Happy New Year!

Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2007!

Latest Terrorist Weapon Banned from Planes

The Transportation Security Administration reminds all Christmas travelers that snow globes regardless of size or amount of liquid inside, even with documentation, are prohibited in your carry-on. Please ship these items or pack them in your checked baggage.

Is any commentary really necessary?

See Bruce Schneier's blog for more on this topic.

Svanï vs. Sevo in Absurdistan

Anyone who's traveled in Eastern Europe will recognize the territory staked out by Gary Shteyngart in Absurdistan (New York: Random House, 2006).

The Russian-born novelist's prose is as thick and heavy as his protagonist, Mischa Vainberg. His descriptions of the post-communist but pre-capitalist world of a former Soviet satellite state on the Caspian Sea is achingly familiar if you've been there: the island of privilege enjoyed by foreigners in a western-branded hotel, the ease that unlimited funds provides individuals, the sheer rapaciousness of traditional oligarchs negotiating with predatory companies expecting to operate on "cost plus" contracts, the delicate dance between preserving traditional culture (and enmities) as an American music dominated western ethos captures one young adult after another.

If you've ever heard the symphony of car alarms in St. Petersburg or watched uniformed cops shake down motorists for $2 bribes in Yerevan, you've already visited Absurdistan.

If not, pick up a copy and Gary Shteyngart will take you there.

Belfast's troubles are over?

A tour of neighborhoods that used to be ringed with police checkpoints and military garrisons reveal areas that look like residential sections of cities everywhere in the Western world.

Except of course for the corrugated roll-down metal doors that cover storefronts during the off hours that are more reminiscent of Third World countries, or places like inner city Detroit.

Perhaps Protestants and Roman Catholics have finally learned how to get along in these northern most reaches of the Emerald Isle!

Still Green on the Emerald Isle

It may be December, but the grass is emerald green in Ireland. Of course, it's also raining.

And, yet another airline has lost my luggage.

This time Aer Lingus. Last time, Air France. Time before that, SAS.

Ah! The joys of traveling!