I hang my hat at Tumblr
“A spokesman for Ergo told the BBC that the party had happened, but said it was not the usual way of rewarding their employees.”
Really nice piece on people living in an uncompleted 45-story tower in Caracas:
“I never let my child out of my sight,” said Yeaida Sosa, 29, who lives with her 1-year-old daughter, Dahasi, on the seventh floor overlooking a bustling artery, Avenida Andrés Bello. Ms. Sosa said residents were horrified after a young girl recently fell to her death from a high floor.
Some families have walled off their terraces with cinder blocks, blotting out the sun to avoid such tragedies. Others, aware of the risks, prefer to let in the breeze flowing off El Ávila, the emerald green mountain looming over Caracas. “God decides when we enter his kingdom,” said Enrique Zambrano, 22, an electrician who lives on the 19th floor.
Map: The world’s most — and least — livable cities
In an annual survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Vancouver scored 98% on a combination of stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure to be ranked the world’s most livable city. Above, the survey’s top ten — and bottom ten — mapped.
Apparently if you live anywhere but Canada or Australia, you’re a total sucker.
Tiwanaku Ruins - Bolivia
We need a Tumblr field trip here
npr:
Man Resting on Tiled Wall, Meknes - Morocco
If you’re not following WHS, you should be! It’s an amazing tour of some of the most beautiful and meaningful places in the world.
Done!
Heads of state in order of succession for the US and China, and their college majors. Notice anything? Full article here.
(Thanks, Cayman)
Yeah! If we want to beat the Chinese, we’re totally going to have to sue their asses…
“Militarized aid is ineffective as an ongoing strategy for four reasons: the pressure to spend huge funding quickly, the inability to match human resources with project management demands, the dominance of short-term political goals over longer-term development needs, and the focus of aid on certain groups for tactical gain.”
Life-saving dialysis is rationed in places like South Africa, forcing doctors and health care officials to make uncomfortable choices about who lives and who dies.
The story is explored in the new Rationing Health series from PRI’s The World.
Read this. This quote from the first part in the series:
Back in the 1960s, U.S. health professionals quietly rationed dialysis—much as South Africans do today. But Americans were so outraged when they learned about rationing based on perceived social worth that Congress eventually passed legislation that now provides dialysis through Medicare for patients of any age. It’s a massive program that costs US taxpayers around $20 billion a year.
struck me, because although $20 billion/year seems like a lot of money, the alternative, denying lifesaving care to a significant number of citizens, seems to be a higher cost still.
Really nice work on this; check the whole thing out here.
“And that’s where the escalator watchers come in. This is a corps of uniformed employees - they’re not even in the escalator division - who sit in glass booths at the bottom of all major escalator banks and keep an eye out for trouble. A stern eye. They’re almost all women, they’re called dezhurnayas, and they’re renowned for their heart-stopping scowls. A sign on each booth says, “Information is not provided.” Do not talk to any of them.”
file under: things we can learn from Moscow (via meredithbklyn)
Funny. I used to have an editor like that….
(via meredithbklyn)
“There was a nuance and honesty to her answers rarely accommodated in the cable TV shout-down culture public officials must now navigate.”
Susan Milligan: Condoleezza Rice Thrives Outside Government (via usnews)
Now she’s nuanced and honest…
(via usnews)
