United Nations Mandates “Sustainable Tourism”


Venice, Dodge’s Palace Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016
During my twenty-two visits to Venice, I saw and heard the frustration and disdain locals have for tourists. We were not just an imposition in their daily lives, crowding their beloved city, their favorite restaurants, water buses, museums, operas, blocking their narrow alleys, their canals, and often entrances to their apartments. We caused wakes with our huge cruise ships and further destruction to their already fragile buildings, infrastructure, and eco-system. Continue reading

CPAC 2015’s Conservative View of Immigration Focused on “Consensus”

“We are not a nation of immigrants, we are a nation of citizens” – Mark Levine to CPAC
CPAC Panel on Immigration 2015 CPAC 2015 Immigration Panel
From left: Alfonso Aguilar, Rep. Jeff Duncan, Charlie Gerow, and Mario Lopez
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015
Among the glitz and conservative rhetoric of CPAC 2015, one important panel discussion was barely attended by 40-50 people – “Immigration: Can Conservatives Reach a Consensus?” It is in my estimation an issue that is going to fundamentally alter the makeup of our society forever. Continue reading

The Ship of Global Warming Folly

Das Narrenschiff Das Narrenschiff – Albrecht Durer
I ponder the 1549 German woodcut, “Ship of Fools,” Albrecht Durer’s illustrations, and even Hieronymus Bosch’s artistic allegory of humanity’s folly sailing aboard a ship without a pilot, a stark reflection of what humans do, sometimes ignorant of their own direction, pursuing untrue and unattainable objectives.

The January 2, 2014 article in The Australian, “Stuck on a ship of (cold) fools,” talks about the Australasian Antarctic Expedition from the University of New South Wales, led by Professor Chris Turney, on a mission to trace the Antarctic expedition of 1911 when Douglas Mawson’s ship was not icebound. Since then, the sea ice has been increasing despite United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) faulty forecasts based on its global warming modeling. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/stuck-on-a-ship-of-cold-fools/story-e6frg71x-1226793309195
Continue reading

The Green Growth Sustainability of Washington, D.C.

The Green Growth Sustainability of U.N. Agenda 21 has finally arrived in our nation’s capital. Mayor Vincent C. Gray announced last week his “Sustainability D.C.” plan to make the District of Columbia “the healthiest, greenest, and most livable city in the United States” by 2032.
He plans “zero-net buildings that generate at least as much energy as they produce,” reducing the amount of salt spread on the roads, and charging residents per bag of trash pickup. (Washington Post, Mike DeBonis, February 20, 2013)
Continue reading