I’m getting closer to getting into Libya – try to keep me out. I’m going to see Leptis Magna, among many other fabulous sites.

It appears that Americans have moved back up the “like” chain. Although after reading though many travel sites to confirm the recent lifting of VISA restrictions for Americans, the general consensus appears to be: Get in quick before they [Libya] change their mind!

USA Today’s analysis: Maybe.

“…experience with the Libyan visa system leads us to believe that there is a high risk that your visa may not be approved and that you will find this out only at the last moment.”

The New York Times reported: Definitely.

“In the case of the visas, the change that resulted in the new policy was based on a real change,” (the United States Embassy opened a visa office in Libya last year for the first time since 1980).

The US State Department website has not caught up with the news. Its most recent update is from April 2009. The Libyan Consulate in Washington DC is even worse with no update since 2007 for Americans wishing to travel there. The boilerplate copy reads:

“Please do not make unchangeable travel plans until you have your visa/passport in hand. We are not responsible for delays in processing visas and passports. Although we will make every effort to processes your applications in a timely manner, no time guarantee can be given.”

Hmmm. I think it’s best to read between the lines for all of these reports. From Travel Weekly: “…loosened tourist visa procedures for most nationalities…” Most, but not all. I’m not seeing this as a lock for Americans.

Just in case you’re ready to go now (and you have the required flexibility) here’s the VISA app. And I don’t even want to inquire about the file name of the download. Bettawfeeq!

Images: Left – gorgon head sculpture in the the Severii Forum of Leptis Magna, and top right – the ancient desert town of Ghadames, © Luca Galuzzi. Lower right – Libyan Desert, © Roberdan. All images from Wikimedia Commons are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

I haven’t conducted a survey in a while. This one seemed timely.

In light of the debates over the potential mosque near Ground Zero, I have questions that I’ve been mulling over about religion, politics and the President of the United States (POTUS).

Along the lines of this: If you were of voting average in 1960, would JFK’s religion, Roman Catholicism, made you more, or less likely to vote for him? How much does the candidate’s religion matter in your voting choices?

Four quick questions to feed my curiosity. You’ll have the results in a few weeks.

Add comments, if you like. Survey is anonymous and for entertainment purposes only.

Forget about doctors, lawyers, investments bankers, editors, and designers. Dime a dozen. Ever wonder what the least common jobs are?

The Huffington Post looked at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) most recent employment and wage data to find out. They came up with 13 uncommon offerings.

Here’s number 8: geographer. Take a look at the full list here.

Image: © Huffington Post / slideshow

With much of the world holidaying, NYC museums have accommodated tourists (and staycation locals) with some great exhibits.

Here’s what piqued my curiosity and is on my radar pre-Labor Day.

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A British Life in a Mountain Kingdom: Early Photographs of Sikkim and Bhutan
@Rubin Museum of Art

The first exhibition of photographs by John Claude White, a British government officer and civil engineer, who spent much of his career stationed in places that one hundred years ago were (and some still remain) shrouded in a veil of mystery: India, Nepal, Sikkim, Tibet and Bhutan.

Tasked with mapping and surveying the regions’ borders, White was clearly intrigued by the mid-19th century “golden age” of mountaineering that saw the first ascents of many Alpine peaks.

Need I say more?

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Underground Gallery: London Transport Posters 1920s–1940s
@Museum of Modern Art

After WWI, striking modern posters transformed the stations of London’s underground railway system into public art galleries.

Posters designed by significant artists like László Moholy-Nagy and Abram Games were the face of a pioneering public transport campaign. It included station architecture, signage, timetables, buses and bus stop shelters, train interiors, upholstery, and even public trash bins. Harry Beck created the iconic Underground map.

Loving it.

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The Bidoun Library Project
@New Museum

Some 700 titles present an account of five decades of printed matter in, near, about, and around the Middle East. including pulp fictions and propaganda, monographs and guidebooks, and pamphlets and periodicals. Subjects range from the oil boom to the Dubai bust, the Cold War to the hot pant, and revolutionaries to royals.

This exhibit gets the full white glove treatment, literally, due to the sensitive nature of handling the materials.

Looks like an adventure.

An interesting exhibits worth sharing?

Images: © Rubin Museum of Art; © Museum of Modern Art; © New Museum

Now here’s an inventive ad campaign. It works on the idea: How far will someone go for freebies?

Rocks Off has been operating concert cruises in New York Harbor for 10 years. Recently, the company began offering five pairs of tickets to anyone who will get a tattoo of the company’s name or fish logo. In addition to the free tattoo, in exchange for the five-set, one lucky tattoo fan will win a ticket to as many cruises as they want – for life.

Come on, what’s a four-inch square of your skin in exchange for that? (I couldn’t locate any clauses stating that the tattoo had to be inked in a conspicuous spot on the participants.)

According to owner Jake Szufnarowski, “We already have 14 people who have made appointments.” The man who is no stranger to tattoos and has been described as “a hard-rockin’ crazy-ass tattooed mutha,” says he’s hoping that 100 people will take up his offer.

Mr Szufnarowski claims the indelible ads are more cost-effective than a quarter-page in the Village Voice. Ah, but will the human billboards have the same reach? I guess its bearers will need to circulate – a lot.

Not so fast – here are the details in case you’re interested.

So are you up for it? How far have you gone for freebies?

Forget Doppler 5000 for weather updates, simply go to Google Earth 5.2.

Google Earth’s newest update for the clouds layer projects images of rain and snow over the areas with that weather.

While it’s only available for precipitation tracking over North America and some parts of Europe thus far, it’s very cool. Google Earth has offered weather updates since 2007 – but now it’s in real time, and gets updated as it actually happens. Meaning you can track weather patterns, nor’easters or hurricanes and watch them as they move across the map.

For virtual weather junkies, this one’s for you.

Image: © Google Earth

How is happiness quantified?

Ask the researchers at the Gallup World Poll. Between 2005 and 2009, they surveyed thousands of people in 155 countries in order to measure two types of well-being.

The key questions to respondents: How would they rate their lives on a scale from zero to 10 (worst to best), and thoughts on positive or negative emotions.

Subjects used a “life evaluation” score to rank overall satisfaction. Next, each subject was asked about the previous day. How were their “daily experiences:” were they well-rested, respected, autonomous, intellectually engaged? Subjects that reported high scores were considered “thriving.”

Last may, the curious g started following the happiness meter in Come on – get happy. While the US is the richest nation on earth, it didn’t make the top 10 in either data crunch. Data indicated that the relationship between overall life satisfaction and wealth isn’t as straightforward as was previously thought. Wealth may go a long way in contributing to positive life experiences, but money can’t buy happiness. Consider:

• Long-term happiness – when associated with income, provided comfort for a particular kind of well-being – one’s successes and future prospects.
• Day-to-day happiness – when associated with how one’s psychological and social needs are met – isn’t necessarily tied to income.

A Forbes.com look at the poll, which closed in 2009, still found northern Europe blissfully happy.

“The Scandinavian countries do really well,” says Jim Harter, a chief scientist at Gallup. “One theory why is that they have their basic needs taken care of to a higher degree than other countries. When we look at all the data, those basic needs explain the relationship between income and well-being.”

That’s one way to measure happiness. Stay tuned for another way in a future post.

How do you measure your happiness?

Table adapted from Forbes.com, complete table here.

Huge news for pending space tourists: Virgin Galactic’s planned space flights took another step toward reality last week, flying with a crew aboard!

This story piqued my curiosity last December in Space available, followed by the mothership update. I’ve been curiously watching Virgin Galactic’s trajectory for its space tourism program.

Last week, on 16 july 2010, the VSS Enterprise successfully flew its mission with two crew members. The spaceship remained attached to VMS Eve, its captive ship, for the duration of the 6 hours+ flight and numerous system tests were conducted. The two crew members, Peter Siebold and Michael Alsbury, evaluated all of the spaceship’s systems and functions – in the air.

Congratulations to the Virgin Galactic team! While they’re a bit behind schedule from their original estimates (that is, to be space-bound late 2009 or early 2010), these are still very exciting times.

Note that there’s still time to book with your local accredited space agent. You will, of course, be on the waiting list.

How does a country that only gave up its “absolute monarchy” status in 2008 (because its then leader, King Jigme, insisted) transition to the 21st century?

Slowly, very slowly.

Bhutan is a landlocked country in South Asia bordered primarily by India. Bhutan is unique: it measures its success by GNH (Gross National Happiness) instead of GNP (Gross National Product).

Priorities are different there: Thimpu, Bhutan is still the world’s only capital city without a traffic light. When in public, the Bhutanese are required to wear the national dress – a gho for a man, and a kira for woman. And archery is the national sport.

With the introduction of TV and Internet in the late 90s, modernity is creeping in. While outsiders want to preserve the tiny “Shangra-la,” many Bhutanese want to live in step with the rest of world. The reigning Miss Bhutan is one of them. Call the border police world, Tsokye Tsomo Karchung is grossly happy, breaking out and taking Bhutan with her. Read all about it.

Images: Bhutanese flag is in the public domain; Tsokye Tsomo Karchung, © Kama Jerry via The Wall Street Journal.

Fifty years ago, Harper Lee wrote To Kill A Mockingbird. The novel was published on 11 july 1960. It immediately became a best-seller, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961, and was made into an Academy Award-winning film in 1962.

The novel has never gone out of print and 11 july 2010 is its golden jubilee.

I saw the film in 1965, I watched it on TV with my father. While I was very young, I’ll never forget the haunting nature of the film. It made an impression on me in so many ways: the opening credit sequence showing the ordinariness of a childhood – about to be shattered, meeting Atticus and Scout (what young girl didn’t want to be Scout?) and becoming an intimate observer of their father-daughter relationship.

It wasn’t until about four years later that I would read the book for the first time, and truly understand the power behind the film. The book opened up a new world of reading for me and the film was the basis for my love of that medium.

To Kill A Mockingbird is a book filled with indelible characters dealing with race and prejudice, parenting and childhood, love and loneliness, and the moral dilemmas and injustices in the world. I read it in the late 60s. In some ways, it was similar to my life and the racial tensions exploding in Philadelphia and around the country at that time.

“I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.” – Scout

Scout (Jean Louise Finch) is the narrator. It’s from her point of view that we see the events of the summer of 1933 unfolding. She’s questioning the inexplicable and trying to make sense of the right and wrong of the world, and figure out herself – in the only way a six-year old can.

Harper Lee helped many people think differently – or at least think – about race and prejudice. It’s a testament to her novel that on 11 july, celebrations will be held worldwide.

I still have my beat up, yellowed, paperback copy of To Kill A Mockingbird. It was printed in 1962 and the pages have come loose from the spine. It will have to disintegrate for me to let it go.

Listen to this NPR feature about the book’s 50th anniversary.

Photo: © 2010 Janet Giampietro / 1962 paperback, To Kill A Mockingbird.