Category Archives: Travel

2025.02.11

Brian Bakst and Mathew Holding Eagle III at MPR report: “Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald added a second burglary charge Monday against state Sen. Nicole Mitchell focusing on items she had with her when police encountered her stepmother’s home in April 2024 in Detroit Lakes.” Via MinnPost https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/02/10/new-felony-count-added-to-charges-against-sen-nicole-mitchell-for-april-2024-incident

With a new hit film, Netflix has reduced disabled lives to feelgood fodder – and got the facts shockingly wrong Archie Bland and Ruth Spencer https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/11/netflix-film-disabled-lives-feelgood-child-cerebral-palsy-families

Lockboxes ‘littering’ Dublin’s streets become latest front in overtourism battle Council to remove keyboxes left in public areas by landlords Lisa O’Carroll in Dublin https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/feb/11/key-lockboxes-dublin-overtourism

At Bisto and Aardman’s new pop-up floating restaurant you can pour gravy over your pudding or down a gravy drink – but where’s the cheese board, Gromit? Stuart Heritage https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/11/gravy-cocktail-wallace-gromit-cheese-free-dining-venture-bisto-aardman

On board the maiden sleeper from Brussels to Venice: we got there in the end Affordable couchettes, wonderful scenery and good company make up for the teething problems en route Monisha Rajesh https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/feb/11/brussels-to-venice-on-board-a-new-sleeper-train

Manchester theatre suspends Dolly Parton musical over homophobic abuse Actor in Here You Come Again says cast left stage because ‘a woman was so disgusted there was a gay character’ Nadeem Badshah https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/feb/10/manchester-performance-of-dolly-parton-musical-suspended-due-to-homophobic-abuse

For you Novavax fans out there — you know who you are: FDA Authorizes Updated Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine to Better Protect Against Currently Circulating Variants https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-authorizes-updated-novavax-covid-19-vaccine-better-protect-against-currently-circulating

Opinion
The Checkup With Dr. Wen: When to get the new coronavirus shot? That question and more, answered. When is the optimal time to get the updated shot? It depends. (DePayWalled)
https://wapo.st/3TcZeB1

Star Tribune reports Ladan Mohamed Ali plead guilty Thursday to federal charges connected to an attempted bribe in the Feeding Our Future Trial. Ali, also admitted to stealing $80,000 of the cash the defendants gave her to bribe the juror. — MinnPost

Did the media learn nothing from its disastrous coverage of Trump and Clinton in 2016?
Rebecca Solnit
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/06/trump-clinton-harris-election

Stonehenge tale gets ‘weirder’ as Orkney is ruled out as altar stone origin
Weeks after revelation that megalith came from Scotland, researchers make surprise discovery
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/05/stonehenge-tale-gets-weirder-as-orkney-is-ruled-out-as-altar-stone-origin

Meanwhile in Amsterdam:
Amsterdammers left bemused at plan to tackle flowerpot ‘jungle’
Authorities in Dutch capital launch ‘Operation plant pot’, saying excessive pot placement threatens accessibility
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/sep/06/amsterdam-plan-to-tackle-flowerpot-jungle

Thai Chef Makes KHAO SOI From Scratch!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/gwV9SJtewCY?si=YiXS2AO6x1HFRBtn

It was just a year ago today

On March 6, 2020, I got on a plane in Bangkok for one of those long days that stretch across the dateline and the Pacific. We switched planes in Narita, and thought we had time to hit the lounge, but headed for the gate and that ate up the available time. We got asked twenty questions by a rather irritating official before we were allowed down the elevator to the gate. We had been traveling since the end of January through airports and border stations in Seoul, Bangkok, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia without hitting quite that level of questioning. They also only questioned me, and I’m not great at responding to COVID-19 questions. Let’s just say that Bangkok was a model of decorum compared to Japan. We thought we were fleeing from close to the epicenter of the pandemic — little did we know that we were flying into the heart of it instead.

The flight was nonstop from Tokyo to Minneapolis, but getting off the plane in Minneapolis was like time had warped somewhere over the Pacific. Signs warning about COVID-19 had vanished. Temperature checks had gone too. My traveling companion had to report for jury duty on the Monday after we arrived from S.E. Asia. After Someone picked us up at the airport, we wondered if we’d left the frying pan for the fire. It turns out, we had.