{"id":1860,"date":"2003-12-20T11:44:37","date_gmt":"2003-12-20T15:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/dbnews\/2003\/12\/20\/why-the-state-department-needs-an-rss-"},"modified":"2003-12-20T11:44:37","modified_gmt":"2003-12-20T15:44:37","slug":"why-the-state-department-needs-an-rss-feed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/2003\/12\/20\/why-the-state-department-needs-an-rss-feed\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the State Department Needs an RSS Feed"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n
\n

The tragedy which is Colombia continues. Although the sorry oozing
\n sores of humanity spot the globe in the pestilent puss of poverty and
\n warfare, the Colombian situation hits close to home as this is one of
\n the most beautiful places the Dowbrigade has ever been fortunate enough
\n to visit, live and work in.<\/em><\/p>\n

Among other groups, the Dowbrigade spent time with the Guambiano Indians
\n in southern Colombia, high in the mountains behind the town of Silvia,
\n renowned for its magic mushrooms and weekly market, where the Guambianos
\n descend, sometimes walking for days, from the tiny towns and farms to
\n trade and drink.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nature is abundant in Colombia, and much less tamed than in North America,
\n bursting forth in awesome splendor and variety, dominating the landscape.
\n The land itself is rich and fertile; anything will grow. For better or
\n worse that includes coca, poppies, pot, and a wider cornucopia of indigenous
\n botanical intoxicants than found anywhere else on the planet, with the
\n possible exception of a few isolated and largely unexplored river basins
\n in the Amazon region.<\/em><\/p>\n

The fresh fruit and vegetables are incredible.  The culture is
\n a fascinating mix of Native American roots overlain with Latin Catholicism
\n and Caribbean Reggae. The people are friendly and engaging, and in general,
\n like Americans. These days, as hostages.<\/em><\/p>\n

All of these factors make the Dowbrigade very sad that he can’t
\n go back to some of his favorite haunts in Colombia.  Tourism used to be
\n their second largest source of income, wedged between Cocaine and Coffee. Now
\n you’ve got to be suicidal to go there.<\/em><\/p>\n

The last time the Dowbrigade was
\n in Colombia, 23 years ago, he was assaulted and shaken down twice in
\n one day, and was forced to ingest 10 grams of gooey Colombian hashish
\n before barely escaping with his passport and the emergency $100 bill
\n stashed in his secret compartment on the last Dog out of Town (the last
\n bus -grayhound- out of Popillon, known as the White City, in Southern
\n Colombia) for the Ecuadorian border. We
\n don’t remember much of the trip after that, but we somehow ended up on
\n a beach
\n in Northern
\n Peru
\n three days
\n later.<\/em><\/p>\n

So it was with sadness if not surprise that we read the following:<\/em><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 The State Department issued a new warning on Friday
\n against travel to Colombia, saying Americans and other foreigners faced
\n an increased threat of being killed or kidnapped in major urban areas.<\/p>\n

Twenty-seven Americans have been abducted in various parts of Colombia
\n since 2000, most of them by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
\n and the National Liberation Army, two Marxist rebel groups, the State
\n Department said.<\/p>\n

Which brings up another thought. Wouldn’t it be nice if the State
\n Department had an RSS feed for all of its travel and terrorism advisories,
\n so they
\n could pop up in our aggregators mere minutes after they are issued? These
\n days, with frequent travel and quick changes in security status, this
\n would be a very useful service. To whom do you suppose such a suggestion
\n should be addressed?<\/em><\/p>\n

from the
\n New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The tragedy which is Colombia continues. Although the sorry oozing sores of humanity spot the globe in the pestilent puss of poverty and warfare, the Colombian situation hits close to home as this is one of the most beautiful places … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1443],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esl-links"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}