Greta Thunberg's Expedition

Greta Thunberg, 16, made Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. Good for her, and I mean it. While Time Magazine and most people, from Brazil to Israel, are focusing on her climate-change advocacy, I’m honing in on her recent maritime accomplishment.

Scandinavians have a good relationship with the oceans. Since Leif Eriksson and his Vikings made a transatlantic voyage, citizens of the Baltic Sea have dominated and improved the maritime arts. Norwegian-born Andrew Furuseth (1854-1938) spearheaded legislation for the benefit of American merchant mariners. Scandinavian merchant ship officers and crew were a common sight in ports around the world. Britain, France, and America had colonies and overseas territories as natural customers for their merchant fleets; Baltic ships sailed not for empire, but for trade. In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Pacific Ocean onboard Kon-Tiki, a primitive raft.  Scandinavian mariners have disappeared in the past quarter-century, displaced by ship’s crews from the Philippines and India.

This summer, Greta Thunberg and her father sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in a solar-equipped sailboat. Modern navigation and life safety equipment made her voyage less perilous than her Swedish ancestors. Nevertheless, it is an uncommon feat, which puts her in the realm of modern explorers.  

In the age of low-cost jet travel, crossing the Atlantic Ocean by sea has become a lost art. During the “Atlantic cruising season”, the summer months of placid waves, Cunard Lines alone sails the once-renowned Southampton, UK to New York City route. As late as the 1960’s, a variety of passenger ships crossed the Atlantic, year-round: Pounding through Winter North Atlantic’s 40-foot waves is the exact definition of “buyer beware”, a trip for brave and hearty souls to endure. By sailing for the Mediterranean instead of the North Sea, I have not done a true Winter North Atlantic run. The experience, however, is what put “hair on the chest” of classmates who made container-ship runs to Belgium in the middle of winter.   

Scandinavians Built the Modern Maritime Industry

The Danish conglomerate AP Moller Maersk dominates sectors of shipping ranging from the offshore oil industry to massive container ships. This portfolio includes some American-crewed vessels under its subsidiary Maersk Lines Limited.  Kongsberg, based in Norway, builds training simulators for aspiring ship’s masters and harbor pilots. Norway’s Bergen Marine has built ship’s diesel engines since World War Two, decades before American shipbuilders transitioned from steam to diesel propulsion. Swedish company GAC, a ship husbandry firm, negotiates with beady-eyed port officials around the world on behalf of ship-owners. Germany’s Fassmer builds modern enclosed lifeboats: SS El Faro, an American steamship lost in 2015, did not have this lifesaving equipment. The International Maritime Organization, which has in essence propagated maritime safety regulations since 1913, is based in London. Not quite Scandinavia, but near the North Sea.

Last Flight to Hong Kong

It takes 8 hours to fly from the territory of Guam to the State of Hawaii; and 13 hours to the Mainland United States. If on Guam and interested in travel, xenophobia is a disadvantage; for the experiences of Japan, Taiwan and Korea are but 4 hours away by air.


Hong Kong, which I had not visited yet, caught my fancy, being in similar proximity to Guam. Since 1997, when the British lease on Victoria Island and surrounding areas ended, the former British colony has undergone Sinification. The area would be remolded into Beijing’s image. Hong Kong’s hybrid culture palpably faded as its newfound status as a “Special Administrative Region” wore on. Reunification is scheduled for the year 2047, but many residents feel the end of special status is near. Hong Kong’s fish mongers resented overbearing law enforcement; this was prelude to a summer of discontent, spurred by an extradition agreement with Mainland China. In travelling to Hong Kong, I sought to capture a glimpse of a time past.    


The window of opportunity was quickly closing, and I was in a fortuitous position to make a trip. I had concerns: being unable to procure a transit visa through Mainland China, Hong Kong International Airport was my only way to depart Hong Kong. Through Alfred P. Chester’s A Sailor’s Odyssey and other works, I read about the many American expatriates desperate to leave war-drummed Europe in 1940 and 1941 on the few passenger liners still sailing. Failing that, they abandoned their belongings and assets, riding across the Atlantic as supercargo onboard derelict freighters. I realized it was possible for history to repeat.


Despite the widescale weekend protests, as of August 1^st, the US State Department had not issued a travel advisory on Hong Kong. I did make sure to book a hotel away from Victoria Square, epicenter of the protest activity, namely at Harbourview near Hong Kong station. I purchased airline tickets and researched Hong Kong’s MRT subway system.  The flights landed and departed uneventfully.

The weekend after my scheduled trip, 10-11^th of August, tensions reached a fever pitch. On Facebook, I came across a photo taken in an MRT station. Laser sights pierced the smoke-filled cavern. “This is not a sci-fi movie. This is Hong Kong”, read the caption. Hong Kong’s international airport was shut down.

Governor Northam: Wolf in Doctor's Clothes

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On the heels of Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation, another 1980's yearbook claims its prey. Ralph Northam, one week ago the quiet Virginia Governor, made an embarrassing, shameful splash onto the national stage. We wonder why Ed Gillespie, the Republican who lost to Ralph Northam in 2017, didn't find that yearbook. Simply put by another campaign manager:"opposition research 101". To further this point, Mr. Gillespie spent part of his working career as a political operative. I also wonder why no Eastern Virginia Medical School alumnus broke the Code of Silence, and independently brought forth the revelation during the 2017 campaign.

Gauging the public outrage over the EVMS Blackface-Klansman photo, Black Virginians were the most outraged. Institutional racism died slowly, with Dixiecrats holding control of the Virginia legislature into the 1990's. That nightmare, fueled by the current President's "good people on both sides" comment, flared up recently in Charlottesville. In 2017, Northam claimed moral high ground in a brutal, race-baiting campaign season: a law-and-order Gillespie ad focused on real crimes committed in the Washington, DC area by the MS-13 gang, but was taken by some as a loud dog whistle on immigration. A Latino Victory Fund ad in response, run on behalf of Northam, portrayed a Gillespie supporter in a pickup truck, waiving the Confederate flag. He proceeded to mow down minority children. The Washington Post condemned this ad, which was pulled after an ISIS-inspired Uzbek man plowed through, and killed eight New Yorkers with a rented truck on Halloween.

In 2006, former Senator George Allen narrowly lost reelection after using a questionable term, "macaca", to describe an Indian-American. It was caught on camera, and soon there were allegations from high school classmates of "N-words and nooses". As this concerned merely the "coalition of the ascendant", the total shift in support amounted to a few critical percentage points. Black-White relations, however, have permeated Virginia politics for 400 years. Many white moderates, the target audience for expensive, televised campaign ads, now felt duped by Northam's hypocritical (self projecting?) campaign on racial issues. A photo shouts a thousand words.  In this context, despite his perceived dog-whistle on immigration, Gillespie was the better man. This was buttressed by his commitment to criminal justice reform, an aspect of Virginia policy which has roots dating to the Dixiecrat era.

White liberals (the latte set) were more likely to consider the pros-and-cons of keeping Ralph Northam in office, as a so-called "progressive leader". That is the art of marketing at work, if you can virtue-signal your way into office, with pink hats and appearances with minority community leaders. In contrast to previous liberal governor Terry McAuliffe's frequent impasse with the GOP-controlled legislature, Ralph Northam is one of the "good old boys" who works with Republicans. 

Ralph Northam's views on social issues is within line of the mainstream medical community. Here is my take. On guns: Did you hear the recent story about the four-year-old who got hold of, and shot a loaded handgun?  On the prosecution of abortion doctors as a slippery slope: Read Miller's 'King of Hearts' and see how allegations of murder followed high-risk heart surgery, including future Governor Doug Wilder's civil suit following a 1968 heart transplant in Virginia. On capital punishment: Even I felt bad that Tojo was hung for his war crimes in WWII, after American doctors worked hard to save him after a suicide attempt. On expansion of healthcare access: Why are politicians interfering with my ability to provide better care?

While conservatives joined the cries to unseat Governor Northam, the reality is nuanced for Virginia Republicans. With racial provocateur Corey Stewart retiring from politics this year, the local GOP now has the ability to regain status in minority communities. Behind closed doors, Ralph Northam is a "good old boy", a Virginia Military Institute alumnus connected to bipartisan power-brokering in Virginia. His would-be replacement, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, is an African-American progressive who would put the brakes on Republican plans for new pipelines; and expose the tight, bipartisan connections between state-regulated utility Dominion Energy and the legislature. This year, all seats are up for election in the evenly-divided legislature (51/49 and 21/19, GOP in narrow control). There are many competitive districts, where minority turnout counts. A damaged governor who can't make appearances with the Black community will only help Republicans hold the legislature.

Can't You Hear a Poor Man's Cry?

Ever since Newt Gingrich bailed out Washington, DC in the mid 1990's, it is par for course for city councilmembers to place blame on congressional Republicans for the city’s woes. The optics of southern white congressmen deciding city matters harkened back to the pre-1973 era in the minds of older Washingtonians, when an unelected Board of Commissioners ruled the city with Dixiecrat fists. This sentiment covers all parts of the city, black, white and wonderfully integrated.

But the true red meat comes from Ward 8, commonly known as “Anacostia”. This district was once a proud, southern-tinged white working class community. Since the 1980’s, though, it’s been the dangerous neighborhood President Trump warned you about. In councilman Trayon White's words, he described the drugs and violence that surrounded his childhood. You haven’t heard this story in the national news. These are Forgotten Americans; predominately African-Americans. The average income in Ward 8 is half the city’s average. Unemployment and absentee fathers, early death and the other symptoms of poverty lurk in Anacostia.

"Improvement is around the corner": Home prices are buoyed by hopes of a turnaround. Houses sell for $250,000; technically unaffordable for the average neighborhood resident. In essence, prospect of gentrification adds insult to the decades-long injury in Anacostia for those residents who don't own their home.

Desperation breeds anger. Recently, Councilman White insisted that the Rothschilds control the weather, and are coming to gentrify. Taken by many as an anti-Semitic remark, Mr. White atoned for this statement at the city’s Holocaust Museum. As shocking as these comments are to the average person, Mr. White is well-regarded in his community for being upfront.

I am a fan of Greater Greater Washington, a civic blog that appeals to the "SWPL" demographic, named for the yuppie website. Commentators, many progressives among them,  make important talk of food deserts and educational equality. Yet they are grasping at straws on other topics, such as gentrification. Some unintentionally suggested denying community improvements, in an attempt to “keep neighborhoods affordable”. So as a fact, Mr. White is more of an authority on urban poverty than yuppie bloggers, even if his speech is not polished, eloquent, and politically correct.

Mr. White’s predecessor, former mayor Marion Barry, happened to quipped about Asian-American shopkeepers peddling unhealthy food while draining the community of its money. The sitting Mayor naturally condemned the statement, but the rhetoric coming from Ward 8 lends a cue to residents' frustration. Small-town and rural whites may be concerned about jobs and gun rights, but low-income African-Americans fear for their homes and their communities too. Anxiety sounds the same in any community.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/19/politics/dc-council-member-apology-anti-semitic-comment/index.html

 

How to Remember Robert E. Lee

In the space of several weeks, New Orleans removed four monuments, even demolishing at least one. Such a sweeping action spearheaded by Mayor Mitch Landrieu, with consent of the City Council, generated less debate on the national scale than I expected. I was very surprised that the city had the authority to remove landmarks, as I thought that they would be protected by state, even federal law. The federal courts declined to interfere with this “local matter”, and the monuments were removed in the dark of night with less legal battle than removing an old tree. 

These monuments happened to commemorate Confederate leaders and events; and were erected during the heyday of Civil War veterans.  They were the South’s response to Grand Army Plaza and General Sherman statues.  In Norfolk, Virginia there is a Confederate memorial erected in 1951. At first glance I thought it was a bad symbol of massive resistance to civil rights, but upon closer reading I discovered that the memorial commemorated the last meeting of centenarian veterans. In some parts of the country and in some communities, the thought of Confederate statues generates revulsion. But living on the border of Virginia, I grew up around intentional and subtle memorials to the Confederacy, such as the Civil War battlefields, replete with reenactments, curio stores, Robert E Lee’s house on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, Lee-Jackson Day, and roads with high rise buildings named after Confederate generals. Recently, the Washington National Cathedral, part of the Episcopal Church, decided to alter a stained glass window that portrayed a small Confederate flag. That is their right, but it sparked debate in preservation-conscious Washington. Virginia has taken a keen interest in ensuring that the historic city of Alexandria, bordering Washington, keeps its memorials. It makes for unsavory news headlines in the age of clickbait. Around a city full of statues and monuments to controversial figures; several statues to the Confederacy is just ‘is’.  

Among the four demolished monuments was a wholly inappropriate memorial to the Battle of Liberty Place extolling the virtues of lawlessness. It was a low key-memorial and the first to be removed. As the Associated Press writes, it commemorates “A rebellion in 1874 by whites against a biracial Reconstruction-era government in New Orleans. An inscription extolling white supremacy was added in 1932”. This statue was devoted to racism; and had no redeeming artistic value, it was rightly demolished. The others commemorate Confederate leaders, which some find to symbolize racism. 

I looked at pictures of the condemned memorials in New Orleans. Several were grimy and looked to be neglected.  That was how Pennsylvania Station looked in 1963 when the “obsolete” Pennsylvania Station of 1908 was razed, to the horror of historians, the art community, and the educated public.  The airy atrium and iconic building, everything above street level, was replaced with the Madison Square Garden stadium and an office building, maximizing use of what was seen at the time as wasted real estate. What existed below street level, the utilitarian train tracks and platforms, was preserved. A small concession was made to preservationists, and the iconic eagles, which used to be on the train station’s facades, landed at college campuses and public places around New York City.

The fact that Pennsylvania Station was demolished proved to be a turning point on how our nation treated old but iconic buildings. It was a turning point , not a clean break, as we see in our churches.  Parishioners, many struggling immigrants from the Old World, put their pennies together to build great churches in our cities. Some churches have been sold or demolished, usually after a period of postponed maintenance, due to insufficient funds.  Other times, there was “wreckovation” that came with the “Spirit of Vatican 2”: While many parishes were able to accommodate the new mass without alterations; other church leaders jumped on a bandwagon and planned renovation  using  the vague motive of symbolism about moving forward in a new direction.  Similar attitudes prevailed in other denomiations as well. 

Then the Tridentine Mass returned after 20 years’ absence.  This is the old mass which the old Catholic parishes were built for. There is nothing more beautiful than the combination of ritual and place, the old mass being celebrated at the old altar, as it has been for a century or more, skipping one generation. In many neighborhoods with old parishes, gentrification is in full swing. The flavor of life of ethnic communities is being replaced by generic residents and bland chain outlets. In light of this, churches, statues and monuments create a sense of place; as they have been for the past centuries. 

What is a Washingtonian to judge how New Orleans wants to forget the unpleasant past? Folks visit New Orleans for the cultural difference, where preserving the past has less importance than enjoying the present. The people of New Orleans make the French Quarter what it is; the buildings are decoration.  Let the good times roll in the Big Easy.

Funk The War

March 19, 2003

Six years to the date? According to plans, this war is set to end by year 8. So therefore, we can start packing away the protest stuff for a while. But this was not the case for a group of re-creationists. I passed by the affair when it was just starting to gather at Franklin Square. Nothing much, but there was raucous '70's music and lots of collegiate and high school types, retro style, and lots of coppers in blue shirt and helmet.

According to the independent press, various symbolic targets of last year were targeted, as usual. Lobbyist's row (K Street), a recruiting center, and the GOP HQ, which had "too many cops around to break (the doors) down." So if you come by the Farragut Square area, check out the plastered signs. If things go faster than expected, next year's Funk will be dilatory.

http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/142455/index.php