This Chart Explains Why the Paper is So Thin

Today's WSJ told a sad story, see chart at the left.

"There are several reasons why newspapers so far have failed to crack this market. Because online ads are far less expensive than print ads and thus offer lower commissions, it's difficult to get salespeople to focus on selling the digital products.

Also, the types of ads that newspaper companies are selling -- typically banner ads -- don't correspond with the needs of a local merchant. And much of the potential local online ad revenue growth comes from small and medium-size local businesses, a market segment that newspaper companies have typically ignored.

Some publishers say rising competition from everyone from Google to local bloggers has made it tough to offset newspapers' sliding share of local online ad revenue. "At the moment we're just trying to retard it as much as we can," says Dan Shorter, president of digital media for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The cannibalization of print ad revenues is also a problem. One common scenario is that a trusty local print advertiser -- a car dealership, say -- that used to spend $20,000 a year on advertising might now spend a quarter of that with the newspaper online and nothing in the print product. Thus, the newspaper company is now selling more digital ads, but the new sale is taking away from its bottom line.

Some papers, like the Scripps chain, are starting to give sales people more motivation to sell online ads. At Scripps's Corpus Christi Caller-Times paper in Texas, for example, the online audience is about a third of the size of the print circulation. As a result, the paper is in the process of tying a third of the salespeople's commissions to their sales of online ads. The digital goals will increase sharply each year, forcing the sales teams to sell more digital ads to continue to maintain their monthly commissions.

"Unless you take practices that have been in place for 50 years and shake the dust off the rugs, you're not going to move the needle," says Mark Contreras, senior vice president of Scripps newspaper division.

Sharp Shows the Way with Smart Solar Electricity

Today I had to contact Sharp Electronics, the makers of our cafe's cash register. After I was finished getting soaked for a simple new plastic cash drawer, to the tune of about $100, I perused their website, and discovered that Sharp is a big player in solar electricity.

That got me to poking around more, and I discovered that indeed, this Osaka-Japan based company is one of the world's leaders in solar. A chart showed the progression, from being the inventors of the mechanical pencil in 1915 to building the largest US commercial solar system, at the Googleplex in California.

Ever since I saw my cousin Chris array out in his New Jersey barnyard, I've been fascinated by the concept of 'reverese metering,' meaning that the electricity the photovoltaic cells generated makes your meter spin backward. The Sharp website has examples of the different costs in each state. In New Jersey, for example, a system that costs a homeowner $24,000 is reduced down to $11,500 after state and federal rebates are subtracted. In California, it's not as generous: that same $24K system will cost you $16,280 after the rebates. In Colorado, it's even better--rebates cut the cost down to just $8500!

I read recently that in Israel, a full ninety percent of all homes have solar hot water. And there is a bill in California and Hawaii to require that all new homes built after 2008 must have solar hot water and or solar electric cells.

This onslaught of alternative energy is coming in massive waves, it's a seachange that is obvious and getting bigger and bigger. We have the high oil prices to thank for it, and I couldn't be happier.

Drilling for Hot Water, Not Oil, In the Valley

Today the heat has mostly passed, and we have a little break from the pounding rain. I'm in my favorite window seat at the cafe, and just finished a quick read--Tuesday's Daily Hampshire Gazette. On page one was a story about a guy I've met before (but can't recall where!) named David Reynolds. His company is called Atlantic Geothermal, and he wants to drill a 16' wide hole 30,000 feet below ground and heat water.

Down there of course, the magma of the Earth's center is very, very hot, and the concept is that you send water down there and use it at a boiling 300 degrees to make steam to spin turbines. In Ireland, said Reynolds, nineteen percent of their energy is made this way. Like many good ideas this one may be a little premature, since it would cost $500 million to drill this very deep hole and set up the turbines. Reynolds is trying to raise the money with a lure of a 50-year energy contract for just two cents a kilowatt. Some people are skeptical about that figure.

At a recent meeting, the best Reynolds was able to do was to get Representative John Olver to say that he thinks by 2010, there might be a role for federal money. Others encouraged him to just drill the hole, suggesting that a gusher of super heated water might bring state and federal officials in, offering job creation incentives.

"It's a tough sale," said Reynolds. "But I think to a shrewd person, it's a very attractive sell."

Old Avocadoes Turn Up and The Days Pass By

Today I man the office solo. Steve is out on assignment covering his favorite beat--New Hampshire. He's writing about Summer Stock Theater there. I remember well when Steve and I lived up there, just across the river in Norwich VT, and we worked together in Lebanon. It was the Connecticut Valley Reporter, and the Granite State Gazette, and those were heady days as I got my first taste of newspaper work. He invited me to come up and share the house and I found work at his newspaper. I stuck to that and was a paste-up wizard in 1980 when I finally landed at the Valley Advocate. Back in Amherst, just off Amity St.

Those old days were interesting, because everyone I knew had to work weekends. So we toiled all day Saturday and Sunday and enjoyed a few weekdays off. It was like that for five years, I even got married on a Wednesday, back in 1980.

Now it's fun for me to look at where we've all ended up. John Stifler just got a Fullbright to teach English abroad for two years, I met him decades ago. People pop into the cafe and I've known them in a past life, or for some other connection. Today I got an email from Gary Neilson, former reporter for the Valley Advocate in the 1980s.

He had read my blog about the passing of Gib Fullerton, our colleague of yore. I remember him in the Advocate production offices running in, being on the run over a story, and it was an exciting time to work at the paper because we were so proud of it, and it was media's center of gravity in the Valley. Gary was doing investigative, important stuff, we believed.

Hidari Islam Lights the Way for Tolerance

Yesterday I did a radio interview with Kevin and Sue McCarthy about my trip to Borneo and Kuala Lumpur. Kevin reminded me of a term that I had forgotten that says a lot about Malaysians. It's called Hidari Islam, and means their brand of the religion is cloaked with tolerance and understanding that it's not the only way to go. I remember our guide talking about this and it was evident even way up north in the city of Kota Baru, which is called "The Islamic City." It's a good lesson for Americans to learn--that there are millions more muslims who practice Hidari style Islam than the fiery Wahabism that spawned 15 of the 9/11 hijackers.

I read an interview yesterday with Anwar Ibrahim, the main opposition leader and national hero of Malaysia. Eight years ago he was jailed amidst trumped up charges of sodomy, and the evidence then was tainted but despite this he spent half a decade in jail. When we were in Malaysia, all of the newspapers had stories about him, he's again being railroaded and threatened with jailtime and treated like a criminal. Each story attacked him and defended the party in power. I didn't realize then that the New Straits Times was a state-controlled newspaper, and that the real story about this national hero was not ever going to be told on their pages.

In the interview, Anwar spoke about the importance of the US developing alliances with Hidari muslims, since the populations of Malaysia, Indonesia and other nearby muslim countries is higher than the entire Middle East. He believes that Hidari holds a key to better world relations, and wants to encourage tourism, and trade. If he can get past the rough treatment by the current administration and onto the ballot he might be the next prime minister of Malaysia.

His Dad Sent a Hooker to Try and Set Him Straight

Tom Devine is a blogger's blogger. He posts more frequently than anyone I know, and it's all usually interesting. Today I read on his blog about one of his few experiences having heterosexual sex.

"One thing led to another, and soon we were kissing, hugging, our hands and mouths going everywhere. She was teasing my earlobe with her tongue when she whispered, "I'm gonna f**k you straight!" I laughed, but I didn't resist.

She really got into it. All of her inhibitions seemed to melt away as she became a totally sexual being that seemed to exist for only one purpose - to provide me with sexual pleasure. Nothing was taboo, nothing was refused or withheld in the total surrender of her body to the single goal of bringing me to orgasm through heterosexual means.

It worked. By that I mean she finally got me to cum in spite of my drunken queerness. But of course my lust for her didn't last past that night, and neither did she. When I got up the next morning she was gone. No good-bye, no note, just gone. I almost thought it was all just a weird erotic dream, but then how did I end up nude in this strange hotel?

When later that day I saw my companions of the previous evening, they confirmed the existence of my lover, a woman who they said had mysteriously appeared at our table. I also discovered to my surprise that she had been discreetly urging my friends to leave us behind so that we could be alone. I hadn't realized that she was the reason that my friends had all left early and without telling me.

The whole incident was pretty mysterious to me, until one day a while afterwards I made a startling discovery. I won't give any details of how I found out, because that would be awkward for people who I don't want to hurt, but in any case I later discovered that the girl who had surrendered to me with such abandon that night was a prostitute!

More than that, she was actually working the night she made herself my sex slave. And more than even that - most shocking of all - was the discovery that the person who had paid for the prostitute was my own father!

Imagine my emotions when I discovered that my own Dad had bought this prostitute in a Springfield bar, and paid her to come up to Amherst to find his son, who he was afraid was becoming "a fairy" and having given her the instructions to "f**k him straight." Wow, what a thing to deal with emotionally!

Of course it didn't work, I'm genetically programed to be queer and a mansion full of Playboy bunnies couldn't change that. There's also the environmental factors, what Allen Ginsberg called in his poem Howl "mountains of cock and canyons of ass" built up in my psyche by all the homosex I'd had since I was twelve years old. That sexual conditioning can't be erased in one night.

But I don't think my Dad completely wasted his money. I did have fun, and I look back and I'm glad that I had a chance to really have my way with a woman with no restrictions. I'm not sure that would've ever happened to me with quite that degree of lasciviousness had someone not paid to make it happen. So thanks Dad, I appreciate the gesture, however futile."

A Fine Day for a Float Down a River

Yesterday was a perfect summer day....for floating down the Deerfield River. I can always count on my friends Jack and Laura to motivate me to get moving. Either it's a bike ride, a hike to a new undiscovered forest, or floating down a river--they are my primary motivators to move, and I am always glad when I answer their call.

I drove the scooter up to their house in Greenfield and in the backyard I found a flotilla of various shapes and sizes...they had a giant green ring about 10 feet wide, an enormous plastic inflated armchair, assorted inner tubes and two big yellow rafts. Clearly, they were ready for the river!

We piled into Jack's big truck and coordinated with three other river floaters, John, Nuritan and Sydney, and set 0ff for a part of western Mass called 'Zoar.' Here two big river raft and kayaking companies offer hundreds a chance to glide down the rapids. We passed an encampment of kayaking people, a sort of tradeshow offering paddles, rafts, kayaks and gear and drove further up river for our embarkation point. The flow was huge, with all of the rain and the timed release of water we found would take place just before our journey.

Into the fast moving current we went, and began picking up speed straight away. It was a delicious float, just the right speed, and just a few rapids to make it interesting. We passed by campers who had set up pup tents on the river banks, and dozens of sleek little kayaks bobbed past. I never knew that one could get tired out just by floating that long but after our five-mile leisurely float, we were all dog tired and ready for a cookout.

'A Luscious Island Throbbing With Sensuality'

I read a WSJ review of a new book about the early days of Fidel Castro and Fulgencio Batista called "Havana Nocturne." this morning on our sunny deck. The book depicts a wild era of 'rum, roulette and revolution,' spiced up by orgies involving future presidents and famous American mobsters.

The book carefully researches and speculates about what would have happened with little twists that might have dramatically changed the outcomes. For example, what if promising pitcher Castro had made the team when he tried out for the Washington Senators?

Mobster Meyer Lansky loved the island and wanted to make it magnificent. To this end, he built the Riviera Hotel, and opened a school to train Cubans as croupiers. "He attracted a better class of gamblers than his rivals. In 1958, TV host Steve Allen broadcasted from the Riviera , praising Lansky by name, and applauding the first central air conditioning on the island."

Later when Castro began killing his adversaries, Lansky refused to flee. The mobster says in the book that he remembers when he left Russia with a revolution going on when he was 12. "I know a communist revolution when I see one, and this is one." Finally in 1959 he left, but much of his vast unaccounted for millions is still in Cuba at the Riviera, now 'a sagging masterpiece.'

The orgies were part of a 'luscious island throbbing with sensuality, conga drums beating like so many passionate hearts.' The book describes Frank Sinatra joining in on an orgy at the Nacional Hotel, and in the midst of it, a contingent of Cuban Girl Scouts burst into his suite. While the call girls rushed to the back room, the singer was presented with an award. The book claims that young Jack Kennedy came in 1957 for his own orgy, this coming from reports from Lansky's valet and casino directors.

An Account of the Annointed One's Pilgrimage...

Gerard Baker had fun in the UK's Times online with this biblical account of Obama's world tour this week.

"And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness. And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”

Farmhouse Wares Hit a Sweet Spot on the Web

I caught up with a woman today who told me a year ago that she was launching a new website and a home-based business. I hear ideas like this so many times that I usually expect them to languish and never come to fruition. But this one was different--and the business is now going great guns and the site looks fantastic. She had a good idea and her timing was perfect.

Betsy Strickland started Farmhouse Wares last year in Whately. What she's come up with is a testament to classy web design and savvy marketing.

She just got a call from a big New York home magazine that wants to feature her clean, simple and comfortable wares in their December issue. I encouraged her to bring the goods down there in person, since a face-to-face meeting beats anything you can do over the phone or by email.

The types of things she sells are what people want, just look at Real Simple, one of the hottest magazine launches in recent years. It was nice to hear about her success.

She sells unique pottery like earthenware bowls, healthy candles, bedspreads and pillows of natural fabrics, all with a sepia mellow look that's reminscent of Pottery Barn and Pier One, yet more country and real. She spends a lot of time working with vendors and carefully packing and shipping, and she writes a blog about the business and about her life, adding to the authenticity.

It was nice to speak with her and hear how this has all come together, she left a good paying job but now, like many of us who have ventured down this path, couldn't be happier working for herself.

How One of the Worst Airlines Turned Things Around

Every day I read the papers and scan the web for news about airlines and airport parking for my other blog. But yesterday, sadly, I got word that someone else would be taking it over. So I'll no longer write that blog, even though I still enjoy finding tidbits about airlines and air travel. Hey, it's still my business.

US Airways, reports the WSJ, has vaulted into first place for the on-time reliability after years of being the last on the list. Anyone who has flown this airline can recall the surly service, lost baggage and shoddy condition of their planes. But the higher-ups heard the customer's complaints...and maybe in this day and age of airlines going under, they realized how important it was wake up and do better.

The way USAirways did it was to offer employees hefty cash payments for achieving goals, and building in more minutes between each flight so that the schedules more accurately reflected congestions at East Coast airports. But it was more, it was a better way of looking at their problems, most of which stemmed from the merger with America West, forcing an old East coast carrier into a much different, younger west coast company based in Phoenix. In Philly, US Air created a new 'satellite headquarters' with senior officials who could make hiring decisions, authorize spending, and get things done without having to ask Phoenix. They also hired 100 new mechanics, and began dealing with broken airplane things, making a list that workers jokingly called "NEF--or Never, Ever Fixed. They cut this list in half, and travelers began to notice that the planes were in better shape and the staff seemed friendlier. Must have been that money being dangled in front of them.

But the most pressing problem for USAir was lost baggage. Here the problems began when the airline lost its space in Philadelphia's international terminal, so they couldn't get luggage screened efficiently when passengers rechecked it on connecting flights. So the airline worked with the airport to build a new bag sorting and screening area, reducing lost bags there by 60%, and this change has rippled through their entire system.

All of France's Nuclear Waste Fits in One Room

Last month's Wired magazine cover made a case for accepting nuclear power if we are to ever really battle global climate change. I got up early this morning and read an op-ed in the WSJ by William Tucker that made more of the same very valid points. It's time for the US to join Britain, France, Sweden and most of the rest of the world and build nuclear plants to reduce our use of coal and oil to generate energy.

The big bugaboo that people bring up is nuclear waste....'where do we store it?' they ask suspiciously, as if this is a deal breaker. Tucker points out that France, where most of their power comes from nukes, they actively reprocess all of their nuclear waste. "The French now store all of the waste from 30 years of producing 75% of its electricity beneath the floor of one room at La Hague in Normandy." The fact is that nuclear plants can't explode since reactors use 3% enriched uranium and a bomb requires up to 90% to blow up.

Tucker also cites the fact that the Department of Energy once crashed an F-4 jet full blast into a concrete shell the same size as the ones used in nuclear plants. The shell was barely dented, which proves that terrorists would have a hard time creating an apocalypse by the 9/11 method.

But the article's main thrust is that Wall Street has to step up with billions in investments to make new nuclear plants a reality. But to get the money men in place, first we have to convince the public that the rest of the world isn't crazy to be building and promoting nuclear energy, and we should be doing it too.

Sneaking into the Office to Catch Back Up

It's been quite a while since I woke up in my own bed with my familiar cat, Mama, lying next to me. It's great to be back home and to vault again into my two-ring circus of a job. I did of course do what bosses often do and snuck back into the office on Sunday to catch up with old email and peruse the postal mail that came in. No big surprises. Then I had to get ready to play poker ditto, no surprises, I lost all the money I brought. But I love seeing my poker buddies.

In front me I have hand written list of about fourteen names. People I've gotta call today, things I need to accomplish. It's good to be needed and good to have a roadmap, and I've always figured that starting out with a list I can cross off is the best way to navigate clearly.

People have asked me how hot it was over in Malaysia, and I answered that it's really hotter here. There it hovers in the mid-eighties, here I've been told I missed many a day in the 90s with stiffling humidity. The rains come every day in KL, pounding down in a torrent consistently, and then after the rain clears it isn't less humid. Unlike here, a storm doesn't take away the heat, it just goes back to the way it was before the drops started falling.

Oh So Clean After Using This Eco Washer Toilet

I want one of these for my house. This toilet in the Grand Millenium Hotel in Kuala Lumpur takes care of everything, Watch as the little spout pops out to spray water then goes back again. Just don't use it if you're not sitting down!

The Elephants of Kuala Gandah Pop to the Top

After twenty plus hours sitting in the back of a plane, I reached the familiar house where I grew up near Princeton NJ late last night. Nat and Val were eager to find out about the trip. What I love about my two parents is that they are always so interested, so inquisitive, and they really do want to hear the answer. It's an endearing and lovely quality of theirs.

The things you mention in these moments when somebody asks you 'what was it like?' are what sum it all up. The ones that pop up to the top, when the past two weeks are still a jumble of wild images, people we met, and tastes we experienced.

I told them about the elephants at the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary. Here mistreated or endangered elephants are taken from parts of Thailand and Borneo and some are relocated back into the wild. The public is allowed to spend time with them here, and we joined an enthusiastic group of Europeans, Chinese and Malaysian tourists when the park opened at 2:45 pm to greet them face to face. One man annoyed a small elephant in some way and ended up being chased by the chained creature until he took refuge behind a tree. The pachyderms use their trunks like two big srong fingers to open up fruit, and cleverly use their massive weight to crush baobob trees and dig out the tender insides with their trunks.

Then it was time to get wet. We watched the guides ride elephants into the water and quickly get thrown into the brown flowing drink as the animals rolled and basked in the water. It would be the visitors' turn soon, and they all lined up four and five people up on each elephant to take their turns being taken for a ride and then joining the elephant in the river.

Taking the Stage As the Arab Street Looks On

We took a walk after dinner and came upon a festival, with pulsing rhythmic Arab music flowing from a corner of two streets in the Golden Triangle. It was the Festival Sampah, and the people crowding the stage and dancing wildly were all Arab. The music was hypnotic, the pulsing beat unwavering and rolling, and a man playing a small 12-string guitar called a sampah was singing in Arabic, the young men in the audience gyrating and cheering. At the back of the stage sat seven other musicians, all in white robes, playing tambourines, two bongos, two big Korg organs and a pedal steel guitar. Offstage, more singers added harmonies and back up to the man in front,

I love this kind of music and it is that steady beat, that endless pulse, and the indecipherable yet hypnotic words that keeps me rapt and fascinated. I watched men dancing with each other, arms waving, one man in a red checked kaffea, everyone holding up their cellphones to share the magic beat with faraway friends. I worked my way up to the front, loving the strange music trying to figure out who this guy was in his white robe. I was right near the front swaying to the beat, and then the music paused and an emcee took the stage.

Suddenly, he looked at me, in this sea of seething Arab youth, and walked toward me. Was it the Blazer? I did look mighty white in there with all of those men half my age. He gestured for to come over, and then soldiers undid the barriers to the stage and he called me to come up and join the band on stage. "Please tell me your name," said the MC, Barnie Redzan. "Where are you from?" I answered "US," and told him that I was here writing a story about Malaysia. "How do you like it here," he asked over the PA. "I love it and I love this music!" I said.

Our words were booming out to all of the grinning Arab men. Then Barnie brought a woman on stage who held a mic, and I knew that I would be expected to dance. I did the best I could, to the hoots and encouragement of the crowd. I asked the male singer where he was from, and he said Indonesia. It was a brief moment there, trying to look cool while I swayed a little bit following the lead of the heavily made-up woman singer. Then he gave me a tee shirt and I left to the applause. The crowd was friendly, though I think if I had said I was from Singapore or France they might have cheered more.

The Great Hornbill, Sarawak's Symbol

The Great Hornbill is among the most impressive birds that we saw in Kuala Lumpur's giant bird park, located in the 'green lung of the city,' a series of parks and a giant mosque.

Strolling down lanes under a huge green canopy, there were all manner of birds, from owls to eagles to this emblematic species, the symbol of Sarawak.

Today we're off to ride elephants and hopefully we won't be bucked off, as our guide has warned us sometimes happens when they hit the water.

Hey Mister, You Want a Massage?

Tonight about nine I took a stroll down the big boulevard in the Golden Triangle to get a bite. I wanted to get something simple, and continue my tradition of eating native, (cheap). So I strolled down past about four dozen men and some sexy young women waving laminated placards at me. "Massage sir, you want massage? Foot massage sir?"

It was clear that though there were dozens of prone men and women visible through the open door of a salon having their feet worked on, these nubile young women had something happier in mind than reflexology on my toes. But I had tried that out at the fish spa, and it hurt, plus who wants to join some stranger in a seedy second floor?

It was more fun to keep walking and see what else was happening on this busy packed thoroughfare. A band of drummers and guys blowing into long wooden tubes were making music on a corner, and a sizable crowd has assembled, listening to the spirited drum beat. One long-haired guy was in a wheelchair playing a three chord gong.

Every few feet a man who was selling watches would be sitting by a building, offering what looked like the same big watches that the next seller had. Then more 'massage sir? massage sir' from both men and women. Then there would be a demure woman sitting on a chair who'd make eye contact, and hold it. No thanks.

I passed a Turkish cafe where men smoked hookahs, four feet high, and attendants stood by with little skillets that held what looked like blocks of tobacco. Next to me I overhead an Iraqi youth talking to a guy from Europe. "I can't go to Sweden, I can go to Syria, to Lebanon, to Malaysia," he said. "Is that because you're Muslim?" he was asked. "That's because I am Arab," he said.

The night bustles here, pulsing with the sounds of a million cars, motorbikes, passing pedestrians and Arab groove music that wafts up from the other hookah bar. This one has booths on the street with their own little curtains, providing a relaxing atmosphere for the smokers.

It's an Acquired Taste...That I'll Never Acquire

"It tastes like the best tasting thing you can think of, vanilla ice cream, or chocolate cake, in the toilet." This was how Sara described the fruit that is distinctly Malaysian...the stinky durian. "My grandmother used to buy a huge four-foot bin of these, and we'd eat every single one over the weekend!"

We stopped by a roadside market on our way out of Melaka where the specialty were Thai coconuts, durians and many other fruits I've never seen before. Red spiky dragon fruits, and cat eye fruits, which are like big grapes you peel back to reveal white flesh with a big pit inside.

Sara picked out a perfectly ripe durian, the size of a large coconut, with its spiky outer husk pricking her fingers. and watched the Chinese vendor chop it open to reveal two kidney-shaped yellow sacks. "The really ripe ones, the best, have this bright yellow!" said Sara, as she ripped a piece of the slightly gelatinous flesh out with her hand. Go ahead, have some! I couldn't bring myself to grab it, it was slightly spongy and looked, well, not good.

I gingerly poked at the yellow flesh with a spoon and held a bite up to my mouth...the smell was horrible. I took a bite. Ghastly! It was the texture, sort of like okra, and the flavor, strong, sweet, yet sickening.

She laughed and grabbed another handful and pushed it into her mouth. Checker too, eagerly grabbed a hunk, chowing down. Sony and I were unable to eat any more, and the taste lingered in my mouth for a long while. It's hard to describe anything I've ever eaten that I disliked more.

I guess this is an acquired taste but I am pretty sure I'll never eat another bite of Malaysia's favorite fruit. "It's like if we ate bleu cheese," said an Malaysian Indian we met later. Now I know what he means.

Where Arabs Prefer to Visit Instead of Melaka

We learned about the patterns that bring different nationalities to Kuala Lumpur from our guide, Sara. Each country seems to prefer their own type of relaxation. Each comes at different times--July and August are Arab times, and February is when Iranian visitors come to KL.

The Indian visitors, she said, like to window shop. They also think they know everything, so it's hard to try to advise them about where to go and what to see. She liked our inquisitiveness and willingness to be led around, open to her suggestions.

The wealthy gulf states visitors go to malls like this one, located just below the Twin Towers and sometimes bring along aides to carry all of the bags back to the hotel.

We are in Melaka where there is a Portuguese colony and a lot of history and museums. Sara said that few of her Indian, Iranian or Arab guests ever want to come here. They prefer to shop and to see the visit name stores like Hugo Boss, Cartier and Fendi.

The registration list at the Hotel Puri bears this out. It's French, Australian, UK, these are the people who want to see the museums and the stories about Mereka, or independance from Britain. It's a complicated story but ended with a shout of this word Mereka seven times in 1957.

SIC is another term we hadn't heard of, it means 'sit in coach.' The guides spend a lot of time waiting around for their guests to do what they want, so the driver and the guide get to know eachother well with all of that hanging around. They take catnaps to keep their energy up.

A Tiny Boy Enjoys South Indian Food in Melaka

We've just arrived in the Portuguese explorer city of Melaka, on Malaysia's west coast. This city is famous for the Straits of Mallaca, where pirates lurk, and for being a UNESCO World Heritage Sight.

I remember being here in 2006; we even stayed in the same hotel, which is called Hotel Puri. It's located on a narrow side street right next to the winding river, and two streets over is the night market, which brings Chinese and Indian traders out until 11 pm selling all kinds of wares.

I remember I bought red batik a shirt there for Cindy and she still wears it, that's a nice feeling. When we first arrived here, I made my way to this open air courtyard, where I remember there was wireless, and ahah! once I got a password from a gent sitting by his suitcase, I was back in business. The small courtyard is full of giant bamboo trees and waterfalls, and is a pleasant place to have a cigarette or to write a blog.

Before we got here, we had to stop for roti canai, one of our favorite snacks here in Malaysia. It's grilled chewy naan bread with coconut fish curry and lental dahl dips. It's served on a metal plate and you don't use a fork, just wrap the naan around the dips and bite. When we first entered the restaurant, we watched a man with a big smile on his face grill the naan with a flourish. We sat down and dug in, and had teh tarik, (chai tea) to go along with it. Once again, we were eating fine for about $.85 apiece.

A little tiny boy sat with his parents in the back of the restaurant, so small he barely took up the whole chair. This little guy was irrestible, so we had to do the papparazzi thing and snap his photo, after asking Mom and Dad who seemed amused by our fascination with the tiny lad.

Watch Out For Falling Stinky Fruit

In the Meleka Palace Hotel in Kuching there was a sign above the elevator, warning that 'no durian fruits were allowed on the premises.' I read the local paper today to discover a photo of a man wearing a motorcycle helmet, holding one of these famously stinky, spiky fruits. Durian, I was told by a Malaysian woman, is the symbolic food here, beloved by nearly everyone.

The Straits Times story told of the problem in the jungle--there are so many durians falling out of the trees that they risk being bonked on the head by this King of Fruits, which fall from between 40 and 80 meters high. It's a bumper crop, pounding down on their unsuspecting heads, so helmets are required when anywhere near the durian orchard.

The trees yield bumper crops like this every five years or so, and each giant spiky stinky one goes for about 5 ringet per kilo.

In other local news, the state oil company, Petronas has boosted its yearly payment to the government to a health 6 billion ringet, after windfall profits due to high oil and gas prices. Now you know why the people are protesting prices, since they could have just lowered the prices instead.

The Mysterious Abaya-clad Women in the Mall

Sony and I find the women behind these abayas to be both mysterious and frustrating. Mysterious because I keep wondering how they sneeze and how they drink coffee with that thing on...and how do their sunglasses not fall off their noses? At the buffet this morning a woman wearing an abaya was loading up her tray, and again, I kept asking myself, 'how are you gonna eat that and still remain the chaste mysterious stranger you want to be?'

In the shopping mall beneath the Petronas Twin Towers, I watched a gaggle of abaya-clad women with a few men in kaffias, then the women caught my eye, and and pointed at me menacingly. I quickly ducked into an outdoor store, fearing the wrath of her insulted husband who might want to chase down this infidel for shooting photos of his wife.

Not all of the city's Muslims choose to wear these black abayas, or even the headscarf. As our guide Sara told us, it's a modern place and you can wear what you want, Christian, Jew Buddhist or Muslim.

Malaysia is a Groaning Buffet

You can judge a country by the way they eat...and Malaysia certainly tops my list of culinary wonderlands. It's just that there are so many choices...and everything, almost, is really good. Ok, last night I did sample a 'national dessert' of shaved ice with three different syrups that I left in the bowl, but for the most part, we have all been taken aback by the delicious food choices that are all so cheap.

We went to KL's Sri Rampai neighborhood, the usual rabbit warren of shops piled on top of shops, and busy with cars, scooters and people. We stopped at a non-descript open air food court, where about a dozen different businesses offer Chinese foods and the proprietor sells the drinks. We had noodles with chopped roasted chicken, and little mussels with sizzling prawns, and stir fried noodles with sprouts and scallions. It was all delicious, cooked up for us as we waited, and it costs 5 ringetts or about $1.50. Wow!

This city is full of architectural gems, intriguing buildings that are designed by creative minds that think differently than those in the west. The most famous building in KL, the Petronas Twin Towers, are gorgeous to look at close up, with the steel ringing every few feet, and the design that gets successively thinner and thinner to the top of its 88 stories.

Our guide waited in line for us so that we could join the 1400 people today to ride up to the 41st floor to walk on the Skybridge. They ran out of steel when they were building these massive towers in 1996, and they had to bring more over from the UK. Up close it is a marvel of engineering, and downstairs there is another mall, this one with a food court that just doesn't quit.

Letting Little Fish Nibble Your Skin is The Rage in KL

"Have you been to the fish spa?" asked Sara, our guide. "Oh you've got to try it, I tell everyone." she said brightly. "In fact I am going there after I drop you off at the hotel!"

The fish spa, we learned, is a place called Kenko, on an upper floor of a Kuala Lumpur shopping mall. Here, tiny 'doctor fish' nibble at the dead skin on people's feet, and they also offer a full immersion fish spa, where you can have the two-inch fish munch on your body's dead skin from head to toe.

Sara, like many other Muslim women here, is modest, and so she loves this chance to have a beauty and spa treatment without having to have human contact. The fish spa trend is huge here with the thousands of Gulf states visitors, who also enjoy sexually segregated swimming pools and airport announcements in Arabic. KL and Malaysia is where Arabs come to have fun, and these spas are quite the hot ticket.

Sony immediately piped up and wanted to try the fish spa. I demurred, since I did have a foot massage at the music festival last night, and how much attention do my feet really need?

In Kuala Lumpur, Protests Over Fuel Prices

In a drenching rain we've arrived in Kuala Lumpur, a city of 4.5 million with a pulsing, oil-fueled heart. What's new since I was last here in 2006? More shopping. The names that rich Asians love, like Hugo Boss, Cartier, and Juicy Couture, all lined up here in the famous Golden Triangle, where the Grand Millenium is our home for the next two nights. In the lobby a woman in a full length chador waited silently while her husband negotiated with the concierge and her kids tumbled in and out of their strollers.

On the way in from the airport, Sara our guide told us that there used to be a rainy season here. But now 'with that global change stuff' there is no longer any discernable rainy or dry period. It's more like rain, and the 'moody season' as she describes it, where the sun doesn't shine much and it's dreary.

We had to pass through two checkpoints, manned by friendly police and we asked them why. They didn't answer specifically but we knew these are due to the big protests in the city over, guess what?, fuel prices. The price of gas here is extraordinarily low, about .85 a liter, and it's just been jacked up to $1.50 or so a liter, more like Europe. And the politicians are making a lot of hay by speaking at rallies decrying the hike and demanding that the taxes be lowered. The current prime minister, Abdullah, has decided to cut short his second five-year term in 2010, naming a successor already, even though the people vote their leader into office.

The outskirts of KL are dotted with endless rows of identical subdivisions, dreary modules that all look the same and appear to be located in the absolute middle of nowhere. I asked Sara who would want to live out here, and who is building them. She said they were 'semi-private' which must mean that the government subsidizes them. She said there is an emerging industrial area out here so the workers will live here.

The older apartments here and in Kuching have a coating of mold that shows their age. Many of the buildings have this grim patina, a coating of black mold that makes them look much older than they must really be. As the rain pounds down and the thunder roars, I can see why all of that mold builds up.

A Walk Along the Kuching Waterfront Reveals Splendor and Noodle Goodness

This stunning building is almost finished on the banks of the muddy Sarawak River in downtown Kuching. It's the new parliament building, as grand as a palace and something unlike anything you'd see in the US. We prefer our edifi to be blocky, and big, this one is grand, tall and soars toward the sky.

In this lovely city of 500,000, the riverbanks are for walking. I took a stroll there yesterday and approached a noodle vendor. She shooed me away, saying to sit over there and I'll make your noodles. No, I said, i want to watch you. So she taught me how she mixed the cold noodles with the spices the sugar, the egg, the sprouts, and hotsauce and the chiles and stir fried them up for a glorious bowl of goodness.

I want to sell these noodles in my cafe but I can't imagine old cranky Dick the health inspector going for my big wok out there on Sugarloaf St. as I toss together fresh cooked orders of these delicious noodles. Oh well.

Then I strolled down along the brick walkway and watched long, long boats being rowed by enthusiastic cheering rowers, two by two, grunting and powering these colorful pointy boats through the muddy water. Clouds threatened above, and then, a torrent, and I retreated back to the noodle shop with cover, and a television playing a soap opera in Malay that no one paid attention to. The rowers got drenched, as did the coxswain, still yelling into his megaphone.

What is Sarawak like?

The streets are crowded with cars, small trucks and motorbikes. The sidewalks are porticos, stuffed with vendors, sellers of all manner of goods. The interiors of the shops are dark, inhabited by Chinese men and young girls, silently waiting there for customers.

You walk beneath the ceilings of the stores around bins of spices, redolent strong curries, fragrant cloves, sacks of drived anchovies in various sizes, hardware, tools and chainsaw parts. Men squat on the floor, working on engines, or fixing tools.

Other men sit in front of open cases, selling mysterious bottles of remedies, unknown things are in those bottles, and little packets of strange elixirs. Most of the shopkeeps are Chinese. In fact most of the signs above every doorway are in Chinese. Lun Fat Trading Co, Han Chu Manufacture. People gaze at their cellphones in the heat of the afternoon, sending text messages or talking quietly.

You pass by so many different types of stores all packed in close together. Men walk silently looking down at their phones, leaving the Friday prayers, wearing their skullcaps, waiting to light up a cigarette now that prayers are done.

The meats are laid out in big fatty strips, lying on a chest, flies buzzing on and off them, being shooed away by young boys. Chicken legs, yellow bright, are sitting in a container like pencils in a jar, another can contains severed chicken heads.
In a small town to the west of Kuching called Batanbong, we saw adult chickens packed into open crates, there was a little water in a bowl but it would have been hard for the birds to move that far to drink. Then another crate, this one with adolescent chickens, these teenagers were also packed mercilessly tight. And another with mere chicks, peeping, pecking, eating yellow powdery grain, a crate stuffed with chicks in the heat of the day.

South China Sea Dip

The South China sea is extraordinarily warm. It's gentle and feels like a bath, and I floated out and put my ears beneath the waves and exalted in that splendor of nothing, of not hearing anything for just a few brief moments.

Sony also loved being on the beach and in the water and this felt like we were truly off duty, and no longer required to take notes or photos....but we couldn't resist using my x-tender to shoot a quick memory as the sun beat down on my untanned body.

This beach is part of a resort that offers tree houses for two, or rainforest cabins that sleep six. The cost is low, about $340 Ringets for four nights, including meals. Malaysia is amazing for these values, it's quite a relief from writing about places where everything is so expensive. Here the dollar is worth a lot, and so it makes traveling much easier.

Mojitos in Hand, Chatting Up Concertgoers

The nicest thing about this big Rainforest World Music Festival are the people we've met. We got to the Sarawac Cultural Village early, and we sat on bamboo matts and drank mojitos. While lounging on big pillows we met a couple from Singapore with two young boys. He is an English architect who recently finished working on Beijing's famous bird's nest arena. His company specializes in stadia around the world.

I asked him about that amazing polymer ETFE that was used in this big building that is so lightweight, so cheap and is playing such a big part in green buildings.

He said that when it is applied, ETFE is like plastic wrap, but it's far tougher, and can be blown to cover up to 30 yards of area without additional support--and weighs about as much as a pack of sugar. It was used instead of glass in this auditorium, and when rain hits it, it's like a snare drum. It pops to a deafening roar. So he said it isn't good for projects in places that will get a lot of rain.

Later that night I sat next to an Aussie yachtsman who had come over with nine other vessels from Australia. He told me about Papua New Guinea, where he said that the economy has almost stopped functioning and lawlessness is the rule. He said that armed guards and men with baseball bats are everywhere, guarding the shops and restaurants which without them would be overrun. He said it was impossible to cash a check there since the local economy is cratering and anyone with sense and or money has since fled.

I asked him about piracy in the Straits of Malacca, where were are going next week. "The governments of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore have had enough," he said, "Now they just shoot the pirates dead, no messing around."
That made me feel a little better since the last time I read up on this it was an epidemic that was threatening propery and life and nobody seemed willing to take action.

Birds Nests Are Good For You...Really!

We took our friend Bidari up on his kind offer to drive us over to the Sarawak Plaza to his friend's record store in a hotel van. He picked out a bunch of CDs and a kind young lady unwrapped each of them and played cuts for us to choose. They were compilations of Malaysian music, which is characterized by the type of instrument they use.

Siti is the name of a very popular vocalist here, one of Malaysia's biggest sellers. I picked up her CD plus two others who had played at the Rainforest Festival last year and another group, Tuku Kame, who will pay Sarawak music tonight.

At the plaza we got a chance to do some shopping. Boy it's great to be in a country where the dollar actually is worth something! Time and again, our jaws drop in amazement at how cheap things are...Edmund bought a gorgeous batik shirt for $7, I got some leather sandals for about $19, and the CDs came out to about $20 for three! With travel to euro zones bumming out Americans and trips to London cafes becoming huge investments, it is wonderful to report that here everything is cheap, the people are friendly and speak English, and the culture is rich and full of surprises. Plus they have wonderful music.

As I left the shoe store, an attractive Chinese woman in a tiny tight black T-shirt caught my eye as she hung out by the shop door. Good marketing. I asked Bidari what they sold in that store, and he said 'birds nests.' We walked in and the girl giggled when I asked her what birds' nests do for you. She spoke in Chinese then in broken English explaining that they are good for your insides. All over the store there were tiny nests, in various colors, and inside jars of water birds nest concentrate was for sale. The nests are spun using bird saliva to keep them together and they are very popular here. We munched on a few at the opening reception. I'd say they are sort of like sweet shredded wheat.

Today we'll return to the Sarawak Cultural Village where we will first take a dip in the warm South China Sea and then visit stalls where we can learn how to play the instruments like the sape, a native guitar and various kinds of drums. Like most of the places I travel, I love it here.

That's what makes life so much fun.

Playing the Blues on a Sitar

These guys called Akasha from Malaysia rocked the rainforest with their blues number played on a sitar plus twangy Indian drums, guitar and bongos. They also played Jimi Hendrix' Voodoo Child, with that unforgettable riff from the beginning repeated over and over. It was a fantastic performance and the most exciting band of the night by far!

It Rains in a Rainforest--Even When the Music Plays

The Rainforest Music festival is held in the shadow of a great mountain called Santobong, which means coffee in Iban. There were thousands of people there, and they were all wet and muddy, since from before the first note rain poured down. This is the rainforest after all. Sony and I staked out a prime seat, close enough for her to get the video shots she wanted, and then after I had found some cardboard to sit on, the rain was too much and we joined many of the faithful and retreated to a wooden ceilinged area for shelter.

There I watched a young woman in front of me endlessly type and receive text messages from her slick little Nokia phone. She had a painted face and every time she put that baby back into her pocket, she'd quickly retrieve it and start another text. The people in front of us were of mixed ages, but mostly looked like a more sober version of the Grateful Dead faithful. One guy wore a Dead Kennedys T-shirt, another had ghastly tattoos all over his back and his legs.

The music begain pretty weakly with a band from Trinidad playing songs that were way too slow to really get anyone interested. The rain came down in steady sheets, and the ground became a sea of pretty deep mud. People walked through it carrying their shoes, and many danced excitedly when a band called Akasha that featured a sitar and a twangy Indian style drum rocked the place out. He played a Jimi Hendrix riff with that big sitar and it got the wet crowd pretty stoked.

I got tired of standing in the covered area, so I bought a few beers and Sony and I sat down for a while on those cardboard boxes I had found. They would come in even more handy later when the rain let up, and I sat on them instead of the wet ground. Some people eyed me with envy, and squatted awkwardly. One women swigged from a quart of Jack Daniels, making me ill just thinking about it.

Toward the end of the night, as the aroma of clove cigarettes wafted through the soaking wet crowd, and the rain began a more steady patter, a band from Portugal started singing 'heyooo, heyooo, and the crowd sang back in response. It was at this time that I started singing, 'heyooo, i wanna go, heyooo, get me to the van.' But when I finally began the long walk back, I found that there was a parallel universe: A ton of people were relaxing under tents watching big screens and staying dry, and enjoying it more than the wet rats out in front of the stages. D'oh!

Well, we return to this same scene tomorrow night, and I know just where I'll stay. Let's just say no drowned rats regardless of the forecast. I'll try out some of the charcoal cooked chicken satays and other foods that I didn't see until I was walking back to the van. We passed the Presidential Rolls Royce on the way out, being buffed up by an aide. A fleet of white BMWs and motorcycles stood by, waiting to whisk the VIP to wherever he would be staying here in Sarawak during this visit.

Tonight We'll Groove to the Beat of the Rainforest

The Rainforest World Music Festival starts tonight, it takes place at the base of a mountain about forty five minutes from our hotel in Kuching. So far they've sold about 24,000 tickets, at a cost of about $77 for three days of music. It's a big, big deal in Sarawak, even the president of Malaysia, Abdullah, will be making an appearance.

The musicians include groups from Colombia, the Philippines, Poland, Guinea, Congo, Sarawak, Palestine, Greece and many others. It takes place at the Sarawak Cultural village in Santubong.

I am sure that there will be some incredible musical moments, since these bands just don't make it to the States that often, and I love hearing a variety of instruments and the grooves that can come out of unknown minds such as these.

Downstairs they are selling bus tickets to get to the festival, and in the airport we saw many men carrying musical instruments, all heading here to perform. We'll find out what it's all about tonight at dusk when Senida, a local band, takes the stage. Pictured: Kasai Masai, from Congo.

Market People in Kuching

Bidayuh Music Is the Beat Behind These Dancers

The last time I visited Malaysia, I remember the music was one of the highlights of the trip. It was in a market, the tunes blared out and just caught me. On TV early one morning, watching thousands of men circling the Ka'aba at the great mosque in Mecca--a ritual that's part of the Hajj--the music was mesmerizing. I've often tried to find music like this and tonight, some of those magical tunes touched my ears again.

We were watching a show, it was dancing by chambermaids, busboys, front desk clerks and sales agents who work at the hotel. They practice Iban dances to perform at special events like tonight's gathering of more than 200 journalists from around the world for the Rainforest Music Festival. We were at a dinner and they entertained us, coming out wearing glittering tiaras, festive headpieces shaped like wedding cakes, or gold cones, or a red doo-rag. The women smiled as they joyously danced in their sparkling costumes, and the men toted long poles, holding them up as the women danced and swayed beneath them. Bidayuh music was the mesmerizing sound that tied it all together.

After the show, a man in a suit named Bidari came up and said he was the one who puts together the music. He mixes these sounds, some influenced by the Portuguese who traded in Melaka in Western Malaysia, and other songs that are called sea dayak, or land dayak, into a blend that works perfectly for these dancers. I asked him where I could find them...but the answer wasn't a website or an iTunes download. "You have to go to Mahua music, at the Sarawak Plaza, a shopping mall a few miles away," he said.

He asked me how long I had to stay here, and then he said if I could make time he'd take me over to the shop. I asked him if could just burn a CD of the show's tunes, since he's mastered the art of mixing and chopping and I just like how it sounds. But indeed a trip to a Sarawak music store might be a lot more fun than just getting a copy on CD.

An Ironwood Mask, Found Amidst the Dried Fish

I walked out into the humidity and bright sunshine of a Sarawak afternoon. Strolling down the street, I turned onto a street that was all Chinese. Vendors dozed in darkened shops, no lights on, no one asking for sales, but eyeing me over, not friendly, not curious, more like what the hell do you want? I walked on, wanting to shoot photos but not feeling eager, or willing to anger these sleepy shopkeeps.

The stores were tiny, the sidewalk a portico. It felt good to get out of the sun, my eyes still sensitive to light, sunglasses on. I walked up and down the street and then back toward the waterfront. Here there was a mix, more Chinese owned stores but a friendlier bunch, more people wearing headscarves, more dark-skinned Indians with bad teeth but smiles, and lots of shops selling spices and huge baskets of dried fish. There were so many different sized little fish, each a different price, and the customers sifted through the baskets of fish, checking I guess for the ones they liked.

I went into a shop that said antiques, and at the back was a row of carved masks. I found one I liked, and a shopkeep approached me, and told me it was ironwood, and was Iban. I liked this guy's grin and big round eyes, and it felt substantial. "480 ringets," he said. I was curious but at that price, no sale, it was around $150. "For you, I can do a discount. How about $250?" I was interested but walked away. "Well, tell me how much you want to pay," he said. I came back with $100 and at $150, ($50 US) I had my mask.

He will make a great addition to the office, and ward away bad spirits and bad payers. I like that he's made of ironwood, the same wood they make telephone poles with here, sturdy and built to last for years. He will look great up on the wall of the GoNOMAD office.

Why Do They Call The Island Borneo?

We're just back in the hotel after a tour of this lovely city of about 500,000 on the banks of the Sarawak river. This huge island is called Borneo because way back in the 1800s, a British explorer came up the shore and a man was husking a coconut, or a 'Borneo.' Where are we?', he asked, and the man just replied that this was a coconut. Hence the name Borneo, that is the name of the entire island, the third biggest after Greenland and Madagascar.

Most of the land mass on the bottom is now Indonesia, but up here on the top, is Sarawak, see the map here. The air is clear and the humidity high, the lawns are manicured and well taken care of. We drove past China town, and the Malay village, and to a museum where we found stuffed snakes, birds and fish.

Upstairs, we toured an exhibit that showed long houses, the dwellings still favored by the Iban and other tribes in the jungles of Sarawak. Today they have satellite dishes and flush toilets, but back then it was a little more primitive. On the ceiling human skulls were draped in netting, dozens of them, taken by headhunters who did an 1800s version of ethnic cleansing, killing their enemies and putting their skulls up there to be smoked by the fire.

Our guide Ambrose Nalo told us that though he is an Iban, he has no body art, the famous tattoos of his ancestors. These were etched on people's knuckles, they crafted little skulls to indicate how many kills each man could claim, and this attracted Iban women. Today he said you need more like the 'Three Cs: Credit cards, a car and a condo."

Like Australia, this part of the world doesn't feel like it is suffering from the recession and the pains of bad loans, layoffs and a tough economy. Instead, they are building a massive new parliament building, relocating a grimy fish market away from the riverfront and putting in new walkways, and we see condos and new hotels going up. "There is very little crime here," said Ambrose, "we don't have many problems with illegal immigrants since there is no beach front where people might enter."

Of course part of this low crime might have to do with the capital punishment and strict jail time that is meted out for drug smuggling and theft. In today's Borneo Post, a headline said 'Castrate Rapists: Dr Ng' which described a top minister's view on the solution to cut down on rape crimes. Rape is rising significantly here, and this might be the way to stop it, Dr. Ng suggests.

Rainy Kuching is a Diverse Combination of Faiths

We didn't fly over the pole, we headed straight for Stockholm and an hour later were airborne for a tough eleven and a half more hours. Then a little break in KL and after two more hours, we landed in Kuching.

This city is named for the Malay word for cat. Also for a plant name that sounds like a cat. It's at the tip of this sprawling, wild island of Borneo, the capital of the Sarawak province.

We asked our guide about the prevalence of Muslims here, and he surprised us by saying that the province is split, about a third Chinese, a quarter Malay, (Muslim) and the rest among 27 different tribes. "I am Iban," he said. He had dark skin and said that his people used to be animistic but now are mostly Christian. We passed by an Anglican church, and a school just letting out, with uniformed kids pouring out into the street.

"Muslims here are not fanatic," he told us, reaching over to pat the driver on the shoulder. "I can have my beer, and he is ok with that, he is Malay."

So I won't find that wonderful Islamic music that hypnotized me during my last trip to the northern city of Kota Boru I guess. I remember from last time that every meal on Malaysia's famous 'Mega Fams' are giant buffets. They invite hundreds of journalists and VIPs from all over the world, to assemble in a giant hall and hear the latest on tourism here.

In the hotel buffet, Sony and I dug into a wonderful assortment of noodles, crab dishes, calamari and curried chicken, with lots of rice, and water. We'll get used to the water thing, since booze isn't big here.

Time to Fly Again, This Time Across the North Pole

I usually pack for a one-week trip. But last night I stuffed my biggest suitcase fuller than usual because my trip tonight will take me far, far away on the longest non-stop flight you can take. I'll take off from Newark tonight and go over the pole to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Then another flight to Kuching in the heart of the Sarawak province, on the right side of this sprawling republic of nine distinct regions. Click on the map to see where the city is located on the far left.

Malaysia Tourism likes their Megafams. That means hundreds of journalists and tour operators, from all over the world, but most represented will be fellow Islamic countries. We will assemble in a grand hall and hear speeches and encouragement about Sarawak as a great tourist destination. I like being able to meet people from places like Iran, and Syria, and Indonesia, all of whom will no doubt be in attendance.

On my long flight I will be joined by Sony Stark, who will be toting dozens of pounds of video equipment with which she will film the Rainforest World Music Festival, which will bring dozens of musicians out of the jungle and from around the world to this remote island city.

Fly with me, and read along. I promise to introduce you to some fascinating people and places and show you as much of this wild place as I possibly can. It's traveling time again!

Iran Says "Death Penalty for Bloggers" with New Law

I read in Global Voices today that the Iranian Parliament is considering a bill that would put bloggers in the same category as rapists, murderers and thieves and make them eligible for the death penalty.

The bill would 'toughen punishment for disturbing mental security in society' and that 'establishing websites and weblogs promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy' would be added to the long list of crimes punishable by death. In this cartoon, the woman is being told 'don't worry we will execute you legally."

According to the article, Yemen has also threatened to file lawsuits against websites for 'harming national interest, and suggesting death penalties for those who incite hatred.

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Great Work, Well Worth the Commute

Yesterday as I was driving down Rte 5, I passed this truck parked near the exit ramp off of Interstate 91.

I noticed that it had Connecticut plates, and I saw that this guy had parked it there. Here you see his hardworking efforts, he is drawing a sign that he will use later when he stands for hours right at the bottom of the hill, asking drivers for spare change. Who knows what he wrote on the sign? Homeless? Help me Get Home? Please Help Me? Whatever he scribbled must have worked since he drove all of the way up from CT to stand here and beg money from Northampton-bound motorists.

If he makes $10 an hour with this scam, he can pay for this Toyota Pathfinder and maybe have enough to pay the gas all the way back to CT. We passed him today, the truck parked in the same spot and he was out there with a raincoat holding that sign asking for a handout.

Nobody Ever Got a Callous Building a Web Site

This expression cracked me up when I read it on a poster selling power tools. Indeed, my hands don't bear the callouses found on hard-working carpenters, iron workers or painters. But today I did one of the jobs that gives you callouses and it felt great. I painted the front deck of the cafe, which now has the same lovely moss green that we have on our sign.

It was a faded, chipped surface that showed the wood beneath and I took advantage of a rare closed day at the cafe to put on that coat of paint. Some of my customers drove by and saw me there and asked if they could get coffee. I had to say no since that would involve walking on my wet paint.

We have also added a new "Refrigerated Merchandiser" a 35" tabletop unit with a glass front that we'll be putting items like cold noodles, Asian cole slaw and banana creme pie in. The bottom will have chilled bottles of water, and we can make sandwiches ahead of time for those customers who don't want to wait. Monday I'll be around in the morning before I head off for a long trip. Newark to Malaysia, a non-stop flight, then I'll fly across the South China sea to Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo.

A Cunning Raid Yields Freedom in Colombia

News about Colombia always pulls me in, ever since I visited Medellin last April. I am going back in late August to Nuqui, a little beach town in the far north. Yesterday's big news in Colombia and around the world was the raid that freed 15 hostages from the hands of the FARC. It was a brilliant strategy that paid off big.

In the WSJ I read that President Uribe actually told John McCain that he planned the daring rescue while he was visiting. That seems a little risky, to talk about a top secret military operation the day before it happens, but I guess Uribe wanted to share it with his VIP guest.

Colombian military men infiltrated the FARC, and took years planning and figuring out their communications and getting them to trust them. Earlier this week, they sent messages to the guards in a FARC jungle camp that two white, unmarked helicopters were coming, and that they should load the hostages to be moved. The players wore Che Guevara T-shirts, and tied the hostages hands, bundling them forcibly into the helicopters. The hostages thought they were also FARC, and that they were being taken to another camp. "Only after the helicopters were in the air did the captors identify themselves as undercover Colombian military officers, telling the hostages they'd been freed."

Imagine what that must have felt like seeing the undercover guys faces in big grins, telling these 15 that after five years they were going home! The country is obsessed with the problems of the FARC and this great news makes everyone there very proud. In France, where Ingrid Betancourt one of the hostages lives, television channels interrupted programming to broadcast news her release.

Now the FARC has lost its famous leader 'Sureshot' Maulanda and scores of other top level bigs have been killed. They still have 700 more hostages, but the tide is against them and like the Shining Path in Peru, they soon will be extinct.

Gilded Vanity Plates for the Richest in Abu Dhabi

I thought it was a bit of an extravagance when I bought my "GNCAFE" license plates for the cafe truck. Today I realized that I'm in little league when it comes to extravagant plate splurges. In yesterday's WSJ, I read about vanity plates going for millions of dollars in Abu Dhabi.

You know all of that money we're paying for gas? Well, most of it is awash in these desert kingdoms, and now that the sheiks all have Ferraris, the next thing they want are vanity plates. The story by Margaret Coker describes a recent auction, where hundreds of men in starched white robes got together to fight and bid over low-numbered plates. The action takes place in the 64,500 square foot Emirates Palace Hotel, that stretches almost one mile along the sea. As the auctioneer approaches the podium, the theme from "Chariots of Fire" blares over loudspeakers, and the men sip tea and coffee from gold-rimmed cups.

Business man Saeed Khouri scored and made the Guiness Book of World Records when he plunked down $14 million for a tag that simply said '1.' A cousin of his paid $9 million for '5'. In the Emirates, having these auctions is something new, they've been trading plates privately for years. The government hauled in more than 120 million for the 900 plates offered this year. They are building a new trauma hospital for victims, perhaps some of them will be sheiks driving too fast in those Ferraris.

Imagine! Staffers Who Actually Live in Hartford

Colin McEnroe is a blogger and writer for the Hartford Courant. Today he gives a sharp-tongued piece of advice to the folks down there, who just recently suffered through another round of massive layoffs, and must be smarting.

He makes some good points. Among them is that a morning newspaper should have a busy newsroom at 11 pm. Staffers should live in the city they cover. McEnroe can't think of one Courant staffer who actually lives in Hartford! He himself, he admits, is moving out soon too.

He points out that newspaper jobs have become like office work, they lost the romance and urgency and now, reporters and editors want to get home to the suburbs like the rest of us and have a glass of wine and see their kids. But this is death for a newspaper, where 'an elite strike force full of workaholics and night owls' is what you need. You can't just turn in a 9-5 when you're supposed to have your finger on the pulse of a city.

He also questions the idea of turning print reporters into Internet news writers. "It's like dressing a guy up in a lion costume and hoping the other lions will accept him" He suggests hiring crack bloggers, with good video editing skills who can freelance and create really well done internet content.

Why Do So Many Planes Crash in Iran?

Ben Leffell writes on eTN and asked the question: Why are there so many plane crashes in Iran?

It's an epidemic, statisticly speaking, with nine fatal accidents since 2002 and as many as 302 killed in a single flight. eTN has the story. "The maintenance of the aircraft could certainly be an issue.

“The fact is Iran is a country which has been subjected to sanctions for the better part of 30 years. If you don’t have free access to regular trading with the most experienced parts of the world in civil aviation safety, it stands to reason that you won’t have the best equipment available to you,” says David Kaminski-Morrow, deputy news editor of Flight International Magazine.

Some Iranian officials have expressed a similar but more acutely placed sentiment. Managing director of Iran national carrier, Iran Air, Davoud Keshavarzian told the official Iranian news agency IRNA: "Sanctions prevent Iran from purchasing aircraft, even if only 10 percent of the parts are US-made."

Whether or not the US makes it extremely difficult, which they likely do, for Iran to acquire airplane equipment, placing blame on America does not bring back those who perished in the crashes. Furthermore, it must be considered irresponsible to put an aircraft carrying a nation’s military personnel and citizens in the air when the managing director of the national carrier feels he cannot adequately acquire the equipment necessary to fly safely.

Butterworth-Hayes strongly disagrees with Keshavarzian’s point of view.

“The United States is not the only supplier of parts. Europe supplies just as many airplanes now as the US does. A lot of Iran’s infrastructure is based on Russian equipment and Russian equipment can be flown [in] just as safely as American or European equipment. So to blame America is not feasible,” he says. "