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This is a panorama created in Photoshop CS5 64 from nine separate shots. The photos were taken handheld with my Canon S90 pocket camera in manual mode, 1/60, F5, ISO200, RAW format.

This is the same scene, later in the morning.

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This panorama was also created in Photoshop CS5 64, this time from 16 shots. Also taken handheld with my Canon S90 pocket camera in manual mode, 1/400, F8, ISO200, RAW format.

While Scott is out wandering the world, we are left to more pedestrian, plebeian pursuits.

Devoid of exotic destinations, we must settle for the typical, the mundane, the merely domestic.

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That’s not to say it is without its simple pleasures.

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And charming character.

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And elegant beauty.

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But out here, where things are simple, and a reminder of a by-gone era,

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there is accommodation that is yurt size, but sans yurt smells.

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The lunch views are good,

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and there is more on the menu than fermented mare’s milk.

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But, even out here, when things go bad,

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you can still find a little piece of heaven in the customer lounge.

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* * * * *

“Scott” refers to our friend, Scott Brady, who is currently participating in a Europe to Mongolia rally.

I wrote this for Scott, the publisher, and our other friends at Overland Journal magazine. Everybody there except Scott is like us, stuck here stateside, while Scott enjoys the fermented mare’s milk and boundless skies of Mongolia while sleeping off the last stage of the rally in a yurt.

I think Scott will like this composition, since he was recently featured in a story in Forbes and the arrangement here implies he owns one of the world’s leading companies.

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* * * * *

Tire replacement, a little bit of heaven and the best customer lounge I’ve ever seen, anywhere, courtesy of Big Sky BMW, Missoula, MT.

http://www.bigskymotorsports.com/

* * * * *

Post Script:

Sport bike riders and road racers will look at this photo and wonder, “How did that tire get scrubbed all the way to the absolute edge like that? Don’t they ride two-up with big camera bags and a bunch of luggage?”

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And the answer is, yes, we do.

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* * * * *

Click here to view as a PDF: http://www.hackneys.com/docs/oneforoj.pdf

(requires Adobe Acrobat reader 7 or higher)

I compiled my thoughts on the primary challenges the United States faces in the coming decade, and ways to overcome them, here: http://www.hackneys.com/docs/facingthefuture.pdf

The primary focus in this collection is on domestic challenges, although some geopolitical issues are addressed.

.

Following is a good overview of a current geopolitical situation from Stratfor, a public domain intelligence analysis firm.

If you are interested in the particular issue and region at hand, Israel / Palestinians / rising Turkey / etc., you will probably find it of value.

However, its true worth lies in some pearls of geopolitical wisdom, some geopolitical universal truths, which are sprinkled within.

In particular, these excerpts are of value:

• Where knowledge is limited, and the desire to learn the complex reality doesn’t exist, public opinion can be shaped by whoever generates the most powerful symbols.
• … on a matter of only tangential interest, governments tend to follow their publics’ wishes, however they originate.
• It was not the truth or falsehood of the narrative that mattered.
• Public opinion matters where issues are not of fundamental interest to a nation.
• …they seem to think that the issue is whose logic is correct. But the issue actually is, whose logic will be heard?
• …this sort of warfare has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with controlling public perception and using that public perception to shape foreign policy around the world.
• …controlling public opinion requires subtlety, a selective narrative and cynicism.

These constants, these irreducible facts, are applicable to both domestic and foreign policy. They are the fundamentals of geopolitics as it applies to public opinion.

If you grasp them, you can begin to understand what is happening outside the fishbowl.

If you come to appreciate the full scope and implications of this one: “Where knowledge is limited, and the desire to learn the complex reality doesn’t exist, public opinion can be shaped by whoever generates the most powerful symbols.” you can also begin to understand what is happening inside the fishbowl.

* * * * *

Flotillas and the Wars of Public Opinion

May 31, 2010

By George Friedman

On Sunday, Israeli naval forces intercepted the ships of a Turkish nongovernmental organization (NGO) delivering humanitarian supplies to Gaza. Israel had demanded that the vessels not go directly to Gaza but instead dock in Israeli ports, where the supplies would be offloaded and delivered to Gaza. The Turkish NGO refused, insisting on going directly to Gaza. Gunfire ensued when Israeli naval personnel boarded one of the vessels, and a significant number of the passengers and crew on the ship were killed or wounded.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon charged that the mission was simply an attempt to provoke the Israelis. That was certainly the case. The mission was designed to demonstrate that the Israelis were unreasonable and brutal. The hope was that Israel would be provoked to extreme action, further alienating Israel from the global community and possibly driving a wedge between Israel and the United States. The operation’s planners also hoped this would trigger a political crisis in Israel.

A logical Israeli response would have been avoiding falling into the provocation trap and suffering the political repercussions the Turkish NGO was trying to trigger. Instead, the Israelis decided to make a show of force. The Israelis appear to have reasoned that backing down would demonstrate weakness and encourage further flotillas to Gaza, unraveling the Israeli position vis-à-vis Hamas. In this thinking, a violent interception was a superior strategy to accommodation regardless of political consequences. Thus, the Israelis accepted the bait and were provoked.

The ‘Exodus’ Scenario

In the 1950s, an author named Leon Uris published a book called “Exodus.” Later made into a major motion picture, Exodus told the story of a Zionist provocation against the British. In the wake of World War II, the British — who controlled Palestine, as it was then known — maintained limits on Jewish immigration there. Would-be immigrants captured trying to run the blockade were detained in camps in Cyprus. In the book and movie, Zionists planned a propaganda exercise involving a breakout of Jews — mostly children — from the camp, who would then board a ship renamed the Exodus. When the Royal Navy intercepted the ship, the passengers would mount a hunger strike. The goal was to portray the British as brutes finishing the work of the Nazis. The image of children potentially dying of hunger would force the British to permit the ship to go to Palestine, to reconsider British policy on immigration, and ultimately to decide to abandon Palestine and turn the matter over to the United Nations.

There was in fact a ship called Exodus, but the affair did not play out precisely as portrayed by Uris, who used an amalgam of incidents to display the propaganda war waged by the Jews. Those carrying out this war had two goals. The first was to create sympathy in Britain and throughout the world for Jews who, just a couple of years after German concentration camps, were now being held in British camps. Second, they sought to portray their struggle as being against the British. The British were portrayed as continuing Nazi policies toward the Jews in order to maintain their empire. The Jews were portrayed as anti-imperialists, fighting the British much as the Americans had.

It was a brilliant strategy. By focusing on Jewish victimhood and on the British, the Zionists defined the battle as being against the British, with the Arabs playing the role of people trying to create the second phase of the Holocaust. The British were portrayed as pro-Arab for economic and imperial reasons, indifferent at best to the survivors of the Holocaust. Rather than restraining the Arabs, the British were arming them. The goal was not to vilify the Arabs but to villify the British, and to position the Jews with other nationalist groups whether in India or Egypt rising against the British.

The precise truth or falsehood of this portrayal didn’t particularly matter. For most of the world, the Palestine issue was poorly understood and not a matter of immediate concern. The Zionists intended to shape the perceptions of a global public with limited interest in or understanding of the issues, filling in the blanks with their own narrative. And they succeeded.

The success was rooted in a political reality. Where knowledge is limited, and the desire to learn the complex reality doesn’t exist, public opinion can be shaped by whoever generates the most powerful symbols. And on a matter of only tangential interest, governments tend to follow their publics’ wishes, however they originate. There is little to be gained for governments in resisting public opinion and much to be gained by giving in. By shaping the battlefield of public perception, it is thus possible to get governments to change positions.

In this way, the Zionists’ ability to shape global public perceptions of what was happening in Palestine — to demonize the British and turn the question of Palestine into a Jewish-British issue — shaped the political decisions of a range of governments. It was not the truth or falsehood of the narrative that mattered. What mattered was the ability to identify the victim and victimizer such that global opinion caused both London and governments not directly involved in the issue to adopt political stances advantageous to the Zionists. It is in this context that we need to view the Turkish flotilla.

The Turkish Flotilla to Gaza

The Palestinians have long argued that they are the victims of Israel, an invention of British and American imperialism. Since 1967, they have focused not so much on the existence of the state of Israel (at least in messages geared toward the West) as on the oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Since the split between Hamas and Fatah and the Gaza War, the focus has been on the plight of the citizens of Gaza, who have been portrayed as the dispossessed victims of Israeli violence.

The bid to shape global perceptions by portraying the Palestinians as victims of Israel was the first prong of a longtime two-part campaign. The second part of this campaign involved armed resistance against the Israelis. The way this resistance was carried out, from airplane hijackings to stone-throwing children to suicide bombers, interfered with the first part of the campaign, however. The Israelis could point to suicide bombings or the use of children against soldiers as symbols of Palestinian inhumanity. This in turn was used to justify conditions in Gaza. While the Palestinians had made significant inroads in placing Israel on the defensive in global public opinion, they thus consistently gave the Israelis the opportunity to turn the tables. And this is where the flotilla comes in.

The Turkish flotilla aimed to replicate the Exodus story or, more precisely, to define the global image of Israel in the same way the Zionists defined the image that they wanted to project. As with the Zionist portrayal of the situation in 1947, the Gaza situation is far more complicated than as portrayed by the Palestinians. The moral question is also far more ambiguous. But as in 1947, when the Zionist portrayal was not intended to be a scholarly analysis of the situation but a political weapon designed to define perceptions, the Turkish flotilla was not designed to carry out a moral inquest.

Instead, the flotilla was designed to achieve two ends. The first is to divide Israel and Western governments by shifting public opinion against Israel. The second is to create a political crisis inside Israel between those who feel that Israel’s increasing isolation over the Gaza issue is dangerous versus those who think any weakening of resolve is dangerous.

The Geopolitical Fallout for Israel

It is vital that the Israelis succeed in portraying the flotilla as an extremist plot. Whether extremist or not, the plot has generated an image of Israel quite damaging to Israeli political interests. Israel is increasingly isolated internationally, with heavy pressure on its relationship with Europe and the United States.

In all of these countries, politicians are extremely sensitive to public opinion. It is difficult to imagine circumstances under which public opinion will see Israel as the victim. The general response in the Western public is likely to be that the Israelis probably should have allowed the ships to go to Gaza and offload rather than to precipitate bloodshed. Israel’s enemies will fan these flames by arguing that the Israelis prefer bloodshed to reasonable accommodation. And as Western public opinion shifts against Israel, Western political leaders will track with this shift.

The incident also wrecks Israeli relations with Turkey, historically an Israeli ally in the Muslim world with longstanding military cooperation with Israel. The Turkish government undoubtedly has wanted to move away from this relationship, but it faced resistance within the Turkish military and among secularists. The new Israeli action makes a break with Israel easy, and indeed almost necessary for Ankara.

With roughly the population of Houston, Texas, Israel is just not large enough to withstand extended isolation, meaning this event has profound geopolitical implications.

Public opinion matters where issues are not of fundamental interest to a nation. Israel is not a fundamental interest to other nations. The ability to generate public antipathy to Israel can therefore reshape Israeli relations with countries critical to Israel. For example, a redefinition of U.S.-Israeli relations will have much less effect on the United States than on Israel. The Obama administration, already irritated by the Israelis, might now see a shift in U.S. public opinion that will open the way to a new U.S.-Israeli relationship disadvantageous to Israel.

The Israelis will argue that this is all unfair, as they were provoked. Like the British, they seem to think that the issue is whose logic is correct. But the issue actually is, whose logic will be heard? As with a tank battle or an airstrike, this sort of warfare has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with controlling public perception and using that public perception to shape foreign policy around the world. In this case, the issue will be whether the deaths were necessary. The Israeli argument of provocation will have limited traction.

Internationally, there is little doubt that the incident will generate a firestorm. Certainly, Turkey will break cooperation with Israel. Opinion in Europe will likely harden. And public opinion in the United States — by far the most important in the equation — might shift to a “plague-on-both-your-houses” position.

While the international reaction is predictable, the interesting question is whether this evolution will cause a political crisis in Israel. Those in Israel who feel that international isolation is preferable to accommodation with the Palestinians are in control now. Many in the opposition see Israel’s isolation as a strategic threat. Economically and militarily, they argue, Israel cannot survive in isolation. The current regime will respond that there will be no isolation. The flotilla aimed to generate what the government has said would not happen.

The tougher Israel is, the more the flotilla’s narrative takes hold. As the Zionists knew in 1947 and the Palestinians are learning, controlling public opinion requires subtlety, a selective narrative and cynicism. As they also knew, losing the battle can be catastrophic. It cost Britain the Mandate and allowed Israel to survive. Israel’s enemies are now turning the tables. This maneuver was far more effective than suicide bombings or the Intifada in challenging Israel’s public perception and therefore its geopolitical position (though if the Palestinians return to some of their more distasteful tactics like suicide bombing, the Turkish strategy of portraying Israel as the instigator of violence will be undermined).

Israel is now in uncharted waters. It does not know how to respond. It is not clear that the Palestinians know how to take full advantage of the situation, either. But even so, this places the battle on a new field, far more fluid and uncontrollable than what went before. The next steps will involve calls for sanctions against Israel. The Israeli threats against Iran will be seen in a different context, and Israeli portrayal of Iran will hold less sway over the world.

And this will cause a political crisis in Israel. If this government survives, then Israel is locked into a course that gives it freedom of action but international isolation. If the government falls, then Israel enters a period of domestic uncertainty. In either case, the flotilla achieved its strategic mission. It got Israel to take violent action against it. In doing so, Israel ran into its own fist.

* * *

Reprinting or republication of this report on websites is authorized by prominently displaying the following sentence at the beginning or end of the report, including the hyperlink to STRATFOR: 

“This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR“  http://www.stratfor.com/

* * * * *

 Sources:

• Stratfor

As part of our effort to reintegrate into American society and its culture, we’re spending part of our summer in the air conditioned retreat of the Paramount, a faithfully restored theater originally built in 1915 to host vaudeville as the Majestic and transformed in 1930 into a Baroque Revival movie palace, its present form.

The theater provides a retreat from both the heat and day-to-day reality into the bygone eras of Hollywood and foreign film classics. The films are replete with villains and heroes defined by art direction, staging and dialog that shorthands races, roles, conflicts, attitudes and passions into nifty set-piece scenes. This foreshortening of life’s challenges and irresolvable conflicts into tightly packaged, neatly wrapped, emotionally digestible, bite sized chunks contrasts with later eras’ films that showcased, if not celebrated, the irredeemable flaws of humanity on individual, societal, planetary and galactic scales. This latter film genre, while undoubtedly more accurate and reflective of the true nature of life, is much more challenging material, and over time often leads to a retreat into the simpler, soft-focus, one-way pursuit of the nostalgia of a “simpler time.”

As tempting as the seductive, simple packaging of human and national characteristics in film classics can be, they can also serve as a useful lens through which to view our modern world. For instance, this weekend’s fare included the celebrated artistic convergence of producer / director Elia Kazan and a troupe of talented actors, writers, composers, cinematographers, art directors and production professionals: 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire and 1954’s On The Waterfront.

Since I often retain an outside-looking-in perspective on the U.S., I sometimes derive different views of cultural artifacts than others around me here in the United States. Consequently, the primary roles in the two films, viewed back-to-back as a double feature, couldn’t help but jump out at me as parallels of the roles the United States is often cast in by the various countries on the geopolitical scene where we’ve spent time during the last decade.

The world’s rapidly developing economies, such as Brazil and Russia, as well as the merely developing nations, often see the U.S. as Father Barry, the righteous priest, constantly goading others to do the right thing, as he defines it. At best, the developing nations  emphasize Father Barry’s courageous stand for virtue, freedom, honesty and integrity. At worst, they note that their labors in brutal conditions enable Father Barry’s institution its power, position and wealth.

Western Europe often casts the United States as Stanley Kowalski, the crude brute, ruled by his adolescent emotions, too immature for his physical strength, capable of little beyond browbeating, manipulation and abuse. Unequipped to rise beyond his commonness, he surrounds himself with equally low-life immigrants and rejects the only example of higher breeding, culture and lofty education he encounters.

Bombastic socialists, such as Hugo Chavez, popularize the identity of America as Johnny Friendly, the corrupt mob boss who rules his domain with an iron fist, brutally subjugating the masses through intimidation, economic marginalization, violence and death, while he and his henchmen wallow in wealth and power.

Other nations in Latin America are more nuanced in their casting of America as mobster. The rest of the region puts the United States in the role of The Boss of Bosses, who makes but a brief cameo appearance as the puppeteer behind the Johnny Friendlys of the world. In their view, America as The Boss of Bosses silently and mysteriously pulls the strings that control economies, rainfall and whether or not you have a flat tire on the way to work today through the omniscient, omnipresent and omni-powerful CIA.

Islamists portray the United States as Stella Kowalski, debauched and decadent, wife of Satan himself, ready and willing to bring forth further generations of depraved, bestial, godless Stanleys to further pollute the world. Stella, unable to resist the sinful allure of Stanley’s Satan, legitimizes all that is unclean and unholy and therefore has no place in a sanctified realm.

China and other nations, tribes and individuals vested in the current century’s geopolitical realities place the United States solidly in the starring role of Blanche DuBois. Blanche, born into unimaginable wealth, power and prestige, joined her forbears in squandering her remaining wealth. Relevant only in her own fantasy world, trapped in addiction and unable to face reality, she ends in a downward spiral of decay, denial and collapse.

People who view the United States in a positive light, and there are many more of them out there than the two dominant world-view narratives extant in America allow to be known, tend to cast the United States as Terry Malloy. Sure, Terry is simple minded, and he’s made some mistakes by choosing the wrong friends and being overly loyal to people he thought he could trust; but, then again, his is loyal and he is trusting and he is a guy who is willing to fight for, and lay his life on the line for, what he believes in. In fact, if Terry believes in you, he’ll lay his life on the line for you as well. Terrys are very rare on the geopolitical scene.

If Americans picked a role for the United States, they might pick good-hearted Harold “Mitch” Mitchell, who perhaps too late realizes he can’t go it alone and needs a partner, narrowly avoids being hoodwinked by a wily deceiver, but in the end stands up for his values and rejects his suitor as unworthy. That would be a fairly subtle reading of the role as applied to the United States, and Mitch is difficult to see as purely heroic.

Consequently, most Americans would probably also pick Terry Malloy, the closest role to purely heroic outside of the courageous, saintly Edie Doyle.

In the Hollywood ending to the movie On The Waterfront, Terry Malloy rises from his pummeling by Johnny Friendly’s gang, shakes off his injuries and triumphantly leads the newly independent dockworkers into a fresh, cleansed-of-past-sins era (cue swelling music in the Leonard Bernstein score).

In Budd Schulberg’s original screenplay and his subsequent novel version of the story, Terry Malloy is brutally murdered by the mob, the realpolitik power of the docks.

Only time will tell what role best suits the United States. And which ending will apply.

* * * * *

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Cast (in credits order) verified as complete 

* * * * *

On The Waterfront (1954)

Cast (in credits order) verified as complete 

* * * * *

Sources:

Paramount Theater
History: http://www.austintheatre.org/site/PageNavigator/venues/paramount/history
Films: http://www.austintheatre.org/site/PageNavigator/shows_events/films

A Streetcar Named Desire
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044081/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Streetcar_Named_Desire_(1951_film)

On The Waterfront
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047296/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_waterfront

* * * * *

It’s often quoted folk-wisdom that climbing stairs adds years to your life. That’s interesting, since the goal of human civilization, once past the creation of the civilization itself and aside from war, has largely been the elimination of all possible effort associated with life.

From elevators to Google search, anything that eliminates effort is rewarded; from rotary dial phones to manual crank car windows, anything that adds effort is penalized. Day by day, year by year, more and more effort is removed from life, leaving more and more effortless life, more and more elevator rides through existence.

Is there a price to pay for that?

Does having a few staircases to climb every day add the level of striving and exertion required for humans to be healthy, both mentally and physically?

What about on a societal scale?

When societies have no major challenges to overcome, no credible common goal they are collectively striving to achieve, no literal or figurative staircase to climb, they inevitably disintegrate.

How many staircases can we eliminate before we as individuals, and collectively as a society, lose what we need to be healthy and stay alive?

Have we already collectively moved out of our 4th floor walkup? And, if so, how much longer before the effects overwhelm us?

Asked another way, if we’re no longer climbing the stairs of individual and collective challenge, are we instead fat, happy and riding the elevator, merely waiting to get off at a higher floor, unprepared for what awaits us? Or, are we instead hurtling down the elevator shaft to the depths below, blissfully unaware we’ve traded what we need to survive and thrive as individuals and as a society for the ease of an effort- free, ignorance-is-bliss, abbreviated existence?

The entrepreneur who told me of his father is 83. He’s looking for another startup. He wants to be climbing stairs. He wants a 4th floor walkup.

Which are you looking for: the stairs or the elevator?

Which is your country looking for?

As everyone who has raised kids to this age knows, there are ups and downs along the way.

During the downs there are many times when you wish you could reach inside your kid’s head and pull the levers and turn the knobs to put them on the path you can see so clearly but they seem blind to. Since you can’t reach into their heads and pull those levers and turn those knobs, your kids almost always continue down the path they are convinced is the right one, often to find it leads into murky water or, occasionally, directly off a cliff.

Amber, now in her mid-twenties, did the full-on off-the-cliff swan dive in her teens. As she relates it now, she “was on a very bad path” and now considers herself “lucky to be alive.” During that time I didn’t have any contact with her and had absolutely no idea where she was, what she was doing or where she was headed. Based on what little I know now, I was probably fortunate to be so ignorant of her circumstances at the time.

One day while Steph and I were motorcycling through Japan, completely out of the blue I received an email from Amber. It was the first I’d heard from her in years. A few months later I saw her again. It was a great reunion.

She didn’t tell me much about how she’d spent the prior years and I didn’t ask. I was just glad to have her back in our lives.

One of the lasting downsides to her lost years was an incomplete education. It kept her at a disadvantage in the job market and severely limited her career choices and potential. After gaining some retail management experience, she found her passion working with emotionally disabled teens, most of them autistic or Asperger syndrome kids, and almost all of them from disadvantaged circumstances.

But, even though she’d found her passion and was very good at it, she was still limited by having no college degree. Plus, she’s a single mom, so she couldn’t just abandon responsibilities to pursue an education. She was stuck, with no perceived avenues to advance herself, her life, her education or her career prospects.

Then, by pure chance, a friend mentioned an education program designed for single mothers at a local school. The program included financial aid, housing, child care, flexible schedules and, best of all, a bachelor’s degree. However, there were a very limited number of slots available and the deadline for applications was approaching quickly. Amber jumped at the chance and spent the next few weeks working the process of phone calls, applications and interviews.

Just a few weeks ago, Amber was grinding it out in a job with few upside prospects, light years from her dream of teaching emotionally disabled, inner-city teens. Today, she’s a student at St. Catherine University, a private, all-women’s institution of about 4,700 students located on 110 idyllic wooded acres in the heart of St. Paul, Minnesota, the same metro area where Amber grew up.

Last week we were in town, so Amber gave us a tour of the St. Catherine’s campus. As we walked the beautiful grounds and passed out onto the grand entrance drive in front of Derham Hall, Amber stopped us and pointed down the hill to the main gates. She told us of the many times in past years she had driven by the campus and wondered what it was like for the students she saw walking through the gates and up the hill that lay before us. She told us of how distant and apart the campus seemed then, like a fairy tale dream world that only other people—people who were different from her—could ever be a part of.

Amber then told us that just a few weeks prior to our visit, the first time she parked along that very entrance drive, hung her student parking pass on her car’s mirror and stepped out onto the campus as a student, as one of those other people—those people who were different—it all seemed so surreal she just couldn’t believe it was happening, that she was really there, was really one of them.

But she really was there; she really was one of them.

After telling us this story, Amber needed to attend an evening class so we split up in the late afternoon. That day happened to be the end-of-term celebration fair in the campus quad; Steph and I took Amber’s daughter, our granddaughter, over to enjoy the celebration.

As we waited at the fair for our granddaughter’s face painting, the band played a cover version of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’.

As I listened to the chorus, my mind filled with visions of Amber driving by the campus along Cleveland Avenue, peering through her car’s streaked windows at the students walking through the gates and up the drive to the St. Catherine’s campus, shining on the hill like a fairy tale dream world, a world far away from her then gritty reality.

Our granddaughter looked up and smiled, proudly displaying her face painting–a magic princess.

The princess’ magic wand sparkled.

The band sang, “Don’t… Stop… Believin’…”

Indeed.

Amber is grateful for how far she’s come since the dark days of her teens when she disappeared into the mean streets of the very neighborhoods she is working to return to as a teacher. If it is possible to quantify such things, I estimate she’s about one millionth as grateful as her dad.

First, in a story in MSN Money: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/FindDealsOnline/big-discounts-on-little-pleasures.aspx

Second, in a story on FoxNews: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2010/04/16/rv-travel-beginners/

The Fox story included a link to our Travel web site, www.HackneysTravel.com, which was nice of them to include. I haven’t checked the traffic levels on the site yet to see if they spiked or not.