CD document: NYTletter.htm
Appendix
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To whom it may concern:
Recently, the New York Times published an article on cheap flights around Europe. Please consider publishing a short series "Around the World in 30 Days VIA/Amtrak" which offers a cheap way to see North America:
Where can one for $21 a day enjoy transportation and housing while seeing the following? Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, Miami Beach, Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Ground Zero, Polar Bear Capital, Washington Monument, White House, Lincoln Memorial, Golden Gate Bridge, River Walk, Montreal, American and Canadian Rocky Mountains, Halifax, Hollywood, etc? For as little as $638, a 30-day VIA/Amtrak North American Rail can make your world both larger and smaller.
I traveled 25,058 miles, more than the 24,901 miles of the equator. Besides antedotes, I have four perspectives on the rail travel: time table, map, ticket subs, and postcards.
The primary series articles describe the segments of the trip--see Articles Index Listing. Some could be sidebars instead of articles. The articles fall into four classes:
Humor is sought to enhance entertainment and edification. Amtrak is compared to VIA, Canada's passenger service.
In addition, ways of using a 30-day Rail are described in which a person can instead of flying buy a 30-day pass for a business trip which gives one a unique "Amtrak frequent flyer" miles--see Rail Usage, short weekend trips as well as nine-day trips. The neat thing about the loops is that one can get on anywhere on the loop like a trolley circulating around downtown. A super loop is proposed for either individuals or a constant "Roads Scholar" project which your organization could sponsor (map and Times). An inaugural trip is proposed for this summer.
A rationale for the trip and publication are how energy costs and global warming will increase rail travel as surcharges are imposed on vehicles and airlines. One sidebar describes the signs of global warming seen from Hudson Bay to Miami with forests and swamps burning that had never burned before in the wet season. Having written a paper in 1982 "'Droughts Forever" in which it was concluded that rising CO2 would kill us not from global warming but first from longer, deeper droughts broken by record breaking precipitation. This climate change will increasingly destroy the foodchain resulting in social, economic and political chaos. The tragedies of the Horn of Africa (Darfur, Somalia, etc.) begin upwind in the massive Arabian oil fields that daily generate five to seven billion cubic feet of CO2. East Africa is a harbinger of the future.
Thanking you in advance for your time and consideration,
Bob Barnett
resume
other articles of interest
Options: Cards on each day.
Loops:
It may be well worth it to repeat the trip with a series of your reporters each spending two or four days so as to get more perspective. I'm sure Amtrak would allow you a generic singular pass for "NYT reporter, aka, ", more and better pictures. Also, discuss the focus of my writing.
Will complete articles
Benefits to Rag
It will be interesting to see how Amtrak responds to the following: Organized use of the 30-day rail pass.
Please note that enclosed resume is not a job-focused resume since I do not expect to ever seek employment. It is a combined achievenment-value history designed to fit me as a glove fits a hand: If you like the resume, you will me. My lifetime achievements can be summarized in to comments of others to me that occur at a higher frequency than received by the general populace:
designed for any employment.
Some the essays can be posted without wasting ink.
