Travel Blogging X

Bled, Slovenia - This post will be some random thoughts coming out of this and other trips. First, bus drivers. More specifically European bus drivers. They drive full-size buses through tiny little villages on one lane streets, places you or I would hesitate to drive a medium-sized car. They drive along roads like those in Bond movies, barely a lane wide with no guard rails, clinging to the side of an Alp, at a pretty good clip. And the buses rarely have so much as a scratch. Considerable skill is at work here, and nobody seems to notice much.

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Outdoor farmers' markets that we do one day a week in the states, they do daily in Europe and make money in the process. Imagine selling meat, cheese, bread, vegetables, fruit, plus crafts and sometimes off-the-wall things like shoes, under umbrellas in the city square. It works because people live in town.

Many Europeans prefer to live downtown in owned or rented apartments. We learned that the less affluent Croatians were forced to move to the suburbs because housing in downtown Zagreb was too expensive. That strikes many Americans who live in the suburbs by choice as simply backwards. Go figure.

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Repeatedly we hear that in Croatia and Slovenia people are not particularly religious. This trait they share with the rest of Europe, which is said to be in a post-religious phase except for the Muslim immigrants.

In the Balkans the Muslim immigrants are not Arabs, Africans, or Asians. Instead they are European Muslims from Bosnia or Albania. Here as everywhere else, they are a problem. We heard and saw a protest march by Bosnians in downtown Ljubljana, complaining about poor wages and treatment as second class citizens. In truth they probably are not citizens.

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There are RVs in Europe but they are smaller than those in the States. There are conventional trailers, but almost no 5th wheel trailers because there are almost no pickup trucks to pull them. There are class C and class A motorhomes, again not large. There are few class B motorhomes (van conversions). I wonder where Europeans park their RVs when not in use? I don't believe I've seen what we in the States call a "boneyard," or RV storage yard.

A typical RV campground here provides only electric hookups. You'd think they'd provide water as a hookup, they don't. They provide water to fill your RV's tank. I suppose like the RV parks in New Zealand they have ample showers and WCs. Many of their RV parks are along rivers or lakes, not unusual. I've not seen the sort of classy RV park that exists in the U.S. Most of them here look a little run down. They probably only operate 4-5 months a year.

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I suspect that most Americans don't know much about the Adriatic coast of the Balkans, how scenic much of it is. It has been a place Europeans have come for vacations in the same way they've gone to the Greek islands and Turkey. The combination of mountains and seacoast with the occasional walled town or castle is very picturesque, if only I could read the language.

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I wonder why Europeans don't buy pickup trucks while Americans do? In New Zealand you see one occasionally, they call them "utes" which stands for utility vehicle. The most popular single vehicle in North America is the Ford F 150 pickup, with the Chevy and Dodge units not far behind. Is there anywhere else on the planet where light trucks are the modal vehicle? This says something about our cultures, how they differ. If only I could figure out what it is.

Maybe it's related to that live-in-town predilection noted above. Light trucks are very handy to help suburban home owners bring home bulky stuff that urban apartment dwellers have little use for and no place to store (e.g., lawn mowers or patio furniture). Trucks are also useful to haul yard waste to the land fill, a problem those living in apartments don't need to solve.

Balz on the Economy and the 2012 Election

Dan Balz, who writes politics for The Washington Post, does a very useful column on the impact upon the Obama campaign of the double economic shocks of the past week: lower home prices and worse unemployment.

Balz at long last concludes something that has been obvious for months:

Blaming former president George W. Bush for the mess is no longer effective.

No kidding.

Samuelson on Medicare

Robert Samuelson, an economist who writes for Newsweek, has trenchant comments to make about Medicare, government-paid healthcare for seniors. He says:

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that unless we end Medicare "as we know it," America "as we know it" will end. Spiraling health spending is the crux of our federal budget problem.

Samuelson summarizes the history of health care spending and concludes as follows:

Burdened by runaway spending, Medicare "as we know it" is going to end. The only questions are when and on whose terms.

That lad doesn't mince words. See his whole column for a good overview of the issue. BTW, I'm a senior.

Noonan on the Debt Ceiling and Obama

You remember the Muppets' Miss Piggy? This column has its own "lady who knows" at least some of the time and she's Miss Peggy, Peggy Noonan. She has a good Wall Street Journal column about the debt ceiling and whether or not Washington will be able to solve the problems it poses.

She ends with a take-down of Barack Obama that is reasonably brutal, regular readers of COTTonLINE will enjoy it. Here is a choice tidbit therefrom:

Barack Obama is different, not a political practitioner, really, but something else, and not a warm-blooded animal but a cool, chill character, a fish who sits deep in the tank and stares, stilly, at the other fish.

Regardless of where he was born, Barack Obama doesn't understand how to be an American. As a child he didn't learn the culture and keeps trying, unsuccessfully, to fake it. That is why the birthers believed him born elsewhere. He has a foreigner's view of our foreign policy, of our role in the world. Americans notice this.

Quote of the Day

Bill Maher, political comic and TV host, on the qualifications for U.S. president, in the context of Sarah Palin winning the presidency:

I think anybody could be president in this dumb f**king country.

The last two incumbents have certainly established the truth of his comment. Wouldn't it be nice to have an adult in the oval office?

One is strongly tempted to say, borrowing a line from J.K. Rowling's character Draco Malfoy, "Language, Maher." The source for the Maher quote is this page at RealClearPolitics.

Travel Blogging IX

Bled, Slovenia - Talk about a beautiful place with an unfortunate name, Bled is that place. It is Slovenia's mountains-and-lakes Alpine park. The houses look like Switzerland, the Julian Alps aren't as massive as the Swiss Alps but still impressive, the lakes bring to mind Canada's Lake Louise, and everything is green, green, green.

Yesterday we left Zagreb and drove to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Locals like to point out to English speakers that theirs is the only country with love in its name - S love nia.

Ljubljana is a pleasant city whose old downtown section is very charming and very walkable. I think I like it the best of the larger cities we've visited, maybe in part because it is relatively flat and easy to stroll. Unlike Zagreb, Ljubljana has no kamikaze streetcars charging along at speed crammed with passengers.

They were holding a concours d'elegance in the Ljubljana main square, reminding us of the one we saw in Baden Baden some years ago. The city has a very nice open-air market with foodstuffs and folk crafts. Built on both sides of a river at the base of a high hill with a castle on top, Ljubljana is a university town which brings money and young people to the city, not to mention faculty and staff.

We did not overnight in Ljubljana but drove on at day's end to Bled. The whole country of Slovenia is green, a majority of it being covered with forest. Bled is even greener, if possible, and the lakes are beautiful, if not terribly large. They hold rowing competitions on Lake Bled, probably because it is almost always dead calm. Bled townsite is anything but flat; anywhere you go you are up or down a hill, often on steps.

The local farmers hang their hay on roofed-over ladder-like structures, we've never seen the like anywhere and we pay attention to farming structures. Standing in a hay rack our OAT guide poured us each an ounce of blueberry brandy - not too strong and very tasty. I suspect I could make something that tasted very like it with vodka, simple syrup, and blueberries, cut with water to the right potency. They leave the berries in the brandy bottle, which is fun. You wouldn't want to spill this blue brandy on your clothes, I think it might stain.

Our guide resembles a robust Valkyrie, I can imagine her wearing a steel bra, a helmet with horns, her long blonde hair braided, holding a spear. She looks like a Valkyrie but doesn't at all act like one, she's a very happy lady, always laughing and a good guide. The other group's guide doesn't look like a Valkyrie but acts like one - her voice is about a baritone and she can be bossy.

P.S. Southern Croatia, along the Adriatic coast, is called Dalmatia, one of the two regions in Croatia. During the several days we were in Dalmatia we only saw one black spotted white Dalmatian dog. I guess that's fair, we only saw one Siamese cat in Thailand.

Eagleburger Remembered

Lawrence Eagleburger, former secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush (aka Bush 1), has died at age 80. He had a distinguished career as a diplomat, and is the only foreign service officer to rise to secretary of state. See this BBC News article for details.

I find it odd the article didn't mention Eagleburger was a protege of Dr. Henry Kissinger. Kissinger was secretary of state in the Nixon administration and the best foreign policy mind of the past century.

Unemployed Unrepresented

COTTonLINE normally doesn't provide links to articles by Robert Reich, who is a former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. He was one of the more left wing members of the Clinton cabinet.

This Los Angeles Times article by little Bobby Reich is an exception. He says some things about unemployment that aren't often said. For example, we hear that men got hit harder than women in this recession. Reich says it was true, but women are getting hit in the later parts of the recession during which some men are being rehired. He adds that unmarried mothers are particularly hard hit by unemployment, as are older workers.

Reich takes some demographic slices through the unemployment data that are unusual and interesting. His basic point is that these people are underrepresented in the halls of power in Washington. Leaving this plea for the unfortunate aside, his analysis is interesting.

What To Talk About

Dorothy Rabinowitz who writes for The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article laying out what a Republican needs to be telling the American people if he or she would be elected president. She speaks a great deal of good sense concerning foreign policy, not letting other nations tell us who we should be, and the importance of preserving the sense of Social Security and Medicare, even if we must change the details in order to make the programs sustainable. Do yourself a favor and go read her short, serious article.

Travel Blogging VIII

Varazdin, Croatia - Locals don't call it "Croatia" but "Hrvatska" which to my ears doesn't sound at all like Croatia. You see cars with oval white stickers with two black letters designating what country the car is from; the ones from here use the letters HR. I guess the analog would be that Germans don't call their country Germany, etc. I shall continue to call these countries by their English appellations.

This part of the world has never heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act, nor does it have a local equivalent. There are stairs everywhere and you'd better be prepared to climb 'em. The sidewalks, where they exist, tend to have the wheelchair ramps at corners but the tourist attractions are not for the mobility-impaired, or whatever we now call the halt and the lame.

Today we took an excursion up toward the borders with Hungary and Slovenia to the town of Varazdin, known for its old world charm and actually a former capital of Croatia until it suffered a big wildfire, after which it was rebuilt in mostly baroque style while the capital was moved to Zagreb. The DrsC felt the town could be mistaken for a German or Austrian town if you didn't read the signs.

Varazdin has a castle/palace that didn't burn, as it was surrounded by a real, wet moat. The castle is an interesting visit as today it is a museum of early furniture, glassware, weapons, etc.

I found the building itself more interesting than the contents. It began as a pre-firearms fortification and was rebuilt by an Italian military architect to withstand cannon fire. He surrounded the castle with earthen berms, kept the moat, and converted the square keep into a round keep as round bounces off cannon balls. Of course in addition to being a fortification it was also a residence and a rather elegant one for the period and region.

The town was full of children of about age 9 who appeared to be there on field trips. It was abundantly clear that a baroque town is lost on children of that age. They were noisy and a little rowdy, paying little attention to the architecture and culture. Furthermore, I saw no one trying to interest them therein. I suspect the main thing they will remember is the ice cream cone they had.

Croatia is a Catholic country in the same way Spain or France is, but more so. A religious difference with the Orthodox Serbs was one of the issues in the recent (early 1990s) war of independence. It is an issue that binds them more closely to Catholic Austria and Germany and western Europe generally while Serbs share the Orthodox faith with the Russians.

I haven't mentioned that the Pope is coming to Zagreb tomorrow. A visit from the Pope is a big deal here. Some folks in our group are to fly out tomorrow at roughly the same time as the Pope arrives - that could be a nightmare. Most of us continue on to Slovenia to visit Ljubljana and Bled.

More on Peru's Election

Mary Anastasia O'Grady writes about Latin America for The Wall Street Journal. In this article, rerun on Americas Forum, she considers the two candidates for president in Peru: Humala and Fujimori. Mostly she is worried about Humala, who has a dodgy history including an attempted military coup. She admits, however, that there are worries about Fujimori as well, based on how her father governed as president.

Many of the seeming political conflicts in Latin America are really racial conflicts in disguise. The poor tend to be indigenous people (aka Native Americans) while the more affluent tend to be of entirely or largely European stock. O'Grady says this is true of today's Peru. It is certainly true of Bolivia, and several other nations in the region.

Travel Blogging VII

Zagreb, Croatia - This is an old city, the hotel we're staying in, the Palace, is over 100 years old. It truly became important when Croatia became independent in 1991 and it became a capital. In my mind Zagreb is associated with the cold war, it often featured in books about that era.

Zagreb is the largest city in Croatia, with an official population of three-quarters of a million, and an actual population of about a million. The difference between the official and actual populations has to do with people continuing to claim as residence their home on one of the islands, or a village in the mountains. They do this to help out their home village with voting population, while staying in Zagreb to earn a living.

People are free to live where they choose and could easily switch their residence to Zagreb, but opt not to do so. I think it's like people in the U.S. continuing to support their home-town sports team, even though they live across the country.

Thirty years ago when I went to Europe I saw cars that looked really different from those in the States. That is a lot less true today. The nameplates are different, here I see Peugeot, Skoda, Citroen, Renault. But the body styles aren't very different, at least here in the Balkans. I haven't seen any three wheelers, and relatively few Smart Cars which we are now beginning to get in the U.S. One exception is a Mercedes Benz vehicle that is a small van, or a short-nosed, four-door SUV that looks like it would sell in the U.S.

We are in a downtown area now and it is likely many people don't own cars. Away from the city center everybody has a car, and drives it in spite of high gas prices. The roads are narrow, the buses and trucks are full-sized, the cars are small, and there are a fair number of motorcycles. Oh, yes, and the bicyclists ride on the sidewalks at considerable hazard to pedestrians. On the other hand the road from Split to Zagreb is a first class, limited-access tollway

Driving on streets shared with streetcars has to be a specialized skill, one few Americans have. Our tour bus stopped in the middle of the street to offload us as there were streetcar tracks along both sides of the street. We were warned to watch out for the light rail before getting out of the bus. The trolleys move along at a good clip, and I'm not clear whether they are supposed to obey stop lights. At busy times the streetcars are packed like sardine cans, you can imagine Japanese subway packers shoving the people in.

The other DrC says she likes Zagreb and I'll admit it has some charm. I persist, however, in my long-held view that living in cities is unattractive and to be avoided if possible. It is no accident that I live in rural areas, I grew up in one. I rode the big yellow bus to school from the third grade on.

Our Dysfunctional Post Office

Our post office, the USPS, is on the brink of bankruptcy. It probably will receive another of those costly government bailouts.

Here is a brief article about its problems and the roadblocks in the way of solving those problems, in National Review Online. Believe it or not, this is an area where Europe is ahead of us - one of a few.

It seems to me USPS should be able to charge advertising mailers anything it chooses, with the obvious understanding that, if the fees go too high, direct mail advertising will mostly disappear. I see no reason why Congress should control anything other than first class mail fees.

Dereliction of Duty

It appears that Senate Democrats, who are the majority, have decided not to even try to propose a budget. I'm guessing their reasoning goes as follows: If we propose a big spending budget we please our base but turn off independents. If we propose a deficit-cutting budget we please independents and outrage our base. If we don't propose a budget it's possible both groups will be happy.

See this post by John Hinderaker of Powerline, for details. I particularly like these two quotes, the first he cites from Dana Milbank of The Washington Post:

Although there's general agreement that the most pressing issue facing the federal government is its runaway finances, the Democrat-controlled Senate hasn't passed a budget in 762 days, a new standard for dereliction of duty.

The second Hinderaker quotes from an editorial of the left-leaning New York Times:

If Democrats are ever going to regain the momentum in the national conversation, they have to stand for something.

That's the problem with "big tent" politics; sometimes you cannot please everybody you'll need to reach a majority.

Two Weak Teams

Pundits are having a field day describing the GOP presidential hopefuls as "weak candidates." On the other hand, John Hinderaker of Powerline describes President Obama as a weak candidate. I hope I can be excused for concluding that they both are right.

Now it's time to descend into sports metaphor. When two strong teams play each other a good game should be the result. When a weak team plays a strong team the result is normally a rout.

What happens when two weak teams play each other? If they are evenly matched you could get another relatively good game, albeit one punctuated by some spectacular errors.

In 2012 when a weak President runs against a relatively weak candidate, perhaps we will be entertained by one or both making some giant goofs. Stand by for an episode of the Two Stooges.

A presidential election is a zero-sum game. The downside of this amusing process is that we will spend the next four years suffering with the ineptitude of the victor.

Many Dems Hear the Drums

A bill was put before the House of Representatives raising the debt ceiling without any strings attached. All Republicans voted "no" and 82 Democrats voted with them! Another 7 Democrats voted "present," I guess they learned that trick from their President. The final vote was 318 against and 97 for. Find the details in this article from The Hill.

I wonder how Senate Democrats, who have a majority, will respond to that bipartisan vote in the House? As I see it they have two basic choices: go along with the House on budget cutting, or accept gridlock.

Spengler: Disaster Looms

David P. Goldman who writes for the Asia Times under the nom-de-plume of "Spengler," says Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria, plus any other Arab countries which import oil, are headed for the economic toilet. Their governments are not stable enough to survive the deprivation.

Goldman says the foreign aid they'll need to stay afloat won't be forthcoming and the "Arab spring" unrest has seriously damaged the tourist trade upon which at least Egypt and Tunisia relied. If you do business or travel for pleasure in that part of the world you might choose to be cautious.

Spengler tends to be pessimistic, but is always interesting to read and knows his economics very well.

Here We Go Again

Roughly 80 years ago, as a former Army officer my father was hired by the Veterans Administration to serve on hearing panels examining claims of World War I-caused disability. The Great Depression was underway and thousands of vets who couldn't find work (after working through the booming 1920s) were claiming suddenly-discovered service-connected disability.

Now we face another economic mess, the Great Recession. It is no surprise that long-term unemployment is causing the phenomenon to happen all over again. Millions of people are claiming disability, some of them legitimately. See this CNN Money article for details.

Travel Blogging VI

Split, Croatia – Yesterday we started out in Hvar, Croatia. Hvar is both a nice little old town and an island where they grow lavender, rosemary, and wine grapes, in addition to the olives everybody in this region grows. The lavender and rosemary they make into what are called “essential oils,” whatever that means.

Hvar isn’t all that pretty. On the other hand, the wine tasting we had in a family's cellar was very generous - four of us had three bottles of wine on the table and could drink all we wanted. That was before the grappa came out - locally distilled brandy with herbs to conceal the taste.

Midday we cruised to nearby Split, the biggest town in Dalmatia and the second largest city in Croatia, with roughly 250,000 population. We overnighted there last night and this morning had a walking tour of Diocletian’s palace which is right on the waterfront.

Roman emperor Diocletian was born here of humble parentage, joined the army, became a kick-ass general and eventually took over the empire after killing the then-emperor. Instead of waiting to be killed himself, he retired to his birthplace, built an amazing palace on the waterfront, and lived out his life. Or so we were told, I’m no expert on Roman empire politics.

The palace was turned into dwellings over the centuries and now hundreds of people live within the walls, in a variety of homes, apartments, etc. that they own. A lot of the dwellings were bombed out during the second World War and not rebuilt. Instead they cleared out important parts of the original palace which we can now see, and it is darned impressive. After the palace tour, we sat on the waterfront having a cold drink and looking at a façade that is at least 1700 years old.

Driving out of town we saw a beautiful Roman aqueduct still standing roughly two thousand years later. It was a work of art, perfectly proportioned in well-cut stone. Our normally excellent guide took it so much for granted that she failed to point it out to us, until we asked, whereupon she acknowledged it to be Roman. The Romans were some engineers.

It's Not Illegal?

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.), chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, says Republicans want illegal immigration to be a crime. See the details in this CNSNews.com article.

The article has me asking myself, "Isn't illegal immigration a crime?" I've always thought it was a federal crime. Shouldn't illegals acquire a criminal record before being sent home?

A criminal record, as evidence of moral turpitude, would preclude a later application for citizenship. Repeat offenders should do some jail time.