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Venice is sinking very slowly -only about two inches every 100 years. But worse, the Adriatic sea is rising around Venice as well. A proposed plan to save the Italian city involves “inflating” its porous foundation with sea water to raise the whole town about a foot. Forty billion gallons of water would need to be pumped! Read more about the plan at National Geographic News. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!
(Image credit: Jim Richardson/National Geographic)
Photo: Hugo!/Flickr
No, that's not a photo of a flooded village. Rather, it's of the city of Ganvié in the Republic of Benin, which calls itself "The Venice of Africa." Kuriositas has the details on the history of this curious city:
At the beginning of the seventeenth century the country was called Dahomey and was one of the most powerful states in West Africa. The major ethnic and linguistic group was the Fon and they had made a deal with the Portuguese. Rather than their own people being captured and sold in to slavery they made a contract with the Portuguese to hunt and sell tribes people from smaller ethnic groups.
The Fon warriors were numerous and powerful and there was little other groups of people could do to defend themselves against this onslaught. Then, someone among the Tofinu people came up with an idea. Their name is lost to history but one wise person realized that they could take advantage of the religious practices of their
The Fon were forbidden by their religion to advance upon and water bound settlement. Any groups of people who lived on water were, by the law of the Fon, safe. Lake Nokoué is simply immense. Ganvié was established as a means to escape being sold in to a lifetime’s slavery and shipped across the world in appalling conditions. No wonder its name means the collectivity of those who found peace at last. The alternative translation is the much more to the point We Survived.enemy.
Link - via Look At This
Link – via Diskursdisko
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Update 3/5/09 by Alex – Fixed to point to original link
Old: When life gives you lemons, make a lemonade. New: When Venice floods, go wakeboarding.
That’s exactly what Duncan Zuur did at St. Mark’s Square:
Duncan Zuur’s team pulled a compact, 20 horsepower motor winch from its hiding place and placed it under the square’s arches. One team member, clad in rubber boots, pulled the winchs cable about 120 metres across the square and pressed one end firmly into the hand of Duncan Zuur, who had taken the opportunity to get into his wakeboarding gear. Four elegant turns later, the event was over prompting by a standing ovation from an astounding crowd of tourists.
And luckily for Duncan, the police didn’t even notice.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Newslite
