From THR:

The "Paula Deen Cruise" is held on Royal Caribbean ships, and Deen remains aboard during each excursion, spending much time with guests, says Loverdi. The last cruise set sail in January with about 500 fans along for the ride. Loverdi said she expects about 1,000 in total for next year. Deen launched her cruise line in

Earlier this week, a rep for Royal Caribbean told THR that the company "has never had a partnership or any formal association with Paula Deen. She has sailed with our brands a couple of times, but as host of group cruises, and each time, the groups were booked through a specific travel agency, not through Royal Caribbean."

Deen was recently dropped from Wal-Mart, The Food Nework, Smithfield Foods, and other major partnerships after receiving negative publicity for using racial slurs and other offensive practices.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

The woman has been released without charges, but American Airlines has refused to fly her to New York. "The woman was being disruptive and was removed from the plane for interfering with the flight crew," said Kansas City International Airport spokesman Joe McBride. "There was a federal air marshal on the aircraft, who subdued the woman and put her in cuffs and removed her from the plane."

Continue Reading...

I have been reading your column for the last year and it has helped me a lot. Your insights have deeply inspired me. Thank you!

Please forgive me if I make some mistakes in this letter, English is not my native language.

I had a troubled upbringing and my teenage years were hell. My relationship with my parents was a nightmare. My mother was very violent, controlling, manipulative and volatile. I suspect now that she has narcissistic personality disorder. I spent most of my time as a child being afraid of her, trying my best to be invisible to her, but when I hit puberty I became extremely rebellious. She had a very clear idea of who I should be as a person. I had to fight very hard to keep being myself, and I have had to fight even harder not to feel worthless by being me. Even now, after a lot of years, when she is in a rage she tells me I am nothing just because I don't fit in with her ideas of success. I have very limited contact with her for sake of my sanity.

Continue Reading...

I complained in my last post that it’s been hard to meet people since I’m averse to leaving Sadie alone in a hotel room. But in Evanston I met a drunk welder in a cowboy hat as soon as I checked into my dog-friendly Best Western. “Hey, good lookin’,” he said, and I can state categorically that I was not good looking at that moment: dirty hair, no makeup, boots still salty from our trip to Bonneville Salt Flats.

(Oh, here’s Sadie, before she got salt poisoning.)

Continue Reading...

I never meant to be a crazy dog lady, partly for that reason – I didn’t want to love someone I was pretty much guaranteed to lose -- but I have become a dog lady anyway. It turned out, after my daughter left for college, that I am a person who needs the tether of caretaking. I liked the cooking and cleaning up, the dressing and the driving to school, the daily bustle of family, where someone else has to come first. For the first time in 24 years I lived alone and I didn’t like it. So I moped for a while, and then I got a puppy. Now, at the time of life I’m supposed to be grateful for my freedom, the capacity to travel the world and come and go as I please, I can’t. And it turns out that’s fine with me.

Continue Reading...

PARIS — For a brief time, a former Catholic seminary on Paris’ classy Boulevard Raspail was overtaken with a psychoanalyst’s jubilee of art from self-taught creators who worked in secret or seclusion, in mental asylums or hospitals, or just from their own particular perspective of the world. The Museum of Everything is a traveling exhibition started by British filmmaker James Brett in 2009 that’s been widely successful in its unique curation of overlooked art, having now collaborated with the Tate Modern and the Missoni fashion house. Its Exhibition #1.1 popped up from October 2012 to March 2013 in the Saint-Germain space of the Chalet Society, a project of Marc-Oliver Wahler, the former director and chief curator of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. I was lucky enough to catch it in its last days, and it was one of the most fascinating experiences I’ve had of viewing “outsider” art, as it’s usually classified, from the sheer overwhelming density of the work to the truly talented, and truly bizarre, artists corralled into one alternative arts space.

Continue Reading...

To begin with, any time you fly anywhere for the fun of it, the resultant carbon spillage pollutes your friendship with the environment. As somebody who has been writing about travel for most of the last 20 years, I’m more guilty in this area than most. And the idea of buying offsets doesn't make me feel any less responsible. Instead, I tell myself that by traveling we widen our minds, and as Americans abroad, we might be helping spread wealth and perhaps bringing home a lesson or two.

But that means paying attention when you plan a trip, and understanding where your money is going, what the local labor laws are, and how American tourism dollars might do some good. Some trips make me feel less guilty than others, and that's usually because I've done some easy homework before leaving home.

Let's start right here: If you’re sleeping in a hotel, any hotel, and not tipping the maid $2 a night or more, you’re not entitled to complain about anybody’s exploitation of anybody anywhere. Wherever you are in the world, Detroit to Djibouti, you can be sure that generously tipping the maid is going to help the working poor get richer. There are no political complications, no middle man, just you, your wallet, the top of the dresser, and the person who will be dusting that dresser-top in an hour or two.

Continue Reading...

They were coming at the rate of about one vehicle every four seconds. That would be more than 15 per minute. More than 1,000 per hour. Times two, for the time I’d been there. I knew it wasn’t personal, but from where I stood, it was still a lot of rejection. The sun rose higher, its glare and warmth intensifying.

All I’d have to do, I thought, was hop across the median and turn my back on all of this – head east, back to the Twin Cities and home, and never tell anyone I was ever serious about hitchhiking 1,700 miles to visit a friend in Twisp, Wash., a small town in the mountains east of Seattle. I could be home in two hours, and spend my week’s vacation fishing.

Continue Reading...

"The announcement is part of the company’s larger plan to focus on its core brand and build its international presence, the Times spokeswoman said," reports the New York Times.

One might wonder how something can simultaneously be called "International" and "New York" but the ugliness of the new title shouldn't distract from the logic of the rebranding. The Times has recently been jettisoning anything and everything that doesn't have the flagship brand name attached (the Boston Globe, About.com, et cetera).  The bean counters are probably right, this time. We're not talking Maker's Mark announcing it is about to start watering down its bourbon. There will be no social media outrage that reverses this slap at history. When all media are available everywhere all the time, your brand is what sets you apart. Double down, New York Times, double down.

Continue Reading...

WALKING THE GALLERIES of one of Madrid’s many art museums, one sees, inescapably, signs of decay. As paintings age, they face ruin from a multitude of forces. Changes in temperature and humidity cause canvases to expand or contract; exposure to light causes discoloration; physical vibrations can lead to paint loss; air pollutants eat away at varnish; and neglect, combined with these, allows damage to proceed unchecked. Museums, of course, do everything they can to frustrate such forces, and art restorers bring sophisticated tools to bear: hot air pens, heated spatulas, low-pressure suction tables that relax distorted canvases. But there is only so much the experts can do. Some works are too far gone; they will never again be as they were. Present-day viewers behold a Madonna’s alligator arms, her Babe’s flaking halo, and try to piece together, from the beauty that remains, an uninjured, original image.

Continue Reading...

That journey, in part, was a kind of secular pilgrimage after the death of my father, mother and sister. One can’t explain why someone with agnostic tendencies such as myself should go to a mountain which is holy to others outside his tradition – moreover, all of the comfort that those in mourning are offered in the Christian tradition is denied in Buddhism and Hinduism. So it’s a very irrational journey, if one thinks of it as seeking intellectual or emotional comfort. I simply wanted to walk to an object of holiness in the landscape, and it seemed to me that Kailash was holy in itself, whatever that means.

Continue Reading...

"The Missoni company today confirms that Vittorio Missoni and his wife are missing in Venezuela. The small plane they were travelling on has disappeared. This is all the information currently available. We are relying on the work of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and all the institutions involved, to whom we are gratetful for the prompt activities in the research. As more information becomes available the company will issue further statements. The company asks the press to kindly respect the family's privacy at this time."

The AP reports that the plane, only chartered for a 95-mile flight, went missing not long after takeoff. No wreckage has been found.

Continue Reading...

Stewart, a journalist specializing in war and organized crime, first heard about Ciudad Blanco -- the White City, a magnificent ruin rumored to be buried deep in the jungles of the Mosquitia region of Honduras -- while reporting on the booming Honduran drug trade in 2008. An American ex-soldier who had been involved in training the Nicaraguan contras told him about the legend while describing Mosquitia as the "shittiest, buggiest shithole jungle in the world." Stewart was soon obsessed, and in a few months, he was on a plane for Central America.

Continue Reading...

When I agreed to write about my time At Sea, I did so knowing that it is unwise to invite comparison to the beloved author of That One Essay everyone mentions when you tell them you are going on a cruise. I've read it, of course, though not in 10 years, at least. I'm not half the writer that the author of that particular beloved piece was, though I think I'm perhaps better able to enjoy myself than he was. (Though not without assistance, as my bar bill showed by the end of the week.)

Continue Reading...

I have always been a loser. Wallets, cellphones, gift certificates, the “good” scissors. They all swim in and out of my life like migrating cod. One of the unshakable images from my childhood is of my mother, silent but vengeful, hurling a giant Hefty bag down the stairs to our basement. It contained all the GI Joe parts and Lego pieces I had ever misplaced or let slide between couch cushions. A few days later, she asked why I hadn’t complained about her trashing my stuff. “I finally know where everything is,” I told her.

Continue Reading...

I'm a 31-year-old man with a very childish mind regarding the world and women.

I've been into a relationship with a nice girl for six months now, and while I'm attracted to her by her personality and physical attributes, it bugs me that I'm not falling in love with her.

We work at the same place and get along very well. I enjoy chatting and talking to her, going out to public places, and having more private encounters.

I must confess this is my first relationship. I'm extremely shy and it took great courage to start talking to her. Since then we've been getting along well, but we've also been separated twice -- mainly because I started freaking out.

She seems very much into this, and I'd like to correspond but I don't know why I can't. Right now, I feel like a liar, but when we were separated I felt miserable and empty.

I owe her a lot, but I'm saddened because she's not after anything else than my affection and I seem to be unable to really fall for her. I just want her to be successful and happy, and safe from any harm.

Continue Reading...

A notice published in Communist Party newspaper Granma said Cubans will also not have to present a letter of invitation to travel abroad when the rule change takes effect Jan. 13, and beginning on that date islanders will only have to show their passport and a visa from the country they are traveling to.

"As part of the work under way to update the current migratory policy and adjust it to the conditions of the present and the foreseeable future, the Cuban government, in exercise of its sovereignty, has decided to eliminate the procedure of the exit visa for travel to the exterior," the notice read.

The measure also extends to 24 months the amount of time Cubans can remain abroad, and they can request an extension when that runs out. Currently, Cubans lose residency and other rights including social security and free health care and education after 11 months.

Still, the notice said Cuba plans to put limits on travel within unspecified sectors.

Continue Reading...

That was the case when North Dakota Republican Rep. Rick Berg, then a state legislator and now locked in an unexpectedly tight Senate race, charged his state’s taxpayers $1,017 for a stay in November 2005 to attend a conference organized by corporate lobbyists. Factor in valet parking, airfare, food and his legislative per diem, and the total bill to the state was $2,441.56.

Continue Reading...

The rail service announced Monday it will operate test trains overnight at 165 mph in four stretches from Maryland to Massachusetts.

Acela Express equipment will be used for the tests, which were to start at about 10:30 p.m. Monday in New Jersey.

All the locations may one day have regular 160 mph service. Amtrak said tests need to be performed at 5 mph above what is expected to be a maximum operating speed of 160 mph.

Two test locations — from Perryville, Md., to Wilmington, Del., and from Trenton to New Brunswick, N.J. — currently have a speed limit of 135 mph. The two others — in Rhode Island from Westerly to Cranston and in Massachusetts from South Attleboro to Readville — currently have 150 mph limits.

Continue Reading...