I suppose this week will go down in travel-writing history as the week of the TKA. In case you've been at the South Pole all week, that would be the Thomas Kohnstamm affair. The whole fiasco prompted all stages of grief in the travel-writing world: shock, denial, anger, despair, and, finally, acceptance -- sort of. Aaron, Jeffrey and Justin covered the scandal, and if you'd like a play-by-play, read the following posts:

• Lonely Planet writer admits he never visited country he wrote about
• 5 reasons to be outraged by the Lonely Planet fraud
• Thoughts on the Lonely Planet scandal: guidebooks are a sham
• 'Unethical' Lonely Planet writer not unethical at all, though he wants us to think so for the sake of promoting his own book
• Choice reviews of Lonely Planet: Columbia from Amazon.com
• Does Thomas Kohnstamm deserve an apology?
• Rest in peace, Lonely Planet scandal: a final note from Thomas Kohnstamm

Other stuff happened this week, too. Here are a few examples:

• Grant flew Virgin America -- read his review of the airline here.
  
• Aaron discussed whether or not it's okay to hire a servant in a foreign country.
  
• The Dalai Lama visited Seattle.
  
• Jamie told us how to get a great deal on theatre tickets by waiting for "rush" tickets.
  
• And, of course, we got the news that Delta and Northwest are officially going to merge.
  

Hope you have a scandal-free weekend.

We reported earlier today on a Lonely Planet writer named Thomas Kohnstamm who admitted to making up large parts of his books, and also said that he had never even been to Colombia, a country he covered for the guidebook series. In case this guy's behavior hasn't already pissed you off, here's five reasons why it should.

5. His sickening sense of entitlement. Kohnstamm's complaint that LP doesn't pay its writers enough might be well-founded. I've certainly never seen any of the guidebook writers I know driving Ferraris or polishing their bling. But to sabotage your employer because you believe you're underpaid is stupid. There are literally thousands of people who would love to write for LP, and I'm sure no one was holding a gun to this guy's head to write these guidebooks. If he didn't like the terms of employment, he should have quit and let LP find somebody else. It wouldn't be hard.

4. His shameless self-promotion. In an amazing coincidence, Kohnstamm is set to release a new book next week called Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism. The book, from what I can tell, is the story of how Kohnstamm manages to embody every bad stereotype about travelers there is, and he comes off sounding like a complete boor who's just dying to tell the world about his unbelievably cool life. Here's an excerpt:

"The waitress suggests that I come back after she closes down the restaurant, around midnight. We end up having sex in a chair and then on one of the tables in the back corner. I pen a note in my Moleskine that I will later recount in the guidebook review, saying that the restaurant 'is a pleasant surprise . . . and the table service is friendly.'"

You had sex with a girl? In a foreign country?! Cool!

It's worth mentioning that his shameless self-promotion is working. News outlets like CNN, Reuters, and many others have picked up the story, always including the name of his new book in their articles. And there's a picture of it above. More proof that the most effective kind of self-promotion is the purely shameless variety.

3. He undoubtedly led travelers astray. LP reps say they haven't found any mistakes in Kohnstamm's books yet. Well, keep looking. Kohnstamm claims he made up large parts of his books, so it's likely there are quite a few inaccuracies to be found. Tellingly, the author never appears to consider that people are counting on the schedules and recommendations he's supposed to provide.

Spending the night in a train station because your guidebook messed up the departure times is far from the end of the world. But it also shouldn't be written off as simply "part of the experience," especially if it could be easily avoided.

Most people who have taken guidebooks on the road realize that they're bound to contain a few inaccuracies. But did you ever consider that the guidebook's author had never even been to the place he wrote about?

An Australian newspaper reported this weekend that a Lonely Planet guidebook writer named Thomas Kohnstamm has admitted to fabricating large parts of his books. The writer even copped to not having actually visited Colombia, a country he covered for the well-known guidebook publisher.

So how did Kohnstamm write the Colombia guidebook without visiting the country first? "I got the information from a chick I was dating-- an intern at the Colombian consulate," says Kohnstamm. "They didn't pay me enough to go to Colombia. I wrote the book in San Francisco."

Kohnstamm also confesses that he plagiarized large parts of the guidebooks, and accepted free meals and lodging on the road, a clear violation of LP policy.

The author covered a number of countries for Lonely Planet, including Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, the Caribbean, and Colombia. Well, maybe not Colombia. The big-wigs over at Lonely Planet say they're scrutinizing everything Kohnstamm has written for them, but have not yet found any mistakes.

No mistakes? Hmm, that does sound fishy.

(Thanks, Neil!)

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More Gadling writers sound off on the Lonely Planet problem:

• 5 reasons to be outraged by the Lonely Planet fraud
• Thoughts on the Lonely Planet scandal: Guidebooks are a sham
• 'Unethical' Lonely Planet author not really that unethical after all, though he wants us to think so for the sake of promoting his own book
• Choice reviews of Lonely Planet: Colombia from Amazon.com
• From World Hum: Read an interview with Thomas Kohnstamm.
• Does Thomas Kohnstamm deserve an apology?

A new study [pdf] by three researchers purports to show that soccer players in European leagues who come from countries with histories of civil war are more likely to play violently on the field, as measured by their tendency to get yellow and red cards. Check out the chart here-- and notice that the two countries nearly off the grid are Colombia and Israel.

So does growing up in a violent country mean you'll be a dirtier soccer player? Well, not necessarily. There are, of course, a couple problems with the study:

• As any Stat 101 student knows, correlation does not imply causality. Perhaps the soccer played in certain countries-- Colombia, Israel, Ivory Coast, Georgia-- is just more physical than the soccer in Europe.
• Maybe the referees are biased.
• Maybe the players are getting yellow cards for diving rather than hard tackles.
• Maybe a lot of things.

Despite these apparent problems, I find the study ingenious and fascinating. As the study says: "Beyond providing a novel real-world measure of individuals' willingness to commit acts of violence, this finding indicates that some aspects of national culture are persistent even when individuals are far from home in a different institutional setting, here, a professional sports league."

More here.

I've whipped out my International Calendar to see what might be left to tell about November before it slips away from Eastern Standard Time in a few hours. What I see is a whole lot of independence days and a slew of other politically geared occasions.

• Nov. 1--Antigua-Barbuda gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1980.
• Nov. 3--Dominica gained independence from the UK in 1978. Panama gained Independence from Colombia in 1903 and Micronesia gained independence from the U.S. in 1980.
• Nov. 9--Cambodia gained independence from France in 1953.
• Nov. 11--Poland gained independence in 1918; Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
• Nov. 18--Latvia gained independence from Russia in 1918; Morocco from France in 1956.
• Nov. 25--Suriname gained independence
• Nov. 28--Mauritania gained Independence from France in 1968 and Albania gained Independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, Panama gained independence from Spain in 1821 and East Timor gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
• Nov. 30-Barbados gained independence from the U.K. in 1966

Other than these, Tonga has had Constitution Day (Nov. 4); Russia, Revolution Day (Nov. 7); Brazil, Republic Day (Nov. 15); and Vanuatu has had National Unity Day, (Nov. 29)

My favorite happening of the bunch of events that occurred this month, though, is the Surin Elephant Round-Up in Thailand.

Almost 200 passengers are suspected dead after the TAM airlines Airbus-320 (en route to Sao Paulo from Porto Alegre in southern Brazil) skidded on the rain-slicked runway in Sao Paulo and slammed into a gas station and TAM building yesterday, USA Today reports.

This is apparently the second major airline disaster in Brazil within a year. In September, 154 died when a Gol Aerolinhas Inteligentes SA Boeing 737 and an executive jet collided over the Amazon rain forest.

There have been questions about the country's underfunded air traffic control systems, deficient radar system and the airlines' ability to cope with a surge in travelers. Also, the length of the runway at Sao Paulo's airport has been repeatedly criticized for being too short (it is 6,365 feet, compared with a 7,003-foot runway at New York's LaGuardia Airport, which accommodates similar planes) and two planes slipped off it in rainy weather just a day earlier, though no one was injured in either incident.

Plus, yesterday in Colombia, a passenger plane skidded off a wet runway and into the Caribbean Sea.

Seriously, if a wet runway is all it takes, I am worried.

Three more days and summer is officially here. I don't care this photo might be staged and is borderline kitschy...after all that's what summer is all about. (I even like that the guy is holding his own foot.)

Taken in Cartagena, Colombia by Christoher Kirk.

When really good travel blogs manage to remain secret to me, I get bummed wishing someone had called me sooner to say, "Hey, Adrienne you need to peep this right now!" No personal calls were ever received which leads me to wonder how many folks even know about the travel writing goodness of Megan Lyles? It really makes no huge difference that I didn't follow Megan and her fiancé/photographer, Michael Simon, while they were blogging on the road. It just means I have a ton of catching up to do.

Back in the summer of 2005 Megan and Michael took off on a one-year long bus trip from Manhattan to the tip of South America. The trip has since been wrapped up and Megan and Michael are back in Manhattan, but the site is still up and there for your viewing pleasure. And I do mean it is a pleasure to check out. I read through some of the Mexico, Paraguay, and Uruguay stops not wanting to stop, but catching up is going to take a while. Before I departed I clicked on just one more plug while they were in North Carolina attending the Vans Warped tour. All I can say is Megan, where ever you are - I can totally relate.

A few years ago, when my sister and I were both working as high powered, jet-setting executives (a state from which we've both recovered, thankfully), we were sitting talking about some of the places we'd visited for work.  She'd just returned from a trip including several cities in South America.  I asked her which she enjoyed the most.

"Caracas was pretty cool," she said.  "But you know what the most beautiful city in the world is?"

"Where?"

"Medellin," she said, sighing.  "It's amazing."

"Wait," I said, not without considerable skepticism.  "the drug capital?"

"The very one," she replied.  "it's absolutely breathtaking."

Apparently, my sister isn't the only one to think so:  Travelmag.co.uk is featuring an article on Medellin, Colombia, written by a first-time traveller.  According to the piece, because of Medellin's reputation, it is a city virtually untouched by outsiders -- which gives it a particular charm, not the least of which is a citizenry eager to change its city's image. 

A destination to consider.  If your curiosity gets the best of you, and you find yourself looking into tickets, be sure to note the travel tips at the end of the article.