The Cold, Cruel Web

Many businesses make money solely by attracting visitors who are referred to sites where they make a small or large transaction. It can be a beautiful thing, but it can evaporate if search engines like Google drop them from their ranks. Web Pro News gave this advice today:

"As a general rule, you shouldn't rely on Google and organic listings as your bread and butter. As you don't have control of how sites are picked up, then you also have no control of how much traffic is generated. If your site has been a top keyword listing for a significant amount of time, that's great, but it can change in a heart beat. Too many variables equals dangerous ground, and if Google is the only source of traffic, then all can be lost.

News too in NewMediaNews about how the mighty can easily fall:

FRIENDSTER RAPIDLY LOSING FRIENDS The once-definitive online social network hasn't been too popular in recent months. With rival MySpace.com stealing all the hipster cred, the hits just keep on coming (in all the wrong ways) for Friendster. First, CEO Scott Sassa announced his resignation last week, and then their new figures revealed a 65% drop in visitors and total time spent on the site over the last year, with only 700,000 and 14 minutes, respectively, in April.

While Friendster maintains a healthy clientele overseas, its US market has declined significantly because of the site's one-dimensional status as a dating/bulletin service. Meanwhile, MySpace has become the outlet for established and up-and-coming bands to promote music, and its graphically superior features include page customization, personal URLs and blogs, as well as larger bandwidth to post more photos along with video streams. With spaces like this, who needs friends(ters)?"

Confessions of a Car Salesman

Chandler Phillips recently went undercover for Edmunds.com, the car buying website, to provide a glimpse into the secret world of car sales. He was hired as a salesman at an LA dealership, and provides these insights into this shadowy world.

"At times Michael became very excited as he thought of new things to teach me. At one point he said, "Oh! This is a good one! This is how you steal the trade-in." He looked around quickly to make sure no one overheard him. "When you're getting the numbers from the desk, they'll ask if the customer has a trade-in. Say it's a '95 Ford Taurus. And say you took it to the used car manager and he evaluated it and said he would pay four grand for it. If you can get the trade for only three, that's a grand extra in profit.

"So what you do is this," Michael pretended to pick up the phone again, "you ask the desk, 'What did we get for the last three Tauruses at auction?' Then they'll give you some figures — they'll say, $1,923, $2,197 and $1,309. You don't have to say anything to the customer. But he sees you writing this down! And he's going, 'Holy crap! I thought my trade was worth $6,000.' Now it's easy to get it for $3,000. That's a grand extra in profit. And it's front-end money too!" (I later learned that front-end money was what our commissions were based on. Back-end money was made on interest, holdbacks and other elements of the deal.)

Merv's Minute that Made Millions

Merv Griffin was profiled in last week's NY Times. He provided a few nuggets about how he amassed his King Midas-sized fortune.

"In 1986, he sold Merv Griffin Enterprises, which included Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune to Coca-Cola for $250 million. He still recieves royalties from the Jeopardy! theme, which he wrote in less than a minute. "That little 30 seconds has made me a fortune, millions, he crowed. How much exactly? "You don't wanna know." Please Mr. Griffin, do share. "Probably close to $70-80 million."

Ever the forward thinker, Griffin, 80, added that he knows what he'll put on his tombstone: "I will not be right back after these messages."

Wal-Mart Gives Up--But the Writing is On the Screen

Americans love when a giant goes down. Wal-Mart recently admitted defeat, and has thrown in the towel in its nascent DVD rental by mail business. The behemoth company is now directing its customers to use Net Flix, the pioneering original that developed the concept and tried to get a patent for the idea.

As a Blockbuster by mail subscriber, I can attest to the brilliance and convenience of this idea...one thing I have grown to hate are video store late charges, and forgetting to bring the damn video back. Voila, no problem with the mailbox providing the place to drop off and pick up new releases. But Wal-Mart's decision might be prescient--because sooner or later there will come a mainstream version of BitTorrent, so that downloading movies legally will replace the quaint notion of renting the physical DVD.

"The big retailer's decision to abandon the field to NetFlix says something about many other businesses that depend on the delivery of information in some physical format...newspapers, books and magazines, but eventually many publishers are likely to dispense with paper and ink....in the long run the trend is clear," writes the New York Times.

Not Your Father's Sex Manual

Today's Sunday NY Times includes many blogworthy nuggets, including this feature about the new proliferation of explicit sex manuals in bookstores of late.

"Now the old textbookish tomes like "Joy of Sex," which invited readers to expand their horizons beyond the face-to face missionary position have been replaced by shiny paperbacks extolling the excitement that could come from oral sex, anal sex, fetishism and S&M. Couples who were formerly portrayed in a modest embrace are now shown to reveal full penetration. Careful, scholarly, sometimes clinical language has been replaced by chatty girlfriend-speak that might have been ghostwritten by Samantha Jones, the outspoken and sexually ravenous publicist of "Sex and the City."

Those in the business of publishing such books say the evolution has accelerated, fueled by the need to seem relevant in an increasingly sexualized culture. "The generation we're publishing for today is much more open about terminology and much more forthright," said Bryce Willett, the sales marketing manager of Ulysses Press in Berkley, Calif., which publishes "The Little Bit Naughty Book of Sex Positions" and the "Wild Guide to Sex and Loving."

The revival and boomlet of sex guides owes a debt in part to Judith Regan of ReganBooks, the publisher of "How to Have a XXX Sex Life," "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" and "She Comes First" (2004), a sprightly treatise on cunnilingus, which has been successful enough to spawn a sequel, "He Comes Next," due out in February."

Cooking in Someone Else's Kitchen

Cooking in New Jersey on a thundering Saturday afternoon while my sister Jen ran out to have her nails done. This is always a challenge, where do you find the right containers, the right spices, the knives, and the lemon you need? Jen loves to load me up with cooking lists, and we share this in commmon, a love of all things culinary. Jen has an advantage over most: She owns a catering company with a bulging larder we can steal from if we need something.

This trip to NJ is to catch up with my father Nat who is going under the knife for a melanoma on his nose, and to meet Steve, who is Jenny's new boyfriend. Funny that we still call it that after so many decades, who could possibly be a boyfriend in his 50s....but that's what we say. No one has come up with a better term, and I refuse to call him her lover or her paramour, so boyfiend will have to do.

I hope to find the lemons and a good knife and finish the guacamole before Jen gets back. It is nice being back in the place where I grew up, little Blawenburg NJ.

Journeying by Ferry

Journies by ferryboat in New England demonstrate the difference between private and the semi-public administration, and the difference in the user experience. Family-owned Hyline Cruises runs year-round high speed ferries to Nantucket from Hyannis and makes a profit. The Martha's Vineyard & Nantucket Steamship authority also runs ferries, but they lose money. Taking a lot of luggage with me, my trip to Nantucket was relatively painless--dropped off the bags at the luggage trolley, parked within shouting distance, and right on time, at 6 pm I was seated in the comfy saloon drinking a cold beer watching the Hyannis harbor slip away.

A few days later I needed to travel to Martha's vineyard on the Steamship. Drove to a remote parking lot, then lugged the three heavy bags while running to try to catch a shuttle bus. Then got in line after the seven-mile bus trip to the dock. The small boat was loading car after truck after car, and a crowd gathered, waiting to board in a punishing wind. The boat should have left at 1:30 pm, but by 1:45 the many hands on deck were still loading cars. Finally we were allowed to board, and I was lucky enough to grab a seat in the dining area, where there was no bar, no carpet and not enough seats.

The difference is that it felt that the people who run the Hyline ferry want my business more. They said hello, and thank you, just like they do when you deplane at the airport and they left precisely on time. The Steamship, saddled with its pension plan debt and the prospect of running empty boats in January, just keeps plugging along. Oh yes, and when you get back to the parking lot, bring lots of cash. They don't take credit cards, and about 1 out of 4 people who try to pay have to drive over to the ATM to withdraw cash to pay for their parking. ugh.

Lost for the Season

Last night finally, after so many weeks, brought the final episode of Lost. Whoa, now I am truly lost. There's nothing like a cliffhanger to make people come back in the fall to pick up where they left off in May. But this one sewed up no loose ends, and provided only chilling evidence of a serious cast shake-up. We saw the survivors on the raft, Sawyer, Jin, Michael and little Walt meet up with what looked like a rescue party. But it turned out to be a boat full of Hillbilly pirates, who successfully stole the youngster and blew up the raft, leaving the three men bobbing in the inky black water.

Meanwhile, back on the island, after dynamiting the hatch of the mysterious buried tank, and losing the most obnoxious cast member, high school science teacher "Arnt" to nitro glycerin, they finally get that damn thing open. And what is inside?

A ladder and an long long tunnel, with no end in sight.

The Ferries Stay Docked

May has turned nasty here on the New England coast. A storm brewed up last night and the wind howled outside my hotel window. Now, three Russian moving men sit on the lobby couch, killing time at the hotel. That's because the fast ferry and even the slow ferry are not leaving. These men arrived in a moving van from Brooklyn, NY. I bet they didn't plan on staying overnight in this island.

We forget about the elements, and how they still affect what we can and cannot do. I had planned to ferry over to Hyannis and then ferry back to Martha's Vineyard. But that will have to wait. Now just settle back and spend a little more time with the many customers I know here, and put up a few blogs. Tonight is the anticipated last episode of Lost. I wish I could watch it with my honey, but 29 miles of sea and 155 miles of pavement keep us apart.

Cool uses of Google Maps

This was found on Cyberjournalist.com a good site to tap into for web info.

Lately a number of sites and developers have been tapping into Google Maps to create great new tools. Any of these ideas would be fantastic on news sites. Here are eight of the coolest ones:

• HousingMaps: Craigslist apartment listings plotted on Google Maps
• Found City: A community-generated map of interesting places in New York City
• Google Sightseeing: A blog that shows "the best tourist spots in the world via Google Maps' satellite imagery."
• Google-Traffic.com: Maps traffic data onto Google Maps
• Google Maps Wallpapers: Merges Google Maps satellite "tiles" to produce wallpaper or a poster
• Cheap Gas: Find cheap gas prices, powered by gasbuddy and Google Maps

This Device Takes the Work Out of Blogging

Surfing around the web and found a lot of info on blogging. I found an odd new product. It's called "AutoBlogger." The tagline is, "you have a life to live." This product mimics your style and will post your blogs for you. Really. Seems that already people are sick of blogging every day so this new product will do it for them, but make it look like you posted it.

"Seamlessly incorporating regular AutoBlogger entries into an online journal is easier than one might think. This step-by-step guide will help make switching as easy as possible.

To make the most of its AI capabilities, AutoBlogger requires a minimum of 15 entries to create a database from which properly to mimic your writing style. However, as many as 40 individual entries can be entered into the system files to increase how realistic your AutoBlogger-generated posts will be.

Please select these archived entries with care. Each must be at least 250 words long and a thoughtful representation of your typical colloquialisms, speech patterns, and emotional range. Musings about the meaning of life are good; shopping lists are bad."

Bill O'Reilly Again

The LA Times editorialized recently about Bill O'Reilly's comments that certain people would be hunted down by terrorists.

"It is legitimately maddening to Americans that people whom we have liberated from tyranny or the nearby threat of it, at a vast cost in American lives and dollars, should be so spectacularly ungrateful, and should misunderstand us so completel

Why don't they love us? It doesn't seem worthy of decapitation to suggest that ghastly stories (not all fabricated by Newsweek) about abuse of prisoners don't help. Or that American preaching about liberal democratic values might be enhanced by practicing them. For instance, by letting the Gitmo detainees (some totally innocent) have lawyers.

But to O'Reilly, "That's like saying, 'Well, if we're nicer to the people who want to KILL US, then the other people who want to KILL US will like us more.' "

Where did The Times' editorial page get the idea that winning the war on terrorism depends on persuading societies that breed terrorists that they should like us and adopt our values? Actually, this is not some wooly left-wing notion concocted over a joint during a lesbian wedding reception in Santa Monica. It is the cornerstone of the George Bush presidency, according to Bush himself.

In his State of the Union address in January, for instance, Bush said, "In the long term, the peace we seek will only be achieved by eliminating the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder. If whole regions of the world remain in despair and grow in hatred, they will be the recruiting grounds for terror, and that terror will stalk America…."

O'Reilly should be careful. Any further decapitation fantasies could get him in serious trouble with the Secret Service

The Islamic World's Real Source of Fury

Tina Brown as usual has an interesting take on the Newsweek Koran story:

"At Newsweek there was no swaggering megalomaniac editor who deserved a comeuppance, no celebrity anchor with vanities to unmask. Mark Whitaker, Newsweek's editor, errs on the earnest side. The decent, hardworking editors under him who put out the magazine each week seem largely enemy-free.

On Friday and Saturday nights, when other people are trying new Thai restaurants or are snug at home with a rented DVD, these guys are toiling past midnight, fretting with the copy desk about a headline that might mischaracterize a story, a caption that needs to be clarified with another pass.

Anti-Americanism is the Islamic world's PC salve for the real source of their fury, the tyranny of their own corrupt governments. Newsweek is now reeling from a personal encounter with proxy rage. As the Arab scholar Fouad Ajami put it to me, "This is a chronicle of calamity foretold."

MSNBC meathead Joe Scarborough seemed on automatic pilot Monday night as he burst a blood vessel berating token liberal punching bag Bob Jensen about Newsweek's hatred of all that was fine and noble about America, etc."

Rosie...Always Cringeworthy

Today's Village Voice includes this wonderful opener by Julian Dibbell, about Rosie
O'Donnell.

"Can there be anything more cringe-inducing than a CBS Hallmark Special starring Rosie O'Donnell as a developmentally challenged 43-year-old whose faith in people touches the lives of those around her? Trust me. There can: Try wading through the 1,000-plus fan notes posted to O'Donnell's very own "r blog" while the special aired.

The vast majority of posters found Stanislavskian genius ("I smell an emmy!") in a performance best described as Hoffman's Rain Man meets Sesame Street's Grover. For that matter, see O'Donnell's own response to the premiere screening, blogged days earlier in her signature online voice, an unmistakable blend of self-display, self-deprecation, and freshman-year poetics: "i couldn't stay for the after party/cause i felt like i might throw up/it's embarrassing to cry/at your own movie//i'll take narcissism for 500 alex."

We hope that one day we see a piliated woodpecker like this in Holyoke. 

Franken Isn't Funny

Last night's gala celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press drew about 500 attendees, including some of the biggest names in journalism, and raised some $700,000 for the committee amid grave concerns about the state of press freedom in the United States. Editor and Publisher included this account of a bummer of a joke by "funnyman Al Franken."

Then he turned toward The New York Times table in the front of the room, where sat Judith Miller, best known these days for two things: her articles on weapons of mass destruction that didn't quite pan out and the possibility she will go to jail for not revealing sources in the Valerie Plame case. "Judy,"" Franken said, "maybe you can find some WMD in your cell." Silence. "OK, I shouldn't have told that joke."

Life on Da Rock

Back on the rock in the cozy Dolphin Guest House on Nantucket. After a struggle, finally got the broadband wireless to work, so for the next few minutes I am connected. Squirrelly, though, so who knows how long. Last night I posted my story called "American Nudist" on GoNOMAD.com, and a shorter version will appear shortly in the Advocate Newspapers.

On the trip out on the high speed ferry, we looked out the window to see the choppy surf wizzing past, the boat reaches a speed of about 45 mph, and it is up above the waves. I sat with some ladies who were on a tour with 47 others from NJ, and I told them some Nantucket secrets. I suggested they go to the Westender. This funky little place, way out on the western tip of the island, has a huge picture window facing the beach and glorious sunsets can be seen.

Lunestra....now sleep, sleeeeep, sleeeeep

In the familiar Dolphin Guest House, their last season here on Nantucket. Next fall, a rich guy will make this big hotel his own private home. Probably tear down some of it, and make an opulent home for just a few.

Watching TV here, May sweeps is always the best time of the year...all of the juicy shows are coming up with their dramatic endings. Desperate Housewives is on tonight. One commercial was for a new drug called "Lunestra" complete with swirling butterfly/bird that swoops around and helps users of this "daily sleep aid" to learn more about taking this drug...for those who keep thinking about all of their duties and obligations for the next day and need to....just...fall...asleep.

President Bush visits OnMilwaukee.com offices

I met Jeff Sherman just a month ago when I visited the city. Now look who he's got coming to visit his office!

10:05 a.m.
Air Force One landed as rain fell at the 440th air base. After a quick greet with VIPs, including Sheriff David Clarke and County Executive Scott Walker, President Bush got into his limo, and headed for OnMilwaukee.com.

10:25 a.m.
Motorcade with the President's limo and a number of vans for staff and media is headed up Lake Parkway to the Hoan Bridge. Unfortunately, the President won't see much of the city through the fog and rain.

10:33 a.m.
So far, only two protestors have been spotted.

10:35 a.m.
He's here at OnMilwaukee.com.

Bush leaving the Calatrava.

11:18 a.m.
President Bush exits the OMC offices. Says on his way out, 'I had an amazing experience. I saw first-hand a business that is going to grow and blossom and bloom. But of course, I'm most interested in the sports page.'"

Bruce Springsteen, 2005 

The Boss' Many Axes

Bruce Springsteen was featured on CBS' wonderful Sunday Morning show today. The dapper guitarist said he's definitely going to be playing when he's 75, as he and the correspondent stood in front of the stage. There were 25 guitars up there, waiting to be played by the boss. "Why do you have so many guitars?" he was asked. Springsteen replied that each one was tuned for a special song. He carefully tunes these axes so that they're ready for one of his typical long shows.

Springsteen looks remarkably like he did when he first debuted with Born to Run back in 1973. His hair is black, his shape thin, not chunky, and he looks about 35.

Windfarm Tours to Denmark

Although an offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound is still in the permitting process, a handful of islanders want to see one for themselves. And they’re willing to cross the Atlantic Ocean to do it.

Six Nantucketers will leave for Denmark next Tuesday to take part in a trip sponsored by Clean Power Now, a group which supports Cape Wind’s proposal to construct 130 wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound. They will join 29 other residents from around the Cape and Islands on a trip that will take them to two offshore wind farm locations, as well as two land-based wind parks in Denmark.

“I think we can be the eyes and ears for a lot of Nantucketers who are on the fence about the wind farm,” said Carl Borchert. “I want to talk to everyone I can over there about the aesthetics, tourism, economics, jobs and how it’s affected their communities. I’m going to talk to as many people as I can.”

The trip will feature stops at the 70-turbine Nysted Harbor offshore wind farm in Rødsand, the 80-turbine Horns Rev offshore wind park at Blåvand, and two onshore wind facilities in Tjæborg and Velling.

Clean Power Now Executive Director Matt Palmer said the 35 Cape and Islands residents taking part in the trip will be able to judge the wind farms first-hand so they can form their own opinions about offshore wind energy.

Creepy Evil Twins--And Tips on Avoiding them

Evil twins are wireless networks that pretend to offer trusty Wi-Fi connections to the Internet like those available at some coffee shop, hotels and conferences. On a laptop screen, an evil twin Wi-Fi hotspot can look identical to one of the tens of thousands of legitimate public networks that consumers log on to every day, sometimes even copying the sign-in page. But that's just a front, and fraudsters who set up the connections attempt to capture any passwords or credit card numbers that consumers using the link may type.

The WSJ reports, though that there is a way to avoid the fraudsters: You should turn your laptop's Wi-Fi function off when not in use to avoid accidentally connecting to an evil twin, and some advise that you should only sign up for Wi-fi service from a fixed line internet access point, so you don't have to send out those credit card numbers in a vulnerable wireless connection.

$34 Million Per Day in Losses--Hey, Let's Celebrate

Airlines in the U.S. are losing $34 million per day. Losses for the year stand at about $3.1 billion, twice as big as last years. Yet the real horror is that the Wall Street Journal reports that several airline CEOs say this may actually be a peak in the economic cycle for them!

Revenue was up 5 in the first quarter, passenger traffic rose 8.5%--and for the ten largest airlines planes were three quarters full. "This is near the peak, if not the peak," said Gary Kelly, Chief Executive of Southwest.

Yet airline investors like hedge funds, private equity groups and suppliers keep pumping in more money, and this keeps loss-plagued planes flying, forcing everyone to price below cost. "This industry is, essentially, a giant charity. said John D. Owen, CFO of JetBlue.

"The Red Baron" Spies on Scrapyards

Steel these days comes mostly from scrap metal. And many people are aware that scrap metal and waste paper are the two things we export the most to China. But one problem that was reported in Tuesday's Wall St. Journal was that there is not a consistent and open system for setting scrap prices. So steel manufacturers are sneaking up on their suppliers to try to find out if the prices are fair.

"Steel and scrap company executives have used helicopters and satellite photography to keep tabs on rival's scrap and steelyard inventories. "You can't help yourself, when flying by a city, to go check on the scrap supply," said Keith Busse, Chief Executive of Steel Dynamics, in Wayne IN. He is known as "The Red Baron," by his colleagues because of these frequent forays in a friend's helicopter. Fourteen major steel companies have announced a new alliance that will make prices more transparent.

Order Some Wine on Line

The Wall Street Journal reported this week on a major milestone Supreme Court decision, that will ripple through many other industries. They struck down limits in state laws barring direct sales of wine across state lines to consumers.

"Wine is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to protectionist laws and regulations in this country," said Robert Atkinson, of a Centrist think tank in Washington. He cited cars and real estate areas where e-commerce is tipped in favor of the industries.

"States man not enact laws that burden out-of-state producers or shippers simply to give an advantage to in-state businesses," wrote Justice Kennedy. But the old man on the court, 85-year-old Justice Stevens, dissented. He said just because many of today's younger Americans who make policy decisions think of alcohol as an 'ordinary item of commerce' but that was not always the view of those who condemned 'demon rum' and voted in prohibition."

Everybody's Goin' Somewhere Around Here

One of the best things about being in the travel business is traveling. We get many invitations from tourism boards and CVBs to send writers out to do stories. These trips are always well organized (well most of them anyway) and when you travel courtesy of the tourism board, you usually go first class.

While I take many trips myself, (Hungary is the next stop in early June) there are many more invitations I can't accept. But I try hard to find other writers who can take the time to go. They'll come back with fresh content for GoNOMAD.com. and keep our stories new and exciting, with detailed first person accounts.

This morning I was thrilled to hear from Jacylyn Stevenson, who writes for BusinessWest magazine, in Springfield, MA. She's going on at trip organized by Eurail, traveling to Ireland and then taking the chunnel over to Brittany and Normandy. She was excited about going, and I am pleased to be sending such a qualified writer to give us our own exclusive report. Travel on!

The baby Nathaniel, only one week on this earth, and ready to take on the world. 

Firemen Grab 'Hose', Flee Burning Building

Firemen in Donetsk, Ukraine fled in panic from a blazing building after one of them grabbed a hosepipe that turned out to be a 10-foot python.

The firefighters had arrived to fight a blaze at a health club in, when one of them tripped over what he thought was a hosepipe, only to find it was a snake when he reached to pick it up.

The men were eventually talked into going back in to fight the blaze by the owner of the building who said the python, named Yashka, was harmless and he had kept it as a pet in his office. They put out the fire and managed to drag the python out to safety by its tail, local media reported.

Hit Four Times....but Nobody Cared

Mark Flanagan, of Glannant, Wales, was wandering drunk on a divided highway, after his brother's stag party when he was run down--by four separate cars.

None of the drivers stopped to help him. And none of them reported any of the accidents. At Flanagan's inquest, a coroner called the quadruple tragedy, "a tale of inhumanity."

Hero and Princess Flare Their Nostrils

Last week in New York they had their first stagecoach accident in a century. Two horses, breaking loose from their stagecoach ran with nostrils flaring down 14th Street with the police in chase. Jennifer Fermino described it in the NY Post.

"Hero and Princess sent pedestrians scurrying for their lives as the half-ton Percheron ponies bolted for several blocks. The wild incident unfolded around 10 am when the stagecoach the horses were pulling--in a publicity stunt for country singer Shania Twain's new perfume--was rear-ended by a van in between 8th and 9th avenues. As the red coach tipped over on its gold wheels, the white horses broke free, and they scampered away, dragging their yokes as the charged east."

Who Says It Better than the Post? 

Don't Let that Book Touch the Ground--Or Else!

Newsweek's story about a koran being flushed down the toilet at Guantanomo prison is turning into an epic case of damage control gone bad. Today's NY times has a story about the background of the alleged incident.

"Erik Saar, a co-author of the book "Inside the Wire" and an Arabic language translator at Guantánamo from January to June 2003, said in an interview Monday that while he "never saw anything along the lines of a Koran being flushed down a toilet," the issue of how guards and interrogators handled the book was a chronic problem. Inmates, they noted, were given copies of the Koran along with a cloth surgical mask, which they used as a kind of sling to suspend the book from the wire mesh walls to ensure it did not touch the floor.

"It was one of the things that kept resurfacing because guards had to inspect the cells occasionally for contraband," Mr. Saar said. He said that commanders tried to deal with detainees' sensitivity about the Koran in several ways, including enlisting some of the Muslims working for the military as translators to handle the books during inspections, so that nonbelievers would not touch the books.

But that was not always done, he said, and there was no regular policy. The issue "created friction and problems all the time," he said.

Reading Blogs on TV

From today's cyberjournalist.net, comes a funny report about the merging of the old and the new. You can go to this link and watch the clip on the TV show.

"The Daily Show ran an entertaining segment last week on how TV broadcasts are increasing reading from blogs on air.

John Stewart: "By reading the blogs on TV, the 24-hour-news networks have combined the visual pizzaze of a text file with the deep insight of a 90-second cable segment....

"A good blog can be a valuable news resource, but it doesn't really make for good television. Why the rush by networks to put them on the air?"

Rob Corddry: "Terror. Pure undiluted fear of their own extinction. The lumbering TV dinosaurs have spotted a free mammal called blog running around, and in this jungle, it's evolve -- or die."

Back Room Blog Talk

The little button that I placed on the bottom of the blog has provided fascinating details about my readers here at Readuponit. The one that says "site meter,"

There were about 204 of you who came and read the site yesterday, you stayed an average of 39 seconds. Some of you came because you were googling things like "black eyed susan's" or "wife swapping" two subjects that I posted months ago. It is clear that Google favors blogs like this one, since Readuonit jumps to the top of the search results for some really basic search terms. Being able to track this stuff is an endless well of time and energy, the fun part is seeing the terms people use to get here. I can delve deep and even see the Google results screens that brought readers here.

This blog is ranked 5/10 by Google, that means that other webpages presumably would benefit by linking to this page. Ok, Ok, I am waiting here and we do accept credit cards. Who wants to buy a link?

And Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite

An MSNBC.com horror story news article says bed bugs can live for months without food -- patiently waiting for the next hapless hotel guest to arrive so they can feast on him.
Even upscale hotels are not immune to litigation, and bug specialists say the pests can thrive even in a spotlessly clean room. In 2003, a Mexican businessmen sued the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel in New York after he and a companion allegedly suffered numerous bedbug bites to their torsos, arms and necks while staying at the property, which overlooks Central Park.

Helmsley Enterprises Inc., the owner of the hotel, settled the suit quietly last year. Stopping short of confirming bed bugs had been a problem, Howard Rubenstein, a company spokesman, said the hotel had not had any problems with bed bugs since the lawsuit.

Oval-shaped and less than a quarter of an inch long, the brown-colored insects like to settle close to their food source, often hiding out under mattresses and bed frames, in crevices and behind picture frames.

Once attached to a sleeping human, they use a barbed proboscis to bore through the skin and suck their blood meal. They can go months without feeding, patiently awaiting a new host or travel companion.
One woman unknowingly brought home some of the bed bugs after a business trip; her home became infested in no time. And all we can say is "Ewwwww."

Shoes Make High Drama

Pelosi Shoe Drama Has Fairytale Ending

At last, the searing drama of Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's missing pink shoe has come to an end. And what an end it was! Freshman Representative Dave Reichert (R-Washington) dropped to one knee during a press conference, flourished an elegant pink slingback and proclaimed, "I'm proud to be here, and proud to present you with your shoe!" "That is my shoe!" Ms. Pelosi, exclaimed to laughter. "Thank you so much. ... A moment of community on Capitol Hill. ... You are such a gentleman," said Pelosi who was clearly overwhelmed by his gallantry.

But how did the ever-so-gallant Congressman Reichart recover the glass slipper pink slingback, lost when the secret service literally lifted her out of her shoes during the evacuation of the Capitol?

As he and hundreds of other lawmakers and staffers raced down the Capitol's marble steps during Wednesday's stampede to safety, a shoe, an expensive woman's pump, suddenly flew in front of him which he handily caught. "I started to look for a woman in a pink suit who might be missing a shoe," he said. But, alas, no damsel in distress was in view.

He kept the mysterious and elegant shoe close to his heart as he headed back to his office after the all-clear had been sounded. But where was the mystery woman? Later that day, his wife emailed him that she had read online that it was a powerful Democrat who had lost her footwear during the melee. Reichert replied to his wife, "I have a shoe, are you serious?'" Mr. Reichert recalled. Determined to reunite the shoe with its owner, Congressman Reichert appeared at the press conference to return the errant slingback..

Now that's what I call a happy ending. Although they never did bother to tell us who designed the shoe.

Pay It Ain't So

The web just cuts right to the chase. Paidcontent.org is the name of the site where I found this snippet about the New York Times' new idea for fighting the neverending battle against revenue shrink, called TimesSelect, where you will have to pay to read their op-ed and some of their columnists.

"Gordon Crovitz, EVP-electronic publishing, Dow Jones: "This is an important step in showing that publishers with respected brands and strong content now recognize that subscription revenues are just as important online as they have always been in print. We've never understood why other publishers would give away valued brands and content in one medium, while charging in another medium.

More than 730,000 subscribers now pay to access the Wall Street Journal Online, which should encourage other publishers to charge online just as they do in print."

The Grey Lady has also figured out another clever revenue stream...it's vast news archives.

"On the archives: Initially, the archives will go back only to 1980 but eventually to 1851. The delay in full access is due to technical issues. Nisenholtz does not see this as competition for commercial databases Lexis-Nexis, Factiva, etc. He describes it as a "consumer" archives for looking up recipes or single articles, "not a highly robust research tool."

He sees this as a major draw. "We're doing something people have wanted for a decade, which is to open up the archive. Now you can pay us $50 a year and have seamless access to the most valuable archive on the web."

Airline Outsourcing--To Utah

Thomas Friedman's new book, The World Is Flat, offers a treasure trove of blogfodder. Here he visits David Neeleman, the president of JetBlue Airlines, who talks about why he uses stay at home moms in Salt Lake City Utah to make all of his reservations.

"He calls it 'homesourcing.' JetBlue has about 400 agents, taking reservations, in between babysitting, exercising, writing novels and cooking dinner. At a previous airline, Neeleman found that the work-at-homes took 30% more bookings, just by being happier. They were more loyal, and there was less attrition. So when I started JetBlue, I said 'we're going to have 100 percent reservation at home.' The quality we get here is far superior (to India), employers are more willing to outsource to India than to their own homes, and I can't understand that. The productivity we get here more than makes up for the wage factor."

How Many People Read This Blog

I've added a new counter to Readuponit, so if you ever wondered if you are the only one who reads this blog, now you can see who else has been here.

Oodles of Noodles for Turtles in Bangladore

We drove over to Barnes and Noble today, with the grey skies threatening a Sunday afternoon shower. After looking over many books, I settled on Thomas Friedman's new "The World is Flat," and am now deep into reading about Bangladore India's 24/7 Company, where outsourcing comes to life.

"A bottle of bottled water held thirty little turtles. It didn't matter that each turtle had to rattle a metal ladle in order to get a bit of noodles, a total turtle delicacy...the problem was that there were too many turtle battles for less than oodles of noodles. Every time they thought about grappling with the haggler turtles their little turtle minds boggled and they only caught a bit of noodles."

This is the text that Friedman was asked to read in his Minnesotan accent, for a room full of trainee call center employees learning to rid themselves of their Indian accents. "The class responded enthusiastically, this is the first time I ever got an ovation for speaking Minnesotan." he said.

Airlines Dump their Pension Costs on U.S.--that's Us!

Pensions are in the news, and is a ticking time bomb, says George Will in today's NY Post.

Pension plans are underfunded by an estimated $450 billion. Who will bail them out? Taxpayers beware.

The judge who recently allowed United to bail out on its billions in pension debts said it was done to attract financing to keep flying. But perhaps United — or US Airways, or a carrier contemplating bankruptcy as a means of escaping "legacy" costs — should go out of business. The airline industry is afflicted with excess capacity and is hemorrhaging red ink — more than $30 billion since 2000 — largely because of the older carriers' promises of medical care and pensions for current and retired employees.

But muscular interests have huge stakes in keeping all existing airlines flying. The government has invested $9.5 billion in various subsidies for the big carriers which, in dire straits, might try to hand another $20 billion in pension obligations to Washington. Since 9/11, General Electric, which manufactures and maintains jet engines and leases more than 700 aircraft to airlines, wants all carriers to survive. American Express has paid Delta $750 million for frequent-flier miles to award certain card users."

And what do we do when Delta, Continental and US Air say they also want to stop paying for their pensions? egads!

If Bush Won't Do Something, these Mayors Will

Today's NY Times reports that132 mayors from all over the country are defying Bush by agreeing to the rules of the Kyoto Treaty. Seattle's mayor Greg Nickles, leads the way, and many others are coming on board, seeing that if the Feds don't do something, they've got to act.

"The mayors, from cities as liberal as Los Angeles and as conservative as Hurst, Tex., represent nearly 29 million citizens in 35 states, according to Mayor Nickels's office. They are pledging to have their cities meet what would have been a binding requirement for the nation had the Bush administration not rejected the Kyoto Protocol: a reduction in heat-trapping gas emissions to levels 7 percent below those of 1990, by 2012.

On Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg brought New York City into the coalition, the latest Republican mayor to join.

A Spokesman said President Bush "favors an aggressive approach" on climate change, "one that fosters economic growth that will lead to new technology and innovation."

But many of the mayors said they were acting precisely out of concern for the economic vitality of their cities. Mr. Nickels, for example, pointed out that the dry winters and the steep decline projected in the glaciers of the Cascade range could affect Seattle's supply of drinking water and hydroelectric power.

The mayor of low-lying New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, a Democrat, said he joined the coalition because a projected rise in sea levels "threatens the very existence of New Orleans."

"I'm hoping it sends a message they really need to start looking at what's really happening in the real world," Mayor Arakawa of Honolulu said."

$2000 worth of Advice

From Duncan Pollack, webpro veteran from Niagara Falls, Canada...on how a website should market itself on the web. Here is some sage advice for a florist's website:

"1. Educate your florist about the realities of search engine positioning. Money is probably the least important factor, save for paying for a Ton of Topnotch SEO work (which, even then, isn't going to come with any guarantees or, at least, shouldn't be doing). In other words, get the client to recognize that the main requirement is time.

2. Work your daylights out of making the site equal to, if not better than, the online florist ones that presently appear in the SERPS. In turn, do the homework to find out what search phrases are being used for these sites to pop up on the first page(s) of Google et al.

3. Expect the site to be sandboxed, which may mean a wait for several months before it ever turns up on a search. And tell your florist "Get used to it!"

4. If only as an interim measure, sign up for either Overture or Adwords (or maybe both) as soon as the site is ready. Opinions differ, but the consensus is in favour of Overture for e-commerce and Adwords for lead generation -- and there've been several WPW posts that can direct you to detailed accounts of what the two methods are and how to make the best use of them.

5. Submit the site for review by your Web Pro World colleagues. You don't have to agree with all the opinions you'll get, but the advice will invariably be "on the money."

6. When/if things aren't coming together as well or as fast as you (and never mind the florist) wants, start a WPW thread asking for suggestions.

7. Don't, don't, DON'T give up. The web is the cheapest and most effective way of marketing a product that has ever become available to a business, but it takes work, work, and more work to get it right. (And tell the florist this) too).

PS. To help make your case, share the following with the florist:
a) a search for online flower orders shows 5,310,000 results
a) a search for ordering flowers online shows 1,720,000 results
What makes him/her (or you) think it's all that easy to turn up in the Top Ten?!!

The Top Entries--and the Winner of $500 from GoNOMAD

This morning dawned sunny despite the weatherman's warnings. Last night we had a wonderful time reading and judging the 50 entries for the GoNOMAD travel awards. Having Lisa here, who grades papers and AP exams for a living, helped a great deal. We read through each one and gave each a minus or a plus, and then went back through and winnowed and culled. Here are some of the top submissions:

* A kayaking trip between two major East Coast Cities--Peter Mandel.

* A trek through the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain--Julian Smith

*Interviewing Turkish people to learn more about misunderstandings between Muslims and Westerners--Jessica Hayden.

*River rafting and visting the Akkha tribe in Laos--Kathryn Brockman

* Feature on history and culture on Elba, Napoleon's island exile--Irvina Lew

After much wine and agonizing, we picked a clear winner, he will get the check for $500. This was the winning idea:

*In search of the truth about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, tracing the legend in Bolivia--David Atkinson.

A Strong Little Guy

While at lunch at the BBA Polish Deli in South Deerfield, I picked up a copy of the Recorder. Front page news told of a brave or foolish 61-year old gas station attendent, who thwarted a would be robbery with his bare hands yesterday.

"Fazal Elahi was working alone at 1 am in the Route 202 Sunoco station in Orange, MA. A guy came into the storeand showedhim a shotgun and yelled "MONEY!" The clerk was stocking the shelves, but he turned around and grabbed the gun, and they began to struggle." said Mohammed Khan, the owner.

He shouldn't have done that but he did...he wrestled the guy outside and ran back into the store and shut the door," Khan said. Left standing alone in the fueling area in front of the store after the struggle, the robber fled the area. Elahi had a small cut on his ear and some bruises said the store owner, from the butt of the shotgun.

Khan said he is certain that the 5' 8" Elahi has no military background or training, so he had no idea why the clerk decided to fight with the bandit. "He's a strong little guy," the store owner said.

God brought her a gift

My daughter Kate, tired, overwhelmed, and holding her precious newborn son Nathaniel. I love my girl and I love my new grandson! blessed event. 

Drowning Woman, Depressed Man

May's issue of Men's Journal had quite a few beauts...including this one by Paul Theroux, famously grumpy travel writer. He describes an incident while he was in Equador looking for a drug to help jump start his book.

"Sitting on the riverbank, I saw three gringo women from our group dressed in shorts and shirts begin swimming across the river from the far bank. They were chirpy, gargling water as they clumsily paddled in the swift brown stream. One cried out, "I lost my ring!, It just dropped off my finger!" The two others hestitated, and as they stopped swimming they were pulled downstream...the river was just too much for her. I dived in, reached one after a few strokes, and brought her to shore. Her clothes were dragging, she could barely lift her arms, I tugged her to shore.

She winnied a bit, mirthless laughter. She didn't thank me. She said "I think I could have made it on my own" In that moment of ingratitude, near-tragedy, and plain foolishness, I decided to bail out...I had come for the drug, and I had seen the horror of Lago Agrio--whores and drugs and stories of burned cars and the toxic Tour. Looking for the purity of the jungle I had found the violation of the oil people. The reckless women who had almost drowned themeselves seemed proof that the worst might be in store"

Picking the Winner

Friday is going to be a fun evening. That is the night that Kent and Lisa St. John and Cindy Bigras and I will be judging the first winner in the GoNOMAD.com travel awards.
We came up with this idea back in January, that we would award four winners a $500 travel grant to help pay for a trip to write a story for GoNOMAD. Kent generously offered to endow this award, and we were sent more than 50 entries, ranging from a trip to Washington DC to an exotic exploration of Bolivia.

The contest rules called for one-page submissions, with a one-page resume. Only a few of the writers went over...so on Friday, we will relax with our glasses of wine and read over all of the entries. And narrow the choices down to five, and then agonize over our winner.

We are lucky to be in the position to make these awards, and we promised each entrant a fair shot and a free GoNOMAD tee shirt. We'll share the winner of the contest here and on the website. If you're inspired, we're now accepting entries for the August award.

Your Husband is Dead--Now Let's Have Sex

Today's NY Times front page includes a frustrating story that helps explain why one out of every five people in Malawi have the AIDS virus. It is a tradition of male relatives and others having "cleansing sex" with widows after their husbands die. Just as the wife is recovering from her loss, she must sleep with a stranger or another man, to fulfill the belief that it will exorcise her dead husband's spirit. And conveniently, the spell won't go away if they use a condom.

Stupid beliefs and traditions like this are why so many people on this continent are dying. Another is the regular practice of 'dry sex' where women put substances in their privates to make it rougher, and dryer, which many African men prefer. And the cursed belief that sex with a virgin "cures" AIDS, that has lead to thousands of raped infants and pre-pubescent girls in South Africa and other countries.

Africa is full of these vexing cultural binds, where people are becoming victims of their own archaic and dangerous superstitions and cultural practices.

Spoofed...The Intern Didn't Send The Diss

We were had. It started on Wednesday, as any of you regular readers would know, when I posted here about being rudely told off by the intern who didn't want to come work with us after getting a better offer from National Geographic. After a more careful look at the email header, that came from a different email than hers, and a tearful phone message from the intern, we found out that someone had hacked into Christine's Yahoo email and replied to us without her knowledge.

This is a scary thought...you're on your way to a new job, and somebody blasts out an email with your name and phone number on it telling an editor off. She said that this is not the first time she's been scorched like this. I told her I was sorry for her, and wished her well with NGS. I also spoke with Scott Stuckey at NGS, and gave her the ok. Then I shared the info with Poynter and Jim Romanesko, so that the other editors who had read about it and emailed support, now also know that we have all been set up.

Relaxing in the California Desert--For Research!

The hot tub, where everybody hangs out, at the nude resort.