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September 11, 2001
quick report from DC, new listserv for discussing attack
I just wanted to give a quick report from downtown DC. Most of us at the
Benton Foundation evacuated our building, which is at 18th and K street,
three or four blocks from the white house. We received word of the attacks
on the World Trade center building around 9am, having to rely on portable
radios since our Internet connection froze as people tried to find more
information. The majority of Benton staff were out of the building by 10am.
The streets are filled with people briskly walking away from downtown,
trying to get their cell phones to work. It's not a panic situation by any
means - just lots of people determined to get the hell out of there. Some
people are clearly shaken, and are being comforted by friends and strangers
alike. The streets are completely jammed with cars as people try to get out
of the city. Since lots of us at our office usually take the metro to work
(which has been shut down, along with all other commuter trains), those of
us who lived within walking distance offered to bring home other people who
would be stranded downtown.
We're now back at my Dupont Circle apartment, two miles due north of the
Pentagon. We can't see smoke from our balcony, which is surprising
considering the extent of the damage we've seen on TV so far.
I've set up a listserv, sept11info, for people wanting to talk about today's
attack. You can join the list by going to this address:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sept11info
or by sending an email to sept11info-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
Please feel free to pass on this information.
I will do my best to report on any news here in DC, but let us all hope and
pray that the worst is over now. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone
who's being affected by this insanity....
Posted by acarvin at 03:48 PM | TrackBack
September 01, 2001
Summer Nights in Havana
This summer, Susanne and I managed to spend a few days in Havana. Susanne was there shooting footage for a National Geographic TV project, while I was conducting research on the slow growth of public Internet access in Cuba. Despite the fact that it was a brief trip, we managed to spend a bit of time absorbing the sights and sounds of Havana. It's a fascinating city, perhaps the best preserved old Spanish colonial town in the Americas. Hopefully, it'll become easier for Americans to travel there as tourists, but I'd hate for the sudden surge of US travelers to change the character of this fascinating city. (I can just see the McDonald's and Starbucks popping up on every corner to cater to US visitors - Ugh!)
While in Havana, Susanne and I took lots of pictures. The highlights of these pictures can be found in my online Havana photo journal. Be sure to check out the photos of the Tropicana nightclub, with its legendary dance show that harkens back to Havana's 1950s heyday of beachfront casinos and Meyer Lansky....