Agise & dancers is a Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based dance company headed up by a talented lady, Andrea Gise. Gise is a dancer/choreographer who has been releasing videos of her work lately. Agise & Dancers recently released an amazing video, titled SNAP. The video work for SNAP was done by Philip Knowlton.
Why am I telling you about this video? Because it features Brooklyn in a beautiful way. Shot in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, these guys did well with their location-scouting because the Brooklyn backdrop for this video is so very Brooklyn. And I mean that in the best way possible.
Check out the video for some excellent dance and beautiful Brooklyn moments captured on film.
Could my Kindle have the potential for murder? Mayhem? Needless to say, I may think twice before firing it up during takeoff on my trip to London at the end of the month!
I’ll be the first to admit that I thwart airline rules about turning on electronic devices during takeoff and landing. I don’t like reading print, and a year and a half after getting it, I still have a comfortable yet steamy love affair with my Kindle. I just can’t resist flipping the switch at the riskiest of times during my flights.
According to a report that ABC News got its hands on, though, I might be putting many, many lives at risk. ABC picked up a confidential industry study that indicates the safety issues could be real. Very real.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) studied survey responses from 125 airlines from 2003 to 2009 and found … “75 incidents of possible electronic interference that airline pilots and other crew members believed were linked to mobile phones and other electronic devices.” Twenty-six of them, a tad more than a third, “affected the flight controls, including the autopilot, autothrust and landing gear.” Another 17 hit navigation systems, with 15 affecting communication systems.
Of course, the report “stresses that it is not verifying that the incidents were caused by PEDs,” according to ABC News.
Some of this stuff is straight out of horror flicks: clocks spinning backwards, GPS devices malfunctioning and “altitude control readings changed rapidly until a crew member asked passengers to turn off their electronic devices.”
Scary stuff, no doubt.
So, is all this real?
Apparently, it’s hard to say. According to ABC News’s aviation guy, John Nance:
“There is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there, but it’s not evidence at all,” said Nance, a former Air Force and commercial pilot. “It’s pilots, like myself, who thought they saw something but they couldn’t pin it to anything in particular. And those stories are not rampant enough, considering 32,000 flights a day over the U.S., to be convincing.”
The feedback is mixed, it seems, leaving each of us to decide whether to roll the dice.
Well, I don’t say it … Gray’s Papaya does. The Manhattan hot dog institution is about to raise its prices once again. This will be the third price increase since I moved to the Upper West Side in 2004.
There’s a rather dramatic sign hanging in the window at Gray’s Papaya screaming, “MURDER!” It continues:
WE ARE GETTING KILLED BY THE GALLOPING INFLATION IN FOOD COSTS
UNLIKE POLITICIANS WE CANNOT RAISE OUR DEBT CEILING AND ARE FORCED TO RAISE OUR VERY REASONABLE PRICES PLEASE DON’T HATE US
Okay, it’s hard to hate the folks who sell two hot dogs and a drink for a modest $4.50, though I was much happier when it was a dollar cheaper, back in 2008. Seven years ago, one hot dog cost only 85 cents. Then it skyrocketed, on a relative basis, to $1.25 in 2005, inching up to $1.50 three years ago.
%Gallery-126040%The deal, which still returns change for a $5 bill, is called the “Recession Special,” which took real meaning in 2008, as New York City suffered the shock of the financial crisis. Since then, as we have struggled toward a recovery that never really seems to come, the Gray’s Papaya Recession Special has been a fantastic alternative to … well, just about everything.
But, where will the prices go next?
It’s hard to say. The notice has been up for a few weeks, but I have yet to see any indication of price change. The guy working behind the counter said he didn’t know where prices were headed and that they would probably take effect in early June. I walked by a few days ago and didn’t see anything different.
There is a lesson in all this: buy hot dogs.
If you bought hot dogs from Grays’ Papaya in 2004 at 85 cents each, they would have nearly doubled in value by 2008. With all the gripes were hearing about food inflation, it’s pretty safe to say that we’ll see another big spike in 2011.
I guess the only problem would be storing them. I do suspect, though, that hot dogs are like Twinkies – they last forever.
If you find yourself in New York, definitely hit Gray’s Papaya. If the prices are higher than you expect, try not to complain. It still really is the best deal in town!
Note: The space in the window at Gray’s Papaya seems to be reserved for political messages, as it once endorsed Barack Obama for president. Now, the company is sending a message about government spending and deficit management. Who ever knew that a dog from Gray’s Papaya came with a free civics lesson?
Another note: when prices were raised in 2008, I stopped at Gray’s Papaya on my way to work for a hot dog for breakfast (it’s sick, I know). There were television cameras set up out front. I didn’t know why. Well, it turns out that MSNBC was doing a story on the price increase. And, a good friend of mine, now my roommate, wound up being interviewed about it. He’s in this clip.
Six Flags America, located in Bowie, Maryland, has announced that they will be closing Skull Mountain. The unique water flume ride with roller coaster-like elements has been in operation since 1997 when it was originally opened as Typhoon Sea Coaster. The first-of-its-kind ride has underwent changes since it opened, but I remember one unique feature being its turning mechanism that spun the boats. At one point in the ride, the boats were turned around and then the riders traveled backwards.
To give the unique ride a proper send off, Six Flags America is having a two-day pirate festival on July 9th and 10th. Also, starting next week, one of Skull Mountain’s boats will be placed in the midway allowing guests the ability to take photos. The park is also holding a last rider auction and a boat from Skull Mountain will be donated to the National Roller Coaster Museum. Make sure you get another ride in before July 10th. Hopefully, the park has a new attraction in the works to take the place of this fun ride. Read the full press release here. [Photo Credit – Flickr user Milst1]
One would think that the safety of travelers on the ground in any given country would be easy to define. “Yes”, its safe to travel there or “No”, its not. Government travel alerts and warnings surely have our best interest in mind and provide helpful information. But when it comes to our personal safety when traveling, there’s a lot more to it than just staying away from the bad part of town in countries we visit. It’s often a matter of perception and who we choose to believe.
Mexico’s government and tourism people have been fighting news of drug-related crime for years and have devoted a whole lot of effort to telling their side of the story. They say criminal activity, death and all sorts of bad things are in isolated areas, far from where travelers might normally visit.”We do have a challenge, but Mexico has the equivalent of 2,500 counties. Eighty of those are the ones having the challenge. That’s less than 4 percent. What I tell the travelers is they need to get a map. It would be very helpful for them to understand what cities are involved.” Gloria Guevara, Mexico’s secretary of tourism told the Miami Herald, adding “They might have trouble in Juarez; 2,000 miles from there is totally safe. It’s like in the U.S.: If there is an issue in L.A., does that mean that you don’t go to New York? Or if there is an issue in Las Vegas, do you not go to Chicago?”
OK, good idea. We got a map. A picture is worth a thousand words right?
Here are a couple maps from from WatchmanReport.com that tell two completely different stories. The first shows what they say is “the way the government and mainstream media paint the picture of Mexico”
We don’t have to look too far to find plenty of stories that validate that map.
“You would think, by the way the mainstream media over blows these stories that all of Mexico is involved a violent, drug crazed killing spree, when in reality it’s only occurring in a few cities along the border in a country twice as large as the state of Texas.” says WatchmanReport adding “This would be like making the ridiculous assessment that crime in New York or Detroit is an example of crime in all of America.”
Actually tracking crime in Mexico however makes for a much nicer map.
So what is Mexico to do?
They might try some of the strategies Egypt has employed that seem to be working. Tour operator Great Safaris, for example, is offering its travelers to Egypt a money-back Security and Satisfaction Guarantee.
“This guarantee reflects my confidence that Egypt remains one of the most fascinating and secure exotic destinations for American travelers ” said Dave Herbert, CEO and founder to TravelPulse.
But first Mexico needs to stop/solve/slow-down-a-little their drug-related violent crime problems.
The U.S. Department of State’s latest travel alert reports the situation in Egypt has returned to normal. Mexico? Not so much. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo is back to business-as-usual, all of Egypt’s airports are open and travelers are returning.
Mexico is still racking up the crimes and those crimes are not all tourists in the wrong place at the wrong time as drug lords battle in remote areas.
Leonard Schell a Canadian father of two was stabbed 25 times in his Puerto Valarta home (popular tourist destination, if you’re keeping score) last month and robbed of about $13,000, bank cards and passports reports CTV.ca. “They cut him from his lip to his throat. It’s terrible, and just to rob money,” Schell’s wife, Elba Ruiz said
Puerto Valarta is way far away from the drug running corridor where mass slayings, beheadings and other gruesome crimes occur. Still, Mexico is not giving up on their effort to win back travelers.
The head of Mexico’s state-run tourism board met with Texas officials Wednesday reports chron.com. Rodolfo Lopez-Negrete, chief operating officer of the Mexico Tourism Board wants to prevent more scare-off-the-tourists bulletins such as one released in March, when the Texas Department of Public Safety bluntly told travelers to, “Avoid traveling to Mexico during Spring Break and stay alive.”
“We believe that these travel alerts are too broad-based and making very blind statements about Mexico that do not reflect the reality,” Lopez-Negrete said. Testimonials from Americans, Canadians and the British seem to back up that thought.
So depending on who we choose to believe, conditions on the ground in Mexico seem to rely a lot on where we visit. Most sources we checked agree on that. Stay away from high-crime border areas and we should be safe.
Yes? No? What do you think? Vote in our poll and leave a comment too.