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January 29, 2007
The Case for ADHD: Jan 07 issue
Claire Morrow examines the Attention Deficit controversy
Q: How many kids with ADHD does it take to change a light-bulb?
A: Let's ride our bikes!
Of course children like to ride bikes (a great mystery), and they are rarely called upon to change light-bulbs. But what happens to the kids in the joke when they are old enough to change light-bulbs? "OK...here I am...I'm at the shop...I'm going to buy light-bulbs and milk...great...I can do this." By some miracle the adult with ADHD has their bank card with them and it's not maxed out.
Gleefully arriving home - stopping briefly at the neighbour's to pick up the spare keys so they can let themselves in (stepping carefully around the pile of junk in the hallway) - with bread, eggs and all the things to fix that crack in the wall and...no light-bulbs.
Everyone has those "senior moments" from time to time, and most of us can say "oh, that happens to me too". But for some people it happens...a lot. Too much. Even if you haven't been paying attention, you could hardly have failed to notice that there is a condition called Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder. It is the most common psychiatric diagnosis in children (in adults, depression is the most common) and it receives the kind of media attention that your average cancer charity would kill for. Not normally positive media attention though. Not your Here-are-the-warning-signs-see-your-doctor-now-for-help- thanks-to the-miracle-of-science kind of publicity, as a general rule. More your bad-kids-or-bad-parents-you-be-the-judge kind of attention. Children do not have ADHD because their parents smack them, or don't smack them, because dad's not around, because they're poor or because they eat too much sugar/wheat/dairy products.
True, the odd child who is badly behaved, impulsive and super-active may be misdiagnosed with ADHD when there are in fact "problems at home". But a good, thorough assessment would rule that out. An ADHD diagnosis is usually made very, very carefully with the involvement of several specialists, teachers and parents. One cannot simply front up to the family doctor, complain about the child and get a pill to make it go away.
Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder is primarily a disorder of attention. It comes in 3 flavors - hyperactive, inattentive and mixed (one scoop of each). The primary symptoms revolve around the ability to focus, concentrate, remember, control impulses and do what needs to be done. Inattentive type (with the clumsy diagnostic label "Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder - without significant hyperactivity") results in a daydreamer who may not be diagosed until later because their inattentive style is hard for them, but doesn't disrupt the class. Hyperactive type...well, we know hyperactive when we see it. A hyperactive child is not merely a colossal pain in the backside to take care of (babysitters-won't-return syndrome) - they need extra time, love, humour, consistency and attention from someone who understands them. And to be protected from themselves - because impulse control is poor, they are not deliberately doing foolish things, they are just so focused on getting their ball that the "don't go on roads" bit drops out of their mind. Which is very normal at 2 and 3 years old, not so normal in an 8 or 10 year old. And these kids have to grow up.
Although it used to be thought that children grew out of ADHD, increasing numbers of adults are now being diagnosed with the condition. You do not catch ADD at 30, of course, it is a pervasive, perhaps lifelong neurological condition. Adults with ADHD are either people who were diagnosed as children or who - later in life - hit upon some hope-fully friendly person who said "Could you have ADD?"
You might get through school because your parents are supportive, and you are yourself very bright, even though you constantly lose the things you need for your assignments. Maybe even with good marks. But when you enter the less structured, less supported, more competitive environment of work or university, things start to fall apart. Many adults with ADHD have been under the impression for most of their lives that they are lazy, stupid, space cadets. If one of their children is diagnosed with ADHD suddenly the light-bulb (which they have finally re-membered to buy) goes on - "They can't have ADHD...I was exactly the same as a child...still am like that...and I don't...unless...?" (ding!).
Some people object to ADHD on religious grounds - Scientologists for example do not believe in psychiatry at all. Others are worried about "labeling" children. Children are smarter than you think, in that case. Labeling a child as "A wonderful, artistic sensitive lit-tle person who happens to have ADHD, a neurobiological condition which sometimes causes her to have problems that we can work out together" is a whole lot better than the labels a child will apply to themselves if they don't have a clear understanding of why they have trouble in class, forget things, and 'drift off". You don't want a label; "stupid", "space cadet", "thoughtless", "lazy", "bad". If not enough information is given about what's happen-ing and why, these are the labels children with ADHD come up with by themselves (with a little help from their friends).
Correctly diagnosed ADHD is caused by insufficient dopamine in the brain. That is all. The synapses in the brain need dopamine. If you have enough dopamine, then taking amphetamine will make you have too much and you will become edgy, difficult and anx-ious. Too little and you have ADHD. Stimulant medications such as amphetamines (and drugs such as ritalin are no more closely related to ice or speed, than codeine is related to heroin) increases the amount of dopamine in the brain - focus improves. At any age, Attention Deficit Disorder is managed, not cured. It can be managed through cognitive behavior therapy (using a day planner, timers, alarm and so forth), and some people find special diets help a little (if they have food intolerance in addition to their ADHD). There are (aren't there always?) a great number of unproven treatments, exercise has proven to be fairly helpful. Newer medications are not as well established, but there are long-acting and non-controlled medication treatments now available. Medication, particularly the stimulants, far and away outperforms any other treatment. Just as no one expects the severe diabetic to control their sugar level without insulin, children and adults with ADHD have some control and can exert some effect on their behavior, but medication does have a significant place in treatment.
If you think you may be an adult with ADHD or you would just like to know more about the condition, you can find information and a self assessment scale at: http://www.addresources.org . As always; exercise more, and see your doctor if chronic lateness, underachievement and disorganization persist. Oh yes, make a list. Lists help a great deal. Light-bulbs.
Posted by Ian Wishart at 12:28 AM | Comments (0)
When laptops go bang
When laptops go bang
Alex Goldfayn assesses the risks of inflight fires caused by laptop batteries
Distraught and scrambling off the United Airlines plane, the man ran out of the jet bridge past passengers waiting to get on board, clutching his laptop. Smoke poured from it. He ran to a relatively unoccupied area of the gate and threw the Lenovo computer on the ground. It ignited, shooting a 60cm flame upward.
"A few people yelled `terrorist,' and ran away," said Tom Mustaine, 30, who was sitting at an adjoining gate and witnessed the event at Los Angeles International Airport.
"The thing gave off a terrible, chemical smoke. It burned for about two minutes before they extinguished it. The whole gate area filled with noxious smoke. People were gagging."
This incident, which occurred in September, was the latest, most public, and perhaps the most dramatic in a string of laptop
battery fires.
It prompted Lenovo to recall more than 500,000 of its notebook batteries worldwide.
So far, more than 5 million notebook batteries in the United States - and nearly 10 million worldwide - have been recalled this year by manufacturers including Dell, Apple, Panasonic, Sony and Toshiba.
Every one of the recalled batteries has one thing in common.
"They were all Sony batteries," says Richard Stern, associate director at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (www.cpsc.gov), the government agency that oversees consumer product recalls.
The recent spate of battery recalls falls under Stern's jurisdiction. The problematic units appear to have come from the same rather large "batch."
"It's a quality-control issue," Stern explains. "Sony has reported that for a certain batch of their lithium-ion production, there were metal particles located in a certain part of the battery cell that, under certain circumstances, could penetrate the insulating material inside the cell and create an internal short circuit."
Last month in Japan, a laptop battery sparked in a Fujitsu employee's hands as he was retrieving the battery from a user's home as part of the company's recall.
In June, a Dell laptop ignited in a conference room.
The United Airlines passenger's laptop that went up in flames at LAX started giving off smoke when he was seated on the plane.
My burning question is, what would happen if a laptop ignites in flight?
"On the plane, it would have been catastrophic," says Mustaine, who witnessed the LAX laptop fire. "I think there would have been an enormous panic. The smoke filled a large part of the terminal. It definitely would have filled the plane. It's an extreme fire causing an extreme inability to breathe."
What if a laptop ignites in an overhead compartment? Or under the seat in front of you?
Or worse, in the baggage compartment of the plane?
United Airlines, apparently not eager to discuss this issue in detail, responded to my inquiry with this e-mail: "When it is safe to use electronic equipment in-flight, for example not during take-off and landing, our customers can use their laptops."
But several non-U.S. airlines, including Virgin Atlantic and Korean Air, have been checking laptop battery serial numbers before passengers board.
Virgin's cabin crews, for example, check all batteries on Apple, Dell and IBM-made laptops. If the battery is on the recall list, it must be placed in checked luggage.
Airlines in the United States, however, provide no such safety checks.
"Airlines aren't allowing Scope and Crest on board, but they're allowing these batteries through," says frequent flier David Millman, chief executive of Rescuecom, a computer repair and support firm. "So far, we've been lucky, but it's a real danger."
Adds Mustaine: "I've thought about this a lot since seeing that laptop on fire. The laptop's going to burn until it's done burning (through the battery fuel cells and plastics). You have to let it do its thing. If there's fire on a plane, it makes people panic."
In a 2003 report, Britain's Civil Aviation Authority found that a lithium-ion battery fire "will almost certainly cause severe harm to any passengers in the immediate vicinity. There is also a risk that the fire will spread to adjacent flammable material, e.g. clothing, newspapers, rugs, carpet."
It went on to cite a "risk of harm from smoke inhalation to passengers and crew members, particularly if the electronic device is inside a carrying bag."
The Federal Aviation Administration, which is responsible for determining what can and cannot come on board U.S. flights, has not issued a ruling on the safety of passengers' laptop batteries.
But experts urge to keep the problem in perspective.
"There are well over 250 million laptops in use in the world," says Tim Bajarin, principal analyst at California-based Creative Strategies Inc. "And we've had less than 50 (battery fire) incidences recorded worldwide."
Adds the CPSC's Stern: "I assume risk every day. I can't control my environment unless I stay in my house."
Even Mustaine is going to keep flying - with his laptop.
"I think the airlines just need to be smart about it. This is obviously a bad batch of batteries. Just keep track of the known bad batteries and check for them before people get on board."
Here's hoping the airlines get the message.
Posted by Ian Wishart at 12:23 AM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2007
Charlene 'I've Never Been To Me': March 06 issue
I've Never Been To Me
Ian Wishart talks to Charlene
When Charlene Oliver first heard the song that would make her a household name worldwide, she burst into tears. "Those lyrics – 'Hey lady, you lady, cursing at your life, you're a discontented mother and a regimented wife' – they hit me hard. I was a battered wife, I'd married at 16, had a child to my first husband, and Ron Miller's song just spoke to me. I didn't even know him but I just cried and cried. He actually stopped the tape to give me space to cry. It was such a beautiful song."
Just 26 years old, Charlene felt she knew the story of the song innately, and she knew it would also speak to women worldwide. The young singer was part of the Motown stable, working with artists like Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder, and she really, really wanted to record 'I've Never Been To Me', penned by Miller and studio partner Ken Kirsch.
It was 1976, however, and Rick Dees' 'Disco Duck' was doing big business in the charts. The little known Charlene's 'I've Never Been To Me' was released as a single, but only reached 97 in the Billboard Top 100 before disappearing forever – or so she and her record company thought.
In fact, so spectacularly unsuccessful was her debut album and a follow-up that Charlene gave up music, became a Christian, worked with autistic children and eventually moved to England with her new husband. By 1982, she'd almost forgotten her former life. But little did she know what Providence had in store.
"In 1982 a DJ, Scott Shannon, started playing it on his Florida radio station and it just absolutely caught on and people were calling in asking for it all the time. Now I was living in England at the time, working in a candy store doing cleaning, selling sweets and cigarettes and everything, and I got a call from my mom saying that somebody at Motown was looking for me, and then I got a call at 2am from Jay Lasker at Motown telling me my song was on the charts! I thought at first it was a bad joke!"
They brought her back on a Concorde flight to New York as her song rocketed to number one around the world.
How did it change her life?
"My gosh, you can imagine earning a real simple wage in a sweet shop in London, and all of a sudden they want you signed back up with a label again. It changed my life. I had basically given up the music because I was so burned out. But it was funny because when I was in England I had a feeling that something was going to happen but I didn't know what it was. I remember just crying and asking, why hasn't 'Never Been To Me' made it, this song is so beautiful?
"And then bam! And I plan on doing the same thing again, I plan on it happening again, and I want to come to your country! I want to come to New Zealand so bad – it seems like an amazing place!"
Charlene may yet get the chance. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the writing of 'Never Been To Me', she's about to release a dance-mix version.
"You should hear it," she laughs down the line, sensing my skepticism that the song could translate to a dance beat. "It really, really works. We're going to put it up on the website soon (charlenesmusic.com where, incidentally, you can also listen to the original version online for free) so people can listen to it, and then I've got a new album out, probably mid year."
For a song that sold somewhere in the region of six million copies (and in today's frenetic music industry 4,000 copies is enough to secure a number one record some weeks in Britain), and continues to be played on classic hits stations worldwide, I ask the inevitable question: did 'Never Been To Me' set Charlene up for life?
"That's a whole new story. I don't get anything. I'm one of those stories in the industry. It was me not taking precautions."
Indeed, says Charlene, the come-from-behind slow-boiler took her so much by surprise she was in no position to cash in on the success.
"I was offered Vegas at $50,000 a week, but I had no band. I just wasn't ready and wasn't prepared, so I couldn't do it."
Motown, on the other hand, was ready. It dusted off Charlene's songs from the seventies and repackaged them, and work began swiftly on a follow-up single, the duet 'Used To Be' with Stevie Wonder and a new album. Her gospel album The Sky Is The Limit followed soon after, along with a rock album, Hit & Run Lover.
Although she's been largely out of the music biz since having children in the late 1980s, Charlene is looking forward to a comeback this year.
"Can lightning strike twice? Well, I'm certainly going to try. It ain't over till the fat lady sings."
Posted by Ian Wishart at 10:03 PM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2007
Herb Omelet: Jan 07 issue
Eli Jameson says its time to freshen up
One of my greater failings in life is my utter inability to deal with the world of plants. A green thumb I have not. Even the most supposedly indestructible houseplants get a severe case of depression and commit arboreal suicide as soon as they find themselves in my care. The happy-looking ficus that was living in the back yard of our house when we moved in two months ago now looks about as lush as Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. And speaking of Christmas trees, last year we set up an artificial number in the lounge and it started shedding its plastic leaves as soon as it realised it was notionally in my care. The floor had more little needles scattered around it than the footpath outside the "safe" in-jecting room in Sydney's Kings Cross.
No wonder the Green Party held a week's worth of demonstrations outside my house when they found out I'd requested brochures on a Tasmanian holiday. They figured I'd take one step off the plane and all the old-growth forests on the Apple Isle would decide to finally give up their respective ghosts.
Which is why I cannot have something I have always wanted, both for reasons aesthetic (read: reasons of ego - "why, yes, I do grow these myself") and financial: a proper herb garden. Believe me, I've tried. I've bought basil planters by the pallet-load, visions of pe-sto-filled summers dancing in my head. Two days after installation the leaves wind up with-ered and charred by the sun, even if they were placed in the shade. Instead, I have to go to the markets and buy my herbs, which is tedious, inconvenient and expensive. How my local supermarche can get away with charging $2 for an anemic bundle of parsley is beyond me; the margins on such a product have more in-built fat than Dom Deluise. Either that, or the parsley farmer lost a lawsuit and needs the extra money because his wages are being garnished. (Ba-da-BOOM!)
Hopefully you do not have this problem. But either way, fresh herbs are as indispensable to good cooking as proper sea salt (always Maldon, and no, they don't pay me a cent to say that, though yes, I'd be happy to take any spare inventory care of this magazine's Sydney bureau) and extra virgin olive oil. All those jars of dried herbs that everyone keeps in the back of their kitchen cupboards are, for the most part, the enemy of taste. Although recipes typically tell readers to use less dried herbs than fresh because the power is supposedly concentrated, it is not long before, once unsealed, they quickly become deadly stale and add about as much oomph to a dish as a scant teaspoon of sawdust. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule: I find dried tarragon doesn't hang around my house long enough to go off, and somehow retains more of its integrity than other herbs in the jar. And it means one can always knock up a bearnaise sauce on short notice, an event that happens with heart-stopping regularity around the Jameson chateau.
If you can possibly manage it, grow your own herbs to avoid the extortionate prices charged by the grocer. A handful of chopped basil (or something else if you like) makes something even as simple as a warmed-up bowl of tinned tomato soup into something else entirely, especially if you finish it with a drizzle of cream. And especially if you have the time and patience to do it in a mortar and pestle rather than in a blender or food processor a fresh, home-made pesto - basil, pine nuts, parmesan cheese, olive oil, salt - can't be beat.
Rosemary is not only delicious, but it functions as God's own skewer come barbeque time (get those silly little bamboo skewers outta here); stripped of most of their leaves the branches can be threaded through meat or fish and will impart their own flavour as they cook.
Dill adds a summery zest to fresh mayonaisses, especially when served alongside a nice piece of cold poached salmon and is great in potato and tuna salads. Thyme along with rosemary is tremendous on lamb, and recalls the flavour of great lamb dishes served around the Mediterranean where the creatures feed on the stuff in the wild, the taste being thusly imparted to their meat. And don't overlook some of the other herbs on offer - chervil and marjoram for example - which are both underrated in my book.
Even if for reasons of space or, in my case, bad ju-ju, you can't grow herbs it's worth hav-ing a few at all times handy in the fridge from the market. Keep them wrapped in moist pa-per towel to keep them fresh for longer.
RECIPE: Herb-y Open Omelet
You'll need
2 eggs
1 vine-ripened tomato
50-100g good goat's cheese
good handful of basil, or whatever other herbs you desire
salt, pepper, and a knob of butter
First, chiffonade your herbs - that means roll them up real tight and slice thinly - and mix with the goat's cheese. Set aside. Chop tomato into a medium dice, and set aside. And in a small bowl, whisk together the eggs with a bit of salt, pepper and about a tablespoon of water.
Heat a medium non-stick saute pan over medium-high heat and add a knob of butter. When the butter is melted and has stopped sizzling add the tomato and cook down for a moment. Add the eggs and swirl around the pan, making sure the tomato is reasonably evenly distributed. As the eggs begin to set drop marble-sized balls of the goat's cheese and herb mixture around the pan, and finish under a pre-heated grill to melt the cheese down a bit and finish the dish.
Carefully slide out onto the centre of a warmed plate.
Since this is more a morning dish, I'd recommend nothing stronger than a bright moscato in the glass.
Serves 1.
Posted by Ian Wishart at 12:33 AM | Comments (0)
Dioxin's Toxic Legacy: Jan 07 issue
UPI's Christine Dell'amore profiles new research on Dioxin's reproductive dangers
New evidence on the effects of dioxin in the Vietnam-era herbicide Agent Orange suggests the chemical interferes with the reproductive systems of men. The research, led by Dr. Amit Gupta, is one of the first studies to find that men exposed to a type of dioxin called TCDD experience smaller prostate glands and lower testosterone levels -- even at minimal exposure to dioxin.
"Now we now know dioxins have an effect on the prostate, and it's somehow affecting normal development," says Gupta, a urologist at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.
The study, published in the November issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, also offers new insight into whether lower doses of dioxin are dangerous to human health. Previous studies have observed dioxin's effects only in highly exposed populations; some research has found a link between these populations and development of cancer.
However, because the study was not a true experiment, it's not known whether it was really dioxin that led to the effects.
Gupta and colleagues followed participants of the Air Force Health Study for more than 20 years, beginning in 1987. The study had two groups: About 1,200 ranch hands, or veterans who sprayed Agent Orange in Asia between 1962 and 1971, and a comparison group of about 2,400 Air Force veterans not involved in herbicide spraying during the war, says co-author Dr. Arnold Schecter, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas. The two groups were matched on age, race and military occupation.
The researchers examined the men in 1982, 1985, 1987, 1992, 1997 and 2002, recording their prostate and reproductive health. In 1987 the research team measured the level of TCDD dioxin in their blood.
As expected, the levels of TCDD -- the most toxic form of dioxin -- were higher in the ranch hand group than the comparison group, although both groups in the study experienced changes in their reproductive function. These higher levels were associated with a lower risk of diagnosis of a prostate condition called BPH, in which the prostate grows in size. TCDD somehow inhibits the prostate from growing, although scientists are unsure of the mechanism of how it happens, Gupta said.
Of course, most men would want to avoid BPH, since a larger prostate can create several uncomfortable side effects, such as frequent urination.
Yet dioxin's ability to thwart prostate growth isn't exactly cause to celebrate, says Gupta -- rather, it's a worrisome indication that dioxins are altering the reproductive system's natural course.
A reduction in testosterone due to dioxin can also cause several health problems, such as loss of muscle strength, infertility, drop in sexual function and depression.
Since the comparison group had exposures consistent with the exposures of the general American population in 1987, even lesser amounts of dioxin present in the United States may impact Americans who never stepped foot in Vietnam.
"Most of the 30 types of dioxin produced in the United States come from industrial processes such as waste incineration, chlorine bleaching of pulp and paper and other chemical processes. It's also a component of pesticides and herbicides, which move up the food chain from contaminated crops, to poultry and beef, to humans. Once inside the body, the chemical settles into the fat. That's why, sadly, human babies get dioxin from their mother's dioxin-laden milkfat," says Gupta.
In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency -- which is close to issuing a new scientific reassessment of the health risks of dioxin and dioxin-like compounds exposure -- has successfully cut down on much of the dioxin pollution since the 1970s. In fact, quantifiable industrial emissions of dioxin in the United States have fallen more than 90 percent from 1987 levels, according to the EPA.
Since Gupta and colleagues used a 1987 marker of TCDD in their research, the risk could have gone down for the U.S. population exposed to dioxin.
In addition, it may be difficult to compare one type of dioxin -- TCDD -- to the effects of other types of the chemical. "In the case of Vietnam, where people were exposed almost exclusively to TCDD through Agent Orange, it's reasonable to attribute any irregularities in the reproductive system to that chemical," says Dr. John Constable, a former surgeon at Harvard Medical School and one of the first Americans to study the effects of herbicides in Vietnam in the 1960s.
"But if someone has a ragbag of chemicals in their bodies, as Americans likely do, it's harder to parse out which dioxins really caused the abnormalities."
Indeed, the number of male reproductive tract disorders, such as testicular cancer, has risen sharply over past decades. "Some scientists have suggested dioxins might be partially responsible for the spike," the authors wrote. But there could be other endocrine disruptors at play, substances that have already been shown to alter reproductive processes in rat models.
"Although more research could help in nailing down some of the causes of dioxin, the government has decided to discontinue the Air Force Health Study," Schecter says.
The next 20 years will answer the question as to how much damage Agent Orange did to our Vietnam vets, says Schecter. "With the program now out of existence, that's really most unfortunate for the health of our vets, and for anyone exposed to dioxins -- which is anyone in the industrial world."
Posted by Ian Wishart at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2007
Curacao: Jan 07 issue
Under the peel in Curacao: The sweet parts of an island that's not just beaches and banks
Toni Salama discovers an unspoilt Caribbean paradise
WILLEMSTAD, Curacao - The fruit of the laraha orange tastes so bad even the island's wild goats don't bother it. I really don't blame them. But the peel - ah, that's a different matter.
First, you use a wooden knife to cut the peel away and slice it into sections. It has to be wood; a metal knife would ruin things. You dry the peels in jute bags. Then, in a small copper still, you cook them until a clear liquid condenses. Color it, bottle it, seal it - everything's done by hand - and you've got the real thing, a liqueur that can only be made on Curacao, the original "Curacao of Curacao," so named to shame all pretenders.
Its old-fashioned bottles look better suited to sailors' grog: a long neck tapering up from a canteen-shaped bowl. They've gone around the world, these bottles have, each one an ambassador of this small Caribbean island, every sip an invitation: "Come and see us. Come and see us."
Curacao (kur-a-SOW) is an odd cobble of contrasts where bright Caribbean colors splash across stalwart Dutch row houses, and Venezuelan farmers hawk the fruit of their labors in a floating market next to a plaza where Afro-Caribe artists sell their wares. It's a place of stray goats and oil refineries, cactus forests and synagogues, secluded beaches and international banks. It's crawling with lizards, croaking with frogs, brimming with smiles, dripping with history and comes to a standstill during Saturday night traffic jams.
You wouldn't think so, but you can learn some lifelong lessons from a place like this. The distillery is as good a spot as any to start.
LESSON 1: If life hands you larahas, make a liqueur
The Spaniards arrived on Curacao in 1499, and their plans for the island soon included planting groves of oranges, sweet Valencias, in fact. But Curacao's desert climate and stubborn soil transformed the foreign fruit into a bitter mess. It took a Frenchman to unlock the potential of what had come to be called the laraha orange. Later, the Senor family, now Senor & Co., entered the picture with a closely guarded liqueur recipe and an 1896 copper still, both of which the company uses to this day.
The entire distillation process takes only five or six days and is carried out in a space no bigger than a two-stall garage, at the back of what once was the manor house Chobolobo. I happened to drop by on my own just as a shore excursion of Americans from the Princess Star arrived. We watched a laraha-cutting demonstration and were then given free reign to sample the 31-proof end product from little plastic cups. You can taste for yourself that there's no flavor variation among the shocking red, electric green, hypnotic gold or crystal clear permutations of this drink. Close your eyes, and they all taste just like the original, spicy orange with a satin finish, colored an irresistible Caribbean blue.
Even so, it's hard to spend more than half an hour here, no matter how many samples you try.
LESSON 2: Any day you don't have to eat an iguana is a good day
Manor houses, a.k.a. plantation houses or landhuizen in the island's official Dutch, are from another of Curacao's passing eras. Like the Spaniards' orange trees, they've survived, but not as originally intended. I counted 27 of them scattered around the island, though there are bound to be more. The easiest to find, as long as you're doing the driving, are between the capital city of Willemstad and Westpunt, the westernmost tip of the island.
I wish I could give you a highway number. But Curacao is only 40 miles long and 10 miles wide. The locals, population 135,000, don't need numbers; and foreigners can just follow the signs. The best I can tell you is that the two-lane pavement rides the island's spine.
The back story on Landhuis Daniel is that it was built by a shipwrecked Englishman in 1650 or so. Things didn't work out - the things being farming and ranching - so the place was abandoned to the cactus and the trade winds. Its current owner, a Dutch biologist-turned-innkeeper/chef, restored the place in 1997. He transformed the plantation house and slave quarters into a complex of yellow ochre facades, white trim and terra cotta roof tiles.
There's lodging in the main building or in the former slave quarters, swimming in the pool and dining on the terrace, all in a setting very much the-middle-of-nowhere.
Farther along the road to Westpunt, the former plantation house of Dokterstuin, restored in 1996, is now a restaurant that serves authentic Curacao cuisine. Like most of its kind, the plantation house was built on a hilltop to catch the breeze and keep an eye on its neighbors and on the plantation itself, meaning its slaves. After emancipation in 1863, the former slaves leased the farm plots - long since overgrown - from the government.
Most people you'll encounter on Curacao will speak English, but the open-air restaurant on a shaded back porch is an inconspicuous spot to eavesdrop as the servers talk among themselves in Papiamentu, a rhythmic "stew" of a language derived from the melding of several African and European tongues.
Dokterstuin's menu is truly Curacaoan: cabbage, squash, cucumbers, papaya, spinach and plantain, served alone or in concert, vegetarian style or with pork tail, or as a side to stewed goat meat. These stick-to-your-ribs dishes come accompanied by a sizable mound of funchi, a cornmeal staple. They were out of yuana stoba, stewed iguana, when I was there.
Keep following the road to Westpunt and you'll discover that the route works out to be a scenic loop that eventually reconnects to itself near Landhuis Daniel. You can head back to Willemstad from the intersection. But before that, you should spend some time in nature exploring the western end of the island.
LESSON 3: You don't have to climb every mountain ...
Driving on Curacao is an adventure. You can count on dodging a herd or two of stray goats, perhaps half a dozen iguanas and innumerable whiptail lizards of varying sizes. But at least you don't have to worry about hurricanes. Curacao is so far south and west, so close to South America (on a clear day you can see the mountains of Venezuela) that most tropical storms figure it's not worth the bother. Consequently, the weather here is the active traveler's best friend.
Rugged outdoorsmen can tackle Christoffel National Park. Several companies run jeep tours or you can drive it yourself and stop at any of eight trails for hikes and nature walks. Those who get an early start can make the estimated two- to three-hour climb to the island's highest point, 1,230-foot Mt. Christoffel, before the day gets too hot.
The park was once a group of several plantations, and ruins from those days remain. Along the hikes you also might see petroglyphs, mahogany trees, sabal palms and wild orchids - rare things all. There's even a place from which you can spy on the Curacao white-tailed deer (some 250 of them), believed to have been brought here from South America centuries ago by the Arawaks, the same pre-Western-contact Indian tribe that left the petroglyphs.
Travelers saving their best efforts for the beach will be satisfied with a couple of low-impact land treks: the Hato Caves, which have formed natural pools and waterfalls, and/or Shete Boka Park. A short walk at Shete Boka leads to a damp and slippery sea cave where runaway slaves once hid. There's also an area where you can feed the iguanas.
The bottom part of that scenic loop I mentioned includes the short drive between Westpunt and Soto. It runs through a landscape worthy of "The X Files," a bizarre forest of multi-branched cactus, whose gray-tinted limbs rise eerily above a deep green tangle of tropical-looking vegetation. This drive also puts you on the southern coast of the island, the entire length of which is set with small beaches, some of which have facilities and rent palapas, beach furniture, floats and snorkel gear.
All this stuff is west of Willemstad. That means there is also a part of Curacao that is east of Willemstad. But with the exception of the area round Jan Sofat, the eastern end of the island is best left to those who live there.
You're better off spending the rest of your time in Willemstad.
LESSON 4: If your building gives you a migraine, paint it blue
Willemstad is a city divided. The local population probably wouldn't make this comparison, but, like Paris, Willemstad has a Left and a Right Bank. They've just given them Dutch names: Otrobanda on the left, Punda on the right and the long channel of St. Annabaai between them.
It's Punda's St. Annabaai waterfront that you see on all the postcards: a chorus line of respectable Dutch row houses flaunting a fruit-cocktail of colors. The buildings got their paint jobs, so the story goes, after the sun glaring off the once-white surfaces gave his lordship the governor a headache. Turns out the old dude held stock in a paint company.
By day, there's shopping: duty-free and local crafts and tacky souvenirs and Venezuelan produce right at the boat. By night, when the buildings are outlined with lights, there's music, a world beat of styles that flow from the open-air bars and karaoke cafes.
The whole area is a historic treasure - officially a UNESCO World Heritage Site - compact and easily explored on foot. In no time, you'll find Mikve Israel-Emanuel, the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Americas. Founded in 1732, its interior is flush with mahogany furnishings, appearing all the richer in the wonderful golden light that streams through renovated windows. The Jewish Historical & Cultural Museum is right next door in another historic building, where a mikvah, or ritual bath, was uncovered after years of disuse. Who knew that at one time half the white population here was Jewish? Some of the items displayed in the museum are even older than the synagogue itself: a Torah scroll that may have left Spain in 1492, a silver spice box from 1704. You can buy locally made mezuzas in the gift shop.
Compared to Mikve Israel, nearby Fort Church is a Johnny-come-lately, having been built only in 1769, though its Dutch Protestant congregation began meeting more than 100 years earlier. This, the oldest church on Curacao, is no slouch in the mahogany and silver-vessel departments, either, and has the further recommendation of being part of a real fort, Ft. Amsterdam.
This town has fortifications all over the place. Also in Punda, a structure called the Waterfront Arches, part of Water Fort, built in 1634 and replaced in 1827, now houses bars and eateries. Following St. Annabaai inland, you'll find Ft. Nassau, built in 1797 on a peninsula in Schottegat Bay. Except for the restaurant and bar, which afford grand views in all directions, this coral stone fort hasn't changed much in the intervening years. It even has its original toilets - square holes cut in an overhang. Don't worry. Nobody is expecting you to use them.
When you are ready to cross over to Otrobanda, you can drive across the modern Ring Road bridge, board a free passenger ferry or hoof it across the 700-foot-long Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge, reputedly the largest floating pedestrian bridge in the world.
Otrobanda's 1828 Riffort, yet another fort, rises at the foot of the pontoon bridge. Far from intimidating people, Riffort now is home to shops, a radio station and a small French/Swiss restaurant, Bistro Le Clochard, with barrel vaulted ceilings, rustic chandeliers and a waiter who sheepishly apologized to me that the catch of the day was "only" red snapper steamed in a banana leaf.
LESSON 5: If you ever get locked in a museum at closing time, enjoy the sculpture garden till help arrives
It's hard to imagine any place upstaging a bunch of old forts. But you never imagined any place like Hotel Kura Hulanda. This is a restored neighborhood, in fact another of Curacao's UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It's also a hotel, one that takes the form of a village where you can walk the original lanes and alleys, relax in open courtyards and stay in rooms or suites that would have been shops and homes a couple of hundred years ago. It's also a complex of some of the island's finest and most expensive restaurants. And it's home to the largest African history museum in the Caribbean.
I spent four nights at Kura Hulanda. The room was spacious and air-conditioned, the bed comfortable, the bath large, the television already tuned to "Law & Order." And I scarcely slept a wink because of the frogs. I never actually saw the frogs. They made their presence known by their infernal, diabolical, incessant croaking through the night.
You'd have thought the frogs were problem enough. But then I got locked in the African History Museum because I underestimated the time it would take to see all the exhibits. The woman there tried to tell me that I should come back in the morning, but I wouldn't hear of it. All she could do was shake her head as I paid the admission. How was I to know that this tiny island, and this neighborhood within a neighborhood, could fill 15 buildings and 16,000 square feet with artifacts and displays? It turned out to be one of the finest small museums I've ever visited.
Exhibits trace African history beginning with ancient artifacts from Mesopotamia and Egypt all the way through 19th century wood and bronze sculptures from a rainbow of West African nations. I especially remember a bust from Benin. Special displays follow the trans-Atlantic slave trade from captures in Africa to sales in the New World, and the museum doesn't gloss over Curacao's grim role as one of the Caribbean's largest, if not the largest, slave markets.
In fact, the museum sits on the site of a former slave yard, and one of its most wrenching exhibits is a reconstruction of two pillars where slaves newly arrived from Africa would have been sold, and where any who objected to their lot would have been whipped.
I think the place must have closed for the day while I was either going down inside the re-created hold of a Middle Passage slave ship or when I was fitting my wrists into rusty slave manacles in another display.
The irony of my situation grew even stronger as I peered through sturdy iron fencing asking passersby to send for help. As I waited, I was just glad that the admissions woman couldn't see me. She's probably still shaking her head.
High season rates generally prevail mid-December through mid-April.
GETTING AROUND: Curacao is well suited to exploring on your own, so rent a car. Road signs are in English, and Curacao drivers are extremely patient and courteous. But stray goat herds may take over the roads at any time, even in populated areas.
A four-day Alamo compact on Curacao cost me US$132 last November. You may pay more in high season. When you are ready for a rugged outing, you can join one of several four-wheel-drive tours that operate here. Most cost less than US$50/person.
CURRENCY: U.S. dollars are accepted everywhere.
STAYING THERE: Travelers who enjoy "collecting" hotels will find great variety here. Hotel Kura Hulanda (www.kurahulanda.com), in Willemstad's Otrobanda district, is a member of Leading Small Hotels of the World and offers unique lodging in the buildings of a restored historic district, from US$240 in high season (I got a standard room for nearly half that in low season). It's within walking distance of all the historic sites of Willemstad. There's a sister property, Lodge Kura Hulanda and Beach Club (same contact info), on the far western tip of the island at Westpunt. Set apart from the rest of Westpunt, it's a rather new, breezy resort with a small beach and rates from $225 in high season.
You can have your history and a picture-perfect secluded beach at Avila Beach Hotel (www .avilahotel.com), on the less pedestrian end of Willemstad. Rooms in the historic main building start at US$120 in high season (there's a catch: modern plumbing but no hot water). Completely modern rooms in other parts of the resort start at $260 in high season.
Landhuis Daniel Country Inn & Restaurant (email@example.com; www.landhuisdaniel.com) is one of the island's oldest plantation houses. Its eight rooms have private baths and start at $35 with fan and $45 with air conditioning. Add $6/person for breakfast or $25/person for half-board (breakfast and dinner).
Larger chain hotels include Hilton, Howard Johnson and Marriott. Other small - to midsize properties cater to scuba divers. And there are several B&Bs and vacation rentals.
Expect to pay 19 percent in lodging taxes at most places.
MORE INFORMATION: Curacao Tourism Corporation, www.curacao.com
Posted by Ian Wishart at 03:09 PM | Comments (0)
Book Reviews: Feb 07 issue
In association with The Nile
Michael Morrissey tracks the Rich, and finds a skeptic promoting unproven theories of her own
THE RICH By William Davis, Icon Books, $29.99
Judging by earlier titles such as It's No Sin to be Rich, Have Expenses, Will Travel, Children of the Rich - Davis is much given to writing about the wealthy. It is a breed of which he thoroughly approves. He vehemently attacks the arguments that being rich is a matter of exploitation. Terms like "stinking rich" and "filthy rich" spring from envy or flaunting of moral superiority, he says. He also makes favourable mention of those who give large sums to medical research or other worthy causes. Examples include Elton John, Eric Clapton and Bill Gates. The world's wealthiest person, Gates has put $29 billion into a charitable foundation and claims he will give away 95 per cent of his wealth before he dies. Bravo Bill!
And if this sounds too serious, just remember – as Davis reminds us – the rich do buy things like yellow submarines, Zeppelin airships and five-foot-high acrylic aquariums shaped like elephants.
While it is heartening to read about the wealthy giving back the money to the wider community, Davis does not examine any of the sharp practices and ruthless conduct that often accompany the building of a large company though there is a chapter dealing with rich crooks. To be condemned by Davis you have to be outright crooked. Puzzlingly, Pablo Escobar, the Colombian cocaine drug warlord and arguably the richest crook in history, is not mentioned.
In case – though it is probably unlikely – you find yourself invited to a weekend house by Old Money, Davis lists some handy tips on how to conduct yourself. Don't, for instance, boast about a recent deal through which you made a packet - "simply not done". On no account be impressed by the $50 million Picasso hanging on the wall of a room as large as a football field. After all, you are used to such luxuries, right? You must participate in any silly parlour games played by these idle folk. Suitable topics for discussion include horses, dogs, gardens, taxes and, of course, problems with servants. Old Money conducts itself thus: "We do not hustle, we do not push, we are not aggressive".
Alas some of the rich, especially those showy folk called nouveau riche, appear not to have heard of these rules. Examples might include William Randolph Hearst, Donald Trump, Richard Branson and the late Elvis Presley. Monarchs are usually not bashful about flaunting their wealth either as Davis duly reveals. The rich can be found everywhere though still mainly in the United States followed by Germany, Russia, Japan and Britain.
While providing an informative Cook's tour of the famous wealthy, Davis's accounts and analysis tends to be shallow and the inner psychology of what drives people to stop at nothing in the accumulation of wealth is not explored in any depth. His writing style is banal and often given to generalisations when particularity would have better exampled his case. Eg "... cancer and heart disease continue to kill many people ..."
While many a successful entrepreneurial rise to success has been made by ignoring negative advice - "It can't be done. It costs too much. It's risky. It takes too long to get returns" - there is, in the name of pro-wealth positivity, little examination of the overwhelmingly larger number of people who also ignored sensible advice and wound up broke. And, one wonders, is Davis himself getting rich by writing about the financially over-endowed? For his sake, I hope so.
MICRO NATIONS by John Ryan, George Dunford and Simon Sellars, $29.99
If you stopped someone in the street and asked them, "What is a micro nation?" their eyes might momentarily glaze then they might respond, "A small country?" And they would be right. But in the context of this fascinating, entertaining and handsome little book, a micro nation is more or less an imaginary country invented by a single individual or a few which may have no actual territory or a very tiny amount, e.g. the "nation" founder's own property – though there are some interesting exceptions to this definition.
Though some of these "countries" have no dominions to rule or no recognised government, the ingenious inventors have composed a geography and history. Some even have passports and stamps. One of the grandest of these non-United Nations recognised nations is the Hutt River Province principality in Australia.
Hutt River was founded in 1970 by wheat farmer (now Prince) Leonard George Casley, after a dispute with the legitimate government about his crop allotment. The Hutt Valley nation is one of the larger micro nations covering some 75 sq kms with its own passport, visas, stamps and currency. In a spirit of invention that may owe something to Jonathan Swift and Lord of the Rings, The Hutt also has Province magnets,T-shirts, stickers, commemorative spoons, badges and CD recording of the national anthem plus a Royal Art Collection. There is a tearoom that offers light snacks but if you plan an overnight stay you are advised to bring your own food. Relations with the Australian government have proved difficult - it failed to recognise the province and demanded taxes – so the Prince declared "war" in 1977. So far no shots have been fired.
Other colourful examples - though they are all colourful - include Freedonia, which was originally named from the Marx Brothers' film Duck Soup and associated with a disastrous claim to land in Somalia; the Copeman Empire which consists of a mobile caravan in Sheringham England - the owner and King, who owns a corgi, offers cucumber sandwiches and tea for a modest fee; Lovely, an invention of British comedian Danny Wallace who fronted a 6-part TV programme entitled How to Start Your own Country; Danny's own country consists of his own flat, address not to be revealed – though a map is provided. In terms of exotic appellation, my favourites are the Sovereign Kingdom of Kemetia, Principality of Trumania, the Kingdom of North Dumpling Island and the redoubtable republic of Kugelmugel. There are more of these novel geographic beasties that you might imagine – Micro Nations has 52 entries but one website lists over 100.
Are there micro nations in New Zealand? Indeed, there are. Two are mentioned here – Whangamonona near Stratford which in micro national terms has the full monty - its own football team, beer, hotel cafe and motor camp. "Buying a passport (NZ $3) is advised as the border guard has been known to be armed with water pistols". Honourable mention is made of Borovnia, an imaginary land invented by Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme who murdered Parker's mother in Christchurch in 1954 and recently the subject of the excellent Peter Jackson film, Heavenly Creatures.
So far so good. But why no mention of the Sultanate of Occussi-Ambeno, an imaginary micro nation with an historical foundation - a former Portuguese enclave in east Timor excised from maps when Indonesia invaded in 1975 - invented by the mildly notorious Bruce Grenville. Apart from its magnificent stamps, it has an elaborate history and geography, and the photograph of the Sultan may possibly be Grenville himself in a fez.. Fauna include the Garuda bird and the flying Naga Unggu which curiously is related to the flightless Komodo dragon. I can only urge the editors of Micro Nations to do a revised edition and include this third kiwi micro nation.
Obviously an imaginary country without any territory is a lot easier to create than one that lays claim to any land. Attempts to create new nations micro or otherwise in the real world are fraught with peril. When a Las Vegas real estate property developer had several barges of sand poured on a reef just off Tonga and christened it Minerva, the Tongan government sent in troops to pull down the Minervan flag. To make it really difficult, the wet-blanket 1982 United Nations Convention of the Sea decided that any micro nation created at sea falls under the jurisdiction of the nearest country. Unless you own your own patch of dirt, the conceptual country existing purely as a work of fiction looks the safer bet.
IN THE NAGA'S WAKE by Mick O'Shea, Allen & Unwin, $32.99
Mention the Mekong river to most people and you might get a mention of the golden triangle – and not much else. This gripping travel account will expand the reader's knowledge of the world's eighth longest river – 4909 kilometres long. The kayak-based journey successfully completed by Mick O'Shea and his companions is not for the faint-hearted, involving numerous class V and the even more terrifying gateway to terror, class V-plus runs on boiling white water.
The Mekong – which is sourced in the Lasagongma Glacier - along with the Indus, Yangtze, Yellow, Salween and Brahmaputra rivers originate on the vast and high Tibetan plain. Surprisingly – for this reader – fish can be found at 4600 metres above sea level. Journeys like these are a two-edged sword – much of the time death is not far away; at the same time O'Shea writes: "I don't think I ever felt more alive." And that was just at the beginning of his adventure. The last time a comparable exploration had been done was over 100 years earlier.
The author's daring is not just on the physical level - which involved 12 hours a day on the turbulent river – but also deciding to proceed without a permit. In the grand tradition of exploration, if you run a rapid you get the right to name it - or should one say, re-name it as the local inhabitants may already have named it.
Like all specialist activities, kayaking has its own vocabulary. So we have wave trains, rooster tails and keeper holes. The latter is a whirlpool that keeps the kayaker whirling around in trapped circular fashion. Also "fat bastards" - big walls of crashing water named after the character in the Austin Powers' films. In contrast to the gripping descriptions of battling turmoiled water, there is the generous warmth and hospitality of the Tibetan people, some of whom were more than a tad worried about O'Shea's death-defying feats on the mighty Mekong.
In the latter part of his book, O'Shea gives a lyric account of his travels through Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Burma and notes with regret that the enormous Chinese dam projects on the Mekong will have a devastating effect on the lives of river-dependent tribes and people down river. He also reminds us of the devastation wrecked in Laos during the Vietnam war by American bombing and the tragedy of Cambodian landmines. All in all, O'Shea's tale is a triumphal run through troubled waters.
ODDZONE by Vicki Hyde, New Holland Publishers, $29.99
Vicki Hyde is a leading New Zealand skeptic. She is chair-entity (!) of the New Zealand Committee of Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal aka NZ Skeptics and also manging editor of SciTechDaily Review. Mention of Little Green Men is enough to bring her out in a Large Green Rash.
In this tidy tome, she disposes of UFOs and aliens, ghoulies and ghosties, mediums and psychics, possibly surviving moose and moa and, in the last and largest chapter, hoes into alternative archaeology. But before tackling these controversial notions head-on she has an interesting introductory chapter entitled a "Toolkit for the Mind". She makes the philosophical point that "if something cannot be explained it does not mean it is inexplicable". She reveals that her own early reading has charted the familiar path of the believer in "alternative thinking" e.g. lashings of science fiction (Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov) plus Immanuel Velikovsky and Erich Von Danikin. However, rather than becoming a convert, she has reacted back into the apostasy of being a skeptic.
As she points out, many an investigator would give their eye teeth for absolute proof of mind-to-mind communication but various offers of considerable sums of money from the likes of Harry Houdini, James Randi as well as skeptic-minded organisations in Australia, India, England and New Zealand have failed to produce convincing demonstrations and tend more to show the opposite. She concludes by noting that proving something is not the case is more or else impossible. To prove there were no moas left in Aotearoa, for instance, you would have to search every square inch of New Zealand. On the other hand, to prove there is a moa all you have to do is capture one and produce it – so far no one has succeeded. And it seems highly unlikely – though there's always that lingering romantic hope. After all, the storm petrel was re-discovered 155 years after it had "disappeared". Cloning, anyone?
To her credit - in case you think Hyde is a cast-iron skeptic about anything that runs against science - she instances the existence of meteorites. The French Academy of Sciences dismissed their extraterrestrial origin until some 3000 stones fell near L'Aigle in 1803. No one now doubts that they come from beyond the earth.
Some of the skeptical explanations for not-quite-explained phenomena are cheerfully romantic. The first New Zealand UFO sighting in New Zealand occurred in 1909. Hyde comments, "It's just possible that a lone German Zeppelin cruised through New Zealand skies in 1909." What an exciting idea! - worthy of a Peter Jackson film. On the other hand, alien abductions fail to convince her. Some UFO abduction proponents claim as many as five million Americans have been abducted while here in New Zealand the total is a more modest 3000.
Barry Brailslford, Martin Doutre, Ross Wiseman and most recent of all, Gavin Menzies, are all considered by Hyde but in her view fail to prove their colourful theories concerning Waitaha tribe preceding Maori, or the Celts, Phoenicians or Chinese arriving in New Zealand prior to other ethnic groups. I am sure I am not alone in wanting some of these assertions to be authentic; and if they not literally true then they are the stuff of exciting fiction. The possibility of relevant special effects films is even more pulse-raising. Imagine a fleet of Chinese junks sailing into New Zealand and encountering Maori tribes! That Hyde has not quelled a mythological yearning in her own mind is indicted by her concluding thought that if hoofbeats heard at night prove to be a unicorn, give her a call – or is this her ever present skepticism?
UNCOMMON ENEMY by John Reynolds, Polygraphia, $29.50
John Reynold's first novel belongs to a genre that continues to fascinate – what would happen if Germany had won World War Two? Dozens of examples of the genre have been published. Prominent titles include The Sound of His Horn by Sarban, The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick and Fatherland by Robert Harris. The Sound of his Horn and Fatherland were both set in Europe and Philip Dick's book set in America. Daringly, Reynolds places his Nazis in New Zealand.
Uncommon Enemy is an intriguing alternative to the more expected Japanese takeover which is prominently featured in an essay in the recent anthology of speculative alternative history New Zealand As It Might Have Been edited by Stephen Levine – "What if Japan had Invaded New Zealand?" Curiously, many more novels have been written about Germany winning than Japan emerging victorious. Though not formally part of this particular strand of alternative future fiction, C.K. Stead's Smith's Dream comes to mind as another exploration of a neo-fascist takeover of the New Zealand government.
In Reynold's well-detailed period piece, Auckland and nearby environs are the centre for much of the action. In particular, Auckland's North Shore - a more than familiar literary landscape as a consequence of Devonport/Takapuna being New Zealand's largest literary colony so to speak – is the backdrop of much of the vigorous in-fighting that features in this book.
The hero of Uncommon Enemy is an idealistic high-spirited young man called Stuart Johnson, and from early on in the novel he is locked in combat with the odious and bullying Hamish Beavis. Initially, they are rivals for the affections of Carol Peterson, and later, perhaps a little predictably, given Beavis's aggressive nature, they found themselves as ideological protagonists. Stuart joins the resistance and Hamish joins the Nazis.
War time Premier Peter Fraser has a cameo role as a leader who pays the price for refusing to make a Nazi salute by being assaulted by Von Ribbentrop's henchmen. Reynolds describes an effective Germanisation of England and New Zealand – fascist Oswald Mosley is made Prime Minister of England, Winston Churchill's home becomes a Gestapo headquarters and the Duke of Windsor is reinstated as King Edward V111; in New Zealand, the Northern Club is occupied and the Academic Values Authority squashes academic freedom at Auckland University College with the decrees of its New Order.
A secondary thread in the plot which adds to the mounting drama of the story is the presence of a couple of White Rose members one of whom does not turn out quite as she seems to be. The White Rose was a student resistance group against the Nazis in wartime Germany. The novel reaches an exciting climax which leaves a lingering strand of hope for the future of the resistance movement. Reynolds' novel should be enjoyed by those old enough to remember New Zealand's wartime years but also by younger generations interested in the dark possibility of Nazi rule.
Posted by Ian Wishart at 02:45 PM | Comments (0)
Book Reviews: Jan 07 issue
In association with The Nile
Great Kiwi Novels, and other stories
Michael Morrissey tracks Lloyd Jones' latest and some historic kiwiana
MISTER PIP by Lloyd Jones, Penguin, $35
Lloyd Jones is probably our most sophisticated stylist and also delightfully unpredictable in the kind of novels he writes. What is the gifted fellow going to do next? Like so many successful recent New Zealand novels, this one is set "abroad' i.e. outside New Zealand waters. Probably this trend will continue, and the versatile Jones persist in pleasantly surprising us in subject matter, technique and setting.
Triumphantly written up in a recent Listener as Our First Million Dollar Novelist, I could not help subconsciously – though I knew the feeling was sure to be mistaken - expect some large complex blockbuster type of novel (say the New Zealand equivalent of Sacred Games by Vikram Chandler (see below)). Instead we are given a modest work of 220 pages in largish print. Up until recently, a lot of New Zealand fiction had a kind of moral pokiness, a gauche wooden style with lapses into political correctness - this is definitely not the case with Jones's minor masterpiece.
The novel's main character is Matilda, a young Bougainville girl who has the kind of teacher we would (or should) like to have - a gentle, cultured, morally upright man who invites them into his imaginative world by reading from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. In what has become almost the new politically correct world of contemporary criticism (Edward Said for example), this act might be seen as an act of colonisation - here it becomes a sharing of an exotic distant world that excites the minds of the children, leaving Matilda awake at night wondering what marshes or leg irons might be like. Mr Watts, aka Mr Pip (main character of Great Expectations) charms us with his quiet low-key manner and equally Lloyd Jones charms us. Do teachers still read to their pupils I wonder or has electronic media taken over completely?
Mr Watts, the teacher, succeeds too well. Pip becomes of greater interest to Matilda than stories about her dead relatives and her mother is understandably indignant. An ideological battle of wills develops with Matilda's mother addressing her class mates about crabs and the weather, God and the devil. What Jones does with great skill during these scenes – reminiscent of Graham Greene - is interweaving the personal, the ideological and the political. It is the latter that slowly closes on the adult protagonists like a vicious vice.
With a further Greene-like twist of the ironic knife, Jones has the oppressive Redskins (government soldiers) threaten mayhem if the imaginary though now treated-as-real Mr Pip's whereabouts is not revealed. Proof of Mr Pip's fictionality relies on presenting a copy of Great Expectations but unfortunately Matilda's mother has stolen it. And Matilda feels duty bound to remain silent. No problems accepting this response but I had credibility problems with Matilda's mother keeping quiet about stealing the book when concealment meant the whole village was burnt down – though that may be my European perspective. The subsequent murder of Mr Watts is brutal and brief and all the more shocking because of its suddenness and brevity.
This is a deceptively straightforward novel in which irony piles on irony. The meditations on the colour white, for instance, or the view of the "real" Mrs Watts that her husband was a weak man when we have seen his stubborn strength. At the conclusion, I felt a little breathless with the dazzle of Jones's talent. The international success of his novel is well deserved.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR NEW ZEALANDERS by Richard Wolfe, Random House, $34.99
Let's say you were a woman in 1915 looking for a career in teaching. What would be the requirements? Actually they were quite strict. Marrying was forbidden and the teacher curfewed between the hours of 8pm and 6 am. She was not allowed to travel outside city limits without permission, not smoke nor dress in bright colours, nor dye her hair. And most importantly, she was not to loiter downtown in ice-cream stores, presumably seething dens of vice. If, by 1946, our modern Ms had been lucky enough to become a mother to twins and was endeavouring to breast feed, Modern Mothercraft: A Guide to Parents, provides a detailed schedule.
Instructions are what we all need and instructions in abundance are what this natty little pocket book provides. There may be some who will read this delightful book with a straight face but I think most of us will smile and may even laugh. Of course this humour is the by product of a shift in historical perspective. For all we know, the instructions of today – only a few are listed – may prove a matter of hilarity to future generations. Instructions can be found here on Hanging Pictures, Carless Days, Using an Electric Oven, The Prevention of Slugs, Clothing Required by Steerage Passengers, Starting the Engine, Playing the National Anthem and Filling a Hot Water Bag (Do not use boiling water!). In other words, for all of life's exigencies, small or large, some thoughtful soul or government committee has written a detailed set of instructions on how to do and how to cope. I was cheerfully reminded of the extraordinarily resourceful Junior Woodchuck's Guidebook – frequently consulted by Donald Duck's nephews in emergencies.
Under the "The Art of Rugby Football" dated 1902 there is a chapter entitled How to Bump, first practised by Mr. J.G Taiaroa, the famous Otago back. The text continues, "It would therefore seem, a Maori invention and knack." Bumping? "Bumping is done by the timely transmission of the weight and momentum of the runner to a would-be tackler, and is generally only effectively done when the runner is going at top speed, when the momentum does the trick. It is done by throwing one's weight plus impetus into the tackler's shoulder, and brushing him by with the arm". Whether the Bump is still legal fare in today's rugby is unknown to a non-footballer such as myself but I am sure Stadium-voters will know. Perhaps a future edition will include a chapter on "How to Choose a Football Stadium"? At the time of writing it seems the nation and the council desperately need Instructions.
Among many gems, my favorite (almost) is instructions on Using the Long Baton issued in 1976. Astonishingly, there are eighteen different uses of this handy instrument of law enforcement. These include the Front punch, Back punch, Flat Chop, Forward spin, Pool Cue Jab from long extended position, Wrist drag, Running Armlock, and the Yawara strike. It is reassuring to discover that the art of the bludgeon has been so scientifically detailed.
Instructions for New Zealanders is an ideal book for a gift or a bit of summer levity and I look forward to a revisit in 50 years time.
TRAVELS IN THE SCRIPTORIUM by Paul Auster, Faber & Faber, $39.99
Either you're a Paul Auster fan or you're not. I am – most of the time. Writers tend to be melancholic beasties and most of Auster's central protagonists (often furtive writers) are melancholic or in the modern terms depressed, alienated, passive. Not for long.
Something puzzling awakens them from their depressed state.
This short novel starts off cheerily: "The old man sits on the edge of the narrow bed, palms spread out on his knees, head down, staring at the floor." Somehow – since this is a Paul Auster novel – you guess he isn't about to be brought a dish of strawberries and cream by a beautiful young woman dressed as a French maid. From the drearily sterile circumstance of his surroundings one might guess that Mr Blank (yes, that's his name) is a political prisoner of sorts but then it seemed the mental patient fitted the bill more accurately – there are references to treatment, nurses, pills that make his hands shake. That doesn't seem to quite fit either. A reality TV show gone wrong (there are cameras present)? A Dystopian political allegory? Perhaps. A Kafka-esque fable of alienation comes closer yet even that doesn't seem quite appropriate. Since the room is locked and Mr Blank so miserable, comparisons with Beckett could also be drawn. In the end, it seems Mr Blank is trapped in the pages by that sadist, the writer, nominally N.R Fanshawe yet who ultimately must be, Paul Auster.
Even by stern Austerian standards, this novel takes a deeper plunge into gloom than most and the reader may feel like abandoning Mr Blank to his monotonously awful fate but there is something compulsive about the book, the Austerian capacity to surprise, that sustains interest.
The apparent window pane clarity of the beginning slowly gives way to a tricky corridor of fictional mirrors. Auster uses the multi-level device of the spliced in narrative that appears to have little connection with the main story but eventually interweaves with it.
The enfolded narrative describes a land that is much like a nineteenth century American frontier circa 1830 with murderous Europeans and butchered Indians. It is, in fact, an unfinished novel that Mr Blank feels compelled to finish in his own way.
All of Mr Blank's visitors are characters from earlier Auster novels which is either the writer being lazy or richly extending his fictional universe. Or playing a metafictional game. If the sole purpose of the book is to tell us that writers are trapped in rooms writing that is scarcely an original thought. In the end, this was my least favourite Auster novel and I hope next time Mr Blank is Mr Somebody and gets out of that locked room.
RESTLESS by William Boyd, Bloomsbury, $35
William Boyd, one of the leading novelists of today, has just published his ninth novel. It's cracking espionage thriller, thoroughly authentic in period detail and atmosphere, recounted by two narratives – the first by Ruth Gilmartin is about how she discovers her mother Sally Gilmartin is really Eva Delectorskaya, a Russian emigre and spy, and the second, Eva's narration of her life as a secret agent. Ruth lives in Oxford and teaches English as a second language, while trying to write a history thesis, the time being1976.
For obvious reasons, the war document is the more gripping, yet the book as a whole is enthralling with Ruth having to put up with shady characters who boast of making porno films and being mixed up with the Baader-Meinhof Gang – though who knows if it is all true? As with all such double narratives, we wait for them to intersect which satisfyingly they do.
Eva is recruited at the funeral of her brother Kolia by the novel's suave bete noire, the polished and urbane Lucas Romer with an "upper class, patrician" accent - "swarthy, with dense eyebrows, uncurved, like two black horizontal dashes beneath his high forehead". Her brother's death is given as a reason for her to join up for Kolia who also used to work for Mr Romer.
As war clouds gather over Europe, Eva is given her exhaustive training. In terms of detail, this struck me as more authentic and meticulous than anything previously encountered – though obviously I haven't read every spy novel in existence. She is taught how to remember number by association with colours, how to recall at least 80 of 100 objects on a table; she is taught Morse code, use of a compass, code breaking, forging, how to tail someone and detect if she is being followed. Her training is topped off with a spot of orienteering - being left out at night at a remote location and finding her way back. Interestingly enough, Mr Romer dismisses unarmed combat as being a waste of time and comments, "you have nails, you have teeth - your animal instincts will serve you better than any training". So much for the James Bond style of espionage – though don't forget the Russians did try to kill someone with a poison-tipped umbrella (or latterly a tiny nuclear bomb in the arteries) which makes it mildly plausible when Eva dispatches a Mexican heavy by stabbing him through the eye with a pencil.
Eva winds up working at British Security Coordination in the Rockefeller Center in New York where they release phony propaganda stories to the media, and curiously enough they can never be sure if they are believed by the enemy or not. The aim is to spur the United States into joining the war. The presence of this large British spy agency in New York is well founded in fact. As we now know, the bombing of Pearl Harbour was far more effective than its efforts.
The double plot is complex with lots of richly realised secondary characters drawn in along the way. Excitement begins to mount when Ruth meets Romer and reaches full-blown thriller adrenalin when she and her Eva meet the ruthless Romer for the last time. Like Graham Greene, Boyd has managed and quite superbly, to inject full characterisation and psychological depth into an espionage thriller. Not even John Le Carre has done it better.
SACRED GAMES by Vikram Chandler, Faber & Faber, $39.99
This whopper of a novel – 900 pages – is only Chandler's second but with it he leaps to the forefront of Indian and world literature.
This is fiction writing and characterisation on an impressive nineteenth century scale so it's tempting to dub him the Indian Dostoyevsky. I make this comparison not only because the clash between gangster warlord Ganesh Gaitonde and Sartaj Singh, a Sikh police inspector, is somehow like an extension of murderer Raskolnikov versus Detective Porfiry in Crime and Punishment but also because of the depth of psychology explored plus the use of full-on dialogue and the book's large scope and size.
Though the novel begins with a dog tossed out of a fifth story window - and this may be in part to illustrate that policemen have to attend to crimes other than murders – the novel really gets a grip on its two main protagonists in the second chapter. Ganesh is holed up in his nuclear bomb-proof concrete box with Sartaj Singh trying to flush him out. It's a standoff resolved when Singh orders in a bulldozer with a driver who knows how to tackle the task. By the time the siege is successfully accomplished and the arrest of the decade about to be made, we - like Singh - are disappointed to find the Hindu warlord of Mumbai has committed suicide. Thus does the grand drama begin.
While at first it seems like anticlimactic beginning, it becomes clear it's part of Chandler's fictional strategy. As in a modern thriller we have the James Bond-like beginning and the remainder is a furious and colourful flashback on a massive scale. From this point onward, the novel moves from Ganesh's story to Sartaj and back. At first, Sartaj is the chief character but then Ganesh, as the more colourful guy, tends to overwhelm.
There are additional interludes called Inserts, which alas, I tended to skim over in my eagerness to keep track with the main story. These additions plus the size of the novel tend to give more detail than might be needed but the novel picks up the pace from time to time just enough to keep one reading onward.
The Dramatis Personae lists some 35 main characters but there are hosts more weaving in and out. The vicious world of Mumbai's underworld is the overriding subject matter. Mumbai, formerly Bombay is if course, famous not only for its criminal underworld but also Bollywood. And no surprise to find that they are interwoven with wonderful dramatic effect. Chandler, it is abundantly clear, loves Mumbai for its colourfulness as Dickens loved London or Doctorow loves New York. In many ways, Mumbai is the third great character in the novel. Even the glorious sunsets get a mention though symbolically the cause of their splendour is thought to be pollution.
As in so many great works of literature, the moral undertow of the narrative is the battle of good and evil, here explored in great depth. Whereas Sartaj is basically a good man, he is a policeman in a corrupt city. As the text almost mournfully informs us, the money he is paid would not even pay for the paper on which he writes his reports, so what choice does he have but to accept bribes and payoffs? When he was married, his rich wife had enabled him the "luxury" of not having to take them but at the time of the novel he has little choice. Indian police methods, the text makes clear, are not overly gentle.
Ganesh Gaitonde, by contrast, is a ruthless gangster though naturally he has a human side which the book skilfully invites to follow with fascination and sympathy. But in the end he is a bad guy and the murder of one of his few genuine friends - a woman whom he admires for standing up to him - because of a blow to his sexual pride shows him in his true dark colours. An extra strand in the elaborate plot is Ganesh's servile relationship to a slick-talking guru who turns out to be a sinister terrorist intent on making nuclear mayhem.
This is a bravura performance that shows off a huge talent. Two reservations – it seems a shame that Ganesh's shadowy rival Suleiman Isa is off stage at all times and the show down between Ganesh and his guru also indirectly reported. However, the book remains a masterpiece of colour and high drama and the text teems with vibrant portraits of Mumbai's exotic city life. This would make a fabulous movie though hopefully the director will not cast from Bollywood.
Posted by Ian Wishart at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)


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Court rejects Optus's bid for TV Now appealPUBLISHED: 07 Sep 2012 10:20:00 | UPDATED: 11 Sep 2012 00:09:22PUBLISHED: 07 Sep 2012 PRINT EDITION: 08 Sep 2012
High Court Justice William Gummow says SingTel Optus has insufficient grounds for an appeal against the ban of its controversial time-shifting product TV Now. Photo: Chris Hyde
John McDuling
The High Court said it wouldn't hear an appeal by SingTel Optus against a ban of its time-shifting product TV Now, a decision that ends the service which deeply upset the Australian Football League.
It allowed Optus subscribers to record free-to-air television, including sport, on a mobile handset or tablet device and play it back within minutes of a live broadcast.
Telstra paid $153 million for exclusive rights to broadcast Australian Football League matches over a mobile connection for five seasons, and is frontrunner to secure similar rights for National Rugby League matches.
In April, a full bench of the Federal Court found TV Now was in breach of copyright laws, overturning a previous ruling in its favour.
Yesterday, after a brief submission from Optus's lawyers, Justice William Gummow said there were insufficient grounds for leave to appeal before the High Court to be granted and that such an appeal was unlikely to be successful.
Optus vice-president of corporate and regulatory affairs David Epstein said debate over the legality of the service was not over and it would pursue the matter through an Australian Law Reform Commission review of copyright laws.
The service prompted AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou to label Optus a "disgrace". Under the copyright law people can record television for personal use.
■ Telstra, Optus gear up for new battles
■ TV Now bank bad precedent: Optus
The Australian Financial Review
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|Singapore Telecomm., Telstra Corporation.
|Andrew Demetriou
|Courts & Legal, Technology /Telecommunications , Technology /Online Services , Media & Marketing /Television

subset: commoncrawl


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|Hello there old friend
|Hello there old friend
Surprisingly enough the above was taken with my android phone. Came out so nice~!
Current Residence: Philly~
Favourite genre of music: Jpop, Kpop
Favourite photographer: Dan Elvgren
Favourite style of art: I LOVE ENDLING-SAMA'S ART <333
Operating System: PC
MP3 player of choice: My Zeni! XD Now my Zune~
Shell of choice: ...uh...my skin..?
Skin of choice: Jin's collar bone
Favourite cartoon character: Rosie and Posie, Courage the Cowardly Dog, any of my characters
Personal Quote: "I wish fate liked me...but it seems only Destiny does..."


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This property allows you to book online with a credit card. After submitting a reservation request, the owner or manager has 24 hours to accept, at which time your card will be charged and you will receive an email confirmation
Juneau Vacation Rentals Show this location only Back to top
$650 per night 1 night min stay
$175 - $250 per night 3 night min stay
$750 - $900 per week 7 night min stay
$500 per night 1 night min stay
$329 - $419 per night 3 night min stay
$120 - $150 per night 2 night min stay
$185 - $235 per night 3 night min stay
$149 - $249 per night 2 night min stay
$150 per night 3 night min stay
$170 - $250 per night 3 night min stay
$199 per night 3 night min stay
$150 - $185 per night 3 night min stay
$190 - $240 per night 2-3 night min stay
$125 - $200 per night 1-3 night min stay
$160 per night 3 night min stay
$300 per night 1 night min stay
$2,500 - $3,000 per month 30 night min stay
$200 per night 3 night min stay
$239 - $677 per night 2 night min stay
$225 - $400/night plus taxes
$175 per night 3 night min stay
From $149 - $169.00 US
$309 per night 3 night min stay
Recent Juneau reviews
"Gold mine museum was a short walk up the hill, and well worth the trip. House was great for us. It was older, clean, and very comfortable with a great view. Getting up the hill is a challenging hike. The owner was very helpful."Guest: TOBI Date of Stay: July 2014 Review Submitted: August 4, 2014View listing
"We had a great stay in this apartment, I went with my family and we had everything we needed. The apartment is in between the Valley and Downtown so a good base to get wherever you're going, plus from this place you can walk to the Salmon Creek trail. It rained most of our stay so it was nice to have somewhere to come back to with a living room to relax (and a dryer!). We didn't have much interaction with the owners but they were helpful with any questions we had. Kitchen was fully stocked and served our needs, the place was clean and lived up to it's description. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a place to escape after a day of hiking/biking/exploring Juneau!"Guest: Kelly S. Date of Stay: August 2014 Review Submitted: September 9, 2014View listing
"excellent stay. will try to use rental on future trips to Juneau."Guest: john Date of Stay: June 2014 Review Submitted: June 16, 2014View listing
"Great place to base out of while staying in Juneau. Room for 4 or 5 with very nice accommodations. Save a few bucks by taking advantage of the cooking facilities which include a grill on the deck. Even on the Summer Solstice, the trees lend a light dampening effect so sleeping is easy. Tty it, you'll like it."Guest: WESTERN Colorado Date of Stay: June 2014 Review Submitted: June 28, 2014View listing
Juneau Travel Tips
Incredible Attractions to See near Juneau Vacation Rentals
Juneau is located in a part of the world that is known for its glacial beauty. The Mendenhall Glacier is one of the most impressive in the area. It has an ice core that measures between 300 and 1,800 feet deep; at its widest point, it is almost a half-mile in diameter. Incredibly, this giant mass of ice still makes steady progress in its movement each year. The Mendenhall Glacier is only one of many glaciers that make up the much larger Juneau Icefield. Local outfitters provide guided excursions where you can go hiking and climbing in various parts of the region.
Juneau is also known for its large population of migrating humpback whales. In season, you can see them in the waterways with their young. The best way to have a close encounter with the whales is by joining a whale watching boat excursion. For the more adventurous, there are also sea kayaking excursions available where you can see these gentle giants of the sea.
Between October and April each year, visitors to Juneau can enjoy a wide variety of festivals events, live performances and art shows. If you enjoy the classics, you can take in a show at the Juneau Opera or enjoy a night out at the Juneau Symphony Orchestra.
Getting to Juneau Cabins
There are daily flights that take visitors between Seattle, Anchorage and Juneau. These scheduled jet services offer the most convenient way to get to Juneau. Juneau also serves as an air hub for flights to communities located to the southeast such as Sitka, Ketchikan and Petersburg. You can take your car to Juneau but you can't drive there. If this sounds a little strange, it is because most communities are connected by waterways rather than roads. The Alaskan Marine Highway System is a floating roadway and ferry system that connects communities in Alaska. You can enter the system in British Columbia or Washington among other areas and then travel between destinations. For sections where there are no road connections, you can simply drive your car onto a ferry and cruise along to the next port. This is actually one of the best ways to explore the region. You can then arrive in Juneau relaxed and ready to enjoy your vacation.
Favorite Seasons to Travel to Juneau Lodging
While Juneau it known for its icy surroundings, it does enjoy some mild daytime temperatures in the summer months. An average summer daytime temperature is between 60 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. This is perfect weather to enjoy hiking, kayaking, mountain biking and a wide variety of other outdoor activities. In the wintertime, most visitors come to enjoy the fantastic downhill and cross country skiing. Heli-skiing and snowboarding are available for the adrenalin junkies. In winter, the temperatures average around 29 degrees Fahrenheit so you need to be adequately equipped when heading outdoors.
Visitors to Alaska Vacation Rentals in Juneau
Juneau is a scenically beautiful area. If nothing else, you can come simply to enjoy the warm hospitality and incredible views. Juneau is a city with a warm cultural heart and has frequent art and cultural activities on the go. Perhaps those that have the most fun when visiting Juneau are the outdoor adventurers. In both summer and winter, there are fantastic hikes that take you exploring the surrounding areas. In the wintertime, snow enthusiasts can burn up the downhill slopes or explore the forests with cross country skiing. Other activities include mountain biking, kayaking, cruising and wildlife viewing. One thing is for certain, you'll never be bored in Juneau.


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Stock Membrane Keypads
July 2003
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A catalog published by the company contains product information on its complete line of stock membrane keypads. According to the company, more than 100 configurations are available, including single-key keypads and keyboards with QWERTY layouts. Custom configurations can reportedly be created from "edge-abuttable" keypads. Options include tactile metal domes, integral connectors, LED cutouts, and industry standard key layouts and schematics.
Xymox Technologies, Inc.
Canon Communications LLC . © 2008


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Press Releases
The Renaissance World Golf Village Resort and Convention Center In Jacksonville/St. Augustine Receives Corporate Meetings & Incentives' "Paragon Award". . . The Prestigious Award Recognizes The Resort As One Of The Top 50 Hotels In The U.S. For Meetings & Incentive Programs
JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE, FL (July 2012) – The honors keep coming to The Renaissance World Golf Village Resort, Convention Center and Beach Club in Jacksonville/St. Augustine, Florida, as the resort has received another prestigious award: Corporate Meetings & Incentives magazine's "2012 Paragon Award." This marks the first year the resort has received the acclaimed award, which recognizes the top 50 hotels in the U.S. for meetings and incentive programs, as voted by the magazine's readers. The award will be presented to Jeffrey Oliasami, general manager of the 301-room, AAA Four-Diamond resort. Together with the adjacent World Golf Hall of Fame, The Renaissance World Golf Village Resort, Convention Center and Beach Club is the largest combination hotel and convention center between Atlanta and Orlando, with 101,000 square feet of meeting and event space.
The highly coveted "Paragon Award" recognizes the country's finest meeting and incentive hotels, resorts and conference centers. Readers of the highly read magazine were asked which properties had best handled their meetings and incentive programs during the past year. Resorts were evaluated on the quality of their meeting services, atmosphere, and recreational amenities. The winning hotels, resorts and conference centers are highlighted in the magazine's July 2012 issue.
"We are extremely proud to capture the acclaimed Paragon Award, as it shows what an outstanding choice The Renaissance World Golf Village Resort is for meetings and incentive/recognition programs," said Oliasami.
Located within the lush 6,300-acre World Golf Village, the resort is the only Northeast Florida resort and convention center to receive the esteemed AAA Four Diamond rating. The honor is achieved by less than 4% of the AAA approved properties. Other honors recently bestowed on the resort include Smart Meetings magazine's prestigious "Platinum Choice Award," Successful Meetings magazine's acclaimed "Pinnacle Award," Association Meetings magazine's prestigious "Inner Circle Award," and Meetings & Conventions' sought after "Gold Key Award."
Not resting on its many laurels, the resort continues to enhance its offerings. This includes a dramatic renovation and expansion of its outdoor meeting, event and recreational space, which was completed in September 2011. The large project included new and expanded outdoor function space with beautiful brick pavers, elegant new furniture in conversational groupings, and a beautiful new fountain called La Piazza; as well as a new and expanded pool deck with new seating areas. The new outdoor function space, now named La Terrazza, is able to accommodate groups of up to 2,000 guests. With this expansion the resort added 15,000 square feet of new function space, bringing the resort's offerings to 101,000 square feet of meeting and event space.
The resort also completed many other enhancements in 2011, which included the opening of the Villagio Italian Grille; the opening of The Resort Shop, which serves a full menu of Starbuck's coffees, breakfast fare, sandwiches, soups, salads, wraps, and desserts, as well as an array of local gifts and souvenirs; and the addition of a picturesque new gazebo.
In 2012 the resort added another new feature, as it now provides privileges for its guests and groups at the private Serenata Beach Club, which features a breathtaking setting overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Serenata features: a 12,000-square-foot oceanfront clubhouse; three swimming pools; a Mediterranean-inspired dining room with views of the Atlantic; two bars; a fitness center; locker facilities; and scheduled activities. In addition to providing privileges to guests, The Renaissance World Golf Village Resort also provides a complimentary shuttle to and from Serenata Beach Club for individual guests (based on availability). Serenata Beach Club is located in Ponte Vedra Beach, a comfortable drive from The Renaissance World Golf Village Resort.
These enhancements follow a $10 million resort-wide renovation that was completed in 2008, which included the complete remodeling of guest rooms and suites, a dramatically-renovated lobby, newly-remodeled guest room corridors, and an expanded fitness center with state-of-the-art equipment. The resort also boasts a dramatically remodeled nine-story atrium lobby, featuring a Colonial/Asian theme with lush foliage and a colorful 7-story modern hanging sculpture that is reminiscent of open Florida skies.
Recreational options at the resort include two championship golf courses: the popular Slammer & Squire (just steps from The Renaissance Resort), and the renowned King & Bear (co-designed by Arnold "The King" Palmer and Jack "The Bear" Nicklaus). Guests also have access to four additional golf courses within 15 minutes of the resort, for a total of 108 holes of golf. Additionally, the resort features a sauna, pool, hot tub, and full-service concierge.
Guests and groups also are an easy walk to the World Golf Hall of Fame, which is the ultimate destination for the celebration of golf's greatest players, with fun interactive exhibits, and historic golf artifacts. Also within an easy walk are The World Golf Hall of Fame's 18-hole real grass putting course, a 132-yard Island Challenge Hole, an IMAX® 3D Theater, and the Walk of Champions. In addition, guests can take golf lessons at the renowned PGA TOUR Golf Academy.
When visiting the resort, groups and guests have the opportunity to take fun eco-tours and chartered fishing trips, enjoy exceptional shopping at two large outlet malls, and explore historic St. Augustine.
To make it easy for its guests to enjoy the area, The Renaissance World Golf Village Resort now provides a complimentary shuttle for individual guests (based on availability) to and from historic downtown St. Augustine. The service enables guests to easily visit such sites in St. Augustine, which was founded in 1565, as the historic Castillo de San Marcos fort, The Fountain of Youth, and shopping on the charming, brick-paved St. George Street. Additional options in downtown St. Augustine include the Old Town Trolley Tour, The Old Jail, The St. Augustine History Museum, The Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse, and a variety of water activities.
For information on The Renaissance World Golf Village Resort and Beach Club, call 888-740-7020 or 904-940-8696, or visit www.renwgv.com .
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PR Contact: Karen Lamonica at (407) 788-7070, ext. 208, or email@example.com NOTE: High-resolution photos of the resort may be downloaded from http://www.worldgolfrenaissance.com/Press/ .


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11 Fun DIY Projects for Your Kitchen
Inject some unexpected personality into your kitchen with these fun do-it-yourself cutting boards, canisters, and more—they're guaranteed to put a smile on your face, every day.
Dart Fridge Magnets
Get right to the point with photorealistic magnets. The key to crafting these sharp fridge accessories? Adhesive magnet paper ($7.29 for 12"W x 24"L sheet; promagproducts.com). Simply download our dart and pushpin photos and print them out on computer paper. Next, pull the magnet sheet's paper layer away to reveal the magnet's adhesive side, and place your printed images atop the adhesive. Smooth out any bubbles before cutting out each image with sharp scissors, working close to the images. Then, take aim at the fridge to see your handiwork hold tight.


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Photo #: NH 60249
USS Iowa (Battleship # 4)
At anchor, circa the early 1900s.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 96KB; 740 x 590 pixels
Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.
If you want higher resolution reproductions than this digital image, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."
7 April 2003