Author: jrkast@gmail.com

Weaving 007 – A single blue stripe

I liked the results of Weaving 006 – A single green stripe, so I decided to attempt to repeat that effort, with only a couple changes. A light blue stripe, and a little wider, so a little brighter. And, I used the speckled blue yarn from Weaving 005 – A gap, and a restart, but instead of crossing it with another color, I used it for both warp and weft. The speckles added just a little more interest.

By this point my little apartment was starting to look like a factory. I wasn’t necessarily cleaning up between efforts, so my floor was rather littered.

And there were partial skeins of yarn of various colors and textures in bags all over the place.

It was actually a good feeling. Especially when it was snowy outside I felt like an elf.

Here’s the blue stripe scarf being warped. In this picture you can see where the yarn is tied to the warp beam. Also you can see a couple scarves already made, awaiting trimming, draped over the chair.

That red orb is just a Martian spaceship, visiting for a little while. Ignore it. Although it was nice to see them, that visit isn’t a part of the weaving story.

Here’s a view while just getting started with the weaving. Can you see a little red in this picture? That’s throwaway weft, and we use a different color for it so that we can easily find where it begins and ends, when we remove it at the end of the process. Why is it there? When starting the weft, the warp is uneven and we need to do a few rows of weft to stabilize the piece. I am sure there are real weaving terms for this – I am using my own barely adequate words. Once you get going, and are making straight lines, you substitute the real weft yarn.

Now here’s a little test of your detective ability… What sport was I watching while doing the warping? Hint: It has nothing to do with the Martians, they’re not into sports, really.

When planning a piece, you have to account for this waste in the length that you choose for your warp. You also have to account for shrinkage when washing. Luckily, for scarves, being “in the ballpark” for length is good enough.

This one’s a little easier. What sport was I watching while weaving?

Actually, I found that I couldn’t watch sports while weaving. My edges started to suffer. I could listen to radio or podcasts or music, but I couldn’t really watch sports.

Making progress.

… and done. Taking the almost finished piece off of the loom.

Here’s another view of that starter throwaway weft that will need to be removed as a part of finishing the piece. I have not yet found an easy way to do it – it is just grunt work, and you need to be careful not to start unraveling the weft that you want to remain in place.

Here’s the finished piece, untrimmed.

 

Weaving 006 – A single green stripe

This one was similar to the others. The main difference I was aiming for here was to return to a single overall yarn color/style for both the warp and the weft. This is like the first couple of scarves I made. I sought a muted scarf, with one simple green stripe. I think it turned out well.

For this post I include some photos that emphasize the measuring and warping process. For most weaving projects the measuring, and the cutting of the warp to length, is a separate process from warping the loom – putting the yarn onto the loom, through the heddle, and winding it onto the warp beam. There are many methods. I learned a simple method at the Fiber Factory in Mesa that is the only method I’ve used so far.

That method starts with tying the warp to the warp beam to start, threading it through the heddle, then circling it around a peg that is the appropriate distance away from the loom to give the right length for the piece. Advantages: You are doing several steps at once. Disadvantages: You end up using a lot of space in your work area, so generally you need to start and finish the warping in one session. Also, you have to find a surface to which you can anchor that peg. That’s not always easy.

It does look kind of cool while working on it, though, so I took a few pictures along the way.

Here’s a shot of the yarn circling the anchored peg. Once I had to restart this effort because the peg slipped off the table, resulting in a mess. So that’s why you see that the peg is not only clamped to the table, but is also held back with some bungee cords.

The warp traveling all the way across the living room. The loom is being restrained by wedging the loom’s feet under a heavy sofa.

The heddle’s point of view. Part of this effort includes threading the yarn through the slots in the heddle. Later, after cutting the yarn way over at the peg end, half of the yarn strands are pulled through holes in adjacent heddle slots. That’s not a great explanation. It is easy to understand if you see it done one time.

And now we’ve warped, tensed the yarn onto the warp beam, and have starting weaving. The weft yarn is the same as the warp yarn for this piece.

Here’s a closeup of the weaving in progress. I have just used up a shuttle’s worth of yarn, thus you see the break. It generally gets hidden in the finished product, especially with same-color warp and weft. Also, the closeup shows that while weaving, sometimes it looks like you aren’t weaving tight enough. The washing in hot water closes most of those gaps, and helps smooth the selvedges (edges).

Done!

I try to take pictures against different backgrounds so that the “right” colors come through. I’m not sure this pic was successful, but this piece is more subtle than the other pieces I’ve made so far.

Weaving 005 – A gap, and a restart

(Here in mid-2017 I am catching up with posting about weaving that I did in November and December of 2016.)

The last project was a felting experiment in the fall of 2015. Since then, I’ve seen changes in my life. I went on a long freighter trip. I got separated, and left Phoenix. When this new weaving begins, I find myself in an apartment in Portland, Oregon, with a divorce in progress.

I thought, contrary to thoughts I had earlier, that making a few scarves as gifts might just be a wintertime activity that would be good for me. That notion proved to be good. I had fun weaving Christmas presents, and I think (I hope!) that the recipients enjoyed them. I got better at it. I met some nice people at the wool store.

This is the first of several posts about Christmas present scarves. You’ll see glimpses of my apartment. The last of these posts is a birthday present for my Dad, in June of 2017, and you’ll see glimpses of my condominium. I moved there in April 2017.

Okay, enough preamble.

This scarf used some leftover red yarn from Weaving 002 – First scarf on my own loom. The warp is mostly a speckled blue yarn, 75% acrylic 25% wool. I don’t have a pic of the yarn labels for this one. The weft is mostly a speckled grey yarn, same material as the blue. Since I had a lot of red yarn, in addition to one red stripe I decided to make the tips of the scarf with red weft.

Warping the loom, including a thin red stripe with the overall blue warp:

The loom is now warped, and also loaded onto the warp beam (the roller from which the warp is moved into place). Those cardboard slats folded in with the yarn on the warp beam help to keep the yarn flat and smooth and evenly tensed.

Another view of the loom, with the warp going through the heddle.

Now I’ve started to weave, using a red weft first, to make the red tips. Just starting to wind some completed work onto the take-up beam.

Now we’ve switched from red weft to grey weft for the bulk of the middle of the scarf.

Another view of the work in progress. Note that a lot of yarn is now on the take-up beam.

Done with the weaving! There’s still some trimming to do.

On the floor, laid out after drying, but before trimming.

 

 

Trump Dump

Here I dump all I will write about Trump.

Here is a summary of my opinions supported by a little reading. I agree with my opinions – you don’t need to. If you want to label me, let me start: Politically, I am a happy optimistic progressive liberal atheist. I’m self-amused, not generally angry, and when I have to raise my voice to make a point I think I’ve already lost. 

Trump is extremely dangerous. He has already done damage to the Earth and to American values, and to domestic and foreign policy. But I don’t want to pollute my days with him as a topic. The world of ideas, people, science, art, and social progress is so much bigger than Trump. My own little world changed a lot in the past year, so Trump did not consume me – I didn’t have the mental energy for it. A few days spent on this post, followed by occasional updates, is sufficient for me.

I won’t create multiple Trump posts – one is enough for my site. This might lead to a sense of false equivalence – the amount of things I find disturbing about Trump is much greater than the entire set of concerns I’ve ever had about all other politicians in my life. But I have to move on.

This note contains nothing about “what to do”. That’s a separate topic. That one is worth many posts.

Why Write About Trump?

I’ve wavered. Some reasons, resolutions in italics:

  • There’s been so much written already, what else can I add? I need to articulate what I think, to clarify my own opinions. Maybe the result will be useful. Writing helps me do this. Writing in public makes me think about it more carefully. I want to understand my own thoughts before I think about appropriate actions I can take.
  • The Trump election has surfaced a latent political/religious/world-view rift in my extended family and in some friendships. Why inflame, exacerbate, or otherwise increase that rift? I’m not trying to increase a rift, only to lay out my opinions as clearly as I can. If it results in dialog, great. I’ve asked for explanations from pro-Trump family members and friends and have received silence so far, with the exception of one sentence from one person: “Because Hillary supports abortion.” I don’t want to find myself insulting Trump voters, calling them out on what I think is their mistake. That’s unfair to them. Rather, I want to work on some issues, and try to show that there are good choices that we can make to help our country move forward, and to help people. More on these in other posts. In my opinion these choices do not include Trump.
  • It is complicated, multi-faceted. I don’t know everything about all issues. I doubt that anyone does. I want to summarize and categorize, to keep things as clear as possible for myself. I seek a framework so that I have a way to consume news in context, and prepare myself to be effective in the next election cycle.
  • It is too much work, and I have better things to do. Our egos lead us to think that this particular time in history is special. Is it, really? These political times are as unique as I have experienced in my lifetime. Some basic parts of our democracy are being attacked more than I’ve ever experienced. Although the Constitution remains powerful and steadfast so far, the attacks feel dangerous. I sense that we are closer to slippery slopes than we think. I don’t remember our country being so divided, especially within families. So maybe the idea of having to think hard about it via writing about it is a good thing.
Short Summary
  • Trump’s personality and character conflict with what we require in an American president.
  • Trump’s policies are Republican with a touch of protectionist nationalism, informed by bigotry and bullying. His Cabinet is anti-science, pro-business, pro fossil fuels, against the separation of church and state, mostly unprepared for government service, and almost totally unconcerned with human needs.
  • Trump’s accusatory relationships with press and with the judiciary are dangerous to democracy.
  • Trump’s mysterious connections to Russia, coupled with Trump’s “easy on Russia” policies, are possibly criminal, and are certainly not in America’s best interests.
  • Trump’s immense conflicts of interest, and his rejection of any sense that he needs to correct them, mean that any political decisions he makes are suspect, tainted.
Organizing My Thoughts

I think about Trump in these main categories, which came from my summary above:

  • Personal Qualities
  • Policies
  • Relationship with the Press and with the Judiciary
  • Relationship with Russia
  • Conflicts of Interest

The categories intertwine. This is my subjective division. In each of the above categories there are subcategories.

Personal Qualities

All negative. Danger: It is easy to make fun of Trump – many of his personal qualities are cartoonishly extreme. The danger is that while we are laughing at him we divert our attention from substantive matters, and he and his colleagues are making changes damaging to Americans and to the Earth.

Narcissist

Trump is only about Trump. This is a key to his other traits.

He views himself as superior and unfailing. He is thin-skinned, taking great umbrage at every slight. He cannot maintain attention on any topic unless the topic is himself. He cannot handle debate so surrounds himself with sycophants. He rejects reality when it doesn’t meet his self-view.

Others manipulate him using his narcissism. Praise him and he’ll agree with your opinions. This weakness is especially unsuitable for a president.

Bully

Trump has always been and remains a bully. He was a rich kid with few boundaries and he hasn’t grown up. Wealth enables his bullying behavior – the ability to change schools when in trouble, to hire more lawyers to overwhelm business deals gone sour, to buy government officials when he needs regulations changed. He consistently uses the promise or threat of money as his hammer.

Like many bullies, he backs down when confronted head on. He only picks a fight if someone else fights for him.

Many world leaders understand this false bravado. Combined with his lack of principle, it means that his policies can reverse after a short conversation with another world leader. This is not a choice trait for a president.

Wealth Centric, Unilaterally Transactional

Trump’s sole measure of worth is wealth. He judges others based on their monetary wealth. Other types of wealth, other attributes, are beyond him.

Though wealthy, he does not give to charity. Worse, he games the notion of charity for further personal gain.

A country is so much more than individuals counting their coins. Our president neither understands nor respects this.

Being wealth-centric and bullying, Trump views everything as a transaction, a “deal”. He sees each deal as win-lose. His narcissism demands that he wins. In his mind he has won them all. In reality he has made many losing deals. Four major bankruptcies, and approximately four thousand lawsuits.

Trump’s bullying nature leads him to demand unilateral transactions, in which his position is stronger, either by superior wealth in his business deals, or superior American might in international policy deals. He actively avoids multilateral transactions because he doesn’t get to control them, and doesn’t get to be the center of attention.

So many policy decisions and negotiations, domestic and international, are better served with “win-win” as the shared goal. NAFTA, TPP, NATO, European Union, United Nations, Paris Climate Accords, they are all like that. Trump will not participate in them. This is a severe limit for an American president.

Bigot

… and under the general heading of “Bigot” I add Racist, Misogynist, Homophobe, and Xenophobe.

Trump stereotypes and denigrates these groups …

  • non-white races
  • those of lesser wealth
  • non-Christian religions
  • those with differing gender preferences
  • those of differing gender identifications
  • those of differing national origins
  • those of differing politics
  • those with physical differences or disabilities
  • women
  • foreigners

Anybody who is not an old white rich man is subject to Trump’s scorn. Trump clearly aligns with white supremacist and nationalist views. Trump tweets outrage when Muslims hurt whites, and is silent when whites hurt Muslims or others. Trump rates women on their appearance and considers them conquests and dirty, using “bleeding” as an expletive against them. Trump mocks disabled people.

Trump values only a tiny percentage of America’s, or the world’s, population. This is unsuitable for the President of one of the world’s strongest and most diverse nations.

Amoral

… and under the general heading of “Amoral” I add Liar, Panderer, Unloyal, Untrustworthy, Uncaring, Unprincipled, Unethical and Shameless. They are aspects of the same personality trait.

Trump is unconcerned about right or wrong, truth or lie. Whatever helps him to stay in the spotlight, to gain more wealth, to conquer something or somebody, he will do or say. He has no moral compass and does not care when his lies are found out to be lies. In the simplistic sense, this makes him unreliable. In the greater sense, he is the poorest representative of an American.

Trump is so easy with lies that nothing that he says can be believed without checking, or without waiting to see if he changes his lie later. He uses lies shamelessly to divert attention when necessary, controlling news cycles. He uses lies to stay in the public eye. He lies so often and so blatantly that it is difficult for news agencies to keep up, much less to fully rebut each lie or to put each lie into context.

His lies promote a distorted dystopian world view, regurgitated by Fox and Breitbart and sites run by hate groups. That view, via those channels, now has influenced a significant subsection of America. It will be hard to recover from this. It may not be possible. Right now America is being run mostly on the basis of lies, vs. facts, vs. evidence.

Trump panders. He promises anything to anyone to get what he wants. He promises conflicting things to different groups. Unfortunately, white supremacists, bigots, coal miners, Evangelical Christians, the NRA, angry old white men, and others all buy in to this pandering. Some get what they want, at great cost to the country. Others, if they open their eyes, will find that they’ve been had. Trump is all about, and is only about, Trump.

An aside, thinking about pandering…  and about the current rift in my family. 

Evangelical Christians know that Trump is no Christian, is no real opponent of abortion, and doesn’t really care about Roe v. Wade. He’s just a showman when necessary. They know he used the Supreme Court nomination and their fixation on the singular abortion issue to get their vote. He would have appointed a conservative Justice anyway, to get better judgments for corporations and the wealthy. Pandering to Evangelicals was a no-cost bonus for him.

To me, the Evangelical vote indicates an inability to distinguish American citizenship responsibility from religious belief.

They seek government help to establish control over those who do not believe as they do. They are willing to ignore so much to get this. I call that hypocrisy. 

I used to think of Evangelicals as benign, mostly within themselves, and sometimes helpful in some areas. Now I think of them as a political entity seeking to control me in ways that are outside the limits of the Constitution. I think of them as dangerous. The United States is not a theocracy. Their religion is not my government.

What’s ironic is that now that the Evangelicals have much of what they want from Trump, they can just drop him. They have Gorsuch and Pence in place, and possibly another Supreme Court nomination in a little while. I won’t be surprised to see them suddenly claim high moral ground and denounce Trump. 

… end of aside.

Trump demands loyalty, to a fault. He surrounds himself with useless sycophants. There is no intellectual debate in the White House, only praise for the leader. This means that the talent pool from which he selects important administrators is quite small.

But Trump himself is not loyal. He is only about Trump. Now that this has been evident for a while, Trump finds his talent pool further diminished. Among those who he might choose because they’ve been loyal to him, many now see that accepting the position has more downside than upside. They see themselves under the bus.

Trump is untrustworthy. As a businessman, starting with a huge stash, he hasn’t done as well as the ordinary mutual fund over the years. The notion that he has business acumen is distorted. What he has had, in his career, is many thousands of lawsuits against him, many tales of stiffing contractors, many bankruptcies. With his bullying behavior, always being the overdog in a transaction, he has shown that he cannot be trusted. He can no longer get a loan on Wall Street.

Trump gives campaign speeches about how he cares, but in actions he cares about others not one whit. In the easiest of situations that require a response, like major and minor tragedies, Trump has shown himself to be uncaring. He cares only about Trump. He only “cares” after a bit, when a staffer reminds him that he should send something out in that vein.

Trump has no principles, and no ethics which which to form principles. Trump only cares that he wins and is admired, and mostly for his wealth and sexual prowess. He will adjust any principles to achieve that aim. He has no concrete domestic or foreign policy. His views on most topics can change 180 degrees within the same day. He’s against NATO, for NATO. He’s against Quatar, for Quatar. He likes the Saudis because they give him gifts and he has hotels there, never mind their human rights record. He absolutely doesn’t care about accusations about conflicts of interest, and flaunts those conflicts when he can brag about them.

It is extremely difficult to form a coherent national strategy when the president cannot express or adhere to even the most basic level of principles.

Trump has no sense of shame, no ethical sense. He has committed adultery several times, with multiple marriages, and claims to be a Fundamentalist Christian. More of his statements on the campaign trail and in office have been found to be lies rather than truths, and yet he doubles-down on them. He flaunts conflict-of-interest and nepotism charges.

Vindictive

It is easy to provoke Trump. He must win, and so he must strike back. Often he shoots himself in the foot. Our president needs to be a diplomat. He needs to be able to shed taunts and stick to the problem to be solved. Trump has no such ability.

It may be that the whole reason for Trump’s presidential run is that he was embarrassed by being made fun of by Barack Obama during a speech at a Correspondent’s Dinner, a joke fest. He has never forgotten that. He started his campaign with “birther” conspiracy theories. Now, fueled by racism and bigotry as well as vindictiveness, he is determined to undo all that Obama has done, just to get back at Obama. Trump really doesn’t care at all what he’s doing, only that he is slapping back at Obama. Trump used to be a pro-choice Democrat. He’s just picked a vehicle, the duped Republican party and duped Evangelical Christians, and others, as a means to his revenge.

This is very dangerous for a president. It means that Trump is easily manipulated by praise (the narcissist) and by taunts (the vindictive).

He brutishly attacks any news outlet criticizing him, misusing the label “fake news”, applying it to any negative press. He coarsely tweets outrageous and fact-free personal attacks on news personalities. These actions in themselves are far beneath the expected dignity of the person representing America. They cause me to be embarrassed for our country. These actions are also close to those of a totalitarian, someone who is intent on destroying the freedom of press with the aim of controlling the public conversation, that conversation being essential to a working democracy. It is disturbing to me that his followers, a significant subset of my fellow Americans, continue to support him, and even revel in his brutality.

Simpleton

Trump has bragged that he has “never read a book in my life”. This is presidential? Do we really want a dumbed-down presidency?

A byproduct of being unread, and of the narcissism that drives him to think that he is plenty smart, is the situation that Trump is intellectually unprepared, either with factual knowledge or the practical experience of deep thinking, for the subtle and nuanced job of President of the United States. And he won’t admit it. He is easily manipulated. Whoever spoke to him last, and that means in the last few minutes, and with a little praise, wins. Dangerous.

Trump aggressively rejects intellectualism and science.

Trump thinks climate change is a hoax. Trump is not sure why we need scientists on the federal payroll. Some of this is Trump’s condition of being easily lead due to his simplistic, unread nature, combined with the Republican Party’s continued allowance of influence from backwards religious rejections of science. Some of it is Trump’s self-notion of superiority – after all, he did get to be president while having no notion of science, so how useful can science be? And some of it is probably fear – he is afraid to admit that he really doesn’t understand much. He doesn’t ever want to look less smart than those around him.

Trump doesn’t want details about anything. He can’t consume them. People have to dumb down material for his consumption. He doesn’t want an intellectual debate on any topic. It is embarrassing to have a president who really isn’t that smart, and who either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about it.

He will lead the United States to a lesser role in the world with these notions. The United States could become a second-tier theocratic backwards country, without health care, with education policies based on cult beliefs and fears, and with an exodus of scientific workers to countries embracing scientific inquiry.

Carl Sagan wrote about how the human race is probably smart, but if we destroy ourselves in a nuclear war we will have proven to the universe that we were really rather naive and dumb. Trump may make a simplistic mistake, helped along by his incendiary and vindictive personality, and cause an international crisis before aides can stop him. This is extremely dangerous in the nuclear age. Carl’s fears have never been closer to the truth than now.

Policies

I’ll use Trump’s Cabinet for the policy discussions. Summary:

  • Shallow incompetent sycophants now run our executive policy.
  • Trump’s policy decisions come down to “Will It Make Me Look Good?”.
  • Exclusively business-focused – economic over human-centered decisions.
  • Almost no government experience, and not hiring experienced help.
  • Strong ties to Wall Street.
  • Strong ties to the fossil fuels industry, with many climate change deniers.
  • No scientists, and an open disdain of anything scientific.
  • Decreased sense of separation of church and state.
  • Anti-regulation in all forms, including important environmental issues.
  • Extreme wealth abounds – few have connections to average Americans.
  • Extremely white male centric.

Trump’s choices indicate his direction, if there is a direction. Mostly, Trump has only the most shallow Cabinet – only those who were loyal to him, mostly rich white men with the exceptions chosen so that there would be exceptions to talk about. If you read my discussion about loyalty above, you can understand that Trump can’t really staff the second-level positions well – there are not enough choices, and many are turning him down. Many positions are going unfilled.

Also, it is noteworthy that generally Trump’s Cabinet members have no experience in the position to which they were appointed, with only a couple of exceptions. And without support from below, and with unclear direction from above, the various organizations are floundering.

Most of the current Cabinet activity involves destruction rather than creation – undoing everything Obama did. I understand that this is somewhat expected – Republicans reversing what they consider to be Democrat mistakes. But it seems that it goes further than that, a spiteful slap in Obama’s face at every opportunity, even with small stuff. Trump’s vindictiveness at work.

There is a general sense that they feel entitled, that they have no need to consider that half (more than half, actually) of America did not vote for Trump and does not want Trump in office. They are the most partisan Cabinet, lead by Trump who tweets scorn at Democrats at every opportunity. Building bridges? Hardly.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
  • No government service experience
  • No foreign policy experience except Exxon globalism
  • State Dept. focuses on alliances and globalism; Trump wants to dismantle
  • Ties to Russia
  • Former Exxon/Mobil head, strong ties to oil industry
  • Helped lead Exxon/Mobil’s climate change denial efforts

Dangerously unprepared, and prevented by Trump from hiring knowledgeable assistants, if Trump doesn’t like them or if they’ve ever said something bad about Trump.

Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin
  • From Goldman Sachs, wealthy hedge-fund manager
  • Secretive financially
  • Uses offshore tax havens
  • Made money by aggressively foreclosing on homes
  • Financial connections with Trump

He’ll serve the 1%. The rest of us are invisible.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis
  • Retired general
  • Seems sane
  • Trump has abdicated to him full rein over the military, which is at odds with the notion that a civilian, the president, should be on top of the military to avoid military coups. I also take this as an indication of two things: Trump is lazy, doesn’t want to make hard decisions; Trump wants someone to blame.

“Surgeons think in terms of cutting, generals think in terms of fighting” – he’s sane, but has the military mindset, and more power than he should have. Trump listens to him a little bit.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions
  • Racist, homophobic
  • White supremacist ties
  • Thinks separation of church and state goes too far
  • Thinks same-sex marriage a threat to American culture
  • Wants to return to the war on drugs, including marijuana
  • Wants to return to minimum sentencing rules, especially for drugs
  • Anti-immigration

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is named after two Civil War heroes of the south. Evangelical Christians love him. He thinks “Make America Great Again” means move us back to the 1950’s, or, even better, the 1850’s.

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke
  • Ex-Navy SEAL, often refers to himself that way
  • Never was awarded command due to travel expenses abuse
  • Promotes increased drilling and mining on public lands
  • States that climate change is “not proven science”
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue
  • Continued to run family business while governor of Georgia, after having won on a “drain the swamp” type of ticket
  • Accused of promoting legislation in Georgia for self-gain
  • Fined by Georgia State Ethics Commission in 2005
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross
  • Billionaire, has a $250 million art collection
  • Many overseas investments
  • Vice-chairman of the Bank of Cyprus
  • Bought struggling companies, reworked them with layoffs, redoing union contracts, and reducing benefits
Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta
  • Florida law school dean
  • Only Hispanic in cabinet
  • Violated federal law by taking political affiliations into account in hiring
Secretary of Health Tom Price
  • Orthopedic surgeon
  • Lead opposition to ACA while in the House of Representatives
  • Opposes abortion rights
  • Suspected of insider trading of medical and pharmaceutical stocks
Secretary of Housing Ben Carson
  • Former neurosurgeon
  • No background in government
  • No experience running a bureaucracy, once declared himself as incapable
  • Rejects the programs that once embraced his family
  • Believes that welfare fosters dependency
  • Believes the Earth is 6000 years old
Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao
  • Establishment, former Secretary of Labor, married to Mitch McConnell
  • Competent, served under Bush for all 8 years
  • Easy confirmation
Secretary of Energy Rick Perry
  • In 2011 proposed to scrap the Energy Department
  • Close ties to oil industry
  • He didn’t know what Energy Department did until he became the head
  • He has a steep learning curve
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos
  • Married into vast wealth
  • Actively fights against public schools
  • Lobbied for vouchers for private and parochial schools
  • Has no experience in education metrics or policies
  • Does not support Common Core
  • Wants more religion, specifically Christian, Catholic, in our schools
  • Very close and contentious confirmation vote
Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin
  • Totally uncontroversial and probably highly competent pick
  • Experience with medical systems
  • Washington insider
  • Appointed undersecretary for health by Obama
Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly
  • Retired four-star Marine general
  • Views southern border as a terrorist threat
  • Considers Russia a threat, thus disagreeing with Trump
  • Seems sane, easily confirmed
Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo
  • Graduated first in class at West Point, considered smart and thorough
  • Has adversarial view of Russia, like most CIA employees (but not Trump)
  • Was part of Benghazi committee going after Hillary Clinton
United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley
  • Daughter of immigrants, Indian-American
  • As South Carolina governor, spoke out against the Confederate battle flag
  • Her views on the world are not known
  • Has supported restricting abortion rights in South Carolina
Environmental Protection Administration Administrator Scott Pruitt
  • Close ally of the fossil fuel industry
  • Active climate change denier
  • Allows fossil fuel lobbyists to write some of his formal memos
  • Has sued the EPA many times
  • Considers the EPA only as an impediment to business profits
  • Trump wants to dismantle EPA – Pruitt is the perfect pick
  • Has reversed or relaxed many Obama environment-related orders
Small Business Administration Administrator Linda McMahon
  • Former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment
  • Husband Vince is the guy who Trump tackles in the now-famous video
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney
  • Proponent of deep spending cuts
  • Founding member of the House Freedom Caucus
  • After prayer with other congressmen, voted to shut down the gov’t in 2011
  • Tough and close confirmation
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats
  • Served on Senate intelligence and armed services committees
  • Promised to continue investigation into Russia’s election meddling
  • A quiet foodie, fiscally conservative but otherwise able to be bi-partisan
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer
  • International lawyer, trade official under Reagan
  • Advocates protectionist policies
Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Kevin Hassett
  • Pro-immigration economist
Chief of Staff Reince Priebus
  • Departing chairman of the Republican National Committee
  • Close to Paul Ryan
  • Known as a deal-maker, an insider
Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon
  • Former head of Breitbart News
  • No government experience
  • Anti-Semetic, racist, nationalist, misogynistic, Islamophobic
  • Naval officer, Harvard grad
  • Strong connections to right-wing nationalists
  • Strong connections to white supremacist groups
  • Believes in an apocalyptic Muslims vs. Christians fight to the death
  • Wants to start the above fight
Senior Advisor Jared Kushner
  • Son-in-law of Trump via Ivanka
  • Also a developer from a weathly family with many shady deals in the past
  • Father went to jail for his business practices
  • No government experience
  • Ties to Russia
  • Like Trump, extreme conflicts-of-interest with his businesses
Homeland Security Adviser Thomas Bossert
  • Former national security aide to Bush
  • Cyber crimes may be a main focus of his administration
  • Has respect from both parties for intelligence and patience
Counselor Kellyanne Conway
  • Background in sophisticated polling
  • Lies as often or more often than Trump
  • Some news-talk shows no longer seek her out for their shows due to lies
  • Coined “alternative facts” phrase
  • One of few female Trump surrogates
Regulatory Czar Carl Icahn
  • Billionaire investor and “corporate raider”
  • His job will be to unwind as many business regulations as possible
  • No government experience
White House Counsel Donald McGahn II
  • Combative iconoclast
  • Fought to remove impediments to big money in politics
  • Guitarist in a rock band
  • Is known for devising ways to get around rules and regulations
  • Unconcerned about conflicts of interest or ethics issues
Trade Czar Peter Navarro
  • Professor, only credentialed economist on Trump’s staff
  • No government experience
  • Critic of Chinese economic policies
  • Favors increased trade restrictions
  • Four unsuccessful political campaigns in California as a Democrat
Press Secretary Sean Spicer
  • Hostile relationship with the press
  • Hostile relationship with the truth
  • Opaque on anything important
  • Works hard at limiting press access
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster
  • A Lt. General, lots of Afghanistan and Iraq experience and command
  • Appointed after Flynn was forced out
  • Considered one of the military’s most independent-minded officers
  • West Point graduate, doctorate in military history
  • Considered sane – McCain likes him, and in this area I trust McCain
Relationship with the Press and Judiciary

Which is worse? Is it Trump’s attack against the environment? Is it his allowance (we know he really doesn’t care) of movement towards a theocracy with changes in education, Supreme Court nominations, and attacks on women and gays? Is it his collusion with Russia? Is it his attack on some foundations of our democracy, that being freedom of the press, and the separation of the branches of government? I think the last one is the winner.

Trump is not just arguing. He is denying press access to his executive functions. He is brutally attempting to discredit and to control the press.

Trump attempts to influence judicial decisions. He engages in personal attacks on judges.  He casts blame and false responsibility onto judicial entities whose decisions he doesn’t agree with.

Attacks on the Press

“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!  <on Twitter, Feb. 17th, 2017>

There are so many more, but this is the main point. Trump is attempting to demolish the idea of an independent press. Noteworthy is that Breitbart and Fox, less factually reliable but speaking for Trump, are omitted from the above tweet. Fox is Trump’s Pravda.

Trump only gives campaign speeches to carefully vetted crowds, even now that he is president. Every so often he will allow a Fox interview. Press conferences with his surrogates are opaque and one-directional. They toss accusations and give no answers to substantive questions.

Attacks on the Judiciary

“Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and the court system. People pouring in. Bad!” <Twitter, Feb. 5, 2017, in response to Trump’s Muslim travel ban being curtailed>

“I have a judge in the Trump University civil case, Gonzalo Curiel (San Diego), who is very unfair. An Obama pick. Totally biased- hates Trump.” <Twitter, May 30, 2016>  And in an interview Trump said that Curiel was no doubt biased because of his Mexican heritage.

Fake News, and Trump’s use of the term

Here are some definitions of “Fake News” that I will use in this note:

  1. The presentation of totally fabricated reports of events, disguised as news reports. Totally made up. Purposes: To influence easily led people who don’t check information sources, thus promoting falsehoods; to profit via internet clicks on outrageous headlines; to disrupt the trust in news organizations; to amuse.
  2. Mistakes made by legitimate news organizations which result in retractions and corrections when the mistakes are found.
  3. A label used to attack news organizations who publish articles that: expose one’s lies with facts; publish opposing opinions; report damaging news; show one in an unflattering light.

Trump has been involved in the first type of Fake News. He made a political name for himself by being a “birther” – claiming that Obama was not born in the United States, offering no proof, ever. Many of Trump’s lies could be considered as Fake News as they are repeated as if they are fact. Examples: 1) Trump would have won the national overall vote if there hadn’t been several million examples of voter fraud. 2) Trump’s inauguration crowd size exceeded Obama’s.

Trump extensively uses the label of Fake News for any news article or organization with which he disagrees, or which shows him in a bad light. This is the third type of Fake News.

When a news organization makes a mistake, that second type of Fake News, and the mistake is about something against Trump, he goes ballistic, using the single episode and expanding it to “prove” that the entire organization is not to be trusted.

These behaviors lead people to lower their trust in news organizations that deserve trust, and to raise their trust in news organizations that don’t deserve trust. This is very dangerous. If successful, Trump will control the American narrative, devoid of truth. This control of the press is an important step towards totalitarianism and a giant step away from democracy. We have started in that direction. We think it can’t happen to us, but then we didn’t think Trump could happen to us, did we?

Relationship with Russia

Trump bashes all major countries, including traditionally friendly countries, whenever he can get attention for it. Except Russia. Trump only criticizes Russia when forced to do so by an abundance of evidence. Even then, he tempers his criticism and seeds uncertainty when he can.

Now we know, not just suspect but know, that Russia attempted to influence the American election in 2016, and was successful. There are many investigations by reputable branches of U.S. intelligence agencies that make this conclusion. The U.S. has instituted sanctions against Russia for these actions.

Trump’s campaign and current administration are under investigation by an independent counselor, to determine the extent, if any, of their involvement in the Russian disturbance of the election. Also, they are under investigation for suspect ties to Russian-supported governments and Russian money.

Instead of supporting the investigations, to end the cloud over his presidency, Trump is attempting to thwart and belittle them. Trump also personally attacks the investigators. That’s his way.

These investigations are very important to narcissistic Trump. The idea that Russia helped to cause distrust of Hillary Clinton takes away from his notion that he won on his own. It makes him look like a puppet who needed help to win by cheating, and he cannot accept that in his world view.

There is too much for me to copy in here. That in itself is troublesome – the amount of smoke implies at least some fires. Here is a link to a good timeline by a trusted journalist, Stephen Harper writing on Bill Moyer’s site. The length and depth of this timeline is in itself impressive.

I’m just going to list the people who influence Trump, or are associated with Trump’s campaign and administration, who are mentioned in this timeline and who have some suspect involvement with Russia. Just the length of the list causes one to wonder.

The news this week (w/o July 10th, 2017, NYT) about Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manfort exchanging email with Russian operatives and enthusiastically agreeing to meet to hear about dirt on Hillary Clinton just adds fuel to this mess. I won’t attempt to keep up.

  • Donald Trump
  • Eric Trump
  • Donald Trump, Jr.
  • Ivanka Trump
  • Jared Kushner
  • Roger Stone
  • Paul Manafort
  • Felix Sater
  • Tamir Sapir
  • Jeff Sessions
  • Mike Flynn
  • Carter Page
  • Mike Pence
  • J.D. Gordon
  • Boris Epshteyn
  • Michael D. Cohen
  • Aaron Nevins
  • Peter W. Smith
  • Rex Tillerson
  • Jack Kingston
  • Steve Bannon
  • Erik Prince
  • Devin Nunes
Conflicts of Interest

Like the Russia connections, Trump’s conflicts of interest are so vast that writing even a little bit about them makes this note long.

The Atlantic has a good article listing the main ones here.

In every case, Trump and his family are shameless, breathtakingly so. I have never experienced such shamelessness in a public figure before, so I am having a bit of difficulty getting my arms around it.

Here is the Atlantic’s list, with a short sentence on each one. The most recent are on the top.

  • Clean Water Rule – rolling back clean water regulations helps Trump’s 12 golf courses in the US.
  • New Delhi Development – partnering with suspect companies, and involving potentially corrupt political officials.
  • Golf Course in Westchester – bullying local governments to halve the assessment, resulting in massive tax breaks.
  • Russian Trademarks – unexpected progress with getting more business done in Russia – is this lucky or does it come with Russian influence?
  • HUD Region II appointee – Lynne Patton, absolutely no experience in that area, but she was the Trump Organization’s event planner for things like marketing projects and golf events.
  • Saudi Arabian Lobbying – Saudis spent $270,000 at Trump International Hotel in D.C., paid for U.S. veterans to come to D.C. to advocate against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. There are supposed to be plans to give that sort of money to charity – the Trump Organization hasn’t done so.
  • Golf Course in New Jersey – Bedminster Golf Course , initiation fee $350,000, is actively advertising the possibility of seeing Trump there on many summer weekends. Trump has his photo taken with paying guests.
  • Brussels Meeting – in his first foreign trip, in meetings with foreign leaders, what Trump talked about for each country was whether or not he “liked” that country based on whether he had properties or businesses there, and how easy or hard it was to get licenses, etc. After these conversations, some licenses in some countries suddenly became easy.
  • Tower in Toronto – one of Trump’s partners in this property received millions of dollars from the Russian bank VEB, owned by the Russian government.
  • Caribbean Villa – Le Chateau des Palmiers on St. Maarten is for sale. Someone paying more than it is worth could be bribing Trump. Trump is still involved, and the negotiations are private.
  • Condos for Sale – since starting his campaign about 58 condos have sold for about $90 million, half to LLCs, which means that the transaction and the buyer are opaque.
  • Reelection Campaign Funds – Trump registered as a candidate for 2020 only hours after taking office. So he is collecting campaign funds, and since he does some campaigning from his businesses, hotels and golf courses, he has already shifted more than $6 million of campaign funds to his personal businesses. This is after he became president.
  • Second D.C. Hotel – a licensing agreement for a new Scion brand hotel brings up the same conflicts as Trump International.
  • Azerbaijan Property – Trump Hotel and Tower in Baku, partners with corrupt officials, including the especially corrupt son of Azerbaijan’s transportation minister. This may violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which Trump is against.
  • Trump Tower Penthouse – Angela Chen bought it for $16 million. She runs Global Alliance Associates a consulting firm whose chief asset is to connect people with the most prominent public and private decision makers in China, and now she has access to Trump.
  • Dominican Republic Resort – a new development, something that Trump promised not to do. They are calling it “in progress already” on the thinnest of excuses.
  • Chinese Trademark – after a decade, Trump scored a victory on February 15th, 2017. Days before, Trump had reversed one of his stances on China by endorsing the “One China Policy”.
  • Mar-a-Lago Meeting – discussion of a North Korean missile launch, between Trump and Shinzo Abe of Japan, in public. Reading briefing documents, at a dinner table, using light from phones of gathered onlookers. By the way, Mar-a-Lago’s initiation fees were doubled, on the notion that people would be willing to pay for potential audiences with Trump.
  • Defense Department Trump Tower Rental – the Pentagon is planning on leasing space there to have a command center for when Trump is in New York. About $3 million per year. Just another case where Trump and his family are making money off of regular government functions.
  • Red Cross Ball at Mar-a-Lago – accepting money from an organization subject to federal oversight. To be fair, this event was planned in advance of Trump’s candidacy.
  • D.C. Labor Dispute – 40 workers at Trump Hotel in D.C. have voted to unionize. This situation is similar to one in Las Vegas that was resolved before Trump became president. If Trump Organization contests, it is Trump against the workers in front of Trump the judge, in a manner of speaking.
  • Mar-a-Lago – the Southern White House, with each visit there profitable to Trump, and with advertising for the resort.
  • Expansion Promises – Trump has promised not to expand in foreign countries while president, and is currently skirting those promises. But he has not promised to curtail expansion in the U.S. All these business considerations are ripe with corruption opportunities, or in the very least suspect with regards to pressure from the president to force the deals his way, when dealing with small local governments.
  • Vancouver (B.C.) Hotel – licensed by Trump, opened the day before his inauguration, owned by a rich Malaysian.
  • “The Apprentice” – Trump remains executive producer. How will the show’s sponsors make out if they are in trouble with the U.S. government (Carnival Lines with pollution, QVC with deceptive advertising)?
  • Dakota Access Pipeline – Trump overturned Obama’s decision and helped DAP move forward. Trump is an investor in DAP.
  • HUD Grants – Trump administers HUD and owns properties that receive HUD money.
  • Aberdeen Golf Course – Trump spoke with Nigel Farage to attempt to block wind turbines nearby. He also planned expansions, which he claims is not new business.
  • Steven Roth – another billionaire New York developer with several properties co-owned with Trump is going to be part of Trump’s infrastructure development administration.
  • Indonesian Politicians – two new Trump Indonesian projects involve many Indonesian officials in the Muslim country.
  • Emerati Businessman – Hussain Sajwani, praised by Trump at the New Year’s Eve celebration at Mar-a-Lago, who has paid Trump millions to license his name for Dubai resorts.
  • Virginia Vineyard – Trump Vinyard, using immigrant labor, needs special visas, from the executive branch that Trump runs.
  • Las Vegas Labor Dispute – Trump worked against a budding union. Had it been a few weeks later he could have appointed the people deciding the dispute.
  • Kuwatis at Trump D.C. Hotel – their annual celebration was moved to Trump Hotel from Four Seasons after members of the Trump Organization contacted the Kuwati ambassador.
  • Certificates of Divestiture – it is extremely difficult to understand whether or not the uber-wealthy cabinet doesn’t have conflicts of interest similar to Trump’s.
  • Carrier Deal – Trump touted his business expertise with Carrier jobs retained in the U.S., even though the reality was far from dramatic and involved concessions. Trump holds stock in Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies.
  • Blind Trust – frankly impossible with the degree to which his holdings are very public.
  • Fannie and Freddy Investments – John Paulson, business partner of Trump and Mnuchin, made a lot of money from Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac investments after Mnuchin made statements about privatizing and deregulating both.
  • Taiwan Phone Call – a controversial “recognizing” of Taiwan. The Trump Organization is actively exploring expansion into Taiwan.
  • Deutsche Bank Debt – Trump’s numerous bankruptcies have left most Wall Street banks unwilling to lend him money. Exception: Deutsche Bank, with $2.5-3.5 billion to Trump-affiliated companies. The Justice Department is probing Deutsche Bank on many fronts.
  • Secret Service Detail – the U.S. government is profiting Trump by renting his properties for the business of protecting him.
  • Property in Georgia (Country) – Trump’s election was a major factor in moving development forward.
  • Erdogan Phone Call – Turkey’s president has a horrid human rights record, but Trump has properties there and is on a very friendly basis with Erdogan. This conflict of interest Trump has actually acknowledged as such.
  • Trump Hotel in D.C. – so many opportunities for conflicts.
  • Argentinian Office Building – Trump’s first phone call to his Argentine counterpart included a discussion of smoothing some permit issues for a Trump building in Buenos Aires.
  • Saudi Arabian Companies – while accusing Hillary Clinton of accepting foreign money into her charities, during his campaign Trump registered 8 new companies in Saudi Arabia.
  • Phillippines – Rodrigo Duterte, brutal president, appointed a long-time Trump business associate as a special envoy to the U.S.

 

 

An Interesting Non-Posting Year

I last posted in June 2016, the final post of a 4-month freighter trip.

In July 2016, my wife Terry left. This was a surprise to me, but not a total surprise. An unsaid-until-now reason for my freighter trip was to give her space to think and to be. Our divorce was final in December. I won’t write more about this. It is private, for me and for Terry. Please allow us to keep it private. I won’t post comments I receive on this topic.

I don’t like the idea of having to fly to see both Matt and Emma, who are on opposite coasts. I chose one coast: the Pacific Northwest. It is more likely that Emma will end up near here than it is that Matt will end up on the East Coast. And, I like it better here.

In September 2016 I moved to Portland, Oregon. I visited in August to find an apartment, and rented a reasonable one in an interesting part of town.

In March 2017 I bought a condominium in Portland, and moved into it in early April. There are many reasons for the purchase, but the main one is that I wanted to establish some roots in a new place. I need to be less transient for a while.

I am gradually finding my way in Portland.

I furnished my new place well enough to feel comfortable and to accommodate guests. There remains much work to be done, but the pace and urgency are reduced.

So, a year after disembarking in Genoa, I find myself writing this, overlooking Portland from a 12th floor apartment, looking at downtown to the west and Mt. St. Helens to the north. By the way, Portland has a harbor that serves freighter ships.

I am preparing myself for more writing, continuing work on an in-progress novel, and hopefully getting some more things posted to this website. I hope that you find some of them interesting!

Genoa and Goodbye

(Tuesday, June 7th, 2016)

Tomorrow I get on a plane that starts my trip home.

This’ll probably be my last post directly related to the freighter trip. I could change my mind, but I am not likely to try to make some big statement. That’s just not me.

So… I have had a nice week in Genoa! It’s a very good city for walking around, and I did so. Sometimes in sun, sometimes in the rain. I had run low on energy. Leaving the ship after so long a time left me a bit disconnected. I decided not to try for too much, not to see “everything possible” before getting on a plane, but to just relax and enjoy.

Each day I picked a couple things I wanted to see or do, and set out with those simple goals. I allowed myself to get diverted, which was easy. I walked, sat and wrote in my journal, ate a bit, had one of several thousand cups of coffee of differing styles, and walked some more.

I took many pictures, and looking back at them, I realize how many of them are in “portrait” mode vs. “landscape”. When you walk in the center of Genoa, you are almost always in an urban canyon of some sort. It is so unusual to a Floridian turned Phoenician, and even San Francisco doesn’t have that sense. The walking spaces in the old town are only wide enough for walking, and the buildings are several stories high, so narrow canyons are the norm. There are intersections and all that, and it is easy to get lost. But not really. Walking for just a little more in any direction either gets you to the harbor, or to a plaza, from which you can find your bearings.

I also realize that I have a ways to go as a photographer, and that my normal cameras (my point and shoot camera, and my phone camera, which is what I used in Genoa) try a little too hard at making everything just so, bright like a sunny day. And so the slight darkness in the canyons doesn’t come out well. I might try adjusting some photos so that they “feel right”.

I have a point of pride, totally accidental: A woman asked me for directions in Italian, and when I spoke she answered in English saying that I looked Italian. Ha! In the end, though, I was happy that I actually could help her with directions! It turns out that she accidentally asked me for the location of a particular plaza that I had been using as my personal reference, because I knew how to get home from there. Just lucky. So I helped an Italian tourist in Italy. Cool.

I will caption some photos for the “Cooked” section, but I am not going to try to name each building or discuss its significance. I only sort of care about that stuff. There are directions to a place claimed to be Christopher Columbus’ birthplace. Like Mao’s tomb, I am not really interested.

Something that was impressive to me was how much a city like Genoa was thriving, as long ago as the 1500s. Many of the largest mansions, an “embassy row”, some huge cathedrals, castles and forts defending the port, already existed then. I can imagine the elite in their carriages, now 500 years ago (think about that for a minute), leaving the opera, coming home to their in-town estates, then going to church the next day. I know that Rome, “just down the shoreline”, scoffs at mere half-millenia, but I am still impressed by Genoa. When Columbus left, he left from a thriving city, not a startup.

I took one excursion out of town, on a tip from Duane and Kathy, Italianaires Supremo (<– fake Italian). I took the train to Monterosso and then hiked to Vernazza. That’s a part of a longer hike connecting five small towns nestled beneath the steep hills on the coast. “Scenic” doesn’t do it justice. The hike was as beautiful as those along the California coast, and with these little old towns along the way.

I only did one part. I guess the writeups say that this part is a difficult section, but it wasn’t really that bad. Except that, instead of walking back to Monterosso, my knees, once they saw the train depot and learned about the easy intercity train, went all Italian on me and went on strike. I could have forced the issue, but it would have been an ugly scene. I decided to give in to their demands.

Okay, that is it. I will be updating the “Cooked” section with some photos for Genoa and Monterosso/Vernazza, and I will continue to work on “chapters” of the blog book. If/when I get the blog book to a good state, I will put it on the blog site, so you don’t need a Dropbox link to see it.

This trip is done. I am now mostly focused on getting on the airplane first thing tomorrow morning. The Rickmers Antwerp, as we speak, has already visited a couple more ports. They are, after all, at work!

Thanks again! Ta ta for now.

And We’re Done

(June 1st, 2016)

Well well well I have disembarked, with all my luggage and memories. I have become used to being on a ship, and being at a port, and having some identity there. This time I am not going back on board. I am, once again, a civilian. A tourist, in Europe for a few days, headed home.

On board, we had communications systems failures over the last few days, so the first things I must do in Genoa are still trip-related. Find hotel rooms, get trains and planes organized, that sort of thing. I am headed to the US East Coast to see Terry and Emma, but I am not flying out as soon as possible. Our timing is such that I can be a little lazy in returning.

I am not sure of my schedule or WiFi availability, so I cannot promise a blog update until I get back to Phoenix, sometime in the middle of June. I might do better than that, and I want to wrap it up before it goes stale.

I have been trying to put pieces of the blog into a more printable form. My mom says that she prefers to read things and look at things that way. She’s not so comfortable with devices. She’s likely not the only one. So if you look at “Blog Book” in the “Cooked” section of “Raw Photos”, you’ll see a growing collection of hopefully printable .pdfs whose file names force a kind of chapter-by-chapter sort. I’ll keep adding to them. Eventually I hope to make a printable book of them. Mostly it will be a picture book.

I have had a good time. It was longer than optimum, but I did get a good sense of the time it takes to travel over our world using the oceans. I also got a beginner’s sense of the freighter industry. I met many people, I saw a lot, I learned a lot. I won’t do it again, it was too long for that, but I feel fortunate to have done it.

In “The Innocents Abroad”, about 150 years ago, Mark Twain wrote: “Travel is fatal to prejudice.” We could all help the world a little bit by widening, rather than narrowing, our sense of community.

Thanks, readers, for hanging in there with me! For many of you, I will see you soon!

Antwerp

(Tuesday, May 24th, 2016)

We are in Antwerp, Belgium for the next couple of days. This is my penultimate stop, and the last port that I will exit on board a freighter ship. It has been a long voyage. I’ll probably say that again in the next couple of posts!

The voyage into Antwerp was rainy and windy and cold, so we were out on deck taking pictures for short periods, then scurrying back in to our cozy cabins and looking out portholes for the next photo op. Along the way were some small towns, some beaches, and a resort town, then a gap with only green small hills, and then the bustle of Antwerp Port. We went through a lock to get to Antwerp. I have some photos through a porthole, but it was late at night and I didn’t go up on deck to seek better pictures. We berthed after midnight. Our schedule has us leaving at night as well, so I don’t expect great pictures on the way out.

Antwerp is also a huge port. I didn’t see that as much on the way in, because it was dark and was also the middle of the night so I didn’t get out of bed for it. But when we went to immigration in the taxi, on our way into town, we saw signs for so many ports. We were in docks 468 and 470 (our ship is long, tee hee). There were signs to docks numbering to 2000. Oh my. We traveled over several small drawbridges, the roadways and channels intertwining in the port.

Yesterday, our first full day in port, I went into old town Antwerp and walked around, mostly for the entire day. It was drizzly and a bit chilly but not so much as to prevent walking. For us Americans, the “old town” of these ancient European cities include still-in-use buildings that predate our entire history, so “old” really means old.

Since I knew that I was going back to the ship via taxi, I walked wherever I wanted, never consulting a map, since I knew that after I got lost (it isn’t an “if”, it’s a “when”, I know me) I could catch a cab back to the ship. So I wandered, taking pictures of whatever seemed interesting. I did get lost, and walked into a nearby restaurant for a nice dinner and some very nice, compared to the box wine on board, California wine. Tee hee!

The only trouble with this “technique” is that I cannot report where I was or what, exactly, I saw. Some days this concerns me, but yesterday it didn’t. I just walked and snapped. Quite satisfying.

There was one square, and a tall cathedral, that was more of a focal point than some others. Several streets meandered away from this square, maybe five or six at least. All of these streets were narrow, many of them restricted to pedestrian and bicycle traffic only, and all of them paved with cobblestones. The cobblestone streets and rail tracks help me to understand the big wheels and fat tires of the typical sit-up Belgian bicycles. There were shops all around, and some restaurants that claimed to be hundreds of years old. Pretty cool.

I imagine that it is true for most European cities, but maybe more so here, that “ordinary folk” are extremely (at least to Americans) multi-lingual. I was warming up with a latte in a coffee shop, and my server, and her helper, spoke clear American English to me almost without accent, French to the next guy in line, Flemish (I assume) to a boyfriend of one of them who came by to chat, and German to a group of ladies deciding about pastries. In each case the talk was fast, not halting, and so I assume that they were as smooth with the others as they were with me. They switched languages as if there were no switch occuring, as if it were all the same language. That’s so cool. I understood maybe two or three German words and maybe, maybe, four French words. And I am giving myself credit for “Hello”.

It is also true, at least it seems that way in my limited exposure, that more young people in Europe smoke than in the US. That’s not so cool.

Again, I took some photos of small cars I want to see imported to the US. Or, better yet, to be designed and manufactured by US automakers. Ford still makes good profit building F-150s at the Rouge plant near Detroit. I took a plant tour there last year after a volleyball tournament. So why not great little cars, not just cheap little cars? Alfa-Romeo gets good money for their great little cars. I believe there’s a market. A teensy soapbox moment there.

We are in Antwerp until tomorrow evening, so I might go out and about again, and might add to this post or to photos. Or maybe I will leave it as is. Tonight I expect to be at the Seamen’s center, with WiFi, so I’ll post this post much closer to its original date.

I updated my progress map. Look in “cooked” for “Progress Map”. There’s only one dashed line left. I hope we pass Gibraltar in daytime!

Hamburg

(Sunday, May 22nd, 2016)

We are back in the North Sea, headed from Hamburg to Antwerp. The sea is smooth, and the swells are small. It is raining outside, a steady drizzle, a bit chilly, but not especially windy. Not a bad day for traveling. We expect to be in Antwerp late tonight. We pick up a pilot late in the afternoon, for a long trip up a river. There will be a lock to go through, and the Captain hopes that it isn’t crowded at the lock.

I didn’t go in to visit Hamburg, so I have nothing to write about the city itself. The logistics were a bit difficult, as our berth was a ways from town center, and frankly my energy level was low. This post will be about the port visit.

We sailed to Hamburg via a long approach up the Elbe River from the North Sea. The river starts out extremely wide and then narrows to, well, fairly wide still, as it reaches the city. There were small towns all along the way, with deeply green fields, houses with dark pitched roofs over red brick, and spikey church steeples. Small herds of cows and sheep grazed nearby. Pastoral.

Interspersed with these scenes were the occasional pieces of industry: A small refinery, some sort of grain storage and shipping, and ferries to Hamburg and London from small docks. As we got closer to Hamburg the balance of small town / industry tilted towards industry. Finally, when we could see the city in the distance, the river was almost consumed with industry on both sides, with the exception of some expensive-looking homes with huge sloping lawns on the north side of the river. We passed by a regional airport whose long runway ended at the river’s edge. Eerie, looking down the business end of a runway. We were “in the way”. No planes while we passed. Whew.

Many sailboats were out and about, of all sizes and shapes. The day we arrived was sunny and windy, so pretty nice for them. I took a photo or two of sailboats sailing past some cows and sheep. Ha.

The Hamburg port is huge. It compares to Shanghai in size. It certainly feels that way. There are many pathways as you approach the city, and each seem to have many cranes visible in the distance. You gotta leave crumbs in the water so you can find your way back out.

Hamburg is where Rickmers, our ship’s owner and operator (two different companies), has their home office. So, once we berthed, we were visited by many people. There was even a group of Rickmers employees, maybe 20 of them, who came on a bus and toured the ship to “get a feel”. After all, their work involves ships and shipping, and yet so many of them have no clue what is it like on a ship discharging, loading, and transporting cargo. I had a good time talking with some of them as the “Chief Passenger”. A couple of them had to be told that that was a joke, that passengers had no rank. Kind of cute. I wish that Rickmers could allow them a few days on board, during travel. That’s much different than walking around a berthed ship. But any exposure to the real world that gets affected by their desk jobs is a good thing, so I applaud Rickmers.

A couple of the Rickmers folk, learning that I was American, asked about Donald Trump, looking for insight I guess. Oh my. Oh well. I am not a fan of that association. This isn’t a political blog so I’ll stop right there.

We had one really cool loading. A large yacht, a new Hanse 675. Like the catamarans we had on board across the Pacific, it is noticeable how much effort is spent on attempting to prevent even a scratch while loading and discharging. It makes sense, as this is a pleasure vehicle targeted toward people who have spent a lot of money and want to see something shiny and perfect show up at their marina. Not like those who are receiving a new mobile crane that will immediately be put to work.

We lifted the ship from the water. For the catamarans, there were lifting hooks built in, so we used those. For this yacht, there were no hooks, so we had to cradle it. This meant that there was underwater work to do to ensure that the cradle was properly located. A diver spent quite a bit of time under the yacht. Also, we started with a spreader (that piece that holds the lifting lines apart) that seemed right but wasn’t working well, so we had to start over with a different spreader. Nothing goes as planned. Took most of a morning.

A lot of people watched this lift. I am not sure if it was because it was near Rickmers’ offices, or if the yacht builders sent a lot of people, or maybe the receiving owners were there. There was also a photographer who looked official. I had wondered where she would place herself for best possible photos, and for a while couldn’t find her. She was up in the crane! Major cool. I was jealous.

I spent some time in a very nice Seamen’s center. They are not all created equal, and this one was one of the best. I got some nerdy work done on my computer, drank a few very nice beers, and talked with some Russians (in English, somewhat embarrassingly), who were workers on a car carrier ship. They don’t get to drive the cars, darn it, a separate agency does all that in the ports. On the way back to the ship I had a nice talk with the Seamen’s center’s shuttle driver. He was American, from Des Moines, who visited Hamburg in 1972 and just never quite made his way back to America. Ha! It was fun to talk with him.

We are vertically tighter to some bridges now, because the mast on the yacht is higher than the highest points (the radar equipment and antennae) on our bridge. My eyes aren’t the best at depth perception, and already one of the bridges in the interior of the port scared me on our way out of Hamburg. On top of the yacht’s mast are some electronics and some weather monitoring equipment. I thought they were goners! I am sure that Captain has it all under control.

Bremerhaven

(Thursday, May 19th, 2016)

I needed some time with an internet connection to get Dropbox sync’d and some blog posting accomplished, so I rented a hotel room in Bremerhaven for a night. I spent an afternoon and a morning walking around before returning to the ship.

My hotel was the City Hotel Shulz near Christ Church near the middle of Bremerhaven. The hotel was exactly what I needed. The room was small but pleasant and sufficient, the WiFi was good, and the restaurant downstairs was perfect for what I needed. The young woman at the front desk had just spent a few months in San Francisco, in an English-immersion class. Small world! We talked about Market Street and the Ferry Building, and the hill up to Sutro Tower. In English!

The steeple of Christ Church was just tall enough to be seen through other buildings, and distinguished enough from nearby churches, so when I wanted to walk back to the hotel I had a reference.

Bremerhaven is a nice mid-sized town, centered around the port and shipyards. The port is large when compared to Port Manatee, but small when compared to Hamburg or Shanghai. But then most ports are small when compared to those two.

Several canals and harbor accesses wind through the town, so it was fun to look at commercial vessels and private boats and yachts docked here and there. Small parks with deep green grass were all around. Not that many people were out and about. It was windy, chilly, and spitting rain just a little bit, just enough so that one might choose to go for a walk on some other day. I did not have that choice.

I walked past the company that builds the orange emergency lifeboats that I see on almost every big ship. And a sailmaking company, and a marine radio company. In a mall there was a shop dedicated to things, like a hoodie or a bag, made from old sailcloth.

In town there were winding streets with close-connected townhouses, some of which were obviously much older than others. Being a port and a shipyard, I am sure that Bremerhaven got its share of damage during World War II. Cobblestone streets were common. Car tires make a different sound on cobblestone!

Speaking of cars, I was jealous of all the cool small (tiny, by US standards) cars from all sorts of manufacturers. We are really missing out on some practical, stylish, environmentally friendly fun. Not much bigger than Smart cars (of which there were a few to be seen), but much more sporty, and with vestigal rear seats. I saw no Hummers or Escalades. But also no hybrid Priuses (Prii?) either.

The bar/church ratio was pretty good. I won’t tell which side of zero I prefer, but some towns are very skewed. This one seemed fair to both sides. Both Octoberfest and Martin Luther are German.

Bremerhaven has several museums, a zoo, and a whole “experience” building. There were also many historical ships that one could tour. It was windy and wet outside, so although I wanted to tour some ships it didn’t sound like fun. Except for one – a submarine! So I toured the “Wilhelm Bauer”, a WWII-era U-boat. (Mr. Bauer was the inventor of the submarine in the 1800’s, according to a sign on the ship.) It never saw service, was scuttled near the end of the war, then recovered twelve years later and restored over a period of years. I am not necessarily a fan of war machines, but it was interesting to see what technology was like in the middle of the last century. When I was visiting inside, I was the only person there besides two gentlemen at the entrance desk. I felt crowded. Ha. I know I have a mild case of claustrophobia. The sub had a crew of 58. That number kept sticking in my mind. Wow.

You know those movies in which a sub captain finishes looking through the periscope, slams up the handholds as the scope starts to fall, and steps back before yelling something? Well, there is no “stepping back”. There is simply no room. The idea that there might be four or five people standing around the captain during those scenes, if repeated in a real U-boat, would mean that “face-to-face” meant that faces would almost be touching each other. But the yelling? The proximity of the periscope to the engines, and the snorkels delivering air to the engine intakes when the sub is near the surface, probably required it.

At the end of my walk I walked back to the ship, or at least back to the security gate. While waiting for a shuttle to take me back to the ship, I stared at the side of a massive car carrier, acres of flat steel. Cars and small delivery vans driving off a rear gangway. Somewhat different in scope than the “Wilhelm Bauer”.