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CREDIT • COnTIDUED FROITH rent at all without a credit card, and luxury cars are out of the question. Even when you can rent a car with cash, get ready for some red tape. You must come armed with a drivers license, a passport and a round trip airline, cruise or train ticket. Then you must put down a $300 cash deposit and pay the rental charge in advance. And don’t even think about a check, says spokesman Charles Pulley. Plus, Pulley advises letting the destination know in advance that you’re coming because the company will check with your employers to pre-qualify you. Why so strict? “Our $25,000 to $30,000 vehicle is a movable asset,” Mr. Pulley says. “In this day and age, not to have a credit card? Who are you? And you want us to give you a $25,000 vehicle? It’s about establishing credibility.” BOOK A TRIP If you don’t use plastic, consider travel agents your new best friends. Actually, says Robert Sessions, manager of STA Travel in Dallas, about 30 percent of the location’s largely college student clientele pay with cash, since many debit cards have a withdrawal limit and people are wary of putting large purchases on a credit card. The agency also accepts money orders and cashier’s checks, and welcomes personal checks if they are written more than a week before departure for nonrefundable charges, because otherwise “by the time I find out that the check has bounced, the person is already in another country,” he says. In addition, many tours and packages allow you to pay in installments after an initial deposit. A couple of caveats: To reserve a hotel room, you must pre-pay as much as the entire stay, depending on the hotel. Also, some discount European airlines only accept credit cards, Sessions says. CHARGE A MARGARITA So you’ve booked the cruise, but once you’re on board, most major cruise lines don’t accept cash for on-board purchases — instead cruise lines typically keep a running tab for drinks, spa treatments, gift-shop buys and other on-board expenses and charge it to your credit card at the end of the voyage. But you can pay cash even in this “cashless” system, says Vance Gulliksen, spokesman for Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines. Those cruising may make a $100 cash deposit — the amount may vary among cruise lines — instead of providing a credit-card number once on board, and the cruise will refund any unspent dollars at the cruise’s end. ® ZEUS Marketing Researcher Zeus Industrial Products, Inc. is the leading manufacturer of fluoropolymer tubing for use in the medical device, aerospace, electronics, analytical, semiconductor, and environmental industries. We are seeking qualified candidates for the position of Marketing Researcher. The Marketing Researcher is responsible for researching and reporting on new market opportunities for future and current product lines. The researcher will work with the Marketing Project Manager to develop strategies for market penetration and product launch campaigns. The Marketing Researcher will interact closely with top management in both the medical and industrial sides of the organization. Bachelors degree plus 2 years of manufacturing marketing experience is preferred. Knowledge of the plastics industry a plus. Zeus Industrial Products, Inc., is an energetic, exciting, growing company offering competitive compensation, benefits package. Please visit our web site at www.zeusinc.com. Please send your resume and salary requirements to: Zeus Industrial Products, Inc., P.O. Box 2167, Orangeburg, SC, 29116. Attention: HR, or use or e-mail address: marketing@zeusinc.com. Our fax is 803-536-5550. No phone calls please! EOE/M/F/D/V Scantily-clad women adorn conservation ad But Mexican womens rights groups decry campaign as disrespectful objectification Laurence lliff KRT CAMPUS' MEXICO CITY — Showing some skin to reach Mexico’s macho consumers isn’t a new idea. Sexy women sell everything from tools to beer. But the use of an underwear clad model in ads to protect sea turtles has earned one U.S. ecology group protests from women’s advocates. The “sexy campaign,” as the San Diego-based group Wildcoast calls it, is designed to stop Mexican men from consuming raw turtle eggs that have been illegally marketed as an aphrodisiac. The eggs are sold on the Pacific Coast, in Mexico City and elsewhere. Although an estimated 14 million golf-ball-sized turtle eggs were deposited on one Oaxaca state beach earlier this month, environmentalists insist that the aphrodisiac myth is a serious threat to the turtles and worthy of an edgy campaign. One poster features Argentine .model Dorismar lying in a provocative pose with the words “My man doesn’t need turtle eggs” in large type above her. “Because he knows they don’t make him more potent,” the caption continues, above an image of three turtles scooting along a Mexican beach. “No more Smokey Bear,” the group said in announcing the campaign this month. The campaign uses three posters featuring Dorismar in provocative poses (www.tortugamarina.com). The posters are to be hung in restaurants, bars and public places beginning in September — the height of turtle breeding season. There also are plans for the ads to appear on billboards and buses. Mexican womens groups, which now cope with issues such as rampant sexual harassment and a wave of sex killings of mosdy young women, want a cold shower dumped on the “sexy campaign.” * “It’s outrageous,” said Patricia Espinosa Torres, the head of the federal government’s Women’s Institute, in an interview with the Mexico City newspaper Reforma. “It lacks the least respect for the dignity of a woman and places her only as a stereotype, an ornament.” The federal government and the state government of Guerrero have signed on to the $30,000 advertising campaign but provided none of the money. The Federal Environmental p Special to Til E (JAM EGQCK This ad reads, ‘My man doesn’t need turtle eggs.' I Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that it had “not designed, financed nor distributed these posters in any manner,” although its phone number appears on the posters to report violations. “The prosecutor’s office considers it an obligation of all to protect the sea turtle, without offending the dignity of women.’” - , Guerrero Environmental Minister Daniel Monroy Ojeda said state authorities could not prevent the privately financed campaign from going forward, while the state Women’s Ministry suggested that it be “modified.” “Such campaigns do not need to be carried out utilizing the image of women as sexual objects and consumer goods,” said the head of the ministry, Rosa Maria Gomez, in a statement. -1-- — ' » A 30 miniAteg? ||§||gjp&f|^ I ' » America's Choicem Calling Plans $39.99 monthly access and higher: Plus, NO ROAMING Coverage not available everywhere. UNLIMITED^) CALLING to any Verizon Wireless customer. 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