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copperbadge · 7 months

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Hey Sam. If you're so inclined, could you recommend a few 'must eat' places in Downtown Chicago? My hotel will be near the Red Line (Grand station) and I'm fine walking a good 10 minutes for awesome food. I'm planning my trip and trying to put together a few food places for lunch and dinner and such. Pizza, burgers, bbq, donuts, steak, sushi..., I'm flexible!

You know, honestly, I don't eat out much anymore so I'm not sure where the best places to get a bite are. I'm going to make some recommendations but they're about to be a mixture of "If you come to Chicago this is somewhere everyone goes" and "This is somewhere Sam personally likes to eat but which you may not go for." :D

So, if you're at Grand, you are pretty much on top of the Weber Kettle Grill. Weber Kettle Grill does GREAT grill food and my parents always want to eat there when they come into town. If you ask to sit at the chef's table, you'll be seated at what looks like a bar, but it also looks all the way down the row of giant indoor grills the chefs use to cook the food. If you want something quieter and less busy they also have a fairly large dining room.

If you want a real Chicago experience, there's a Portillo's pretty close to you (that one's called "Portillo's & Barnelli's"); Portillo's is a local chain that does burgers, dogs, and crucially Italian Beef. Italian Beef is my go-to Chicago food for people who (like me) don't want to eat Deep Dish Pizza. It's a crusty roll filled with shredded braised beef; you can get it with sweet peppers, hot peppers, or no peppers (they might call it "giardinera" which is the local term for the pepper relish they use). If you get it "dipped", once the sandwich is made it's dunked in a flavorful jus before being wrapped up; if you don't like wet bread I'd skip this, but I love it. If you REALLY don't like wet bread, maybe get a Chicago Style hot dog instead. Portillo's is also famous for being The Place Where they make you a milkshake with an entire slice of chocolate cake in it. You can also just get a slice of cake, which is fantastic.

There's also an Al's Italian Beef near you if you want a more local experience. Locals absolutely can and will eat at Portillo's, the food's not better at Al's, it's just a bit more tourist-friendly than Al's tends to be.

If you want that true authentic Chicago deep dish experience (pie crust filled with cheese and then topped with sauce) Pizzeria Uno and Pizzeria Due are very close by; they vie for the dubious honor of having invented the deep dish pizza. I can't recommend it, but if you want it, hit one of those.

If you're not from the midwest and would like to sample a decent approximation of Detroit style deep dish (thick bready crust topped with cheese and then sauce) Jet's Pizza likely delivers to your hotel. I can't recommend going to a Jet's, many of them don't have anywhere to sit and eat, and for a pizza joint they're a bit costly, but it's very good pizza. My Detroit friends say it's a perfectly acceptable pie by their standards.

Volare Ristorante is a nearby hidden gem if you're in the mood for upscale Italian; I really like their pasta, but they are on the pricier end. If you're walking east on Grand to get there, you do have to go under Michigan, and you will likely fear that you will be stabbed and left for dead in this weird underground cavern, but I promise you, it's smelly but safe.

Goddess And The Baker and Beatrix are both good places to pick up breakfast. If you wish to glimpse Hell, the Starbucks Roastery at Michigan and Erie is one of the largest buxes in the country (possibly the world?) and is a FUCKING NIGHTMARE to navigate, but it's certainly an experience.

If you're venturing into the Loop, Russian Tea Time is a fun place to have afternoon tea and the a la carte food is also quite good; they're very close to the Art Institute. There's not much to eat if you're going to the museum campus, and my favorite Greek place closed down, but Minghin Cuisine is a good Chinese place (I've eaten there) and AO Hawaiian Hideout is supposedly some of the best Chinese in the city (I have not eaten there).

If you are craving Chinese, you can also catch the Red Line directly to the Chinatown stop and browse, I've never had a bad meal in Chinatown. When you get off the train, if you go north to the station exit with only stairs, you can exit, look left, and see the "new" Chinatown that's basically an outdoor mall; if you go south to the escalator exit, once you leave turn right and you'll see the big pagoda entrance to "old" Chinatown, which is more shops than restaurants. New Chinatown has some excellent bakeries, and also a Korean fried chicken place, Bonchon, that's extremely good. Usually when I take friends we go to Joy Yee which has a huge menu and also bubble tea.

As a final plug I'll list The Berghoff, which is in the loop (off the Jackson Red Line stop); it's pretty hefty German cuisine, all excellent food, and also is a top notch place to take anyone with gluten issues -- the owners have a kid with a gluten intolerance and the restaurant has an exceptional gluten-free menu with unusually strict protocols to prevent cross-contamination in the kitchen.

And if you want to get a little baked first, you are pretty close to Sunnyside dispensary, which is a very nice dispensary with super friendly people. If you take the Red Line to Roosevelt or are in the area, Grasshopper Club is less expensive, just as friendly, and Black-owned, and they've been my go-to for a couple of months now. At either one you can walk-in to speak to a budtender about what you'd like, or you can preorder online, but be aware that there are limitations on what out-of-staters can purchase. Having sampled most of the gummies out there, I'd recommend Mindy's (any flavor is good but the black cherry is my preferred). Do bring ID, you will be carded.

I hope you enjoy Chicago! If you have more questions feel free to hit me up here or at [email protected] if you'd like to have more of like, a dialogue :) Have fun and eat well!

#chicago #chicago food #food #dining

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fatehbaz · 2 years

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The Chacoan peccary is so elusive that scientists believed it was extinct until its “discovery” in 1975. Today, only 3,000 remain in the [...] forests and lagoons of the Gran Chaco region, which stretches across northern Argentina, Paraguay and southern Bolivia, and comprises more than 50 different ecosystems.

Micaela Camino, who works with the Indigenous Wichí and Criollo communities to protect the animals and their land rights in Argentina, knows how difficult to find they can be. She has only seen one Chacoan peccary, or quimilero, in 13 years [...], but has fallen in love with the critically endangered mammal [...]. “I was told that the Chacoan peccary was extinct outside protected areas when I first started,” says Camino. “So when we found it, I thought it was great. We set up monitoring to find more in one of the most isolated parts of the dry Chaco. But then the loggers started to come.”

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The Gran Chaco, South America’s second-largest forest after the Amazon, is one of the most deforested places on Earth.

Every month, more than 133 square miles is lost, cleared for vast soya farms and cattle ranches that export to markets in the US, China and Europe – including UK supermarkets, according to a joint Guardian investigation in 2019. However, the loss is largely ignored on the international stage, receiving little conservation money or celebrity attention in comparison with the Amazon.

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The area is home to charismatic species such as the maned wolf, the giant armadillo and the jabiru, many of which are not found anywhere else on Earth.

At current rates of deforestation, the mosaic of life in the Gran Chaco could collapse entirely. The loss of the Chacoan peccary would be guaranteed this time. Unlike the Amazon, there are few academic studies on tipping points and the forest’s waning ability to support itself as the climate changes and land is cleared, but people who live here are seeing the changes. [...]

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In Paraguay, the success [of farming and ranching] [...] has transformed the country into one of the most important beef producers in the world, largely at the expense of the forest, dubbed “the green hell” by early settlers from Canada.

“The Gran Chaco has been at a crossroads for a long time,” says Gastón Gordillo, a professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia. “The 2007 forest law in Argentina did manage to slow some deforestation, but it also created the paradox by establishing legitimate ways of destroying the forest.” [...] However, a new motorway in Paraguay appears likely to open up more of the region to ranching. “The agribusiness sector in Argentina is very powerful,” says Gordillo [...]

For the Chacoan peccary, research indicates there are only 30 years left to save the species, with current deforestation rates meaning all of its habitat outside protected areas will have gone by 2051.

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Headline, images, captions, and text by: Patrick Greenfield. “Deforestation piles pressure on South America’s elusive Chacoan peccary.” The Guardian. 31 January 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

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shuttershocky · 6 months

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actually this is a good chance to get to know you a bit better. top 3 animals, top 3 colors, top 3 games

Top 3 Animals

1) Crocodiles — There used to be many saltwater crocodiles back in my mom's province. These are the largest reptiles in the world so just seeing them (from a very far, safe distance away) is pretty awe-inspiring. One of these was so gargantuan we put a replica of its skeleton on display in the national museum in Manila, hung over the lobby. We also have Philippine Crocodiles which are endemic to the country, but I've only seen juvenile ones at a zoo since they're endangered and all.

2) Turtles — There are very few experiences like being on the beach and seeing a sea turtle in the wild. One time we were on a fishing boat and someone screamed, I thought for sure it meant someone spotted a shark, but when I leaned over to look, there was a sea turtle poking its head out right above the coral reefs to watch us. There's not many perks to living in the tropics, but this is one of them.

3) Kulasisi — These are very tiny parrots (I think the smallest in the world even?) that aren't common, but can be found virtually anywhere. One of my favorite classes back in college was birdwatching, where one of our sessions found a couple nesting pairs right outside one of the buildings. It was because of that class that I realized it was a Kulasisi that was making the bird calls I would hear when getting up in the morning to go to class

Top 3 Colors

1) Purple — My grandmother's favorite color, and mine eventually. I used to be a blue person until I shifted to darker purple and violet as I got older

2) Blue — I still like it

3) Black — I really liked the Matrix

Top 3 Games

I'm a big gamer (enough that I went into gamedev for a living despite everything) so this is probably the most malleable list. I'm not difficult to please and generally like a lot of stuff, so a top 3 favorite games list could look very different each time, barring one game.

1) Dota 2 — I have over 5000 hours in my favorite game of all time. Picked it up in 2012, and then it was all over for me. I can go stretches of up to 6 months without touching the game, but when I reopen it, the hype comes flooding back.

2) Devil May Cry 5 — I continue to hold the opinion that DMC5 hit the platonic ideal of stylish action game design, V's lack of depth notwithstanding. The game has been out for 5 years and people are still uploading new runs, finding all these tricks and secrets in the game just as they did with DMC3 and 4 before it. If Dante only got wall running and Wild Stomp back from 3, it might be as close to perfect as you can get. Devil Trigger and Bury The Light are also among my favorite video game songs of all time, among the likes of Killer Instinct's or Metal Gear Rising's

3) Metal Gear Solid 4 — MGS3 is the better game, MGS1 and 2 are more iconic, but MGS4 rescued the PS3 from irrelevancy before Uncharted 2 made it big. Holy shit that game looked unbelievably good when it first came out. The way Snake would lie still and camouflage into the floor while bullets sprayed the ground right in front of him while mooing mechs and soldiers were mere feet away blew my mind.

Games like Resident Evil 4 three years earlier really popularized making cinematic cutscenes that were rendered in-game rather than pre-rendered, but I didn't realize the possibilities behind it until MGS4's Raiden vs Vamp. A complex action scene where Raiden and Vamp had a sword duel would always be cool, but what pushed it over the top was that you kept playing the whole time it was happening. MGS4 would split the screen, playing the cutscene in one half, while in the other you had to carry on with your mission, and goddamn that sure was a moment of thinking "Wow this really is next gen"

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mariacallous · 3 months

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I am bad at small talk, so I went in big. “You are probably going to be the social democratic leader with the largest parliamentary majority anywhere on Earth. How does it feel?” I said to Keir Starmer during a private meeting with him and a few advisors in late 2022.

Starmer’s aides looked annoyed, while the likely next prime minister of the United Kingdom paused and tried to deflect: “We can’t take anything for granted,” which has become the unofficial motto for Labour’s general election campaign.

Yet despite Starmer’s hesitancy to bank success—he is genuinely a modest man—it is likely that on the morning of July 5, Starmer will wake up as the world’s social democratic superhero: the only center-left leader of a major economy with a parliamentary supermajority and the great hope for progressives all over the world.

The governing Conservative Party, which is historically arguably the most successful political party on Earth, now faces electoral oblivion. In 2019, Boris Johnson demolished Labour’s heartlands, the so-called red wall. Labour had become detached from its base and collapsed in its postindustrial heartlands after then-leader Jeremy Corbyn embraced the siren sounds of political extremism; he refused to sing the national anthem at a memorial for the Battle of Britain and drove the party toward a position of fiscal incontinence that scared anyone with financial assets.

Five years later, Labour is on track not only to regain the red wall but also to achieve a dream of progressives by taking solid Conservative seats in their blue wall of affluent commuter constituencies surrounding London and rural seats that have voted Conservative since time immemorial. (East Worthing and Shoreham, for example, is part of a constituency that first voted Tory in 1780 and has been reliably Tory since. Polls suggest Labour is on track to take the seat.)

What is happening in the U.K. is unusual for center-left parties, to put it mildly. Labour could gain as many as 70 percent of seats in the House of Commons—a victory that could surpass even the electoral landside of former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997, offering lessons for progressives everywhere. A politically dominant Starmer will attend the G-7 as a leader in total political control, in stark contrast to his counterparts in France and Germany, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, who are facing high disapproval ratings and struggling to pursue their governing agendas.

Labour’s victory in the U.K. will be important in three key regards: It will recast how progressives can win national elections and set a high-water mark for what social democrats can achieve; it will reshape British politics in new and unexpected ways that could be more important than the victory itself; and it will flip external perceptions of the U.K., resetting international views of the country and its future.

Despite the pathological obsession Britain’s political class has with America’s, it is perhaps time for Democrats in the United States to look across the pond and glean some lessons from Labour’s success.

Part of Starmer’s success has been to take an oath of omertà on culture war issues, much as the Australian Labor Party did. These include transgender rights, Britain’s colonial past, and immigration—all issues that the British right has tried to capitalize on. Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has committed to scrap the Tories’ controversial Rwanda deportation scheme but on the grounds of practicality rather than as a wider moral statement. More broadly on immigration, the party has been treading very carefully. This is certainly not brave, but it has worked. For all the attempts to fire up the culture wars in this election, Labour has remained focused on the prize.

While the Conservatives have attempted to stoke a culture war, what remains more salient for voters in the U.K. is the perceived corruption and rule-breaking of leading Conservatives, culminating in the current scandal involving elected officials using insider information to bet on the election date.

Scandals including preferential contracts for protective equipment for the National Health Service (NHS) during the COVID-19 pandemic, where an astonishing 4 billion pounds ($5 billion) worth of faulty equipment was procured (some allegedly from companies with links to the ruling party). Then came “Partygate,” in which Johnson and current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak were fined by police for breaking COVID-era laws. A lobbying scandal involving another former prime minister, David Cameron, also caused significant public anger. Elite rule-breaking has cut through with voters in a way that the endless culture wars simply haven’t.

In parallel, Labour has pivoted from a form of identity politics under Corbyn to a very proactive position on class. Starmer has put his humble upbringing center stage in the U.K. election campaign and has spoken authentically about the “class ceiling” in British society. This has particular resonance as Starmer is running against Sunak, whose net wealth of $822 million makes him the richest leader of any democracy.

A typical Starmer set-piece homily is as follows:

“My dad was a toolmaker, he worked in a factory, and my mum was a nurse. We didn’t have a lot when we were growing up. Like millions of working-class children now, I grew up in a cost-of-living crisis. I know what it feels like to be embarrassed to bring your mates home because the carpet is threadbare and the windows cracked. … I was actually responsible for that as I put the football through it.”

This focus on class is unusual in modern British politics. Indeed, recent Labour leaders—from Blair to Gordon Brown to Ed Miliband to Corbyn—were all in different ways outsiders to the British working class: Blair and Corbyn for their relatively affluent (and privately educated) upbringings, Brown and Miliband because of their middle-class backgrounds and partly because Miliband’s father was one of the country’s most notable Marxist academics. As for the Conservatives, the days of a prime minister who was a grocer’s daughter are long gone. Cameron and Johnson didn’t just attend the same elite private school (Eton) two years apart; they went to the same university (Oxford) and were members of the same private dining club (for the most privileged).

Starmer is leaning into class politics—and it is working. The promise to impose the same value-added tax on private school fees that is applied to most goods and services (20 percent) has led to an outpouring of anger from the often very wealthy 6 percent of U.K. parents who send their kids to private schools—usefully, those who are privately educated often tend to vote Conservative. Labour’s pledge to use the private school tax revenues to invest in education for the 94 percent of kids in state schools has, on the other hand, drawn support from ordinary voters.

This focus on class has won back a group of voters who in other countries have now been captured by the right and far right. Labour now leads among working-class voters with 38-42 percent of the vote share, in contrast to Conservatives’ 22-24 percent. For those with the fewest educational qualifications, Labour leads in every age category except the over-50s.

One of the architects of Labour’s reengagement with the British working class is Angela Rayner, who is on track to become deputy prime minister. Rayner is working-class, was a mother at 16, and a grandmother at 37. Opinionated and unfiltered, an unapologetic smoker who enjoys a strong drink, she worked in a care home before rising quickly through the trade union movement and becoming a Labour candidate. Rayner’s story is a masterclass in how to elevate remarkable people into parliamentary politics. Her success is her own, but the unions cultivated her, and the membership backed her as deputy leader. She has real star power—and there is virtually no one like her in the upper echelons of the Democratic establishment in the United States.

Remarkably, the class dimension has not, it seems, alienated middle England. Disillusioned surbubanites and centrist liberals have been turned off by a Conservative Party that seems increasingly radical and dysfunctional. Starmer’s former career as the country’s chief prosecutor, and his knighthood—he is formally referred to as “Sir Keir”—have given him broad appeal, just as the Conservatives’ unapologetic embrace of the populist right’s pet causes has cratered their support.

Part of Labour’s success is due to the systemic clusterfuck that has been the last few years of the Conservative government. The Tories have foisted five prime ministers on the public since 2010—four of them elected by the party’s mostly white, male membership of about 170,000 rather than the public at large. Economic growth is anemic; there are nearly 8 million people on the NHS waiting list in England alone (in a country where the use of private medical care is uncommon); and essential public services including the prison service and local government are on the edge of systemic failure.

Yet signs exist that there may be more fundamental shifts at play. Labour leads in every age group except the over-65s. If you work, you are more likely to vote Labour; 45 percent of voters under 45 are likely to vote Labour, compared with only 1 in 10 backing the Conservative Party. Millennials will become the largest voting bloc in the U.K. in this election. Their key issues include policies to prevent catastrophic climate change (which poll well across the U.K. political spectrum), the building of homes, better transport links (especially for non-car owners, many urban millennials among them), and pro-family policies. All of these have come into play in this election.

Older homeowners across the Western world have been successful in running what is, potentially, the world’s largest cartel—by opposing construction of new homes for millennials. Labour is committed to ending that in the U.K. with a significant loosening of planning regulations that currently thwart sustainable development.

While the party has ruled out taxes on working people, no such commitment has been made on unearned income, leading to widespread speculation that the tax system may be rebalanced with higher capital gains taxes and fewer loopholes for the megarich, including for the landed gentry whose farming estates pass between generations tax-free. Labour has no love for landlords either. After nearly two decades in which London’s property market has been inflated by speculative investments from the world’s kleptocrats, the public appetite for new restrictions on foreign property ownership or new taxes has grown.

Labour has also surrounded itself with a technocratic positivist elite. This group includes Labour Together, an ambitious intellectual think tank closely aligned with Starmer’s inner circle, and the Tony Blair Institute, which has embraced a techno-futurism aligned with the country’s comparative advantage in the life sciences and artificial intelligence. Public sector reform under a Starmer government could be significant if one imagines the potential, for example, of using the NHS’s treasure trove of data (on 70 million people) to drive innovation in health care.

In stark contrast to Labour’s focus on the future, an aging right-wing voter base is now split between the Conservative Party and Reform, a vehicle that is a mix between a private company, a political party, and a personal platform for Nigel Farage—the pro-Brexit politician Donald Trump has trotted out as a posh Anglo stage prop. Conservatives in Parliament are already moving rightward. Tory MPs give statements to the media condemning the European Convention on Human Rights, a document co-drafted by David Maxwell-Fyfe—a Conservative MP and prosecutor of Nazis at Nuremberg—that was inspired by Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s vision for postwar Europe.

Meanwhile, a wing of Conservative MPs are already attempting to cast the almost certain defeat as evidence that the party did not pivot enough to the populist right. The divided right is making the admission of the controversial Farage into the Conservative Party a real possibility, a prospect that fills Labour with glee. Needless to say, the next Conservative leader is unlikely to be a moderate. With the party tacking to the right, it could soon become a vessel for Faragism and a weak British version of the Trump movement.

Finally, there are the vibes. A progressive recasting of British politics will shift narratives around the U.K. National narratives can flip in an instant: Think of foreigners’ perceptions of the United States from Barack Obama to Trump or the assumption of Chinese economic primacy to a sense of retrenchment and decline under Xi Jinping. The U.K. in recent memory was seen as a fairly stable, politically dull island anchored somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. Brexit, Johnson, and Liz Truss put an end to that. With the shift from perceived and actual chaos and an insurgent right to a progressive supermajority, attitudes will likely shift again.

Vibes are important, especially to the economy of the U.K., which may have ceased to be a traditional superpower but remains a cultural one punching significantly above its weight internationally. Six percent of U.K. GDP comes from the creative industries—from the success of British music to the Premier League, a booming film and TV industry, fashion, and the arts. That’s double the level of Germany and larger than the contribution of the German car industry to the country’s output (4.5 percent). For a country that trades on vibes and is reliant on the export of its creativity, Brexit and isolation have caused real damage.

It’s long forgotten now, but during the last Labour government from 1997 until the 2008 financial crisis, the U.K. was the fastest-growing economy in the G-7, faster than that of the Clinton- and Bush-era United States. Given the country’s currently stagnant economy, the next Parliament will be more challenging, but in a highly open society, the role of consumer confidence and investor confidence cannot be underestimated.

In a previous piece in these pages, after Labour’s historic loss in the 2019 general election, I wrote: “Radical leftism is not a drug you can take as a party and return to normal the next morning.” I was right about the election but wrong about the next morning.

No one expected Labour to turn a historic defeat into a historic victory in just five years. The circumstances the Conservative Party faced were extraordinary, but Starmer has shown that tight party management, a focus on voters and not ideology, and a sprinkling of class-based politics can reinvigorate social democratic politics.

What lessons does this hold for other center-left parties?

First, culture war issues aren’t a central motivation for most voters. On all the major culture war issues, Labour holds a less popular position than the Conservative Party. Yet when mortgage rates have risen from 2 to 5 percent, “it’s the economy, stupid.” Progressives don’t need to fear the charge of the populist right; they need smarter answers.

Second, rule-breaking or perceived corruption is a powerful motivator for voters, and global polling proves this. Progressives need a stronger line on conflicts of interest, corporate lobbying, the kleptocratic buy-up of the finest properties in the world’s global cities, and tackling emerging monopolies that exist due to political capture. Doing so counters the populist right head-on.

Third, the dominance of identity politics in left-wing online spaces is not matched by public understanding of or interest in this form of politics. Class is understood, whereas intersectionality isn’t. Class may, or may not, be the most relevant dividing line for progressives in different places—but for progressives to win, they need messengers who are from outside the upper middle class and have lived experience that resonates with people who feel disenchanted and left behind. In other words, Democrats in the United States need an Angela Rayner.

Most critically, once in power, social democrats do not have the luxury of time. Crumbling infrastructure, failing public services, falling living standards, and a lack of housing all point to direct state intervention on a scale not seen since the late 1960s Great Society programs in the United States and similar policies during that era in the U.K. Unless progressives can deliver, it will be challenged further by a populist right that is gaining momentum.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has been the talk of London and Brussels for progressives, and Biden deserves more credit for his boldness. With a supermajority, Starmer has the scope for even bolder programs. A progressive U.K. government will not only reset Europeans’ views of the country, but if successful, it can aid progressive arguments within Europe that austerity and fiscalization do not generate economic growth or social stability.

Starmer’s victory will give global social democrats a high-water mark for electoral success in a wealthy democracy. The challenge for Starmer is the incredible weight of hope in an era of polycrisis. If Labour succeeds in delivering growth, building homes, and raising wages, then it will provide a blueprint that can—and should—be copied elsewhere.

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dragoneyes618 · 3 months

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There’s a popular slogan in Israel that appears on car stickers, jewelry and suchlike: Ein Li Eretz Acheret, “I have no other country.” The phrase comes from the title of an iconic and extremely moving song written by Ehud Manor, with music composed by Corinne Allal, and originally recorded in 1986 by Gali Atari; we will mention those names again later. Its opening lines and chorus are Ain li eretz acharet, gam im admati bo’eret, “I have no other country, even if my land is burning.”

A neighbor of mine, who was experiencing considerable war anxiety about the land burning, told me that he didn’t relate to it at all. He said, “But I do have another country. I can go back to Teaneck!” And he said that if things got worse, he would seriously consider doing so.

At the beginning of the war, I was wondering the same thing. I do have another country – two, actually. I have UK citizenship and my wife has U.S. citizenship, and our children have both. Maybe we should go back to live somewhere safer? One of the commentators on the previous post was talking about Lakewood as being a safe and excellent place to live with a rich Jewish life.

Now I could continue by talking about how special and beneficial it is to live in Israel, about how it’s both the Promised Land and our historic homeland, about how it’s the only country with Jewish sovereignty. Which would all be true. But there’s a different point that I want to discuss in this post.

Yes, I do have another country that I could go to (though it wouldn’t be at all straightforward, especially for my children). So do lots of people in Ramat Beit Shemesh and the rest of Israel.

But there’s also lots and lots and lots of people who don’t.

There are millions of Jews in Israel who just don’t have anywhere else to go. There are those who simply don’t have the money for it and would find it too difficult to find employment in a country where they don’t even speak the language. There are those who are too old or ill or who have young children that would suffer from a move. There are those who have crucial responsibilities here. There are those who are just too deeply embedded here.

Even more to the point, there are also millions of Jews who literally don’t have any passport other than their Israeli one. What other country will let them in? The Jews who came from Iran and Egypt and Syria and Yemen are certainly not able to go back to those countries! Nor are Russia and many European countries a safe place for Jews. And even countries which are relatively safe and allow some immigration are not going to accept millions of Jews (and if they did, those countries would likely quickly become not very safe for Jews).

In fact, that’s one of the main reasons why Israel came to exist in the first place. As antisemitism grew in Europe, many Jews realized that they needed to get out, but simply had nowhere to go. Twenty years before the Holocaust, at least 100,000 Jews were massacred in pogroms in the Ukraine, which also created 600,000 Jewish international refugees and millions more who were displaced and threatened.

At this point, many people realized that an even greater catastrophe might happen. But the countries to which the largest numbers of Jewish refugees were fleeing all revised their immigration policies to prevent further Jewish immigration. This included not only Poland and Germany (which obviously wouldn’t have been a good long-term solution anyway), but also the United States, Argentina, and British Palestine. In the U.S., Henry Ford’s newspaper published pamphlets about the Jewish problem, claiming that the national debt was Jewish-inspired to enslave Americans and other such hateful slurs to keep Jews out.

Then things got even worse in Europe, with the rise of Hitler. Some people managed to get out. The parents of Ehud Manor, writer of Ain Li Eretz Acheret, fled Belarus and managed to get into Palestine.

Yet still no country was willing to take in millions of Jews. The U.S. convened the Évian conference, bringing together 32 countries to find a home for Jewish refugees. But aside from the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica, no country, including the U.S., was willing to accept Jewish refugees in any remotely significant number. Consequently, millions of Jews were killed in Europe.

And even after the horrors of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors still had nowhere to go! Some of them went back to their home towns in Poland and were killed in a pogrom. Others languished in Displaced Persons camps for years, some of which were actually in concentration camps. My late mother-in-law spent the first years of her life in a DP camp; her parents were lucky enough to have a relative in the U.S. who eventually managed to bring them over, but most Jews did not have such an option.

Many Jews, very understandably, realized that a Jewish homeland was needed. It wasn’t about it necessarily being the safest place for a Jew to live. Everyone always knew that Palestine was in a hostile and dangerous part of the world, and that there would be a challenge with the resident Arabs (though it was generally assumed that some sort of compromise would be worked out; there was no broad plan to drive them out). And on the eve of the War of Independence, it was assessed that there was only a 50-50 chance of survival!

Israel has not yet been, and still is not, the safest place in the world for Jews. But not everyone has the option to live in the safest place in the world – many people just need somewhere that is safer than where they currently live. And in any case, having a homeland is not about attaining the greatest safety – it is about having a home, a place that Jews historically belong, a place that Jews can always come to when they fear persecution or experience discrimination, where we can take responsibility for our own safety, and where we can put being Jewish into action and expression.

While Israel won the War of Independence – at a cost of 1% of its population – this created a crisis for nearly a million Jews in Muslim countries, who were persecuted and had to make immediate use of Israel as a refuge. The parents of Gali Atari, singer of Ain Li Eretz Acheret, fled Yemen for Israel, while composer Corinne Allal’s family fled from Tunisia. But it should be born in mind that even if Israel had not come into existence, the existence of Jews in Muslim lands was difficult and very precarious.

And so we reach the situation that we are in today. Israel is home to over seven million Jews. Most of them do not have another country to go to, even if they wanted to (which they don’t). Ain lahem eretz acheret.

(As Haviv Rettig Gur notes, this is the fundamental mistake made by many Palestinians and their supporters, who believe that they can rid of the Jews with violence just as the Algerians successfully used violence to get the French colonialists to go back to France. They don’t grasp that most Jews just don’t have a country to go back to, and thus violence won’t achieve anything and will even be counter–productive.)

Now, there are some Jews who only look at things in terms of their own personal interests. “Where is a safe place for me to live? What is a spiritually safe environment for my children?” And if, as a result, others are less safe physically and spiritually and have to take on an even larger cost to their families and jobs and religious life, then that’s just too bad.

But others feel a sense of responsibility to the rest of our people. It’s not “me” and “them” – it’s us. The correct formulation is not ain li eretz acharet or ain lahem eretz acharet. It’s ain lanu eretz acheret.

Millions of Jews need Israel. And Israel needs a strong army and a strong economy to finance it and a flourishing national Jewish life. Each and every one of us has a responsibility to help with that.

#pro israel #jewish history #jumblr #history #israel

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mysteryshoptls · 1 year

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SSR Epel Felmier Bloom Birthday Personal Story: Part 1

"Happy Birthday"

Part 1 (Part 2) (Part 3)

[Pomefiore Dorm – Birthday Party Venue]

Epel: Vil-san gave me a final once over earlier, so I should be looking my best… I think?

Epel: Whew… Interviews make me so nervous. I gotta watch how I speak…

???: Kufufu, don't be so stiff. You're today's birthday boy, after all.

Lilia: So… Happy Birthday, Epel! Relax, and enjoy yourself today.

Epel: So, you're my presenter, Lilia-san? I might feel a bit better now that you've said that. Thank you!

Lilia: Right. Then, I'll read you the first question.

Lilia: "If you could use flight magic to go anywhere, where would you like to go?”

Lilia: You don't have to consider your magical prowess whatsoever. Just answer with wherever you want.

Epel: Well, if I don't have to think about my own magical power… Then I'd like to go to the capital city of the Shaftlands.

Lilia: Oho. I've been to that city ages ago. It was a bustling, crowded city.

Epel: Well, that's because it's the capital city of the world's largest country.

Epel: I'm from the Shaftlands, but the capital is so far from my little hometown, so I've never been…

Epel: But, back in middle school, there were a ton of students who were looking into going to school or work there.

Epel: A lot of the people in my hometown also apparently left to go live in the capital, or the cities near it…

Lilia: Hm… But it doesn't seem to me like you yearn to join the city folk that much.

Epel: Of course not!

Epel: The folks who left my village and my classmates all had the same thing to say, that there was nothing to do around there…

Epel: 'OW RUDE CANYA GIT!?

Epel: …Uh, I mean, I thought it was pretty rude of them to say. And sure, we don't have a popular department store, or any tourist attractions, but…

Epel: But we have bountiful nature, and delicious apples… My hometown has so many wonderful things to offer.

Lilia: Kufufu, sounds to me like your dialect is rather charming in and of itself, too.

Epel: Eheheh…

Lilia: So if it's not that you're yearning for city-life, then why are you wanting to go to the city?

Epel: You said it yourself, Lilia-san. That city is bustling and crowded.

Epel: I think it'd be nice to be able to look down from my broom and watch the busy, congested streets.

Lilia: Oho, that's not a bad idea.

Epel: Eheheh! I mean, of course, I'd like to walk the streets with my own two feet, too.

Epel: So many people'll say that "You can find whatever you want in the capital city of the Shaftlands," but…

Epel: I'm certain there's some stuff that Harveston has that the capital doesn't. That's what I want to find!

Part 1 (Part 2) (Part 3)

Requested by Anonymous.

#twisted wonderland #twst #epel felmier #lilia vanrouge #twst epel #twst lilia #twst translation #twst birthday #mention: vil

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runwayrunway · 1 year

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No. 25 - BWIA

@international-nerd asked me to discuss BWIA! I was very excited about this request when I first read it, and now I'm very excited while I write this. BWIA's 2000s livery, which is what I'll be focusing on here, is one that definitely stood out on the tarmac.

It's rare that I can emphatically say this about an airline livery, but it's sort of in a category of its own. If more carriers approached livery design like BWIA, I probably wouldn't have been frustrated enough with the state of things to make this blog in the first place, because their livery is the polar opposite of the timid, corporate, and generic design we expect from airlines.

I like this picture a lot because it looks like she's saying hello to you. Like a cat approaching to sniff your hand.

First taking to the air in 1940 under the name British West Indian Airways, BWIA was also known at various points as BWIA West Indies Airways, BWIA International Airways, or 'Bee-Wee'. Its website was bwee.com. I have begun saying 'bweeeeee......' to myself under my breath now whenever I'm alone.

BWIA was founded as a private company, then became a BOAC subsidiary, and then was rapidly acquired by the government of Trinidad and Tobago. From 1961 until its ultimate demise in 2006, BWIA was the flag carrier of Trinidad and Tobago and became the largest carrier in the Caribbean, serving destinations in North America, South America, the Caribbean, and Europe.

Back in the day they had this...boring standard thing, but by the 80s they expanded their horizons to the other half of the color wheel, picking up a recognizable teal-and-bright-yellow color scheme. Its various jets continued to wear this livery until around 2000.

Sure, one image could have sufficed, but I'm far too weak to resist the allure of putting a really cobby-looking plane next to a comically long-looking plane.

The yellow and teal was a step in the right direction, but in 2000 BWIA decided it was time to unleash their true power on airports across the world. And the result is the subject of this post.

Now there's a livery worth talking about.

Seeing images of this livery makes me feel temporally strange. This is an airline which I technically overlapped with, in the sense that I was alive while BWIA existed, but I'm just inherently too young to remember that. There's definitely a chance I saw one of these striking planes in person and just don't remember it because I was five or so years old, and that's a very strange thought. I wish I had managed to see one, and had held onto the memory somehow, because I love these planes.

Do I miss the hot pink lettering from the previous livery? Yes, a little bit. I won't deny that. But if I hadn't known it was there I wouldn't have had that thought, so I don't think that's anything to hold against them.

I think BWIA is a really good place to pick up after this week's first post, Icelandair, where I discussed flag carriers' branding and the fact that it should reflect the country it represents. Trinidad and Tobago's contributions to music are gigantic. It's the birthplace of calypso, though calypso is far from the only genre and far from the only tradition which originated there.

BWIA's logo is a stylized steelpan, a musical instrument invented in Trinidad and Tobago which I could talk about on its own for quite some time if I weren't insisting to myself that this post has to be about airplanes and not music, but it's a choice of logo that makes it immediately clear that this is an airline which represents a group of people rather than just a flag. If the culmination of a flag carrier's mission is to make a case for why it's flying to a place you should visit, this is an incredibly effective way to do that. Trinidad and Tobago is a place where music is born. It's not just islands with beaches, it's islands with people and if you go there you will have experiences you could never have anywhere else.

In terms of flag carrier logos, it's up there among my favorites. The older 2D version is a little harder to immediately identify as a steelpan but the 2000-onward 3D version is very clean and very uniquely BWIA's. It adds more detail but it never becomes cluttered. The steelpan shape and the teal-and-yellow colors are both distinctive on their own, and combined they make planes that are impossible to mistake for any other airline.

The steelpan logo is prominent both on the tail and wrapped around the bottom of the fuselage, starting about midway down the ventral fairing and ending just below the nose. I really admire BWIA's choice to go with white-on-blue rather than the blue-on-white any other airline would have chosen. It instantly elevates the livery from doing something interesting with the placement of its shapes to doing that and also stubbornly refusing to even approach Eurowhite.

The use of white where it is used is very nicely executed, though. It allows the overall design to maintain a lightness by avoiding black outlines, while preventing the sort of overt eyestrain that comes from putting yellow directly on this sort of light teal. Instead, it elegantly uses the yellow as an accent on the back half of the fuselage. It's difficult for me to even articulate why this works so well, but it just does. The colors look harmonious together despite never mixing, and it's not the sort of place a secondary color would normally be isolated, which I think might be why it's so brilliant. It's a really nice accent to the rest of the plane, preventing the flatness which could result from a livery made entirely of a light color and plain white, while not impinging on the steelpan logo. It draws the eye and then takes a step back to let it experience the rest of the plane, and when you take a step back and appreciate the livery as a single unit it prevents any of that detail from being lost in a blue-and-white blur.

As with many liveries, I think BWIA's looks its best on a TriStar. That might be because the larger empennage lets you see more of the steelpan logo, but there's something so nice about the way the yellow peeks out from under the wing that reminds me of birds with bright yellow underbellies.

I think the main thing that sticks with me after looking at BWIA planes from every angle I can find images for is that this livery exemplifies a style of design that is the exact opposite of what makes most liveries so disappointing. This feels like a livery designed by someone who had never seen another airline livery before, who was sat down with some pencils, a color scheme, a logo, and an identity, and told to find a way to reflect it in the shape of the airplane. In so many of my other posts I compare liveries to each other, with the worst cases merging into uninspiring slop of aughts Delta clones and late 2010s Lufthansa clones and so forth. BWIA just didn't participate in any of that. This livery is hard to put words to because it's nearly impossible to compare to any other livery - in a good way. Most airlines' special occasion liveries don't have a fraction of this excitement.

This might sound a little lofty, and I don't mean to say that BWIA is what airlines should strive to directly emulate (in fact, by doing so they would sort of be doing the opposite of what BWIA did when they released this into a world full of Air France and United), but BWIA here has done what general relativity did to physics. Not so much a different equation, but a different state of mind. Taking what has always been treated as numbers and saying that it makes a lot more sense to think of it as fabric. And what I ultimately think is the most important outcome of these choices is that I can imagine any number of people watching other planes on the tarmac, bored out of their minds, snap out of their stupor to get a closer look when they see a BWIA plane roll by.

We unfortunately lost BWIA in 2006. It was for regular boring financial reasons, a similar situation to the more recent death of Alitalia where the government simply can't keep pumping money into something which has never turned a profit and has to start over with a new airline. I'm not going to talk about its successor, Caribbean Airlines, except to say that obviously I think it's a gigantic downgrade. Frankly, I could really like Caribbean Airlines and it wouldn't matter. If an impeccably designed livery is equivalent to someone who can answer any question you have about the body of physics scholarship, BWIA is equivalent to the sort of theorist who gets fundamental laws named for them.

A+, and goodnight.

#tarmac fashion week #grade: a+#era: 2000s #region: caribbean #region: trinidad and tobago #bwia #flag carriers #defunct airlines

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whatevergreen · 2 years

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This. Again.

Recently we've had Rowling comparing the LGBTQ to Nazis, Grover suggesting that the LGBTQ are benefitting from Nazis, and Hitchens claiming that the Nazis were left-wing.

If you or anyone believes that the Nazi's - who oppressed, imprisoned and murdered trade unionists, socialists, and communists - was socialist because the party called itself socialist and borrowed a few trappings in order to fool the public: then congratulations, you are an idiot or worse who is still falling for Nazi propaganda 78 years after Hitler shot himself. You are probably a Nazi now, and certainly would have been back then.

If you or anyone are trying to compare trans people or any of the LGBTQ+ with the Nazis when they/we defend ourselves, then you are engaging in mirror politics to excuse and distract from your own actual agenda of hate, oppression, and death.

Above: some of the Nazi concentration camp prisoner badges including the red triangle for political prisoners: communists, socialists, anarchists, trade unionists, liberals. The pink triangle was of course for anyone we would now classify as LGBTQ+.

And to imply - as some terfs apparently are - that trans activists are in a sense benefiting from the reaction to increasing far-right involvement (supposedly but clearly not unwelcome) in radical anti-trans feminism... is such a convoluted, desperate, and shameful attempt to distance publicly from the toxic stench of your own fascism - and blame your victims.

The original Nazis persecuted, imprisoned, and murdered nearly any LGBTQ+ they could find. And today's Far-Right, political or religious, are clearly no better.

Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin (which included the world's first trans clinic) was raided by the Nazis in 1933, and its vast collections of books and research torched in the largest (and among the earliest) of the book burnings. Trans people were sent to the death camps. Magnus Hirschfeld (who was himself gay and Jewish) was out of the country at the time, and never returned, sadly dying of a stroke in 1935.

Above: Nazi supporting civilians load Communist publications onto the back of a truck as police look on during a raid of the KPD headquarters in Berlin, 1933. These were later burnt.

The Nazis never were socialists or anywhere on the Left, and never have been and never will be a friend or a benefit to the LGBTQ+

This is not opinion, it is fact, for which there is so much evidence both past and present that it beggars belief that I'm having to write such as this in 2023. But people enjoy cherry picking facts and using them grossly out of context - or just make up nonsense altogether - to feed to the ignorant, the gullible and the hateful.

Anyone believing in or repeating such misinformation and outright lies must be challenged if it is a product of ignorance. If however they persist then they must be dealt with by any means necessary. Peoples wellbeing and lives depend on it.

#politics #lgbt #lgbtq

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rjzimmerman · 4 months

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Amid roadkill epidemic, California builds world’s largest wildlife bridge. (Washington Post)

The 10-lanefreeway that slices through this part of Southern California is one of the busiest in the country, ushering more than 300,000 cars acrossthe greater Los Angeles area every day.

For drivers, it’s a nightmare: This stretch of Highway 101 is known as the “highway from hell,” the infamous host of the nation’s worst commutes.

But if the 101 is bothersome for bipeds, it is downright disastrous for the wildlife that alsocalls the region home. The 101 cuts like a chain saw throughavibrant natural ecosystem of coastal sage scrub and oak trees interspersed with suburban neighborhoods, disrupting the movement of animals and threatening their survival.

Now a massive infrastructure project is underway to suture together the vast tracts of fragmented wildlife habitat that have been separated by the highway for decades. Construction on a key phase of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing — a $100 million structure funded by a mix of public and private money — began last month and it is expected to open in early 2026.

The bridge will be the largest of its kind in the world, spanning the highway at roughly the size of a football field,and it will reconnect the undeveloped sections of the Santa Monica Mountains with those of the Simi Hills. The new pathway will be a boon for the rare and struggling species that are trying to subsist amid the sprawl, especially mountain lions, whose local population could perish without it, say the scientists who study the animals.

The crossing has inspired an influx of government and philanthropic investment for similar ventures across the country, and it has become a beacon of cohabitation during an age indelibly shaped by human activity, when many of Earth’s vulnerable species are facing the prospect of extinction propelled by a roadkill epidemic. If a wildlife crossing can work in the cradle of American car culture, proponents say, then it can work anywhere.

“When the number one threat to wildlife worldwide is the loss of habitat, we can’t write these places off,” Beth Pratt, the project’s lead fundraiser and chief spokesperson, said of urban areas like Los Angeles. “Environmentalists like me usually don’t like bulldozers, but this is the world’s most hopeful construction site.”

#wildlife crossing #Los Angeles #Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing

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hostilecityshowdown · 1 year

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posted to twitter by dean muhtadi on october 13, 2023. image transcript below and in ALT text.

"I am Palestinian. My father was born in Jerusalem. I have family that lives in Jerusalem and Gaza. Family members have been killed. Their homes reduced to ash. My family are not terrorists. They do not want war. They want to live their lives in their homes with their families peacefully. On the other side of the wall, many Israeli people feel the same way. While they may not be my blood family, it is as horrifying to see innocent Israeli citizens killed.

I will never support the murder or brutalization of innocent people anywhere. I condemn the terroristic acts of last week, I condemn the terroristic acts that are currently unfolding in present time, and I condemn all future terroristic acts no matter who commits them.

Right now, over 2 million Palestinians are being denied the right to food, water, energy, and fuel in the world’s largest open air prison. More than 2 million Palestinians, half of whom are children. No aid or support of any kind is being allowed to these peaceful civilians.

They are unable to flee Gaza. They will be killed if they try. There would still be no place they could go. Even if there was, they stay put knowing that if they leave now they will never have a country to call their own ever again. Eventually then, the Palestinian people would be totally eradicated. The thought that very soon I may no longer have a people or an ancestral home is unimaginable.

To my fellow Palestinians, my thoughts and prayers are with you. I will forever be inspired by your will to survive and endure. To the Jewish community, my thoughts and prayers are with you. I am a better person today for the impact my Jewish friends have had on my life. I hate that the past week has caused a greater divide in all of our lives. My heart breaks for the Palestinian and Jewish communities.

Every person deserves the right to exist.

Every person deserves the right to be free."

#long post #eye strain #dean muhtadi #mojo muhtadi #[ colour commentary ]#wwe

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harrysfolklore · 11 months

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i love that he’s in canada but everyone is just like he’s in ‘canada’ like it’s not the second largest country in the world lol

this is one of my pet peeves lol it’s stupid but it annoys me sm when ppl say “harry in canada” or “harry in sweden” as if there aren’t cities inside??? like everywhere else they say the city but nobody cares to put the city lol

canada is so big if you say in canada you’re talking over 9000 squared km like he could be anywhere lmfao

this isn’t supposed to be attacking u or anyone at all it just annoys me 😭😭 idk why i’m sending this im sorry lol

hehehe it’s okay love rant if you want

#anon

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abhishekpandey123 · 5 months

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Elections in India

India’s national election will take place in phases over 44 days. Here’s why it takes so long

Nearly 970 million people or over 10% of the global population are eligible to vote in India’s general elections. The mammoth exercise is the biggest anywhere in the world and will take 44 days before results are announced on June 4.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is aiming for a third consecutive term in office. He is set to compete against a diverse yet faltering coalition of opposition parties who are finding it difficult to counter his popularity. The majority of polls forecast a comfortable victory for the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, solidifying his position as one of the most prominent and influential leaders in the country.

WHY DOES IT TAKE SO LONG?

Two primary factors contribute to this situation: the vast expanse of India, the most populous nation globally, and the intricate logistics required to enable each eligible voter to participate in the electoral process.

Over the years, the duration of voting has wavered. It took nearly four months to complete the vote in India’s first elections in 1951-1952, after it gained independence from British rule, and just four days in 1980. In 2019, voting took 39 days, and this year’s election is the second longest.

With 969 million registered voters, the size of India’s electorate is bigger than the combined population of the 27 European Union member states. This includes 18 million first-time voters, and around 197 million who are in their 20s.

The vote to choose 543 lawmakers for the lower house of Parliament takes place over seven phases. India’s 28 states and eight federal territories will vote at different times. Each phase is one day, with the first held on April 19 and the last on June 1.

Some states may complete their voting process within a day, while others might require more time. For instance, Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India with a population of 200 million, equivalent to the size of Brazil, will conduct voting over seven days. This extended duration of the voting process in India's general elections has been criticized by Modi's opponents, who argue that it provides an advantage to the prime minister in terms of campaigning and travel, particularly in states where his party is not as strong.

EVERY VOTE COUNTS

The Election Commission of India is responsible for ensuring that a voting booth is accessible within a 2-kilometer radius of each voter. Chakshu Roy from PRS Legislative Research emphasized the extensive efforts election officials must undertake to enable every voter to cast their ballot. Around 15 million election officials and security personnel will travel across deserts and mountains, utilizing various modes of transportation such as boats, walking, and even horseback riding, to reach all voters.

It can be especially arduous. In 2019, when India last held elections, a team of polling officers trekked over 480 kilometers (300 miles) for four days just so a single voter in a hamlet in the remote state of Arunachal Pradesh, which borders China, could exercise their right.

Officials also traveled to a village tucked away high up in the Himalayas in 2019 to install a booth at 15,256 feet (4,650 meters), the highest polling station anywhere in the world.

This time too, polling stations will be installed in remote places, including one inside a wildlife sanctuary in southern Kerala state and another in a shipping container in western Gujarat state.

TIGHT SECURITY

Security is cited as a significant factor behind the multi-phase elections in India, according to experts. In order to ensure safety, a large number of federal security forces, who typically guard borders, are mobilized and work in conjunction with state police. Their primary responsibilities include preventing violence, escorting electoral officials, and transporting voting machines. Previous elections in India have been marred by deadly clashes between supporters of rival political parties, particularly in West Bengal. However, the presence of heavy security forces has contributed to a decrease in such incidents over the years, resulting in relatively peaceful voting. The geographical diversity of the country, with its rivers, mountains, snow, and jungles, poses challenges for the movements of security forces. Despite these obstacles, the chief election commissioner, Rajiv Kumar, has emphasized their commitment to ensuring a smooth voting process by going the extra mile for the convenience of voters.

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umichenginabroad · 5 months

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New Zealand Part 1 (Week 11)

One of the beautiful things about studying at UNSW is that during week 6 of our studies, we get a flexibility week where the majority of courses don’t hold class and students are given the chance to catch up with schoolwork, get ahead, or do nothing and just relax! My hostel-mates and I knew about this opportunity from the day we got here, so a big trip was always in the works. We even knew that we all wanted to spend the time in New Zealand. The only problem? There’s 18 of us living in the hostel together and we’ve had enough trouble planning trips for just 5 or 6 people, let alone 18. Everyone had a different vision of what a trip to New Zealand could look like between camping, or renting cars and staying in AirBnBs, or living out of campervans. Needless to say, the trip planning was procrastinated all through the 4 weeks of summer and another 4 weeks of term 1. Once in a while someone would say, “Guys, we really have to plan this. Plane tickets are getting expensive!” and they’d be met with more approval and support than a professor who has suggested extending a homework deadline. But, as expected with our group, no action would be taken. Until one person sits down and buys themself a roundtrip flight to New Zealand, nobody is going anywhere. Soon enough, after intense procrastination and discussion, tickets were bought, plans were made, the group of 14 (four couldn’t make it) had divided into two campervans and two cars (who would be staying in AirBnBs), and I was sitting on a plane to Queenstown.

^^ Landing in Queenstown

Queenstown may not be among New Zealand’s 20 largest cities, but it is renowned for its adventure sports and stunning scenery, earning it the nickname "Adventure Capital of the World," as my friend Elizabeth would say. Our adventures in Queenstown, however, were put on hold until the end of the trip as we had a road trip planned that would take us up north to Christchurch and then back down to the Adventure Capital. So, on our first day there we picked up our car rentals and headed to Fiordland National Park for a quick hike. The greenest plants, mossiest rocks, and most colorful mushrooms riddled the paths and made our short hike one of the most memorable.

^^ Some New Zealand Flora

I also felt a lot safer hiking in New Zealand compared to Australia. New Zealand has none of the snakes that Australia is infamous for and has an almost negligible amount of dangerous spiders compared to the numbers Australia boasts! With our glow worm cave tour waiting for us in Te Anau, we had to get back on the road quickly. Lucky for us, there are worse places to be driving than one of the most naturally beautiful countries in the world where mountains surround you in every direction and lakes bluer than the sky itself pop up out of the blue (pun intended) every few moments. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the glow worm caves, but imagine yourself sitting on a boat in a pitch black cave with little blue/green specks scattering the ceiling. That was pretty much it! It was interesting to learn about the glow worms themselves – they glow brighter the hungrier they are (to better attract flies) and they’re actually larvae, not worms, so they just need to survive long enough to turn into gnats and reproduce. You may be wondering why I’m sharing so much detail about random worms. Well, as a recent trivia night attendee (two weeks in a row), I see every random fact as a future topic in trivia. You can thank me later.

^^ Just the average roadside view while driving along the west side of the South Island!

Milford Sound was next on the list. Just a two hour drive from Te Anau with the option of a bus service to shuttle you there and back, Milford Sound is a large fiord stretching 9 miles (or, 15 km should I say) to the open sea. Once there, a boat cruise takes you down to the ocean and back while passing waterfalls, dramatic cliffs, and some popular scuba diving destinations. Milford Sound was highly recommended as an activity on our itinerary, and it truly lived up to the hype! From the stops on the bus ride to the scenic cruise, I was in a constant state of awe that I will never forget. The rest of the trip was just as exciting, but I’ll cover it in the next post! Until then, Cheers!

^^ The car gang on our way to Milford Sound

^^ A snippet of Milford Sound

David Bayer

Biomedical Engineering

University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia

#umichenginabroad #ipewinter24 #ipeunsw #australia #davidbayer

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