VamoSafety & Security.📌

Global Villagence.

Travel in a turbulent world is all too often in a treacherous world as well. Thus we hereby launch a network of global vigilance among our expanding VamoCitizenry, a concerted system of mobile awareness and surveillance, plus reportage/recording of conditions, situations, and/or events that potentially impact Vamigrés in passage and destinations worldwide. Witnessing, evidencing yea or nay, for example, whether more dislocated refugees/migrants actually means more terrorism and crime. Or if drone strikes (civilian and military)  are the hazard they have the potential to become. 

Included will be an encrypted VamoSafe ‘depository’ in which we can secure urgent, volatile, incriminating—even violent audio/video. While maintaining (personal/source) anonymity and discretion as to distribution to the Vammunity, proper authorities or public at large. Bearing witness when incidents and accidents (to aberrations, conflicts, crimes and misdemeanors) so require, without necessarily endangering responsible Vamigrés themselves.

Global Threats.☟

Amid the spectre of mass shooting, bombings and other attacks across the U.S., Latin American nations, from Haiti to Venezuela and Brazil hemorrhage resources, stir unrest and spawn refugee and viral outflows throughout the Western Hemisphere. Middle East and African upheavals trigger unprecedented levels of human/cultural displacement, resulting in the heinous people smuggling trade, filling the Mediterranean Sea with heartbreak and sharkbait.

Factor in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s boner, however historically expiatory and humanely intentioned, of swinging open E.U.’s doors to unlimited, chaotic refugee/migrant entry throughout the Continent.

Bottom line overall? Current world gestalt and zeitgeist portend further disruption and borderline tensions/clashes—sudden outbursts of demonstrative violence anywhere, at any importune time (such as Nice, FR) perpetrated by activists, anarchists, hackers, reactionaries, terrorists and lone wolf crazies the world over.

Which is why the prospect of VamoSecurity rings so vital and true…

VamoSafety and Security.☟

Think about it: weaponized aircraft, attack vans, suicide van/truck bombers, walkby knifings/stabbings (as recently in Paris and Britain, then come all the copycat crazies. Meanwhile airport tarmac security credentials are being trafficked on the dark Web to whomever’s buying, for whatever prankish or more nefarious reason. So now more than ever, we are traveling in a world of disruption, turbulence, troubles and abject terror—demanding diligent global villagence on our part.

To the point, just look at a European continent so ever rich in history, tradition and cultures—an experiential magnet for travelers from all four corners. Yet these days, Paris, the City of Lights, is dim-bulb terrorized by Charlie Hebdo assaults, Jewish market/synagogue bombings, theatre massacres, airport attacks and shootouts on the Champs-Elysees. At the same time, those acid attacks are proliferating across Europe.

⁃ Germany suffers bus attacks (Berlin), and sexual assaults of young women in holiday public gatherings.

⁃ Sweden experiences a brazen tdaylight ruck attack in a busy Stockholm shopping district.

⁃ The Jewish Museum of Belgium, and suicide bombers in Brussels Metro Airport.

⁃ The Jihadist Vamicide plowing down of Nice’s Bastille Day celebrants.

⁃ A similar truck massacre of Berlin’s Christmas Market.

⁃ More terror Vamicide on London’s Westminster Bridge, ending with a shootout near
Parliament. This after the knife attack terror across London Bridge.

⁃ The Manchester, England concert hall bombing.

⁃ Greece is blighted by earthquakes, beach assaults and brutal island beating deaths.

⁃ Now, the Catalan van mauling/carnage along Barcelona’s Las Ramblas mall and Cambrils.

⁃ Beyond the Continent, Egyptian beach resorts are commando raided by terrorist gunman. Or August 2018 deaths of British vacationers from suspected food poisoning at the Steingenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in Hurghada.

⁃ The truck ramming murder of American cyclists, Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan (both 29) by ISIS terrorists in southwestern Tajikistan.

⁃ Kidnapping/ransom threats plague travelers across the rest of the Mediterranean, the Maldives to Southeast Asia.

⁃ Even Russia falls victim to extremist bombing aboard passenger jets downed in suicide blasts, to St. Petersburg subways.

Still, perhaps the most recurring traveler minefield remains Great Britain. Which leaves the U.K. struggling to cope with ISIS-bred low-tech terrorism, raising threat levels and issuing ‘Enough-is-enough’ warnings in jittery fits and starts, fearful of what comes next—such as increased random sulfuric acid attacks on London sidewalks. Now the terrorist weaponized Ford Fiesta that struck pedestrians and cyclists outside the House of Parliament.

Otherwise, Australia and Canada follow closely on the ISIS-itis terror hit list, with similar stabbings and bombings…as travel/tourism is bloodied in ‘resort’ areas throughout Mexico. Most recently, the brutal bike-by shooting death of American Tatiana Mirutenko, 27, outside a Mexico City restaurant.

Which is not to say the U.S. is immune from such terror threats. Fatal shootings and other violent vehicle incidents, from New York’s Times Square down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, nightclub shooting massacres in Orlando and Little Rock, have spread westward to a Michigan airport, on to the hateful stabbings of Good Samaritans in a Portland, Oregon light-rail train. And now, Charlottesville, and all the unrest rising coast to coast in its wake. Now comes the unprecedented tragedy of the Las Vegas massacre—that shooting gallery-style gunning down of C&W concert goers, many of whom were ironically Second Amendment stalwarts themselves. Let alone the Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport massacre the past August, wherein a deranged Alaska gunman (Esteban Santiago, 28) killed five and wounded six more in a baggage area shooting rampage.

Even more domestically, we face the Alt-Right, White Nationalist terror massacres at such presumably safe venues as the Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, the Oregon district gun down in Dayton, Ohio, on the heels of the Wallmart slaughter in El Paso, Texas. In the wake, Vamigré will be diligently assessing where the most likely places/regions are to get MAGAzined in this divisive, hate-stoked era. (MMTC…)

Also factor in further global dangers, Mali to Bali, Venezuela to Finland, Hong Kong to South Africa, and it becomes clear that a measure of traveler succor and sanctuarial support is long overdue.

Thus Vamigré will shortly begin to survey and surveil this new world disorder—how it affects us locally and globally. Be it demonstrations stateside, Kenyan insurgency, ice melt flooding the Queen Elizabeth Islands and Tierra del Fuego—or ransom napping across the Indian Ocean, we will be covering and discovering safer, surer passage—via our upcoming Vamalytics indices.

To wit, how does this worldwide violence and discord impact, travelers and destinations alike—culturally, socially, politically, economically? Conversely, when do cautionary tales and red flags venture into fearmonger territory?

When is tourist puffery, tourism hype become distortion and actual deceit? What is actual and what is augmented in the T/T media and destinations themselves? Where is the travel footing firmer (as with music festival ‘safe zones’), where is it more fraught? *

These and far many other questions will be diligently addressed, dissected and fairly resolved in Vamigré travelers’ favor and best interests. Journalistically, visually, graphically (e.g., with stats and safe maps), dramatically, and with transparent, unabashed advocacy for our irrepressible Vamigrant cause—including tie-ups and snafus, advisories, and threats, incidents or accidents—wherever this all may take or threaten to overtake us…including the dangers and pratfalls of angling to get that selfie in the most hazardous of places and situations (like Yosemite, to the Catskills’ Kaaterskill Falls. Or stalking, tempting the man-eating tigers of India)…

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*  A Vamospective on an earlier, more troublesome traveler time:

TRAVEL’S TREVAILS: PRE-VAMOFESTO/2007.

Yet another summer of traveler discontent had yielded a stiflingly familiar pathology of scare tactics, endless lines, disrupted scheduling, wasted resources, rifled valuables, chucked baggage, fee spikes, pumped-up fuel prices and the latest indignity: clear plastic tote bags courtesy of the TSA. Not only are travelers being hijacked by inconsistent, insulting airport security, we are also held hostage by Big Oil’s highway robbery. Whoa, overdue course correction: Yet another season of travel imbalances placed on code-red alert, just primed and pleading to be righted…

Even by the deteriorating standards noted herein, 2007 peak-season travel had been a veritable no-fly zone of disruption:

THE LONDON CAR-BOMB PLOT, AND ITS CONTRAILS.

Medical doctors laying Mercedes bomb traps in the heart of Britain’s capital at June’s end, then suicide ramming an incendiary Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow, Scotland’s international airport terminal: Another peak travel season brings untimely explosions of terror and disruption. Earlier on, from the moment MI-5 revealed a British Islamist-born threat August 11, 2006 to blow up multiple US-bound jetliners with liquid explosives, travelers yet again bore the brunt of transportation and/or ‘homeland’ security overkill. Heathrow Airport was locked down immediately, Britain’s transportation systems in general placed on highest alert. Citing terrorism evidence (still mostly secreted), Scotland Yard commanded the instant grounding of commercial flights in and out of Great Britain, while the Prime Minister vacationed safely on a Caribbean island. Therein, chaos ensued, as routes and schedules were downdrafted around the globe. Here again, terminals swelled with stranded passengers, security checkpoint lines backed up to 9/11 lengths and July/05 disorientation.

In the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security elevated its threat level on U.K.-trans-Atlantic flights to red, went code orange overall, once again deep freezing airports from JKF to SFO, already in the throes of the peak summer travel season. “Be patient,” decreed DHS czar, Michael Jerk-off, while the president vacationed securely on his Texas ranch. Since the suspected Islamic terrorists’ weapon of choice was determined to be volatile liquids, search and confiscation now extended beyond bags and shoes to nearly all things liquid, viscous, electronic or weaponizable. Clueless travelers were forced without warning to surrender such everyday carry-on items at incalculable personal expense—compensation be damned. Cowered, good sheep that they are, most passengers followed conflicting directives, opened every aspect of their traveling lives to TSA screener scrutiny, essentially kept in the dark as to degree of jeopardy and unfolding crisis developments: Just shut up, salute authorities and by all means stay ever-vigilant. Meanwhile urgent, useful information remained at a premium, mostly beyond the reach of the traveler rank and file—with travel-related Websites (+e-mail/texting) of minimal help in real time. The security upheaval spread rapidly to rail and bus stations, while air terminal shops and concession stands watched business dry up faster than the lotions and libations.

As for the airline industry itself, summer 2006 revenue miles and load factors promising to lift carriers into the black for the first time since 2001, the timing of this latest terrormania episode couldn’t have been worse—e.g., more soaring jet-fuel prices.

Days of disruption and delays later, alert levels all set- tled at code orange, likely for the longer haul. Because ISIS, Qaeda & Company will not be reconciling with ‘the infidels’ anytime soon. And the transportation sector will remain a key target of choice. Still, at every turn of the terrorists’ screw, governmental responses have been more reactive than proactive, alarmist and vastly overreaching—CYA at all costs—if not absurdly inept. Draconian new carry-on rules heap added stress and responsibility on a TSA screener corps already shorthanded via low pay and sky-high turnover. These in-cabin restrictions strain checked baggage capacity and cramped cargo holds (which lack full screening and anti-blast liners)—especially on the sardine-packed flights of today.

Redundant terminal-to-tarmac screening, as well as off- loading and re-inspection (on luggage-strewn taxiways) at any hint or trace of onboard ‘irregularity’, are inordinately taxing the traveling public—who are ultimately paying the bill for this security overkill. And for our money, we reap: Trip-wrecking pre-boarding wait times, missed connections, discouraging flight re- scheduling and outright cancellations; humiliating overwanding and strip-searches, surly agents and fatigued crews; overhead bin battles, lost/misrouted or pilfered luggage (baggage scanning vs. scamming). Plus mounds of confiscated valuables—forever lost amid inconsistent restrictions—then resold or auctioned away by TSA goons on E-Bay. Now comes the further intrusion of puffer mach- machines, passport ID-chip tracking and behavioral recognition (all S.P.O.T.-ty at best)—even computer battery bans. Still, the 9/11 Commission continues to give U.S. security D or F grades.

Sooo, there must be a better, more sensible and balanced approach to transportation security than this recurring stranglehold syndrome, visited upon travelers everywhere since September 11, 2001. Thus such anti/après terrorism measures will be assiduously monitored and rated, with an operating principle of healthy traveler suspicion until DHS/TSA clampdowns are better warranted and verified; moreover, destinations will be gauged according to the quality of their responses and resulting treatment of travel- ers. For obediently ‘sucking it up’ amid the inconvenience and abuse is for suckers. And meekly, blindly taking terror threats and color-coded excesses in stride is for touristas, not for us Vamigrés.
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