Fortune

Very young Rodney

I've been meaning to write about this for a very long time. The final impetus was Fiona Hill's There Is Nothing For You Here. In particular, her descriptions of what Thatcherism and Reaganism wrought. 

In short: I think the long-lived idea that your children will live better than you did is dead. I am part of the luckiest demographic, and now things are getting worse.

Sure, old-timers often complain the current generation is going to hell, but that's not what I'm talking about. 

I think it's the world, not the people, that's going to hell. There are many serious issues that were not a concern when I was growing up. Global issues such as climate change, overpopulation, energy crises, plus U.S. economic issues such as drastic inequality, housing costs, cost of living,  lifelong student debt.

For a white middle class kid, growing up in the 1950s and 1960s was the best. World wars and polio were behind us. The biggest life-threatening external event for a boy born in 1950 would be the Vietnam War, and I dodged that with a sufficiently high draft lottery number. 

In addition to my lucky demographic, I had a fortunate personal upbringing. A classic idyllic childhood. An intact family, a stay-at-home mom, a perfectly normal education, the usual family vacations and childhood activities such as scouting. As a first child, my parents gave me more opportunities than even my brothers, such as music lessons, symphony subscriptions, and summer camp.

SLO and Hearst Castle — December 2023

 

At Apple Farm Inn

Link to more photos. As always, view the photos individually to see the captions.

We went on this short 3-day tour of San Luis Obispo and Hearst Castle. I was worried about the December weather, but it was fine — mild temperatures and no rain! I had visited Hearst Castle once before, in 1975, but Victor had never been there.

Our first group meal was lunch at Pea Soup Andersen's in Buellton. I love pea soup, and hadn't been there in decades. We next visited the Madonna Inn, with its over-the-top pink decor and stone sinks in the men's restroom (see the photos).

After checking in at our SLO inn, we stopped at the weekly evening downtown farmers' market, including the large Tom's Toys store and nearby holiday lights in Mission Plaza.

The next day began with animal viewing at Giving Tree Family Farm and then on to the Point San Luis Lighthouse. The lighthouse tour was fine, but Victor had an unfortunate incident with Pam, the woman who runs the tours and the volunteer docents. As we were all returning to the bus before lunch, I went to the bus while Victor stopped at the men's room, so he was then approaching the bus alone. Pam stood in his way, and as he tried to go around her, she moved to block him. He said he was on the tour, and she didn't believe him. He pointed to his tour name badge, but she was unimpressed. She even made a cutthroat gesture. The bus driver saw all this, and came out of the bus and vouched for Victor being a member of the tour group. (And even then, when the bus driver was approaching, Pam made another assumption and asked him, "Is he a friend of yours?")

After a brief afternoon rest at the inn, we went on a Holiday Twilight Tour of Hearst Castle. 

The last day was our return trip. In Lompoc, the group had a tour of La Purísima Mission State Historic Park, but I'm not interested in missions, so Victor and I skipped the tour and stayed in the Visitor Center. Afterwards, we saw more animals and had lunch with wine tasting at Vega Vineyard. 

Thoughts I dare not ponder

 

As I've always said, I decided in high school that my goal in life was to retire. And in retirement I wanted to read, write, and travel. After I retired, that shifted to read, travel, and exercise.

But lately, I've begun to think that the "why" is no longer self-evident. 

To what end? To what purpose? What's the point?

Yes, of course, increasing thoughts of mortality are part of this. So I quickly labeled these "thoughts I dare not ponder".

About those retirement activities:

 - Reading 

I have always been a print media junkie (including online print). 

I love news, information, learning. I'm even rather competive about it. (See here.) 

There are still tons of books on my reading list, and I still add more, but now I sometimes wonder why.

It's no longer self-evident. 

Similarly, I check the news repeatedly. But what if I stopped?

 - Travel

There are tons of places I've never been, but I've hit the top places on my list. (See here.)

TSA, airlines, and my aging body make the journeys (not the destinations) increasingly unpleasant.

And to what end?

 - Exercise

In my first year of retirement, I lost more than 50 pounds, and I kept it off for years, but lately, I've began to put some back on. 

Arthritis slows me down and makes hills and long walks ever more difficult. 

Diabetes is ever-present. 

Dietary self-restraint in the face of mortality: Why?

Just what are homophobes afraid of?

The LATimes ran a lengthy profile of school board book banning activist Sonja Shaw. I dashed off a quick letter about what it seems such folks are afraid of, and why that's pretty stupid. I wrote:

Sonja Shaw says she is fighting policies that "pervert children." She should think back to her own teenage years. If she had been taught that gay people exist, would that have made her a lesbian?

For my first sentence, I quoted a phrase about what's she's afraid of, but I should have left that out, because in context, it sounds like I agree that being lesbian is a perversion. 

I usually wait at least a couple of hours after drafting a letter to re-read it later and maybe revise it. I did not do that this time, but I should have. Shortly after I sent it, I wished I could re-write it.

The Times printed no letters about the article. 

My favorite place

When discussing travels recently, someone asked what was my favorite place. I said, "It depends."

For nature, Costa Rica. For wildlife, Katmai. For history, London. For communism, the Soviet Union. Etc.

Spain — Oct/Nov 2023

 

Victor and Rodney with the royal palace of Madrid in the background

Link to more photos. There are three photo albums in all: Below are links to separate photo albums for the Alhambra and the Picasso Museum. As always, view the photos individually to see the captions.

We took this tour of Spain. It went well, although it was colder than I expected, and we could not visit Gaudi's Parc Güell which was high on my wishlist (see below).

In Madrid, I was impressed by the underground highway that goes for miles. I was surprised by graffiti worse than L.A. I was somewhat disappointed by the Prado Museum, since I'm not much into classical paintings. It also remains behind the times with a "no photos" policy, and I found no water, and you couldn't leave and re-enter.

We toured the mosque-turned-cathedral of Cordoba, and the huge cathedral of Seville. By this time, I was no longer surprised by the new-to-me urinals we were seeing in every hotel. (See the photos.)

In Grenada, the highlight was the Alhambra, of course. As expected, I loved all the elaborate geometric decoration. Link to a photo album solely of the Alhambra. Similarly, in Valencia, I liked the City of Arts and Sciences designed by Santiago Calatrava.

Our last stop was Barcelona. We began with a city tour, including some architecture by Gaudi and others. With free time the next day, I wanted to visit Parc Güell, but I discovered that you need reservations and purchased tickets and it was all sold out for the day. I never thought that a public park would need tickets. If only I had known, I could easily have bought the tickets long ahead of time. Sigh. The other major sight I wanted to see that day was the Picasso Museum. That went well. Link to a photo album solely of the Picasso Museum.

Long flights, even in cramped economy seats, never used to bother me much, but now they are not very enjoyable.  Our return flight from Paris to L.A. was more than eleven and a half hours. I got up and walked and stretched a bit three times, but it was increasingly uncomfortable.

Putting it all together: Visa for Victor

The longest story in this blog is about getting a visa for Victor to come to the U.S. 

But when I want to send the story to someone, by clicking on the "Visa for Victor" label, the posts are in reverse chronological order.

So I have now put them in proper order in a new blog. Much better.

Scared little boy Donnie Trump

 

I have a nickname for Donald Trump like the ones he pins on others, one he's guaranteed to hate: 

Scared little boy Donnie Trump

He's scared of the truth, so he lies all the time. And now he's desperately scared of getting caught, too.

He boasts about being a great leader, but when he leaves the room, many consider him a dangerous buffoon and simply ignore his commands.

He acts like a little boy, including the name-calling. 

Last month, his niece said,  “Donald is and always has been a frightened little boy deep down.” I completely agree.

Scared little boy Donnie Trump

I sent a shorter version of this to the LATimes early this week. They did not publish it. 

As I was revising it, I thought I might send it to another paper and maybe also to Mary Trump. (I did neither.) It was only when I was looking for how to contact her that I came across her recent quote. 

And only while looking for a cartoon of Trump as a little boy to put at the top of this post did I come across this quote from Liza Donelly: "I began to draw Donald Trump in shorts. Simply because he acts like a schoolyard bully."

And then this (from 2017!): "Is it time for cartoonists to stop portraying Trump as a baby?" Oh, dear, I guess I'm really way behind the times.

Autographs - Cory Doctorow

 

I have written before about being a Doctorow fan. He was at the L.A. central library last night, and I bought his latest book and got his signature.

(Index to autographs)

Buddha's "Five Remembrances"

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way I can escape growing old.

I am of the nature to get sick. There is no way I can escape getting sick.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way I can escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love will change. There is no way I can escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.

My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

[Seen in Katy Butler's The Art of Dying Well. 

Also all over the net; see here, for example.]

Autographs — Bernath, Divya, Doyle, Kuintzle, Mahabal, Moran, Sivaramakrishnan

Ann Bernath, S.B. Divya, Richard J. Doyle, Rachael Kuintzle, Ashish Mahabal, Christine Corbett Moran

Caltech's TechLit Club

As an SF fan and JPL alum, obviously I had to buy this book. Happily, Vroman's held an event tonight with six of the authors:

Each read a portion of a story, and all signed books afterwards.

But when I got home, I find a seventh story autographed:

This is puzzling, because there were only six authors on stage,

and the six passed my book along and signed as I walked by. I did not carefully watch each one sign, but I didn't take my eyes off them much as they did. And I don't think there was a signature already in the book when I bought it twenty days ago!

Two or three of the authors said they had more than one story in the book, but Sivaramakrishnan's web photo doesn't match anyone on stage. The closest match would be Mahabal, but neither in person nor on his web photo does he look much like Allic Sivaramakrishnan. Nor do they do the same work, according to those two web pages.

P.S. Mystery solved: I asked the editor (and sort-of ringleader of the night's event) Rachael Kuintzle, and she replied, "Allic was present for the book signing; in fact, he was the first person you handed the book to, as the first person in the lineup. He just didn't participate in the main presentation."

(Index to autographs)

A Father's Day Memory

My father built this vacuum tube radio when he was a young man. It's one foot wide. Later, he incorporated it into the upper left corner of a large wooden bookcase he built, about four feet by four feet. By the time I remember it, the radio was empty and no longer worked. 

When I first moved to an unfurnished apartment in 1985, the bookcase was one piece I brought from San Antonio to Los Angeles, and I still have it, including the empty shell of the old radio.

Loosely related: When I was a boy, my father came home one day and asked, "Where is that music coming from?" I pointed to his shirt pocket, and he pulled out a transistor radio. I could tell he was disappointed that I wasn't more surprised, but how was I to know that a pocket-sized radio was something brand new?

Istanbul to Athens — April 2023

 

At the Parthenon

Link to more photos. As always, view the photos individually to see the captions.

After Victor expressed interest in seeing Greece, I looked to combine it with a bit more, and signed up for this 12-day tour. It went well. The temperatures were a bit cool, and there was some rain on several days. Getting there and back required very long flights, of course, and ten hours time change.

In Istanbul, we began with a visit to Topkapi Palace, center of the Ottoman Empire and home to the sultans. We then got in line early for the Hagia Sophia mosque, the first of several mosques we visited during this trip. We were supposed to next visit the Turkish and Islamic Art Museum, but it was closed due to an electrical outage. Fortunately, it re-opened the next day and we went then. That busy day also included the Istanbul Spice Market, the Grand Bazaar, a carpet-weaving demonstration (including carpets that change color depending on which direction you view them from!), and a Bosphorus cruise. We passed by Turkey's brand new first aircraft carrier, and saw a very long line of people waiting to see it.

We left Istanbul for Edirne, where we stopped at several mosques and a historic health museum. (I had no idea that the first smallpox vaccinations were in Turkey.) The traffic lights at busy intersections include the entire stanchion. (See the 9-second video included in the photo album.) This deserves to spread widely.

The next day we entered Greece. We spent the night in Kavala. The well-preserved aqueduct impressed me. We had great views from our hotel.

We had the archaeological site of Philippi almost to ourselves. In Thessaloniki, we ate all meals together and had a short cruise in the gulf. We were gifted with bags of mountain tea, oregano, and thyme.

At the Royal Tombs in Vergina, we viewed the Vergina Treasures. On our way to Meteora, I asked if we could stop for photos of Mount Olympus. We did, but it was somewhat obscured by clouds. We went to several monasteries in Meteora precipitously perched on massive pillars. 

Before reaching Athens, we stopped at the Leonidas Monument in Thermopylae. Leonidas, King of Sparta, led the famous 300 Spartan soldiers and other Greek soldiers who fought to the death and held off a vastly larger Persian army for three days in 480 BCE.

In Athens, we got to the Acropolis early. By the time we left, the crowds were huge. There's quite a bit more than the Parthenon. I particularly liked the caryatids of the Erechtheion, but it was only later at the Acropolis Museum that I learned that they were replicas, with the originals only in the museum. Also at the museum was this model of the complete Parthenon:

When I saw the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum in 1975 I wrote, 

"... half the Parthenon...! With all that ... right here [in London], why does anyone go to Athens...? I really never knew so much of the Parthenon was in London. Only the skeleton remains on the Acropolis, I suppose." 

Now, at the Acropolis Museum, many items are marked "(BM)" indicating that the originals are in the British Museum, and they want them back, of course.

Later, we briefly viewed Hadrian's Arch and the Panathenaic Stadium, the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble.

Autographs — Emily St. John Mandel

 

My book group discussed this author's Station Eleven in January 2019. I enjoyed it. This book, her newest, looks even more interesting. She spoke and signed books at the Los Angeles Central Library this evening.

(Index to autographs) 

Orlando — March 2023

 

Link to more photos. View the photos individually to see the captions.

I had heard that the Star Wars area at Disney World was bigger than the one at Disneyland (which we have not yet seen), and the Harry Potter area at Universal Studios Florida was more extensive than the one here in L.A. (which we have seen). So when I saw a cheap flights + hotel package for Orlando in March when there's usually not too much rain, I grabbed it.

Not everything worked out. First I found that the added parts at Universal were mainly roller coasters, which Victor would never do, so we dropped that. Once we arrived, we found that Uber was quite expensive, so we did use a rental car one day. Our cheap motel had mandatory resort fees, undisclosed until you checked in, of course. GRRR!! I hope the government succeeds in banning these! And finally, with every passing week, Florida governor De Santis angers me more, so I was unhappy spending money there. At least I did often wear these:

I also had, but never wore this more explicit pin:

As an Internet addict, I got online as soon as we were at the motel, but after about twenty minutes, my (rather old) Chromebook died! I was offline until we got back home! I only use my phone for phone calls and photography; I dislike doing Internet work on the phone.

Our Disney day began quite cool and a bit rainy, though it warmed up later. We didn't pay for Lightning Lanes, so we waited in long lines, but we did get to all of our desired attractions.

The weather improved after that first morning. Instead of Universal, we visited several other sites (see the photos): 

The Lake Nona Sculpture Garden has quite a few good pieces, including the charging bull famously on Wall Street and a Henry Moore.

The Morse Museum has the world’s most comprehensive collection of Tiffany works.

The Harry P. Leu Gardens is about fifty acres, including a large lake and multiple gardens. Many flowers were not in bloom this time of year, but at least there were butterflies in the Butterfly Garden.

I definitely wanted to see the Pulse interim memorial. I explained the event to Victor.

Misinformation

 

I am not plagued by misinformation, despite spending hours every day online and on social media. It's not that difficult. You can do it, too. Here are some tips:

Don't believe anything liar-in-chief Trump says.

Stay well-informed. (I rely mainly on LATimes, news.google.com, MSNBC, and CNN).

Only pay attention to news from legitimate sources.

That means don't click on any "news" items in social media, instead google the topic to see what trusted sources say about it.

And that means that social media won't feed you a lot of news or fake news items, because you don't click on them.

Be very skeptical of suspicious stories; check google and snopes. (I'm often the one debunking such items. It feels great.)

Added later: The Pro-Truth Pledge is worth reviewing.