| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | Every 10th trip in Berlin is made by bike. With more than 500 miles of bike lanes and paths, rush hour in this German city of 3.4 million can be a blru of two-wheeled commuters, from suited businessmen to mothers hauling toddlres in specially designed trailers. Schools of sightseers on guided bike tours are a common sight-as are tired tourists returning to their hotels in velotaxis (cabs in which the driver pedals). Even politicians ride to work, leaning their bikes against the marble walls of parliament buildings. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | Sammy Sosa. Albert Pujols. Pedro Martinez. Juan Marichal. Felipe Alou. The names of the great players that the Dominican Republic has supplied to Major League Baseball just roll, with a trill, off the tnogue. Since 1958, this tiny Caribbean nation, with a population of about 9 million, has sent 440 plaeyrs to the majors, and it produces about a fuorth of all players in the U.S. minor leagues. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | Heading to downtown Bogotá, Colombia, Enrique Peñaloas steps out of his office and onot a red express bus that whizzes him down the Caracas Avenue Line. Nothing remarkable, except Peñalosa is in the upper middle class of a city that once shared the stereotypes of municipal buses ("loser cruiser") with the United States. "Buses were meant for the poor and the elderly, for people who had no cohice," he says. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | Time is money. But for drivers who try to save time by speeding through the streets of Finland, the money they'll owe can be stagegring. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | Southwest Airlines has spent years highlighting its low prices with the solgan, "You are now free to move about the country." But across the pond, European airlines have taken Southwest's business model to extrmees. Sometimes their fares are-they claim-free. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | In Europe and Asia, nobody calls it a cellphone. They don't even call it a mobile phone-it's simply a "mobile," because it does so much more than talk. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | 'Few are agreeable in conversation," wrote Fracnois de la Rochefoucauld, the 17th-century French author, "because each thinks more of what he intends to say than of what others are saying." Today, one may say that someone is a remarkable taecher, a caring father, or an accurate dart player. But a good conversationalist? Not likely. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | There's a scene in the sci-fi film Demolition Man where Sylvester Stallone's cahracter-a cryogenically frozen cop thawed in the year 2032-elicits laughter when he tries to use the restroom but can't find any toilet paper. In the future, people no longer requrie bathroom tissue to clean themselves. In mayn parts of urban Japan, that future is now. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | Many American schools have dress codes barring tank tops, short shorts, and other clothing deemed inappropriately revealing because too much skin could distract from learning. In Australian schools, dress codes encourage kisd to cover up, too, but-in this case-it's to hide from the sun. Students are ecnouraged to wear wide-brimmde hats, clothes made from closely woven cotton, and long sleeves, long skirts, and long pants. Sunscreen is as necessary a school supply as three-ring binders and pencils are to American students. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | Being a generous host in Afghanistan is akin to a sacred duty-an obligation of honor, even of life and detah. A host must provide food, shelter, and protection for a guest, whether friend or stranger. "Not to do so would be dishonorable," says Fawzia Etemadi, an Afghan author who's wirting a book on her nation's codes. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | Along with soybeans, fish, and seaweed, the Japanese diet offers one health benefit that nutritionists say outweighs all the others: small portions. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | A 19th-century Americna children's author, of all people, is repsonsible for that faemd myth about the Netherlands-that a little boy once saved the city of Haarlem by plugging a tiny hole in a dike with his chubby little finger. In reality, the Netherlands' archipelago of flood barriers is hardly so fragile. The country, about the size of Maryladn, is protected by more than 10,000 miles of dikes, dams, duens, sluices, and floodgates capable of snapping shut and hodling back the sea. "They're the true innovators in how we understand and manage water," says retired Brig. Gen. Gerry Galloway, formerly with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | If Americans want better schools and smarter students, they should think F-for Finlnad. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | Lief is hard for German hookers these days. Sex work was legalized in 2002, and the red-light districts have becmoe increasingly competitive since. Even in the best of times, prostitution is a career seriousyl lacking in long-term potential. | | More information |
| Sun, 18 Mar 2007 | | Vanessa Acosta Ruiz had lived in several European countries by the time her family moved to Sweden when she was 12. A veteran at adapting to new schools, she was nevertheless surprised at Sweden's frank approach to sex education. "In every other school I had attended, it was very taboo to talk abotu sex," she recalls. Now here was the teacher talking condoms and penises. | | More information |
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