There is a sad beauty to this city. I was struck by this thought this morning as I mused on friends who wanted to move or friends who were moving. I was reminded of those people who chose to stay in Cuba, especially Havana, which is a harsh life to say the least. At this point, anyone who really wants to leave Cuba can, yet there are many who still choose to stay. Whatever that motivation, I believe it is related to the reason so many people live here their entire lives, even though it is a struggle at times.
"The final jet-booster of this trend is the airlines' extraordinarily
successful frequent-flier programs, which have provided the burgeoning
hyperflier culture with its own currency, lexicon, and class structure. ...
The hyperfliers may think they're getting something for nothing, but they're
actually playing the airlines' game. By tightly restricting free flights,
airlines have rigged it so that a passenger flying for free almost never
displaces a paying customer, and typically costs the airline only about $20
per flight. But to earn that $20 flight, hyperfliers will go out of their
way to book all their tickets on one airline, and may waste hundreds or
thousands of dollars building their status."
--Warren Berger, "Life Sucks and Then You Fly," Wired, August, 1999
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