Monday, January 24, 2011

Teaching moments

Voyeurism was never like this. There is reality-TV (dubbed "human zoo" by some), YouTube and its many imitators and all of the cameras that come with our cell phones. There is also tourism. Americans have trooped to old Europe for years and treat it pretty much as a museum. Eco-tourism is similar and, again, offers the charm of peeking at "the natives." Want to see farmers farm the old-fashioned way? Travel to a country where it is not yet mechanized.

So it's almost inevitable that we get stories like this one in today's WSJ: "Japan's Belching Smokestacks Draw Industrial-Strength Sightseers ... Kojo Moe Fans are Infatuated By Factories; Night Cruise Past Steel Plants."

How else to explain to the kids that grandpa (and perhaps grandma) used to toil in one of these (though not as modern) eons ago?