manunderstress.com

My favorite destinations of 2007.

The Yucatán Peninsula. Tacos, Mayan ruins, Topes, Mennonite colonies, pristine beaches.

Abandoned military hospital Beelitz-Heilstätten, outside of Berlin.

Christopher Hitchens couldn’t even make it through 5 minutes of the Daily Show without diverting a discussion about the meritlessness of religion into real life religion n’ drinkin’ stories. Although it seems like everyone has a God Bashing book out right now, and I think that is fabulous, as it’s rare that someone dares to challenge all-the-worlds-gods, while so drunk. Don’t forget Hitch will be taking on the Bible Belt right here in the ATL in a couple of weeks. Bring your lil’ nippers of moonshine to make the night real fun…

Researching a potential Chernobyl disaster vacation I came across more pictures this time, along with very haunting graffiti that has gone up, apparently for the 20th anniversary last April, silhouettes of children playing and other spooky but insanely poignant images. There are pictures of the abandoned town of Pripyat, and the graffiti, both on the BBC site, and the 26-04-1986.com site. There’s a lot of interesting stuff on flickr, and don’t miss Phil Coomes photos.

The first reactor exploded (became an unstable mass of white hot nuclear goo) at 0123 Saturday, April 26, 1986. According to the BBC:

Most people spent the Saturday outside, enjoying the unusually warm spring weather. Sixteen weddings took place.

The town was only evacuated 36 hours after the accident, while the evacuation of nearby villages took several more days.

Almost sounds like FEMA managed the disaster…

I’ve always dug the culture jamming ethos, as bratty and hypocritical as it can sometimes be, because it’s so often really fucking clever. Nothing blows my dress up like good satire. Jean-Christian Bourcart gets it right with his incredibly impressive guerrilla art photography project of images of Iraqi dead projected on unsuspecting suburban houses and churches. You may have already seen it if you read Boing Boing, but this project just struck something deep within…simply awesome.

See the photos section for some stuff from the Dominican Republic and Cuba.