Biggest Snake Ever Found in Colombia!

Scientists just found the biggest snake ever recorded in history in coastal Colombia (where I live) called Titanoboa. It was 43 feet long, weighed as much as a VW bug, and could eat a large cow or bison in ONE GULP! It also lived 60 million years ago. Dangit.

Article here:

Fossil of 43-foot super snake Titanoboa found in Colombia

Car Audio 2009

What do you get when you combine Japanese rice-rockets, American rednecks, and Spanish bullfighting? Behold:

50-cent Saves the Day

I had an entertaining (for you) experience yesterday. I was in a taxi on my way to a doctor's appointment in Bocagrande, when my driver decided to take a "shortcut" and turned off the main road onto a side street. We made some quick turns but soon found ourselves in an enormous traffic jam caused by an 18-wheeler backing out of a construction site. Unfortunately for us, the street he was backing out into was very narrow, and try as he might he couldn't seem to back up far enough to give himself space to turn.

Now normally I don't take taxis, as they really aren't much faster with the traffic in Cartagena and are much more expensive. This day, however, I had my computer and video camera with me since it was Friday and I wouldn't be returning to work before the weekend. I also had all my important medical documents, the result of months of tests and exams I had to do as part of my medical clearance for the Peace Corps. All this in my backpack on the ground at my feet. I wasn't too worried though, as I regularly walked to and from work with the computer in my backpack, and had taken the taxi as an extra precaution.

After about ten minutes without any visible progress in getting the semi out of the road, I started looking around, and it was then that I realized that our little time-saving shortcut had led us through a comunidad, a slum. We were now stopped squarely in front of its entrance. This didn't really bother me, however, as I had spent a good deal of time in slums in Brazil.

Then some shady characters started walking around the car, and giving me looks I knew were not benign. That was when I started getting a little nervous. I thought of how difficult and how much time and money it would take to replace the medical documents I had accumulated. I thought of how it would be impossible for me to do my work without my computer or my video camera, both essential tools for the projects I was working on in my internship. I thought of how much money I didn't have to replace the things I was carrying with me at that moment. And most of all I thought about how I would have absolutely no recourse stuck in this bottleneck were someone to so much as suggest I hand over my bright red backpack lying conspicuously on the floor.

Just as my nervousness was reaching its peak and the terrible possibilities were running through my head at a furious pace, my driver popped in a 50-cent CD and cranked the volume. The first track opened with a deafening series of gunshots - BAM! BAM! BAM! AHHHH! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! - which emanated from the rear speakers a few inches from my head and continued for about 30 seconds as I pretty much shat my pants.

Ironically, this seemed to make the shady ones lose their interest, as if it said "Nothing to see here, this guy's already been taken care of." A few minutes later the traffic jam cleared and we were on our way, me thanking my lucky stars that white suburban kids across America thought it was cool to listen to gangster rap. I guess you never know what form blessings will take.

Driving in Colombia: A Beautiful Disaster

I spent a lot of time in traffic today, and this serene period of reflection gave me a new appreciation for the utter chaos that is driving in Cartagena. This isn't merely what we think of as "bad traffic" nor the usual lack of respect for traffic laws displayed in most developing countries. No, driving in this city has gone beyond such banalities and ascended to a higher plane of lunacy; it has become an art form, an exquisitely subtle ballet of metal, flesh, and concrete, each careening around and past each other in a stunning display of grace, speed, and disregard for human life.

First let's talk about the streets. In Cartagena there is not even the pretense of lane lines, not even the concept of dividing up the streets into coherent sections. Any given passage, whether it's a narrow alley or a highway, is a mad rush of kill-or-be-killed survival, any pause or hesitation exploited by a half-dozen road warriors who are completely willing to run you off the road if they can gain half a car-length of advantage.

Even the division with the oncoming lane is viewed as a technicality: at every opportunity drivers will swerve into oncoming traffic to get around a bus or motorcycle, regardless of whether or not there are cars in that lane. Sometimes they'll even just hang out there, enjoying the open road while forcing oncoming cars onto the shoulder from their own side of the road without so much as a wave by way of apology. I guess they don't feel too guilty since just up ahead the cars driving in the opposite direction are doing the same thing, which once in a while causes two walls of cars, each packing 4 or 5 columns of drag-racing madmen into what should be a two-lane two-way road, to meet each other in a honking, swearing morass of spinning tires and death threats.

Road construction is ubiquitous in Cartagena, supposedly as part of a city-wide road renovation, although it seems to have been going on for as long as anyone can remember, as it is even mentioned in guide books and tourist pamphlets. People are extremely used to it, which must be why they don't make any effort to block off or place signs near construction zones. If they need to make a giant hole in the middle of the city's busiest intersection, by god, they dig one, common sense safety measures be damned! Construction materials are sometimes dumped in the road, where they conveniently double as speed bumps, and workers seem to have developed a color of clothing that completely blends into surrounding traffic, traffic which encroaches upon the work site as if it's an on-ramp.

And then there's the buses. These beauties really deserve their own post, but while I'm on the subject of traffic I might as well include them.

There is no form of city-run transportation in Cartagena, therefore the bus system is made up of a large number of private bus companies who essentially do whatever they want. Buses come in every imaginable shape and size: from shiny, air-conditioned shuttles to rickety jeeps with a couple seats under a flimsy canopy to diesel monsters belching smoke to wooden chiva party-buses.

But the most common type of bus is mid-sized to large, and painted in bright colors with various crazy decorations. Giant spoilers jutting high into the air, shiny gangster rims, glittery paint - they really go all out in their attempts at catching your attention. They also all seem to be dueling to see who can have the most random and nonsensical sticker on their back window. A few days ago I saw one with a giant picture of Jesus looking down upon the Earth from space with a single tear rolling down his cheek and the caption "Jesus sees what you do, and it makes Him sad." Today I saw one that almost made me cry myself it was so bizarre: a huge U.S.A. flag with a helicopter breaking through the center, with the simple large caption: Bomb.

I really struggled with this one: Did they mean "bomb" in an imperative sense as in "keep bombing those bad guys!" or in an educational sense like "this is a bomb" or was it a warning like "Oh my god, watch out, there's a bomb!" I was deteriorating into an existential breakdown when it occurred to me that the sticker's creator was probably as clueless as I was when it came to its meaning.

As amazing as these buses can be on the outside, they're even wackier on the inside. The drivers treat the front area of the bus as their own personal shrine, and fill it with anything they seem to find interesting: statues of saints, porn centerfolds, miniature cars, sports paraphernalia, stuffed animals. One time I saw a life-size, realistic-looking baby hanging from the rear-view mirror. By its neck. Another time I saw a driver who had lined the entire cockpit area with bright pink fur, including the steering wheel, and remember being impressed at how secure he was in his masculinity. In general I really wonder whether these guys ever worry about how their little freak shows look to the hundreds of people passing through their bus every day. I guess not.

My favorite thing about the buses, though, has to be their horns. My theory is that as a response to jaded motorists who didn't even notice the constant barrage of honking horns anymore, bus drivers adopted a new system to get their attention. The result is that bus horns in Cartagena are like those toy weapons we used to play with as kids: their honking sound cycles between lasers, machine guns, police sirens, nuclear launch alarms, and, my favorite, a long whistle descending in pitch and ending in an explosion. The audacity of using these sounds in a country wracked by decades of virtual civil war and in which it is common to see children without limbs because of these conflicts redefines for me the term "tragic irony."

And then there are the motorcycles. Whereas the cars merely ignore traffic laws, these guys actually treat them with contempt. They use their bikes as weapons of intimidation, jutting their wheels through centimeter-wide cracks just to see if you have the nerve to not swerve sharply out of the way. They cut off trucks and buses that would crush them without even noticing and don't even flinch with the ensuing screeching brakes and machine gun fire. They seem to be just daring you to put them out of their misery, mocking your aversion to involuntary manslaughter with ever more daring feats of recklessness.

I must say though, they do find an unusually wide variety of uses. Here is a list of things I have seen riding on motorcycles: dogs and cats, pregnant women, a husband and wife and their two small children, washing machine, window frame, construction materials, small refrigerator, very recently discharged hospital patients and, most unusually of all......helmet.

First video profile LIVE

My first ever video client profile went live on the site today, check it out:

http://www.optinnow.org/show/423

Top Ten Ways You Know You're a Costeño

Top Ten Ways You Know You're a Costeño (someone from coastal Colombia):

1. When boarding a crowded bus you give your baby to a random stranger to hold

2. You are the divinely appointed enforcer of all traffic laws, and in this capacity are not subject to such laws yourself

3. You make speed bumps out of rope

4. Men: You would starve if the women didn't make you food / Women: This is how you get your way

5. Your medical consultations take the form of group discussions among your family, friends, neighbors, and anyone who happens to be walking by

6. You keep the air-conditioning so cold that you put things in the refrigerator to heat them up

7. You are 5 and know how to dance salsa, vallenato, merengue, and cumbya perfectly

8. You don't pronounce the letter s, vowels, every third word, or spaces, and say everything at 3x normal speed

9. You are a doctor or lawyer and still get wasted while dancing into the wee hours of the night

10. On 100 degree, 90% humidity days you wear shoes, pants, a collared shirt, and eat hot soup

For your eyes only, a draft version of a video I made promoting a new program called Piso y Techo, which provides home improvement loans to poor entrepreneurs (mostly for floors and roofs):

The Best Stats You've Ever Seen

Here's a short talk from TED with Hans Rosling, a Swedish development studies professor, showing how our misunderstanding and lack of access to data is giving us false impressions about the world. He's also freakin' hilarious - I guarantee you've never seen anyone get so excited about data points.

Gone

"Gone" by Jack Johnson

Look at all those fancy clothes,

But these could keep us warm just like those.

And what about your soul? Is it cold?

Is it straight from the mold, and ready to be sold?

And cars and phones and diamond rings,

Bling, bling, those are only removable things.

And what about your mind? Does it shine?

Are there things that concern you, more than your time?

Gone, going.

Gone, everything.

Gone, don’t give a damn.

Gone, be the birds, when they don’t wanna sing.

Gone, people, all awkward with their things,

Gone.

Look at you, out to make a deal.

You try to be appealing, but you lose your appeal.

And what about those shoes you’re in today?

They’ll do no good, on the bridges you burnt along the way.

You're willing to sell anything.

Gone, with your head.

Leave your footprints,

And we’ll shame them with our words.

Gone, people, all careless and consumed, gone

Gone, gone, gone, everything.

Gone, don’t give a damn.

Gone, be the birds, when they don’t wanna sing.

Gone, people, all awkward with their things, Gone

New Media Meets Old Brazil

Here is a great article discussing radarcultura.com.br, a Brazilian website and radio station that combines so-called "new media" and "Web 2.0" - blogs, social networking, community voting, Twitter, podcasts, online collaboration, and other things with the original broadcast medium - radio.

It is a radio station that instead of just choosing what to play and the audience listening passively, listeners get really involved, not only choosing what songs and interviews get played, but actively creating new content. The site is managed by the Padre Anchieta Foundation which has a large archive of Brazilian music going back to the 1920's. One of their main missions is to help people rediscover the old greats.

Article: "São Paulo Radio Station Teaches Old Media New Tricks" at CNN.com

Site: Radar Cultura