Sunday, September 5. 2010
My favorite things to watch at the US Open are the mens' and womens' doubles matches on the side courts. You are up close, and really feel the game. The game, however, has little in common with the doubles I play. The pros handle net balls that would drill a hole in my chest and leave me bleeding and dying on the court.
And doubles does not require a hard serve, but the services of these dudes would probably break my arm - if I could get a racquet on the ball at all. Probably could not, with the crazy, twisty jumps and jigs and jags that the pros put on their serves, which are difficult for the TV viewer to see.
The US Open is a jolly tennis festival. The crowd is ethnically diverse, polite, and well-behaved. When the court judge says "Thank you" he means "Shut up." When he says "Pretty please," as he did yesterday, he means "STFU." People do shut right up. No movement from seats is allowed until breaks, so the Open is the wrong place to be with bowel problems. Everything is designed to minimize distraction for the players, including the line judge uniforms and the ball boys holding the balls behind their backs.
The almost-instant replay on line call challenges is a fun aspect to the matches. The challenges add another tactic to this complex game of wit and talent.
NYC is lucky to have the Open. San Diego almost stole it in the 1970s.
More Show-and-Tell pics below the fold.
Continue reading "Tennis fans: US Open pics from yesterday"
Capt. Tom informed us about this Morris 26-foot design. A beaut, but rugged and affordable (yet as I always say about boats and women: "You can afford to get her, but can you afford to keep her?").
You have to like a double-ender as much for function as for grace even though it cramps the stern space. Mrs. BD would love this boat. Jib-rollers seem to be essential nowadays. Great invention.
Here's a Frances site. Dang, that is one perty boat. Thanks a lot, Capt. Tom, for another bad dose of boat lust to deal with, especially after today's lectionary.
 My men's Bible study group had a good discussion about prayer and worship early yesterday morning, but we ended up focusing on how we do, or fail to, make space to let God into our daily lives, and to open the door for guidance and inspiration from the Holy Spirit.
We discussed how, in Acts 13, they fasted and prayed as a way to invite the Holy Spirit to guide their missionary intentions. We discussed how quieting the mind and turning off the Blackberry can be a sort of "input fasting."
The discussion reminded me of what a friend once advised me when I felt my prayer wasn't "working" (I don't mean I wasn't getting the right answer: I mean that I didn't feel I was in communion). My friend wisely said "When conversing with God, you need to STFU some of the time. You're talking too much to be able to listen. That's not a relationship."
And it reminded me of this piece by Dr. Bliss: Try turning off the radio: Obsessions, distractions and diversions.
I am not a child. I do not need to be told what to do in life most of the time (except by She Who Must Be Obeyed, on occasion. eg: "Call the vet," and "Take your BP meds," and "Bring hence some mint from the garden," and "You can't go to town in those filthy wrinkled pants."). But I do want and need God via the Holy Spirit as my co-pilot to give me light in the tough times, to lift me up in the good times, and to help keep my life aligned, as best I can discern it, with God's will.
So I need to clear out the junk and make more mental space for that. Fall Cleaning. Otherwise, I'm just another animal, controlled by desires and interests, and constrained and regulated by ordinary reality. It's all really His space, isn't it?
Saturday, September 4. 2010
 The relationship of humans with dogs is an astonishing thing. Author Thomas McGuane understands and loves his dogs. A quote:
On a bright and cold October morning in Montana, my dogs Abby and Daisy, The Pointer Sisters, are in my closet helping me select my clothes. On the left end of the rack are everyday clothes; on the far right are coats and ties for the occasional urban jaunt; and in the middle, clothes for sport, especially hunting. Here sit the two girls, tails whisking the floor between the shoes. They moan, grumble and pant wishfully while my hand hovers over the coat hangers. I shouldn't do this as dogs don't enjoy being trifled with. They know where the thorn-proof pants hang, since the red suspenders dangle to eye level for them, but they watch my hand. I don't move; Abby turns to stare at my boots with such longing she must think they can scoop me up and take me into the hills. Finally, Daisy can't stand it and barks at me: I pull the hunting pants from their hanger and with a cry of triumph they scramble out of the closet to watch me dress. Let others withstand the elliptical trainer, the rowing machine and the NordicTrack. Mama wants two partridges for tonight's table and I will walk long miles hoping to get them.
Read the whole thing in the WSJ. (Photo from the article. Where's his blaze orange?)
Friday, September 3. 2010
I dedicate this post to our pal Sippican, who knows a lot more about archeetekcher than I do.
What does Pope Benedict have to do with Regensburg? Plenty.
Plus the town is Germany's medieval gem (and was not bombed by the Allies). It would be a very pleasant town to live in.
The great gothic St. Peter's (c. 1240) is fine, but we found this small parish church, not a tourist site, Ulrichskirche (also 1200s I believe), which is next door to the cathedral, interesting from a detective standpoint. Take a look at the bastardised architecture and decor.
What first struck us on entering was that the church organist was practicing, noodling on his old German pipe organ with comfortable recessional noises. Great.
Second thought was "What the heck is this?"
Well, clearly somebody in the 1700's decided to gussy up the old-fashioned, gothic-ish church with Baroque. Redecorating. Squared the old columns, added squigglies to them, new baroque pulpit, and painted over the old gothic paint and stone.
More interesting architectural detail below the fold -
Continue reading "St. Ulrich's and architectural fashion"
Wednesday, September 1. 2010
When even the New York Times recognizes criticism of a leftist attempt to indoctrinate students with an Arab-American victimism and anti-American book, the sole one distributed by the college to incoming students and also a reading in the required English course, we’ve surely stirred up something that resonates with many.
The NYTs article, Brooklyn College Furor Is More Heated Online, is largely dismissive of the issue as a blogosphere thing and attributes it, as does the college’s Dean involved in the selection, as “unfolding a bit like the debate over the planned Islamic community center in downtown Manhattan: much of the intensity seems far afield, while the response in the neighborhood itself is more muted.”
The reporter phoned me a few minutes before posting her report, but I was out, and she hasn’t returned my return call to her. (UPDATE 7:18AM Pacific: The reporter emailed me this morning. I replied that she seems to have attributed a quote from Prof. Bayoumi to me, and she just corrected the syntax in the article to make it clear. She, also, added to her article Prof. Bayoumi's defense of the Gaza Flotilla. Sincere thanks. I, also, noted to her that "I understand that you phoned others earlier, but you are the reporter so you determine the priorities of contacts." The reporter replies that she was on the subway and did not get my phone call back to her.)
The Comments at the NYT are, as one would expect there, mostly dismissive. There is one, however, that deserves wider attention:
As an American of Syrian descent I have never, nor has any member of my very large, noisy, opinionated, dark skinned, prominent nosed, extended family, EVER been discriminated against in this country. My children are extremely proud of their Middle-Eastern roots and very rich culture of food and family, generosity and hospitality. Mr. Bayoumi is confusing discrimination with the healthy practice in the US of dialogue tinged with a bit of mistrust – based on the undeniable fact that we were attacked on 9/11 by radical Arab Islamists. The US invites open dialogue – which can sometimes become very heated. Mr Bayoumi should be familiar with participating in heated arguments – which are practiced intensely in all of the Arab households that I have lived in or visited. Arab immigrants have to ride the current wave of mistrust and anger that the proposed Mosque has stirred up. Arabs also have to check their tendency to want people to accommodate them without giving anything in return – something called a compromise. We aren’t the first group of immigrants to have to deal with animosity from US groups who were here first and we will not be the last. Think of it as an initiation to a fraternity; if you tough it out it will pay off handsomely. Mr. Bayoumi, if Middle-Eastern voices have been censored in this country prove it.
After the New York Daily News reported the issue, and Professor Emeritus in History at the City University of New York, Ron Radosh, wrote about it in the New York Post, the New York Times, I guess, had to ride to the rescue of leftist hogwash.
P.S.: Many of the Commenters at the New York Times article assert that it is up to the students to find an alternative point of view or facts. A current student at Brooklyn College replies at the New York Times with the reality. (Below the fold, with the remainder of this post.)
Continue reading "New York Times Reports (Sorta) On Brooklyn College’s Indoctrination Book (UPDATES)"
 Checkbook? Credit cards? Expired membership cards? Business cards? Town beach pass? Dry cleaning slips? Tax receipts? An old condom? Concealed carry permit? To-do list? Money???
I'll go first:
$143, 7 of my business cards, two credit cards, my ATM card, my Triple A card, my carry permit, my medical insurance card, driver's license, supermarket bonus card, Costco Card, a mini-copy of my latest EKG showing my harmless PVCs, a list of phone numbers which aren't entered onto my cell, a small photo of my kids, and my hunting license. Pretty boring, really.
What's in your wallet?
Tell us in the comments.
Tuesday, August 31. 2010
Luckily I forgot to bring the bag of Sun Chips I bought when I took the boys to Petco for Sunday's ball game. It is the loudest, most annoying food packaging I've ever heard. The new Sun Chips packaging is biodegradable and compostable. Great for the environment. Terrible for my ears, or anyone else's, at 95 decibils. That's the sound level at which "sustained exposure may result in hearing loss." Not to mention a bop in the nose from someone in a seat nearby. My wife was sleeping in the next room, after dental surgery, and was just woken by my opening the bag.
On the other hand, I may now have an excuse for not answering my wife's questions. Sales have fallen since introduction of the new bag. Maybe a new ad campaign for "Did you say something, honey?" will revive sales.
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles.
The deal is the social contract and the contract of civility.
By some fluke, in the past month I have consulted with three teens who have run afoul of the law, including one 16 year-old who could be facing many years in jail.
Not one of these kids realized or had ever considered that what they had done was criminal. It got me to thinking.
In my parents' generation, the kids took a course called "Civics." It was about our government, laws, civil behavior, civic responsibility, how to be a citizen of a free republic, etc. It was replaced, in time, by some strange Dewey-ish thing called "Social Studies" in public schools (but private schools, like mine, never did "Social Studies). My guess is that nowadays it's about recycling, respecting "others," and appreciating Serbian cuisine and folk dress.
When I met with the parents, I discovered that the parents had never discussed the laws with their kids. They figured they had "basically good kids."
Whatever that means.
I'd like to launch a movement to re-institute Civics. I'd like to see kids get classes from cops and criminal and non-criminal lawyers about the laws and the legal process. I'd like to see kids taught about being a citizen in a free repubic, and their duties and reponsibilities. I am certain that not all parents convey those things today, but if kids aren't taught these things they will find out the hard way. It takes lots of people to teach a kid how to be an acceptable member of society.
A good parental example is a good start, but not enough. They need feedback and simple information.
When I went to boarding school we had daily chapel. We acknowledged God and Jesus plenty, but most of the brief homilies were about how to be a decent member of a community. Those messages stuck, even to wanna-be sophisticated and wanna-be jaded young hipsters like I tried to be.
The core of the problem is the modernist assumption of "basic goodness." Frankly, that is pure BS.
A 16 year-old boy fondled a precocious and eager 14 year-old in his car after school. Another kid told the parents, parents called the cops, and the 16 year-old is facing many years in jail on pedophilia counts. The prosecutor has him as an adult pedophile. Nobody ever told him.
It's not the sort of topic that comes up over the dinner table, but somebody could have and should have told him about the laws.
Continue reading "It does take a village (to help produce kids who know what the rules are)"
Since last Friday, when I wrote why I Just Disinherited My Alma Mater, the post has had “legs” about what I and others say is politicized indoctrination as official college policy.
Brooklyn College requires incoming freshmen and transfer students to read an absurdly slanted book that Arab-Americans are routinely rousted by law enforcement and discriminated against, which the author attributes to racism akin to Jim Crow discrimination against Blacks a century ago and due to American imperialism. Somehow, according to college authorities, this is supposed to create a beneficial, educational “common experience.”
Glenn Reynolds' InstaPundit blog, which is read by about 200,000 each day, linked my post and on successive days two posts by others about my post. By contrast, my hometown San Diego Union-Tribune’s daily circulation is about 250,000. Many other blogs also picked up on my post.
Today, the New York Daily News, circulation about 570,000, reported the story after interviewing me: “Alum to cut Brooklyn College out of will over required freshman reading by 'radical' prof” Moustafa Bayoumi.
“Bayoumi did not return a call for comment.”
In a statement, Brooklyn College said it was "regrettable that Mr. Bruce Kesler misunderstands the intentions of the Common Reader experience and the broader context of this selection."
The National Association of Scholars wrote, however, that Brooklyn College does not understand, or understands all too well, the Common Reading Controversy at Brooklyn College.
We agree with those who find the assignment of this polemical book as common reading troubling. While much of How Does It Feel to be a Problem? seems a straightforward telling of stories, its central purpose is clear. It aims to establish Arab and Muslim Americans as victims and indict American society for making them so. By assigning this book as the sole one to be read by incoming undergraduates, most of whom will have little of the knowledge needed to evaluate its claims, Brooklyn College opens itself to the charge that it is using what should be an important education experience for ideological goals – a charge which the evidence of our study indicates could be made against a great many other colleges and universities as well.
Many readers have written about their “common experience” in indoctrination at their colleges. It is getting harder for slanted -- indeed, blatant -- indoctrination to hide behind ivy-covered walls. The reactions continue and builds.
P.S.: I just received this email from a former classmate:
I also had it with Brooklyn College and their attitude regarding Israel. I'm a retired N.Y.C teacher. I retired after 33 years in the system in 2001. I joined IRPE- a retiree organization at the college. I attended one of their lectures concerning the middle east. When we walked in, we were given maps of various mid-east countries. The so called conference became a hate session regarding eretz Yisroel. 3 speakers got up and one by one they denounced Israel. No one was allowed to respond to them. People walked out cursing them. When I wrote a letter to the college, they denied all of this. I left IRPE and would not contribute one further penny to the institution. Having worked, I graduated in 1969 and am the class representative for that year.
Congratulations on taking a stand.
IRPE is Brooklyn College's Institute for Retirees in Pursuit of Education.
See UPDATE
Don Juan's Dad was Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Austria. His Mom was Barbara Blomberg, a local singer who entertained Charles with music and fun while he passed through Regensburg in 1546.
Not much more is heard in history about Barbara, but we are grateful to her for bearing John of Austria, who led the allied navies against the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
It is believed that John was conceived during a one-night-stand in this old hotel in Regensburg (yellow one on the right, a week or so ago). An historic little hook-up indeed:
Monday, August 30. 2010
Bird Dog -
While certainly not as "dramatic" as your trip across the pond, we spent a week in the Maine woods, canoeing and fishing for Brook Trout and Smallmouth. We stayed at a traditional Maine "camp" http://www.bowlincamps.com/ Food was great (camp cooking and plenty of it). Other than rain for 1/2 the day on Monday, the weather was superb - temps in the upper 70's during the day and 50-55 at night. Camp is located 8 miles down a logging road (no cell phone or Blackberry - hooray!) and about an hour west of Patten, Maine. They have had little rain this year, so the river and stream levels were down, impacting the fishing. We caught some Brookies and one decent Smallmouth in five days of fishing. The fish were there, we just had to work for them. We canoed and fished the East Branch of the Penobscot River which is pretty daggone wild. We saw no other canoes or campers on the river. Saw a nice bear and wife almost got ran over by a moose while she was hiking. Had a flat tire on the Suburban so had to go to Houlton for repair (living where I do, I forget how nice the folks outside of the urban areas are to strangers. Guy at the tire shop just happened to have the exact size and make tire that matched the other three. It was used, but had better tread than the ones on the Sub. $50 on the vehicle. In and out in 45 minutes.)
Bowlin Camps is just a stone's throw from the Appalachian Trail. Guy came through for lunch - he was hiking from Gaspe Bay to Key West. Left Gaspe Bay in mid-June. No map, one pair of boots and I think, not a lot of money. Gave him our breakfast bars and some trail mix, for which he was sincerely grateful. Seemed like a nice guy, but maybe a bit too idealistic - hoped to make it to Key West by next summer.
Anyway, the camp was great, Pops, wife and the two dogs enjoyed themselves in the woods. We had hot showers, generator between 0630 and 2100 hours and gas lamps otherwise. Camp was getting ready for bear hunting season, which begins on August 30th. We saw several trail cam pics of bears that were 5-6 feet tall, which is a great black bear for Maine.
Couple of pics attached.
Your humble scribe - J
Sunday, August 29. 2010
 One place we did not get to on our trip was Salzburg. Wish we had had time to visit that medieval city which, as its name implies, got rich selling and transporting salt down the river.
Our guide pointed out to us how important salt was at the time - not as a condiment, but as a food-preservative. "White gold."
I wonder what salt mines were like in 1400.
Saturday, August 28. 2010
We became somewhat expert in locks. When we got to the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal, we took locks uphill over the continental divide, then down the other side. An engineering marvel. It's all gravity-driven and, as I have said, you can travel from the North Sea and Amsterdam to the Black Sea, by water, today. That trip would be a fine 30-day vacation.
The width of ships and barges is limited by the width of the locks, and the height is limited by bridges. In some locks, we only had about 6" space between the walls. I asked the Captain how he managed to get into those tight ones without scraping the sides. He laughed, said "You just go straight." (Our ship had a joystick like a Hinckley Picnic Boat, not a wheel. Bow thrusters, but no stern thrusters because the driver could turn the props to 90 degrees.)
I hear you asking what music our Dutch Captain liked to listen to when he had the con. Seemed like he was partial to Mark Knopfler and Van Morrison. Chugging up the Danube, listening to "We gotta move these refrigerators..." was memorable. I thought some Creedence might have been good, but maybe trite.
He had read some Mark Twain, said he liked Life on the Mississippi. Our Captain was a hearty and cheerful bloke who liked his wine and beer when off-duty. It seemed that the crew and staff responded well to his upbeat attitude towards life, making for a happy boat. Good cheer is contagious. Negativity is a plague. He constantly displayed warmth and appreciation towards his crew, but you cannot be a Captain without having a tough and serious core. As Dr. Bliss would say, not everybody is made for that.
Photo inside one of the many locks we went through.
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Lots of pics below the fold -
Continue reading "Locks, and other miscellaneous trip pics"
Friday, August 27. 2010
I just updated my will and trust and, with heavy heart, cut out what was a significant bequest to my alma mater, Brooklyn College.
What caused the disinheritance is that all incoming freshmen and transfer students are given a copy of a book to read, and no other, to create their “common experience.” This same book is one of the readings in their required English course. The author is a radical pro-Palestinian professor there.
When I attended in the 1960s, Brooklyn College – then rated one of the tops in the country -- was, like most campuses, quite liberal. But, there was no official policy to inculcate students with a political viewpoint. Now there is. That is unacceptable.
Continue reading "I Just Disinherited My Alma Mater"
Thursday, August 26. 2010
You get off the plane from NYC, dump your stuff off at the boat, then hop on the subway and get off at Stephansplatz. Suddenly, you are in a new world, like not Kansas anymore. Even for folks like us who have travelled quite a bit, it was awesome to climb up the subway stairs and to be greeted with this. With a dose of jetlag, it feels hallucinatory:
More snaps below the fold -
Continue reading "Some of my random snaps of Vienna"
 From Viking's post (I agree):
It's long been my position that Social Security was meant to help elderly workers who could no longer do the labor of the Depression era. We're not a nation of ditch diggers and washwomen anymore. The government has set up a system where (with today's life expectancies) we subsidize a third of a lifetime in retirement.
Yes, it is crazy. Retirement should be by economic choice, or for the disabled. It is crazy for the young to subsidize the golf of the grey folks like me who have more wisdom and experience to contribute to the workplace than the dopey kids.
Nothing against golf, mind you. Nothing against sitting on the beach reading and smoking, either. There is a time for every purpose under heaven.
Wednesday, August 25. 2010
You go to the home of Strauss, Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn, and so you naturally want to hear some of their music there. That was good.
However, what was most mind-boggling for me (and my son) was the Breughel collection at the Kunst Historische Museum:
It was a long, jet-lagged and befuddled but scenic trek to get there on our first day after a sleepless plane ride, but our Breughel mission was worth it to get close to those pictures. They have a third of the existing Breughels. They are quite large paintings with many small details, and no reproductions can do them justice. Some are oil on board, and some are tempera. You have to go and see with your own eyes. They have comfy leather sofas to sit on, too.
Pictures tell stories. If they don't, they are just "design." That's my opinion, anyway. People sure do love stories, especially when well-designed. I do not mean to disparage design: Picasso was a master of design. Matisse too, and the genius cave painters of Lascaux.
Hunters in the Snow (1565), his haunting hunting masterpiece:
Peasant Wedding, another masterpiece:
A good summary of Breughel's career here. It's interesting to me that the wealthy churchmen and princes of Austria found this Flemish painter's work so collectible. I guess they just had good taste in art.
Instead, some more thoughts collected from our trip. A Part 2 of my Guten Morgen post.
- Next time I travel with a group of family or friends, I will bring my 5-mile walkie-talkies that I use for hunting trips. A great way to call in and say "Want to meet for lunch?', since each subgroup seems to go off in their own direction.
- I forgot to mention how immaculate the bathrooms are. And, unlike NYC, you can just walk into any cafe and use theirs. They don't mind.
- I was amazed by how many people are crippled, hobbling around on crutches or in wheelchairs. Young and old. It made it clear to me how socialized medicine saves money on orthopedic procedures. In Regensburg I saw a pregnant young lady with, I think, moderate scoliosis, wobbling around town on two crutches, carrying a bag of groceries. That would never happen in America, even if poor. HSS would fix her up overnight - and thank her for the privilege.
- The vast majority of Austrians, and Bavarians too, are Roman Catholic. They go to church. Some Lutherans in Bavaria, and some Evangelical Lutherans too. Their old churches are still alive - not museums.
- If Freud had not been a Jew, he would never have come up with Psychoanalytic theory. Despite being a prominent young Neurologist and researcher/scholar, a Jew could not be appointed Professor in Vienna. The Gentile docs just referred him the wacky patients they did not want to bother with, so he decided to try to listen to them and to try to make sense of what ailed them. Had he not been a Jew, he would have been a wealthy Herr Professor of Neurology. Necessity is the mother of invention.
- Riverboat cruising has become a big deal over the past ten years. It's really a new form of vacation travel. I like it. I love ships and boats in general. No moving from hotel to train to hotel to car, and you always have guides right there when you want them. Our boat cruised back and forth between Budapest and Amsterdam, but most people just did legs of the trip (as we did). The boat had plenty of bikes to use, too. Just sign up for them.
- Wiener Schnitzel: I still don't get what is supposed to be so good about this cardboard-like food. Why do people eat it?
- Kesler reminded me of a thought I had had, regarding our deep Germanic cultural roots. (By "our" I mean especially Brit, Swiss, American, Aussie, Canadian, Dutch, etc.) Even our language is Germanic, not to mention our meat-and-potato diet. German is the easiest language for English-speakers to learn, and these folks live, act, and work like Americans. Quite a cultural contrast with Italians, French, and Spanish.
- One of the things that makes German and Austrian beers so good, over there in the biergartens, is that they are fresh, usually unpasteurized, and often unfiltered. Makes a big difference. Our big brand American beers really are not very tasty - but you knew that. Is Coors Lite or Bud Lite the best-selling "beer" in the US?
- Did we shop and buy stuff? Darn little. Mrs. BD bought a bracelet in Regensburg for 14 Euros. My daughter bought a cheese serving plate. I bought two sets of beer glasses from pubs, and a couple of beer mugs from a biergarten, all for 2-3 Euros each. Oh, also bought an umbrella at Schonbrunn when it started raining, but we left it behind somewhere after two days. Photos and experiences are what I like to bring home.
- Random factoid: The remarkable Marcus Aurelius died in Vindobona (now Wien - Vienna) while touring the edges of the empire. He was always at war with the Germans, but Roman civilization never extended much north of the barrier of the Danube.
Photo: Passau again, from the Oberhaus. I especially enjoyed Passau and Regensburg. Note the rotting mess of a 1960s-era, now-abandoned cafe up there on the left, while the c. 900 castle and fortifications stand strong and proud. Note also, from a high vantage point, how clear the demarcation is between town and country. No sprawl. That's their land use laws at work.
Tuesday, August 24. 2010
A friend returned this week from 14 days in Umbria and then Florence. This family is a high-energy biking group, and the first thing they do when they go anywhere is to rent bikes. They go everywhere on their bikes regardless of terrain or traffic. 20 miles of hills is a warm-up for them.
They told me about biking to Civita di Bagnoregio. Biked over the bridge, of course. I had not heard of this interesting, deteriorating wreck of a place. An image which sticks in the brain, because all of mankind's works come to this except some things that are put into words or math or musical notes.
More disorganized snaps from our trip. This is steaming through the green Wachau Valley in early morning fog and drizzle.
More pics below the fold -
Continue reading "A second, bigger photo dump of Austria and Bavaria, including Freud's potty"
Monday, August 23. 2010
My photo uploading system is testing my patience today. Thus some totally random and disorganized trip pics, beginning with this Bavarian farm scene near the hamlet of Baernzell, not far from Deggendorf on the Danube, with the great Bavarian Forest in the background (which is now part of a giant Czech-German wilderness park system). From hilltops here you can see the Czech Rep. (which I still call Czechoslovakia).
More pics below the fold. I'll try to get better organized soon.
Continue reading "A few totally random trip pics"
Health insurance agents are the canary in the mine of ObamaCare.
Having been a heavily credentialed health and other benefits broker for the past two decades, and working on the corporate buyer side of the relationship for 15-years before that, I will say – strongly – we have been worth it. I described why and how in this earlier post, “In Defense of Health Insurance Agents, and You.”
A health insurance agent is required to complete initial and regular formal training courses in the subject (including ethics), pass initial and periodic tests, and are screened by their state and by insurance companies for criminal or personal conduct (including declaring bankruptcy) that may negatively affect their reliability to be licensed to provide agent services. In addition, through professional associations, through insurer education programs, through self-study, and through competitive pressures, health agents stay current on the latest laws and offerings from various insurers. Furthermore, almost all health insurance agents are independent businesses or work for independent agencies, not beholden to the insurers but to their customers. Importantly, individuals, small and larger businesses have priorities more important and pressing than becoming experts in health insurance or its interactions with other laws or aspects of their primary concerns, and heavily depend upon qualified, trusted health insurance agents. Lastly, many health insurance agents have extensive credentials and experience….
But, the unfolding of ObamaCare raises the question of whether health insurance brokers will continue to be of value, or able to be.
Continue reading "Are Health Insurance Agents Worth It? The Canaries In ObamaCare Mine"
I am back in ye olde saddle early this AM from Austria and Bavaria, and the Danube and Main-Danube Canal. I will provide some photo travelogues if and when I can get my pics organized - and also when I can persuade our website to upload my photos properly.
Special kudos to my in-laws who arranged and hosted this family trip as a celebration of their 60th wedding anniversary. A wonderful, elegant treat indeed, especially with the entire BD gang of adventurous, high-energy, and curious travellers. For us, vacation travel is a physical sport. We specialize in "run for your life" vacations. Relaxation is for home. On further thought, not for home either. I guess we believe that relaxation is for after you die...Carpe diem, etc. Plenty of time to relax when dead.
Just one link this morning: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis.
 However, I will share a few of my general cultural observations from our trip:
- These folks seem to live a cafe culture, but it's more about beer than coffee. The Romans brought vineyards up to their northern frontier, but the climate changes after the Medieval Warm Period limited wine grapes only to specific microclimate areas, so they turned to beer brewing. Wine grape-growing in northern Euroland remains limited to those specific areas today, but we are all hoping climate change will correct that problem someday soon...
- There is no litter. Everything is clean and neat. There is almost no graffiti and what little there is, under bridges for example, is, as my daughter observed, "lame." When a bus driver is waiting for a group pick up, he uses his time to clean the windows, the tires and the hubcaps.
- We saw very few obvious Moslems, and they were all in Vienna. Yes, finally inside the gates of Vienna and on the subways. Vienna has a great subway system, and so simple you can figure out how to use it to go anywhere in about two minutes.
- Everybody still smokes cigarettes.
- All taxis are Mercedes-Benzes
- They are prompt, like the Swiss. You are expected to be prompt. One of our tour buses in Nuremburg waited 7 minutes for 3 or 4 missing American riders, then just left without them. "Seven minutes. OK, we go now."
- Their farms are impeccable.
- Austria and Germany feel quite prosperous. Nice big new cars unlike France, Italy, and Spain. No old cars. People well-dressed, and clearly in possession of beer money.
- Bikes are more for transportation than for recreation.
- Fresh, unfiltered beer is good. All of the local beer is terrific, and each has a unique flavor. I developed a taste for the fresh Weissbrau (and possibly enjoyed to very slight excess maybe once due to being overserved by zealous bier-frauleins). They do not sell old beer. Many of the beer joints and biergardens we tried make their beer on Tuesdays, begin selling it on Friday, then toss out any left-over and begin selling the next batch.
- "Burg" or ...-burg means castle or fortified city, not town
- No cops. You never see any police. People seem quite well-self-regulated. I did see one cop car in Vienna. My father-in-law counted three officers on the entire trip.
- They all seem proud of their sausages. Towns seem to compete. We tried lots of them. They are all OK, but not great cuisine. I began to call them all "hot dogs," but they call them wieners (after Vienna: "Wien") or "wursts." That weisswurst they make looks like an unappetizing giant beetle larva. Excellent sauerkraut and mustards, though. Americans are the ones who came up with putting sausages in a bun so you could eat them with your hands. The Euros never do that.
-Un-American as it may sound, I came away with a respect for European land-use laws (same as I did with trips to the UK). Perhaps we can debate this on a post sometime.
- Plenty of Medieval, but Baroque is growing on us. Mrs. BD even ventured to indicate some appreciation for rococo. Just like Bauhaus, it had a point and a purpose for its time. Things go to excess, then snap back.
- Germans and Austrians are a lot like native (I mean native, not Indians) Americans, but more blond, thinner, more quiet, and better-dressed.
- You make friends on boats. It is quite a remarkable thing the way it happens. We were mostly Aussies, Kiwis, Brits, and Americans.
- The Chef on board was excellent. A Croatian, Paris-trained. Our river boat was perfect. A Dutch Captain: aren't ship Captains always Dutchmen? Some sort of affirmative action, no doubt, for Dutchmen in the merchant marine.
- Small World story: Mrs. BD and a BD daughter decided to check out the Vienna Opera House. For amusement while waiting for the next guide through the place, they let people try on opera costumes and take photos. Mrs. BD sees a face poking through an elaborate opera costume and thinks "Holy mackeral - that's John." Yes, a dear friend and neighbor (and hunting buddy) in Vienna with wife and all four of their daughters. She snuck up behind him and said "Hey, John. You look great in that outfit." Seeing people you know, out of context, is always momentarily bewildering.
More thoughts and observations later...and pics too.
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