2008年1月30日 星期三

In Tiny Malta, Hunters Cry Foul In EU Bird Dispute

第一句的翻譯可能有問題
應該是從南美歌曲 I rather be an eagle than a snail 化出....

wsj

獵手的天堂 鳥類的墓地

| | |
2008年01月30日14:10
果你是獵鷹﹐你絕對不會想在生活在這裡。

安德烈•瑞內(Andre Raine)的數碼照片顯示了在這個小島上生活是多麼危險﹕一隻白腹鷂身中獵槍的子彈﹐奄奄一息﹔另一隻高山雨燕則翅膀受傷﹔一隻草原鷂渾身血淋淋地躺在一條藍色的毛巾上。

“目前這種鳥在歐洲僅有五到五十隻了﹐”鳥類學家瑞內說﹐“現在又少了一隻。”

每年﹐各種鳥類都會在歐洲和非洲之間遷徙兩次。而馬耳他則是鳥兒們在長途跋涉中理想的中途棲息地﹐因為這個島國位於地中海西西裡島南部﹐陽光明媚。鳥類的蜂擁而至給馬耳他帶來了另一項殊榮﹕這裡獲得獵鳥許可證的獵手比世界其他任何地方都多﹐為全球第一。

鳥 類保護組織則抱怨馬耳他人對於射獵的迷戀。鳥類保護人士稱﹐曾看見漁船上的獵人對火烈鳥窮追不捨﹐有些人追趕野鶴竟然追到了女修道院。馬耳他國際機場跑道 附近的區域也成了獵手們射殺的好地方﹕對於習慣了北歐地貌的鳥類而言﹐這裡是一片難得一見的平坦草地﹐而小島的其他地方則崎嶇多岩。

保護 鳥類的志願者們把受傷的鳥兒送到位於Ta'Xbiex的鳥類保護組織 BirdLife Malta﹐Ta'Xbiex是馬耳他首都瓦萊塔近郊的小鎮。為BirdLife工作的瑞內會為這些鳥兒拍照──他的數碼相機去年見證了80只受保護鳥兒 的葬禮。那些受傷的鳥兒會被獸醫們悉心照料。

今年﹐隨著馬耳他大選的日益臨近﹐捕捉獵殺鳥類的行為也引起了高度關注和爭議。許多獵手對馬耳他政府感到非常不滿。他們指出﹐目前執政的民族黨當初在2004年曾許諾說﹐如果獵手們投票支持馬耳他加入歐盟﹐那麼射獵活動將繼續合法。

可 如今﹐當馬耳他加入歐盟之後﹐獵手們反而成了被追捕的對象。總部設在布魯塞爾的歐盟譴責馬耳他政府違反了于1979年生效的《歐盟鳥類保護指引》﹐並表達 了對射殺受保護鳥類這一非法行為的憤慨。歐盟環境委員還稱馬耳他政府的縱容態度是“瘋狂行為”﹐並有可能把馬耳他告上歐盟法院(European Court of Justice)。歐盟環境委員希望上述舉動能迫使馬耳他禁止春季射殺斑鳩和鵪鶉的活動。

獵手們則抱怨﹐他們的傳統消 遣被那些打算實現歐洲一體化的官僚們干擾了。為射獵活動進行游說的約瑟夫•卡萊斯恩(Joseph Perici Calascione)引用了馬耳他人常說的一句話來形容這個國家在歐盟事務中的陪襯地位﹕Hanqa ta' hmar fid-dezert﹐意思是就像一隻在沙漠中嘶叫的驢子﹐沒人理睬。

限制馬耳他人的射獵活動似乎是苛求。在射獵季節的每個清晨﹐很多馬耳他人都會在黎明之前趕到山上﹐設好成排的埋伏點﹐就像海邊的小塔樓。“你在春季連一個 水管工都找不到﹐”旅行社職員亨利•阿帕蒂(Henry Fenech Azzopardi)說。他也熱衷于射獵﹐並加入了一個游說政府的委員會。

阿帕蒂指出﹐如果實行春季射獵禁令﹐那將“對成千上萬當初投票支持加入歐盟的獵手們非常不公平﹐這些人曾相信春季射獵會得以繼續下去”。他同時表示﹐非法射獵活動理應受到譴責﹐但“現在是那些守法的獵手遭受著懲罰。”

在 獵手們的大本營Rabat小鎮上﹐邁克爾•阿帕蒂(Michael Azzopardi)正在自己的槍支出售店裡忙碌著。那天早上他四點半就起床了。“這不僅僅是一項活動。它置根在你的心裡﹐”他指出﹐“如果他們在這個季 節﹐在四月份停止射獵﹐”他的聲音越來越低沉﹐“還不如直接把我投入監獄算了。”

射獵活動的支持者們認為﹐馬耳他是彈丸之地﹐與歐洲其他國家相比﹐所容納鳥類的數量實在是微不足道。

“在秋天﹐我們幾乎什麼都捕獲不到﹐”卡萊斯恩說。他目前在獵手們組成的游說組織FKNK擔任發言人。“我已經四天沒有打獵了。如果我去英國、愛爾蘭、蘇格蘭和威爾士﹐十天的射獵量也許相當于在這裡十年的射獵量呢。”

不 久前的一個清晨﹐太陽還沒有昇起的時候﹐Siggiewi小鎮上就迴蕩著槍聲。由石頭和水泥構成的獵人埋伏處點綴在山頂四週的田野裡。一隻公雞打起了鳴﹐ 宣告著黎明的到來。槍聲還在下面的山谷此起彼伏。只見一隻孤獨的黑色小鳥盤旋到一個埋伏點後面。這時槍響了﹐小鳥頓時像一隻飛盤那樣跌落在地﹐一名獵手隨 即跑上前去。

在這種槍林彈雨中被打中可一點也不好玩。射鳥用的小號鉛彈在屋頂上回響﹔死鳥躺在游泳池裡。一位不願意透露姓名的英國女士說起她第一次到馬耳他鄉村時的情景。當聽到隆隆的槍炮聲時﹐她回憶說﹐“我當時以為我們都活不了。”她的丈夫還有一次在修整苗圃時被小彈丸襲擊過。

雷•維拉(Ray Vella)是BirdLife的巡邏隊員。去年十月﹐他曾被小號鉛彈打中臉部﹐結果一個小彈丸射入了兩眼之間的肌肉裡。而射擊者呢﹐他說﹐“一邊逃跑一邊還罵罵咧咧的”。

FKNK 也譴責了上述行為﹐不過它與BirdLife的關係還是相當緊張。BirdLife與英國頗有影響力的組織英國皇家保護鳥類協會(Royal Society for the Protection of Birds)是同盟。瑞內本人來自百慕大。BirdLife的負責人特爾加•圖格(Tolga Temuge)是位資深的鳥類保護人士﹐來自土耳其。

FKNK 對外國人插手馬耳他事務一點也不害怕。在一篇長長的新聞稿中﹐該組織譴責圖格試圖製造“爭議和攻擊”。文中表示﹐“我們過去不曾懼怕約三萬的土耳其人﹐因 此我們確信現在我們也不會懼怕一個土耳其人。”新聞稿中所指的過去是1565年的馬耳他大圍攻﹐當時由蘇萊曼大帝統治下的奧斯曼土耳其帝國被馬耳他騎士團 (Knights Hospitaller)擊敗了。

圖格則稱FKNK是“一群無賴”。

保護鳥類的工作讓瑞內有機會跑遍世界﹐無論是秘魯、塞舌爾還是贊比亞。當馬耳他有工作機會時﹐他毫不猶豫地來了。由於馬耳他地處候鳥遷徙的必經之路﹐並享有獵手天堂的聲譽﹐這裡成了環保人士研究鳥類所面臨威脅的聖城麥加。僅從這一方面來看﹐”它是歐洲的黑洞﹐“瑞內說。

BirdLife有一支志願者隊伍﹐他們遍布整個島嶼﹐主要是制止非法射獵活動。不久前的一個下午﹐瑞內的手機響了﹐原來是志願者發來了一條短信﹕“他們剛剛向一隻鶴開槍﹐但幸運的是射得太高了﹗沒看見射獵人。”

機場附近也佈置了志願者。在飛機降落地帶旁邊的一片田野裡﹐有三個獵鳥圈套﹐用來引誘太平洋金斑。一名獵手拿著捕捉網守侯在一旁﹐準備隨時網羅任何掉進來的東西。“如果他們沒有把機場變成禁止射獵鳥類的庇護所﹐也許獵人們會沿著跑道射獵呢﹐”瑞內說。

在 檢查了試圖射殺鶴的地點之後﹐瑞內又驅車前往位於馬耳他西南端的Dingli Cliffs。這裡的景象真有點驚心動魄﹕一邊是懸崖絕壁﹐一百英尺下面就是大海。面對著海水方向到處都是射獵的埋伏點﹐專為阻擊從海上飛來的鳥兒。這些 埋伏點上還有綠色油漆刷的警示語﹐“請勿進入”﹐“私人領地”和“私人專有”。

一隻賽鴿隨著寒風飛來了﹐這是禁止捕殺的鳥類。它消失在石脊背後。接著﹐槍聲響了。瑞內連忙衝上去探個究竟﹐卻發現賽鴿和獵手都已無影無蹤。

Charles Forelle


In Tiny Malta, Hunters Cry Foul In EU Bird Dispute

| | |
2008年01月30日14:10
WSJ(1/18) In Tiny Malta, Hunters Cry Foul In EU Bird Dispute

(From THE WALL STREET JOURNAL) By Charles Forelle

TA'XBIEX, Malta -- This is one place you wouldn't want to be a falcon.

Andre Raine's digital photos illustrate the perils of a life aloft on this tiny island: a marsh harrier with a gaping shotgun wound. An alpine swift pierced through the wing. A bloodied pallid harrier splayed on a blue towel.

'There are only five to 50 breeding pairs in Europe,' Dr. Raine, an ornithologist, said of the dead bird. 'This is one less now.'

Twice a year, all sorts of birds migrate between Europe and Africa. A popular stopover on the long-haul flight is Malta, a sunny speck in the Mediterranean south of Sicily. Joining the birds in the air is a lot of lead: Malta boasts one of the highest concentrations of licensed bird hunters of any nation anywhere.

Bird-protection groups complain about the Maltese penchant for pump-action punishment. Birders have reported seeing hunters in fishing boats plugging away at flamingos, and hunters chasing a crane onto the grounds of a convent. The area near the runway at Malta International Airport offers some choice shooting: For birds accustomed to northern Europe, it's a welcome stretch of flat grassland on an otherwise craggy island.

Volunteers bring downed birds to the offices of conservation group BirdLife Malta in Ta'Xbiex, a small suburb of the capital, Valletta. Dr. Raine, who works for BirdLife, snaps their pictures -- his digital mortuary logged 80 protected birds last year. The wounded are dispatched for veterinary care.

Tensions over hunting and trapping are running high as elections approach this year. Many hunters are nursing a grudge against Malta's government. The ruling Nationalist Party, they say, told them their sport would be fine if they voted to join the European Union in 2004.

But now that Malta is in, the hunters have become the hunted. Brussels has condemned Malta for several abuses of the EU's 1979 Birds Directive, and expressed anger at the illegal shooting of protected species. The EU's environment commissioner calls Malta's permissive attitude 'madness' and is likely to take Malta to the European Court of Justice. He hopes to force an end to the spring shooting of turtledoves and quail.

Hunters grouse that their traditional pastime is under assault by bureaucrats intent on homogenizing Europe. Hunting lobbyist Joseph Perici Calascione uses a Maltese phrase to describe the country's relative unimportance in European affairs: Hanqa ta' hmar fid-dezert. Like a donkey braying in the desert.

Restraining hunters in Malta will be a tall order. Every morning in season, Maltese in large numbers take to the hills before dawn, manning rows of blinds arrayed like turrets toward the sea. 'You wouldn't be able to find one plumber during the spring season,' says Henry Fenech Azzopardi, a travel agent and avid hunter who is on a committee advising the government on the sport.

A spring ban, he says, would be 'very unfair for those many thousands of hunters who voted to enter Europe believing spring hunting would continue.' He says he condemns illegal hunting, but 'law-abiding hunters are being penalized.'

In the hunters' stronghold of Rabat, Michael Azzopardi held court one afternoon at his gun shop. He had been up since 4:30 that morning. 'This is not a sport. This is like a feeling in your heart,' Mr. Azzopardi said. 'If they stop this season, the April season . . .' He trailed off. 'It is better to put me in jail.'

Hunting advocates say tiny Malta bags an insignificant number of birds, compared with the rest of Europe.

'In autumn, we get very little, if anything,' says Mr. Perici Calascione, who is the spokesman for the hunters' lobby, known as FKNK. 'I haven't shot my gun for four days. If I go to England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, I could kill in 10 days what I bag here in 10 years.'

Above the town of Siggiewi one recent morning, gunshots resounded before the sun. Stone and concrete blinds dotted fields at the crest of a hill. A rooster kicked up a racket as dawn approached. Shotguns barked in the valley below. A lone black bird came low over the back of a blind. A gun cracked, and the bird arced like a falling Frisbee to the ground. A hunter scurried out to collect it.

Being caught in the cross-fire is no fun. Birdshot rattles on roofs; dead fowls land in swimming pools. Upon first moving to the Maltese countryside, an Englishwoman, who asks not to be identified, says that such was the level of gunfire, 'we thought we were going to be killed.' Once, her husband was peppered with pellets while gardening.

Ray Vella, a park ranger for BirdLife, says he got a face full of small birdshot in October. One pellet lodged in the flesh between his eyes. The shooter, he says, 'ran off shouting obscenities.'

The FKNK condemned the shooting, but relations with BirdLife are strained. BirdLife is allied with Britain's influential Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Dr. Raine is from Bermuda. BirdLife's chief, a veteran activist named Tolga Temuge, is Turkish.

The FKNK isn't thrilled about foreigners butting into Maltese affairs. In one long press release, it accused Mr. Temuge of creating 'controversy and aggression.' It continued: 'We were not afraid of some 30,000 Turks some time back, so we're sure that we're not going to be afraid of one.' He was referring, of course, to the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, when Ottoman Turks under Suleiman the Magnificent were rebuffed by the Knights Hospitaller.

Mr. Temuge calls the FKNK 'a group of bullies.'

Bird work has led Dr. Raine around the world. Peru, the Seychelles, Zambia. When a job opened up in Malta, he jumped. Thanks to its location on migratory flyways and reputation as a hunters' paradise, Malta is a mecca for conservationists studying threats to avian populations. Birdwise, 'it is the black hole of Europe,' Dr. Raine says.

BirdLife has a network of volunteer spotters across the island primed for illegal hunting. On a recent afternoon, Dr. Raine's cellphone chirped with a text message from one of them: 'They just shot at a crane but luckily was too high! Hunter not seen.'

The spotter was positioned near the airport. In a field abutting the landing strip were three decoys used to lure golden plovers. A hunter waited with trapping nets to snap up any that touched down. 'If they hadn't turned the airport into a no-hunting bird sanctuary, you'd probably have hunters walking along the runway shooting,' said Dr. Raine.

After checking out the scene of the attempted crane shooting, he drove to Dingli Cliffs on Malta's southwestern edge. The vista is awesome: To one side, an escarpment plunges a hundred feet to the sea. Hunting blinds are everywhere facing the water where the birds come in. Green spray paint marks them: 'Tidholx' (no entry), 'Private Property,' and 'RTO' (reserved to owner).

A racing pigeon, not legal to hunt, flew into the whipping wind. It disappeared behind a ridge line. A shotgun cracked. Dr. Raine scrambled up and scanned the terrain. Bird and shooter were gone.

Charles Forelle


2008年1月27日 星期日

Hawaii on a Dime By MATT GROSS

Hawaii on a Dime

Jeff Pflueger for The New York Times

A hiker on the Kalalau Trail, along the Na Pali Cliffs on Kauai’s north coast.


Published: January 27, 2008

THE beauty of the Hawaiian islands is hardly subtle. Jungle-smothered volcanic peaks loom around every highway switchback, verdant plants sprout flowers as brilliant and meaty as hallucinations, and surrounding you always is the Pacific Ocean, by turns coral blue, crystalline green or shimmering golden with the light of the setting sun. Hawaii is easy, Hawaii has nothing to hide. Hawaii is, touristically speaking, pornographic in its single-minded baring of its assets.

Video

More Video »

Hawaii is also — duh — expensive. According to AAA’s 2007 Annual Vacation Costs Survey, a family of four could expect to spend $650 a day there on food and lodging, making it the least affordable state in the country — and that doesn’t even take into account Hawaii’s gas prices, consistently among the nation’s highest.

But while daunting fuel costs and overpriced villas surprise no one, Hawaii can be ruthlessly surreptitious when it comes to extracting every last dollar from tourists.

Take Kona coffee, the famed beans grown on the Big Island. On the first morning of a weeklong trip that my wife, Jean, and I made in early September, I was eager to taste this local brew, supposedly the only coffee produced in the United States. We were driving around Kailua, on the island’s west side, searching for a nontouristy breakfast place when I spotted Green Flash Coffee, a tiny storefront 〔米〕 店頭, 店の正面. named for the fabled burst of emerald light that often accompanies sunsets on the Kona coast.

Inside, we scanned the menu of breakfast sandwiches and smoothies until my eyes alighted on the Kona coffee: it was $2.95 for a 12-ounce cup, versus $1.85 for a non-Kona version. Granted, that’s not a huge amount in itself, but a cup or two a day could really add up — a no-no for this frugal traveler. I opted for the cheaper brew.

Over the next few days, as we combed the island for luxurious meals on a less-than-luxurious budget, I noticed that no matter where we ate, prices were two or three or four dollars higher than I was accustomed to. At Ba-Le, a relatively affordable Vietnamese restaurant, a banh mi sandwich that would have been $3 in New York City was $6. At Big Jake’s Island B-B-Q, a pulled-pork sandwich plate was $8.95, perhaps twice what you’d pay in North Carolina.

Again, these weren’t egregious pricing schemes — and both places were, incidentally, fantastic — but they brought home the fact that while Hawaii’s natural wonders may clear your mind of cares, its restaurants, hotels and attractions can, almost without your noticing, clear out your wallet.

Yet Jean and I were determined to sacrifice neither comfort nor our savings. At first, we got lucky — or rather, Lucky: the very first result in a Google search for “affordable Hawaii Kona” was Pomaikai “Lucky” Farm B & B, an eco-resort whose breakfasts featured Kona coffee grown on the premises. (My verdict: good, but not $2.95-per-cup good.)

We’d requested the romantic renovated Coffee Barn room, but because of a booking error wound up in one of the two Greenhouse rooms. It was simple and comfortable, with screens for windows, a big bed, an ensuite bathroom and a lime tree just off the porch. And just $80 a night.

The room may have been basic, but it came with beach towels, snorkeling gear, body boards and a seemingly endless supply of fruit dangling from the trees: papayas, bananas, passion fruit (usually known by their Hawaiian name, lilikoi) and juicy, fragrant strawberry guavas. Lucky Farm even raised red bulbs of awapuhi kuahiwi, whose juice is a traditional hair conditioner — and a much-touted ingredient in costly Paul Mitchell products.

Our base established, Jean and I began to explore the Kona coast. Unlike the northwestern areas of the Big Island, where you find large resorts like the Four Seasons and touristy chains like Outback Steakhouse, the southwestern coastline — from Captain Cook to Naalehu — is far less commercial. Tropical trees crowd the winding highway, briefly vanishing to allow for the lone gas stations or coffee shops that mark a settlement, then swarming up again to envelop you in fecund jungle.

It was about 10 miles south of Captain Cook, not far from Lucky Farm, that we found Puuhonua o Honaunau, a “Place of Refuge” that once functioned as the oceanside home of Hawaii’s royal chiefs and as a safe haven for women, children and noncombatants during times of war, and for lawbreakers hoping to evade a death sentence.

Today, the site (which is operated by the National Park Service) contains a big heiau, or temple, surrounded by carved wooden figures, separated by a hefty rock wall from a plain of black volcanic stone that reaches into the sea. Well-written pamphlets explain the significance of every spot, and admission is $5 a vehicle — but only till 4 p.m., when anyone can visit (until 8) free.

For us, Puuhonua o Honaunau was a refuge from the island’s exorbitant demands. The first afternoon, we wandered the plain and walked down a lava-rock trail, forged in 1871, that led to an abandoned village. (Alas, the sun set before we reached the end.)

The next morning, we were back, for snorkeling at Two-Step Beach next to the park. No sooner had I strapped on my mask and flippers and slipped off the double rock ledge that gives the beach its name than I came face to face — literally — with a 30-inch green sea turtle, swimming lazily next to me.

After my initial shock, I explored the healthy coral reef with Jean, spotting schools of yellow tang and, on a stretch of sandy bottom, “Aloha” spelled out in concrete blocks. Just before we left, I saw a pair of dolphins surface in the near distance; only federal law, which prohibits the feeding and harassing of dolphins, kept me from diving back in to greet them.

One afternoon, we returned to Puuhonua o Honaunau to make use of another budget-friendly feature: free beachside barbecue grills. Equipped with charcoal and utensils from Lucky Farm, and a cooler full of ingredients from local markets, we cooked up a feast of tombo tuna, mahi-mahi and corn on the cob (which we soaked in a tidal pool to dampen the husks).

Along with an octopus-and-cucumber kimchi and a few bottles of pale ale from the Kona Brewing Company, we spent about $20 — perhaps a quarter of what the same meal would cost in an up-island restaurant like Merriman’s in Waimea, where the ponzu-marinated mahi-mahi is $34.95. Plus, we got to watch the sun sink into the Pacific, turning the water cool and silver before plunging us into darkness.

Try as we did to visit all the island’s beaches, parks and inexpensive restaurants, we soon came to understand why it’s called the Big Island: it’s really big (almost the size of Connecticut). With limited time, we saw only the white, yellow and gray sand beaches — not the black or green ones; we lunched on rich kalua pork and poi at Super J’s ($7), but never found the time for loco moco, the Hawaiian comfort dish of hamburger, a fried egg and gravy over rice, at Kenny’s, on the east coast.

Saddest of all, we never made it to Volcanoes National Park. But we did join Arnaud and Stéphanie, a young French couple who’d lucked into the Coffee Barn, on an excursion to Mauna Kea, the 13,796-foot mountain that is Hawaii’s tallest.

After a brief stop at the golden beach at the Four Seasons resort — access to the shoreline is a much-disputed public right — we began our ascent in a 4 x 4 and watched the landscape change, first subtly to the grassy, temperate ranches where local cattle roam, then dramatically to the treeless moonscape of lava fields below Mauna Kea’s peak. Surrounded by the white domes of stellar observatories, we gazed out on a carpet of clouds below us, and once again the sun turned the sky crimson before disappearing, revealing the vast band of the Milky Way encircling us.

So much was left to do on the Big Island, but we had to depart — after all, what’s a Hawaiian vacation without a little island-hopping? Thanks to an explosion of low-cost airlines, it’s easy to bounce around cheaply: Our round-trip tickets to Kauai on Go! cost $118 each, including a discount simply for joining the frequent-flier program. That’s not much for what amounts to a trip in a time machine — from the youngest of the main Hawaiian islands to the oldest.

Where the Big Island is vast and spacious, its lava fields flowing gently to the sea, five-million-year-old Kauai is knotty and lush, with eroded spires of volcanic rock shooting up from dense jungles of palms and pines, bamboo and guava groves. Kauai was the setting for “Jurassic Park,” and in this prehistoric setting, it’s not hard to imagine a couple of raptors sunning themselves at your side on one of the soft, sandy beaches that circle virtually the entire island.

IN spite of its extravagant spectacle, Kauai feels intimate. The towns on its ring road are small, and as that road nears an end on the island’s north side, it shrinks to cute, single-lane bridges over inlets and streams.

It was out there, just past the town of Hanalei and a few miles from the highway’s terminus at the Na Pali Cliffs, that Jean and I were staying, at the Kalalau B & B’s $75-a-night “Jungalow,” which we imagined was hidden away somewhere in the forest.

Not quite. The Jungalow was a small, charming, tin-roofed, bamboo-paneled shack that Mark Pearson, the Long Island-born proprietor, had built in the backyard of his house in a tidy little subdevelopment. As with Lucky Farm, we had access to a panoply of beach gear, plus an outdoor shower, a hot tub, fruit-heavy breakfasts (an extra $10 each) and Mr. Pearson’s 16 years of experience on Kauai.

Just down the street, he told us, was Tunnels, the area’s best snorkeling. He was right — clouds of tiny, blue-silver fish swarmed us the instant we entered the shallows. And down the road, he said, up a rarely explored trail, lay the Blue Room, a monstrous cave filled with swimmable spring water; it was, we discovered, isolated and magical — if a bit too eerie for us to relax.

The north shore beaches were more traditional. On the half-hidden, pine-shaded sands of Kauapea Beach — a k a Secret Beach — we picnicked on grilled fish wraps and ahi salad from Kilauea’s Fish Market ($27.89 with soft drinks and kimchi). On Hanalei Bay, I took a beginner’s surfing lesson with the Titus Kinimaka Hawaiian School of Surfing ($65 for a 90-minute lesson, plus use of the board afterward). And on Kee Beach, at the very end of the highway, we watched the sun set next to the nearly impassable Na Pali Cliffs.

When we weren’t at the water’s edge, we were hanging around the town of Hanalei, a short stretch of restaurants and shops that was as low-key and high-quality as you could hope to find on a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean. We drank $4 smoothies made with taro, the ubiquitous purple tuber, and while Jean browsed the bikinis at Hanalei Surf Company, in the town’s well-preserved former school, I chatted with the young employees about what to do that evening.

“Today’s Thursday?” said the kid behind the counter. “Oh, it’s fish taco night at Hanalei Gourmet,” the cozy local restaurant at the other end of the school.

Good enough for us — and they were the best we’d ever had, easily worth $10.95 for two big ones with rice and beans.

On our final day, Jean and I loaded up on bottled water, drove to Kee Beach and set off on the Kalalau Trail, an 11-mile trek along the Na Pali Cliffs, a wilderness that effectively cuts off the island’s north shore from its west side. We weren’t doing the full hike, just two miles out, to a beach with thunderous waves, then two miles inland, to Hanakapiai Falls.

All along the way, we noticed a familiar, enticing smell. Lying at our feet, some squashed, some freshly fallen from the trees above, were guavas, dozens of them, yellow and the size of Ping-Pong balls. As we marched along the coast and deeper into the jungle, we plucked them from the earth, rinsing them in streams and chomping the ripe, sweet, juicy fruit. Elsewhere, we knew, suckers were paying good money for these treats we had for free.

Finally, we reached the waterfall, a cascade of fresh water that tumbled at least 1,000 feet off a cliff above and into a wide, chilly pool at the base. Other hikers were swimming and lunching, and yet it still felt like a moment out of time, a lost corner of paradise.

I put down my backpack, put on my trunks and eased myself into the water. Then I swam over to where the falls hit the surface and stared up at the little droplets that showered from the rocks above. Somewhere beyond them was a sky bluer than the ocean, and in that sky hovered a dot of a helicopter, ferrying visitors around the island on tours that cost hundreds of dollars.

It made no sense to me: Why come all this way for Hawaii’s natural beauty, only to spend extra to distance yourself from it?

For almost a week, Jean and I had stayed close to the ground — and, despite our indulgence, well within our budget — and achieved an up-close-and-personal relationship with the islands. Besides, we’d get to see them from the air the next day — we had window seats on our flight home.

Total: $956.84 (with car rental, $1,210.93).

TWO ISLANDS, MANY PLEASURES

WHERE TO STAY

Pomaikai “Lucky” Farm B & B, 83-5465 Mamalahoa Highway, Captain Cook, Hawaii; (800) 325-6427; www.luckyfarm.com.

Kalalau B & B, 4516 Uku Lii Place, Wainiha, Kauai; (808) 826-7867; www.kalalaubnb.com.

WHERE TO EAT & DRINK

Hawaii, the Big Island:

Ba-Le Kona Restaurant, Kona Coast Shopping Center, 74-5588 Palani Road, Kailua Kona; (808) 327-1212.

Big Jake’s Island B-B-Q, 83-5308-B Mamalahoa Highway, Captain Cook; (866) 470-2426; www.bigjakesislandbbqandcatering.com.

Kona Seafood, 83-5308-A Mamalahoa Highway, Captain Cook; (808) 328-9777.

Sandy’s Drive-In, 79-7432 Mamalahoa Highway, Captain Cook; (808) 322-2161.

South Kona Fruit Stand, 84-4770 Mamalahoa Highway, Captain Cook; (808) 328-8547.

Super J’s, 83-5409 Mamalahoa Highway, Honaunau; (808) 328-9566.

Kauai:

Hamura Saimin, 2956 Kress Street, Lihue, (808) 245-3271, sells what many consider the island’s best saimin, noodle soup with pork, wontons, chopped scallions and more (from $4.25).

Hanalei Gourmet, 5-5161 Kuhio Highway, Hanalei; (808) 826-2524; www.hanaleigourmet.com.

Hanalei Taro and Juice Company, 5-5070 Kuhio Highway, Hanalei; (808) 826-1059; www.myspace.com/htjc.

Kilauea Fish Market, 4270 Kilauea Lighthouse Road, Kilauea; (808) 828-6244.

Tahiti Nui, 5-5134 Kuhio Highway, Hanalei, (808) 826-6277, www.thenui.com, serves great pizza (from $16.50) and features live Hawaiian music nightly.

WHAT TO DO

Puuhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, Highway 160 and Hale o Keawe Road, Honaunau, Hawaii; (808)328-2326; www.nps.gov/puho.

Aloha Theatre, 79-7384 Mamalahoa Highway, Kainaliu, Hawaii, (808) 322-2323, www.alohatheatre.com, shows art-house films on an irregular schedule in a grand cinema built in 1932; admission $7.

On Mauna Kea on the Big Island, the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy, (808) 961-2180, www.ifa.hawaii.edu/info/vis, runs a free nightly stargazing program and, on Saturdays and Sundays, escorted summit tours (bring your own 4 x 4).

At the Titus Kinimaka Hawaiian School of Surfing in Hanalei, Kauai, (808) 652-1116 and www.hawaiianschoolofsurfing.com, beginner’s lessons are $65.

E-mail: frugaltraveler@nytimes.com

2008年1月25日 星期五

台東Albuquerque 台北

2008/1/25晚

Dear HC,,

剛剛接到王老師電話﹐儘管低溫來襲﹐甚至台東下雨
﹐王老師今天趕了上百公里的行程﹐目前已到台東。

王老師不方便發mail﹐請果轉告他的行程﹐也許下此我們一起參加這樣的環島旅程!

Best rgds
DHsu

2008/1/26 0840


Like Georgia O’Keeffe, Stuart Davis and others, Richard Diebenkorn went to New Mexico and had a breakthrough. He arrived in Albuquerque in January 1950, with his wife, Phyllis, and their young son. He had been teaching at the California School of Fine Arts but had decided to go to graduate school at the University of New Mexico, courtesy of the G.I. Bill, so that he could paint full time. He was 27 years old.

http://www.answers.com/Albuquerque?cat=travel

Art Review

An Expressionist in Albuquerque

Estate of Richard Diebenkorn

Diebenkorn’s “Untitled,” 1951, from “Diebenkorn in New Mexico” at the Grey Art Gallery at New York University. More Photos >



想起戴久永老師....


Educational institutions

University of New Mexico
Enlarge
University of New Mexico

The city is home to University of New Mexico, one of the two large state universities in New Mexico. UNM includes a School of Medicine which was ranked in the top 15 primary care-oriented medical schools in the country.[citation needed] Albuquerque is also home to the National American University, Trinity Southwest University, and the University of St. Francis College of Nursing and Allied Health Department of Physician Assistant Studies. The Central New Mexico Community College serves most of the area, as do several technical schools including ITT Technical Institute and the University of Phoenix. Furthermore, The Art Center Design College offers bachelor's degrees in Graphic and Interior Design, animation, illustration, Photography as well as several other disciplines. Albuquerque Public Schools, one of the largest school districts in the nation, provides educational services to over 87,000 children across the city.

2008年1月22日 星期二

"Paris Syndrome"

這則幾年前就有報導


EuroVox | 21.01.2008 | 05:30

Visitors Get Sick When Dream Meets Reality in Paris

The "Paris Syndrome" is a psychological condition that hits Japanese citizens visiting the French capital.

Some experience great shock when they realise France and particularly, the French, are not as pleasant, well-dressed and beautiful as they have imagined. The most severe cases have to spend time in clinics and are sometimes even sent directly home to Japan.

Botswana

Botswana (bot-swah-nuh)

Republic in south-central Africa, bordered on the south by South Africa, the west by Namibia, the north by Angola and Zambia, and the northeast by Zimbabwe; formerly called Bechuanaland. The capital and largest city is Gaborone.




(Botswana)博茨瓦纳共和国

非洲研究(波札那共和國)- 台灣非洲研究論壇- Forum of African ...


allAfrica.com : Botswana. allAfrica新聞網站,波札那新聞首頁. UT Library Online - Botswana Maps. UTaxes圖書館提供波札那地圖.
www.africa-taiwan.org/country/detail.php?c_common=Botswana - 53k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

The landlocked nation of Botswana in Southern Africa is a rich country. Bordered by South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola and Zambia this nation owes its riches to a precious natural resource: diamonds.

In Botswana, nobody is killed for diamonds, and they do not only make mining companies rich. The government of Botswana uses revenue for the diamonds to build apartments, support education and to buy medical supplies. Because of the democratic government, which has been stable for the past 40 years, the nation has earned a lot of praise from foreign governments and NGOs.

2008年1月20日 星期日

台灣複製 洛雷托聖母之家(苗栗縣)

我2007年7月初次從洪醫師家3F看對面的山丘之修女院
想像它會是什麼樣子
2008年元月20日(禮拜天然氣黃昏 我下定決定去走走
我從後門斜坡進入 庭院中有一亭 下面是1956來苗栗傳教者的墓和墓誌銘(1986)
然後到主建築 一為頭屋鄉的"長青學院"之教室
另外一教堂 外有一馬槽浮雕甚美

我在望堂內時 碰到要"下班"的黃修女 她熱心地引我進入參拜 跟我講了 一了不起的教會故事.....

Loreto

(lōrĕ') , town (1991 est. pop. 10,780), in the Marche, central Italy, on a hill overlooking the Adriatic Sea. It has silk industries and is a famous place of pilgrimage. According to legend, the Holy House of the Virgin in Nazareth was brought to Loreto through the air by angels in 1294. Around the Holy House (a small brick building) there is a church—the Santuario della Santa Casa—begun in 1468 by Pope Paul II; Bramante contributed to its construction. It has fine bronze doors (16th–17th cent.) and frescoes by Melozzo da Forli and Luca Signorelli. Our Lady of Loreto is a patron of aviators. The Loretto (or Loreto) order of nuns, named for the town, was founded in Ireland in 1822.


洛雷托
Loreto

  義大利馬爾凱(Marche)區城鎮和主教區,著名朝聖地。以其聖母堂聞名。據傳說,原建於巴勒斯坦耶穌故...




昨天2007/3/25啟用的苗栗縣洛雷托聖母之家(上圖),完全複製義大利「原版」的洛雷托聖母之家。
台灣複製 洛雷托聖母之家啟用

〔自由時報記者李信宏/苗栗報導〕斥資一千五百萬元興建,世界第三座、亞洲第一座的天主教「洛雷托聖母之家」,昨天在苗栗縣落成啟用; 聖殿的一磚一瓦、斑駁聖畫及裝潢擺設等,完全複製意大利「洛雷托聖母之家」。樞機主教單國璽表示,以後台灣天主教信徒可就近朝聖,圓一輩子的夢想。

亞洲第一座 教徒可就近朝聖

〔記者李信宏/苗栗報導〕斥資一千五百萬元興建,世界第三座、亞洲第一座的天主教「洛雷托聖母之家」,昨天在苗栗縣落成啟用;聖殿的一磚一瓦、斑駁聖畫及裝潢擺設等,完全複製意大利「洛雷托聖母之家」。樞機主教單國璽表示,以後台灣天主教信徒可就近朝聖,圓一輩子的夢想。

「洛雷托聖母之家」落成是天主教界盛事,昨天現場冠蓋雲集,國內外二千多名信徒前往朝聖,單國璽等多位主教出席,教廷駐台代辦安博思蒙席、意大利洛雷托市前市長妻子安娜瑪莉亞都應邀參加;安娜瑪莉亞步入聖殿時還感動落淚,直說:「太像了。」


知名的聲樂家簡文秀,昨天應邀出席苗栗縣洛雷托聖母之家落成典禮,她引吭高歌、獻唱祝福。

知名聲樂家簡文秀女士也應邀祝福,她以拉丁文及英文獻唱「聖母頌」、「奇異恩典」,美妙的歌聲與這場聖典相得益彰。


洛雷托聖母之家昨天落成啟用,樞機主教單國璽主持彌撒祈福儀式。

來自聖母故鄉磚頭嵌在聖殿

苗栗縣的「洛雷托聖母之家」完全複製意大利,落成典禮上,最讓教友期待的是,單國璽把來自聖母故鄉以色列納匝肋的一塊磚頭,嵌在聖殿的牆壁上,磚塊上面還刻著希伯來文。

歷史記載,瑪利亞住在以色列納匝肋,十三世紀十字軍東征時,當地一個小國王送給女兒的嫁妝,包括聖母故居的磚瓦,為了躲避戰禍,聖母房屋的磚瓦先被送到今天的克羅埃西亞,後來才輾轉來到意大利洛雷托。考古學家已證實,洛雷托聖殿的磚瓦建築,多是來自納匝勒聖母故居的石材。

複製裝潢擺設 完整呈現原貌

而台灣聖母之家磚牆上,有數塊磚刻有英文字或特殊符號,耶穌瑪利亞聖心修女會會長王立堅說,磚頭上英文的筆跡及高低位置,和意大利原址完全一樣,是出自建築師湯祥麟的細心與巧手。

之 所以會想要把聖母之家複製到台灣,是十多年前兩名神父到意大利「洛雷托聖母之家」朝聖,獲得感應,一名神父後來又專程到意大利,花了一個月記錄聖堂內的一 磚一瓦建材,也詳細描繪出聖畫的一筆一劃。二年多前,聖心修女會在頭屋鄉剛好有土地,於是親自到意大利聖母之家蒐集建造資料,拍攝下上千張照片,希望能完 整呈現原貌。

王立堅表示,聖殿將開放給各類宗教信徒前來祈禱,但婉拒觀光行程,祈禱須預約,電洽 :(○三七 )二五○七四一。


上圖為義大利「原版」的洛雷托聖母之家。

意大利「洛雷托聖母之家」(Loreto )是天主教的聖殿,每年吸引全球近百萬名信徒前往朝聖。在天主教信仰中,它是從聖母瑪莉亞的故居以色列納匝肋搬遷而來,是領報的聖屋。瑪莉亞就是在故居獲得天主選召,成為耶穌的母親,洛雷托聖母之家的磚瓦,耶穌小時候都觸摸過。

聖母瑪莉亞在以色列納匝肋的故居,是由一個小起居室和一個岩洞所構成,起居室的磚瓦建材,目前已移到意大利「洛雷托聖母之家」供信徒瞻仰;許多天主教徒守夜祈禱時,都會期盼「但願我的家,與瑪莉亞的家相似」、「但願我的家庭,受到納匝肋聖家的光照」。

(記者李信宏 )

(圖片來源:自由時報)

(http://www.dajiyuan.com)

3/26/2007 4:21:12 AM

2008年1月19日 星期六

The Venetian Macao, not Venetian festivals

在電視看到這家的建構 six months to go....
到開張首月百萬人 財源滾滾

比較奇怪的是還沒戴面具上賭場
Venetian Carnivale
Venetian festivals are held in cities in Europe and North America. They are based on carnival, or carnevale, the period just before Lent, as celebrated in 1600s in Venice, Italy. Venetian festivals re-create the fantasy of the earlier events with food, costumes, masks, music, theater, juggling and other spectacles. The masks and costumes are worn by people who often travel from other countries to attend and perform (or parade) in these festivals. The elaborate costumes and masks are handmade by artisans from various countries. Many involve male and female or group versions and are based on old Venetian characters and costumes.




The Venetian Macao is a casino resort in Macau, China owned by the Las Vegas Sands hotel-casino chain. The Venetian is 32-story, $1.8 billion anchor for the 7 resort hotels which are under construction on the Cotai Strip in Macau. The 10.5 million square foot Venetian Macao is modeled on its sister casino resort – the The Venetian in Las Vegas – and is the largest single structure hotel building in Asia and the second-largest building in the world.[1]

The main hotel tower was finished in July 2007 and the resort officially opened on August 28, 2007.[2] The resort has 3000 suites, 1.2 million square feet of convention space, 1.6 million square feet of retail, square feet ( m²) of casino space – largest in the world – with 3400 slot machines and 800 gambling tables and a 15,000 seat arena for entertainment/sports events.

Attractions

Attractions include a replica of the Grand Canal in Venice including St. Mark's Square and the Rialto Bridge where visitors can take gondola rides to the accompaniment of Italian opera singing. The Canadian circus troupe Cirque du Soleil plans to open a residency show at the hotel in the spring of 2008.[3]

Sports

The current English Premier League champions Manchester United and teams from the NBA were invited[4] to play at the Venetian Macao respectively in July/August and October 2007 to coincide with the opening of the $3.2 billion USD Venetian Resort. It was the first appearance by Manchester United in Macau to compete against Chinese Super League's Shenzhen Football Club.[5]

Current World no. 1 tennis player Roger Federer will play former champion Pete Sampras, in a best of 3 sets exhibition match in the Venetian Arena in an event billed as The Venetian Macao Tennis Showdown on 24 November 2007 at 2pm. All the tickets were sold out within hours. The Venetian Arena has a capacity of 15,000 people.


More....Wikipedia article "The Venetian Macao".

External links

2008年1月18日 星期五

Bochum plant (Nokia)

日本語

zh-hk:波琴;zh-hans:波鸿 [ˈboːhʊm] 是德國北萊茵-威斯伐倫魯爾區中部的中心,和周邊城鎮亨廷頓赫恩維滕共計75萬人口。波鴻是阿恩斯貝格行政區的一個非縣轄市,也是魯爾區的4個總中心之一。這個擁有著38.7萬人口的城市是該州第六大的城市。波鴻還是威斯伐倫-利珀地方聯盟魯爾區域聯盟成員。

在波鴻的6所大學中,擁有超過30,000名學生的魯爾大學是德國最大的大學之一。此外波鴻還有著名的德國礦山博物館波鴻戲劇院波鴻天文館和最成功的音樂劇團星光特快
採礦業沒落之後,波鴻發展成為服務中心.進一步發脹形成了各不相同的礦山研究所.波鴻鑄造鋼鐵的歷史可以追溯到成立於1942年的波鴻協會。該企業最初的產品是是鋼製大鐘。今天,放置在市政廳門前的這口15,000公斤的大鐘仍不忘提醒我們記住這一歷史。



诺基亚关闭在德国引起了爆炸性的反应。联邦和州政府强烈谴责。波鸿诺基亚厂的工人表示愿意削减工资以求保住工厂。但芬兰那边明确表示,这是反复考虑的决 定,不容更改。德新社记者访问了罗马尼亚那个即将投产的诺基亚“硅谷”。那里的人可是乐坏了,根本不能理解德国人为什么要痛苦。报导之余,德国之声记者简 单分析一下这个“波鸿现象”,看看能否留住“西边的太阳”。

德国的诺基亚关闭已不可更改

波鸿的员工们提出愿意削减工资以求保住工厂,诺 基亚立即作出了反应。公司发言人索米能女士周四在赫尔辛基说:“我们非常彻底地分析了形势,决定是在事实上作出的。”诺基亚在德国要做的事是讨论“社会方 案”,她说诺基亚已经与德国有关部门商量中,“我们当然愿意跟所有被涉及者谈判,包括跟联邦政府。”

除了员工的安排,还牵涉到:诺基亚在一段时间里从北威州共获得了5550万欧元的补贴,从联邦那里也获得了1000万欧元的研发补贴。北威州州长吕特格斯因此而愤怒地说,诺基亚公司的行为就象是“吃补贴的蝗虫”。

诺基亚采取这个措施,当然不是由于公司面临财政 危机了。恰恰相反,德新社报导道:诺基亚在全世界范围内正处于大发展的时期,几乎可以说是世界手机业的统治者了。2007年第3季度,由于印度、中国和非 洲营业额的激增,诺基亚在世界手机市场上的占有率达到近40%。诺基亚公司去年10月宣布说,第三季度的公司全球纯利润激增了85%,达15.6亿欧元。

周三,诺基亚管理层称,关闭波鸿工厂的原因是 “人工成本太高”。德国经济专家们说,不错,德国人工成本确实比东欧国家高得多,在加工业里,德国每小时人工成本为27欧元(并非到员工手里那么多,而是 全部的人工成本平均值)。但是,科隆德国经济研究所的劳动市场专家谢菲尔指出,人工成本并非全部原因,因为人工成本毕竟只占单个手机成本的5%。德国劣势 在于“全部成本”,其中包括能源和运输成本的上涨,税收负担,还有官僚主义。

看看罗马尼亚的诺基亚硅谷

诺基亚看来早已经计划好了。可以说,几年前应该 已经确定了波鸿的命运。但是,直到现在宣布了关闭消息了,人们才想起罗马尼亚的诺基亚工程。1月宣布关闭波鸿工厂,2月初,在那个罗马尼亚的“硅谷”,诺 基亚的生产就将开始。换句话说,即使波鸿的员工从现在开始不干活了,也不会影响诺基亚手机的生产。

在罗马一个叫克鲁伊(Cluj)的县,在大学城 克鲁伊附近的村庄尤库(Jucu)原先的田野上,一个方圆159公顷的工业园已经诞生。其中90公顷是所谓的“诺基亚村”,剩下的面积由3家诺基亚零配件 供应商、4家其它电信企业和1家天然气公司占有。克鲁伊县负责工业园协调的县议会主席尼可拉说,还有30公顷地还没主。

尼可拉对诺基亚关闭其在德国的工厂引起这么大的震动感到难以:“德国人应该想想,诺基亚曾经给他们带来了多么大的税收。我们这里在1年半时间里就可以回收全部投资。”

所谓投资,指的是罗马尼亚国家和克鲁伊县共拿出 约3300万欧元,给“诺基亚村”建天然气管道,水,电,道路,还有一条通往尤库村的铁路,让未来的员工可以坐着火车来到工厂门口。尼可拉强调说,整个工 程没用欧盟一分钱。只有从尤库到克鲁伊的老公路改建成高速公路这个工程里用了欧盟的钱,但这个计划已经存在7年了,“跟诺基亚毫无关系。”

尤库市长(应该说是村长)波雅尔兴奋地说:“我 正在搞一个100个住宅楼的规划,80个已经在建了。”尤库这个村庄一共只有4200个居民。诺基亚工厂的员工到2009年将达到3500人。然而,罗马 尼亚劳动局估计,诺基亚这个项目将给罗马尼亚间接地带来15000个工作岗位。第一批罗马尼亚员工去年夏天已经选定,当时招工的500个名额,有8200 人报名。克鲁伊村这回发达了,它将成为IT培训中心。西门子在那里投资建一个研究中心,美国公司Emerson也在克鲁伊建了个工业园。这些也是吸引诺基 亚前往的原因。

尤库的诺基亚员工工资一开始在每月170至238欧元之间,这甚至低于罗马尼亚的平均净工资水平(320欧元)。虽说诺基亚东移的原因不仅仅是劳动力成本,但这方面的德、罗差距也确实够巨大的了。

西边的太阳真要下山了?

说起来,德国人可真够迟钝的。罗马尼亚诺基亚村眼看要投产了,至今几乎没有德国媒体关注过;前年台湾明基甩手而去,似乎也没有人对手机的最后一块德国基地波鸿的前景表示过担忧。真能责怪诺基亚吗?

说起来,手机还属于高科技领域。原来人们说,粗 加工会全部转移到中国和东欧以及其它劳动力便宜的地方去,可是,回头看看这几年的进程,又有多少被视为高科技的东西也转移走了呢?整个电脑业都跑东面去 了,笔记本电脑中国占了世界产量的99%,手机也占了70%以上,芯片,程序设计,不都是高科技吗?不都跑那儿去了?

说起来,德国还有多少工业是岿然不动的或可以岿 然不动的呢?德国的传统强项全部都动摇了,汽车工业还有几家不在中国等地生产的?原来奔驰说绝不在国外生产轿车,现在不也落户北京了?机械是德国的另一个 王牌,可是,就象巴布科克这样的大企业也倒了,海德堡印刷机械也在中国生产了。也许有人要说,传统工业钢铁不是“置之死地而后生”了吗?这恐怕是个“意 外”,一个不知道能持多久的“意外”。复活是由于钢铁需求的剧增。一旦到了中国、印度和其它门槛国家钢铁生产能力过剩了的时候,恐怕德国钢铁业又得再死一 遍。

说起来,所谓全球化,就是一个流动过程,一个不 断流动的过程。会有流走的,有流回的,也会有不动的。用哲学的话说,不动是相对的暂时的,动才是绝对的永恒的。对德国来说是这样,对中国来说同样如此。只 不过“动”在全球化的今天特别惊心动魄。但是“动”并不等于“死”。即使在纺织业服装业基本流光的德国,不也有些特殊服装特殊纺织品厂家还生存着吗?皮鞋 都跑东面去了,但Lloyd这样的名牌不还在这里吗?这个大流动过程是个不断适应的过程,不舒服的自然是西方国家了,因为从西方流走的大大多于流入的,这 里的适应太艰难了。德国、西方国家应该说确实是处在一种生存斗争中了。这是无法改变的,就象诺基亚的“叛国而去”无法改变一样。太阳在西边落下,在东边升 起,是无法改变的,但东边的太阳也在移动着。谁都应该有紧迫感,应该有流动感,有未雨绸缪的心境。否则就会随时遭遇这种“波鸿震惊”。责怪诺基亚?责怪罗 马尼亚?那是没用的,因为这就是全球化。

德国之声版权所有

转载或引用请标明出处和作者




Telecommunications | 18.01.2008

German Politicians Return Cell Phones Amid Nokia Boycott Calls

In the fall-out of Nokia's decision to move production from Germany to Romania, German politicians are trading in their cell phones for other brands. Trade unions, however, are calling for stronger sanctions.

German Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer told reporters in Berlin on Friday, Jan. 18, that he was changing to another brand of cell phone "because I don't like the way they are doing this."

"Out of solidarity for the employees, you have to this kind of symbolic step," he added.

Social Democratic parliamentary leader, Peter Struck, told the mass-market Bild newspaper he would also give up his Nokia phone.

It is unclear what brand of cell phone the two politicians would purchase as Nokia was the last major manufacturer to produce the devices in Germany.

Stained reputation

Merkel speaking on a mobile phoneBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Whatever brand of phone Chancellor Merkel has, she will continue using a spokesman said

German Economics Minister Michael Glos criticized Nokia for not making any attempts to reduce expenses in order to maintain its production in Germany and said the decision would leave a smear on the Finnish company's reputation.

"When a very large and globally recognized company, which lives from its brand and image, makes this kind of decision, it would be well advised to look at the consequences," he told reporters.

The plant at Bochum in western Germany employs 2,300 people. Most of the manufacturing operation is to move to low-pay Jucu, Romania. The daily Rheinische Post reported that the production line there had already made a test run.

Too easy to leave Germany

A view of the new Nokia factory in the Transylanian village of Jucu, central RomaniaBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The new Nokia factory is located in a Romanian industrial park

The head of the IG Metall trade union, Berthold Huber, on Friday said steps needed to be taken to keep companies from abandoning Germany.

"In Germany it is much too easy for companies to close factories and leave people unemployed," he said. "These companies do enormous damage to society, and they need to be held responsible for it."

The DGB confederation of German trade unions called on Thursday for a Nokia boycott in response to the Bochum plant's planned closure.

"Boycott Nokia" was the title of a statement sent from a DGB branch in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

"Those who buy a mobile telephone today should consider the catastrophic consequences of Nokia's behavior for thousands of workers," Dietmar Muscheid, president of the regional chapter, added in the statement.

Meeting this week?

An employee destroys a Nokia cell phone in front of the main gate of the Nokia factory in Bochum, western Germany, Wednesday Jan.16, 2008Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Nokia said the decision to stop production in Bochum is final

In response to the campaign, a Nokia spokeswoman told the AFP news agency: "It is hard to estimate the impact and I do not wish to speculate, but we hope that people will understand our reasons."

Nokia, the world's largest cell phone maker, produces four out of every 10 mobile phones sold worldwide. The factory-gate price of a no-frills phone has fallen to less than 10 euros ($14), industry observers said this week in Hamburg.

Economics Ministry Deputy Minister Hartmut Schauerte said earlier he had arranged a meeting "soon" in Berlin with Nokia senior management to discuss the closure, announced in Helsinki on Tuesday.

The head of the Bochum plant's works council, Gisela, Achenbach, said on Friday that she wanted to discuss ways to maintain production in Germany.

"We would like to speak with Nokia, but about social welfare plans but rather about continuing production," she said.

A Nokia spokesman said Thursday that the company would not enter into discussions with German authorities about keeping the Bochum plant in operation. The company has been accused of ingratitude, because it accepted 88 million euros ($129.4 million) in state subsidies in the past.

Nokia's stock was up in midday trading in Frankfurt on Friday.

2008年1月12日 星期六

In Spain, a Monumental Silence

Abroad

In Spain, a Monumental Silence


Published: January 13, 2008

MADRID

Skip to next paragraph
Alvaro Lobo Felgueroso for The New York Times

Valle de los Caídos, or Valley of the Fallen, a large church that was carved into the mountains in the outskirts of Madrid, is Spain’s most conspicuous reminder of Franco’s dictatorship. More Photos »

LAST month Spain passed a law that doesn’t make much sense, on its face, but says quite a lot about Europe in the new century.

The Parliament, fulfilling a campaign promise from 2004 by Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, ordered that families wanting to unearth bodies of relatives killed during the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s or who suffered as a political consequence of General Francisco Franco’s four-decade-long regime should get full cooperation from the state, and at the same time that every province in the country must remove remaining monuments to Franco.

Unearth the past — and erase it. Never mind that over the years most of these monuments have already been carted off, making the law largely toothless and symbolic. Even so, in the debates over it, nobody here has talked much about the inherent contradiction.

Or is it a contradiction? “A new generation has begun to look at the past,” Santos Juliá, a senior historian of the post-Franco years, explained to me one recent morning. “They’re the grandchildren of the civil war. My generation wanted to discuss what happened without a sense of culpability. The grandchildren look on the same years of reconciliation as an unending concession, and it is time to fix blame.”

Survivors build monuments to remember the dead, and tear down the statues of the tyrants who killed them, but mostly in vain. Statues and memorials inscribe history, which each generation rewrites to suit itself. In Budapest statues of Communist idols have been relocated to a park on the city outskirts to become virtual headstones at a kind of kitsch graveyard. Russia, in its dash to prosperity, remains conspicuously reluctant to rehash the past, but it also removed many signs of Soviet rule.

And of course nobody has scrutinized public symbols and spaces more than the Germans, for whom nearly every stone and street sign has provoked a fresh monument. The meeting room for the German foreign minister in Berlin is an example of the extent to which the Germans have gone even in private. Originally the office for the head of the Nazi state bank, then taken over by Erich Honecker, the East German leader, who met in it with his Politburo, the room was left nearly intact after the Wall fell when the Foreign Ministry moved in, so that on where paintings of Marx and Engels once hung behind Honecker’s chair, faded rectangles were left as cautionary reminders.

Spain is different, though, having endured a civil war. With their traditional fear of deep, dark demons in their soul, Spaniards after Franco’s death and during the transition to democracy entered into what has long been called here a pact of silence, which the new law clearly aims to undo. As the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper put it 40 years ago, about a different regime, “A single personal despot can prolong obsolete ideas beyond their natural term, but the change of generations must ultimately carry them away.” You might say that in Spain’s case the change now comes a generation late.

I recently drove the 45 minutes to revisit Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos, the Valley of the Fallen, Franco’s most megalomaniacal monument. The highway passed by bulls, those reared for bullfights, grazing in green fields, then abruptly rose into snow and gloom. During the 1950s thousands of prison laborers tunneled hundreds of yards into a solid granite mountain ridge to build one of the world’s biggest and most lugubrious basilicas and a Civil War memorial, beneath a cross nearly 50 stories high.

The site expressed Franco’s desire for national atonement. His rule, as Raymond Carr, a Franco historian, once wrote, was not really a victory of the Falange, the Spanish version of fascism, “but of Catholic, conservative Spain over the liberal Spain of the Second Republic.” And Franco, on his crusade to save Christian civilization, modeling himself after monarchs like Philip II, intended to echo the monastic austerity of Philip’s nearby Escorial.

The architecture brings Albert Speer more to mind. The remains of murdered Republicans were unearthed from mass graves and trucked to the valley to be mixed with dead Nationalists, so it could be designated a place for all civil war victims. Even today most Spaniards aren’t aware that Republicans are buried there along with Franco and the founder of the Falange Party, Franco’s onetime rival, José Antonio Primo de Rivera.

The site culminates at the high altar with the graves of those two men, a fresh bouquet of flowers laid on each tombstone. Four hundred thousand people a year are still said to visit the place, although it was nearly deserted the other afternoon. A young Spanish family meandered glumly through the cold and silence, gazing up at the glowering statues of soldiers and saints. On the slushy plaza outside, the view toward Madrid and the giant cross disappeared behind black clouds.

“The idea that Spaniards have actually been unable to talk about the past is rubbish,” Charles Powell, a historian, said, citing many books, movies and television programs about the civil war. But public declarations are one thing, he elaborated. In many villages where neighbors betrayed one another, and even husbands and wives don’t easily talk about the war, a common policy is still don’t ask, don’t tell.

Long before the law was passed, nearly all Franco monuments were removed under socialist and conservative governments. But it was done quietly, without a public airing of the issues, as if the democracy were too fragile to bear the conversation, some say, although probably because Spaniards who had lived through the last Franco years had simply come to the conclusion that it was best and so wished to move on. This, however, still left a gap.

Even today you must comb through an English translation of a glossy guidebook to the Valle de los Caídos to find a passing remark about the prison laborers. In Madrid an avenue is still named Caudillo, after Franco, and another is named after the division of soldiers Franco sent to aid the Nazis. In Santander, although soon to be replaced by a parking garage on orders of the conservative local government, there’s a statue of Franco on horseback that can bring to mind the statues of Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson in American Southern towns where mayors and police chiefs are now often black.

Beatriz Rodríguez-Salmones, 63, who handles cultural affairs for the conservative Popular Party in Parliament, is exasperated by the new law. Digging up graves is any family’s right, she said, although she pointed out that the relatives of the poet Federico García Lorca do not want to disturb the grave where his corpse was dumped along with the bodies of bullfighters and banderilleros because it would demean the nature of his death. What happens now, she asked, when the banderilleros’ descendants want to dig the grave?

“But monuments have nothing to do with graves,” she went on. “Probably 90 percent of the Franco monuments are already gone. We’ve had amnesties. We’ve recognized the rights of exiles. We compensated professors who lost their jobs. We changed streets names, the flag, always trying not to hurt one another.” She said Mr. Zapatero is making an issue of monuments to appease parliamentary allies: “Separatists, Republicans, radicals.” He needs their votes, she added, “and the votes from the Catalan and Basque regions — from those who look for confrontation.”

She has a point. Now watered down from when it was called a law of “historical memory,” as if such a thing could have ever been legislated, the law excludes objects of religious and artistic significance (the determination of art being left notably unclear). Not even at the Valle de los Caídos will anything likely happen except that political rallies have been banned, a provision intended to thwart the annual tributes on Nov. 20, the anniversary, as it happens, of both Franco and Primo de Rivera’s deaths. But nobody seems to know whether this can be enforced.

Over dinner Santiago Saavedra, a publisher who came of age during Franco’s later decades, winced when the subject of the new law surfaced. He saw it as an attack on his generation. “We are made to feel guilty for having led our lives,” he said.

Mr. Powell, the historian, nodded when I relayed that remark. “National reconciliation really took place during the 1960s and ’70s, when Franco was still in power, through a natural process, not by government edict, but because of a collective feeling that the war had been horrible and that Spain had to move on,” he said. The civil war was hardly debated in Parliament, he pointed out, until the election of a conservative prime minister from the Popular Party, José María Aznar, in 1996, which ended years of Socialist rule. “That came as a shock to the left,” Mr. Powell said. “Aznar had ties to Franco’s past. His grandfather was an ambassador to Cuba under Franco. So an easy way for the Socialists to question the Popular Party’s authority was to demand that the party disown Franco.”

Across Europe, as the political center has widened, both left and right have scrambled to differentiate themselves from each other. Little actually separates Prime Minister Zapatero’s economic policies from those of Mr. Aznar. But whereas Mr. Aznar’s grandfather was Franco’s ambassador, Mr. Zapatero’s grandfather was a Republican killed in the war.

Mr. Zapatero’s conservative critics say he is using identity politics, akin to the moral values debate in America, to promote a social agenda that includes defending the rights of homosexuals, transsexuals, women and Catalans. The new monuments law adds another group to that list: dead Republicans, the civil war’s losers. But to the liberals of Mr. Zapatero’s generation it still doesn’t go nearly far enough.

“What Spaniards did in the 1960s and ’70s was look in a different direction,” said Paloma Aguilar, one of these grandchildren of the war, a 42-year-old political scientist who has written a book on historical memory. I mentioned the publisher, and she backtracked slightly. “O.K., yes, it’s a bit unfair to criticize our parents’ generation. It’s also true that most people even today don’t complain about the monuments because they’re used to living with them. Our parents’ generation still has some fear of confrontation because they think democracy is still fragile. But I grew up under democracy. Seventy years after the civil war we cannot allow these monuments that perpetuate discrimination against the victims.”

I sensed she felt that many Spaniards who had forged the transition to democracy and the peace it entailed didn’t know what was best for them, reminding me of a remark by Mr. Powell. He described a “new nostalgia” for Republicanism. It implied a moral superiority not just to Franco but also to the current political system. Then again, Ms. Aguilar and others of her generation clearly realize that this is the last moment to fight over monuments and graves before victims’ relatives die (many of their own relatives) and the dictatorship and its legacy pass from living memory. Impatience is expedient.

I made a last stop at the apartment of Blas Piñar. A couple of years back, on the prime minister’s orders, a statue of Franco was spirited away in the middle of the night from a plaza in Madrid. Mr. Piñar and others protested. At 89, founder of the ultra-rightist Fuerza Nueva, which even Franco found too reactionary, he greeted me eager to launch headlong into a kind of stump speech for the old dictatorship, pausing, from time to time, to gasp through a tracheotomy tube.

His complaint about the transition, unlike that of the new generation of leftists, was that it was a political wolf in sheep’s clothing. “A trick,” he called it, “billed as reform but in fact a rupture, which changed the most fundamental elements of society: protection of the family, moral and religious values, the unity of Spain.”

Now even the monuments are being removed, “the final blow,” as he put it: “The law of historical memory is anti-historical because it tries to erase the memory of Franco, and all the good that he did for Spain.” Prohibiting Francoists from gathering at the Valle de los Caídos will not change anything, he warned. “The place has always had a particular significance. You can never separate Franco from it.”

I hated to agree with anything he said. But legislating monuments doesn’t rectify injustices of the past, it just fumbles with the symbols of history, reminding us why we devise them in the first place. Ultimately monuments gain meaning when we imbue them with it, otherwise they join the statues of cruel monarchs and bloody generals that have become the civilized backdrop to our parks and plazas.

You might say Spain’s situation after Franco’s death was not unlike a marriage: each side holding in reserve those remarks that would do the other side most harm. Silence created a bond. It’s golden, as the saying goes; statues and plaques are just metal and stone. That said, the new law, forged by the children of this silence, paradoxically injects these rusting symbols with fresh significance for a new century.

2008年1月10日 星期四

Bed Brings Tech to Bedroom

這款床,開趴也行

〔編譯鄭寺音/綜合報導〕對喜歡賴在被窩裡的人來說,這種床簡直就是天上掉下來的禮物。

3C功能超強 自動調整高度防打鼾

它有個美麗的名字「繁星之夜」,配備環繞立體聲系統,床頭板上的電視投影機,可投射影像到對牆上,想在床上開趴也行。

床上還有個配有無線鍵盤、功能超強的電腦,可連接上網,工作狂睡前想找點事忙忙都沒問題。

如果你不要這麼多功能,只想在上面睡覺,那它會在睡前先幫你暖暖床墊,炎熱的夏天就先來個冰鎮效果,讓你涼爽入睡。

等你沉沉入睡後,這張超級睡床內建的震動偵測系統,還會監測你的身體動作與呼吸模式,打鼾的話,床墊內的馬達會調整床的高度,讓身體前傾7度,使鼻道暢通,打鼾現象減緩後,床再降回原本的高度。

震動感應器與床墊壓力系統,也會測量睡眠者夜裡翻身與下床的次數,電腦統計後在螢幕上顯示改善睡眠品質的方法。

床頭板旁的掌上型電腦,配備功能超強的1500GB儲存空間,可指示床墊內藏管線加熱或冷卻床鋪;床上還有iPod底座及硬碟儲存系統,可儲存並播放多達40萬首歌曲或2000小時的影像。

「繁星之夜」確實完美,如果硬要挑剔,大概只能說它少了台泡茶機吧。

一床約需160萬台幣 價格也超級

這種超級睡床6日在美國拉斯維加斯的CES消費電子展上亮相,往後將以約160萬台幣的售價在美國上市。

「繁 星之夜」的設計理念是,讓床成為家庭活動中心、讓床不再只是睡覺與夫妻共享床笫之歡的地方。製造商Leggett&Platt公司的坤恩解釋說: 「顧客告訴我們,他們的床不只拿來睡覺,也是讀書、看電影、跟小孩玩、聽音樂甚至折衣服的地方。現在是床成為我們睡眠顧問的時候了,睡眠改善,生活品質也 會跟著改善。」

Bed Brings Tech to Bedroom in New Way

(AP) -- You're probably used to having a big-screen TV or a cell phone charger in the bedroom, but diversified manufacturer Leggett & Platt Inc. wants to take things a step further by bringing tech gadgets right into your bed.

The company plans to sell a tricked-out place of rest it calls the Starry Night Sleep Technology Bed, mattresses included. The bed, which was on display at the International Consumer Electronics Show, incorporates features like wireless Internet connectivity, an iPod dock, a surround sound speaker system, LCD projector, dual temperature controls and DVR capability.

Leggett & Platt said the bed also comes with a vibration-detection feature that will elevate that half of the bed 7 degrees if a user is snoring and then return to the original position once the snoring stops.

The company expects the Starry Night to be available in the first half of 2009 for $20,000 to $50,000 depending on which features a buyer chooses.

"I know it sounds like a lot, but you show me somebody that sleeps in a bed with someone that snores; I will show you a person that thinks $20,000 is a very small amount to pay to solve that problem," Mark Quinn, group executive vice president for Leggett & Platt's bedding division, said Tuesday at CES.

©2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

2008年1月4日 星期五

"Open Port," Stavanger

Culture | 03.01.2008

Norway's Oil Capital Becomes European Center of Culture

Stavanger, Norway's fourth largest city, is better known for oil than for culture. But as one of this year's European Culture Capitals, the Hanseatic city is focusing on its past.

Under the motto "Open Port," Stavanger is out to shed its image as an oil town and attract visitors from around the world with a year-long series of festivals, plays, architectural projects, concerts, natural excursions and more.

Unlike Liverpool, which shares the European Culture Capital title, Stavanger can't completely bank on the Beatles, but it has turned to an aptly named fab four song, "Norwegian Wood," for a PR boost.

Wooden houses by the sea

The town on the North Sea has the highest concentration of old wooden buildings in Europe -- and will soon have even more as part of a project that shares the name of the Beatles hit.

A row of wooden houses in StavangerBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Wooden houses are anything but hard to find in Stavanger

A team of international architects will construct modern houses, schools, theaters, bridges and other structures out of wood to complement the existing 18th century counterparts. An exhibition is planned for November.

With a relatively modest budget of 37 million euros ($54 million) for some 180 events, Stavanger hasn't invited any major celebrities. Much of the program has a regional touch -- like the kite, tomato and folklore festivals -- but artists-in-resident from South Africa, Belgium, Lithuania and Israel will also give it an international flair.

The Lithuanian theater group Oskaras Korsunovas, for example, will be performing contemporary versions of Shakespeare plays. Again, the British connection is a reference to its cultural capital partner.

Israel's Inbal Pinto Dance Company, in Norway for a month, will present their shows "Oyster" and "Shaker" independently and also join with local dancers for a combined show.

"We don't want celebrities that climb out of the airplane, perform and then disappear again," said project spokeswoman Bente Aae of the artists-in-residence.

Fishing, canning and oil

With nearly 120,000 residents, Stavanger has a long fishing tradition, but in the 19th century, when herring became scarce, canning became its most important industry. At one time, it was the world's largest canning center with more than 50 canning factories.

In the mid-20th century, North Sea oil took off and the coastal town reoriented to make the most of the black gold, which proved much more profitable than fishing and canning.

The Stavanger Maritime Museum, the Norwegian Canning Museum and the Norwegian Petroleum Museum all offer visitors as glimpse into the town's industrial background. The European Cultural Capital festivities open with an official ceremony on Jan. 12.

Prekestolen cliff in StavangerBildunterschrift: The 600-meter high Prekestolen cliff is a highlight on Stavanger's coast

DW staff (kjb)