Liquor.com: Holiday Gift Guide: Scotch

Forget the tinsel, mistletoe and dreidels; it wouldn't be the holidays without a glass of Scotch. The delicious whisky is, of course, Scotland's thoughtful gift to the world. But with an unprecedented selection of bottles on store shelves, how do you find a great present? To help you out, we asked Mike Ryan, head bartender at Chicago's Sable Kitchen & Bar (which offers more than 180 different single malts and blends), and Ethan Kelley, formerly of New York City's Brandy Library (which stocks more than 350 Scotches), for some of their favorites.

Looking for a classic Speyside whisky? Ryan recommends Aberlour A'Bunadh, which is "uncut and unfiltered, resulting in a bold, nutty, deeply complex malt that will captivate." Add a few drops of water, and you'll release notes of fruit, ginger and dark chocolate.

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Marie-Lou Fernandes: Leadership Without Legitimacy: Will The Indian Media Get Its Act Together?

After remaining wilfully silent on India's biggest corruption story of the year (Hear the Radia tapes here) the immediate reaction of some sections of the Indian media was to divert attention to Brand India and corporate privacy concerns. We are now witness to another diversion - the case for corporate lobbying (never mind that corporate lobbying has just robbed the country of hundreds of millions of dollars).

Let's take for example a single routine event like last week's conference on corporate sustainability addressed by Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid. Since the event was held in the wake of the Radia tapes leak the Minister was quizzed on legal regulation of the corporate sector by attending journalists. What follows is a quick and, unfortunately, dirty analysis of the reports that were published in the English media

Of the fourteen randomly surveyed reports not a single Indian publication mentioned the real context of the questions viz. the corruption issue unearthed by the Radia tapes. The only publication to report this context was non-Indian, the South Asia Mail. While the others remained silent, six of the Indian publications chose to cite a misleading context instead, viz. privacy concerns, not the issues of corruption that the tapes revealed. These publications include Times Now, Economic Times, Indian Express, Express Buzz, Deccan Chronicle and Business Standard.

Two of the corporate owned and managed publications chose to include references by Deepak Parekh and Lalit Bhasin, leveraging these apparently "authoritative sources" in favor of the underlying argument against privacy violations. No references were cited on the corruption issue. These publications were Indian Express and Economic Times.

Most of the publications captured the cautious statements of the Minister who balanced issues of privacy with those of corruption. This was represented in the headlines that spoke of 'regulations', 'curbs' and 'limits' to corporate lobbying. However two publications spun headlines that were in dissonance with all others and with their own news content. These were Indian Express and Times Now that headlined 'CorpMin gives thumbs up to lobbying, PR' and 'Khursheed for legalizing lobbying'. The only publication to underscore the obligations of corporate India was Hindu which headlined 'Stress on Ethical Business.'

With all due regard to Indian circumspection how does one justify a failure to report, to say nothing of actively misleading readers on the real context of questions posed to the Minister?! And with all due respect to Eastern mysticism and the eternal subjectivity of human experience how exactly does one explain such variance in the headlines?! Was the Minister speaking in two tongues such that twelve reporters understood a case for regulating corporate lobbying and two saw a strong justification for it instead? Should the reader blandly apprehend the report content devoid of context, be tantalizingly diverted by the headlines, or perhaps conclude that maybe, just maybe, the journalist, sub-editor and editor are beholden to the news corporation and not to journalistic ethics?

Despite the enormity of the corruption issue in the Radia tape leakage and the role played by the country's top journalists in facilitating it, the Indian media shows little accountability to the public and there are still no apologies forthcoming. On the other hand, at a recent forum by India's press corps, the President of the Editor's Guild continued to support those journalists who manufactured convenient stories and brokered deals for corporate interests.

There can be no greater disgrace than the fact that the entire dissemination of the biggest corruption story of the year was managed by citizens and nonresident Indians through the Internet. If Indian media wishes to remain relevant in the Internet age, they will have to fight for change - a working code of ethics, new leaders, better role models for the new generation of journalists, and if possible, a little humility now and then.

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Helen Davey: September 11 and the Effects of Trauma

I wrote this article exactly nine years ago in December 2001, for the American Airlines flight attendant union publication Skyword, in hopes of reaching out to those flight attendants who were suffering in silence and wouldn't ask for help with their traumatic reactions after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. American Airlines experienced the loss of two airplanes and flight crews on September 11, and tragically, in November, lost another airplane and crew in a crash that exacerbated employees' fears. This was my first published article on trauma and PTSD, and I'm posting this as a blog now in hopes that you as the reader will be able to substitute any form of trauma that you might have experienced; the information remains the same.

In this essay, I am speaking directly to the American Airlines flight attendant employees. It begins:

Many of you have been suffering since the terrorist attacks of September 11. Indeed, the crash of Flight 587 seems overwhelming to think about. Having been a Pan Am flight attendant for 20 years, and a psychotherapist for 15, I feel compelled to reach out through this article to help you understand the nature of trauma, for trauma is what these attacks have been for all of you. Perhaps if you just pretend that we're sitting on a jumpseat together, doing what flight attendants do best -- jumpseat therapy -- I can offer some ideas about what you might be feeling and why.

Most people are not aware that Pan Am employees endured continuing terrorist attacks since the 1970s, and that we had to live with constant threats as well as the loss of friends. Add to that the pressure of management problems, financial turmoil, airplane crashes, layoffs, Lockerbie and finally the fall of Pan Am, and it adds up to a traumatized work force. Aware of the turmoil that my beloved fellow employees endured, I decided to study trauma through the eyes and hearts of former Pan Am employees. I then wrote my doctoral dissertation on what I learned and titled it "A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Fall of Pan Am." I hope that it might be of some benefit to you in these uncertain and scary times.

Trauma is any event outside the usual, expectable realm of human experience that causes a reaction of intense fear, helplessness or horror. The events of September 11 certainly fall within this definition. The experience of trauma can produce post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. There are three hallmarks of PTSD. The first one is intrusive memories, which are recurring thoughts and dreams that elicit the same terror as the experience. Have you been having disturbing dreams or nightmares? Do frightening images come into your mind over and over? The second is hypervigilance, in which you stay on red alert, and any sudden noise may trigger panic or aggression. Are you worrying about "going off" on passengers, or even worse, your children and loved ones? Is your patience level markedly different since September 11? The third hallmark of PTSD is withdrawal, through which shying away from situations that stimulate painful memories isolates the sufferer. Have you been avoiding friends or family or conversations with them? Are you disappointed with their lack of empathy for you?

The symptoms of trauma can sneak up on you in subtle ways, until you finally feel overwhelmed and don't know what hit you. Symptoms vary widely from individual to individual and can include feelings of hopelessness, indifference and isolation. Insomnia is common, or the feeling of just wanting to stay in bed under the covers where it's safe. A loss of appetite or the inability to stop eating everything in sight can be experienced, as well as headaches, chest pains, feelings of intense fear when recollecting the overwhelming event, putting yourselves in the terrifying place of those who lost their lives, or imagining exactly what it was like for them. And, of course, wondering how you would have handled the same situation yourself. Persistent anxiety, jumpiness, fear, feeling out of control and excessive worry over loved ones' safety can be present.

Fundamental to the experience of trauma can be a devastating sense of helplessness. In my study of Pan Am employees, this feeling of powerlessness was a common theme. Sometimes this led to feelings of betrayal and painful disillusionment with Pan Am's management, who were seen as parental figures. However, such anger was not usually felt toward the Pan Am "family" as a whole. I can see many parallels between the feelings and behaviors of Pan Am employees and those of American Airlines employees now. Are you feeling angry about not having been protected? Some employees turn to unusual behaviors to counteract their helpless feelings. For example, they may become obsessed with gaining as much knowledge as possible about what is happening. Or they may keep their lives "orderly," cleaning out and straightening every nook and cranny in their homes. There are some flight attendants who have not even been able to unpack their bags since September 11. Others deal with the emotional trauma by a cutting off of emotion, and sometimes pushing those close to them away. Are you feeling numb or not very loving? A particularly traumatizing aspect of September 11 was the inability of so many flight attendants to get home. Many people state that they are less afraid of dying than of being helplessly stranded so far from home. They are more terrified of feeling those feelings again than they are of actually dying.

A common theme in the trauma literature, one that lies at the heart of psychological trauma and is related to a sense of helplessness, is of a sense of alienation and aloneness, and a profound despair about the improbability of ever having one's experience understood. A traumatized person can feel as if he or she is an alien to the "normal" people around them, a conviction that leads to a sense of alienation and aloneness, that an unbridgeable gulf separates him or her from the understanding of others. Anxiety slips into panic when it has to be borne in isolation. Hence, there needs to be a place where painful feelings can be shared. I know that many of you feel that family and loved ones have a hard time understanding what you're going through since September 11, and perhaps you might even feel estranged from your fellow flight attendants, especially if they are not expressing feelings of fear.

Dr. Robert Stolorow has written about the concept of trauma and the absolutism of everyday life. By "absolutism," he is referring to beliefs and assumptions whose validity are not open for discussion and that unconsciously play a role in the normality of everyday life. For example, you might say to a friend, "Have a safe trip," or, "I'll see you when you get home." These are statements whose validity isn't questioned. Such assumptions are the basis for a kind of na?ve optimism that allows one to function in the world believed to be stable and predictable. It is the essence of psychological trauma that it shatters these absolutisms, a catastrophic loss of innocence that alters one's sense of safety in the world. When one can no longer believe in the absolutism of everyday life, the universe becomes random and unpredictable. The traumatized person perceives the world differently from others, and an anguished sense of estrangement and solitude takes form.

As if this sense of estrangement and isolation were not enough to bear, another aspect of traumatization makes a difficult situation even more painful: it isn't just the shattering of illusions, or the loss, or the injury, but also the intense shame and self-loathing because of one's reaction to that trauma. Flight attendants, in my experience, seem to have a feeling that they should be emotionally invincible, impervious to fears having to do with flying. Many flight attendants have expressed feelings of humiliation to me about such fears, and this shame seems to be as painful as the fear itself. Several flight attendants have expressed thoughts such as "if I were strong or spiritually grounded, I wouldn't be feeling depressed or anxious." Thus, ordinary feelings that many people in a similar situation would experience are felt to be somehow shameful.

Some flight attendants may be feeling more traumatized than others, and this seems important to understand. Just because some people are frightened and unable to fly right now doesn't mean that they are weak or don't have strong character. The situation is made worse for some people because it represents a "retraumatization," a feeling of repetition of a childhood history of trauma, which leaves them more vulnerable. That childhood trauma can be anything, including the early death of a parent or family member, early separation from loved ones through divorce or tragedy, or any form of abuse or extreme disillusionment. "Retraumatization" happens most often when there is a close replication of the original trauma, such as a loss of the way of life as one knew it, loss of a sense of power, loss of a sense of safety, loss of a sense of innocence, loss of a sense of control or brings back a state such as fear, horror, shock, panic or helplessness. For example, what happened on September 11 could be experienced as much worse by someone who early on in life has already experienced a shattering loss.

People who have already had an experience with trauma while flying are more likely to be "retraumatized" by the events of September 11. Such trauma can take the form of a major illness onboard the aircraft, an aircraft evacuation, an assault on a passenger or crew member, the death of a passenger, an airplane crash or any perception of serious threat to self, other crew members or passengers. Many of you may have "gotten right back on the horse" after other incidents, and never really understood its impact on you. So, September 11 may have just compounded an already existing but unrecognized traumatic state. For example, a dangerous experience with turbulence could easily disturb one's sense of safety, and revive old feelings about an earlier loss of a sense of control in life, such as the divorce of one's parents. Also, one might expect that any disaster that happens subsequent to September 11 will have a similar "retraumatizing" impact, as did the crash of Flight 587.

Your most important function at work besides safety has always been to provide passengers with a sense of comfort and reassurance, and a denial of the possibility of death. I am imaging you offering "coffee, tea or immortality," and that's an extremely difficult task when you're feeling at risk yourself. It's important that each one of you be able to find a place within a relationship for your disturbing experiences and feelings, rather than having to bear them alone, and to recognize that there's nothing inherently shameful about these painful experiences and fears. Shame only contributes to keeping feelings hidden and makes you emotionally isolated. I urge you to tell each other how you're really feeling. Getting together in small groups to talk can be extremely helpful. Leaning on your religious or spiritual faith can be of great comfort. Symptoms of trauma do improve with time and talking about it. If, however, you continue to experience symptoms after reaching out to family or friends or faith, then it's time to seek out the help of a professional therapist.

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Dr. Paul Zeitz: GLOBAL ACTION ALERT: Call for Wiki-Justice System for Inclusive, Divere Participation in "American Idea" and "Global Idea" Competitions Which are Planned to be Launched on 1 January 2011: Today is 30 Days Until Global Marches for Justice on 17 January 201

Iraq Sanctions: UN Security Council Lifts Key Restrictions

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council gave a unanimous vote of confidence Wednesday to the significant strides Iraq has taken by lifting 19-year-old sanctions on weapons and civilian nuclear power.

The council also decided to return control of Iraq's oil and natural gas revenue to the government next summer and to settle all remaining claims over the controversial oil-for-food program, which helped ordinary Iraqis cope with sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's army invaded Kuwait two decades ago.

Although some sanctions will remain in place until Iraq and Kuwait settle outstanding issues from that war, Wednesday's vote was a major step to restore Iraq's international standing a year before the U.S. is to pull its last troops out of the country. It came a day after a power-sharing agreement ended a lengthy deadlock on forming a new Iraqi government.

Vice President Joe Biden, who presided over the meeting, told the council the move marked "an important milestone for the government of Iraq and people of Iraq in their ongoing effort to leave behind their troubled past and embrace a much brighter future."

"The three resolutions we've passed bring an end to the burdensome remnants of the dark era of Saddam Hussein," he said.

Biden's presence was a sign of the importance the Obama administration gave to the vote. The U.S. holds the Security Council presidency this month.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the adoption of the resolutions "marks the beginning of the end of the sanctions regime and restrictions on Iraq's sovereignty, independence and recovery."

"Our key focus has been to unburden Iraq from the heavy legacy of non-compliance with international law and to break its isolation and regain its rightful place among the community of nations," he told the council.

Zebari said in an interview with The Associated Press that Biden's presence and the resolutions "showed continued American engagement with Iraq – that it's not abandoned."

Iraq has been pressing the Security Council for several years to end sanctions and cancel more than 70 resolutions adopted after Saddam's war against Kuwait.

Zebari said following the council's votes Wednesday only about a dozen resolutions remain, all related to outstanding issues between Iraq and Kuwait.

The council expressed confidence in Iraq's commitments to nonproliferation by lifting sanctions against acquiring weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles or pursuing a civilian nuclear power program.

Iraq's constitution bars the country from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and Baghdad is a party to most of the main nuclear, chemical, biological and missile treaties.

The council had said in February that it would lift the ban on Iraq's use of civilian nuclear power after it ratified several additional international treaties along with a protocol that allows the International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out unannounced inspections.

Iraq has not done so, mainly because of the failure to form a new government. On Wednesday, the council urged Iraq to ratify the protocol and the nuclear test ban treaty "as soon as possible." It also asked for a progress report in 12 months.

Zebari said in the interview that lifting these sanctions was "very, very significant" because it will enable the Iraqi ministries of higher education, health and agriculture to import technologies, pesticides and other materials that were banned because they had both civilian and military uses.

Ending sanctions will also enable the defense ministry to buy artillery or missiles with a range beyond 150 kilometers (90 miles), which "means that Iraq again would be a normal country like any other country," he said.

Zebari said every country should have the right to a civilian nuclear program, "but for a country like ours that has been the victims of Saddam's policies and belligerence and aggression and defiance, I think we'll think twice before going down any road close to that."

A second resolution, adopted unanimously, ends the international management of the Development Fund for Iraq on June 30, 2011. The fund was set up after Saddam's regime was toppled in 2003 to try to ensure that the proceeds of the country's gas and oil sales were used to help its people and restore its economy.

The resolution, which will end Iraq's immunity from claims on the proceeds, calls on Iraq to set up a successor mechanism. The resolution ensures that 5 percent of oil and gas revenue will still go into a compensation fund, used mainly to pay Kuwaiti claims from the war, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The third resolution, terminating all remaining activities of the oil-for-food program, was adopted by a vote of 14-0 with France abstaining. France's U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud said it "did not include all of the safeguards we thought was necessary for our support."

The resolution authorizes U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to ensure that $20 million from the account is retained in escrow until Dec. 31, 2016, for U.N. expenses related to ending the program, and another $131 million to meet all other activities related to the fund including outstanding contracts.

The council said the rest of the money in the program – which U.S. officials estimate at about $650 million – should be transferred to the Development Fund for Iraq "as soon as possible."

The oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, allowed Iraq to sell oil so long as most of the money went to buy humanitarian goods. It was aimed at easing Iraqi suffering under U.N. sanctions and was a lifeline for 90 percent of the country's population.

But an 18-month U.N.-sanctioned investigation led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found massive corruption in the program. Its final report in October 2005 accused more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of colluding with Saddam's regime to bilk $1.8 billion.

In May 2003, weeks after the U.S. invaded Iraq, the council lifted economic sanctions, opening the country to international trade and investment and allowing oil exports to resume. In June 2004, the council lifted an embargo on the sale of conventional weapons to the government.

Iraq's outstanding issues with Kuwait include the major obstacle of demarcating their border as well as accounting for 600 missing Kuwaitis, returning missing property and archives, and the estimated $22 billion Baghdad owes Kuwait as reparations for the invasion.

Zebari told the council "there has been positive cooperation and exchange between our two governments to resolve and settle all pending issues," but he said "Iraq still has some way to go" reach a final agreement.

Saddam's invasion of Kuwait came as the country was just recovering from a draining eight-year war with Iran. Baghdad had long been a regional power and cultured society with the highest literacy rate in Arab world – but with violence lurking just under the surface.

A U.S.-led force drove Saddam's army out of Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, and the U.N. then imposed the sanctions. The second war – when a U.S.-led force invaded Iraq and toppled the regime in 2003 – was ostensibly to stop Saddam from developing weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons were never found.

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Michael Giltz: DVDs: Peanuts & Other New Holiday Titles

Okay, you already own It's A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story and some Rankin Bass. But maybe you need a new title or two to spruce up your holiday DVD collection. Here are some recent releases to consider:

PEANUTS HOLIDAY COLLECTION ($42.98 BluRay or $39.98 regular; Warner Bros.) -- Okay, if you own any TV specials at all you probably own one of the previous DVD collections that features the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas. But the myriad Peanuts specials have been packaged and repackaged so many times it's impossible to keep track of them all. So what's the draw here? Well, BluRay of course, not to mention a deluxe version with a snowglobe and some other doodads. The prints have always been taken care of by Warner Bros., so the improvement of these very old TV shows isn't dramatic, but they do look good. The sale price of the BluRay edition costs almost TWICE as much as the regular DVDs, which is ridiculous. After all these years, just give us one definitive set of every Peanuts special ever made and be done with it. If money is no object and for some reason you don't already own that Peanuts classic, this set contains it and It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (their other major classic), A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and three bonus specials.

THE YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS ($24.98; Warner Bros.) -- One of the best Rankin/Bass specials, you wouldn't know it by the packaging but this set also contains the so-so Nestor, The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey and Rudolph's Shiny New Year. Add in some extras and you've got about two hours of entertainment. Of course, if your kids aren't around you'll just jump to "Heat Miser" and sing along. BluRay looks better but not dramatically so; no surprise on such old titles made for TV.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL ($39.99; Disney) -- I'm still not down with director Robert Zemeckis and his modern spin on rotoscoping -- live actors do a scene and then it gets animated. As with his earlier film The Polar Express, the animated characters seem stiff and a little dead in the eyes. The work is improved but still not ready for prime time. However, overlooked in the technological boundary-pushing is the fact that Jim Carrey gives one of his best performances in years as Scrooge. His work is subtle, funny, menacing and real. Too bad it's hidden in a film that thinks the timeless classic by Charles Dickens needs jazzing up by shrinking down Scrooge and send him rocketing down streets or up into the night sky. Absurd.

IT'S A VERY MERRY MUPPET CHRISTMAS ($14.98; Universal) -- A Muppet spin on It's A Wonderful Life with Kermit finding out that indeed the world would have been worse off if he had never been a little tadpole, not better. The draw here for this so-so Muppet entry is a nine song CD with the gang caroling through holiday standards like "Deck The Halls."

SANTA CLAUS: THE MOVIE ($14.98; Lionsgate) -- A stodgy precursor to the Will Ferrell comedy Elf (which is quite good), Santa Claus: The Movie fails on several levels. First, a movie about Santa Claus shouldn't spend half the film focusing on an elf, even if the elf is played by Dudley Moore. On the other hand, trying to recapture the magic of Superman: The Movie by replicating the formula of that classic film. Unfortunately, rather than elevating the Superman myth by treating it like an epic, almost Christ-like origin story, doing the same with Santa Claus just seems tiresome and vaguely absurd. Still with me? Probably not. And the movie doesn't hold your attention any better.

PHINEAS AND FERB: A VERY PERRY CHRISTMAS ($19.99; Warner Bros.) -- This is a good bargain: you get an amusing P&F Christmas special along with a batch of other episodes and a welcome number of extras like a karaoke function that lets you sing along with Perry, Christmas wish lists for all the characters and more. Cheeky humor with pop cultural references put this in the Looney Tunes vein. The only shame is that fans of the show don't have the option to purchase an entire season of episodes. But kids shows almost always seem to get divvied up into multiple sets for some reason.

NATIVITY! ($14.98; Freestyle) -- Decent family fare that mixes Glee with the holidays by having a hapless high school teacher mount a musical Nativity special. The main draw here is Martin Freeman, charming as always. He's enshrined forever thanks to the UK version of The Office, but when you toss in the current modern spin on Sherlock Holmes (he plays Dr. Watson) an the upcoming film(s) The Hobbit, with Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, and you've got a genuine pop culture icon in the making. This doesn't spruce up his resume but it's no embarrassment either.

ALSO OUT:

NUTCRACKER SWEET ($14.98; Lionsgate) -- My little friend Katie Rose absolutely LOVES Angelina Ballerina and she's sure to eat this up when I give it to her. Reviews are meaningless in this context.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, OLIVIA ($16.99; Paramount) -- I'm a big fan of the Olivia books by Ian Falconer but still can't quite buy Olivia in this computer-animated version. Still, the holidays bring out the pushy best in Olivia.

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS ($19.98; Warner Bros.) -- The magic of Rankin/Bass did not transfer to animation: stop-motion is the format where they shine. Plus, 24 minutes of minor R/B for $20 is simply far too much.

CHANUKAH: THE MISSING MENORAH ($14.95; Shalom Sesame) -- Grover's bringing the latkas...but where's the menorah? Given the paucity of Jewish-themed holiday specials, this is especially welcome.

*****
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It's available free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and gain access to thousands of ratings and reviews.

NOTE: Michael Giltz is provided with free copies of DVDs to consider for review. He typically does not guarantee coverage and invariably receives far more screeners and DVDs than he can cover each week. Also, Michael Giltz freelances as a writer of DVD copy (the text that appears on the back of DVDs) for some titles released by IFC and other subsidiaries of MPI. It helps pay the rent, but does not obligate him in any way to speak positively or negatively of their titles.

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Patricia Handschiegel: The New Power Girls: 5 Habits Business Travelers Must Have Today

It was a simple enough trip. A business traveler, on the way home from a few days of meetings in a remote city, is stranded by way of an airline with the reputation of rarely getting passengers to their destination, let alone on time. The option of two hotels are offered, and the Sheraton Airport Hotel Tempe, near Phoenix, is selected -- after all, it's a Starwood hotel, the same company that owns the Westin and other properties. By no means the highest of the lodging food chain but by no stretch usually horrible. The idea of forgoing the airline's options and selecting a separate hotel was considered, but it was late and had been a long day. The flight was delayed, then had mechanical failure, then ran out of food after keeping passengers on the runway for over two hours. The stay at the hotel would be less than eight hours, less than the average work day.

It wasn't surprising afterward to read the reviews online about the hotel being "dirty," "in need of cleaning" and "lice infested." That was the near exact experience. One guest shared that they found a pair of men's underwear in plain sight in the bathroom, clearly due to the room they were in never being cleaned. Another talked about there being hair in the drain of the sink. In fact, more reviews referenced the hotel being filthy and poorly maintained than anything else. It was stunning that the airline would put its passengers in such a dirty and poorly managed place.

It's not the first horror story you've heard about business travel. Today entrepreneurs and executives aren't just being hit by airlines cutting back and increasing costs, security measures and other obstacles, but dirty hotels, bed bugs and a whole host of other things. The Sheraton is an example. Here's what you can do about it:

1. Google search all hotels before you stay in them, and include the words "lice," "bed bugs," and "scabies." Fortunately sites like Trip Advisor and Yelp give candid details about the experience consumers have, good or bad. While bed bugs can spread to even the cleanest hotels, there are a bunch of sites dedicated to alerting travelers of hotels that have infestations.

2. Take note of the room, bed, etc. the minute you get in. While you may have a particular hotel you like to stay in and are confident in its management, the hotel an airline puts you in might be another story. Regardless, take stock of the room the minute you walk in, including foul odors, dirty surfaces, etc. If the room doesn't seem up to par, ask for another immediately.

3. Invest in a hard case suitcase. You've got a better chance of protecting yourself and your items from bugs and other problems with hard case luggage over fabric and other materials. While bugs can still get in by way of zippers, etc., they won't be able to sneak through fabric fibers, etc. There are also luggage and travel bags that seal in your clothing and bags available online and in stores.

4. Do not unpack, and do not put your suitcase on the floor. A lot of people immediately unpack their clothes in their hotel rooms, or throw their suitcase on the floor. Avoid this, as clothing in drawers, etc. can be exposed to insects, while suitcases on carpeting can suffer the same.

5. Act immediately. If you feel something crawling on you in the bed at night, chances are there is something crawling on you. Immediately get up, remove your clothing and take a hot shower. Put the clothing in the sink so that nothing else you own is affected, then have it bagged in a sealable bag and if you can, keep it out of your luggage. Do not bring your suitcase or any of its contents into your home once you've returned. Either leave it in the car for a few days (the heat or cold should kill most bugs) or remove everything from it and wash immediately in the hottest water you can.

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