Home Eclectic Stuff Carol Welsman Soars on Our City Tonight

Carol Welsman Soars on Our City Tonight

Jazz Singer/Pianist Carol Welsman Discusses Her New Album, “Dance With Me,” with Jim Gordon.

Carol Welsman

“Our City Tonight” arrived in LA to chat with 6-time Juno Award Nominee, Carol Welsman. The gifted jazz singer/pianist talks about her new album, “Dance With Me”, which marks her foray into Latin Jazz.

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Jamaica Is Now Open – Here’s What You Need to Know

Travel Pulse

Jamaica beach

Jamaica is reopening its borders to international visitors for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday, June 15. Like many places that have recently welcomed back tourists, the Caribbean country will require all arriving visitors to undergo a temperature check and follow local safety protocols, which include face-coverings and social distancing. Travelers will also need to complete a travel authorization application so that officials can conduct a COVID-19 health risk assessment prior to arrival.

American Airlines Unveils Major Upgrade to App with ‘Chat With Us’ Feature

American Airlines departure

American Airlines announced the release of version 2020.07 of its smartphone app, adding several new features including a new “Chat with Us” feature connects users with a virtual assistant and, if necessary, a customer service representative via chat.

The airline began to use a new format for numbering versions of the app earlier this year. The new format begins with the four-digit year followed by a period separator, which is then followed by the two-digit number of the version.

The Chat with Us system places the user in a chat session with a virtual assistant. The bot will transfer the user to a customer service representative based on the nature of the chat.

Earlier this year, American upgraded the app with a new “Waitlist” feature that combines upgrade and standby lists for a particular flight.

Waitlist will display traveler status by cabin. Once an upgrade request clears, the app will display the individual traveler’s name and new seat number on the list.

American’s app is available on both Apple iOS and Android platforms.

What Country Taught Me About Race

By Jessica Nabongo — Afar

I’m often asked what I consider the safest countries for black people or the most welcoming for black travelers. But I can’t answer those questions. I’ve been traveling internationally since I was four years old. For my Ugandan immigrant parents, vacationing was important — a way to learn more about the world through experience — and they made it part of our lives every year. Whether domestic or international, we went somewhere every summer: Canada, Minnesota, Jamaica, Disney World, the Bahamas. By the time I graduated from high school, I had been to seven U.N. member countries, and in 2008, I moved to Japan to teach English. From there, I continued living abroad, and continued traveling. And in February 2017, with 60 countries under my belt, I started a two-and-a-half-year journey to visit every country in the world

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What the Mississippi Delta Teaches Me About Home — And Hope

Courtesy National Geographic

Finding struggle and resilience on a road trip through the birthplace of the blues. I’ve thought a lot about home during the quarantine. The place and the idea. The way it calls to us, and the way the pulse of daily life can sometimes drown it out. My home is near the courthouse square in Oxford, Mississippi, a vibrant modern college community. That’s where we wake up and make scrambled eggs for our toddler. But I’m from a nearby place called Clarksdale, birthplace of the Delta blues, the town that gave the world the likes of Muddy Waters, Sam Cooke, and Nate Dogg—a place where on a clear night I can hear plantation blues, the protest soul of Stax Records, and the heavy sound of G-Funk LA all mix in the open air.

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How A Recent Trip To Montgomery Made Me Rethink The Deep South

Courtesy Essence

“History, despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage need not be lived again.”

I spotted the reflection-inducing words by the late Maya Angelou just moments before entering the lobby of Montgomery’s Springhill Suites Hotel. They adorned a nondescript wall at the corner of Coosa and Bibb, which was steps outside of my temporary retreat. Now I’ve always been more Manhattan than Montgomery, slightly more Malcolm than Martin, with more northeastern edge than southern charm. But there I was, just days before the Christmas holiday, excited, and yet nervous, to be in what I considered the epicenter of Black history.

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Irish Send Money to Navajo Nation Hit By COVID-19, Returning Historic Favor

Courtesy Mélissa Godin

Covid-19 test line at Navajo Nation
Covid-19 test line at Navajo Nation. Photo courtesy of ABC News.

A Native American community severely impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak has received an outpour of donations from Irish people, who are returning a historic favor from 173 years ago.

In 1847, the Native American Choctaw nation sent $170 ($5,000 today) of relief aid to the Irish people impacted by the great potato famine. Now, the Irish are reciprocating the act of goodwill by donating funds to the Navajo nation, which has been severely impacted by COVID-19, with at least 2,373 cases and 73 deaths as of May 3.

Kindred Spirits Choctaw nation monument in County Cork, Ireland
Kindred Spirits Choctaw nation monument in County Cork, Ireland. Photo courtesy of The Journal.i.e.
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7 Best & 5 Worst Frozen Foods

Courtesy Cheyenne Lentz, Insider

Frozen food can be great to stock up on because it can be stored for quite some time without going bad.

Since not everything maintains its quality when frozen, Insider spoke to chefs to help figure out which items are worth grabbing and which you should leave on the shelves.

Here are some of the best and worst foods to buy frozen (according to chefs)

10 Cheap Foods That Last a Long Time

These foods with long shelf lives can improve your diet while saving you money

Courtesy Erin Huffstetler

fingerling potatoes
Photo courtesy of The Spruce Eats

If you’re filling your pantry, especially if you are on a tight budget, focus on cheap and nutritious foods that have a long shelf life, like rice, apples and peanut butter. You’ll spend less at checkout, and you’ll waste considerably less food at the end of the week. All price estimates mentioned were good as of March 2020.

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Unwind With These Free, Museum-Led Meditation and Mindfulness Sessions

Burmese praying at pagoda
Photo courtesy Fyllis Hockman

After weeks — or months — of sheltering in place, many stuck inside are feeling decidedly devoid of inner peace. Luckily, thanks to an array of online offerings announced by shuttered cultural institutions, options for unwinding abound. Among the most relaxing experiences available: meditation and mindfulness sessions led by the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C.

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English Pronunciation Isn’t Easy But This Quick Primer Can Help You Get it Right

Courtesy Olivia Valdes, ThoughtCo

We all know the embarrassing feeling of discovering we’ve been mispronouncing a word for years. On the other hand, some words are so commonly mispronounced that the “correct” pronunciation sounds downright strange. Don’t feel bad if you’ve been mispronouncing some of these tricky words. A living language like English evolves and thrives precisely because it’s spoken every day.

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Take the Time to Read Profiles in Courage

Written by then-Senator John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

Profiles in Courage is a 1956 volume of short biographies describing acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States Senators under enormous pressure from their parties and their constituents. Written by then-Senator John F. Kennedy, who won the Pulitzer Prize for the work. The staff at Traveling Boy suggests that Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney might fit the bill as a Profile in Courage due to his recent vote to convict fellow Republican Donald Trump in the Senate Impeachment trial. He was unable to stand in line with other Republic Senators as a result of his deeply-felt oath of office, the US Constitution and personal relationship with God.

The subjects of Profiles in Courage are John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, Sam Houston, Edmund G. Ross, Lucius Lamar, George Norris, and Robert A. Taft.

Each chapter from the book is summarized here

Ten Trends That Will Shape Science in the 2020s

Medicine gets trippy, solar takes over, and humanity — finally, maybe — goes back to the moon

Courtesy  Katherine J. Wu , Rachael Lallensack

When the 2010s began, private spaceflight had barely gotten off the ground, Google was rolling out early personalized search results and CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology was still in its infancy. By decade’s end, artificial intelligence had trounced people at a bevy of board games, SpaceX had become a household name and genetically modified human embryos became a controversial reality.

Clearly, a lot can happen in a decade — but innovation has to start somewhere. Based on what’s breaking through now, here are some trends that have the potential to shape the 2020s.

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Deb's Poetry Break

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

Walt Whitman — 1819-1892

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease…

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Send Deb your favorite travel poems

Loyal Good Boi Waits At Wuhan Hospital For Three Months, Unaware That His Owner Died Of COVID-19

Remember the classic tale of Hachiko, a loyal Japanese Akita dog who waited patiently at a train station for his owner to return home from work for nine years, not knowing that his owner died at the office?

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Decade-Long Search for Rocky Mountains Treasure Yields Trove Worth $2 Million

By Alex Fox; smithsonianmag.com

Nine clues embedded in a 24-line poem led to art dealer Forrest Fenn’s hidden chest of gold, gems and rare artifacts

Rocky Mountains

“The treasure has been found,” declares a sparse blog post dated to June 6. The words signal the end of a ten-year search for a chest of gold, jewels and rare artifacts hidden in the Rocky Mountains by art dealer Forrest Fenn, reports Danielle Prokop for the Santa Fe New Mexican.

As many as 350,000 people unsuccessfully sought the treasure, which is worth an estimated $2 million. Five died while searching with only a poem said to contain nine clues to guide them.

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United to Resume Flights to Over 150 Destinations in July

By Kurt Stolz

United Airlines announced it will increase the number of flights it operates and destinations served next month, compared to the current month, as flyers begin to slowly return to the friendly skies as the coronavirus pandemic somewhat wanes.

Come July, the airline’s international capacity will be 25% of what it was in the same period last year.  It will increase the number of flights to Europe from its hubs in San Francisco and Washington D.C., restart service to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Seoul, and expand service to Latin America and the Caribbean.

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Berlin Tegel Airport to Remain Open Into November

By Kurt Stolz

The ongoing saga of Berlin’s new and old airports continues: Berlin Tegel Airport will remain open, at least for the time being.

In late May, city officials announced that Tegel – the city’s main international airport whose history goes back to the 1948 Berlin Airlift – would close temporarily on June 15, 2020.

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Revealed: The World’s Best Passports

Passports were ranked on visa-free travel, international taxation laws, global perception, dual citizenship and personal freedom.

Americans may be surprised to learn that they don’t own the best passport in the world.

According to research conducted by world-leading offshore consulting firm Nomad Capitalist, Swedish, Luxembourgish and Irish passports are the best ones to own.

Nomad Capitalist has ranked the best passports in the world by scoring 199 different passports in five categories. Each passport was scored on visa-free travel, international taxation laws, global perception, dual citizenship and personal freedom.

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Recipes With Only 3 Ingredients

Courtesy Christine Clark

Cooking at home is usually healthier and more affordable than going out, but with more and more restaurants temporarily closing due to the pandemic, quick and easy recipes have become essential. If you’re busy with work, family, or lockdown life in general, it can be hard to find the time and energy to fuss with complicated recipes. If hunting down a long list of ingredients makes you want to quit before you’ve started, take heart. We’ve rounded up our favorite 3-ingredient recipes — 25 of them, ranging from breakfast to dessert. As long as you have kitchen staples like salt, pepper, and olive oil, these tasty recipes will be a breeze.

Here’s 25 Recipes with just 3 Ingredients

Homeless in Border Town Getting By, Livin’

By Donovan Quintero, Navajo Times

homeless at Window Rock, Arizona
Window Rock, Arizona, the capital of the Navajo Nation, lies close to Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly and Four Corners. Photo courtesy Navajo Times.

She didn’t hesitate to give what she could give. Shylah Pettigrew knows all too well what it feels like to be hungry and thirsty. Her years of living on the streets, as well as the teachings of her mother, taught her to be compassionate, she said. “You can’t pass somebody by without offering,” she said. The Lupton, Arizona, native saw her cousin and several other people sitting outside where she was attending a birthday party. The people, whom the city of Gallup categorizes as transients, or homeless, sat on the concrete bench enjoying the warm Saturday afternoon sunlight in downtown Gallup.

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The 5 Best National Park Live Webcams

Yellowstone National Park
Photo courtesy of Jung Ryeol Lee from Pixabay.

Missing the great outdoors? While planning our next national park vacation than we are being outside, we’re making the most of quarantine with these live webcams of national parks.

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Smithsonian’s Earth Optimism initiative

The Environment Is Healing Right Now. Can We Sustain That as Travel Ramps Up?

a couple visits the Great Blasket
Photo courtesy of Aran Tourism

One silver lining has emerged from the Coronavirus pandemic: the environment is healing. When travel gradually picks back up, what will that mean for the environment—and how can we sustain those benefits?

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17 Easy International Recipes That Bring Travel Home

Cipate from Quebec
Photo courtesy of Quebec Tourism

From comforting Vietnamese pho to spicy-sweet Dutch cookies, these simple recipes recapture the spirit of travel.

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Random Acts of Canine Kindness

Cedric the Dog takes a well-deserved break after an ill fated attempt to shut down a white supremacist rally in Alabama.

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog. – Harry S. Truman

MORE Dog Quotations

Master English Pronunciation at Home

Courtesy Olivia Valdes, ThoughtCo

We all know the embarrassing feeling of discovering we’ve been mispronouncing a word for years. On the other hand, some words are so commonly mispronounced that the “correct” pronunciation sounds downright strange. Don’t feel bad if you’ve been mispronouncing some of these tricky words. A living language like English evolves and thrives precisely because it’s spoken every day.

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Digging Into the Past to Find Optimism for the Future

By Cat Kutz

Dr. Nick Pyenson is the curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. His expeditions have taken him to every continent studying the evolution and ecology of marine mammals. Along with his collaborators, he has named over a dozen new fossil species, discovered the richest fossil whale graveyard on the planet, and described an entirely new sensory organ in living whales. Ahead of the Earth Optimism Digital Summit, during which Pyenson will hold a Deep Dive on science diplomacy, Earth Optimism communications lead Cat Kutz asks him how he finds optimism while digging into the Earth’s past.

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Free Video Tours of Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings Across America

The 20th-century architect defined a uniquely American style that used nature-inspired motifs and horizontal lines

Taliesin West

Architecture fans can tune in to the #WrightVirtualVisits hashtag to watch experts lead short video tours of Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous and lesser-known buildings every Thursday afternoon.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Unity Temple Restoration Foundation teamed up to launch the initiative, dubbed Wright Virtual Visits, at the beginning of April.

Read Susan Breslow’s article on Taliesin West

How to Join a Zoom Class

The Zoom platform is easy and convenient. Missing your favorite teacher or class? This will allow you to still take that class with that teacher at their regular time slots in the safe environment of your own home.

You will sign into the class you want to take through our website and receive the Zoom link that will give you access to the class live. The classes will be in their original format and will have time at the end for you to chat with your teacher! They will be streamed from the teacher’s home as well as from the studio. You can continue to use your class packages and will still be able to purchase through your account at The Yogi Tree by logging on to our website.

For more info check out this 1-minute Zoom tutorial

Readers’ Ideas for Finding Community and Cheer at Home

Courtesy The New York Times

everyday joy at home
Illustration courtesy of Lars Leetaru

As much of the world adjusts to a new normal of restricted living, our readers share tips for finding everyday joys.

Many of us are now entering the second, third or fourth week of restrictions on our movements, and it is becoming ever clearer that overcoming this crisis will be a marathon, not a sprint. As we all collectively adjust to our unique situations, we asked New York Times readers to share their ideas for pursuing the traveler’s spirit of discovery, curiosity and delight within their new limitations at home. Following are their responses, which have been edited for clarity and length.

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Predicting the Future of Travel in 2040

Allianz Partners’ Futurology Report Predicts Airline Passenger Numbers will Double, ‘Faces’ via Facial Pattern Recognition Systems Will Replace Passports and Boarding Passes

Courtesy Allianz Global Assistance

By the year 2040, international travel will be a faster, easier and more ecologically sustainable activity than ever before, according to a report commissioned by Allianz Partners to help prepare for the travel-related needs of their customers in the future. Allianz Partners is a world leader in B2B2C assistance and insurance solutions, delivering global protection and care, and offers dedicated travel insurance services through the Allianz Travel brand.

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