Clipmarks | Nomads Clips

The 53 places to go in 2008

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 05:57:12 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: you can find here all 53 destinations + pics + short descriptions

The 53 Places To Go in 2008

What’s on your travel itinerary in the new year? From a new luxury hotel in Laos (where you can take in the view of ancient temples from a chaise lounge by the infinity pool) to the waterfront night clubs of Hvar Readers' CommentsWhere do you want to go in 2008?Share Your Thoughts » (the St. Tropez of Croatia) to Death Valley (where recent heavy rains have some flower bloggers speculating on a dazzling spring bloom next year), the travel choices for global nomads have never been more varied.

Death Valley

Lisbon

now the Portuguese capital is also emerging as a cultural force.

Alexandria

The former home of Cleopatra is rising.

It’s on and off (and on again) for Libya

Axel Hotel Buenos Aires

first five-star gay hotel in Latin America (but also “heterofriendly”

Swiss ski village of Verbier

Mozambique

Itacaré, Brazil

Saigon

Vietnam

Barossa Valley, Australia

Tokaj, Hungary

New York

The lights are back on Broadway

The ADHD Advantage: Did the “Hyper” Gene Benefit Our Nomadic Ancestors?

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:22:24 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: "So, in other words, all of us with ADHD need to head back to the desert with a pack of camels loaded up with tents to really make the most of our “disorder” (how dare they call it that when it turns out it’s an evolutionary advantage unless you’re a semi-comatose couch potatoes). Of course half of us will absent-mindedly forget to bring essentials—like water—but we’ll have a lot of fun. Who’s with me?"

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

ADHA has gotten a bad rap in the 21st century, but all of us fidgety hyper-hypos may have evolved this way for good reason, say scientists. An ADHD-associated version of the human gene DRD4 was found to be linked to superior health among nomadic tribesmen. But oddly enough, it seems to be linked with malnourishment among their more settled cousins. Here is my completely unscientific explanation for why that might be the case: People who can’t sit still would be appreciated in a society that is always on the move, whereas in a sedentary population—like most of us live in today—we’re all but an unwanted annoyance. But whatever the real reason, scientists say these findings offer clues to why some of us evolved the way we did, and what that means for the future.

They found that those with the 7R allele in the nomadic population were better nourished than their non-nomadic brethren who carried 7R allele.

Tags: adhd, nomads, evolution, genetics

Religious Divisiveness

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:23:07 GMT

clipped by: AtlLiberal
clipper's remarks: Arguably the most divisive dogma of all religions is their claim to be God's chosen ones. This is the linchpin that justifies bloodshed, racism, and genocide. This exceptionalist doctrine is at the root of tension throughout the world.

Clip Source: atheism.about.com

Your Ancient, Illiterate Ancestors weren't God's Chosen People... So There!

Which requires a bigger ego, believing that you personally have been singled out and chosen by God for some special purpose, or believing that your entire ethnic group (race, family, whatever) has been singled out by God for some special purpose? Believing you're chosen by God may be personally fulfilling, but believing you belong to an entire group that's chosen by God means you're part of a larger, divinely-ordained movement and group. Either way, you are raised up out of the masses.

Just how many "chosen people" can there be? Given how mutually incompatible their claims are, they can't all be chosen. Even worse, their basis for claiming to be chosen often rests on ancient documents created by nomads who had barely a fraction of the knowledge of the world we have now. Why are such claims treated as credible, except that they tell people what they want to hear?

Tags: exceptionalism, divisiveness, religion

The Bactrian Hoard - Afghan treasure to tour US

Wed, 14 May 2008 19:14:32 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.archaeology.org

Archaeological treasures from Afghanistan, including the Bactrian Hoard, will begin a tour of the United States later this month. Staff members of Afghanistan’s National Museum locked the Bactrian Hoard in a vault in the presidential palace for safekeeping during the Soviet invasion, where it stayed until 2003.

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

A collapsible crown made of gold and studded with
flowers and semiprecious jewels

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

The 2,000-year-old Bactrian treasures were discovered in 1978 in the graves of six nomads who lived in the ancient nation of Bactria, which covered parts of what is now Afghanistan

But the finds were later hidden and eventually thought stolen—until the Afghan government found them stashed in boxes in 2003

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

A close view of a dagger

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Clip Source: phdiva.blogspot.com

Quite a number of Roman coins have been excavated in Afghanistan, and the Kushans imitated Roman coins with portraits of their own kings

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

The far-flung origins of the exhibition's pieces underscore Afghanistan's ancient role as a cultural transmission point

Who Needs an Office

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 18:40:29 GMT

clipped by: cc_chapman
clipper's remarks: This is a skill I'm trying to master. Having everything with me wherever I go. I'm far from there yet, but this article was a great read.

Clip Source: computerworld.com

March 16, 2007 (Computerworld) -- San Francisco Chronicle journalist Dan Frost wrote a nice piece recently about local digital nomads he called Bay Area Bedouins.

when you carry your office with you, you'll be more responsive to colleagues and customers. Instead of replying to requests for a document with: "I'm on the road today, so I'll send it to you when I'm at my desk on Monday," you can reply with: "Here's the document."

Tags: telecommuting, remote, wifi, office, bedouin

Tibetan Culture

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 01:10:52 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad

Clip Source: www.tibetanculture.org

Saturday, December 23, 2006

From the Dalai Lama

About us

Tibetan Film Director Uses Debut Film to Help Orphans

Neten Chokling Combines Cutting Edge Distribution Methods and Charity

BIR, INDIA --Neten Chokling, a 33 year-old Tibetan lama and filmmaker from Bhutan, defied both skeptics and the odds by successfully completing Milarepa, a full-length feature film about the life of Milarepa, an 11 century yogi and sorcerer who became Tibet 's greatest saint and folk hero. In the process, this soft-spoken lama, took in some 40 destitute young boys, many of them orphans, and found a way to use his movie to help feed, house and care for the boys. more

	North American Tibetan Community Cultural Needs Assessment
	The most detailed examination of the state of Tibetan culture in North America.

	Contemporary Tibetan Arts
	Folk Music and Dance
	Thangka Painting
	More Tibet arts ...

	Beyond the Land of the Snows
	Tibetans in India
	Tibetans in North America
	More Tibet in exile ...

	Butter Tea and Tsampa
	Games
	Picnics
	More Tibet traditions ...

	Nomads on the Tibetan Plateau
	Tibetan Language
	Tibetan Peoples
	More Tibet peoples ...

	Rethinking Tibetan Identity
	Tibetan Culture Beyond the Land of Snows
	Tibetan Culture in the 21st Century
	More article ...

Religion

Dalai Lama

Prayer Wheels and Prayer Flags

Rebirth and Reincarnation

Religious Storyteller

Renewal of the Nun Tradition

Ritual Dance and Chant

Sacred Monument

Tibetan Buddhism

Tibetan Muslims

Tags: tibet, culture, asia

Horros of a Hidden War, Ethiopian Desert

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 01:30:54 GMT

clipped by: mushmaster25

Clip Source: www.iht.com

rebels march 300 strong across the crunchy earth, young men with dreadlocks and AK-47s slung over their shoulders.

Often when they pass through a village, the entire village lines up, one sunken cheekbone to the next, to squint at them.

This is the Ogaden, a corner of Ethiopia that the urbane officials in Addis Ababa, the capital, would rather outsiders never see. It is the epicenter of a separatist war in which impoverished nomads are fighting one of the biggest armies in Africa.

What goes on here seems to be starkly different from the carefully-constructed image that Ethiopia - a country that America increasingly relies on to fight militant Islam in the Horn of Africa - tries to project.

In village after village, people said they had been brutalized by government troops.

t is the same military that the American government helps train and equip - and provides with prized intelligence. The two nations have been allies for years,

Tags: war, ethiopia, news

Of nomads and nanotech lighting

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 03:11:53 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Anna Salleh

Nomadic and remote communities around the world have been trying out a new fold-up portable light source developed using nanomaterials.

A Huichol girl from Mexico examines an early prototype of the solar-powered portable light. Remote Aboriginal Australian communities have just tested later versions (Image: Kennedy & Violich Architecture)

The solar-powered device, known as Portable Light, can provide 10 hours of bright light after just three hours in the Sun, says project leader Sheila Kennedy.

Early models were flat, flexible and could be folded up. Later models could also stand up or be made into bags.

Portable Light relies on solar cells made of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), a nanomaterial that can be sprayed or printed onto a fabric, says Kennedy from Boston-based firm Kennedy & Violich Architecture.

Light is emitted using high brightness light emitting diodes (HBLEDs), the type used in traffic signals.

Tags: nanotech, solar power, solar battery, solar cell, portable solar powered light, nomads

The Most Ancient Technology of All

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:54:13 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

Its function is to put reality in terms that make sense. That means dramatizing what we see -- transmuting it into something more than what's obvious.

Clip Source: www.uh.edu

What's the oldest technology? Farming came late in history. Before farming, settled herdsmen and gatherers made clothing, knives, tents, spears -- but so did nomads before them. Go back further: archaeology tells us that pictures and music were among stone-age technologies. Some really magnificent cave paintings survive, along with evidence of rattles, drums, pipes, and shell trumpets. Even the Bible -- the chronology of the Hebrew tribes -- identifies musical-instrument-making as one of three technologies that arose in the 7th and 8th generations after Adam.

Music is the most accessible art, and -- at the same time -- the most sophisticated. In almost any age, or any society, music-making is every bit as complex as other technologies.

Music is clearly as old as any technology we can date. Couple that with the sure knowledge that whales sing -- that the animal urge to make music precedes technology, and I offer music-making as my candidate for the oldest technology of all.

Tags: music, history

Sahara Nomads in a Modern World

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 01:54:20 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: Sound clips, video and images as well as words.

Clip Source: africa.si.edu

US strikes on al-Qa'ida chiefs kill nomads

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 15:20:39 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje
clipper's remarks: oops!

Clip Source: news.independent.co.uk

US strikes on al-Qa'ida chiefs kill nomads

By Anne Penketh and Steve Bloomfield

The herdsmen had gathered with their animals around large fires at night to ward off mosquitoes. But lit up by the flames, they became latest victims of America's war on terror.

It was their tragedy to be misidentified in a secret operation by special forces attempting to kill three top al-Qa'ida leaders in south-ern Somalia.

Oxfam yesterday confirmed at least 70 nomads in the Afmadow district near the border with Kenya had been killed. The nomads were bombed at night and during the day while searching for water sources. Meanwhile, the US ambassador to Kenya has acknowledged that the onslaught on Islamist fighters failed to kill any of the three prime targets wanted for their alleged role in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

The wanted men are Fazul Abdullah Moham-med, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Abu Taha al-Sudani, who were all supposedly sheltered by the Union of Islamic Courts during its short reign in Mogadishu.

The operation, which opened a new front in Washington's anti-terror campaign, seems to have backfired spectacularly in the five days since it was launched. In addition to the scores of Somali civilians killed, the simmering civil war in the failed state has been rekindled.

Tags: al-qa'ida

An American author's experience in Iran

Sat, 05 May 2007 00:15:41 GMT

clipped by: Gul Agha

Clip Source: www.payvand.com

Anahita's Woven Riddle is a historical novel
that weaves together rich details of 19th century
Persian culture, Sufi poetry, romance and adventure
to create an enchanting tale of a determined girl
and an ancient land on the crest of change.

I was traveling to Bam to speak at Iran's first International Children's Book Festival because I have written a young-adult novel about 19th-century Persian nomads, Anahita's Woven Riddle .

Speakers voiced concerns that reading was taking second place to television, video games and the Internet. They examined tough social problems such as sexual relationships, marriage, divorce and child abuse, and how these topics should be dealt with in children's literature. They spoke about the necessity of reading—particularly translations of foreign literature—in order to reach out to the world.

“You traveled to Iran alone? Weren't you afraid?” the customs officer asked me in Seattle

No, I wasn't afraid of the people who greeted me with a bouquet of roses

Tags: iran, children's literature. sufism

Ancient Afghan Gold to Tour U.S.

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:53:39 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

1 of 7 Next >>

December 21, 2007—Part of the famed "Bactrian hoard" of treasures, a folding gold crown dating from the first century A.D. is one of the Afghan treasures that will go on display in the United States in 2008, it was announced today.

The crown was discovered in one of six graves of nomads of the ancient state of Bactria at an archaeological site in northern Afghanistan in 1978.

Russian-Greek archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi unearthed the hoard—a crown, necklaces, belts, rings, and headdresses set with precious jewels. The finds were later hidden and eventually thought stolen until the Afghan government found them stashed in boxes in 2003.

The touring exhibition—"Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum"—is organized by the National Geographic Society and the U.S. National Gallery of Art, in cooperation with the National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul.

The 17-month tour of the U.S. will begin in spring 2008 in Washington, D.C.

Tags: afghan art treasures

African nomads to be first people wiped out by climate change

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 04:25:43 GMT

clipped by: rmowery

Clip Source: observer.guardian.co.uk

Those people, according to research commissioned by the charity Christian Aid, will be the three million pastoralists of northern Kenya, whose way of life has sustained them for thousands of years but who now face eradication. Hundreds of thousands of these seasonal herders have already been forced to forsake their traditional culture and settle in Kenya's north eastern province following consecutive droughts that have decimated their livestock in recent years.

Kenya's herdsmen are facing extinction as global warming destroys their lands

African nomads to be first people wiped out by climate change

· Incidence of drought has increased fourfold in the Mandera region in the past 25 years.

· One-third of herders living there - around half a million people - have already been forced to abandon their pastoral way of life because of adverse climatic conditions.

· During the last drought, so many cattle, camels and goats were lost that 60 per cent of the families who remain as herders need outside assistance to recover. Their surviving herds are too small to support them.

The new findings follow recent warnings from the UK Met Office that if current trends continue one-third of the planet will be desert by the end of 2100. The scientists modelled how drought is likely to increase globally during the coming century because of predicted changes in rainfall and temperature around the world.

Tags: african nomads, kenya, climate, extinction

Huge underground lake find 'may end Darfur war'

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:42:00 GMT

clipped by: tidbit2

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Water find 'may end Darfur war'

Getting enough water is a major struggle in Darfur

A huge underground lake has been found in Sudan's Darfur region, scientists say, which they believe could help end the conflict in the arid region.

Some 1,000 wells will be drilled in the region, with the agreement of Sudan's government, the Boston University researchers say.

Analysts say competition for resources between Darfur's Arab nomads and black African farmers is behind the conflict.

More than 200,000 Darfuris have died and 2m fled their homes since 2003.

"Access to fresh water is essential for refugee survival, will help the peace process, and provides the necessary resources for the much needed economic development in Darfur," he said.

The team used radar data to find the ancient lake, which was 30,750 km2 - the size of Lake Erie in North America - the 10th largest lake in the world.

A similar discovery was made in Sudan's neighbour Egypt

The root cause of the conflict is resources

drought

desertification

Tags: environment, war