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I am in the midst of reading Amy Tan’s delightful novel SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING. Amy Tan does a delightful job of unmasking the effette snobs of a certain California area by showing what happens when they arrange their own travel to unique areas, specifically Burma and China near the Tibetan border.

One of the most pompous characters who suffers from BPH sets off during a rain storm for a restroom. He mistakes the Stone Bell religious site for a restroom. As he relieves himself he is filmed by a Chinese documentary group who then proceed to surround him for defacing the most sacred of religious sites in that part of China. The effette snobs are then run out of China as the locals curse them as well as use the internet to broadcast their transgressions.

Yes there is the hilarious scene when another in the group has stomach problems from devouring a unique Chinese food. Apparently the internet broadcast has sent forth enough information for the locals to get the ugly Americans.

Should you wish to avoid the numerous humorous and painful adventures of the do-it-yourselfers you might wish to consult an American Travel Agent before you head off into exotic destinations. Or you can try to save fish from drowning.

Visit our website at: www.chieftravel.com.

Dear wonderous reader. The best value in touring Europe for 2007 is on a cruise ship.
For about $130 per person per day, you get all the food ( it is gourmet) anytime you want. With your ship as hotel and magic carpet you avoid road rage, missed autobahn exits and that 20% VAT tax. Or do you really enjoy paying $8 per gallon for Petrol for your YUGO, or TRABANT.
Remember if you hit a local animal you may get to buy it. What a souvenir!!! And have you even tried ordering Freedom Fries in a French restaurant. With the US dollar in total eclipse with the Euro thrill to paying $15 for a McDonald’s burger in Paris. And should you run afoul of the law remember that Franch and much of Europe uses napoleonic codes which means that you are presumed guilty until proven innocent.

The cost per person of a moderately priced tour (Globus, Trafalgar, Brendan Tours) exceeds the cost of the $130 with the added attracton that you have to pack and unpack repeatedly, eat perhaps two meals per day of blase food accompanied with vin ordinaire.
When the Euro was worth 85 cents not 135, then you could argue that the value of the land tour was equal to a cruise. But with the US Dollar in decline times have changed.

This cornucopia of travel scienter was brought to you by chieftravel.com

Americans are agast to see pictures of RATS scurrying around KFC, home of Colonel Sanders in New York City. Where was Homeland Security? Were the RATS an Advance
Guard of Al Quaeda? Were the RATS the real weapons of Mass Destruction (Bubonic Plague carriers) of the late Saddam Hussein?

We must stop those RATS, Rat now as the Ku Klux Klan has so eloquently opined. Is America’s first line of defense to be the KKK and the Minutemen? Will the RATS prosper and get the benign neglect which the Homeland Security people has given the victims of Katrina?

Perhaps Homeland Security could secure a copy of Johnathon Swift’s “A MODEST PROPOSAL.” Instead of boiling, poaching, and otherwise converting the babies of Ireland into epicurean delights, Homeland Security could convert the RATS into Ratatooie.
Wow, we could get more protein and rid the RATS. Recycled RATS would be a great boost to the problem of eRATication.

Deregulation was pushed as the ultimate in efficiency for travelers. The emphasis was low fares and  better service because unfettered competition would be best for all concerned. Since deregulation, the America Society of Travel Agents cites over 200 airlines that have filed for bankruptcy causing massive resource dislocation. When an airline is going out of business, its passengers get what is the cheapest service to serve the airline’s debts. And if forcing the passengers to sit for 4 to 11  hours on the tarmac while the carrier tries to make money so be it.

Horror stories about lack of food and sanitation shall be presented this week to the appropriate House of Representatives Committee in an effort to rectify a situation which in 1999 the airlines claimed that they could solve by voluntary methods.

Former U. S. Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina told the then President of U. S. Air, Steve Wolfe, that the plan which Wolfe had to merge United Airlines with U.S Air was a plan for monopoly. Mr. Wolfe did admit that if he could bring off the merger that he would be paid a bonus of $30 million. Evidently what starts off as competition may end as monopoly if the legacy carriers have their way.

Competition from foreign carriers such as Virgin Atlantic is verbotten. Under PL 99-234 only U. S. flag carriers can be used by companies having contracts with the United States. Further all troops sent to Iraq and other areas where the Department of Defense finds it necessary are carried on American Flag carriers such as United, America, and Delta. Haliburton is not the only company benefiting from non-bid contracts.

And irony of ironies, while Jet Blue is presented its own unenforceable Bill of Rights for Passengers, the Air Transport Association which lobbies Congress for Jet Blue will be opposing any bill of rights. The Air Transport Association sees no need for regulation as the airlines provide all the rights which passengers need already.

In one of the more bizarre acts of spine the NCAA has forced the University of Illinois to stop forever using its mascot, Chief Illinawek. Is the NCAA aware that the state is named for a tribe of Indians, that the three largest rivers in the state, Ohio, Illinois, and Mississippi are named for native Americans? Is the NCAA aware that the largest city in Illinois, Chicago, is the Indian word for “Place of the Skunk” (according to one of my former professors at the University of Chicago). Yet because some native American spokesman says that the mascot of 80 years is harming the Indian image, the Fighting Illini may fight, but not as Illini.

Hey, NCAA, how about those Satan worshipers the Blue Devils of Duke. Canst thou not excommunicate the Dookies for extolling as their mascot the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, Pluto and and whole lot of other appellations for the king of Sheol. Talk about going to hell in a handbasket. No one does it more often that Duke. Duke was bought and paid for by a merchant of death, Liggett and Meyers Tobacco. Duke produced America’s most corrupt President in slick Dick Nixon. Why doesn’t the NCAA force Duke to have a mascot with a better image, like St. Augustine or St. Mary Madeleine or even John Calvin. But no, the NCAA, in an outrageous burst of ineradicable duplicity says SIN is great, but celebrating native American Culture must be stopped. This action by the NCAA is however, consistent with its plethora of oxymorons such as “scholar athelete” or “academic all-american”.