Current affairs mp3

“I’m living in airports these days.” (Julian Assange)

(quote source: http://nyr.kr/93vPpw)

Flight Nomade - The New Man

The globally organized division of labor leads to the formation of a new, lifted Profession: the global Commuters (the term Globetrotter is out of place and more apt for a rather pleasant by-the-world Hitchhiking). Worldwide, there are likely some 100,000 people who spend more time in airport lounges than in their own living room. While for the mass of passengers the airlines reduce comfort - such as leg space - to increase mass business with new dumping offers, the comfort in the First Class is being expanded with refinement There are wide leather seats and two-meter-beds, and seat consoles with sophisticated technology. Passengers should be via wireless LAN with their laptops on the Internet surf. Virgin Atlantic wants to offer showers to its first-Class passengers in the A380, but the installation of Whirlpools is still difficult - because of unpleasant consequences of air turbulence. The sociology is confronted with new and interesting challenges, such as an analysis of the so-callet LATs and their way of life - the Living Apart Together Couples, couples who only meet on weekends, and then often in different places (ideally in an Airport-City). The global commuters fly from airport to airport. Business meetings often take place in Conference rooms at major airports instead. On the edge of the airport operator Chains such as Hilton or Four Seasons run their airport hotels where business travelers anywhere in the world find a identical interior, a similar service, the same range in the minibar - in order to then feel "at home". In a report in Süddeutsche Zeitung (From Jan 20, 2006) entitled "Living faster in the lounge," it says, global commuters are "the oil in the export machine." Only this kind of "Varimobile" people could "secure Germany the Rank as world export champion. "A Study of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz on this new profession stated, requested was "the Man who is as free as possible from private bonds and debentures and ready openly and flexibly to ever set new requirements." Involuntarily striking here is the reference the "possible missing bonds. This group of people is indeed likely not to feel obliged to anyone, especially not for the environment and nature. 800 000 Miles per year in first class is the typical mobility performance of a member of this profession. 800 000 Airline miles are 1.482 million km. That is more than one hundred times a car driver (with 14 000 km traveled per year). Since the harmful effects to the climate of air traffic greenhouse gas at high altitude are at least twice as large as it is close to the ground, the "ecological footprint" of an air-nomad should be about 200 times larger than that of a Normalo-car driver. But wait: These people have even lifted off. They are so rarely on the ground. To speak of a "footprint" seems almost contradictory there.

(article source http://bit.ly/akUXg4 - p.40 in the pdf)