Contents:

• Protected Holiday - May 27th, Memorial Day
• Flight Attendant Historian's Last Flight
• A Report From the Web Site Administrator

The following CBS message was sent to all flight attendants as a reminder of the Protected Holiday in May.

Subject: May 27th Memorial Day - Protected Holiday

There has been some discussion as to what day is the actual Protected Holiday for Memorial Day.  Please be advised that Monday, May 27th is considered the Protected Holiday as specified in the Flight Attendant Agreement.

SAP will use May 27th as the Protected Holiday.

If you have questions, please contact your Inflight Supervisor.

Flight Attendant Historian's Last Flight
For Immediate Release:
March 26, 2002  

S.F.-based Author, Historian Georgia Panter Nielsen Retires After 42 Years as Flight Attendant

SAN FRANCISCO - The foremost authority on flight attendant history and the International Historian for the Association of Flight Attendants, AFL-CIO, Georgia Panter Nielsen concludes her career as a working United Airlines flight attendant on Tuesday, March 26, after 42 years of flying.

Nielsen's last trip, United flight 862 from Sydney, arrives in San Francisco at 9:35 a.m., Tuesday.

Nielsen began researching the history of her union as a university project in the 1970s. In 1980, AFA's Board of Directors chose her to be the union's International Historian and in 1982, Nielsen authored From Sky Girl to Flight Attendant: Women and the Making of a Union, the most complete account of the flight attendant profession ever published. 

To tie her experience in the airline industry with her passion for writing, Nielsen founded Air Reporter, a quarterly San Francisco-based newspaper for airline and airport workers in 1991. She also adapted a flight attendant union history script for We Do the Work, the award-winning, Berkeley-based national television series committed to labor and workplace issues. Nielsen is a member of the Board of Directors for the United Airlines Historical Foundation, and authored a ten-decade retrospective of flight attendant history for United's website that launched progressively in 2000 and 2001.

"The lessons that have been learned over the years make us wiser, stronger and better advocates for flight attendants today," said AFA International President Patricia Friend. "One of Georgia's most enduring gifts to our profession is the way she has provided a connection between the union's founders and today's leadership. Her work shows how past struggles have turned into great accomplishments. Georgia has been the consummate representative of our profession, meticulously documenting the past and preserving it for our future."

"Her work has brought awareness to the evolution of our profession over the years," said United AFA Master Executive Council President Linda Farrow. "Her book was desperately needed as the first in-depth account of our profession, which has generated the respect, the recognition and the place in history flight attendants deserve."

But Nielsen did more than record history; she made it. As an eight-year AFA local president based in San Francisco, Nielsen forged the way for the flight attendants' participation in the AFL-CIO. Her local membership was the first council to vote to join their local AFL-CIO Central Labor Council in 1982. Nielsen also worked to strengthen the labor community within her airline by arranging the first local coalition meeting of AFA, the Air Line Pilots Association and the International Association of Machinists.

Nielsen also pioneered the union's political involvement. Under her leadership, the local membership endorsed a political candidate for the first time in the union's history. In 1983, she created the first legislative affairs committee within AFA, which has blossomed into a powerful platform for flight attendants to engage Congress in health and safety issues and most recently to strengthen security in our nation's airports and on aircraft.

Web Site Administrator and some unknown qualities

One of the qualities that make a good administrator is one where the most number of co-workers and peers benefit the most from one's work. I have made the most of my 4 years as administrator in helping whenever I can.  And this is but another way to help.

Being diligent and observant when communicating with our friends and peers through email, not only means answering the email as it should be answered, but also observing what is sent to you by these same trusted co-workers or friends.  In other words ... "Trust no one" - without some sort of protection.  It may sound cynical, but until you have crashed a hard drive or ruined critical files, because you opened something thought to be harmless, - only to find your friend the sender was trusting as well - you must take all the precautions necessary.

What is a Computer Virus?

I can think of several explanations for a computer virus.  The simplest of them is a an explanation that even a beginner or someone who has never seen a computer can understand.  Unlike the simple explanation, the one meant for an expert programmer, finding the exact definition of a computer virus and set a clear distinction between programs based on a principle of "virus vs.  non-virus" is rather difficult.  But the simple explanation will work for this article.

A Beginners  Explanation

This example of a desk clerk working exclusively with papers will help explain.  (This explanation is similar to the one given by D.N.Lozinsky.  A Russian Professor of Computer Sciences.)

Imagine a desk clerk coming to work every day to his office.  Everyday he finds a stack of papers with a list of tasks, which he must fulfill during the day.  He takes the top paper from the stack, reads the instructions from the BOSS, follows them carefully, and then throws the "used" papers into wastebasket.  Now, suppose a bad guy sneaks into the office and inserts a paper into the stack with his own task, which goes like this: "Copy this paper two times and put the copies into neighbors' stacks".  What will the desk clerk do?  He will copy this paper twice, destroy the original one and continue to the next paper in the stack, and will go on working as usual.

What will his neighbors do, being as careful workers as he is, when they find a new task?  They will do the same thing as the first one did ... copy the paper twice and give it to other desk clerks.

Altogether we have four copies of the paper already, and the paper will continue to be copied and transferred to other people.

This is approximately the scenario in which the computer virus works, with programs instead of papers stacks and computers instead of desk clerks.  A computer, like a desk clerk, carefully fulfills all the commands contained in a program (task lists), starting from the first one.  If the first one says, "copy my body into two other programs", the computer will do so, and the virus command will now be in two other programs.  When the computer starts running other "infected" programs, the virus will continue to spread to the entire computer in a similar manner.

In the above example about a desk clerk and his office our paper virus does not check whether another stack of papers is infected or not.  In this case by the end of the working day all the office will be overrun by piles of such copies, the clerks will have nothing else to do but copy the same text and give it to the neighbors - the first clerk makes two copies of the paper, the next victims of the virus make four copies, then 8, 16, 32, 64 and so on, that is the number of copies each time will increase twice.  If a desk clerk needs 30 seconds to copy one paper and 30 seconds more to pass the copies on, then in an hour there will be more than 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 copies of the virus in the office!

Pick a good virus program from any retail store or go online and check out any of those offered as FREE.  We have one on our Website (http://www.afausairways.org) from Trend Micro, which is easy to use and always up to date.  Always keep your Virus Program updated and set yourself up on a routine to scan your computer regularly.  But, most of all scan every piece of email, even if you know the sender.  Mom and Dad don't always know what they are sending.  Your life will be made easier and your friends will thank you.

And if all else fails drop me an email; I'm protected!  administrator@afausairways.org