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Tuesday, February 1, 2011 Issue 14
E D I T O R I A L L Y
Vol. 116
I N D E P E N D E N T
S T U D E N T
PUBLISHED SINCE 1906
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Street newspaper to focus on homeless Amplifier voices homeless persons’ opinions, provides connection to community get off the streets,” Young said. “But it gives them a chance to engage with the marketplace and the community at large.” Editor-in-Chief Judson said The Amplifier strives to help the homeless in Knoxville by telling their own stories. Each issue contains feaLeslie Judson knew what she wanted. The problem was, she ture articles and autobiographies of individuals within didn’t have a name for it. Knoxville’s homeless community. After two issues, the involveAs Judson sat at a roundtable of volunteers from Redeeming ment has been extremely positive. Hope Ministries last April, she listened as the group discussed “I like working with the homeless plans to create a street newspaper who want to write, who yearn to tell in Knoxville, a publication with the their story but have never been given intention of shining light onto the a piece of paper,” Judson said. “We voice of East Tennessee’s homeless have vendors who have shown interpopulation. est in layout, in selling ads, all these Suddenly, a light turned on inside things newspapers need. It’s really Judson’s head. exciting.” “Our executive director and pubJudson and her staff hope to some lisher, Eddie Young, used the word day make The Amplifier a monthly ‘amplify’ a lot,” Judson said. “‘We publication. Success stories from want to amplify these voices.’ I sugacross the country have shown gested ‘The Amplifier.’ That’s how Judson that it’s possible to make a difmy brain worked, they all liked it, ference in the homeless community in and it stuck.” Knoxville. Chicago’s street newspaAnd just like that, The Amplifier, per, for example, has turned into a Knoxville’s first street newspaper successful magazine after a start and only the second such publicamuch like that of The Amplifier. tion in Tennessee, was born. “One of their vendors grew out of Judson, editor-in-chief of The their vendor team and is now leading Amplifier and a 1996 UT broadcastthe team and has a job,” Judson said. ing graduate, has helped spearhead “Now, he’s inspiring other vendors. the movement with the help of We want to do more of that.” Redeeming Hope Ministries based The underlying goal of The in Redeemer Church of Knoxville in Amplifier is to restructure societal Fort Sanders. stigmas surrounding homelessness. The group has already printed Young said the newspaper is not two issues of The Amplifier — meant to give the homeless a voice; November and February issues — instead, the staff strives to make and work is currently under way on those existing voices heard. a third. “It matters,” Young said. “It mat• Photo courtesy of Dan Andrews “The Amplifier was the vision of the executive director of ministries Angela, a homeless Knoxvillian who serves as a vendor for the city’s first street newspaper, The ters to change one person’s life. You can’t who serves as pastor at our church,” Amplifier, displays the November issue of the publication. The staff of The Amplifier, which is com- change the world, but everyone has a Judson said. “We had heard about prised primarily of volunteers, just published the newspaper’s second issue, which is on sale now. world contained within their eyes. You change one person’s life, and you’ve street newspapers and wanted to changed the world for that one person. bring one to Knoxville.” “You won’t see a large change in the homeless in a communiThe concept of a street newspaper is not a new development. munity at $1 per copy, pocketing the profit as their own. Young said the newspaper has used 10 to 15 vendors during ty until you change the community’s opinion about homelessCurrently, 25 street publications exist in North America and in 40 countries worldwide, but few cities as small as Knoxville production of the first two issues, with the majority selling ness.” Judson said The Amplifier welcomes volunteers, contributors have jumped aboard the bandwagon. Young, Judson and a few copies throughout downtown Knoxville. The February issue is and interns. For more information regarding The Amplifier, currently on sale. other volunteers wanted to change that. “They won’t get rich off this, and many of them won’t even visit http://www.redeeminghope.com. “Its primary purpose is to empower the homeless in our com-
Zac Ellis
munity,” Young, the executive director of Redeeming Hope Ministries, said. “The secondary thing is to help these people get some degree of economic empowerment.” The staff of The Amplifier, which has included many UT student volunteers and interns, utilizes help from the homeless in Knoxville as newspaper vendors. Homeless individuals can buy the paper for 25 cents per copy before selling it back to the com-
Egyptian violence mars local economy Associated Press The violence in Egypt is already hurting the country’s tourism industry, and in turn, its economy. It’s also raising fears that other Middle Eastern countries will suffer as well. Many U.S. travelers have canceled trips to Egypt. Some tour operators are avoiding the country, and Delta Air Lines and EgyptAir suspended flights from the U.S. to Cairo. Stock markets in the Middle East fell sharply during the weekend. Travelers faced the same question as Rob Solow, who is booked on an Egyptian getaway in February with his wife: “Is it going to be an issue where we are going to have to watch our backs the whole time?” The Yorktown Heights, N.Y., couple aren’t sure if they’ll make the trip. But Solow said he won’t be going to the Middle East in the future. “I just think it’s a troubled part of the world that’s not necessary to visit,” he said. The timing of the violence and political uncertainty couldn’t be worse — winter is the high season for visitors. Large tour operators such as Gate 1 Travel and cruise companies including Norwegian Cruise Line have canceled Egyptian stops. Tours elsewhere in the Middle East haven’t been canceled, but travel agents are getting a steady stream of inquiries about the status of planned trips. “The ones who haven’t booked are holding off, and the ones who have are trying to get out of it,” said Blake Fleetwood, owner of several Cook Travel businesses around New York. Tourism is a major industry in Egypt, a country that struggles with poverty. It accounts for 5 percent to 6 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to several estimates. Egypt is also often a starting point for people exploring Jordan and parts of Northern Africa. Cairo International Airport is the second-largest Tara Sripunvoraskul • The Daily Beacon airport in Africa after Johannesburg, handling Peter Misaiphon, sophomore in industrial engineering, practices skateboarding roughly 16 million passengers a year. Most of them tricks while friends watch on the Pedestrian Mall on Saturday, Jan. 29. Students — 15 million a year — are tourists, according to the enjoyed time outside this weekend, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm Egyptian Tourist Authority in New York. Investors were clearly concerned the turmoil weather.
could spread. Dubai’s major stock market index fell more than 4 percent Sunday, while stocks fell nearly 2 percent in Kuwait and 3 percent in Qatar. Saudi Arabia’s main index rose 2.5 percent, but that was a partial recovery from a 6.5 percent drop Saturday. Oil prices spiked 4.3 percent Friday on fears that the Suez Canal might be closed. Roughly 3,500 oil tankers a year plus thousands of other cargo ships travel through the canal on their way from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. After the 1967 ArabIsraeli war, the canal was shut down for eight years. A closure today would add 6,000 miles to trips as ships detour around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. Those trips would risk the threat of attack by Somali pirates. The region’s real economic power player is Dubai, whose airport saw 47.2 million passengers in 2010, according to the Airports Council International. Government-backed Emirates Airlines has also turned Dubai into the region’s cargo hub, and FedEx Corp. bases it Middle East operations there. “To affect the (tourism) industry globally, unrest would need to spread to places like Dubai, which is a major port and air hub. This looks very unlikely,” said Ann Wyman, head of emerging market research at investment bank Nomura in London. Still, Egypt’s problems follow political strife in Lebanon, Yemen, and earlier this month, Tunisia. That has led to a general wariness about the region. Airlines from Arab states lining the Persian Gulf were still flying in and out of Cairo. Some have had to rearrange their schedules due to the unrest and curfews put in place by Egyptian authorities. The Mideast’s biggest airline, Emirates, advised passengers to “reconsider nonessential travel” but said it was operating on schedule from its Dubai hub. John Strickland, a London-based aviation consultant, said the turmoil’s effect on the region’s airline industry is yet to be determined. EgyptAir is likely to suffer most, and gulf carriers could also face trouble, he said. But Strickland said Emirates in particular has shown it can bounce back following challenges including the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. See EGYPT on Page 3