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Issue #59, February 2002
Don't Worry, Keep Rolling!
The post-September 11 economy of the United States has become a fear-infested and sober landscape. National security and security-related corporations are providing the major visible economic growth. Corporate sectors without any discernable claim on security products nonetheless work to integrate a national security consciousness into their corporate images. Grim, determined, and upbeat patriotism is being used to sell any product that needs selling.
Ad campaigns experiment on how to function within this economic sobriety, as evidenced in those quite successful "Keep America Rolling" auto ads that General Motors rolled out. George Bush tells the country "Let's roll!" and revoices the words of an airline passenger who fought back, while at the same time echoing a General Motors logo. National security fears and durable goods, statesmanship and salesmanship, have been woven together by a fluid consumption-oriented language. To be behind the wheel is to control national fate in the face of international terrorism.
Corporations with central positions in the U.S. economy, like the airlines, have dealt with the situation by lining up for billions in federal support and stuffing "free market — no government interference" rhetorical claims in their back pockets. Since the function of capitalism is to protect capital, not labor, unemployed workers do not get generous Congressional handouts. Social expenditures go to alleviate corporate fears, but the fears of private citizens remain private business.
This fear-intensive economy elides a central truth of economic life: social fears are a constant source of profit. Without fear and insecurity, capitalism would not have the economic sanctions that make it profitable. Progressive politics since the nineteenth century have undertaken the task of alleviating social insecurity and replacing fear with social security, either with or absent first-letter capitalization. Post-'60s normative Western capitalism has continued to pursue the basic intellectual outline of Friedmanian economics, which emphasizes the market utility of holding down social expenditures and imposing sanctions on labor. A "liberalizing" IMF-oriented economy, as with those in eastern Europe and other regions, cuts back on pre-existing social protections in the name of economic efficiency and competition, thus raising the prevalence of social fear.
Yet if economic fear is a persuasive mode of social coercion, it can also function as a mode of consumption. Preventative consumption is a fear response that seeks to avoid the consequences of unpreparedness or inaction. Consumption itself becomes a defense against fears, rational or irrational. Since September 11, the spectre of Islamic terrorism has generated a market for products that can locate themselves within this conceptual framework of preventative consumption. A product's precise relation to the political phenomenon is irrelevant. Rather, marketability in the fear market relies on associative links. Risk, ever-present in the economic calculus, suddenly has an attributable face. Preventative consumption takes those social risks caused by foreign, alien hatreds, and reduces them into the manageable features of known products.
Fear itself has become a consumption item, and fear-dependent corporations feed off a public paranoia created by terror attacks. From health insurance to financial services ads that emphasize "security," the media has filled with appeals to prevent what is almost impossible to prevent and to do so through product consumption. Islamic terrorism has become an invisible brand name that joins disparate products anew. The fear of Allah-bonded men with death wishes and distant mullahs is the covert unmentionable that enables insurance companies and Florsheim Shoes to employ the Statue of Liberty as their new-old advertising flack, or Ralph Lauren to merge Polo shirts with the flag. All reaffirm freedom as consumer freedom. Images of American shrines and commercial invocations of "E Pluribus Unum" nationalize consumer purchasing power. To buy American is to meet the enemy.
As we buy on, we roll on.
Entrepreneurship of Fear
It is the small-time profiteers of fear who speak messages that more socially restrained and polite major corporate advertising cannot voice directly. These are not the predictable Internet fraudsters who are hawking multivitamins against anthrax. Rather, outside the world of brand-name privilege and close to populist political roots, an entrepreneurship of fear has emerged to calm and consolidate fear as socially useful consumption activity. The small-time contractors who built backyard fallout shelters fifty years ago have their contemporary followers in bio-war rubber suit suppliers and survival school instructors.
Still, these are opportunists with a product or service, not ideological articulations in their own right. For that deeper level, the expensive and glossy Terrorism Survival Guide is a magazine that suits the times like the Whole Earth Catalog suited the '60s. Stocked with Ruger ads and shooting school addresses, it is the second number of an Operation Enduring Freedom series being published by Pantheon International. The cover features a crowd of subtitles, ranging from the informative "The Common Sense Guide to Staying Safe" to the alarming "Dangers We Face Now! What You Can Do to Meet the Threats!"
It is a home-front magazine, with men in white rubber suits and another subtitle reading "Anthrax and Bio-Terror: Facts vs. Fear! Reality vs. Rumor!" Beautiful Homes and Gardens goes to bio-war. The Terrorism Survival Guide reformulates economic activity as motivated survival; its pages map out how to consume to survive. Homeland security and household security have merged into one.
The Terrorism Survival Guide testifies eloquently to how fear, in itself, is a domestic commodity. Its extensive guns and survival book advertising rely on reader fear of social threats and general social chaos to promote sales. These are home safety products that render home as a place impregnable against fear of terrorism. In a couple of photographs, a middle-aged blonde woman displays home defense techniques. In one photograph of the new suburban hospitality, this well-prepared matron crouches to open the front door holding a pistol at the ready for any unexpected guest. Another posed photo has the same woman peering off a second-floor balcony, showing how to cover the front driveway with a sniper rifle. An article on post-September 11 child psychology features the graphic accompaniment of a full-page photo of a toothy little girl in a clear plastic gas mask with face mike, carrying a Barbie doll dressed up with another gas mask. The essays identify sources of fear, and the advertising provides home-front solutions.
If the home is a prime target that must be rendered defensible, the neighborhood is equally a vulnerable target. In this world of fresh domestic threat, explains one writer, the local infrastructure is a prime target. "For example, before all this craziness, you may not have noticed that vehicle parked inappropriately near the county electric station. Make note of it now and report it. Before September 11 you might not have thought twice about people acting strangely around the local reservoir. You had better think twice now." George Bush made these same sentiments sound presidential when he asked citizens to watch for people "acting suspiciously" around chemical plants.
Because the sources of supply into homes are at risk, homeowners need to prepare their regional lines of defense. There is an emphatic demand for explanation of the unknown, together with suspicion of those outside the norm or those who ask questions about the world. "Beware of anyone asking untoward questions regarding schedules, conveyance methods, social gatherings," advises Basic Anti-Terrorism Tip #3, followed by Tip #5's caution, "Be wary of individuals whose movements and actions are not logically motivated." Discrepant cultural logics, according to this hometown anti-terrorism philosophy, require fear, investigation, and action.
According to every essay and ad in this journal, the answer to these insecurities is: buy a gun! Although a gun will be useless in the face of the chemical, biological, and nuclear threats that the Terrorism Survival Guide details, poor logic never seems to burden the magazine editors. Rather, a firearm becomes a palpable defense even if it offers no protection. Buying a gun is simply the opposite of submission. The journal's editor, Michael Bane, frames this as a moral choice. "Like many Americans, I reached a moral and ethical crossroads after The Attack. I believe that although, in the real world, there are times when we must submit, as a culture and a nation, we have come to see submission as the preferred option."
In the Guide, a refusal to acknowledge a need to own personal weapons equates with capitulation and an acceptance of victimization. The notion that other means of self-defense may be more appropriate and effective never arises in this journal. Like so much else that passes for anti-terrorism self-defense here, personal firearms ownership represents no more than symbolic purchasing. That need for a physical symbol of resistance, a new Remington stashed under the bed as a defense against inchoate foreign threats, is the same operative social mechanism that moves consumers who buy durable goods as a response to terrorism. Panic buying is a crisis response to violence, a means of managing excess social fear. Social fear never lacks for profit opportunities.
Homeland Insecurity
Since ideology provides the conditions of consumption, the articles of the Terrorism Survival Guide establish an ideology that redirects readers into security-oriented consumption. Michael Bane provides an article entitled "Ten Ways Our Lives Have Changed" that posits a new sense of American national connectedness. The purpose of this new social interconnection, he suggests, lies in a national rediscovery of the American warrior self. The anti-gun lobby has led those who adopted a defeatist embrace of submission that swept the country in recent decades. Bravery and honor are emerging from a broad popular rejection of submission, and the nation now takes its bearings from a new social compass based on absolute virtues. "We bury our dead with the sure and certain knowledge that great good, and great evil, do, in fact, exist, and that our measure as individuals and as a people will be where we stand in that epic battle."
To fine words like these, Jack London once answered, "[T]he magic of your phrases leads you to believe that you are patriotic. Your desire for profits, which is sheer selfishness, you metamorphose into altruistic solicitude for suffering humanity."
In this New America, which wakes each morning full of renewed patriotism, moral absolutism has disposed of relativism and self-questioning in a distant and dishonorable grave. What has triumphed is a national unity where social problems are no more than minor family problems, like a scramble for an extra piece of dessert. Deep-rooted historical social differences disappear in such an ideological scenario; instead, these differences are no more than an exuberant individualism that all share. In the end, "We are the warrior tribe who did the impossible — create an enduring government that celebrated, and continues to celebrate, our very contentious individualism."
This is the classic delusion of nationalism, the belief that a mystical nation-tribe has gathered its spirits to rise. In this delusion, racial, gender and class divisions happen only "occasionally," fairly ignoring the contradiction of Bane's simultaneous argument that the divisions created by submission have prevailed for years. So history-writing serves to mythify and unite, not to document, analyze, and explain. The function of the nation-state is to translate the warrior-spirit into an operations plan. Yet what Bane provides is a classic marketing device: make consumers feel happy about what you suggest they are becoming. Here is resurgent America, a nation-product worth fighting for — and here too are the tools with which to fight and partake of the warrior-spirit. This is a call to a revived faith in tribalism, one where a sharing of warrior-kin replaces petty social in-fighting. Or, as one writer phrases the necessary change, "We need to adopt the Israeli mindset that everyone is a partner in protecting the country."
Fear operates both as obstacle and enabler in this ideological scheme. Bane provided several articles for the Terrorism Survival Guide, and one of them addresses fear. He presents fear as another tactical tool, as an emotion whose correct management produces continuous situation evaluation reports and fluid responses. To qualify as fear, there must be a specific and immediately identifiable stimulus; a "formless" fear is mere intuition, he argues, forgetting the logic of inference. There has been a cultural over-use of fear and its language, Bane asserts, leading to an inability to distinguish real warning signals and detracting from threat-readiness.
The proliferation of fears, however, is endemic to a well-functioning capitalist economy. Fear is the marketing device for goods and services, and then at a social level, for the nation-product. The greatest fear and best marketing device is an assault on the American collectivity itself.
Towards Unlearning Fear
In 1927, in the context of the Whitney free-speech case, Louis Brandeis wrote "Those who won our independence [knew] that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable governmenté" What Brandeis distinguishes is the social cycle that the spread of public fear initiates, a cycle where oppressive government and violent opposition boil together in the same pot. Brandeis voices the classic Enlightenment fear of a state gone wrong, of government illiberality giving rise to hatred and street riots. Civil liberties were thus a venting mechanism, a means of ensuring that repression did not metamorphose into much worse consequences.
John Ashcroft's illiberality and vitiation of civil liberties, however, will create no street riots. Like the worst attorney general in U.S. history, A. Mitchell Palmer, Ashcroft emerges from a narrow-minded fear of the world's variety, a McGuffy-esque provincialism of neat picket fences and nineteenth-century American virtues. Although the mentalities of Palmer's Red Scare and Ashcroft's Moslem Scare are similar, the political landscape of the intervening eighty years has been revolutionized through the mass media and a global visual culture. Unlike the early twentieth century, where fears might inform state policy or market products, in late modernity fear has become a streamlined public-private commodity. What government announces, television news anchors interpret and expostulate.
In this media-driven economic regime, the consequences of social fear no longer lie primarily in an assault on civil liberties. The commodification and marketing of fear, fear-products, and nation-products has far outstripped the creation and defense of civil rights. America consumes its civil liberties, and consumption is its leading civil liberty.
An insidious ideology lies within this marketing and consumption of social fear, one that arises from a xenophobic variant of national identity politics. In this paranoia of threat-belief, all manifestations of difference become sources of risk. A world turns inward, into its fears, and shelters behind the luxurious walls of the U.S. economy, weapons pointed outward. Foreign policy has become a defense of this triumphal hegemonic identity and a demand for other nations to manifest their allegiance to such U.S. global primacy. An identity of national self-preservation emerges, one whose economic existence becomes preoccupied with hunting down existential threats and affixing "Wanted Dead or Alive" to threat sources. Ethnic identity politics goes onto a national war footing, one where the available identities have been stripped down to visible good and invisible evil. American self-identification with prosperity is the only good identity, and the only one that counts.
Walter Benn Michaels argues that capitalism supplies both objects of fear and desire, and the subjects to consume either. He writes "the logic of capitalism produces objects of desire only insofar as it produces subjects, since what makes the objects desirable is only the constitutive trace of subjectivity those objects bear." Today that American subjectivity characterizes itself through fear, and the objects of desire are those that purchase protection against fear. The Terrorism Survival Guide represents a stark synthesis of this transformation of fear into a simultaneous commodity and subjectivity, a synthesis whose ideological features are more easily visible for the magazine's extremism, which masquerades as commonsense self-defense. Such manichean extremism in the putative defense of freedom requires an over-the-horizon evil, one that resists critical thought and remains an irreducible evil that needs no explanation. Commodifications of fear ultimately rely on manipulation through nostrums and ignorance.
There is, though, a real front-line of homeland defense: teachers who refuse to mouth official dichotomies of good and evil, students who refuse to accept an uncritical perspective, and parents who refuse to barricade their homes against foreign ideas and people. A radical rejection of social alienage is at the heart of this homeland defense. It is an expanded concept of homeland defense which recognizes that contemporary American social fear derives ultimately from fear of the global poor and dispossessed, those with causes for anger. Western economies have privileged capital over labor, and have exported the social fears of capitalism — unemployment, impoverishment, inadequate health care and education — to obtain Western prosperity.
A homeland defense that refuses to recognize global fears and anger is no defense at all. Fear neither begins nor ends at the U.S. national borders: it was globalized long ago.
Joe Lockard is a Bad Subjects Collective editor and teaches English at University of California — Davis. He thanks Joel Schalit, Aaron Shuman, and Jonathan Sterne for comments.


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Is French Toast Really French?
Q: I was about to answer 'what is your favorite French dish?' with a resounding, 'French toast!' — when a thought occurred to me. Is French toast French?
If not, then maybe sole meuniere or something classic like that. But what can beat French toast! Man, I love French toast.
Sent by Stacy
Editor: Stacy, this is a very good question. We did a little cursory reading, and it seems that no one really knows where French toast came from originally. It is instead one of those dishes that seems to have appeared many places simultaneously. In all parts of the world where people eat bread, there is a need for ways to use up day-old bread. French toast is one such way, and the Spanish and Portuguese may have been the first to dip leftover bread in their eggy custard mix and fry it up. In Spain this dish is known as torrijas, and it is eaten most frequently as a dessert around Lent and Easter. In Portugal it is known as fatias douradas or rabanadas.
There is more information at the Wikipedia page on French toast — it's a very thorough discussion of the dish and its variations throughout the world!
• French Toast at Wikipedia
There is also a great article at Slate.com on French toast and its history:
• Is French Toast Really French?
Brendan Koerner from Slate responds to the Freedom toast/French toast debate by looking at the culinary debate (as opposed to political) over the Gallic roots of pain perdu and the other European versions of this dish.
Readers, can you shed any more light on this question?
Related: On The Menu: Make French Toast This Weekend!
(Image: MyRecipes.com)

subset: commoncrawl


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Case 8954
Longitudinal US scan of the symptomatic right testis depicts large, lobulated hypoechoic lesion.
Longitudinal US scans (b,c) of the left testis shows two smaller, sub-centimeter hypoechoic nodules.
T2-weighted images on coronal (a,b) and axial planes (c,d) confirm three hypointense testicular lesions, the largest on the right, two smaller ones on the left.
On unenhanced T1-weighted axial images (a,b) both testes show homogeneous signal intensity.
After iv Gadolinium, on fat-suppressed axial images (c,d), coronal oblique (e) and sagittal (f) reformations the larger right testis lesion and the tiny one on the left enhance strongly and uniformly.
Contrast-enhanced scans in the portal venous (a,b) and delayed (c,d) phases show hepatic and bilateral renal lymphomatous involvement with multiple hypovascular lesions.
Scrotal ultrasound
Scrotal MRI - T2-weighted images
Scrotal MRI - Unenhanced and post-Gadolinium T1-weighted images
Abdominal contrast-enhanced CT
Any Questions? Contact us here:
EURORAD Office c/o European
Society of Radiology
Am Gestade 1,
AT-1010 Vienna, Austria


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Patients Not Profit demonstration on threat from healthcare privatisation
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The Patients Not Profit (PNP) Movement held a public demonstration in Valletta today. The Movement is made up of a growing number of students and health professionals "who are concerned about the future of our national health service."
PNP said that it was founded in the wake of the privatisation of three public hospitals: the Gozo General Hospital, Karin Grech and St Luke's and "the threat to medical education posed by a for-profit medical school that endangers the future of students, healthcare workers and ultimately patients."
It said that each of PNP's founding principles were "borne out of disappointment. Disappointment in the abject lack of transparency, in the disregard of evidence-based public health policy and in the prioritisation of profit over patients."
Today, PNP and its allies gathered in Pjazza de la Valette to offer basic health checks to the public and it said, "to engage them about what's happening to their national health service."
PNP stated that it advocates for:
"Transparency for healthcare deals
Evidence-based public health policy
Patient-centred health system; not profit-driven"
Consistent with the above principles, PNP said that it would like to see all contracts pertaining to public healthcare systems published in full, well ahead of their implementation. "Consultation with the public and stakeholders should be proactive and not retrospective." PNP asked how can citizens scrutinise what is happening to their assets when they are not given the tools with which to do so?
"Public health is an expanding field in medicine and health sciences. There exists a wealth of research about public health policy which should be made use of." PNP added that it is concerned that "failed policies such as Public Private Partnerships/Private Finance Initiatives adopted from abroad should not be trialled in Malta: gambling with healthcare is gambling with lives," it said.
"Delivering high-quality healthcare is not intrinsically profitable. A successful business is one which makes a profit. This entails minimising expenses and maximising gains. Services which are most "wasteful" (e.g. Intensive Care, Geriatrics & Accident & Emergency) are typically the first to have their corners cut. Public heath care and making profit are incompatible," said PNP
The Movement went on to say that "a child suffering from an invariably terminal blood cancer is not a customer. An elderly woman suffering from diabetes and foot ulcers is not a financial asset. A young man suffering from severe asthma is not an opportunity to increase your company's position in the stock market."
It pointed out that "the primary aim of a health system is to serve patients. Mixing business with public healthcare introduces an obvious conflict of interest. There is evidence of this from abroad."
PNP said that it would like to see direct investment in the public health system which is transparent and evidence based.


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Melbourne: India's Joshna Chinappa continued her good form and reached the quarterfinal in the women's competition but it was curtains for her male compatriots Harinder Singh and Mahesh Mangaonkar at the Australian Open Squash tournament, here on Thursday.
Despite losing the first game, Joshna, seeded sixth hardly broke her sweat to get the better of 12th seed Megan Craig of New Zealand 5-11 11-6 11-6 11-8.
But a tough test awaits Joshna in her next next match as she takes on top seed Annie Au of Hong Kong.
However, it turned out to be a disappointing day for India in the men's section as both Harinder and Mahesh failed to get past the second round hurdle but not before giving tough fights to their respective opponents.
While sixth seeded Mahesh lost to Steve Finitsis of Australia 11-7, 11-4, 9-11, 9-11, 7-11, Harinder was shown the door by Malaysian Nafizwan Adnan 4-11, 11-7, 4-11, 15-13, 9-11.


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Volume 18 Issue 45 | March 24 - 30, 2006
A Columbia University study concluded that as sea levels rise, large parts of Lower Manhattan including Battery Park City, part of the World Trade Center site, and the Seaport will experience 10-foot floods after large storms.
Downtown flood plans unclear as scientists warn of rising tides
By Ronda Kaysen
A major hurricane could hit the Northeast as early as this summer, weather experts said Monday. And Lower Manhattan including the new World Trade Center risks severe flooding in coming years because of rising sea levels, Columbia scientists warn.
As sea levels rise over the course of this century, parts of the new World Trade Center along with Battery Park City, the South Street Seaport, Battery Park and the Financial District are at risk of 10-foot storm surges when powerful Northeasters or hurricanes make landfall, Columbia scientists predict. Flooding could potentially devastate the citys subways, tunnels, beaches, wetlands, airports and roads.
You could get more frequent episodes of flooding, said Dr. Vivien Gornitz, a geologist and special research scientist for NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University. The city needs to be aware of the problem.
Although New York will not become a new Venice, with gondoliers replacing subway tunnels, periodic storms could inundate much of Lower Manhattan and other large areas including parts of Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island.
But Venice is not necessarily a bad model to follow, said Gornitz, noting that the city installs boardwalks above the normal sidewalks and people wear hip-high boots during storms.
A map of Lower Manhattan created by Columbia scientists in 2000 shows risks of 10-ft. flooding during storms. Along the East River, the 10-ft. flood zone extends to Water St., to the South Street Seaport, inland near Tompkins Square Park and north to Bellevue Medical Center. The west side of Manhattan is at risk for 10-ft. storm surges from the Battery to 23rd St. and from the Hudson River to east of West St., with all of Battery Park City and parts of the new Trade Center site at risk for 10-foot floods.
New York is not very high up, to say the least. Were a tiny island, were just as vulnerable as somebody out in the Pacific, said Wendy Brawer, founding director of Green Map, an organization that produces environmental maps for cities. Green Maps latest New York City map, which was published last month, illustrates the changing flood zones in the city. There has been a blinking red light for a long time and we have not been facing it. It doesnt take but one storm for all of us to have this wakeup call that were totally unprepared for.
Fierce storms with severe flooding are not new to New York. In 1960, Hurricane Donna inundated Manhattan with 10-foot high tides. Water was hip deep at the corner of Vesey and West Sts. where the W.T.C. was later built. And in 1992, a Northeaster ripped through Manhattan, shutting down all of the citys 25 subway lines, the F.D.R. Drive and La Guardia Airport. Powerful storms like the 1992 Northeaster may occur as frequently as once every four years by 2080, researchers say.
It looks like its inevitable that theres going to be some change, were not going to be caught by surprise, said Dr. Roberta Balstad, director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia. On the other hand, if were complacent, we will be caught by surprise. Because were talking about long time frames, it means that the city has to be thinking in terms of the long haul. It needs to be thinking about its infrastructure.
The W.T.C. memorial, Gornitz said, could easily flood unless they have special flood gates to seal it off, she said.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency that is overseeing the design of the memorial, believes the memorial will not get flooded. The designs would be resistant to those types of flooding dangers, said Victor Gallo, senior advisor and counsel for environmental and regulatory affairs for the L.M.D.C. Were not concerned that were in a high hazard area.
The rebuilding process has been subject to an Environmental Impact Statement, which involves addressing issues of flooding and other environmental concerns. As part of that process, the public is able to weigh in and voice concerns that the sea level is rising, said Gallo.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey owns the World Trade Center property and reinforced the slurry wall after 9/11. It also plans to rebuild the eastern bathtub to make way for new towers at the site and is responsible for the ferry terminal in Battery Park City. In 1967, when the Trade Center was built, the soil there was saturated with water. A three-foot thick slurry wall created a bathtub to keep the Hudson out.
The entire site is being designed to New York City building codes and FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] codes for a 100-year flood, Steve Coleman, a Port spokesperson, said in reference to the worst floods expected in a century.
He did not say what the specific protections are or if they would hold up if the Columbia scientists are right about rising sea levels changing the 100-year storm model.
And that model is changing, say many scientists. Sea levels have been rising along the East Coast since the end of the last glacial period, but models show the rate is accelerating. Currently, sea levels in New York City are rising at 0.11 inches a year, which is faster than the global rate, but still relatively manageable, according to Gornitz. But Columbia models project that the rate is accelerating and in 20 years, the sea levels could rise by as much as 11.7 inches and by the 2080s, they could rise by as much as 42.5 inches. Precipitation is also increasing. It has increased by an inch since 1900, but by the 2020s it could increase by 9 percent and by the 2080s, it could increase by 30 percent.
All of the models are tending toward an upward trend and at an accelerated rate than what weve seen in the past, said Gornitz. They vary on how much and how soon.
Gornitz said the typical model of using the past 100 years to help estimate the worst floods in the coming century may no longer work with the accelerating rate. By 2080, a storm that is now considered a storm of the century may occur every four years.
The Environmental Protection Agency however, disputes the potential rise in sea level, saying it will rise by as much as 12 inches in the next 50 years with a small effect on Manhattan, including flood risk.
On Thursday, three State Assemblymembers will release a study deeming New York Citys hurricane evacuation plan inadequate. The plan finds fault with emergency shelters, nursing home evacuations, transportation and educational programs.
It simply cant function, Assemblymember Richard Brodsky said in a telephone interview. We are looking at a situation not much different from what happened in New Orleans.
Gornitz was reluctant to compare New York City to New Orleans, noting that much of New Orleans is below sea level and sinking rapidly, problems that do not affect New York. New York could prepare for larger storms by raising the seawalls and creating tidal bridges and dykes to deal with the increased risk of floods as sea levels rise.
The Battery Park City Authority is developing a capital plan to renovate its existing seawall, which runs the entire length of the neighborhood. The wall has never been renovated since it was built in 1960s and it will cost $30 million to improve it this summer as part of a routine maintenance plan. But the authority has no plans to raise the seawall.
We have not developed a specific plan to deal with a rise in sea levels, said James Cavanaugh, president and C.E.O. of the authority. Rising sea levels clearly needs to be an issue for New York as a whole. Its not likely that wed march ahead by ourselves.
Some Battery Park City residents are already thinking about the path that lies ahead. At the Extreme Weather Fair at I.S. 89 last week, eighth graders produced a video titled, What if Lower Manhattan Floods?, that discussed the possibility of flooding in their neighborhood because of global warming.
With reporting by Chad Smith
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text: Ugh. I noticed some discolored edges along the bezel around the keys and trackpad a few days ago, and ignored it. Well, tonight, I took a damp cloth to the entire laptop, and noticed a yellow stain that just wouldn't go away. I have staining. Currently, it's rather light, and I'm probably the only one who can notice it right off the bat. I showed my mom, and while she didn't immediately notice it, when I pointed it out, she agreed it was plain as day. This Macbook is my only computer. I have to have it for reports and essays, as well as internet. I'm really at a loss for what to do. My birthday is at the end of January. What are the odds of me being able to keep the staining unnoticable until then? If I can make it till my birthday, I could buy the iMac I was planning on getting before college a bit early. Then, when I get my new iMac, I could send in my Macbook. What is the turn-around time on these. If I drive down to the Apple Store tommorrow (Hour there, hour back), after getting an appointment, when could I expect to get it back? One week? Two weeks? A month? This is very disappointing. It hasn't steered me away from Apple, but it does put a major damper on my first Mac owning experience. I thought I did good by waiting until I could get a post-week 25 MB, but apparently that wasn't enough. And just to be sure, there is zero chance of being able to exchange this MB on the spot, correct? I just don't know what I'm gonna do without a computer... I rely on it. If it could be back by Friday, I could probably make due since it is a three-day school week. However, I have a feeling I won't see my baby back for three weeks or more. That just isn't do-able. How fast does the staining spread? Do I have a good chance of making it until late January? Or is that out of the question? Sorry for all the questions... I'm just really frustrated right now. Any advice is greatly appreciated.


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Back to Articles
Don't know how to fill up your itinerary with fun-filled things to do when you are here in Baltimore? Take a cue from our travel writers who are bitten by the travel bug every now and again.
Jul 12, 2013 - BMA, Baltimore Museum of Art
Ever since the government decided to pour more cash into developing the Baltimore Inner Harbor in the 1970's, the city has been growing exponentially well and now, Baltimore is no longer just your ordinary harbor city...it is a thriving tourist destination that millions throng to for their Baltimore bus charter vacations and summer holidays. The urban renewal standards for Baltimore has been raised and the rest is history. It is common to find artists resting along the inner harbor to practice their art, street entertainers in open air concerts and many people come to Baltimore for the abundance of parades and colorful festivals.
Along with these developments, the Baltimore Museum of Art, BMA, have garnered much attention from the international art scene too. In fact, it is one of the few museums in the country that houses some of the most renowned contemporary artwork collection from the 19th century. It has come a long way since its inception in 1914, then having only one single painting, it now exhibits more than ninety thousand masterpieces from geniuses from all around the world. BMA, remains to be one of the most popular Baltimore charter bus rental hotspots for art and entertainment enthusiasts and rightly so too.
For those who are interested in viewing some of the best European and American fine art, you will not be disappointed with the various exhibits made available at this awesome museum. The museum, in support of the creative industry, are actively engaging with artists from all walks of life and are exceptionally supportive of people talented individuals who are keen in working on prints, drawings and contemporary art. The exhibits includes fine art from Africa, America, Europe, Asia, Ancient Americas and Pacific Islands too so, we are sure it won't be hard finding something that completely grabs your attention.
Every year, the museum organizes a whole host of events, festivals and exhibitions that are deemed innovative and hands-on by the tourism and cultural industry itself so, if you are here in Baltimore for a short charter bus tour of the city, we suggest penning down a visit to this amazing museum. Visit the museum's website to find out when they are having these cultural and educational events too. Not only is the interior of the museum intricately designed, the exterior of the premise is incredibly astonishing as well. It is located about three miles from Baltimore's inner harbor in a very serene park and garden setting at the heart of gorgeous Charles Village and adjacent to The John Hopkins University.
Bus Charter Baltimore, in the meantime, have your back as far as charter bus, shuttle bus, mini bus, school bus, bus coach or party bus in Baltimore is needed. We look forward to serving you in the very near future.


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math homework
Consider a two-period, two-state world. Let the current stock price be $35 and the risk-free rate be 5%. In each period, the stock price can either go up by 10% or down by 10%. A call option expiring at the end of the second period has an exercise price of $30.
- Find the stock price sequence.
- Determine the possible prices of the call at expiration.
- Find the possible prices of the call at the end of the first period.


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Tourism for Tomorrow Newsletter January 2017
Announcing the Finalists for the WTTC Tourism for Tomorrow Awards 2017
We have announced last week the Finalists for the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards 2017, who this year range from individual ecolodges to entire countries. They work in cities and in the most remote wilderness, offering volunteer trips or helping to prepare street children to work in hospitality. We will be profiling each one of the fifteen Finalists over this and the following two newsletters, before announcing the Winners at the annual WTTC summit in April.
Awards Lead Judge, Graham Miller, Executive Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Surrey, said: "The 2017 Finalists illustrate how widespread the notion of sustainable tourism has become. While sustainability used to be focused around the preservation of nature, this year, the organisation's missions are, amongst other things, centred around innovative value creation for societies, travel technology for those with accessibility needs, and empowerment of the young workforce."
Each of the five categories has three Finalists, who are all now put forward to the next stage of the judging process, where they will receive onsite visits from an expert in sustainable tourism, who will assess their credentials in practice compared to their original written application.
Their findings will then be provided to the Winners Selection Committee, whose final decision as to who are the winners in each category will be announced at WTTC's Global Summit, which takes place on April 26-27 in Bangkok, Thailand.
The Winner Selection Committee is chaired by Fiona Jeffery OBE, Chair of the WTTC Tourism for Tomorrow Awards who said: "Now more than ever it's important to highlight how tourism positively connects people across the planet and brings great social and economic benefits to destinations. The 2017 Tourism for Tomorrow Award Finalists demonstrate a commitment to long term vision in preference to short term gains and provide inspiring examples of responsible leadership in their businesses. The true value of the awards is the insight and learning which can be shared across the industry and I'm looking forward to hearing their stories during the WTTC Global Summit in April 2017."
The Finalists this year are:
For the Community Award, which is given to those companies whose work has done most to improve the lives of local people in the locations where it operates, the Finalists are Sri Lanka's Cinnamon Wild Yala, small group tour company G Adventures, and the Kenyan conservancy Ol Pejeta.
For the Destination Award, presented for exceptional stewardship at destination level be it a country, region, state, town, or national park, this year's Finalists are the Botswana Tourism Organisation, the Polish city of Bydgoszcz, and Finland's oldest national park, Pallas National Park.
The Environment Award recognises companies or organisations who have utilised tourism to make significant improvements to the natural environment. The Finalists this year are the conservation volunteer company Biosphere Expeditions, the Brazilian Caiman Ecological Refuge, and the ecoresort Misool from Indonesia.
The Innovation Award is given each year for a project that has shown the most ground-breaking innovation at addressing an environmental or social challenge where tourism can play a significant role. For 2017, the Finalists are the Dutch based Soel Yachts, Spain's Native Hotels and The Mapping Ocean Wealth initiative led by the Nature Conservancy, based in the USA.
You can read more about our Finalists here
Who are the Finalists for the Tourism for Tomorrow Community Award?
Cinnamon Wild Yala
Located in the south of Sri Lanka, Yala is the most visited national park in all of Sri Lanka. It is also one of the best places to spot leopards, with one of the highest densities of the elusive cat not just on the island, but anywhere in the world.
This, however, causes a problem. The border of the park is home to hundreds of dairy farmers, and at night leopards have been known to kill their cattle. Needing to protect their prized assets, farmers have set snares and killed many of these endangered creatures. And while Yala may have a high density of the cat, the total numbers are still very low - with around 70 estimated in the main park area and 32 in the buffer area where the farms are located.
In response, the Sri Lanka hotel chain Cinnamon, whose Cinnamon Wild Yala is found on the park's border alongside the dairy farms, has spent the last six years implementing an ingeniously simple solution designed to protect the leopards, boost the farmers' incomes, and offer improved tourist experiences all in one go.
Since 2010 the hotel has manufactured & donated more than 70 steel cages, which enable the farmers to protect their cattle at night. The difference is remarkable. In the five years before the project began, 50 leopards were killed by farmers trying to project their livestock. Since 2010, however, the farmers have not lost any cattle to leopard attacks - and so neither have they killed any leopards. And over the same period, the farmers have seen their income increase by over 20 percent.
Cinnamon also engages with its traditional competitors - the other Yala lodges and camps - coming together to fill the park's watering holes during droughts, while making sure they too see the benefit to them of its conservation work. Even the production of the steel pens has been implemented to maximise local benefits - with local welding businesses making an extra US$ 28,500 in the last six years through the contracts for their construction.
Finally, tourists reap the rewards too. Of course more leopards means more sightings, which makes for better safari experiences. But Yala has also made the project part of its offer to guests, who can now spend a morning with a farmer, learning of their lives and sharing tea together. The cage may keep leopards out, but in so doing it has brought many more communities together.
When travellers enjoy lunch at the New Hope Cambodia Vocational Training Restaurant, they are also providing marginalised people in that community with the hospitality skills needed to gain work. Anyone joining the Thailand Hilltribes Trek doesn't only get the chance to meet and share experiences with homestay hosts from the communities of Ban Pha Mon, Ban Meung Pam, and Ban Jabo. They are also enabling these communities to remain in their home villages, rather than head to the city in search of work now that climate change has seen made their annual rice yields much less predictable. And the many thousands who stop to buy a souvenir at the Women's Weaving Cooperative at the village of Caccaccollo in Peru aren't just picking up authentic handicrafts - they have been instrumental in making it possible for local municipality to prioritise the building of new road, electrical and sanitation infrastructure.
All these projects have two more things in common. First they are supported by the Planeterra Foundation, and secondly, large numbers of the tourists visiting them were taking part in one of G Adventures' trips. The connection is no coincidence. 120,000 people go on G Adventures tours each year, making it the world's largest small group travel company. And Planeterra is its not-for-profit arm, set up in 2003 to help develop projects like the ones above, so that people in marginalised communities could benefit from tourism.
Since it was launched in 2003, Planeterra has launched or supported 60 community development projects, which have helped over 70,000 people gain greater access to education, health care and sustainable income. In 2015 it looked to scale its impact considerably, launching the '50 in 5 Campaign' that looks to develop 50 new social enterprises - and include them all in G's itineraries by 2020.
To ensure the transparency and efficacy of its impact, last year, G Adventures conducted a global supply chain assessment. This audit found that 91 percent of the company's suppliers are owned and operated by local legal residents; that 97 percent of its suppliers incorporate some kind of sustainability practices into their business; and 70 per cent purchase supplies from local markets and farmers. The travellers stopping at the cafes, plying the trekking routes, and buying their souvenirs may not realise the full impact of their decisions, But G and Planeterra have made sure they matter.
Ol Pejeta
There are just three Northern White Rhino left in the world. All three live on Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy, protected 24/7 in the hope that they might one day breed. The conservancy is also home to 115 black rhino, making it the largest sanctuary for these creatures in East Africa. And it is the only place in Kenya where it is possible to see chimpanzees, which it rescues from the black market and rehabilitates on its 90,000 acres in Lakipia County.
Beyond its own 90,000 acres, Ol Pejeta works to improve life in the surrounding communities. It supports six health centres, providing health care access to 20,000 rural community members. Its own dispensary attends to the medical needs of 450 community members every month; and this is backed up by a mobile clinic visiting more remote locations. It is also helping farmers develop rainwater harvesting, and has over 100,000 indigenous tree seedlings sown in 12 nurseries for catchment rehabilitation.
It works with local schools, supplying water, solar power, buildings and ICT equipment. It supplies cookstoves and solar devices to households. Overall, it has committed to invest $6.5m in community development over the next six years as it bids to reduce human wildlife conflict incidents by 10 per cent each year.
Such efforts make for better tourism, and they do so by making lives better for the communities where they operate. The tourists, who stay in the conservancy's six camps provide the bulk of its income and support 650 employees - most of whom come from the local area.
These tourists are also much more than just passive observers. While staying at the conservancy, they get the chance to go lion tracking, visit schools and clinics and enjoy interactive sessions with K-9 security units. Such engagement translates online - despite having only 160 beds, the conservancy has 19,000 Twitter followers, 54,000 Facebook likes and 24,000 followers on Instagram. Few people in the world will ever get to see the Northern White Rhino, but thanks to the presence of Ol Pejeta, many many more feel actively engaged in its survival.
Who are the Finalists for the Tourism for Tomorrow Destination Award?
Botswana Tourism Organisation - Chobe, Makgadikgadi and Okavango Delta Ramsar Site
The only way to comprehend the areas encompassed by Chobe, Makgadikgadi and Okavango Delta Ramsar Site is to deal in superlatives. Chobe is home to around 50,000 elephants, probably the highest elephant concentration in all Africa, and part of the largest continuous surviving elephant population. They are also Kalahari elephants, the largest of them all.
Makgadikgadi is one of the largest saltpans in the world, Stretching out across an area the size of Portugal, this vast expanse of salt-saturated clay is an unearthly domain, where endless horizons merge with the stark land below, appearing utterly inhospitable to life. Yet when the rains come, tens to hundreds of thousands of bright pink flamingoes appear, making the scene even more surreal for a few weeks each year.
The Okavango Delta was declared the 1000th UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014. An immense network of inland channels and marshes, when it floods each the summer the water covers an area slightly larger than Belgium, and attracts one of Africa's greatest concentrations of wildlife, with more than 200,000 large mammals descending upon the Okavango at this time.
While the animal populations are sometimes incredibly dense, the human population is not. Across the whole of these three regions, the population around Chobe stands at 25,876, for the Okavango Delta it is 59,421 and around Makgadikgadi there are 56,209. With few population centres of any note, ecotourism is one of the only sectors that can provide sustainable employment.
Through focussing on high end, low impact ecotourism, and the many services that support it, around 60,000 jobs have been created and US$650 million contributed to Botswana's GDP. To achieve eco-certification in the area, companies must demonstrate that they offer tangible benefits to the community through ongoing, multi-year financial and/or in kind support, and at least 2 percent of their gross profits must be provided directly or in-kind for community-based projects.
These efforts continue to pay off. Whether collaborating with neighbours Angola, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe on the even larger Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (of which Chobe, Makgadikgadi and Okavango Delta Ramsar Sites make up 30 per cent of the area), or ensuring that all eco-certified companies sell locally produced handicrafts on site, there is no vision too large, nor any detail too small in the commitment to keeping Botswana as a rare beacon of hope for Africa's wildlife and people.
Life in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz flows along the river Brda, which runs right through the centre. Each year throughout July and August an international concert takes place with orchestras playing on floating stages. And so clean is the water that a triathlon takes place right in the heart of the city, which also plays host to Poland's only open water swimming championship.
It wasn't always this way. By the end of the Cold War the riverbanks were run down and dangerous, and sewage outlets and factory waste discharge polluted its flow. But as Eastern Europe began to open up in the 1990s, so did the chance to revitalise the city's lifeblood.
17km of river were dredged. Sewage and other waste outlets were redirected or closed off, so that now as much as 94 percent of sewage is treated before being discharged into the river. All in all, so great were the improvements that the Brda is now ranked as the cleanest river in Poland. Even the river bus that ferries locals and tourists up and down its length is solar powered.
With the waters flowing cleanly again, the city was motivated to develop the boulevards that lined its banks, and encourage people to walk along them and take picnics on the river's banks. A run down island in the river has also been restored, so it has become a place of walks, picnics and outdoor events, now known as the Island of Museums.
Alongside the triathlon and annual music festival, many more tourist-friendly events and attractions have been created, such as the H2O Trail of Water, Industry and Crafts – a new experience presenting the water and industrial heritage of the city; the annual Great Rowing Regatta; and the Bydgoszcz Water Festival - a three-day event for watersports enthusiasts.
Since implementing all these measures, the numbers of tourists has risen dramatically, meaning opportunities for local entrepreneurs have also greatly increased, and many have set up or moved their businesses nearer the river. And it is not only the human population of Bydgoszcz that has welcomed the river's return to health. In recent years rare species such as beaver, otter and have also come back.Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park
According to measurements taken in 2016, the cleanest air in Europe, and perhaps the world, is found in Lapland's Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park. This is Finland's oldest national park, and a place of vast silences and skies patterned most nights by the Northern Lights. It is also the most popular National Park and nature travel destination in the country, visited 525,000 times in 2015.
The responsibility for maintaining such a unique place rests with Parks & Wildlife Finland, which works in collaboration with local authorities, travel operators and businesses to balance the needs of conservation and local development. An advisory board has been appointed to increase the use of National Parks as travel destinations and to improve this collaboration, bringing together representatives from local authorities, business organisations, the local reindeer herders' association, the Finnish Sámi Parliament and local businesses.
Together they are developing year round tourism products to enable people to enjoy the beauty of the park. This means ski trails in winter, and trekking routes when the snow has gone - the National Park now offers 300 km of cross-country skiing tracks, 250 km of hiking trails and cross-country cycling routes, 30 km of winter cycling routes and 70 resting places with toilets and fireplaces and the possibility to stay overnight - all for free.
The area is also home to some 150 enterprises whose business is connected to the National Park. For example, while many people like to walk alone or in small groups, not everyone likes to carry all their equipment and supplies from base to base. By facilitating coordination between villages and private entrepreneurs, it is becoming increasingly easy for walkers to pack up their luggage in the morning, head off walking and then find their bags waiting for them at their next destination by the end of the day. This promotes longer visits to the park, distributes people and their spending, and connects local villages to one another. It means trekkers and walkers are left unencumbered to walk and breathe freely of Europe's freshest air.
Tourism and the Sustainable Development Goals - SDG 1: No Poverty
Tourism cannot end poverty. But as a sector that employs hundreds of millions of people worldwide it can help lift many out of it - so long as the wages it pays offer a sustainable, decent living. Gender is also a significant issue in the perpetuation of poverty, from the potentially life-threatening risks from early pregnancy, to how it often denies women the chance of an education and a better income. As a sector that employs a significantly high percentage of women, tourism has to work to support women both in work and at home, for example through offering flexible working hours to suit their needs or providing free childcare facilities on site.
The risk, however, is that tourism exacerbates the divide between rich and poor. There can be few greater disconnects than the sight of wealthy foreign tourists enjoying holidays of unimaginable luxury, while beaches, forests, and other natural resources are closed off to local people, for whom essential goods and services also become unaffordable as prices increase until only tourists can afford them. If local people are not included in the economic benefits that tourism can bring, then the friction between tourists' wishes and locals' needs will only get worse.
Issues such as poaching of animals either for food or to sell to traffickers will never be ended if local people don't experience the economic benefits to them of keeping wild animals alive. Nor is trafficking a risk only for wildlife and tourism. The international networks that tourism facilitates can be abused by those trafficking in vulnerable humans, whether through hotels or the likes of fake orphanages, where well-meaning but misguided voluntourism can see children removed from their parents as a means to earn income.
Looking through the lists of previous winners and finalists from the Tourism for Tomorrow awards, however, time and time again there are examples of tourism offering solutions to the blight of poverty. Indeed there are so many that to highlight just a few would suggest most others do not also play a role. In fact, wherever it happens, whether it is luxury or budget, rural or urban, tourism cannot be responsible and sustainable if it does not directly help the most vulnerable in society improve their livelihoods. Tourism may not be able to end poverty. But it has a vital role in moving the world closer.
Accessible Tourism Focus - Why is improved communication central to accessible tourism? Interview with Pablo Ramon, co-founder of Native Hotels
WTTC: What is the background to the creation of Native Hotels? Why did you decide to focus so much on accessible tourism?
PABLO: The origin of NATIVE - a non-profit association- was a chance that happened in 2009, when a group of travel journalists heard a young blind girl living in Madrid being interviewed on the radio. She described an extremely hard daily life in the big city, yet in a happy and even comical way. Her testimony - drama and happiness - touched me deeply. I had been writing for the internet for the previous 15 years as editor of travel magazines - and I thought: "Being blind, how can she follow us? She will never be able to choose her favourite hotel on the internet by herself? I wondered, what do blind people do on the internet?" We contacted a webmaster assuming the answer would be "Nothing at all". But the webmaster surprised us by describing several tools for blind people to surf the internet, and we decided we would write for everyone, including people in her condition. And we began working with criteria of universal communication.
In the last six years we have learned a lot, and we have decided to develop new solutions to make tourism easier for people with any kind of reduced mobility We are giving the elderly and disabled people the possibility to surf a new website with a double accessibility system. They will be able to choose a hotel or trip, to confirm the facilities are suitable for their disabilities, to book and also to pay via PayPal. Thanks to the InSUIT system we can surf without seeing the screen, without touching the keyboard and without talking to the computer. It´s not magic, but technology. Blowing, sounds, or touching any key are substitutes of the click of the mouse if you can use your eyes, fingers, voice, or hands.
More than 600 million people are unable to enjoy leisure time due to a disability. And 500 million cannot even find information on a website because 99% of them are not accessible for blind or impaired vision users, colour blindness, arthritis, quadriplegia, and other limitations.
WTTC: From your interactions with guests, what are the biggest challenges that they find when looking for accessible holidays?
PABLO: First, we should know that accessibility is not just wheelchairs. Let me share a riddle: "On this hotel's fourth floor a deaf client is staying. At five in the morning, fire alarm. How can we wake up the deaf client before he burns to death?". Deaf clients should be able to escape like the rest of the customers. But... how many directors of hotels know the simple solutions to avoid a tragedy? We suggest to them the latest solution, the WiiM watch for alerts, developed by Hering Software, that vibrates in case of fire, flood, if someone knocks our door... Deaf customers can try it in our hotels if they request it when making their reservation.
In the hotels of NATIVE´s network, among the facilities for physical accessibility, customers even have the opportunity of crossing the desert riding a camel in an adapted wheelchair. We offer door hangers in Braille and embossed to indicate "Please, make up my room" or "Don´t disturb", Braille signage in different areas of the hotel as well as in our room, restaurant menus in Braille, we propose even avatars in sign language or alert watches for deaf people, magnetic key information in QR code for blind and visually impaired users, and much more. The costs? Hotels must pay only 350€ to receive the website in 6 languages, accessible for all users, door hangers, pack of Braille and embossed signals, and much more.
But while accessible gadgets and accessories are very important, perhaps the most important for disabled people looking for accessible holidays is the right information - honest information about the accessibility of buildings, services, bathrooms, lifts, swimming-pools, and any other element of a day of entertainment. With this, clients can choose a hotel, a restaurant, or visit an attraction without surprises.
WTTC: You have put particular emphasis on accessible communication. What have you learned from working in this field, that you feel the industry needs to focus upon more than it already does?
PABLO: We must say that many people with disabilities are not independent even to choose a destination on the internet. Therefore, the first step to enable a client to enjoy accessible tourism is not respected by 99% of the websites in the world. That´s a flagrant apartheid, a technological apartheid , and something not acceptable in societies that say they apply equality laws.
We all spend a lot of time at home looking for a destination on our computers. For people with disabilities the lack of information is double: on the one hand they need more time to find accessible places to stay - as hotels with an adapted room for wheelchair don´t mention it and hotels without them are wrongly featured as accessible establishments on the main OTAs.
We could go further and say that even having a single hotel with an accessible website is not much help, because we are talking about an accessible drop in the inaccessible ocean of the internet. We must offer an accessible network of accessible hotels. That's our challenge. We are looking for a sponsor to expand NATIVE worldwide as a free tool. It would take less than 90,000 US dollars to offer the system for free, and including hotels on five continents.
From 2017, we are looking to add almost 1,000 hotels worldwide, these being the most committed to people with disabilities, each year. We will do it from our new web platform, accessible to various disabilities, offering the information in six languages and including the first accessible booking engine online equipped with a dual system of accessibility - or it can be done by adapting an existing booking engine to be truly accessible. Last June we sent to the largest online booking engine a proposal to create a section for accessible bookings in accessible hotels, but four months later they decided not to go ahead. For us it has been a very frustrating decision, because people from the company told us that the project was fantastic and had surprised the highest levels.
Are we and other organisations like us too alone in this global challenge? It's not logical at all, because elderly people and people with disabilities are among the best clients for tourism and leisure. People with reduced mobility are customers travelling as a couple, with family, or with friends.
Are tourism professionals perceiving only the social side of disability and accessibility and that is why they do not seem to be concerned? Are they forgetting the business side, denying services to 10% of the public? Because in terms of accessible tourism we find less supply than demand. In my opinion those hoteliers who lack information about accessibility are losing opportunities that are being exploited by others.
GSTC meeting focuses on building sustainability in European tourism
The Global Sustainable Tourism Council GSTC European Regional Meeting that took place in Athens in November 2016 saw attendees from 16 countries explore a range of issues concerning sustainable tourism in Europe. These included: Sustainability Standards and Programs for European Tourism; European Best Practices for Sustainable Management of Destinations and Enterprises; Marketing Sustainable Tourism in European Destination; The Value of a Global Sustainability Brand for Greece Tourism; and Applying Standards and Certifications to Destinations and Enterprises. The keynote speech by the Bank of Greece Chief Economist Dimitris Malliaropulos explored climate change challenges and the role of sustainable tourism in Greece's new growth model.
Presentations from the conference can be accessed here, and will be available online until September 2017.
Thomas Cook commits to act on improving animal welfare and Head of SA Tourism looks to end cub petting and other animal interactions
Thomas Cook Group has committed to only sell animal attractions and experiences which meet strict welfare standards, following an audit of its portfolio. At the end of 2016 the company engaged animal welfare specialists Global Spirit to conduct an audit of a cross section of the attractions it sold against ABTA's global welfare guidance for Animals in Tourism – which are increasingly widely accepted as being the most rigorous and valuable such guidelines in the world. "Our animal welfare policy, developed in partnership with the Born Free Foundation and animals in tourism specialists, Global Spirit, will require all animal attractions and outings sold by Thomas Cook to evidence full compliance with the ABTA Global Welfare Guidance," announced Peter Fankhauser, Chief Executive, Thomas Cook. "I am proud that Thomas Cook is taking the lead as the first travel business to enforce higher animal welfare standards. We're committed to conducting our business in a way that is consistent with our customers' expectations of us."
Under the terms of the new commitment from Thomas Cook, all animal attractions must be fully compliant with the ABTA Global Welfare Guidance for Animals in Tourism; the company will no longer sell or promote any new attractions or hotels keeping wild animals in captivity that do not comply with industry minimum welfare requirements; it will ensure that existing facilities keeping captive wild animals, contracted by Thomas Cook, meet the highest animal welfare standards; and it has agreed to phase-out practices that are known to severely compromise the welfare and survival of animals.
"We are delighted that Thomas Cook can use our detailed, personalised and practical recommendations to support their suppliers in meeting the minimum requirements of the ABTA Guidance," Jo Hendrickx, co-founder of Global Spirit, told WTTC. "Their approach enables us to assess all of their global suppliers consistently to one set of industry agreed standards which is the key to driving positive change. We hope that their leadership will encourage other tour operators to look at their own Animal Footprint and take the same steps to ensure that the ABTA Guidance is consistently applied."
On the other hand, the newly appointed CEO for South Africa Tourism has publicly criticised tourism products that exploit wild animals, and said he will work with those committed to sustainable tourism in South Africa to 'eradicate' the industry. Sisa Ntshona said that his organisation takes the welfare and conservation concerns about cub petting and other wildlife interaction practices seriously and that SA Tourism is in discussion with the Sustainable Tourism Partnership Programme "to see how we can work more closely with them to eradicate such practices".
Speaking in a webinar hosted by Tourism Update, Ntshona stated that: "South African Tourism does not promote or endorse any interaction with wild animals such as the petting of wild cats, interacting with elephants, and walking with lions, cheetahs and so on." His stance was supported by many people working in conservation in the country. The team behind the international award-winning documentary Blood Lions team praised his "ethical vision", adding, "If South Africa wants to market itself as a destination offering ethical and responsible tourism, there cannot be any place for predator breeding, canned hunting, and the use of lions and other species as our playthings."
Leading European parks awarded for work in sustainable tourism
Some 19 European parks were awarded the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas last December. Among them, eleven were being given the status for the first time, while eight were renewing their commitment to the Charter's principles.
Over the past 20 years, the Charter network has grown to include 157 destinations across 19 European countries. It is designed as a practical management tool that enables protected areas to develop tourism sustainably through collaboration with relevant local stakeholders.
For the first time ever, a transboundary region (one that crosses national borders) was awarded: the Julian Alps Ecoregion encompasses Triglav National Park in Slovenia and Prealpi Giulie Nature Park in Italy. "The Charter is a flagship for the whole Transboundary Region," said Stefano Santi, Director of Prealpi Giulie Nature Park. "It expresses a genuine European spirit of respect for nature and brotherhood among people of different countries and represents an extraordinary chance to promote the breath-taking world of the Julian Alps and its unique biodiversity and cultural heritage".
Written and edited by Jeremy Smith
Tourism for Tomorrow in the news : A selection of news articles from last month
How to Be an Ethical Traveler - Yahoo Sports
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Who knows what this means? - Hugh Riley Blog
Ten Feathers in our Cap! - Wilderness-safaris


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CAPM/PMP Project Management Certification All-in-One Exam Guide with CD-ROM, Second Edition, by Phillips, Joseph
Note: Supplemental materials are not guaranteed with Rental or Used book purchases.
- Cover: Package
- Copyright: 9/22/2009
All-in-One Coverage of the CAPM and PMP Certification Exams - Get complete details on all the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) and Project Management Professional (PMP) exam topics from this fully up-to-date volume. Written by industry expert, trainer, and project management consultant Joseph Phillips, this authoritative exam guide features learning objectives at the beginning of each chapter, exam tips, practice exam questions, and in-depth explanations. Designed to help you pass the exams, this definitive resource also serves as an essential on-the-job reference. Covers all exam topics including how to: * Implement project integration management * Plan and control project scope * Define, sequence, and manage project activities * Estimate and administer the project budget * Perform quality control * Acquire and manage the project team * Communicate project performance with stakeholders * Monitor and control project risks * Plan for procurement * Adhere to the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. The CD-ROM features * Two full practice exams * Video training from the author * Bonus process review quiz * Complete e-book.


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One more easy post as I try to rework writing into my new schedule …
Besides diet, we've made a few other changes in the kitchen, all in an attempt to help Logan "mainstream" as much as possible. When the results of Logan's genetic screening came back, we learned that he does, in fact, have a few mutations that prevent his body from detoxifying adequately. So all the chemicals he ingests–like everyone does today–from wearing new clothes (which are sprayed with bug and fire chemicals before they reach the store), playing on the carpet, entering a just-cleaned bathroom, and even brushing his teeth, stick around, clogging his systems. So to help in a small way reduce the amount of chemicals he takes in, we installed a reverse osmosis water filter under the sink to remove fluoride and other chemicals from our water.
Jason even drilled a series of small holes through our bottom cabinets so he could run a tube from the filtration system under the sink to the refrigerator spout so we can have cold filtered water, too.
As we're trying to reduce the chemical load in Logan's body, we've also started a bit more aggressively trying to help his body detoxify. We tried this with zeolite and didn't see any results; it's possible we didn't have Logan consume enough of it to make a difference, but he didn't really like the powdered substance in his drinks, even though it was flavorless. So now we're trying the Methyl B12 shots.
Any parent of a child with autism has heard of these. I was so resistant to them–for the first few years, in fact, ever since the diagnosis, the idea of the shots has lurked around in the back of my mind, and every time we discussed treatments with anyone, I had a running commentary in my head: Please don't suggest the shots. Please don't suggest the shots.
And no one did, until recently, when we consulted with a new MAPS doctor. Jason was willing to give them a try, so reluctantly, I agreed.
So now we give Logan a shot on his bottom every third day. Amazingly, he doesn't mind it at all. The shot delivers a high dose of methyl B12, which is meant to help produce glutathione and reduce oxidative stress in his body (i.e., help move the toxins out of his system).
Will it work? He's been taking them for about a month now, and we definitely see an increase in activity and energy levels–to the point of extra stimming, which had largely gone away. His preschool teacher has noted that he seems more talkative–a positive and a negative, as he now interrupts story time a good deal more.
These are side affects we anticipated–most children starting B12 report similar effects. The hope is that with B12 bringing more awareness and more executive function to Logan's brain, as he wants to engage more, he can also learn better. One physician who pioneered this treatment compares it to suddenly removing ear plugs–you can't immediately understand language, but now you have the ability to be aware of it and learn it.
We'll see if this proves to be the case with Logan.
We tried a GAPS-legal recipe for chocolate mud cake last weekend (along with a bazillion other things), and though it didn't look it at first, it tasted heavenly. The cake part was soft, and the frosting was creamy–I loved it, but Logan declared it was "too sweet." It did have maybe a bit too much honey, but as a rare treat to take to birthday parties, it might be a lifesaver (I also like how the recipe makes a full 13×9 cake–so many of the GAPS and BED things we try end up only making 2 or 4 servings). Thanks Danielle for forwarding me the recipe from Kehoe's Kitchen.
Feeling: Sweet


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Paul W.S Anderson (Resident Evil, Alien vs. Predator) is next taking on a modernized adaptation of the 1844 Alexandre Dumas tale of The Three Musketeers, with Anderson set to bring the tale to the big-screen in 3-D.
Anderson wrote the script with Andrew Davies (Bridget Jones's DiaryThe Tailor of Panama and ), whom Anderson sought out to strengthen the character and romance aspects of the script. THR's Heat Vision blog notes that the intent is to modernize the tale without ditching the period setting:
"We are definitely modernizing 'The Three Musketeers' without compromising the fun of shooting a period piece," said Anderson, who hopes to shoot in France and Germany. "But in our film, corsets and feathered hats don't take center stage. Our version is rich in eye-popping action, romance and adventure."
This will not be the first big-screen adaptation of the tale, with versions going back as 1903. More recently there have been 1948, 1973 and and a 1993 version produced by Disney and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland and Chris O'Donnell.
Constantin will produce the new film, with a goal set to begin shooting next year and a 2011 release being eyed.


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Related Links Page
Linux, Java and Open Source
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Vendors and support links
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- Parts-Express DYI Speakers and other electronics - great customer service!
- ToolFarm.com Excellent source for plug-ins for video postprocessing
- Fenton UPS - Uninterruptible Power Supplies (Linux Friendly)
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- Amazon.com; online bookstore and more
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- GoDaddy: Registrar and internet service provider
- Network Solutions: Internic Registration Authority
Internet Search Engines
- Google *favorite*
- Start page by ixquick for private searching
- Yahoo! Internet Searching
News and Reference
- FreePatentsOnline - patent searching site
- Math Tools, portal for all scientific and engineering needs
- Math Portal (great tutorials)
- Snopes Internet Hoax Reference
- Small Business Administration
Clients and Business Partners (incomplete list)
- Oak Street Software's Photo/Video division
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Online computer magazines and SIGs
- DV Info Net - Great information and resources for independent filmmakers and anyone shooting digital video
- MacWorld Magazine
- Dr. Dobbs Journal
The presence or absence of any company or link on this page does not constitute an endorsement or lack of endorsement by the host or editor of this page.


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Hot or Not? Tree Stump Outdoor Speaker
Colleen over at Apartment Therapy DC recently posted this Hot or Not about this tree stump shaped outdoor speaker. They're designed to provide high quality sound while blending into the landscape, providing up to 125-watt speaker plays stereo sound with a waterproof faux bois case. We're not sure they'd be our first choice for outdoor audio, as we'd prefer outdoor speakers that retain a recognizable speaker form, but in an aesthetically pleasing and modest design, rather than completely camouflaging them in a pseudo-natural case. What do you think?
If you happen to like these tree stump speakers, they've been drastically reduced from $399 to $140 at Smarthome, and are available in left or right channels with a subwoofer version to provide the deeper range of your outdoor beats.


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Funcom has officially announced that the release date for The Secret World will be delayed by two weeks. TSW will hit store shelves on July 3rd with the head start program for those prepurchasing the game to begin on June 29th. The delay and new release dates were announced during a financial briefing with investors.
Funcom today announced that the company has made a small adjustment to the release date for The Secret World. Due to market reasons, the ship date has been moved by two weeks to July 3rd, with Early Access starting June 29th. The new launch date places The Secret World in a more positive launch window which will benefit the launch of the game.
In addition to the above, the beta weekends have been dated:
Read the full announcement on the Funcom The Secret World site.


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Lenovo G5030 Intel Pentium Quad Core-2GHz - Buy Online
Lenovo G5030 Intel Pentium Quad Core-2GHz (4GB,1TB HDD) 15.6-Inch Windows 8 Laptop
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1 Comment
Rachel McAdams Gives Great Red Carpet Hair!
Want to copy Rachel's Sherlock Holmes, vintage-inspired style?
Rachel McAdams was sporting an absolutely gorgeous braided 'do at the Dec. 14 London premiere for her latest, sure-to-be-hit flick, Sherlock Holmes. "We wanted to work with the Grecian influence from the dress while still incorporating a red carpet image without being too traditional," says Thomas Dunkin who created Rachel's fashion-forward look. Here's how Thomas, a member of the Sebastian Professional Stylist Design Team sculpted Rachel's hair!
Here's how to get Rachel's style!
- "I started by blow drying Rachel's hair using a volumizing spray to get a very modern texture with a lot of volume in the hair," Thomas says.
- "After blow drying each section I put it in a medium sized velcro roller throughout the whole head of hair. I allowed this to set while her make up was being applied."
- "For her disheveled ponytail I hand stitched four hair extensions together. I used an assortment of very light blonde and dark blonde to achieve a more natural feel," he explains.
- "After taking the rollers out I ran my hands through her hair whist spraying dry shampoo. This adds a great rustic color to the hair," Thomas says.
- "I then back combed the hair and manipulated the front into shape while twisting the hair softly back into a unconventional chignon," he says.
- "I attached the ponytail underneath the chignon and pinned hair randomly into the ponytail and chignon. It's important that you leave random pieces of hair loose, it adds softness to the look. I used hairspray to keep the look in place on what was a typical London winter evening and it didn't move!" Thomas says. – Marta Topran
For more Sherlock Holmes coverage:
Style at Sherlock Holmes, It's Elementary!
Robert Downey Jr., Rachel McAdams & Jude Law Bring Sherlock Holmes Back to the Streets of London


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Webinar Presentation Wednesday Night!
Added Thursday due to overwhelming response. Please just let me know which day you will attend.
How would you like to see the Isagenix presentation online from your computer? Well, on Wednesday & Thursday night we're conducting a live webinar presentation :
Wednesday 6:00PM PST/ 9:00 PM EST
Thursday 7:30PM PST/ 10:00PM EST
The presentation will last only 30 minutes. This is a wonderful opportunity to share Isagenix with others.
To join simply follow these steps:
- Click on this link: http://makeincome4life.
- Click on "Enter As A Guest"
- Then click on "Enter the Room"
- Just wait to be entered into the presentation room


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Thursday, June 14, 2007
Witches offer babies to the Devil
3 comments:
Well its all very Norman Cohn isn't it. The whole inversion of values and "nature". Its also the kind of claim thrown out at moral panics at every "deviant" group as Cohn suggests. I've been so re-evaluating recently after my paper on the SRA panics of the 1980s. They are so straight out of the middle ages. Kinda disturbing. If you ever want a bit of a scare read some Richard Hicks sometime.
- June 14, 2007 at 2:06 PM
Hi, OK, I will look Richard Hicks up. Have you read David Frankfurter's book on SRA and associated things - also like a continuation on from Norman Cohn - called "Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History" (2006)? It is absolutely excellent, and I think it should be essential reading for anyone involved in or a student of alternative religions.
- June 14, 2007 at 7:42 PM
Not too far from the truth, babies were regularly offered, a far too common site in even Neolithic sites of Romania, Ancient slavic villages, and specifically along rivers. Babies were commonly buried under homes, which was considered a blessing, when offered ceremoniously.
Slavic Folklore (Better termed oral History) talks about female priestesses offering young babies to the goddess. Also Serbian, and even the Gaul nymphs practiced infant sacrifices as a form of respect, and babies were known to be stolen and raised by nymphs if not given as sacrifice to the river goddess.
Evil also means live! Devil means lived, and Devi is a female goddess in Sanskrit so their is more to that statement then we are told today.
- March 18, 2012 at 4:17 AM


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Redbank Instruments offers a range of arc flash kits from Oberon in kit bags.
Arc flash kits by Oberon are a convenient and cost-effective way to acquire complete arc flash protection.
Arc flash safety gear is essential for protecting workers involved in switching high current loads.
Redbank Instruments supplies Oberon's arc flash PPE kits to the mining, mill, quarry and electrical industries.
Key components of Oberon's arc flash kits:
- Coat
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fSekrit is a small application for keeping encrypted notes.
This software is a good tool to keep Your encrypted codes or even data safe, from any external usage.
The great note about this great tool is that its a really small utility, it portable , that means you can keep it in your pen drive and take it with you to any other place.
Another advantage of using fSekrit is that your un-encrypted data is never stored on your hard disk.
With a traditional encryption utility you would have to decrypt your file to disk, view or edit it, and then re-encrypt it, and unless you use secure file wiping tools, it would be a trivial matter for someone to to retrieve your un-encrypted data, even though you have deleted it…
This can't be done with fSekrit, though, since it never stores your un-encrypted data on disk. fSekrit uses very strong encryption (256-bit AES/Rijndael in CBC mode) to ensure that your data is never at risk. Self contained fSekrit note files are tiny! Only 60k plus the size of your text.
Screen Shots :
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Happy Hacking @hackerthedude


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The Dracove
Kylie O'Rourke has unwittingly walked into the path of two vampyres—one who wants to use her as a sacrifice, and one who only wishes to win her heart. As she is pulled into their clandestine world, she learns more about her history and the reason behind her horrible nightmares. More info →
Gods & Vampyres
War. The act never changes, only its players over thousands of years. When Kylie is taken for use as a sacrifice in an ancient ritual, Grantlund races to save her life, but he has to wait for that perfect moment or all will be lost. Not only does he have to go up against his former Master, Cianán, one of the oldest and most powerful vampyres on Earth, but now the gods are involved, and Cianán has a very prominent one in his corner. More info →
Dusk of Death: an Armen Leza, Demon Hunter novel (Book 1)
When Armen Leza fell from Hell, demon hunting was the last thing on her mind, but when all Hell breaks loose, this Fallen is humankind's only hope for salvation. More info →


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December 6th… already!
Wow, time flies!
December 6th (as I learned today) happens to be the birthday of the global president of Nintendo – Satoru Iwata!
According to the timezone converter, it's around 7:30 in the morning in Japan, December 7th, as I post this, so it's somewhat belated, but:
Happy 54th Birthday, Mr. Iwata!
Filed under: Gaming | Comments Off on A somewhat belated Happy Birthday to Mr. Iwata!


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Dutch Crown Domeless Nail
stars, based on
Sesh Essentials
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Product Description
Amsterdam Glassworx - Dutch Crown Female Domeless Nail
This clear glass concentrate nail is made from the finest quality Schott-Duran borosilicate glass for heat resistance and durability.
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A superb quality glass nail from the master lampworkers at Amsterdam Glassworx that is sure to be popular with the 7:10 generation.
The Dutch Crown Female Domeless Nail is available with either 14.5mm or 18.8mm joint sizes - Please see the dropdown menu to ensure you select the correct size.
Technical Specifications
brand Amsterdam Glassworx concentrate utensils Concentrate Nails joint Female joint size 14.5mm, 18.8mm material Glass nail style 1-Piece, Domeless


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I've got MS Windows XP Professional on my PC. I've used updated Norton 2003 and McAfee, but they have not been able to find and delete it. I use Rogers Internet, and I'm surprised it was able to pass through their firewall. I use both IE as well as Firefox. The bug becomes active whether I'm on online or offline.
Can anyone help? Thanks
Edited by drtunio, 16 March 2005 - 08:33 PM.


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Wonder-Box Tales
Wonder-Box Tales
The Ouphe of the WoodThe Fairy Who Judged Her NeighborsThe Prince's DreamThe Water-lilyA Lost Wand
Book Excerpt
and jewels till dinner-time, when the most delicious hot beefsteaks and sausage pudding or roast goose were served up, with more sweet pies, fritters, tarts, and cheese-cakes than they could possibly eat. As for the baby, he had three elegant cots, in which he was put to sleep by turns; he was allowed to tear his picture-books as often as he pleased, and to eat so many sugar-plums and macaroons that they often made him quite ill.
The woodman looked very pale and miserable, though he often said what a fine thing it was to be rich. He never thought of going to his work, and used generally to sit in the kitchen till dinner was ready, watching the spit. Kitty wished she could see him looking as well and cheerful as in old days, though she felt naturally proud that her husband should always be dressed like a gentleman, namely, in a blue coat, red waistcoat, and top-boots.
He and Kitty could never agree as to what should be done with the rest of the money; in fact, no one would have known them for the