Category Archives: travel

Grameen Foundation and Grameen Bank – doing global good 24/7

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The Grameen Bank and Grameen Foundation have been two of my favorite “do good” projects for some time.   Today I had a chance to talk about their amazing work with Alex Counts, the President of the Foundation he started in 1997 with the help of Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammed Yunus, the economist most responsible for the invention and implementation of “microfinance”, a concept that has helped lift millions out of poverty in Bangladesh and other countries.

Unfortunately,  some political conflicts between the Government of Bangladesh and the Grameen Bank  (though NOT the foundation), threaten to disrupt the Bank’s superb poverty-fighting work over the past years.

I’ve written to the Bangladesh Government about this, and would encourage anybody interested in “making things work right” to consider doing the same.    One of the brilliancies of the Yunus economic model has been to reduce the impact of “middle men” and bureaucratic interference, and more restrictions and taxes on the Grameen projects will only lessen their positive impact on the extreme poor in these regions.   Also for those of you who STILL don’t get this, we will be helping to *reduce population pressures* by *elevating living standards* in countries like Bangladesh, so please no comments about how we can’t send aid because it just creates a bigger problem due to more population.    There *are* legitimate issues with aid and they are being addressed by great charities like Grameen Foundation (more on this in future posts), but in the meantime your support for the poor means helping the entire world live healthier and happier.   It’s not just a moral imperative, it’s a practical necessity to fix global problems sooner rather than later.

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Letter to  Bangladesh:

Dear Md. Masum Khan,

Thank you for the opportunity to address an issue I am very concerned about, which is the ongoing conflict between the Grameen Bank and the Government of Bangladesh.

I want to express my very strong support of Grameen. Although I’m not a legal expert, it seems to me this conflict is more political than legal, and I’m very concerned that restrictions on Grameen or taking over Grameen Bank would have serious negative consequences in the way the Government of Bangladesh is viewed here in the USA.

As you know it is difficult to convince US leaders to “share” more of our abundant resources and prosperity. Grameen’s stellar global reputation helps citizens like me make the case to our leaders to give more money – not to the bank itself but to help governments alleviate poverty in other ways.

US citizens and leaders are more distrustful of government than in most countries, so government interference or ownership of Grameen would jeopardize the credibility of both the bank and of the government of Bangladesh in the eyes of many Americans and American policy makers.

Like you, I want to see the people of Bangladesh achieve their full, broad potential and enjoy the prosperity we do here in the USA. I sincerely believe Grameen projects are making that happen and hope you’ll consider this as you move forward in your good work for the people of Bangladesh.

Sincerely Yours,

Joseph Hunkins

Oregon, USA

jhunkins@gmail.com or @JoeDuck on Twitter

Retirement Information at Retire USA

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Retire USA is growing as a helpful source of retirement information for the USA.    As always the challenges of creating and maintaining a large website were underestimated, but I think the final product is starting to come together nicely thanks to excellent city profiles on over 200 US cities, some great bloggers at our excellent Retirement Blog, and many thousands of individual retirement records in city by city categories of Health Care, Financial Services, Retirement Communities, and Real Estate.

As always any criticism or comments are very welcome.    One of the challenges is the sheer size of this topic – there are thousands of cities of interest and tens of thousands of potentially relevant listings so we are struggling a bit to decide whether to filter all that content or try to be very comprehensive and find ways to include everything we can find.    Thankfully, our Google “retirement search” (see top of page) allows folks to search both our site and the greater Google universe of content for more information.      We also have one of the most followed Twitter Account for Retirement information:   Twitter Retirement

We’ve got some good city by city coverage of all states now, so check it out and let me know what you think!

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Retirement
Colorado Retirement  Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Retirement Information
Florida Retirement Georgia Hawaii Idaho Indiana Illinois Iowa Retirement
Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Mississippi Retirement
Missouri  Minnesota  Montana Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Retirement
New York Retirement Nevada North Carolina
North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Retirement

Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota
Tennessee TexasUtah Vermont Virginia Retirement
 Washington  West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Retirement

The Civil War costs and benefits suggest Lincoln was wrong.

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I’ve just finished watching Ken Burns “The Civil War” and (as usual) I think I’d argue a very unusual position in terms of what the North and South “should” have done given the massive cost in lives and prosperity and pride.    It seems to me that:
The South was reckless to secede.   They should have realized they had little or no chance of winning a war, and even if they’d won they would have been a weak and poor new country even if the North had agreed to engage in much trade with them – a questionable proposition at best.    Slavery was a morally bankrupt institution and the moral hypocrisy was particularly glaring given the South’s emphasis on the principles of Christianity.
Lincoln was irresponsible to prosecute the war so early.   After Fort Sumpter Lincoln should have pressured Virginia (or at least the West Point Graduates) to stay neutral rather than immediately calling for a massive army, an act that clearly pushed many Virginians toward secession.   Without Virginia’s wealth, military, and brilliant commanders like Jackson, Lee, Forest, Stuart, and more the war would have been over very quickly with far fewer dead and far less destruction.   Reconstruction would have worked well rather than ushered in a long era of exploitation and corruption.
Lincoln should have considered a “no war / no recognition” policy.   He would have allowed the deep south to go about their secessionist ways, courted Virginia to stay in the Union or stay neutral, and then enacted laws and policies to thwart secession non-violently such as no trade, no return of escaped slaves and active support of the underground railroad.   This would have undermined the secession efforts without the massive death and destruction of  infrastructure via Sherman’s march, and probably led to an eventual return of those states to the union when the economic challenges of secession started to bring greater and greater hardships to the people.
There seems to be a prevailing view in history circles that the war was justified because it preserved the union and ended slavery. I agree that slavery was so diabolical you can make a case that no cost was too high to bear to end it, but I think it could have been ended at a much lower cost both then and in terms of future fights for civil rights.  Innovation and industrialization combined with the growing moral outrage and demands of poor immigrants (who didn’t want to compete with slaves) would likely have eventually ended slavery soon even in the deep south.
In terms of preserving the union, I think the case for the Civil War is extremely weak – largely irrational in fact.    You simply cannot make a reasonable case that the cost of the Civil War – 625,000 dead, millions disabled, South destroyed and demoralized – justified simply keeping the deep South states in the union.   “A House Divided Against Itself” did not stand – one side crushed the other with consequences that last even today in terms of the lower living standards in the deep south.    A cost benefit analysis of the Civil War would show it was not worth fighting.
Comments very welcome as always!

Southern Oregon Tweetup at the Craterian Theater … rocked!

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Here in lovely Southern Oregon we enjoy a very high standard of living but – at least in my experience – really cool parties are few and far between.    However last night at the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater in Medford a distinguished group of news, tech, and twitter folks and twitter-friendly sponsors came together to enjoy fine wine, great food, great coffee, sparkling conversation and music, and more.    I kept thinking I was at one of the neat tech blogger parties they throw at the Computer Electronics Show “CES” in Las Vegas every January.

In my opinion it’s very important to the social media environment to create online thanks to both the promoters and the sponsors of great events and I’m sure I’ll miss some of them, but here’s a shot:

Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater – home to fabulous performances all year long.

Brad Nelson is the Craterian’s Production Manager and most excellent social media mad man.

Jerilyn Hassell Pool is an amazing Twitter evangelist, webmaster, and has a knack for organizing parties, especially when they involve twitter.  Tweet Aunt Marvel

Fresco Food put out a fine spread of healthy finger foods.    Owner Alyssa Warner doesn’t just use mobile twitter technology, she’s created mobile edibles served all over the region from the Fresco Food Mobile.     Ricotta Gnochi delivered to your door?    Call Fresco!, or better yet, Tweet them.

Bad Ass Coffee of Medford was serving up several of their fine brews.    Follow them on Twitter for specials.

DJGemineye was picking and spinning some great songs.    Tweet him to make your party much cooler than it would otherwise be.

Wine Tasting was a highlight of the party, and here in Southern Oregon we’ve got some of the best appelations found in the USA.   If you’ve seen the movies “Bottle Shock” and “Sideways” you know how California Wines lept from relative obscurity in the 1960’s to become a dominant force in the global wine scene.   In my opinion Southern Oregon, with rich soil and excellent grape growing weather – is poised to become recognized very soon as one of the world’s great wine regions.

Valley View Winery  | Valley View on Twitter

Abacela Winery      |    Abacela on Twitter

Windridge Winery

Serra Vinyard       |      Serra Vineyard on Twitter

Del Rio Vineyards   |    Del Rio on Twitter

Osama Bin Laden dead. Killed by US forces special attack at a compound in Abbottābad, Pakistan

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President Obama is reporting that Osama Bin Laden is dead, killed by US forces in a special operation in Pakistan.   Not clear yet if this was with the permission of the Pakistan government, but probably it was a situation with “unofficial” permission that won’t be reported to keep things cooler for Pakistan, where many are in sympathy with Al Qaeda and/or don’t want the US in the country.

The compound in Pakistan was in the city of  Abbottābad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. I was surprised to find that this is actually a popular tourism location as a gateway to many attractions in Pakistan such as the Karakoram Mountain Range and Karakoram highway to China, the world’s highest major paved road (and certainly one of the highest roads in the world, period)

Rulers of England

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Rulers of England

In honor of the upcoming English Royal Wedding and the fact I’m watching “The Tudors” on Netflix right now, I thought it would be fun to post a list of the rulers of England.

This is a list of the generally recognized kings and queens of England from 1066 to the present day.

Norman Kings:

William I  (1066-1087)
William II  (1087-1100)
Henry I    (1100-1135)
Stephen   (1135-1154)

Plantagenets

Henry II (1154-1189)
Richard I (Richard the Lion-Hearted) (1189-1199)
John (1199-1216)
Henry III (1216-1272)
Edward I (1272-1307)
Edward II (1307-1327)
Edward III (1327-1377)
Richard II (1377-1399)

House of Lancaster

Henry IV (1399-1413)
Henry V (1413-1422)
Henry VI (1422-1461)

House of York

Edward IV (1461-1483)
Edward V (April-June 1483)
Richard III (1483-1485)

Tudors

Henry VII (1485-1509)
Henry VIII (1509-1547)
Edward VI (1547-1553)
Mary (1553-1558)
Elizabeth (1558-1603)

Stuarts

James I (1603-1625)
Charles I (1625-1649)

1649-1660 – Commonwelath Interregnum: England is briefly ruled by Parliament.  Oliver Cromwell and son Richard Cromwell  are the “Lord Protectors of the Commonwealth”.  This time is often referred to as “the Protectorate”

Stuarts Restored to the Crown in 1660

Charles II (1660-1685)
James II (1685-1688)

The Bloodless Revolution  1688.  Also known as “The Glorious Revolution”.

William (of Orange) and Mary (1689-1702)
Anne (1702-1714)

Hanovers

George I (1714-1727)
George II (1727-1760)
George III (1760-1820)
George IV (1820-1830)
William IV (1830-1837)
Victoria (1837-1901)

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

Edward VII (1901-1910)

Windsors (George V-Elizabeth II)
(George V changed family name Wettin to Windsor)

George V (1910-1936)
Edward VIII (1936)
George VI (1936-1952)
Elizabeth II (1952- )

Yes, of course there is a fancy website for the upcoming Royal Wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton.  It is the Royal Wedding website.

Oregon Coast – Brookings, Oregon

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Lone Ranch Beach is four miles north of Brookings, Oregon on the fabulous Oregon Coast.   This is a pretty secluded beach a few miles north of Brookings’ very popular hiking and camping area and state park called “Harris Beach”.   Winter is my favorite time to visit the Oregon Coast because the wave action is almost always spectacular.     On this trip we also examined some of the tsunami damage to the docks and boats in Brookings Harbor, and heard from locals about the evacuation and somewhat anticlimactic tsunami –  a series of water surges in the harbor – from the Japan earthquake

Oregon Coast – Brookings, Oregon 067

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

Oregon Coast … Mobile

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Good time to review a few projects I’m associated with or working on now, and thank folks (esp. FoolsGold) for the many excellent suggestions provided over the years to improve the websites.

Over at the Online Highways empire we’re working on a mobile application for travel along the Oregon Coast that will be located at OHWY.mobi  and will feature a very simple mobile optimized architecture that branches out to Coastal Cites, Coastal Lodging, Coastal Attractions, and more.     I’m still not convinced that .mobi websites will take off as much as many believe they will because I think smartphones will get better fast and we’ll see a lot more optimization on the fly for regular websites, but it’s a good base to cover.     I’ll be trying out the dot mobi “mobi translation” routine soon which will allow me to create some .mobi sites from my Airports and Airlines information at QuickAid.com Airport Directory and and the Airport City Codes site.

Meanwhile, after failing for a very long time to find a good and inexpensive Drupal developer to finish  Retire USA, a Retirement Information Database, website, blog, and  more including the most followed Retirement related account on Twitter. I’m taking it on myself as an HTML project.    I’ll be extracting the Drupal data to a regular database we can enhance over time, and then use HTML templates and a merge routine to get a site that will look a lot like the Drupal site we had planned.     I could be wrong but I think I’ll have a simpler and faster site with almost the same functionality as Drupal.

MedicalTraveling.net is another new blog that will have a database of high quality hospitals around the world that do procedures, operations, exams, etc for lower costs than here in the great old USA.      Medical Travel and Medical Tourism articles and news will also be featured.

But wait…… there’s MORE!

Medical Traveling and other sites back up and on better server

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Drama here at the mini web empire over the past few days.   I was critical of Godaddy for taking down several of my sites after an advertising traffic surge of about 9800 unique visits to the new medical tourism blog MedicalTraveling.net put a strain on the shared server.    After the blog post / tweet and intervention by CEO Bob Parsons my issues were very quickly resolved and now I’m on a much better server setup that should be able to better handle the high traffic I expect at that blog.

Still trying to figure out why it took Dr. Bob’s clout to resolve this.  The tech folks I talk with at Godaddy are usually very capable and attentive, yet two of them had insisted to me there was no way to expedite things after what they seemed to believe was a  “network violation” caused by the traffic surge to the new blog.   Uptime was particularly important to me on my new Medical Tourism blog because it’s being reviewed by Thai tourism as my entry in their Medical Tourism blogging contest where finalists will be flown to Thailand for an introduction to the country and to their very advanced medical tourism infrastructure.

So … we’ll see if there is a happy ending to another installment in the great lifetime blogging adventure, and I do want to thank Godaddy for coming through with a fast fix after the initial frustrations of having sites taken down.

Medical Tourism

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Medical Tourism – where folks travel to other countries to obtain medical care  – has always intrigued me both as an economic and travel subject.    I’ve generally heard glowing reports about folks who have travelled to Thailand for procedures like lasik and colonoscopies which  are done there for a fraction of US costs in hospitals that are like resort hotels.    As US health costs continue to skyrocket and continue to be far more than the cost of comparable care in other countries, the idea of combining fun and health becomes more and more appealing.     I’m even considering this idea for my trip to Vietnam in January.

Surprising to me was this report about the Medical Travel Industry which suggested how common it is for folks to travel to the USA for care.    The report also suggested that currently there may be some exaggeration of the number of people travelling overseas for care since some statistics include emergency and expatriat care in foreign hospitals.

Thanks to a blogging contest sponsored by the good folks at the Tourism Authority of Thailand I’m going to put some time into this topic, hoping to get better informed and maybe even be chosen to participate in the “fam tour” where bloggers will travel to Thailand to see several cities and facilities that represent this new and rapidly growing approach to medical care.

I’m starting a new page called “Medical Tourism” and will be adding to that content over the next few months.

Update:   Who needs a page when you can start a NEW Medical Tourism blog?     I’ve done that here.