restless legs

You have to hear Bill Maher say it. Why do people like to travel ? Answer: to get laid. It is one of those instances where comedians tell us what we all know to be true. Sure, there are the tourist attractions, but the number one attraction is the other people who are also there to view them. There is ample evidence to support this non-conventional view. From the crusades to the missionaries, to modern day tourism, we can see the evidence plainly written in mitochondrial and Y chromosome DNA.

Have you ever wondered why people living in exotic travel destinations never go see the local sights? It often takes out of town visitors for them to even consider looking at those "fabulous treasures." I have lived in San Francisco for decades and never been to Alcatraz. I think I have been to Muir woods twice, both times because out of town visitors wanted to go there. The same applies to ChinaTown, Fisherman's Warf, Pier 39, and all other tourist attractions. I lived in other tourist hotspots and they too never inspired me to go see the sights.

And I am not alone. I went to Boston recently to visit a friend. He too took me places that are high on the tourist must-see list but that he, as a life-long Boston resident had never bothered to see. Everyone knows stories like these.It is not that we are immune to natural beauty. But natural beauty can be found everywhere and anytime. It is a free commodity and not something you need to go travel for to experience.

Furthermore, a lot of it is in the eye of the beholder. Sure you can look over the Grand Canyon or Monument Valley and be amazed. But as Marc Reisner points out in "Cadillac Desert," the desert only looks wondrous and attractive from an air-conditioned car with a cooler full of cold drinks. If you had to survive there, you wouldn't be nearly as impressed. Even Hawaii with its spectacular volcanoes is no different. If it weren't for all the goodies we constantly ship in, paradise would look as desperate and dreary as Father Damian saw it.

Hawaii, like all beach destinations is about the surfer dudes and the bikini girls. The hard bodies on the beach. Now that is a sight worth seeing ! Men of course would only grudgingly acknowledge this in public. Because men, as we all know, buy PlayBoy for the articles.



There are only so many sunsets one can watch. And only so many new and exciting landscapes. Sure the romantic pictures matter somewhat, but face it, it is not the tropical beach but the bodies lying on that beach that count. And the clubs and the nightlife. It is not the ski, but the apres-ski that we are looking for. If not, why put up with all the lift lines and the hassle?

In tourist hotspots such as Las Vegas, Bangkok, Phuket, and Spain, the sex industry is alive and well. That industry does not just comprise sex workers but also the many nightclubs and bars where eager souls can pick up new companions. In some cases it goes so far as to support a "scavenger population."

I saw a program recently documenting the many single males living a minimal existence on the Spanish coast. They try to survive winter doing odd jobs here and there. They live frugally to the point of poverty and have but one goal. Like raptors they are eagerly awaiting the tourists that arrive in Spring. To take advantage of the relaxed atmosphere that gives many women the green light for an adventure or a one-night stand.

Despite the reproductive advantage, traveling is not something that humans are well adapted for. It comes at a price. There are dangers on the road, and dangers in the encounter with foreigners. There are illnesses, some quite serious. Even today, with tourism bringing in billions of dollars, and tourist-destinations eager to protect their source of income, travelers are at increased risk for illness, injury, and death. It is not something you read about a lot and the travel industry does its best to ignore it or brush it away. But every year, a lot of people die. Even more are assaulted, robbed, or kidnapped.

Travel also plays a key role in epidemics and pandemics. Travel is a major contributor to global warming and environmental destruction. From the planes, cars, and buses, to the garbage people leave behind, tourism is damaging and destructive. Unfortunately, it does not end there. Tourism also leaves its mark in infrastructure. An infrastructure that is often poorly adapted to the local circumstances.

Tourism plays a major role in the current water crisis in Southern Spain. The crisis goes largely unnoticed for now, but its impact is devastating. Spain is a good example because it contains many fragile environments and receives more tourists than almost any other destination on the planet. Almost 50 million people make an annual trek to the Spanish coast each and every year. They go there to do those things that they would never contemplate doing at home. But what happens in Spain is not an isolated phenomenon. It happens everywhere else too. Florida's ecosystem has been trashed by retirees and visitors alike. The everglades have seen their best days. The reefs are all but depopulated. The same is happening to the SouthWest. The spread of golf courses and swimming pools is contributing to water shortages and putting stress on the ecosystems.

Like so many other things in modern life, travel is one area where the consumer does not pay the true cost of the trip. If they did, travel would once again become rare and be the prerogative of the very rich. Not that that would be a bad thing. After a while, I am sure nobody would miss it very much.

bird flu

You probably forgot about the bird flu. There is little visible evidence of it, especially here. It is no longer front page news, so why bother? Shouldn't we worry about the subprime meltdown and the stagnating economy? Just like it is hard to think about dire consequences of global warming during an ice-storm, it is hard to think about bird flu when there are no cases. These things may be invisible but they have not gone away. Both are increasingly likely as the population expands and becomes more mobile. And the "economy" plays a key role in the spread of both.

The US economy is driven by consumer spending. Fully two thirds of it depends on unnecessary and wasteful spending. Economists call this type of waste discretionary spending. It just sounds better. Discretionary spending spits out millions of metric tons of CO2 each year. It slowly accumulates, largely unnoticed. But it may turn our beloved planet into another Venus before long.

Discretionary spending in the US is crucial not just for US retailers, but for the millions of Chinese, Taiwanese, and other Asian widget manufacturers. It relies on global trade and shipping of goods. And since the great plague of 1499, we all know that such trade carries unwanted stowaways. But discretionary spending also feeds an even more efficient method to spread disease: airline travel. That next flight could be far more damaging than the ones that hit the world trade center.

Flying is not just bad for the environment, it will be the enabler and main conduit for a global pandemic. And when it comes to pandemics, all experts agree it is no longer a matter of "if," but "when." Sooner or later, a killer respiratory virus will emerge. It could be a variant of the current H5N1 that is quietly chugging along in bird stocks. But it need not be. H5N1 has almost all the needed properties, except one: it does not transmit efficiently from one person to another. You could say, so what, if you don't have that you are like a car without wheels. True, but while the car will never develop wheels to solve its problem, viruses do mutate and acquire new traits. And they do so very rapidly.

Ironically enough, one problem could "solve" another. Or at least delay it significantly. Because, unlike wars, diseases do kill large numbers of people. And unlike endemic flu, epidemics and pandemics kill the younger, more vigorous ones. The ones with the best consumptive and reproductive potential. The ones who can mount a serious immune response. Because, unlike what you may think, it is the immune response that kills in these cases.

What is especially bothersome is that a second killer wave due to bacterial super-infection could also re-appear. Bacterial super-infection played a big role in the flu of 1918, when no antibiotics were available. Even though we now have antibiotics, our over-exploitation of them has caused widespread resistance. We are quickly heading back to a pre-antibiotic condition.

Because, once again, we over-indulged ourselves. Driven mostly by the desire to make a quick profit, antibiotics were over-prescribed. And they weren't just over-prescribed to humans. Soon enough people discovered they could grow more and bigger cattle if they mixed antibiotics into the feed. But guess what? The bugs did not disappear, they just mutated and became resistant. It is called evolution. You may not believe in it, but you can see it every time you read a headline about MRSA, or "flesh-eating" strep.

But why worry? These are isolated cases happening in immune suppressed people, and they do not spread. So, it is a small price to pay for some extra beef. Or is it ? These superbugs don't matter much until you get a full blown pandemic. Only then are conditions ripe for the perfect storm. And only then is it time to pay the piper.

holiday shopping

This holiday season do something patriotic: buy American. Not goods from China sold by companies with headquarters in America, but goods made locally by American workers. This won't just keep jobs here and help the economy, it will also avoid pollution and greenhouse gases due to shipping. And if you apply it to food and drink, it will ensure better quality, fresher goods, that are less likely to be covered in pesticides. Healthy food guidelines are very simple . Always avoid things that are produced outside a 100 mile radius from where you live.

And here is another good guideline: the bulkier and the heavier the item, the more good it will do everyone to buy local. The same applies to in reverse to complexity. A cellphone made in Asia is not as bad as wine shipped from Australia. While you could argue that such thinking will lead to keeping low tech jobs and losing valuable high technology, that is not necessarily the case. High tech devices are often designed in Silicon Valley and manufactured abroad. The high tech part is in the design.

And while we are on the topic of shipping. Avoid shipping yourself, especially by air. That too will not just benefit our ecosystem, it will save you a lot of headache, anger, and bouts of hypertension.