“One must see the Tree to believe its existence. What is its secret? How can it still be living in spite of the multitudes of camels which trample at its sides. How at each azalai does not a lost camel eat its leaves and thorns? Why don’t the numerous Touareg leading the salt caravans cut […]
In risk society, the reflexive condition of modernity (Beck, Giddens and Lash, 1994) turns against itself and casts long shadows over the promise of progress by foregrounding the threats of waste and the probability of death rather than opportunity of life. Risk calculations are temporary postponements of disorder, or, in more metaphorical terms, islands of […]
The World Urban Forum 3 opened today in Vancouver, and on the weekend I caught the first of the CBC coverage - an interesting documentary on Rocinha and Dharavi, “Slum Cities: A Shifting World”. If you’ve read Davis’ Planet of Slums, or Neuwirth’s Shadow Cities and his excellent squattercity blog, the documentary didn’t cover anything […]
NY Times: A Fence With More Beauty, Fewer Barbs
“Having trouble with the neighbors? Put up a fence. If things go well, you hang out at the fence and talk. That’s not generally the thinking for fences between nations; such barriers can’t easily mask their harsh purpose. Now a fence is proposed for the 2,000-mile […]
USA Today: China makes ultimate punishment mobile
“Unlike the United States and Singapore, the only two other countries where death is administered by injection, China metes out capital punishment from specially equipped ‘death vans’ that shuttle from town to town … China’s critics contend that the transition from firing squads to injections in death vans facilitates […]