Travel Blogging VI

Katakolon, Greece: We are at the place where the original Olympics happened some 2800 years ago. Naturally, the weather stinks and the archeological site is closed by a strike. The pax are bummed.

Weather at this time of year is iffy – yesterday was beautiful and today gray and rainy. We’re in Corfu tomorrow and I hope we get beautiful again as Corfu is a wonderful place. When someone waxes poetic about the Greek Isles I think of Corfu, as does the other DrC. More about Corfu tomorrow.

Absent the archeological site there isn’t much to do here in Katakolon; the ship is full of less-than-fully-gruntled paying passengers. People aren’t big readers these days so, unlike myself, most aren’t snuggled up with a good book. A lot of eating is happening, as well as card playing and conversation.

I’d think I’d be seeing many Kindles, and their ilk in use – nope, maybe in the cabins. The captain is running the bow thrusters while we’re tied up to the pier – can the wind be that strong? Our cabin is in the bow and it’s noisy.

Travel Blogging V

Mykonos, Greece: We spent the day tied up alongside in Mykonos. The day started out grey and overcast, then cleared and became sunny and warm. We took a stroll into the town after lunch, using the shuttle bus to get from the pier to the beginnings of “town.”

Everybody raves about Mykonos, they say it is the pearl of the Cyclades, the DrsC don’t agree. We find it to be stark and barren, a place that appears to get next to no rain and thus grows next to no ground cover.

I guess one could get excited about the architecture, if you are into stark white stucco cubes, scattered across a desert-like terrain. Ninety plus percent of the buildings have flat roofs and most of these have no downspouts for rain.

There are windmills, so I guess the wind sometimes blows, it didn’t today. I was reminded of several Mexican coastal towns that thrive on tourism: lots of sidewalk cafes of dubious cleanliness but excellent views, interspersed with shops selling Greek souvenirs made in China.

A problem the DrsC always have in Greece is our inability to decode the signage. For two people who have spent a lifetime being hyperliterate, becoming suddenly illiterate is no fun.

We also don’t read Spanish or Italian or German but can figure out how words might be pronounced, what roots they might share with English. None of that works in Greek, which uses the Cyrillic alphabet. We cannot guess at words’ meanings or even how they’re spoken.

Kotkin: Wrong Target

In this article for Politico, demographer Joel Kotkin says that Obama's class warfare isn't aimed at the super rich, who make most of their money via capital gains taxed at 15%. Rather, says Kotkin, the Obama "tax of the rich" really aims at the upper end of the middle class, the earners of big salaries. Check out his arguments.

Travel Blogging IV

Piraeus, Greece: We’re sitting alongside in Piraeus, the harbor for Athens. The ship is quiet as most passengers are ashore poking about in Piraeus or have figured a way to get to Athens in spite of the transport workers strike.

Meanwhile the DrsC are enjoying shipboard life. The crew does the cooking, cleaning, tidying, drink-mixing, and entertaining; we do the consuming.

On this cruise we are going back to several ports we’ve visited before so going ashore is optional. We may go ashore this afternoon, or not. We’ve been in Athens more than once, including recently.

When you start out cruising you tend to avoid cruises with many “sea days,” days not in port. If you are a person who’ll love cruising, you’ll begin cherishing sea days and end up treating many port days as faux sea days, staying aboard while almost everyone else goes ashore.

The other DrC says these faux sea days are the very best because you have this enormous ‘yacht’ with a thousand crewmembers and hardly anyone to share it with. I begin to concur.

There are seniors who treat cruise ships as assisted living facilities, who stay aboard for very long periods of time. They’ve penciled it our and conclude that the facilities are nicer and the costs not much higher.

I have no idea if the claimed cost equivalence is true, having not done the math myself, but it is a charming idea if you don’t mind the occasional rough water – a feature not found on land. Our captain told a Cruise Critic© gathering aboard that he has two doctors and five nurses for a ‘community’ of just over five thousand people, a higher ratio than found in most towns and an attractive feature for seniors.

A thing you learn when cruising a lot as we have is ship terminology: fueling the ship is called “bunkering, no idea why. We've been bunkering today. If you have friends who cruise, give them the following good thought: “I wish you fair winds and following seas.”

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On an entirely different topic, it appears that the group running for GOP presidential nominee has stabilized, and is focusing on Mitt Romney. Now it remains to be seen whether the anxiety evangelical Christians feel about a Mormon candidate translates into a refusal to vote for him.

I live in a largely Mormon community in Wyoming, although I am not a member of that faith. I find them the best neighbors you could ask for.

Any reluctance I have voting for Romney has nothing whatsoever to do with his faith. It is mostly about his willingness to move far enough left to be elected governor of Massachusetts.

Romneycare, ancestor of Obamacare, needs a lot of “splainin’” as Desi used to ask of Lucy. Mostly we need to be reassured that Mitt “gets” that we want Obamacare repealed, not replaced with an “improved” version.

Travel Blogging III

Santorini, Greece: Our cruise ship is sitting in the caldera of the one-time volcano that is now the Greek island of Santorini. We aren’t the only cruise ship here, we’re one of five or six. Needless to say, Santorini is a popular cruise stop. It is a very spectacular place to see.

The DrsC have visited Santorini before, which is a good thing as the weather this morning is the pits - light wind and spitting rain. The ship is largely deserted as most of the passengers had tours scheduled (and paid for) and so are onshore in spite of the weather. Our plans were more flexible so we’ve stayed cozy and dry.

Later…the weather cleared up in early afternoon, good luck for the passengers with afternoon tours. We’re in Athens tomorrow and there is more bad luck there. The Greeks are on strike and so we cannot go to the archeological sites and museums as they’re closed. People who planned to use public transport are also SOL as taxis, buses, light rail, etc. are all on strike too.

Greece has very little to offer except tourism, it’s like Egypt in that regard. Now the strikes are closing off the very little they do have – it’s foot-shooting time in southeastern Europe. Greeks have lived beyond their means for decades and when their government tells them they must tighten their collective belts the response is “go to blazes, somebody else has to pay the tab, I won’t do it.”

Greece is a country that very nearly went Communist at the end of World War II, would have done if not for the timely intervention of Harry Truman. We’ve described why this is so in an earlier blog entry. Those class warfare tendencies are still here, and can easily rise to the surface as they are doing now.

Travel Blogging II

Naples, Italy: We had an early morning sail-in to the bay at Naples, after a smooth night of cruising down the coast from Livorno, aka Leghorn, the port for Pisa and Florence.

Day before yesterday we visited Monaco/Monte Carlo. The Monegasques make a big deal out of Princess Grace Grimaldi, nee Kelly, much the same as the Brits make a big deal out of Princess Diana, and for the same reasons: money.

Both Princesses are tourist draws, tourists bring and spend money without costing the visited country much in terms of resources. Oddly, the official painted portraits of Grace we saw in the Grimaldi palace didn’t do her justice, she was a truly beautiful woman as her photos show. I wonder what that portrait beauty shortfall is about?

Monaco has a stunning setting, built on a coastal hillside facing south into the Mediterranean sun. Many of the newer buildings have rooftop gardens with medium sized trees as well as smaller greenery – very practical as there isn’t room for “grounds” otherwise.

We spent a lazy day on board yesterday as we’ve visited Pisa recently and will see Florence on the way back. I checked out several novels from the ship’s library, mostly for reading on the trans-Atlantic crossing.

Today we visit Herculaneum, the less-well-known town that was buried at the same time as Pompeii. Our tour leaves in early afternoon – an odd time but there it is. We will see Pompeii on the second half of the cruise. More about Herculaneum later.

Thoughts about cruise passengers: most are seniors and white. There are a few Asians and African-Americans, about 2% of the passengers. We see more African-Americans on cruises to the Caribbean, as well as more black staff on those ships. Marketing issue for cruise lines: in the future as whites make up smaller percentages of senior Americans, will the cruising market dry up? Or will destinations change?

Later…we did the Herculaneum tour earlier this afternoon. Herculaneum itself was good, although our guide Guido was not great, his Napoli accent was so strong. The ruins are in quite good condition, and remarkably detailed. I like the Roman sense of city planning - rectangular blocks, straight streets, standard street widths, provision of plumbing and fresh water.

The Romans were amazing builders, they did architectural things nobody else at the time even came close to doing. They worked with cement, faked marble columns, did beautiful mosaic work, and had sophisticated systems for keeping streets clean and flushing. They laid building stone work “on the bias” – something nobody else has done, to this day.

Travel Blogging I

The DrsC are traveling again. We may post some impressions from the Mediterranean basin, in the next month. Right now we're sitting in United's Red Carpet Club at Dulles/DC, and it is busy. Don't subscribe to the notion that few people are traveling - it's nonsense.

On the other hand, I wouldn't buy shares in airline stock. All the majors are very low. Somehow they cannot develop pricing power - the ability to raise fare prices to the point where profit margins are decent.

WSJ: Christie Sez "No"

This morning's Wall Street Journal says New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has taken himself out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination. He says he wants to carry on as NJ's governor, and we have to believe him.

I suppose the search for another Reagan is over and it it time to settle for Romney. Let's hope he isn't another Bob Dole.

Russia: A Look Ahead

Leon Aron takes a look ahead for Russia, and sees Vladimir Putin managing a declining petro-state, with all the negative outcomes that brings. His article for the Los Angeles Times is an interesting overview.

Christie's Time

Jay Cost, who writes politics for The Weekly Standard, says this is the time for Christie to run, if he is ever going to do it. I've read Cost's reasons and they are persuasive.

Cost compares Christie to another governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson, and shows how their circumstances are somewhat similar. If elected, I hope Christie doesn't turn out to be as disastrous a president as Wilson was.

Quote of the Day

Gary Langer, writing for ABC News about the results of an ABC News/Washington Post poll:

A majority of Americans expect Barack Obama to be a one-term president, an assessment on which, in past elections, the public more often has been right than wrong.

Fifty-five percent expect the Republican to win, only 37% expect Obama to win. Those numbers should cause flop sweat at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

CA Soliloquy

One of the continuing stories COTTonLINE follows is the dysfunctionality of California. I just finished reading a long, rambling look at California's political and economic problems.

The Vanity Fair article includes serious interviews with former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, San Jose mayor Chuck Reed, and Vallejo fire chief Paige Meyer. It becomes clear that public safety employee pay, benefits and retirements are at the heart of the Golden State's problems.

It is also clear that CA is organized politically such that these problems cannot be solved. Hat tip to RealClearPolitics for the link.

EU Cools on Turkey

This Today's Zaman article summarizes the current status of Turkey's application for membership in the European Union. It also looks at the general relations in the region.

There is considerable talk about the situation on Cyprus, with it's Greek and Turkish zones. Greek Cyprus has been admitted to the EU, nobody but Turkey recognizes the government of Turkish Cyprus. And there is a natural gas discovery in the seas nearby.

The EU doesn't much want Turkey as a member; Turkey doesn't much want to be an EU member. Turkey wants to be a leader in the Middle East. It is feeling more Asian and less European than it did formerly.

The bottom line: EU membership for Turkey is unlikely anytime soon. Hat tip to RealClearWorld for the link.

Perry's Current Status

I wouldn't normally give you a link to a column by Mara Liasson, of National Public Radio, as she leans predictably left. Here, however, she does a very level-headed analysis of the political situation in which Rick Perry finds himself. You could do much worse for an update on his place in the race.

Friedman: PhD, Poor, Hungry, Driven

The New York Times' Tom Friedman writes about the changing workplace, a landscape of freelancers making peanuts competing with robots making nothing. He exaggerates, of course, but his kernel of truth is still disturbing:

The hyperconnected world is now a challenge to white-collar workers. They have to compete with a bigger pool of cheap geniuses — some of whom are people and some are now robots, microchips and software-guided machines.

The top gun fighter pilot officer is replaced by a faceless enlisted kid in a cubicle flying a drone with a joystick.

Snark Attack

Michael Goodwin, writing for the New York Post, about the $5 per month debit card charge planned by Bank of America:

Washington’s war on wealth has brought a ton of regulations, restrictions and taxes that eat profits. The banks, naturally, look for other sources of revenue to make up the difference. Did you honestly think government was here to help?

Government is a foot soldier in the class war beloved by Democrats.

Who Denies Science?

Clarice Feldman, writing for American Thinker, takes on the allegation that conservatives are big science deniers. Her article is thorough and establishes both that the left denies science, and that many alleged cases where the right denied science were in fact nothing of the sort.

Sensibly Feldman avoids dealing with evolution, the one area where the right has some guilt, in my judgment. A fair analyst would have to grant that a sizable minority of people on the right deny evolution.

We in the U.S. operate a "big tent" political system where either party needs to assemble a majority to win. I'm willing to share the GOP with people who don't believe in evolution, but do share my views on small government, strong defense, etc.

Fortunately, beliefs vis-a-vis evolution make absolutely no difference in the continued functioning thereof. The fittest continue to out-survive and out-thrive the rest.

Space Is Chinese

The U.S. has given up on manned space exploration. China has taken it up. And they are funding it with our dollars.

Which posture is more forward-looking? I think China has the upper hand, no pun intended. See this article in Investors Business Daily which elaborates on this space issue.

Steyn on a Country Gotten Soft

Sometimes Mark Steyn writes with wry humor, other times with bitter bile. This column for Investors Business Daily beats up on Americans for being dumb enough to be taken in by Barack Obama. He says:

This is a great, great country that got so soft that 53% of electors voted for a ludicrously unqualified chief executive who would be regarded as a joke candidate in any serious nation.

Steyn makes fun of presidential historian Michael Beschloss, New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Newsweek editor Tina Brown for having fallen for the Obama con.

Political Correctness in Canada

I've linked to an article about a mob that attacked two RCMP Mounties in northwestern Saskatchewan, as well as attacking ambulance personnel and hospital employees. You'll find it here on The Globe and Mail website.

You have to read to the very bottom of the article to get a hint that this was essentially a race riot; the "mob" were Dene Indians. What Canadians call "first peoples."

Just another example of how the press leaves out pertinent facts to avoid the appearance of racism.