Rashid's Blog: A Place for Inquisitive Souls

I know the pictures look too unreal to be true!! But this the Atlantic Road in Norawy, which zigzags across low bridges that jut out over the sea. It  is an 8-kilometre long stretch of road between the towns of Kristiansund and Molde. The Atlantic Road has been awarded the status national tourist route because of the architecture of the road and the bridges, and the incredible coastline it passes through. It is reccomended to visit this place during stormy season as it is most dramatic during that time. It is a good place to visit during calm season also, as there is a good possibility that you might spot whales and seals at this splace. Its definitely in my ‘to do’ list to ride through this amazing place!

In the Africa.com article “The Top 10 Most Livable Cities in Africa”, I was excited to see the city that I currently reside in — Accra, Ghana — listed as the second most livable city in the continent. As you might guess, it’s many of the continent’s main attractions that find themselves on the list — both Cape Town and Johannesburg, in South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Gaborone, Botswana; and Tunis, Tunisia are just some of the upscale cities that find themselves on the list [see the article to read the full list].

One of the challenges I’d like to pose is to the article’s very perspective on “livability” — and how that influences which cities end up on this list. While the editors acknowledge that they considered both quantitative and qualitative factors in their determinations —  “availability of goods and services, quality of infrastructure, and overall security (which is defined both…

Occupy: camping or revolution? Like most things, I came to it late. I saw the London Finsbury Square occupation, and then, the Edinburgh St Andrews Square scene, and later still the Meadows iteration, when it moved on. I didn’t participate, investigate, or even photograph it at the time. It’s only now, a year later, I got around to reading about it properly, spurred by an excellent review of of Occupy-related writings by David Runciman in the LRB. Runciman’s argument revolves around the slogan, ‘We are the 99%’. Too simple, he thinks. A lot of that 99% are actually doing fine, making any substantive action unlikely. A more targeted campaign he thinks is needed; it’s too simplistic, too unfocused to have much chance of succeeding.

I’m inclined to agree. The convulsions of the post-2008 financial crisis were something to behold, but still nothing compared with the supposedly banal decade of the 1970s. If you…