It S Mostly About Convenience Instead of Relying on Mainstream Airline Routes Which Often

What exactly is a charter flight?
Conventional airlines, including large carriers like United and smaller ones like Spirit and JetBlue, choose their routes and schedule regular departures. With charters, itineraries are set not by the airplane owner but by another party—possibly a very rich individual, but more often a tour operator that charters the plane. The latter scenario is the one that interests people who aren’t CEOs or movie stars. “Think of the charter flight like a taxicab,” said Betty Shotton, CEO of Sea Air, which operates charter flights to and from North Carolina’s Outer Banks. “You pay the driver the same total whether there’s one person or five. The more people, the cheaper it is per person.” The names of some charter outfits sound like pseudonyms in a novel—Pace Airlines, North American Airlines, and Ryan International are a few examples—but there’s little difference from the conventional carriers when it comes to safety regulations, security, and personnel.

It’s Mostly About Convenience...
Instead of relying on mainstream airline routes—which often involve changing planes because of the old hub-and-spoke system—tour operators arrange for non-stop charter flights to cart passengers straight to popular vacation spots. The destination is almost always someplace warm. Flights are usually sold with lodging as part of a package and tend to depart at times ideal for vacationers. Club Med charters, for instance, leave the U.S. early on Saturdays so that guests can be on the beach by midday.

...And Price
Tour operators pay one price per plane trip, and they decide how much to charge each passenger. Rates fluctuate based on season and demand, but they tend to be less expensive than those of mainstream airlines. (Most charter passengers have no idea what their flight costs, however, because they paid one set price for a package that includes accommodations.) Though standard carriers tend to raise prices as the departure nears, that’s when some tour operators sell seats on charter flights at bargain rates, either alone or as part of a vacation package. SunTrips is known to sell round trips from Denver to Puerto Vallarta for $199 plus tax. Homeric Tours is offering charters from New York to Athens starting at $349 each way this summer.

The Downsides
Some charters fly two or three times a week, others are weekly, and then there are ones scheduled sporadically for special events and peak travel seasons. Limited departures mean little flexibility. If the schedule doesn’t jibe with your needs, there’s no alternative but the mainstream airlines. And if you miss your charter flight, chances are you won’t be able to catch another later that day or even the day after that—because there might not be one. Another negative: Many charters can only be booked via a travel agent, who may or may not tack on service fees and delivery charges (which can add $40 or so to your total).

Looking for last-minute deals
You won’t find a central list of charter departures anywhere on the Web. The only real source of info is a knowledgeable travel agent. Here are five companies that sell seats on charters, sometimes at fire-sale prices if you buy within two weeks of departure.

if you are the kind of person who loves the smell of the ocean, the feel of saltwater and spray on your skin, and the warmth of the sun, and you believe that sandwiches actually taste better with a little real sand in them, read on.
To begin with, there are many different kinds of beaches. If your idea of a perfect beach is a groomed sandy expanse with calm, translucent water in front and a resort in back where waiters and cabana boys attend to your every whim, you may not enjoy some of the more rugged shorelines of Africa.

For others, paradise could be surfing the high waves of Hawaii or strutting in St. Tropez or Miami's South Beach. For some people, the beach is ancillary to the shopping, dining and late-night carousing found in many resort communities. To others it is the whole point.
One of the best things about a beach vacation is that it can offer something for everyone. Looking for romance? Relaxation? A chance to spend time with the kids? Beaches have it all.
Of course, not all beaches are created equal. Or, if they were, they have been slowly spoiled by overcrowding and overbuilding. The pristine beauty of Juan-les-Pins on France's Riviera, for example, was made famous in books like F. Scott Fitzgerald's “Tender Is the Night,” but 80 years on, its natural charms are all but gone.

Although millions of Europeans still tend to flock to the beach in August for their annual summer holiday, in the U.S., only 11 percent of all domestic travelers went to the beach, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Travel Industry Association of America. The top activity for travelers in 2002 and 2001 was shopping, with 34 percent of all travelers saying that retail therapy was the primary purpose of their trip. Still, beach vacations rank higher in popularity than golf vacations, visits to national parks and theme parks.

Oahu Forbes Best Summer Beaches of 04

While many people come to Hawaii to surf, the best place for a gentle swim is Lanikai Beach. There's about a mile of golden sand to walk on, and the beach is ringed with palm trees. The water is almost always flat and calm, and it's also one of the best areas to watch the sun rise.

To begin with, there are many different kinds of beaches. If your idea of a perfect beach is a groomed sandy expanse with calm, translucent water in front and a resort in back where waiters and cabana boys attend to your every whim, you may not enjoy some of the more rugged shorelines of Africa.

ELECTORIAL US PROCESS

VALUE, the national adult learner leadership organization, urges adult
education programs across the country to set aside September 8th through
October 8th for civics and voter registration activities in preparation
for the November election. This is a non-partisan effort to show that
adult learners have a desire and a need to vote and do vote.
We are asking administrators and teachers to include in their lesson
plans, topics on election education from September 8th to October 8th.
This is to help adult learners to understand why voting is important in
a democracy, and to gain information on how to register to vote and the
voting procedures in their area. We, at VALUE, Inc are not experts on
the voting procedures, but we can guide you to a source that can provide
you with all the information you need.
Please read the March 2004 issue of "The Change Agent" at
http://www.nelrc.org/Vera/index.htm
It will provide you with important information about how to register to
vote. Learners and practitioners who are U.S. citizens can print a form
to register to vote or request one to be mailed to them by clicking on
the blue box near the bottom of the web page reading, "Your vote
matters". They will need to mail in the completed registration form 2-4
weeks before the election, but this varies depending on your state. You
will also find in "The Change Agent" web links to useful resources and
helpful voter education activities.
In addition, the National Council of Nonprofit Associations (NCNA) has
developed a toolkit on election activities for 501(c)(3) organizations.
It describes the types of election-related activities in which nonprofit
charities can engage. In addition to describing the do's and don'ts, it
provides samples and other materials to help charities engage in
permissible activities during this election cycle. The website is
http://www.ncna.org
If you click on Election 2004 Information, this will take you to the
NCNA election toolkit.
Please help us with this effort! It's very important to adult learners
to show that we care about what happens to our families, to our
neighborhoods, and to our country. If your program plans to participate,
and we hope you will, please e-mail our colleague, David Rosen, at
. Let him know your name, the name of your program,
your town/state, briefly describe what voter education or registration
activities you plan. David has agreed to provide updates on program
activities to the AAACE-NLA electronic list.

Protecting nation gets short shrift
August 16,2004

The story of Sibel Edmonds is one that should not be overlooked amid the news flurry of naming a new CIA chief, the 9/11 Commission report and other ideas to remake the U.S. intelligence community.

Edmonds is a former FBI translator who handled wiretaps and documents in various Middle Eastern languages. She complained to higher-ups of incompetence and worse in the department. She was fired.

Her case suggests strongly that certain elements in the government are more interested in avoiding embarrassment than in protecting the country. The way to clear this matter up is to make all the documents related to her case public and conduct, or permit journalists and others to conduct, an intensive investigation into her charges.

A 33-year-old Turkish-American who speaks Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani in addition to English, Sibel Edmonds was hired as a translator right after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She was surprised, as she told "60 Minutes" reporter Ed Bradley for an October 2002 report, that "We were told by our supervisors that this was the great opportunity for asking for increased budget and asking for more translators. And in order to do that, don't do the work and let the documents pile up so we can show it and say that we need more translators and expand the department." She even claimed her supervisor would erase a day's work from her computer after she left so she would have to start over.

Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Bradley, "She's credible. And the reason I feel she's very credible is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of her story."

Edmonds also alleged that a translator who had passed neither the Turkish nor the English side of the FBI's language proficiency test was sent to Guantanamo to act as a translator.

The FBI later admitted that he was not fully qualified.

Edmonds claimed that one Turkish translator was associated with "semi-legit organizations who were FBI targets of investigation," and that this person for months mistranslated or blocked information about these organizations and even took "hundreds of pages of top-secret intelligence documents outside the FBI to unknown recipients." This person (who has denied the allegations) was never reprimanded and now lives overseas.

The FBI let Edmonds go in March 2002 after she took some of her complaints to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Justice Department's inspector general looked into the matter, and, according to a July 21 letter from FBI Director Robert Mueller to Judiciary Committee members, her whistleblowing activities "were at least a contributing factor in why the FBI terminated her services." (The full inspector general's report, like almost every aspect of the Edmonds case, has been retroactively classified as a "state secret.")

Edmonds was called as a witness in a lawsuit brought by family members of 9/11 victims, but the Justice Department got the subpoena quashed and forbade her to testify. She did, however, testify at length to 9/11 Commission staff members, but the concerns she raised were not discussed in the commission's report - not even a "we looked into this and found the charges unfounded or overblown."

As Edmonds repeatedly asked in a detailed letter to Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission, "How can budget increases address and resolve this misconduct by midlevel bureaucratic management? How can the addition of an 'intelligence czar' solve this problem?"

The Sibel Edmonds case raises serious questions about whether the FBI and other intelligence agencies have even begun to undertake the reforms needed to improve the capacity to protect Americans from future attacks - and whether the 9/11 Commission report dealt sufficiently with the real shortcomings.

It looks as if the FBI and other agencies would rather punish those who raise inconvenient or embarrassing issues - thus sending the message to others who might be tempted to an excess of conscientiousness to just keep their heads down and never question superiors they believe are misguided.

A good start to resolving some of the troubling questions this case raises would be to declassify all documents relating to Sibel Edmonds' accusations and allow journalists and other investigators to sort through them at will. But that should be only the start.

August 15, 2004

Charles Pieterse quickly snapped up the 9/11 Commis-sion Report and is also reading "Against All Enemies," by former counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke.
The Greenwich lawyer said while many politically oriented books released these days pique his interest, he tries hard to be selective. "The problem with these books sometimes is, do they advance the discourse of ideas or just recycle rhetoric?" asked Pieterse, 44, of Ridgefield. "I enjoy the political books which push your mind."