luapo |
December 31, 2011
Officials in Colombia’s second-largest city on Monday inaugurated a giant, outdoor escalator for residents of one of its poorest neighborhoods.
For generations, the 12,000 residents of Medellin’s tough Comuna 13, which clings to the side of a steep hillside, have had to climb hundreds of large steps authorities say is the same as going up a 28-story building. Now they can ride an escalator Medellin’s mayor says is the first massive, outdoor public escalator for use by residents of a poor area.
“It turned out very well,” said Mayor Alonso Salazar, adding that he has not heard of any such project elsewhere in this world.
Salazar said officials from Rio de Janeiro plan to visit Medellin to see if such an escalator would work in that city’s favelas, which also cling precariously to hillsides.
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luapo |
December 27, 2011
Like the Devil Himself, the middle finger bears many names and adopts many guises. There’s the “single-digit salute” favored by punk rockers and rebellious celebrities. Or the “expressway digit,” a remarkable single-sign code by which California drivers communicate their complex emotions. It’s also known as “the bird,” a poor symbolic avian that is endlessly flipped and flicked. It can be displayed statically, waggling and waving, thrusting with rage, or drooping dispassionately from the hand of a rapper.
Long before punk rock and eight-lane highways, the middle finger was known as the digitus impudicus or digitus infamis (indecent or infamous digit) by Romans and medieval Europeans. Augustus Caesar once booted an entertainer for giving a heckler the finger. And the lunatic emperor Caligula — famed for such crimes as wearing women’s clothes and murdering indiscriminately — was said to have habitually offered his digitus infamis to be kissed by his enemies, just to flaunt his imperial disdain. Until, of course, one of those enemies stabbed Caligula in the neck.
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