Friday, August 31, 2007

Sunken Treasure

Below is my comment on the article of "Sunken Treasure", TIME dated on September 3, 2007.



Almost every day and night, I see at least several horrifying news about endangering earth environments caused by global warming in newspapers, magazines and other news media these days. Your article on coral reefs is one of them.

But this time you gave me a glimpse of hope by showing the fact that tens of hundreds of volunteers as scuba divers have made a tremendous efforts to gather vital information on dying coral reefs for about ten years to rescue them with a sense of mission and love. As long as there are volunteers like them to seek for truth, I believe our earth and human beings would not perish in vain.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Voluntourism- Is it good or bad?

Below is my comment on the article of "Vacationing like Brangelina", TIME dated on August 13, 2007.

“Seeing is believing”. Volunteer work is not the exception for this old cliché. I believe that many people around the world want to help those who need help in the developing countries, but cannot do so because of time, money and other constraints they have in relation to their family matters and company responsibilities.
In this sense, volunteer tourism could give them a glimpse of harsh realities of volunteer works through some intensive works in the tour in such developing countries as Uganda, Cambodia and Thailand if they participate in it with shorter time and lesser money than they actually get into volunteer work.
I understand the critic’s saying that combining volunteer work and sightseeing is very difficult. But the important thing is to move forward to build better environments for troubled communities on earth if only a little. Voluntourism could help for that.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

The Price of Anonymity on the web society

Below is my comment on the article of "The Price of Anonymity" , TIME dated on July 30, 2007.


Generally speaking, anonymity is the norm of the Internet society these days except when you are required or willing to disclose your true name and other personal data to the net shops where you buy something or to the authorities where you pay tax for example. It gives us freedom of speech without having any fear of being attacked by others.

In your article on the price of Anonymity, I was very impressed that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey taught us how influential your anonymous postings on the internet could be used to let people believe your way of thinking if you could keep it going so long. However, he also taught us a future risk of being humiliated or even sued by others in case of an unexpected disclosure of your identity. Be careful of your high social status whenever you use your handle name with fun on the web!

Labels: