A little piece of a large jigsaw puzzle

20150904_141813A little chunk of history here – war before the advent of aircraft was about high ground.

In the early days of World War One Austro-Hungary occupied parts of what is now northern Italy, and perhaps thinking itself overextended, withdrew from Cortina and built fortifications along parts of the Dolomites where valleys might allow Italians to invade in the wake of the withdrawal.

We walked through some of the fortifications today. The loss of life was said to be large, though I’ve not found any numbers (World War One was a slaughter so large that the conflict in the Dolomites might be a footnote).

Notice the high mountain on the right – Il Castelletto. It is the high ground over a valley that looks down over a potential invasion route for Italian forces. All we read in the area say that casualties were devastating on both sides. The mountainside itself was bombed to great effect.

”The Dolomite mountains have become a legend and will be remembered not only for the blood that was shed there, but for the kind of warfare that was engaged: it did not set anonymous armies against each other as it did on the Russian Front – it was a war of man-against-man that valued heroic individual actions.

In addition, the idle moments that soldiers were forced to undergo because of the extreme conditions and severe winters in the high mountains provided time to study the adversary who – during the pauses between one battle and another – sometimes assumed a human face: conversations between “tenemies” – the exchange of cigarettes, letters, Christmas wishes – are now the stuff of legends.” (L. Palla)

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It is quite different to read about such human conflicts, and walk through and see the places they took place. It creates a sense of awe.

Big tent = no substance

James Conner used an expression I have heard often before, “big tent,” which refers to the need to win elections over advancing any ideology. (He uses the opposite, “small tent” to criticize a fellow Democrat.) In theory, it means that politicians have to forge coalitions of people often at odds with one another, the real talent required in that profession, necessitating the art of the well-told lie.

In practice, it opens the floodgates for Republican leadership of both parties. It’s an odd thing to watch, but Democrats are absorbed in partisan sniping based on party name only. The policy pursued by Senator Conrad Burns was vile, the identical policy (with a new name) pursued by Senator Jon Tester is thoughtful, wise, well-considered and only opposed by “purists.”

In the “big tent” there is only one objective, winning elections. Those events are fraught with high emotion, as if life and death were at stake, when in reality either party is bound by financial backers and the corporate-owned media to pursue the same objective, exactly contrary to anything they might have campaigned about.

This system of fake elections goes back in time to the introduction of the mass franchise and use of mass propaganda in the early twentieth century. In theory, everyone’s vote mattered. In reality, voting ceased to matter.

Day seven: Zermatt

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This was our last full day here so we made the most of it. We took a tunnel tram up the mountain, up to about 8,500 feet, and then walked back to Zermatt, a 3,000 foot drop over about eight miles. It was delightful.

Rain set in in early afternoon, but it is warm and we are equipped for that, so it was not a problem.

Here are a few photos from yesterday and today:

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The Stones are as old as the Matterhorn. The poster did not announce any appearances. So must be there for mere inspirational purposes. It was on a display here along with some other performances going on.

Geneva day four

imageThe Geneva portion of our trip has two purposes, to reacquaint with our daughter, and get accustomed to the time change. We have done both, and have a good feeling about it. I now wake up as the sun rises, just like back home, my head full of surprises and ambition.

Yesterday we took a good long time to achieve the day’s goal, a swim in the Rhone. We managed to do other things, like a farmers’ market and long lunch eating food I’ve never eaten before. The menu was a wide variety of different things, like fish and shell food and weird things that grow here and there thrown them together with a spice or two. There was nothing familiar to fall back on so I ordered smoked salmon, uncooked, along with a mixture of salad, shrimp, tomatoes, avocado and other things I do not understand. It tasted good, took a long time to eat, and of course the wine complemented the meal to such a degree that I now better understand the popularity of wine. Club soda works as well, but wine is a complement to all the other favors and a relaxant. Only a small few drink it for its intoxicating powers.

imageThe night before we sat with a view of Jet D’eau, Lake Geneva and Mount Blanc, with a full moon of course, and ate tapas – eight different dishes before us including figs, mangos, tuna, lamb, tofu … the meal was not to satisfy the appetite so much as the palate. American restaurants load you up with one or two things, pizza or beef and french fries, far more calories than we need. The French are more about dining than eating.

We did finally make it to the Rhone yesterday for a swim. I’ll add a photo or two later. It was an affair for the younger crowd, with hot young bodies displayed, swimsuits barely covering torsos, grabbing on to tight young asses and saying “naked” to the legal limit. The girls were pretty too.

I like to say things like that for my son’s benefit, getting all salacious only to disappoint him with latent homosexuality. Then he can cover his eyes and say “Dad! in the manner of Sylvester the cat’s son prior to putting a bag over his head and saying “Oh the shame if it.”

So we got to the place where the Rhone flows out of Lake Geneva, hit the water, icy cold, and quickly adapted and simply floated downstream to a dock where we climbed out, walked back and did it again. It was delightful. The water was clear and clean, the current fast enough to move us along without scaring us.

The average age was probably 22, hundreds of youth, so that our aging bodies were invisible to all but our own kind. There was one woman who was topless. She was everyone’s grandma, so used to being invisible that being topless in public seemed the natural thing to do. “Look away!” I thought.

We met a couple our age, Aussies, and much like us as possible. They are retired and traveling, fit and off to do the complete Mt. Blanc circuit, 100 miles over twelve days. They will be with a group. Both he and I eschew the group travel setting, as the slowest members always rule, but he was given no choice in the matter, and like me, will probably find the experience to be great fun. They are then off to Malta for “a change of pace” before returning to their home, a thirty hour journey by plane, including changes.

One more day here, and then we are off to Zermatt, the Matterhorn (for viewing, not climbing), and points beyond. The photos of yesterday’s event are on my wife’s iPhone. I’ll see if anything is worth reproducing later. I tried to avoid those tight young asses, and the young girls too, and capture the whole scene. We’ll see how it turned out.

Analysis of moral cowardice

I wish to throw down a gauntlet here. I write on this blog for my own benefit, but know that others read it, and also that some of the things I write about nag at the underpinnings of serenity. For instance, only a fool believes the official stories of 9/11 or Boston or JFK, but fools cling to these stories for dear life (even undoing Newton in the process). Why?

William James, a man of clarity, offered up some ideas in this regard. I’ll use him to my advantage.

What I offer here are moral choices. But just as a Shakesperaian tragedy starts out as a small matter, so too do the choices I offer demand a showing of intelligence and character once it is seen that they are not small matters. Not many people are up to it.

James boiled it down to options, 1) living or dead, 2) forced or avoidable, 3) and momentous or trivial.

  1. If I say to you that you should be a Republican or Democrat, it’s a dead issue. Either choice offers the same rewards, primarily group support. But if I say to you that evidence does not support the official story of 9/11, it is live and active and forces you to make a decision that will affect your comfort, acceptance in your group, and faith in your intellectual capacity. No matter your decision, it affects your being.image
  2. If I say to you “your views on the matter of religious belief should not be kept silent, you can fall on one of many sides, none of which impact your being. You can simply avoid the issue, saying “it is not knowable.” You can decide to become an agnostic, and there are no ramifications. But if I say that there is evidence of a large and unreported hurricane off the shore of Long Island on 9/11, indicating control of weather, preplanning and pre-knowledge of the event among a wide array of government and private power centers, you cannot thereafter avoid knowledge of the hurricane. It was there. It is proven. You are no longer free to be ignorant by someone else’s fault. It’s on you.
  3. You are now placed in a position where you have to make a decision. It is, in regards to your own self esteem, momentous. Knowing of the hurricane and its implications, you can choose to ignore it and continue to believe the official story of events of that day. That is moral cowardice. Or, you can face the reality, and begin to deal with the implications. That is entirely a personal journey, and I have no advice. It’s not for namby-pambies.

It is hard work. people will criticize you, ostracize you, but they will not, because they can not, argue the facts. In choosing that route you will always have this: Honor, and dignity. You chose the hardest path, and we’re not swayed by the opinion of others or lack of faith in your own abilities.

You’ll be a person of character and strength, and one possessed of the trait called moral courage. As Mark Twain reminded us, physical courage is common, but the moral variety a rarity.

Day three: Geneva

imageFinally over jet lag, feeling rested. I really like it here in Geneva even despite the ungodly heat. We took a tram up a few thousand feet over the city yesterday to get a view and hoping to cool down. It was as hot up there as down here.

We did not realize up there that we were in France until we read the signs. Crossing borders here is like crossing state lines in the U.S.

We had dinner last night lakeside. The fountain above is Jet D’eau, and has been on constantly since we arrived. It is a trademark of Geneva, part of the landscape. The photo was taken with a Samsung Galaxy, and needs to be cropped. It does take sharp images, but is hard to zoom.

My own camera is a Nikon Cool Pix, but I cannot at this time move photos from there to this device, as this iPad does not trust the little adaptor that holds the camera card. I use a non-Apple adaptor to convert from the old wide slot to the smaller one on newer devices.

I speak fluent Apple. They want more money.

In the shot above, the full moon was an added bonus, and protruding above the landscape on the right is Mount Blanc, the highest peak on the continent. (It is still illuminated by the sun late in the day.) We hiked about half of the circuit around it several years ago, the beginning of my love affair with this place. It’s a hundred miles around in total, we did about did about fifty I suppose, staying in huts and hotels in the towns around the base. The entire circuit would have taken over a week, and we wanted to see other places too, so we limited that part of our trip to a half-circuit.

There is an annual run around Mt. Blanc, the entire circuit. That’s for the truly ambitious, like my son and his soon-to-be-wife. They run marathons and stuff, and I do not understand them. That doesn’t make any sense!

Yesterday, walking a short distance after taking a tram up Mount Saleve,  my legs were tired and I wondered how in the hell we are going to do our Dolomite hike, thirty steep miles over three days. But the legs come around. There we will be several thousand feet higher, and the heat will not be as oppressive. There will come a day when we have to rest on memories, so we have to make them.

The photo below was taken by our daughter with her iPhone, and seems unremarkable except that the lower part of the light in the center of the monument is the full moon. There was about a six-minute period that the shot was available from our table. I did not bring the Cool Pix to dinner last night, but would have liked to try to capture that event. I forgot the strap and don’t like carrying it in my hand.

Little things. I suppose I should buy an Apple or Nikon camera strap, complete with logo. What are they – like $250?
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Day two: Geneva

imageIt is 4:30 am here (8:30 pm Denver). We decided to spend a few days in Geneva to  spend time with our daughter, who works here. It is a good time to relax and acclimate. She could not get much time off, but has been generous with the time she has.

Last night she took us to a local wine and cheese gathering a short walk away. It was crowded, and the average age was probably 30. She navigates easily. She stood in line to get us our wine glasses and a bottle of Swiss sauvignon blanc. We then wandered around until we found some clear space, she set the bottle on the ground after the pour, saying this is how you do it. We stood and chatted for a long time until space opened up on a short retaining wall nearby.

I decided to dive in, broach the language barrier, and so found a cheese table, and by adroit pointing managed to secure two excellent samples, one sloppy like a sauce, the other hard and coated with delicious herbs and spices. I do not know their names. I then went to a bread booth and said “baguette!” However, it turned out to be brittle and hard to eat, so I went back and again by use of pointing finger, got something more chewable.

We were going to go out for dinner, but had our fill of bread and cheese. After maybe ninety minutes, daughter introduced us to one of her friends, and we left them to enjoy the rest of their evening.

We are staying in a small apartment we got via Airbnb.com, a great way to travel. It is a sixth story flat that has three rooms and a small balcony. There is no view to speak of, ergo the photo above. Lodging is very expensive in this city, so people make the most of small spaces. This place, owned by a single woman, is lovely and has everything we need, and no microwave.

Our daughter’s work takes her to various places – without getting into specifics, she taught us last night about the Geneva Accords and how they came about. Geneva itself was taken over by Napoleonic France in another century, but achieved independence after that and has become a center for international organizations. The UN has a substantial plaza here. The dominant language is French,

The altitude is about 1,200 feet even as it sits at the base of the Alps and Jura. Lake Geneva flows “back” into the Rhone at the outlet, meaning the headwaters are further up. If there is a climate of comparison in my limited experience, it would be the low-lying areas of Northwestern Montana, mountainous but brutally hot in the summer, and offering a great growing climate. The Swiss wine industry, small compared to other areas, is centered here.

Today we are on our own and so will purchase a transportation pass and see as much of the city as we can. We will jump off a twenty-foot bridge and into the lake later on today. After hitting the water, we drift down the lake to a place where we get out, get a glass of wine, and wander back for another jump. This will be the extent of our physical challenges this beautiful day.

Day one: Geneva

Our flight was uneventful, Denver to Washington to Geneva. I have gotten used to the long overseas flights, so times goes fast. We had but one bit of unpleasantness – a woman behind was was a non-stop talker. Even as the lights were dimmed and people had their blind folds and head phones on, she rattled on. I turned my music up and could still hear her voice, so decided I would do everyone a favor. I turned to her, one aisle over and behind me, gently placed my hand on her knee, and gave her the “shhhh.” I tried not to be obnoxious or overly assertive. She looked at me like I had a booger.

It reminded me, and this is oddly enough true: Non-stop talkers usually do not know they talk as much as they do. She rattled on for a while longer, and then stopped, I think. I did fall asleep.

It is easy to travel in Europe – their cities and towns are well-suited for buses and trains. Here in Geneva we will spend ten francs (about $10) for a pass that gets us on all local trains, buses, and boats over the lake to the other part of the city for the whole day.

But we’re tired today – I am going to take a short nap and then try to stay up until nine or ten this evening (Denver is eight hours behind us). I hope to be over the time difference tomorrow morning. We are here to visit a daughter, so that we won’t be hiking, but swimming is appealing – Lake Geneva is very inviting. It is in the 90’s here, so water in the shallows is very comfortable.

Something I have noticed about European cities … well several things. The people are attractive – mixed races and all, deep rich black to Swedish pale, but all thin and fit. Restaurant portions are small here. People eat less. Liquor is available everywhere, but people buy single cans of beer rather than six or twelve. Wine is inexpensive and very good. They are not so uptight about booze as in the states, where even I get carded by the overzealous behavior police. No doubt there are people here who drink too much, but if there is a problem, it is hidden from view.

And police are rare. I am yet to see a cop car. There were no swinging night sticks at the airport. The U.S. over the years, due to agitprop and fear, has developed into a police state. It is not unusual in Denver to see three or four cop cars arresting one person. As Ferguson learned, if there is potential for civil uprising, the cops are militarized.

Maybe they are just kept out it sight here, but I do not see police anywhere.

Authentic frontier gibberish

We are off tomorrow on yet another journey of a lifetime. We have to do it while we can. This time we are off to Geneva, Zermatt, the Dolomites, Ljubljana, Florence, Cinque Terre, and finally Milan. It’s a return visit to Florence for us. That place, with its history and culture, is a magnet.

Once one the ground we’ll be using our favorite forms of transportation – our feet, and the amazing European train system.

I’ll probably be writing throughout. I don’t sleep a whole lot compared to other mortals and have time in the early morning for this purpose.
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This blog, more than anything, is my personal journal. I’ve been asked why I do not simply write and keep it under wraps, like a diary. I don’t get that at all. I have had to change my name to a nom de plume recently, as there are some nasty people out there. But understand, that has nothing to do with other bloggers or commenters, all of whom have good manners mostly, or just somewhat, like me.

Paul Marshall is my “porn name,” our middle name coupled with the street we were born on. If you were born on a numbered street, it’s a little more difficult, but do try it on your own … it usually sounds porny. I don’t know why.

My writings here go back to 2006, and the changes in my outlook during that time are a trip on a vine over a chasm – hoping like hell for a safe landing. Just asking a question leads to a whole new outlook. I know all about security in moderate views, how hiding from exposure to ugly truths leads to a more stable existence. However, once the question was asked, I was on the vine. The destination is no safer than a return journey.

I now have the ability to go back and review my own thoughts from 2006 to now, not knowing then where I was headed. I cringe at times, but am forgiving. It’s a journey.

Perhaps the greatest movie I have seen in my time was the Godfather, Part 2. But the best was Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks’ masterpiece. Below is a scene encapsulating American politics. (Important back story for the viewer: the town is Rock Ridge, somewhere in the west. The townspeople are frightened by evildoers. Everyone in town shares the last name “Johnson,” and all of the Johnson’s support and agree all the other Johnson’s. There’s an ice cream store in the middle of the town with a large sign that says “Howard Johnson’s – One Flavor”.)

[Sorry about the ad, but this is The United States America, where advertisers are free to interrupt any gathering at any time for any purpose. Hell, they even get to target kids!]