According to an article on USAToday, a Midwest flight was cancelled because a passenger found “Arabic-style writing” on the in-flight magazine.

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Houston, Texas, has doubled its number of hotel rooms in the past year—to 5,200. And some hoteliers are wondering if the convention business will pick up enough to keep those rooms filled.

Unlike other cities—Las Vegas and Orlando come to mind—that have built-in incentives (gambling and The Mouse, for example), this Texas city faces the same challenge as so many others to attract the lucrative meetings business. I’ve only been to a convention there once, and it was really handled well. The only downside was a dearth of restaurants within trudging distance of the convention center for us after-hours, feet-weary exhibitors. But I’m sure that the number of restaurants have grown along with the hotels since then (this was eons ago).

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Despite a lingering boycott of Cincinnati conventions, started in 2001 following the shooting of a black man and resulting riots, the city says it’s now on the comeback trail when it comes to minority meetings.

No major convention has honored the boycott since the Urban League pulled out in July 2002. Author Barbara Ehrenreich was the last celebrity to cite the boycott when nixing her appearance, in March 2003.

“I haven’t seen much evidence of (a boycott) for a long time,” Mayor Charlie Luken says.

Pickets still appear occasionally. Boycott leaders say the boycott won’t be over until they say it’s over - and that won’t happen until long-standing racial problems are resolved.

But even they acknowledge that they’re working less on a boycott and more on other ways to effect change. The Rev. Damon Lynch III, who led the boycott at its height, is involved in programs to help the homeless and poor and plans to run for City Council next year.

“The boycott as an ongoing tactic needs to be looked at,” Lynch says. “While it has provided us with tremendous victories and successes, eventually you can get to a point of diminishing return with any tactic.”

I wish the city luck in rebuilding its race relations with groups, and can only fervently wish, in my naive way, that incidents like those that caused the boycott, are a thing of the past not just in Cincinnati, but everywhere.

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I love this one–a vision from the past of what PCs would look like in the year 2004.

Via Jim Carroll, who always comes up with the most unusual stuff.

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