Stories of my travels

I’m home. My travels (for now) are done. The primary purpose of the trip was to attend another International Handbell Symposium. This is the 15th of these I’ve attended. This one was held in Aberdeen, Scotland. I flew from Detroit to Amsterdam to Edinburgh. Because I didn’t want to rent a car I took the train up to Perth for a couple nights. One reason for stopping there is it is the closest rail station to the town of Rattray, the ancestral home of my sister-in-law who died five years ago. The town still has residents, a high school, and a community center, but its small commercial district is all boarded up. That’s not a big deal because there is another town across the river and its downtown is doing reasonably well. Back in Perth I visited the Perth Museum. It houses the Stone of Scone which is placed under the throne when a Scottish monarch is coronated. Since Charles III is king over the Scots (as well as the rest of Britain) the stone was there. I also visited the Perth Art Museum, which includes a neon unicorn. I took the train up to Aberdeen. The convention center is in a business park adjacent to the airport. So there are hotels nearby. But there aren’t any supporting amenities, such as a laundromat. There were over 600 ringers from 15 countries who formed one massive bell choir. We had nine directors from eight countries, each one leading one piece. In addition to spending a lot of time rehearsing the music we had classes in various aspects of handbells and in the culture of various participants. One class was about the Scottish tartan and kilt (no, I didn’t try one on). Another class was about Canadian folksongs arranged for bells and yet another about excerpts of a Hungarian operetta arranged for bells. After the Symposium I spent three nights in Inverness. I took one day trip to Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle and another trip to Dunrobin Castle, which featured demonstrations of hunting by hawk and falcon. I’ve been traveling for many decades. For my first trips I carried travelers checks. For this trip I used my credit card for nearly everything, even for many small purchases. For my time in Aberdeen some type of card or payment system was required because both the convention center’s coffee vendors (which I skipped) and the hotel were cashless. I found I had to be careful in some places because they offered to let me pay in dollars instead of pounds. I first thought this would be good because I could skip my card’s 1% foreign currency fee. But after doing it once I found out the business charged a 3% fee for allowing me to pay in dollars. I had withdrawn £50 when I got to Perth. I used my card so much that when I was back to the airport I still had a £20 bill. And the currency exchange at the airport charge a huge commission. Maybe during my next foreign trip I don’t use the ATM at all. On the flight to Europe I watched the documentary Paris is Burning about the black queer ball scene. I wanted to watch it because the youth at the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit would imitate such balls. Preparing and participating in a ball could give a young queer person a chance to develop confidence and charisma. All that is good. Alas, by halfway through (and it isn’t very long) I was bored. I did finish it. Instead of watching anything else I tried to get some sleep. On the flight back to Detroit I watched two movies and had time for a third. On the way east I spotted a couple interesting movies, but they weren’t available on the return flight. I did see a couple Disney movies. The first was Zootopia 2 in which cops Nick the fox and Judy the rabbit solve another case. This one plays on the idea that we readily believe that snakes would be the villains. I enjoyed the story and the emphasis on inclusion. The second movie was Hoppers. A hopper is a mind that has been transferred into mechanical robot. The primary hopper is Mabel. Her grandmother introduced her to the glen around a beaver pond. Now with Mabel in college, Jerry the mayor wants to run a highway through the glen. Mabel, transferred to a beaver robot and able to hear what the animals are saying, works to rouse the other animals to stop him. It’s all great fun, though some a bit over the top (such as seagulls flying a shark through the air to terrorize Jerry), and there’s a good message about inclusiveness and the importance of wild spaces. Before the trip I finished the book Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quễ Mai (those diacritical marks are so important!). Part of the setting is the Vietnam War and a dust child is an Amerasian child of a Vietnamese woman and an American soldier, considered by society to be nothing but dust. The story follows several threads. There is Phong, a dust child whose life is made worse because his American father was black. Phong sticks out because of his dark skin and that he is so much taller than the typical Vietnamese. Because of that he is bullied. In 2016 he is trying to immigrate to America with his wife and children. But he was the victim in a fraudulent previous attempt to immigrate and is refused. Another major thread in the story is Dan, an American suffering from PTSD from the war. His wife Linda hopes a trip to Vietnam will resolve some of his traumas. He wants to find Kim, the Vietnamese girl he fell in love with during his tour in 1969. Linda doesn’t know about her and doesn’t want to lose her. When Kim became pregnant he got scared. By that point he was beginning to suffer from PTSD. He wonders what happened to her child. After being introduced to Dan in chapter 2 I thought these two threads are too convenient. But Dan is white and not the father of Phong. A third thread is Trang. In 1969 she worked at a bar catering to soldiers and took the name Kim to protect her family. She shows us how she and her sister chose to leave their village to work in a bar in Saigon. The short answer is their parents were in debt and an old friend visits, explaining how she is able to dress well. At times I felt the author was not a great wordsmith. But she tells a great story and she does not allow her characters the easy way out. They have to grapple with the issues. One of those is the Amerasian children telling their elders: Did you really have no choice other than to leave me in an orphanage? Why did you wait so long to search for me? In an author’s note she explains that she got involved in an organization that worked to unite Amerasian children with their American fathers. She heard a lot of stories of what the children and soldiers went through. Though the book is fiction the characters are based on the stories she heard. I enjoyed this one very much and recommend it. While traveling I finished three books. A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko. In America that phrase means something is very easy. While the title is accurate it is full of irony as the subtitle shows: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon. Walking that park is not easy and can be quite dangerous. Fedarko (the book refers everyone by their first name, so I’ll do that too – this is Kevin) is a freelance writer. One day he visited a company that does boat tours running the length of the canyon. He was so entranced by the boats and the idea he volunteered to join the crew for that summer and several summers after that. Volunteering means he never got paid. He also was never good enough to be in charge of a boat or have paying customers in his raft – so he hauled equipment. A few years into that he met Pete McBride, a freelance photographer. Pete proposed they team up and they became good friends. But Pete did very little planning for his photography trips which sometimes meant what he came to photograph didn’t happen at the time he was there. When Pete proposed they hike the canyon from one end to the other Kevin, who had seen the canyon only from the rim and the river, was all in. They got in touch with Rich Rudow, a veteran canyon hiker and explorer, who with a few friends was planning to hike the whole canyon. Pete sweet talked their way onto this team, though Rich’s crew were planning and training carefully and Pete bragged the trip could be done straight “off the couch.” Pete and Kevin tried to take a great deal of equipment they didn’t need – including Pete wanting duplicates of his extensive camera equipment – and refused many things Rich and team considered essential. The Grand Canyon does not have a paved trail from end to end, and for much of the way there is no marked trail. One must forge their own path, sometimes hiking close to the rim, sometimes close to the river, and the canyon walls between can be thousands of feet tall and steep. In the summer the temperature can be brutally hot and water can be scarce. One misstep and a person can slip right over the edge. This is not a place for amateur hikers. Which Pete and Kevin were. So, yeah, the first section of the hike did not go well. Once they were pulled off the trail some of Rich’s friends took over their training and some went with them when they began their second section. And – eventually – Kevin and Pete do hike the entire length. Along the way Kevin learns from Rich about notable people who have explored they canyon. Those stories are included. When Kevin encounters pottery fragments he begins to understand Native people lived in the canyon up until white people kicked them out. Rich arranges for Kevin to meet Natives working to reclaim some of their land, others working to prevent developers from despoiling the canyon, and yet more who are profiting from the canyon. Kevin is clearly on their side. Because the first part of the trip went so badly, by the end Kevin wonders why didn’t Rich refuse to take them on? Why did Rich’s friends willingly train and accompany them? I quite enjoyed Kevin’s story and he is a good writer. Because of what he learns about himself, the canyon, and the millions who visit it this book gets a high recommendation. Guests of War by Robin Jenkins. He is a well known Scottish author. I bought the book in Scotland. It was first published in 1956 and reprinted this year. At the start of WWII the British Prime Minister told Hitler that if Poland was invaded Britain would declare war. At that time the British government instituted a program where residents, at least the women and children, of cities likely to be bombed were evacuated to rural areas. So the profoundly poor residents of the (fictional) district of Gowburgh in Glasgow were evacuated to the (fictional) well off community of Langrigg. I expected there would be a lot of conflict between the rich and the poor. There is some of that, but less than I expected. For the most part the villagers opened their homes and otherwise supplied their visitors with needed things. One component in the story is the incompetence of the leadership in both locales. They think certain operations must be done in a particular way, and aren’t willing to be flexible when those plans are shown to be unworkable. An example was the demand that all incoming children be inspected for lice, a process that takes way too long when there are hundreds of children. Besides the kids were inspected before they got on the train. Also, assuming that all the kids from the poor neighborhood had lice was a form of discrimination. A forward says the real evacuations usually weren’t planned well. Some of the evacuation trains were woefully short on food. Several women with a large number of children couldn’t be placed in private homes so a quite large estate was opened for them to live together. A woman of the Langrigg city council was sure the poor families would turn the place into a slum – which didn’t happen. A woman of Gowburgh considered herself to be too important to be from that place. She complained her husband, a barber, didn’t make enough money and offered to trim the hair of homeless people. How could he lower himself! She demanded special accommodations for her children because her son would, of course, grow up to be a famous doctor. Not just the people of the rich town could be snooty. I enjoyed the book. The third book was Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank and published in 1959. At that time in history, just after Sputnik, there was a “missile gap” in which the USSR had better and more long-range nuclear missiles than the US did. What if the USSR relied on that gap to launch a nuclear war against the US? The first section of the book is leading up to the war. Randy lives in central Florida, north of Orlando. His brother Mark is a colonel in the Strategic Air Command and sends Randy a telegram saying he is sending his wife and kids to live with Randy and ends with the phrase, “Alas, Babylon.” The phrase had been used by a fire-and-brimstone preacher and the brothers adopted it as a way for Mark to tell Randy that the ultimate war was about to start. The nukes hit Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville as well as many other cities and military bases across the country. Randy’s home and town escapes the fallout. Soon residents clear out local stores of all provisions. The dollar can’t buy anything so becomes worthless. The banking system collapses as does communications. Electricity was supplied by Orlando, so that ends. Randy and his small community (including an extended black family) do decently because they live on a river and can fish for food, they have communal access to an artesian well, they have orange groves and gardens, and several of them are proficient with tools and mechanical things. Frank’s message is even with such a calamity humanity will survive. Returning from such a huge technological setback may take decades to centuries, but will happen. In a forward by David Brin, author of a similar post apocalypse story The Postman (which I’ve read and enjoyed, but skip the movie), he says a big difference between Frank’s story and many others like it is that Frank offers hope. But even if great number survive a nuclear war will be devastating to millions of people. I enjoyed the book. There were scenes of the characters faced with the latest crisis balanced with scenes of tenderness. It’s a good one. I stayed up last night to my usual bedtime, though it was about 3am in the time zone I woke up in. Then I woke up at 4am Detroit time. I seem to get over jet lag when I leave home, no matter whether I fly east or west. But once home recovery takes longer.

The right has a great deal more “pearl-clutching energy”

I finished the book Following the Equator by Mark Twain. Through more than 700 pages and with lots of photos and drawings he describes his year-long trip around the world. The trip may have started in Southampton, England, which he doesn’t mention until the end and doesn’t include the trip across the Atlantic and across America. Most of the book is his visits of several months each to Australia, India, and South Africa. He also describes visits to Fiji, New Zealand, and Mauritius. He couldn’t go ashore in Hawaii because of a cholera outbreak. He took this trip in 1895-96 to give lectures, which was a major source of income. In the book he rarely mentions the lectures and doesn’t describe what he said. At the beginning of the book he mentions the date but not the year. He does mention seeing a lunar eclipse on September 4, and an online NASA catalog showed an eclipse on that date in 1895. In each place he describes his travels by train and ship and includes encounters with locals and descriptions of local customs and history. A regular travel book. When an incident jars his memory he’ll tell a story about something that happened in England or America. Along with that he includes much praise of the indigenous people and some condemnation of the European colonizers. Some of the highlights of the story: His condemnation of the Queensland, Australia slave trade. South Pacific islands were raided to supply workers for the sugar cane fields of Queensland. This is brutal work. The only good thing is the slavery was for three years rather than life. Twain says the Australians claim the experience “civilized” those they enslaved, but such “civilization” didn’t last long. That doesn’t mean the freed men returned to savagery, but that the definition of civilized was meaningless. Twain tells the story of Cecil Rhodes in Australia finding a newspaper clipping in a shark that told of impending war. The shark had come from England a lot faster than a ship could. Rhodes used the information to make himself rich. In South Africa he talks again of Rhodes, texplaining about how much he ruled over the country, both in and out of the government. So I looked up Rhodes in Wikipedia. It talks about how much Rhodes was involved in the formation of the De Beers diamond company, which became close to a worldwide monopoly. The man created Rhodesia and is buried there, though modern locals aren’t too happy about that. Wikipedia also says there is evidence to say Rhodes was gay. The page mentions Twain writing about Rhodes in this book then adds a footnote saying the story of the shark was not true. Yup, not all of the stories and incidents Twain tells are true (a shark that visits both England and Sydney in a week?). And that’s not really a surprise, though it leaves one wondering which stories were not true. In India Twain describes over many pages the Thuggees, a group that worshiped a god that demanded they murder. They committed many (tens of thousands?) in the early 1800s. Twain credits the British for stopping the Thuggees, and goes on to say that’s why the British rule of India was a benefit. He takes a train trip into the Himalayas. That was nice. What was better was the trip down. It was by handcar where the only control was the brake. The 35 mile downward ride was the delight of the year. I enjoyed the book, though by the end I felt it was too long. It does have a lot of Twain’s dry humor and I’m pleased at his support for indigenous people, who in his telling don’t seem so backward and inferior as the white people justifying colonization claimed at the time. During 2025 I read 44 books. Lake Superior State University released its annual list of words that should be banished for “mis-, mal-, over-use, or general uselessness.” 2026 marks the golden anniversary of the list. This year’s offenders: 6-7, that popular phrase that has no meaning. Massive, for incorrect use and overuse. Incentivize, where motivate should be enough. Full stop, where a period should be enough. My bad, an infantile way to apologize. And for general overuse: Demure, Cooked, Gifted, Perfect, and Reach out. This year LSSU included a list of repeat offenders, words that refused to stay banished. Banished three times is the phrase, At the End of the Day. Words and phrases banished twice are: Absolutely, Awesome, Game Changer, and Hot Water Heater (water already hot doesn’t need to be heated, it’s just a water heater). At the start of last week Jacob Wendler of Politico reported that a dozen staffers of the Heritage Foundation, the people who created Project 2025, left that group and went to Advancing American Freedom, which was founded by former vice nasty Mike Pence. Those that left were the heads of the legal, economic, and data analysis teams and several members of their teams. The reason for their departure stems from Tucker Carlson airing a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes in October. Fuentes is a strong antisemite. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation stood by Carlson’s decision to interview Fuentes. Several conservative voices rebuked Roberts. That turned into an internal squabble at HF, with some saying antisemitism has no place there and others saying only so much dissent is permitted at HF. Some reports imply those who left HF were terminated, others say the departures were voluntary. Even so, an HF spokesman seems glad they’re gone and replacements will make them stronger. However, the infighting is reverberating through the Republican Party. Kate Plummer of Newsweek explains the situation in more detail and used the headline “The Heritage Foundation is Imploding.” I would be delighted if the Heritage Foundation fell apart. But I’m skeptical it will happen soon. Steve Inskeep of NPR spoke to Republican strategist Marc Short, who is also described as the chairman of AAF. Short described the HF story from the AAF viewpoint. He went on to describe general conservative goals. As a part of those goals Short complained about the government “picking winners and losers.” They want “a limited role of government in the economy and allowing the marketplace to thrive.” My first reaction to that is they want limited government because government protects the little guy. And I guess “thrive” now has a definition of making money any way they can, including fleecing customers and polluting the environment. My second reaction goes back to a post in November where I discussed late-stage capitalism. Democracy and capitalism exist together only when democracy tightly controls capitalism. Short is saying an important part of conservatism is rejecting those tight controls and letting capitalism continue to its end stage where billionaires control everything. Alas, conservatives have a few key phrases they repeat whenever they can and media, including NPR, don’t delve into what is meant by that. The way conservatives say it limited government is a good thing. But, as we’ve seen in the last year, limited government in practice means no consumer protections (goodbye CFPB), no environmental protections (goodbye EPA), and no safety net for the poor (goodbye affordable care act premium support). And Inskeep didn’t delve into that. This seems to fit right in. Two weeks ago Oliver Willis of Daily Kos, as part of his series of Explaining the Right wrote about Why Republican scandals and misdeeds get a pass. I’m sure I’ve written many times of something the nasty guy or Republicans did and note that if Biden or Obama had done them they would have been quickly impeached and convicted, while Republicans remain unscathed. Willis gives other examples of other Democrats who faced tough scrutiny that sometimes ended their careers for things that were much less severe than what Republicans now commit seemingly daily.

Why does this happen, and with such regularity? The mainstream media has an institutional bias towards both-sidesism, which is the notion that the Democratic and Republican parties and the related liberal and conservative movements engage in outrages at the same pace. This simply isn’t true by any objective measure.

Another reason is that for over six decades the right has relentlessly been “working the refs,” hitting the media with false allegations of bias. The media now consistently rolls over for the right – yet still gets attacked for bias. A third reason is the right has a great deal more “pearl-clutching energy.” They remained outraged over liberal misdeeds with more noise and for a longer time than the left can maintain over conservative misdeeds. I’ll add a fourth reason – many mainstream media outlets are owned by billionaires or others who have a large stake in conservative goals. So they’re inherently biased. Willis wrote that media companies can take things only so far. They fail when Americans can see the truth with their own eyes. Right now no amount of spin can mask the problems in the economy. At the top of today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev included a photo of the midnight swearing in of Zohran Mamdani as the mayor of New York City. It was done a subway station that’s no longer used that leads directly into City Hall. It’s a pretty location. Mamdani had a second swearing in, this time during the day, on City Hall steps, and with the public able to attend. Kev quoted Hayes Brown of MSNOW discussing the many artists who have canceled gigs at the Kennedy Center, especially after the nasty guy added his nasty name to the building. Ric Grenell, president of the Center, called these artists “far-left political activists.” Brown wrote:

Grenell essentially accusing performers of being performative illustrates an utter lack of understanding about the arts and audience. It’s as though his mind cannot fathom why an artist might decide to withhold their work from certain audiences at certain venues. And as though there is not a rich tradition of art as protest in this country, either in boldly staging performances calling out injustice or in shunning stages that demanded segregated audiences.

Then Brown discussed Grenell’s focus on “sound fiscal policy.” He wants arts that actually sell tickets and make a profit. That misses the point of arts. It is why most arts institutions, including the Kennedy Center, are non-profit. Arts are important whether or not they make a profit. The Nation magazine reposted a 2015 essay from Toni Morrison that gives another reason for what Grenell is really up to.

Dictators and tyrants routinely begin their reigns and sustain their power with the deliberate and calculated destruction of art: the censorship and book-burning of unpoliced prose, the harassment and detention of painters, journalists, poets, playwrights, novelists, essayists. This is the first step of a despot whose instinctive acts of malevolence are not simply mindless or evil; they are also perceptive. Such despots know very well that their strategy of repression will allow the real tools of oppressive power to flourish. Their plan is simple: 1. Select a useful enemy—an “Other”—to convert rage into conflict, even war. 2. Limit or erase the imagination that art provides, as well as the critical thinking of scholars and journalists. 3. Distract with toys, dreams of loot, and themes of superior religion or defiant national pride that enshrine past hurts and humiliations.

In the comments is a tweet by Prof. Peter Hotez:

Year One MAHA: 1. Measles returns to America 2. Pertussis returns to America 3. Chronic hepatitis liver cancer returns 4. Pandemic preparedness gone 5. Swung & missed on autism 6. CDC disassembled 7. Biotech industry shutting down 8. Brain drain underway.

I see that as more oppression by the wealthy. Those near the top of the social hierarchy and most invested in their position make their lives appear better by making the lives of others worse. Killing others off through unrestrained disease is one way to accomplish that goal. That tweet was followed by one by Dan Diamond. It includes a link to a Washington Post article that is the source and includes a way for a person to look up the stats of their own county. Diamond wrote:

5 million-plus kindergartners now live in counties where schools don’t have “herd immunity” for measles, Washington Post reporters found.

A comment by pelagicray lamented the destruction of the federal executive branch, which included...

That came with significant deaths, many infant and children deaths, from USAID shutdown so chaotic medicine and food went bad in warehouses rather than into a final distribution. That is on us. We let it happen. While many of us voted for the good, collectively it is on all of us. A piece in the U.S. Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health notes

The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Atul Gawande.

After all that something light and sweet. Rund Abdelfatah, host of NPR’s Throughline brought to All Things Considered and 8-minute segment on the history of chocolate. The link also has a transcript.

The outrage economy

My Sunday movie was Mrs. Harris goes to Paris. This is a delightful and sweet movie that I enjoyed and recommend. It’s 1957 and Mrs. Ada Harris is a cleaning lady in London. Her husband did not come home from WWII. At the home of one of her upscale clients (one that is slow in paying her) she sees a gown by Christian Dior and is captivated by it. Se decides to save up to buy one for herself. IMDB’s trivia about his movie says 500 pounds in 1957 is about $12,000 in 2022. So a lot of saving to be done (and a few lucky breaks). She figures she’ll fly to Paris, pop into the Christian Dior store, buy the frock, and head home. Two days max. It doesn’t work that way. The gowns are modeled and the upper crust clients resent her being at the showing. And gowns must be fitted, which takes two weeks, well perhaps we can do it in one. That gives her time for her sweet, direct, and unstuffy personality work on those around her. This movie was filmed in 2021 so in the credits were such things as a COVID testing company. The last time I discussed a book was about six weeks ago. This is a long time given the rate at which I usually read books. Six weeks ago I started an issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine. It’s only 200 pages, but it took me five weeks. A big reason is that my eyes were still healing from cataract surgery. There were nights in bed when both my standard glasses (with post-surgery lenses) and drug store readers weren’t working for me. Several nights I gave up after reading only a couple paragraphs. Reading at the table (and in the bathroom) were also a struggle. My vision has improved and the readers work well for reading in bed, at the table, and in the bathroom, when I remember to slip them on. And after I read the magazine I was able to get through a 325 page novel in less than a week. That novel is Him by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy. The story is of Ryan Wesley or Wes from Boston, and Jamie Canning from San Rafael, California. They met at hockey camp at Lake Placid in middle school and are best friends through high school. Then Wes, infatuated with Jamie, did something he regrets and ghosted his friend. The story opens with Wes and Jamie as seniors in college on opposing teams at the Frozen Four hockey playoffs. Both have offers from professional teams, Wes in Toronto, Jamie in Detroit. Before reporting Jamie returns to Lake Placid as a coach for the hockey camp and Wes decides to join him there. This is another gay love story written by a woman (two in this case). I had heard some women enjoy writing sex scenes between two men. And there are several (and an R rating isn’t strong enough). It is also a story where one, Wes, is definitely gay, and the other, Jamie, isn’t. He has a female friend-with-benefits. So should Wes get involved with a straight guy? Wes is also adamant that he spend his rookie year in Toronto being celibate. He doesn’t want the news of being the first out player in the NHL distracting him from his rookie year. While he may be right about the distraction we know the celibacy thing isn’t going to work. While I enjoyed this one, in spite of the several f-bombs in the first few pages and liberally thereafter, I’m debating whether to get the sequel. Online reviews say the lads would do a whole lot better if they would just talk about their issues. Meteor Blades of Daily Kos discussed about a new peer-reviewed paper soon to be published in Environmental Research Letters. Blades wrote:

For years, natural gas—composed primarily of methane—has been touted as a bridge fuel to a new world of sustainable clean energy, a way to get off coal without waiting for renewables (and many would add nuclear) to fulfill all our electricity needs. This has worked in the United States to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% since 2005, with coal’s share of U.S. electricity generation dropping last year to less than 20%. That’s because burning methane releases on average about half the greenhouse gas emissions of coal. But there’s a big problem. Over 20 years, unburned methane has a global warming potential that is 84 times greater than that of carbon dioxide emitted by burning coal.

A natural source of methane is melting permafrost – and the Arctic is warming 4 times faster than the planet’s average. Human source of methane are agriculture, landfills, leaks from oil wells, and natural gas fracking operations. It takes only a tiny leak for natural gas to be as harmful as coal and fracking sites are notorious for leaking. So the idea that natural gas can serve as a bridge fuel should be rethought and discarded. As for the rest of the fossil fuel industry, no new infrastructure should be built. Clay Bennett posted a cartoon to Kos. It shows a man in a bookstore finding the Farmer’s 2023 Almanac with its weather forecasts in the horror section. I’ve taken one trip on a cruise ship. That was 15 years ago and I went with my parents to Alaska. This seemed the easiest way to see the parts of the state we wanted to see. I knew we would have over 30 meals together so I took a notebook and asked them about their lives. I’m very glad I got that first hand account while I could. We had an enjoyable time and saw some amazing scenery along the way. I haven’t been on a cruise ship since and no desire to do so. The kinds of things the ship offered as entertainment on board – shows, casino, spa, and I don’t remember what else – had little interest for me and there was little to do beyond that. The shore excursions were pleasant, but mostly seemed too regimented (we took some and went on our own at other stops). I’m glad I had that time with my parents, but once was quite enough. That leads to a discussion by Hunter of Kos about the Icon of the Seas, by Royal Carribbean, due to take its first passengers next spring. This cruise ship is huge! It is able to host 5,610 guests (I think the one I was on could hold 2,000). It is too big to permit anything that people take cruise ships for – no spray of the sea 20 stories up, no rolling waves, no way to get anywhere close to the quaint seaside villages. But why would one need a ship this big? Cruise ship designers figured out being on the boat is boring. Between the restaurants, bars, pools, spas, water park, mini golf, arcade, shows, gift shops, and whatever else they have on this ship one wouldn’t need to actually go to port. That sounds like a mall with a hull and lifeboats. Since the future can only be boats bigger than this one and because cruise ships are more polluting than airplane travel...

What's even the point of turning this thing into a boat? We're pretending it's travel? Here's a better suggestion: Build the next generation of cruise ships as oceanfront hotels. Just stick them on the beach in the general vicinity of Miami and instead tow the quaint Caribbean villages to them. ... In fact, we can do even better: We can put multiple cruise ship-sized luxury hotels on one big floating wheel, anywhere in landlocked America. You board from a single entrance, and each evening the wheel slowly spins while you're asleep so that you wake up with a completely new theme park outside your window. Every day brings new sights and new things to do.

Hunter suggests some of those theme parks could be the quaint Caribbean village, a water park, Westworld, Jurassic Park, and Blackjack Lagoon.

We wanted to sail off to new adventures, we got floating germ bombs with gift shops. I don't think we're going to bring back bloodthirsty megafauna, even. We'll just get a stuffed tiger in a cruise ship gift shop after all the wild ones have gone extinct, and it'll cost you $10 to get your picture taken with it.

Charles Jay of the Kos community wrote about California Gov. Gavin Newsom taking on Moms for Liberty. The Moms pushed to elect three conservative people to the board of the Temecula Valley Unified School District. Just after being sworn in they passed a resolution condemning critical race theory, which got them an appearance on Fox and Friends. In May the board reviewed new social studies books for grades 1-5. They rejected the one recommended by the state because the teacher’s supplement, not the actual textbook students see, had a photo and short biography of Harvey Milk, the gay San Francisco supervisor who was assassinated. Board president Joseph Komrosky repeated a now common but false slur when he said, “Why even mention a pedophile?” There is a parent backlash. Politico wrote:

“We don’t want culture wars. We don’t want Fox News appearances,” Alex Douvas, a parent of two kids in the district who previously worked for two Republican congressmembers in Orange County, told the board recently. “Our schools are not ideological battlegrounds. They’re not platforms for religious evangelism. These are institutions for learning and growth.”

Newsom, who is becoming known for taking Democratic ideals on the offense, got involved because refusing to upgrade their social studies curriculum means the district is now in violation of state law. In response Newsom said if the district didn’t lift its ban the state would buy the banned book, send it to the parents and students of the district, and bill the district for violating state law. Mark Sumner of Kos wrote about the outrage economy. He begins with:

We live in a capitalist society that has spent centuries inventing tools to aid in the concentration of wealth. The end result of that evolution is corporations: money-moving engines which remain, to date, the most efficient form of turning the work of thousands—and the needs of millions—into a fat stack of cash for a very, very few. ... Just as late-stage capitalism is engrossed in wiping away every benefit workers gained over centuries of negotiating the relationship between labor and reward, the outrage economy has risen up to guarantee that, no matter the intention, every venture into social media trends toward disaster.

The reason is because social media is a system that rewards those who gain and hold public attention. Prizes range to likes and views, to money, to appearances on Fox News. Reasonable people doing reasonable things is boring. Which leaves ... outrage. One can be outrageously funny, outrageously sweet, outrageously talented, outrageously brilliant, or outrageously vile. To be funny, sweet, talented, or brilliant one must work at it. But anyone can insult others based on race, gender, sexuality, religion, or anything else. “It doesn’t take years of training or research: It just takes a willingness to take joy from causing pain. The more pain, the better.” On many social media platforms this tolerated and it’s profitable. And if it draws outraged replies it increases the payout. And that drags the site down. Sumner wrote this post because Mark Zuckerberg announced that Threads, his competitor to Twitter, will have automated moderation, with settings controlled by the user. That sounds like trolling won’t be banished from the site, just (maybe) banished from your feed. Sumner concludes:

The only thing that can arrest that slide is moderation. That moderation must be done by people who understand the subtleties of meaning, rather than trying to match replies to a set of simplistic rules. But moderation costs money. Good moderation costs a lot of money. And why should Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk want to moderate in the first place? This is the outrage economy. Bring on the outrage.

Travelogue – The debates

Throughout my travelogue I mentioned the lively debates between Brother, Niece, and myself. Here’s a bit more on those debates.

Niece just turned 30. Brother is almost exactly 18 months older than me and we’re both more than twice Niece’s age. She doesn’t accept things just because someone says them. I admire that, though it can be tough to be on the receiving end of it. As I told her, I’ve done a lot of reading over the last dozen years (at least since I started this blog) and I don’t remember the names of all my sources.

In mid June Brother and his other daughter and family started a tour of Italy and Greece. This other niece wanted to expose her children to the cultural treasures of modern Italy and Greece and ancient Rome and Greek empires. Niece – the one who debated with me – joined them in Athens for a tour of those treasures and the trip back up the length of Italy. During car rides they listened to audio books about history, including of the Roman Empire.

So Niece delighted in hearing references to ancient Rome. She noticed that at least King Arthur (in fictional accounts), Charlemagne, the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon, and Hitler claimed to be successors of Rome and tried (and in some cases succeeded for a while) to recreate the power of Rome.

Niece got our debates going by saying we should not dismiss conservatives as stupid and lazy. It took some discussion to refine her point to saying we should not dismiss conservative voters as stupid and lazy. She pointed out that various progressive discussion sites have lots of commenters who do exactly that. This isn’t helpful, she says. They have values and we progressives need to understand those values. We need to talk with conservatives to find where our values align.

Conservative lawmakers were a topic of other discussions. They certainly haven’t been lazy, doing a great deal to enforce supremacy.

For example, Niece said, rural conservatives believe we can and should take care of ourselves. They have been doing that for generations. Government shouldn’t take care of us.

I told Niece there are parts of her thinking I agree with. We should not belittle conservative voters. I try to refrain from doing so in this blog. I know I’m not entirely successful in that and a few of my regular readers have reminded me when I haven’t. We should indeed talk to conservative voters. We should understand, not just sneer at, their values.

Brother, at a moment when Niece was somewhere else, said talking to our conservative neighbors isn’t going to work. They’re too bound up in their beliefs and prejudices. They believe in alternate facts. They have their own sources of news.

I argued this is the only thing that can work. We just haven’t tried it. Only in the 2018 election did Democrats run a candidate in every (or nearly) Congressional seat. In many deep red states the party simply didn’t bother. In many conservative areas Democrats don’t make any headway because they don’t know how to speak to the rural way of life.

Then Brother reminded me we have a very conservative sister-in-law. We don’t even talk to her about politics. We’ve learned from experience she won’t listen. So we don’t try. But if we don’t talk to her, someone with whom we already have a relationship, how are we going to talk to anyone else?

Hey, Niece. Great ideas you have there. Go talk to your aunt and let us know how it works out.

Brother suggested we vote them out of office. I said, good idea … but he needs to factor in the voter suppression, gerrymandering, Russian interference, and the refusal of Moscow Mitch (the term Brother consistently used for Senate Majority Leader McConnell) to pass any sort of election protection laws. And, since I came home, the resignation of a member of the Federal Elections Commission, rendering that body incapable of anything.

So what do we do?

I don’t feel bad that we didn’t come up with a solution. People who study authoritarian regimes have only one idea – get your resistance in gear and get to it. Alas, even that probably won’t slow down a regime determined to be authoritarian.

Niece proved to be a sharp debater. She was good at pointing out contradictions in an argument. For example: Early in our travels I talked about supremacy and it sure would be nice to build a society without it. Late in our travels, close to three weeks later, we talked about a benevolent dictator as perhaps the most effective government. I then expressed doubt about whether a dictator, someone who got the position through enforcing supremacy, could truly be benevolent with the best interests of the citizens in mind (see our discussions of Napoleon). Niece replied that a benevolent dictator doesn’t sound any less possible than a society without any form of supremacy. Good point.

I enjoyed these debates. I appreciate that Niece challenged my positions and did so without condemning them or me. I hope she feels that my challenges of her ideas held the same respect.

Once idea of hers I challenged was whether there is a god who is sometimes wrathful. This was a realization that came to me as I spoke. In my current understanding of supremacy, a wrathful god is one who uses violence to get what he wants. Using violence is a supremacist act. Supremacist acts cannot encompass love. A god can either be wrathful or loving, but not both. Besides, a god is already supreme and doesn’t need to enforce it.

Niece maintained such wrath is used to correct us towards the attitudes god wants us to have. At the time I used Niece’s sister and her husband and the interactions they have with their children. In my visits I’ve watched them in action. They do correct their children (and the oldest one will push boundaries until he is corrected), but in my presence they were never violent. In the same way a loving god does not have to be violent to correct us.

Travelogue – The trip home

Monday, August 26

My alarm went off before 5:30 and Brother and I were out the door around 6:45. My flight wasn’t until 10:10 but I was to be at the airport two hours ahead and the train took an hour.

As I checked in and dropped the bag I was told there were long lines for international security, so don’t dawdle, go there directly. I did detour briefly to the bathroom, then got in line. Brother stayed outside the line until I got through. I saw why the line was slow – there were six stations for passport control and only two of them were active.

Once through that and the security check it was another long hike to the gate. They wanted me there by 9:15. I made it before 9:30. And then waited. For international flights the plane doesn’t pull up to the terminal. One takes a bus to the boarding station. The buses hadn’t started loading when I got there.

We backed away from the boarding station only a few minute late. And we arrived in Detroit 35 minutes early.

For much of the flight over land the weather was clear. I could see when we flew over Nürnberg…

… across the Netherlands, central England and Ireland, across the wilds of Labrador, down the St. Lawrence River, and over Ottawa …

I had hoped to get a good shot of downtown Detroit as we landed. Alas, we were too far away.

I had arranged for two friends to pick me up. They took me to the airport more than three weeks ago and I guided them to the correct terminal of the two. Today, once through customs and baggage claim I went to the curbside to wait. And wait. A couple times I checked the road outside domestic arrivals in case they missed the road to international arrivals. I also found Detroit Metro Airport no longer has pay phones. After almost an hour I gave up and took a taxi home.

Once inside and with my home phone I called my friends. They had gone to the wrong terminal.

Yeah, one solution is to get a simple phone for moments like this. Another is to get friends with a better sense of direction, though those can sometimes be hard to come by.

I took 700 photos during this trip. Between camera (with good zoom) and phone, Brother took 1650 photos. He copied his batch to my camera card. I haven’t looked through them yet.

Travelogue – Rise to power

I’m home. I enjoyed my own bed last night, getting into bed an hour earlier than I normally do and awake at 5, though I had no trouble staying in bed until 7. Then I had a 90 minute nap this afternoon.

Back to the last couple days of the trip:

Sunday, August 25

Brother and I went to the Stadtmuseum, the City Museum of Munich. In the ticket lobby is a model of modern downtown Munich. This bit shows the Our Lady Church, the City Hall, and the ruler’s Residence.

Their biggest exhibit in the museum is Typically Munich, a look at life was like in Munich through the ages. The exhibit was created in 2008 to mark the 850th anniversary of the founding of the city in 1158. It begins with another model of the city, this one showing the city in the 1500s. This photo shows the Our Lady Church and St. Peter’s Church looking from the north.

Also in the mid millennial display is series of Morris dancers. Here’s one of them.

There is also a set of combative cherubs. They were taken from a fountain in front of the City Hall (copies are there now) and represent battling the four evils of the Medieval Age: war, hunger, disease, and … heresy. This one is battling a dragon, but I don’t know what that represents.

The other floors of the exhibit show things from the 1800s, 1900s, and into this century. I didn’t take any more pictures.

Lunch was a bit of an adventure because so many places were closed on Sunday. One place open was the outdoor cafeteria in the nearby VictulienMarkt. I got a sausage and a kraut salad (not sauerkraut, just cabbage). Brother got goulash, which looked pretty good and made me wish I had gotten that. I wonder why the maker of the condiment packets thought it was appropriate to put the mustard in a red package.

Back to the museum, this time to an exhibit of the Nazi party. This is important to have here because the party began in Munich and considered the city to be its home, even after it moved to the seat of power in Berlin. The displays show the start of the party, then its effect in Munich. That included the creation of the nearby Dachau concentration camp, which trained leaders of other camps, including how to efficiently murder. The rise of the party is quite interesting because of its parallels in today’s America. However, when the exhibits started talking about the brutality of the regime once in power I stopped playing the English narration.

The Nazis got its start because Germany had been badly defeated in WWI and had a hard time rebuilding because of excessive reparations paid to other countries for causing the war. The previous system of government, the Kaiser and local Kings and Dukes, had collapsed. Just before the war ended there was a big demonstration in Munich declaring the start of a Bavarian Republic. King Ludwig III decided it was prudent for him to get out of town that night. So there was no central government and no tradition of democracy or parliamentary rule to manage the country.

The Weimar Republic tried, but that government is best known for extremely high levels of inflation.

And here comes a guy with someone to blame it all on. The crowds loved that idea and the conviction and charisma of the guy espousing it.

So what’s America’s excuse? We have a strong economy and a functioning government.

When Hitler was given the role of Chancellor in 1933 the heads of other parties thought they could control him. But Hitler moved quickly to consolidate power. He installed loyalists in key government positions and began outlawing other parties. In just a few months he had control and began persecuting political opponents. And Jews.

Shortly after Dachau was created there was a document about it. All propaganda. Short version: Dachau is a really pleasant place which is much too good for the monsters who are imprisoned there. Yeah, inmates were described in the most vile way possible (the same way the American nasty guy describes Muslims and Mexicans) but not to worry the camp leadership will make sure they never get out.

I went on to another display in the museum, one all about puppets and marionettes. Well into the 20th century various marionette theaters produced shows across Germany. Some of them were traveling troupes. Some of these troupes, sometimes decades after they stopped working, gave their materials to the Stadtmuseum. The property of one traveling troupe had perhaps 20 marionette bodies, a few dozen different heads, and a broad inventory of costumes. They could tell a broad repertoire of stories.

Here’s some of the characters from a more modern troupe made out of the German equivalent of the mid century Erector Set.

After we left the museum Brother and I had some ice cream, then walked around downtown for a while. We had about three hours before our evening event. At about 6:30 I decided what I really wanted for supper was the goulash Brother had for lunch. So we went back to the cafeteria in the VictulienMarkt. Alas, they were at the end of their day and out of goulash. So I had the Leberkäse which, in spite of its name, is neither liver nor cheese. It is a loaf of meat with the consistency of American hot dogs. Servers slice off a chunk and slip it between halves of a roll.

After supper we attended a concert in they nearby Holy Ghost Church (see earlier posts for photos). This concert was two trumpets and organ. It was very nice, though only one piece was written after 1800, so by my tastes it was rather tame.

The concert was an hour. After that we walked back to the apartment and I was soon in bed.

Travelogue – From church to church

Friday, August 23

Another slow start to the day, this time there is a good reason. Niece flew back to America this morning. Her flight was a bit after 7:00 am, so she and Brother left the apartment about 3:45. They caught a nearby bus to get to a train stop to get out to the airport, the whole trip was about an hour. Brother was with her in the baggage drop line, then said goodbye at the security line. He was back at the apartment about 7 and went to bed.

I heard them prepare to leave. I didn't hear Brother return. He slept until 11:00.

While waiting for him to wake up I stripped Niece's bed so that I can have the bedroom rather than the futon in the living room. I'll be able to close a door!

In a half day today Brother and I decided to explore central Munich – do the tourist things. We walked to nearby Sendlinger Tor, one of the original gates in the city wall. This must be part of the gay neighborhood because I saw an AIDS memorial. Then on down a pedestrian zone to Marienplatz, with a stop for a quick lunch. This walk included our first church of the day, the Asamkirche. It is highly decorated in the Baroque style.

Facing Marienplatz is the “new” city hall, only a couple hundred years old (yeah, new for a city founded in 1158).

Nearby is the “old” city hall. From there our walking seemed to be from church to church (though Brother hadn't advertised it as such).

There was the Holy Ghost Church …

St. Peter's Church …

Our Lady's Cathedral, yes it was much bigger than the others …

St. Michael's Church …

Citizen's Church …

And St. Anne's Church, where we didn't stay because a service was in progress.

Yeah, they seem to be variations on a theme. I had to study photo timestamps to tell which picture is from which church.

Along the way we wandered a bit through the Victualienmarkt, yeah, victuals market, a place with a lot of food stalls and a few restaurants. Brother hadn't explored this much and now will be able to visit more often.

After all those churches we went back to the Victualienmarkt in hopes of supper. But the main seating area was packed. So we went down a side street and found a place with fresh salads.

That turned out to be close to the Jewish Synagogue, which is a striking structure.

And next to that is the Jewish Museum. Back in 2005 a Jewish woman from England put an ad in several German newspapers saying she'd like to talk about anything with whomever was interested. She talked with forty five people. Some talked about what happened during the war, about what they heard from their parents or grandparents. Excerpts of these discussion are now on the exterior of the museum, some in German, some in English. Here's a paraphrase of a bit of one discussion (I would have photographed it if it wasn't printed on glass): Those Israelis are weird; they vote politics instead of economic issues. That means they vote against their economic self-interest. Which sounds a lot like America these days.

Travelogue – Leaning on a rainbow looking bored

Thursday, August 22

We don't do mornings well. Sleeping in, lingering over breakfast, checking email, taking a shower (with three people and two bathrooms), and all kinds of other things mean we're still at the apartment at noon.

Or, in today's case, 12:45.

Munich has a great, though perhaps confusing, public transport system. There are buses, trams (streetcars), city trains (subway), suburban trains, and regional trains. They all use the same ticket system allowing one to use several in one trip. I saw a map in the main train station showing where around it are the stops for the various trains, trams, and buses. There was a lot on the map. One can also get maps of the tram system, the bus system, and the train network – they'd be too crowded to put all on one map. And then there is the phone app. One can say get me to there and the app, knowing where the phone is, figures out a route on the bus, tram, or train and shows how quickly the next conveyance will arrive. All pretty cool.

Brother used the app to get the route to our destination for the day. He looked at it and said this doesn't make sense. We could just walk up the street a few blocks and get the tram which would take us there directly. So we did. And found out why the app did what it did – because of construction there was no tram from that stop in the direction we wanted to go. So down the steps to the train station (also under construction but in use) to get a train to the main train station and pick up the tram from there.

There was also construction at the other end of our tram line, making us walk a couple extra blocks to our destination.

And that destination was the Nymphenburg Palace. This was the summer residence of the Elector of Bavaria (before 1806) and the King of Bavaria (1806 to 1913). Behind the palace is the back yard, now a huge park.

Brother and Niece decided they wanted to just enjoy the park. I wanted to tour the palace (though I had seen it 29 years ago). If we had gotten there before 2:30 I might have added entrance to the carriage museum and the little buildings scattered around the park. But the palace was enough.

The main room is in high Baroque style with a painted ceiling showing Roman gods and the pleasures of country living. Yes, this room was decorated to impress. The ruler's rooms were on one side of this hall, the wife's rooms on the other. There was also a gallery of beauties – the ruler had commissioned an artist to paint portraits of three dozen women. And, out of the ordinary for aristocrats, a couple of them were of common women (though they must have been loaned clothing because I couldn't tell which ones).

This is the front of the palace.

This is a part of the ceiling of the great hall showing the Roman gods. There's Apollo in the sun chariot, Juno with her peacock, Jupiter with thunderbolts under his feet, Neptune with his trident, Mercury with winged helmet and trumpet, and a few more. Brother says his favorite is the angel leaning against the rainbow looking bored.

One of the pleasures of the summer palace was music. Here's a couple musicians depicted in the wall of the great hall.

After my tour I joined up again with Niece and Brother and we walked through the park. We stopped at (though didn't go in) the grotto, the Pagoda (Chinese faces in the decoration, not Chinese architecture), and the bath house. We also stopped at the cascade to see the long view to the palace and enjoyed this kid on a fish with his feet in the air.

At 6:00 Niece had a previously scheduled business call that lasted 90 minutes. That allowed Brother and me to sit and talk and enjoy the surroundings.

As we were leaving through the palace front yard Brother pointed out a little door in the wall around that yard. Three years ago his wife spent her last few weeks in a care facility on the other side of that wall. When Brother needed a break he could step through that door. He said it was like the wardrobe door to Narnia with a completely different world on the other side, from care facility to royal park.

We ate supper at a Greek restaurant near the palace. I had heard during my tour that the Elector was promoted to King because he had sided with Napoleon when that general ended the Holy Roman Empire and the Elector didn't have a kaiser to elect anymore. So during supper Niece read history articles about the rise and fall of Napoleon.

We had earlier debated whether there could be such a thing as a benevolent dictator. Such a ruler could impose benefits to the people without the messiness of democracy. But would such a ruler be so caught up in enforcing the supremacy that gave him power that he would do anything for the common man? Or would all of his efforts be towards oppression?

It seems Napoleon came close to the benevolent dictator. He really did some good things for the common man, such as freedom of religion, universal education, votes by the people (though who knows if rigged), and saying professions should be chosen based on talent and not connection.

But he was also a tyrant, heavily censoring the press and making opponents disappear. And with a tyrant the people have to live with his mistakes – such as is disastrous campaign against Russia in 1812 (which Tchaikovsky wrote music about). It sounds like a half-million men died during that campaign.

After supper we worked our way back to the apartment through walking, tram, train, and more walking.

Travelogue – On the bicycle

Tuesday, August 20

As I mentioned a few days ago a good chunk of today was taken up by laundry. So I didn't get dressed until late in the afternoon. The rain canceled possible other events. So not a lot happened.

Brother went down the street to a Turkish takeout for Döner, pita bread or wraps filled with lettuce, cabbage, tomato, onion, a couple sauces, spices, and grilled meat. Back in Detroit the meat would be beef and lamb. Here the meat is turkey and chicken. The meat is layered and put on a large spit. As it turns it is toasted. When an order is filled the attendant has a device to shave off bits to scoop up into the meal. Since Brother doesn't do much cooking (other than breakfast) he has to be careful not to default to eating a Döner every day for lunch.

We all ventured out in the evening, with umbrellas, to an Indian restaurant a few blocks away. Good food!

Beyond that I spent most of the day writing, reviewing, and selecting photos for blog posts of our travels.



Wednesday, August 21

Another quiet and slow morning including a late breakfast.

By 12:30 we were ready for adventure. Brother has a really good bicycle and borrowed a couple more from friends. From the apartment we traveled (on designated bike lanes – thank you Munich!) over to the Isar River a few blocks away. We got on the bike paths beside the river and headed south and upstream. The weather was mostly overcast with a high of 64F. That makes for comfortable riding – one doesn't get sweaty – though I was a bit chilly during lunch.

By 1:45 we had ridden about a dozen kilometers and were near a pub. We decided to have lunch then in case the pub closed for the afternoon at 2:00.

Once fed we went a couple more kilometers south. Beyond that point the trail was less maintained and rather hilly. It was a good place to turn around.

For much of our route there is a canal alongside the river. The canal is there to allow for occasional dams to generate power. For part of the return trip we rode atop the levee between the canal and river.

There was one problem with the trip. The seat on my loaner bike was uncomfortable and by the end downright painful. Brother has another bike trip planned for Saturday with friends in the foothills of the Alps. This one includes taking a train south to a nice starting point. I said it sounds good – only if I get a comfortable bike seat.

While at Tintagel Brother bought a book about the adventures of King Arthur. Niece has been reading to us from it during meals. She even took it on the bike trip too read during lunch and at rest stops.

This book has prompted Niece to read up on King Arthur. Because of the legends must there be a kernel of truth? Or is Arthur the historians' biggest waste of time? If Arthur did exist he would have lived sometime about 450-600, after the Romans left Britain and during the time the residents were dealing with the horrible decision to hire the Saxons to keep the peace. Alas, the Saxons kept upping their salary demands and pillaging the countryside when their demands weren't met. Someone had to drive them out. This summary is according to Niece.

The illustrations of the King Arthur book are new for the 2016 edition. The text is from 1902 and is quite archaic to our ears. We frequently interrupt the reading to comment on details that seem to be from after the Norman invasion (the whole idea of chivalrous knights) or even after Henry VIII created the church of England (the prominence of the Archbishop of Canterbury). We also interrup to point out which parts of the story must be legend (Arthur healing from a sword blow to the head in four days) and how the legend might serve the storytellers of 1900. And more interruptions to comment on some absurd part of the tale. This has been fun. The story has been pretty good too.

We were back at the apartment before 5:00 and headed out to a pub for supper at 6:30 (rather early for us). Niece thought the pub, only a few blocks from the apartment, is an active part of the gay neighborhood (we did see a few rainbow flags). Was one of the hints the spinning disco ball?

Back at the apartment I created an evening concert through the wonderful resource of YouTube. We had talked about various kinds of music during our journeys and this was a chance to listen to a few of them. First in the play list was minimalism, so featured Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich (about 9 minutes of that hour long piece was enough, though Niece though it would be good sonic wallpaper), then A Short Ride in a Fast Machine and the last movement of Harmonielehre both by John Adams (the composer, not the president). Niece thought this would make good movie music, though not so good to simply listen to. From there we ventured into the Prelude and Liebestodt from Tristan and Isolde by Wagner. I played this because of the lovers' association with Tintagel. Then on to the last movement of the Great C Major Symphony of Schubert, before cycling back to Wagner and Wotan's Farewell from Die Walküre. Niece says she may be on her way of becoming a Wagner fan.

Travelogue – A dash across England

Monday, August 19

Niece had a small breakfast, then came back with a bit of news – the hotel had found something that could be used as a tuning wrench for the harp. She got her phone and its tuning app and set to work. Of course, she then had to sit and play it for a while. She looked so happy sitting there. And so we sat to listen for a while.

Our main task for the day was to get back to Munich. The first part of that was to get back to Heathrow. Based on time estimates compared to reality when getting to Exeter we thought we should allow a lot of extra time.

We left Tintagel at about 10:15 with an estimate of four hours of driving (including known backups on the highway). I monitored routes for which was fastest (or if scenic only a couple minutes slower). We had about six hours of time. We did stop a couple times, including to buy lunch to eat in the car (Brother declined lunch, saying he had a big breakfast and wanted to drive on). Total stopped time was probably less than an hour. It still took all six hours.

We turned in the car and took their shuttle to the terminal. Lufthansa has tried to automate as much as possible, so it was up to us to stop at a kiosk to print our baggage tags. Brother knew about this effort, so downloaded all three boarding passes to his phone. But shifting from one pass to another was too cumbersome so an agent intervened and printed our passes. We got through security smoothly (the nail now in my checked bag). We had time for a snack and for Brother to have lunch.

Our gate was announced at 5:10. Signs to the gate said it was a 13 minute walk. Our boarding pass said we needed to be at the gate by 5:25. Something doesn't quite add up here. So, yeah, we were still boarding at the 5:50 departure time. Then had to wait in line to take off (there were 12 jets behind us when we flew). We still got to Munich at about the stated arrival time.

In most airports (and from my flight from the USA) the walk from the gate to customs control was pretty spartan and direct. This time there were many shops and lots of other people heading to other gates. It didn't look right. We followed the signs for baggage claim and just before we got there was passport control.

A train ride into the city. A walk in the rain to the apartment. And then to bed.

Travelogue – Merlin and wind

Sunday, August 18

Before bed last night I asked at the pub about breakfast. Yeah, the do serve it – when the pub opens at 10:00. We want to be on the road well before then, what about earlier? There is place down the street just beyond the little grocery store.

So at about 8 we ventured out. Just past the grocery store and … no restaurants. We walked a bit farther, still nothing. We went back to the grocery store and bought a few ready made items for our breakfast.

We got the early start because we attended services in Chulmleigh at 10:30. It's a village about 25 miles, a 45 minute drive, northwest of Exeter. Yes, it is miles – though Britain has converted to Metric road distances were exempted.

Chulmleigh is where my dad's mother's family is from. Roger Greenslade was born in Chulmleigh in 1829 and married there in 1850 to Elizabeth Molland. Roger's father James was born in nearby Cheldon in 1791 and mother Rose Vicary was born in nearby Ashreighney in 1790. In 1854 James, Rose, Roger, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth's first two children immigrated to northern Ohio. Our ancestor, Roger Luke, the 9th child, was born in Ohio in 1868. His twin, Mark, lived only 15 months.

We can trace the Greenslade line another five generations before James. Most of them were born in Cheldon or Chawleigh, another nearby village.

The service that morning was pleasant. The congregation was small, which didn't help on the singing, which were several contemporary songs – nice, but nobody knew them. One of the members was the speaker. She did a good job, though wasn't a practiced speaker.

Before and after the service we talked to Marilyn, Elaine, and Paul. Elaine explained the interior – the screen was Tudor (and included the Tudor rose). The ceiling and its simply carved angels was also from that time. As for the rest – the Victorians came in, swept out the old stuff, and redecorated. That included the pulpit, the altar area, and the windows. So none of that was around when Roger married Elizabeth.

Elaine showed me a list of the names on the stones in the graveyard surrounding the church. Alas, no Greenslades, though the book saved us the trouble of walking through the churchyard. England doesn't follow the German rules of graves. When you buy one, it's yours. Old headstones stay around – though because of weather reading them could be a problem.

Paul was friendly and tried to be helpful. He offered to get us in contact with someone who might know more. His wife reminded him of a couple Greenslades in town. He hadn't made contact by the time we left town. He later emailed us some genealogy info of Greenslades. Our first reply to him was to ask for his sources.

We walked to the nearby pub for lunch. The waiter told us a large group had just ordered and our food wouldn't come for 45 minutes. At least they told us. We weren't real hungry yet, so went off to Chawleigh, a couple miles away. There we found a few graves with the name Saunders. That's the maaiden name of Rose Vicary's mother. Here's the Chawleigh church.

On to Cheldon, the smallest of the three villages and three churches. These days one pastor serves all three (and another nine). Cheldon has a service once a month (and someone along the way said none of the attendees are from Cheldon).

In Cheldon we found two headstones with the Greenslade name. Niece made a valiant effort to figure out what they said. One was for Emma Greenslade, who died in 1890, and the other was for (we think) Elizabeth Greenslade, who died in 1815.

Back in Chulmleigh, the pub was closed (we didn't want to take the time for a sit-down meal anyway) and the Indian take-away wouldn't open for three hours. So another meal out of a grocery store.

We drove across the Devon countryside, much of it on country roads one lane wide with big hedgerows on both sides. We kept the speed down and squeezed against the hedges when another car or a farm tractor passed.

Our destination was Tintagel on the Cornwall coast. There is a rocky peninsula that's almost an island. On the island are the remains of a Dark Ages settlement (“dark” because there are almost no written sources). The time would have been about the 5th to 7th Centuries. It may have been associated with the kings of Cornwall. In the 1100s Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote A History of the Kings of Britain (there was already enough kingly history to write a book?). This book said Tintagel was where King Arthur was conceived, so the place has been associated with that legend ever since. That legend prompted Richard, Earl of Cornwall to build a small castle here. Add into that mix the story of King Mark of Cornwall, his wife Iseult, and her lover Tristan (Wagner wrote a beautiful opera, Tristan and Isolde, the prelude of which I had used in my music theory classes).

Now there is a pretty cool new footbridge over the chasm between the mainland and island …

… rugged coast …

… ruins …

… a sculpture of Merlin …

… and a lot of wind.

We stayed at the Camelot Castle Hotel. It's a grand place, built in 1899 and refurbished starting in 1999. The rooms were cheaper than I expected (which is why I booked it), though I think they made up for it in the set price dinner (and it was a fine dinner).

Niece was captivated by the harp she found in the hotel's living room. She plays harp and hasn't been able to touch one for about five weeks. So, even though it was out of tune, she sat down and played. She also captivated a couple children, who watched and wanted to try for themselves, with Niece happily coaching.

Here's part of that living room. The table on the left is supposedly Arthur's Roundtable with the names of the various knights inscribed. Alas, it was in a script I couldn't read.

This place does get the award for the smallest bathroom. How small? The towel rack was outside. It was a modular thing that reminded me of an airplane bathroom with a little space to one side for a shower. Brother said at least we didn't have to go down the hall for toilet and showers, as the guests through much of the 20th Century had to do.

Travelogue – Tower bells

Saturday, August 17

During breakfast we talked to our hostess about our genealogy work and what we planned to see in Devon. She got out her copy of the Domesday Book in modern English. The book is essentially a census done after 1080, just a couple decades after the Norman invasion. The new king wanted to know what he ruled. Interesting that it listed livestock but not peasants. The important point for us was that the villages our ancestors lived in and then left in 1854 were already well established in 1080.

We left Worthing at about 10:45, a little later than we wanted. We decided on the scenic route to Exeter. At lunchtime we got off the main road and I confused left and right (amazingly easy to do in England) and led Brother down the wrong road which didn't have exits. I tried to get the map on the phone to tell us where restaurants were, but it wouldn't cooperate. In frustration I handed the phone to Niece, who guided us to a pub where we had a nice lunch.

We got into Exeter at 5:00, about an hour later than the navigation system on the phone suggested we would. This meant we weren't able to see inside some of the buildings, like the cathedral. Our hotel turned out to be or third one above a pub.

We set out to explore the town. We walked through Northernhay Gardens which had sections of Roman and Saxon walls. Then on through the downtown pedestrian zone and the Exeter Riddle, a monument with eight riddles on it (I didn't write them down to share). That's Brother in front of the monument and niece to the right.

At this hour the cathedral was closed for the day. As we got close, however, we could hear the bells ring. I could identify it as English change ringing and was delighted to hear it. I explained to Niece and Brother that in change ringing the bells are mounted on wheels that allow them to be rung a single time. Ringers pull on ropes to ring the bells in descending order. Once that is going smoothly they begin to ring changes – each time all the bells are played they are in a different order and ringers must know the pattern of how their bell moves through the order. A “peal” is about 40 thousand different orders and can take 15 hours to perform. Most ringing towers have plaques for those who complete a quarter peal. A much more complete explanation occupied our supper.

That supper was at a restaurant in the Quay near the Customs House. This used to be the shipping port. Now it is a place of restaurants and pubs. Many of our days were a big breakfast at 7:30 or 8, lunch at 1 or 2 and supper at about 7 or 8.

The hotel room was OK, though I think they were trying hard for the smallest bathroom. Then there was the big sodium light outside my window that illuminated the building in the evening.