Against the Wind

Frederick Douglass said in 1857, “Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.”

I don’t recall where I ran across this gem, but it does put into a capsule what human transactions are about. My friend Pete often said, “I’m so ashamed to be human.” Probably still says it, I just don’t hear it.

The idea is just as true in the singular as in the group context, but so much of what I read in the political thought is “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” But we keep taking it. Katrina, slimy beaches and government incompetence. We just take our licking and try to keep on ticking.

I ran across a thought provoking blogpost today. How do you choose your reading? I’ve pretty much given up on reading fiction, though I indulge in it a bit now and again. Robin Hanson says “Chase your non fiction reading,” that is, read as I do when I’m trying (unsuccessfully again) to solve some programming problem. Read to answer some question. I still prefer browsing, and chewing on juicy bits when I run into them. Looking for a quote I misremember and misattribute, I did find this from Samuel Johnson.

…”what we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.”

Boswell: Life

And for your holiday weekend amusement a short video clip.

“I think it’s called ‘laughing as you sink’”

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I would love to have my hands on baby Miranda, but there comes a point where Grandma is a bit of a pain, and I will attempt to not wear out my welcome. I’ve looked through the photos of Sevilla, and will do a blog post with the best of them soon. The Alcazar! The main must do of the day was getting Josh and Jessica’s present off. It’s been sitting here two weeks waiting for wrapping and mailing, so today I finally got that done. There’s a bridge game and possibly a little class this evening. I’ll teach if anyone shows up. Memorial day weekend is prompting a few maudlin moments, but fortunately they pass soon. No cemeteries near here with my people buried in them; maybe I’ll look up the festivities at the National Cemetery in Chalmette. We have a little Arlington right here.

So… meanwhile I have photos that I’ll never get to share unless I make the effort. Here’s a clip from my photo diary.

The first Saturday of the month, a group of dedicated volunteers from our little church helps the feeding ministry of Mount Olive AME. One time, one month I actually showed up to help. Mostly I’m a no show for some excuse or other. I snapped a photo of the church building, one I’ve taken several photos of over the years. The building was a Catholic church which I believe was purchased and relocated, or it may be in its original location, but it’s cypress construction, meticulously maintained and a beautiful building.

Miranda Inez Mulligan
Debut May 23, 2001
Born 2:45 pm
8 lbs 1 oz
20 inches long
Perfect in every particular

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)
What a(nother) miracle God has wroght.

Tania and Bartley had their parts of course in the miracle of creation that Marianne and Tara and I were blessed to witness. As for Marianne, after seeing a natural birth, she says she’s getting an appt tomorrow to get her tubes tied. A birth is so carnal and so miraculous. Yesterday we were walking in the intersection of meat and bone with the mysteries. How appropriate that it fell on Pentecost Sunday.

I received a text message at 3:30 am that they had gotten a really moist sign that this was the real deal, and contractinos were real and they were heading to the hospital at 4:30. I was out of my driveway at 4:30 as well. The rest of the support team made it to the birthing center before 9 am. The brothers in law and the nephews haunted the waiting rooms. They made a quick run for beignets as Miranda Inez made her appearance, and suddenly everyone was hungry.

Tania used a midwife at Touro Infirmary, and it all went off beautifully. Bartley was support staff in chief, with Tania the whole time, setting up a tub and holding and helping her breath through the pain. Tania was amazed at the sudden reemergence of ankles after Miranda was born. She said she wanted to sleep on her tummy!

Miranda arrived with no drugs in her system, to low natural light and after a good cry she was opening her eyes. Tania let her rest on her chest immediately after delivery, and for about an hour they just rested there and got acquainted in a new way.

For Tania and Bartley… first day of the rest of their lives.

Tartley said that every newborn looks like Winston Churchill.  I see the resemblance!

Portugal has a proud history in the Age of Exploration. There are monuments and references all over Lisbon. B and I had a list of four destinations we wanted to see in our day in Lisbon. The day before we landed, B found a deal on the Lisbon (Lisboa) card and we paid for our 24 hour tourist pass to the city.

When you get off the ship at the port of embarkation, you’re usually pretty far from anything that looks like tourist attractions. So there were shuttle buses running from the ship to the down town area. To collect our tourist card we had to find the Tourism department. So we get off of the bus, look around on the street, and looked about in panic, and ok, here’s a hotel. They brusquely told us they gave directions to paying customers, thank you very much. Where’s the department of tourism? Two doors down.

Here’s a stroke of luck. We’ll go collect our tourist passes and be on our way. So we stand in the line, get a map, and no, without the voucher, we cannot give you your passes. What? We paid for them, we printed the page indicated, and never mind. No passes.
Anyway, we got directions to the Museo du Traje. It was a bunch of metro stops away from where we were, including a transfer to another train. So we headed away from the heart of the city with the kind aid of a subway employee who showed us how to read the graphic signs and find our way around the metro.

By the time we got off the subway at the right stop, of course the museum wasn’t at the subway exit. Walking is required here. We didn’t speak Portuguese and on Sunday morning, not much was open to try to find someone to point us to the Museum. It required a couple blocks of walking and crossing some big busy city streets. Betsi was NOT happy. But we navigated through these difficulties to the Museum of Dress. That was the ticket for her. She loved the clothes. I loved the building. She was ready to hire a cab back to the center of the city, but we managed to retrace our steps to the metro stop and back to the center of town. By then we were tired, there were some touristy shops and a lunch counter, so we got in out of the drizzle and ate, saw souvenirs and found a cab stand to take us to the Belem Tower, an icon of Lisbon.

This is the Tower of Belem (Bethlehem) as came up the river into the port area of Lisbon. Now Gail, if you want to go touring in the Azores and in Lisbon, I’ll start studying Portugese now, and we’ll be ready to go. Lots of things to see and do, and this is not right on the main tourist crawl. That would be a great trip.

Somehow my flash neglected to remember it was turned off, so I got a pretty decent photo of this dress. I also got a “no flash” scold. The clothing was from this era (early 1800’s I’m guessing) right up to the stuff I wore in college. The museum was housed in a ducal home. So the architectural detail impressed me. Mouldings and tiles everywhere. But the best bit was the family chapel, which would serve as a small church. It could have easily accomodated 100 worshipers.

No flash here, but this is the ceiling of one of the rooms in the home, turned museum.

By the time we got back into one of the main industrial squares, we were just trying to get one more item done from our checklist. But it was really too late. So I took photos of buildings while Bets looked at tourist junk. The tiled cobblestones in the foreground were very typical of Lisbon.

Here the tiles are on the side of the building itself. They have a museum of decorative arts, and a museum of tiles in Lisbon.

Then we found a cab to take us to the Belem tower. From there I knew how to get back to the ship, so we weren’t going to miss the boat. This is one of the most photographed relics of Lisbon. But there’s a reason. The gingerbread decoration on this defensive structure should have been designed by Kodak.

And if you climb up high enough you get to get a photo of the handsome young man taking a photo. Then you go back to the ship and get ready to go see some of Spain.

Contrary to my default position of not making fun of ordinary people, I don’t even feel bad passing along this link. These bright high school students are a) either not so bright, or b) victims of some horrid education or c) infected with a virus that stops all rational thinking and writing. Give yourself a laugh today! Answers gleaned from AP (Advance Placement) American History exams.

Image from Wikipedia

Our first port of call was Ponta Delgada in the Azores. The Azores are volcanic islands, and autonomous region of Portugal. The pope just visited Portugal in the last few days. That would explain the signs I saw in the church near the dock, saying something about preparing for the Pope’s visit. The pope’s official itinerary doesn’t include the Azores, but if he went it would be one of the biggest happenings in a while!

As we were near to leaving, B tried to use an ATM to get some Euros. A young man strolled up and asked in perfect English, “How do you like Alcatraz?” His story of why he was in the Azores for an extended time had something to do with family connections. He didn’t speak Portuguese, so maybe it did feel like Alcatraz. I found it a enchanting. But by the time the boat pulled out of the dock at 3:00 pm B and I had discovered some of the points where we needed to work out a reasonable compromise.

We approached the dock at dawn, though B doesn’t do mornings!

The liquid sunshine which would make the morning moist was evident, but the church on the hill was lit up like a beacon.

We didn’t ever get to that church, but we did get out at something like 7:30 am, before anyone was much moving in town, and went to the church near the dock

This was not the main church on the square, but one of about 10 in the town of 20,000 inhabitants. This one was open, so many of the DIY town crawlers were visiting the church before much else was open. The view of the town showed me that it wasn’t many blocks deep from the port area, so I wanted to climb up to the green area behind the town. B was wanting to know where we were going, and I really didn’t know. I was just on an “EXplore” and having a grand time. One place we were going was to the University, which is built in the gardens of established long ago, with lots of exotic trees and plantings, and a lot that look very much like Louisiana. This tree is some South American species

By the time we found the gardens I was tired and B was in full rebellion. So we pulled into a little sandwich shop, and had a little sit down and something to eat. There was no disagreement there. Bets and I both like to try whatever’s on offer in the way of food. I wasn’t really hungry, but I had a little something with a “Coke Lite” and called it breakfast.

By now shops were opening, and Bets wanted to get down to the touristical spots to check out the merchandise. So we meandered down to the main square, and did a bit of looking at what was for sale.

All the buildings were white washed and built with great brown beams, so the old town had a very unified look that fit perfectly with the architecture of this church located on the main square.

A cruise is a fantasy on the high seas. Fantasy is not my style. I’m more a non-fiction fan. The cruise ship, the Norwegian Gem is was going to a lot of ports B wanted to see, so we decided that if we could take a cruise, the crossing on the Gem was our trip.

There was some negotiation after the travel agent booked us on the wrong ship, the wrong cruise, but B doesn’t mess about. If she’s decided what she wants, that’s what she gets. After we booked, I looked about online and found photos and information. I was a bit surprised… my first impression of the decorating was that someone had taken a brilliantly colored chrystal emetic, and after the medicine took it’s course, the result was the color schemes on the Gem.

We met the ship “in the paint” at the dock in NYC. A cruise ship is a big honkin piece of metal. And it floats!

As we got used to our room with a view, we sailed out of New York harbor, past that famous lady of the torch and to five days at sea. We were hungry so we found the buffet on the deck above us immediately. The garden cafe featured huge artificial pots of flowers and a tremendous spread of food. Thus started five days at sea.

Our cabin was colorful, really bright, but oddly those decorators knew their stuff. All that orange and blue stuff worked together with the sea out on our balcony.

And a view from farther back with a peek at some of the storage.

Every evening, the cabin boys, Carleton and Henry (who I mistakenly called “Georges” for three full weeks) left us some towel art, turned back our beds, left us a Freestyle Daily, listing the activities for the upcoming day, and for five days in a row, a notice to turn back our clock an hour overnight. There was a live show in the theater every night, which was over amplified (ok I’m getting O. L. D.), but fun to watch.

The time changes were hard on our systems, but worse for the staff and crew! They were putting in 12 plus hour days, and not getting enough sleep night after night.

There were three identical banks of elevators, one fore, one at midship, and one aft. But opposite the elevators are murals on the stairs, which are gems at midship, airplanes at fore, and boats and ships at aft. So it was possible to find your way about pretty quickly. We never did find the Bliss Lounge where friends of “Dorothy LGBT” had nightly mixers. We did figure out the mystery initials fairly soon.

Next a few port photos from Portugal. Punta Delgada, Azores, and Lisbon were our first two ports.

TLC 14 hours old.

My youngest is starting to “get it.” We had some serious set to’s when she was a 16 year old high school drop out. I was angry when the bank teller called to say my daughter was forging my signature on checks to get money. “No, I told them, don’t call in the law. Thanks for calling I’ll deal with her.” She was the third. Her photo album was very very thin. So sometime she decided that I lost the photo album or her baby book on purpose, because I was angry. This is not something a mother does. The baby book was lost. Not on purpose, ever. She’s now noticing how much thinner the photo record is for her second child.

So today she missed her birthday almost altogether. In this country of perpetual second chances, the former high school drop out is taking boards at the end of her first year of med school this week. “Cancel the celebrations, I’ll keep studying.”

I asked my brother to bring the photos from Mother’s albums for some of the years before she went to school. My mother was an archivist of the highest order! What joy. When I learn to scan and color correct well, I’ll have a photo album for her. This photo is my first attempt.

Happy B’day Arat.

I gathered a few photos from my trip to show the kids and bro Robert yesterday. But I’ve still no reasonable plan for sharing 20 or so trip photos. The only plan is to get an album of no more than 20 photos… then either as a slide show or on some photo album software publish it for viewing. Meanwhile, from Feb, a photo of the lost swamp on friend A– & H–’s little bit of heaven. They bought the land because of the wonderful swamp environment and built their house (up at least 10 feet.) Katrina didn’t hurt the house much but it sure ruined their swamp.

Too bad I have no foresight, and little larceny in my heart. Coming through customs on Monday evening last week, I could have taken anything I wanted through. I’ve not been waved through the line (as were almost all those I saw from the Air France flight) since 1970. One glance at my customs form, a look at my disreputable suitcase, and I went on through. So did everyone else that I saw!

Little did I know that nearby an alleged Times Square Bomber was being pulled from an airplane. Guess it was the third string agents attending our flight.

Anyway, I relay this oddity of my travel because I finally found the satirical piece, pitch perfect on the stupid reporting on the motives of the alleged, lone wolf, crazed, incompetent bomber. Joe Queenan in the Wall Street Journal You see he suffered a foreclosure! There must be a lot of potential bombers about. Be aware!

Robert and family are coming through tomorrow evening, and one thought I had was to get together a slide show of Cruise photos. The way my photo blogging the cruise worked out, I’m dubious that my plans are workable. BUT they’re a lot more likely to work if I start the task.

First, but FIRST… some cruise notes and thoughts.

I haven’t the courage to look the bathroom scale face to face. Cruising creates a lot of leisure time, and I tend to take any discomfort, including unaccustomed slack straight to the kitchen (or buffet) to eat for comfort. This will bring me to a premature death, but I’ll never starve! Bets and I tended to be bad influences in this. There are times of the day when I’m not hungry, and times when she is not. Never is that the same time and we compromised by eating anytime either of us was hungry. I only popped one button, and that in the last week.

We had something like nine sea days of our 21 days. We finally worked out a routine that more or less filled those days. Duplicate bridge was terribly disappointing. It was bad enough that we “volunteered” to do a mini lesson (B) and direct (me.) However, Norwegian Cruise Lines, NCL, prefers their duplicate games on the passenger organized, DIY plan. More times than not the movements were boogared, but they would not compensate in a minimal way we requested, so we continued to suffer with the poorly run games. Meeting boards you’ve already played really does take the shine out of the thing! I swear I’d have done a better job. But not for free. With no computer, I wasn’t doing the setting up and all the scoring by hand for the fun of it!

To the good, every morning we were at sea, there was a non-denominational passenger led bible study. Several passengers were retired missionaries and gave talks about mission work in Asia and Latin America which were uplifting, and interesting. There was an Anglican pastor on board, but he was either not in the bible study or was quiet. The “chapel” was devoid of religious symbols, but had some nice flower arrangements. The study group met in a meeting room near the theater. One day the leader gave an overview of Job, another, Song of Solomon. Thought provoking material, but I still prefer some “denominational” label, just because going off on your own in bible study, it’s too easy to take the word into heretical directions. I don’t think any one denomination has the ‘true cross’ on display, but there is a gain of some sort of policing of the theology. We humans err. A bit of authority holds us closer to true.

NCL in the past gave lectures on the ports of call and gave more informative background info than at present. Now they just sell tours. That was a disappointment. Instead they had a company on board that gave lectures on art collecting and held art auctions and such. That’s a great way to make money, but I didn’t pay for a cruise to buy art. I could have enjoyed the information, but I wasn’t going to listen to B be voluably unimpressed with the works they had on offer.

Every port I wanted to get out right away and see what we could in our limited time. I’m actually the fitter and more able walker of the two of us, so I felt some sort of sanctimonious over this, though there’s hardly another soul in the world besides B who is slower than I. I would get giddy like a kid wanting to go and see and do, and B would be slow to start, slower to move once we did start, and I got frustrated. So the days we were on tours worked better, because if we’d paid for a tour, B would be where she had to be a few minutes early with minimal complaining. Once I tired out, I was ready to go back whether the ship was ready to sail or not. But mostly, I’d have prefered more time in every single port. Time to dine, locate the post office, museum or whatever.

Every evening, at sea or in port, Carleton and Henry had our cabins spit spot and a whimsical towel art display for us. This smoking simian was by far our favorite.