposed to stop living. So when my Uncle Carl announced that he’d sign the bottom line for an all-inclusive in the Dominican Republic, in January, my self-employed, 37-year-old pride did not get in the way. In other words, I decided to take him up on it, even though I’m hardly a believer in things all-inclusive. List me as still single, still adventurous, you might even say a skeptical vacationer. But, in this economy, you take the holiday you can get.

Flying alone to Club Med–especially the family-friendly, circus-themed, sucrose-beach resort at Punta Cana–felt like being shipped off as a teenager to Jew Camp in the Poconos, only warmer. Somebody was going to try to get me on a dance floor. There’d be communal singing. I’d get cornered by a horsey, aggressive girl, and–why not?–kiss her. The lack of context invited abandon. Similarly, at Club Med, faith in a god (of leisure) and full devotion to it promised celestial dividends. Want to know what heaven’s like? sang the Mediterranean prophets. Then give yourself over to us.

Read on, here.

More on those wacky Jersey Jews here, and to come.

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Lion Loose in Bogota

Ok, I have no idea where this comes from, and I have Felipe to thank back in Bogota for passing it along. But whoever owns this animal is a genius.

With the first kidnapping, it all falls apart

Interesting argument from Elizabeth Dickinson over at FP on post-conflict tourism. I'm preparing a travel piece now about a remote region of Colombia and grappling with the problem of how to describe the risk. For years, a friend of mine talked about the suggestion of visiting Colombia in this way: "I'd go, but I'd never take responsibility for anyone else going." Has that changed now? Like I said about emeralds a long time ago, it all holds up until the first bad deal.

There's a big idea behind all this about "travel-warning lists" and the responsibilities of the tourist. But also about the politics of opening up a country that has remained largely isolated. Topics Naipaul exposed in The Middle Passage, but that remain unresolved in places like Colombia, and Iraq.


photo: Suba, Bogota, Colombia

make do

Yeah, but an architect costs money.

(thanks to Felipe for the tip.)

Tuk-Tuk Tsk-Tsk: The Case for American Motorcycle Taxis

What's the Big Idea?

Why have moto-taxis --those clever, efficient little tuk-tuks and boda-bodas that move people everywhere else-- never made it to the U.S.? That's the premise of this month's Big Idea column I wrote for Outside, on newsstands now.

(Online in a couple of weeks.)