Passengers protest peanuts, prefer pretzels

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Blame Northwest. Or, blame the merger with Delta. Either way, peanuts are back, and some passengers are pissed.

On February 1, Northwest began dishing out peanuts on flights, which Delta has been doing since dirt was new. The timing isn’t all that hot, given a national salmonella outbreak involving Peanut Corporation of America. And then there are the people who are allergic to peanuts … they’re also far from thrilled with the change.

A commenter on the Star Tribune website (local to Minneapolis, where NWA is headquartered) wrote, “Northwest is really out of touch with its customers and the reality of allergies to peanuts.” Another chimed in, “What’s wrong with pretzels?”

Indeed, what is wrong with pretzels?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 3 million people in the United States are allergic to peanuts (or tree nuts). Food allergies cause 30,000 cases of anaphylaxis, 2,000 hospitalizations and 150 deaths every year. On its own, this sucks. On a plane, it’s worse than sitting next to a fat person.

Delta is doing what it can to prevent an in-flight disaster, creating a “buffer zone” of three rows in front of and behind a peanut-allergic person’s seat. And, the airline is advising “cabin service to board additional nonpeanut snacks.” So, flight attendants who are busy with such trivial matters as keeping order on the plane and tending to broader safety issues will have to keep track of the “peanut zone,” as well.

[Via CNN]

What strange things have been found on planes?


Bowermaster’s Antarctica — Crossing the Scotia Sea

by Jon Bowermaster on


When we left Elephant Island midday yesterday we formally left Antarctica behind. I’ve been to Antarctica many times since 1989 and every time I leave it in my trail, whether by C-130 cargo plane, small sailing boat or expedition ship it is with no small regret. It is a spectacular corner of the world that gets in your blood like no other I’ve experienced. Remote and foreboding it can also be intimate and fragile. The only good thing about leaving is that I am already looking forward to my next return.

We have endured a remarkable stretch of good weather these past six weeks, and the luck continues. Strong winds were expected during the night, which never arrived. As a result, the Scotia Sea – lying just east of the Drake Passage, sharing a similar reputation for wind and storm – is rolling but not rough.

We are now following directly in the traces of Shackleton’s sail for freedom in the twenty-three-and-a-half foot long “James Caird” and I stand on the aft deck for a long time this morning trying to imagine being out here in such a small craft. The eight hundred miles took the six men in the wooden lifeboat cum sailboat sixteen days; we’ll do it in about two. They had no idea what they’d find when they arrived, though they knew there was an active whaling station at Stromness and that the prevailing winds would (hopefully) be at their back. We know pretty much where we are headed and what we’ll find.

They had sailed due north from Elephant Island in hopes of quickly finding warmer temperatures, which did not work so well, though the winds out of the southwest did push them at a sixty to seventy mile a day pace. But the cold continued. “The sprays froze upon the boat and gave bows, sides, and decking a heavy coat of mail,” Shackleton wrote about what he described as “the boat journey.” “This accumulation of ice reduced the buoyancy of the boat, and to that extent was an added peril … we could not allow the load of ice to grow beyond a certain point and in turns we crawled about the decking forward, chipping and picking at it with the available tools … the weight of the ice that had formed in her and upon her was having its effect and she was becoming more like a log than a boat.”

Fifteen days after leaving Elephant Island, they sighted South Georgia. Reduced to straining the last of their fresh water through gauze to clear it of hair from their caribou sleeping bags, they spent one last night just offshore, unable to land due to giant seas. When they finally did land, in a cove that ultimately did not give them access to the rest of the island, they crawled into a cave and slept … though Shackleton stayed awake as long as he could that first night to watch over the “James Caird,” still their lifeline, as it bobbed in the surf just off the rocks.

Just as Elephant Island lives large in history due Shackleton link, South Georgia – for all its magical allure of big animals and grand landscape – is part and parcel of “the Boss’s” myth. I’m sure while we are here these next five or six days we’ll catch sight of his ghost on several occasions.

Chavez wins reform = Walesa and Americans beware

by Brenda Yun on

I was appalled to hear the news coming from Venezuela today: its President, Hugo Chavez, proposed a reform to lift elected official term limits and it passed (again, barely) with just over 50% in a nationwide vote. This surely means Chavez will run again and could possibly mean he will remain Venezuela’s president beyond 2016.

If you’re sitting at home thinking this has nothing to do with you, think again. Chavez has long been an opponent of real democracy and has extreme and sometimes scary socialist notions when it comes to how nations should handle the world’s problems. He is one of the leading opponents of the U.S. as a world power, and seems to go to great lengths to lobby for the support of other socialist nations such as Cuba, Russia, and China.

The even scarier implications of this news brings rather unwelcome tidings to democratic nations. Just recently, Chavez prevented Lech Walesa, the former Nobel Peace Prize-winning Polish President, from entering Venezuela because Walesa had planned on speaking throughout the country in support of Chavez’s party opposition. We Americans love Walesa, and have also been treated rather brashly in Venezuela, so the prospects of safe and happy travels in Chavez country are not looking so great.

“Don’t Worry”: Playing for Change–music around the world

by Jamie Rhein on

Here’s another song from Playing for Change, the project that joins various musicians from around the world. The musicians are filmed singing the same song, but each sing in the country where they live. The parts are then combined into a whole with the footage of the musicians woven together. The intention of the project, as we’ve posted before, is to inspire people to make the world a better place by building music schools around the world with an aim for peace-building.

Of the three songs I’ve seen of this project, “Stand by Me,” “One Love,” and this one, “Don’t Worry,” I like this one the best, although they’re all excellent. The CD/DVD of the project will be released in April. Enjoy.

Antarctic Tourism Down

by Kraig Becker on

The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators or IAATO is reporting that the number of tourists visiting Antarctica dropped dramatically in 2008 according to a report from Outside Online. According to the preliminary numbers from 2008, 36,000 people visited the frozen continent, that’s down from the record high of 46,000 the year before.

The reason for the sharp drop? Like all things right now, the global recession is being blamed for the down turn, and 2009 is expected to remain slow. The IAATO predicts that the numbers will begin to rebound in 2010, but probably won’t flirt with those record numbers again until at least 2011 or 2012.

The down turn in visitors to Antarctica is likely to be hailed as good news by environmentalists, who have been issuing dire warnings the past few years on the impact that travel in the area would have on the fragile climate there. Some have called for putting caps on the number of visitors to the region to help protect the penguine and seal populations, while others cite the near disasterous accidents involving cruise ships over the past couple of years as reasons why there should be limits to travel in the area.

A spokesman for the IAATO stresses that the continent is massive in size, larger than Australia, and gets relatively few visitors each year, saying that the number of tourists “would fill a football stadium”. The organization also stresses that the travel companies chartered to operate in the area are committed to protecting the environment and protecting their clients.

It’s doubtful that we’ll ever see limits placed on the number of visitors to Antarctica, but thanks to the recession, it looks like there will be natural limits in place.