The trip draws to a close in two days. We are sad about that. It has been wonderful and eye-opening. Prague is amazing, charming, and has moderate temperatures. The people we meet are friendly and relaxed. The “Czech Republic” part of former Czechoslovakia appears to have emerged from the Soviet era with its culture undamaged. They have reverted to a freer lifestyle with ease. They are rebuilding, repainting, and keeping it clean. 

There is some Western pollution – Subways, McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and Starbucks are here and there. A trolley car that rolled by this AM was littered with Citibank graffiti – excuse please – advertising. Western capitalism has penetrated without the usual bombs. But most of what we see is local business and lively commerce. Prices are moderate. It’s bustling and beautiful. This would be a wonderful place for a young couple to fall in love. 

Continue reading “Expatriate Games” →

We’re in Prague today, ambling around.

Budapest was not pleasant, but one memory sticks. Of all the many statues of war heroes, statesmen and high horses, names unrecognizeable to us, there was one that stood out. It was a monolith outside parliament with four numbers on it and nothing else. It said: “1956.”

It’s cooler today, and there is a breeze. Last night we crossed the Danube over to Pest. It’s a touristy thing to do, but we walked down embassy row. There are elegant restaurants and people, and regular tourists like us. There’s lots of arm candy and no doubt some expensive hookers, as embassy rows are like that. (Aside from wealthy Americans and Europeans, are there any more privileged people on the planet than upper eschalon embassy people?)

We crossed over on the Chain Bridge, bombed by the Allies in WWII and rebuilt in 1949. (There is also a seat-of-government type palace on Castle Hill that was bombed and rebuilt after the war.) We just meandered and crossed back on a newer bridge, perhaps Soviet era, as it was Ayn Randian square and practical. (Rand had a thing for 1950’s industrial architecture, with utlitarian square buildings.)

Continue reading “Budapest 2” →

We are in Budapest. Unfortunately, we are only going to see parts of Buda, and not Pest. The heat and humidity are oppressive. The only other time I remember it this bad was on Long Island in September of 1976. So we are going to stick close to the hotel, maybe take in a mineral water bath tomorrow. (I was reminded after writing this that it is very hot to begin with.) We’d like to see and do more, but it’s not pleasant in the August doldrums.

There is a lot to take in here. We in the west through our propaganda media had an image of life behind the iron curtain as gray, the women plump and the news in black and white. As we rode through the streets today that feeing certainly came through. We are just out of Italy, France and Switzerland, where there is widespread prosperity. Here there is not. The buildings are gray and run down and the cars are old.

Continue reading “Budapest” →

We are sitting in a park in Interlaken, Switzerland. I pulled out the IPad to make some notes and on the screen popped up a message that an Internet signal was available. That happens sometimes in the US. In Denver there is public Internet, but the signal is weak and undependable and once you negotiate the pages and the word-barf contract to log in you find that they want your credit card and $10. Here the signal is part of the commons.

Imagine! A public utility offered without lining the pocket of some investor!* **

Anyway, the news and blogs are alive with Obama’s triumph in Libya, the usual. Another conquest. Soon the ports and harbors will be alive with ships arriving with loot, and there will be parades where military heroes are taken down the streets in large golden chariots. Perhaps Gaddafi will be pulled down Wall Street in a cage pulled by elephants so that he can be jeered and derided. Man I love this country!
Continue reading “Booty on the way from Libya!!” →

We noticed in passing by cemeteries over here that grave markers often use the official Superbowl numbering system, XXXIIV, etc. I guess it makes the people buried there seem more significant than they really were.

We took a cable car up the mountain for lunch yesterday. At the restaurant they have put in a wildflower trail, so we wandered among the cows with the lovely sound of cowbells all around as we viewed the exhibits. Most flowers were dead or out of season but the natural flowers outside the enclosures were alive and healthy. God I love metaphors!

At one point I was trying to read the name of a flower, and leaned backwards into a yellow tape and got a shock! It was an electric fence. Man, I tell you about the fourth time that happened I realized I should not touch that yellow tape or go beyond where they put it up.

Over at 4&20 there’s a debate going on about mean old Gubbmint and how it victimizes everyone. Big Swede, who enjoys privilege because his property rights are protected by government force, hates government.

Here’s a little example of how f****** stupid the US has become over the decades, even Orwellian: Imagine twenty thousand acres of forest. Imagine that government, some outside power that comes down from Jupiter, “owns” it. We all get to wander on and off, hunt and fish there, as long as we abide by common rules. As a local democratic force we might develop resources on the land while preserving it for future generations. We would argue like the devil, of course, but somehow muddle through.

That’s called “oppression.”

Imagine that the same 20,000 acres is owned by Steve Forbes. Signs go up, and government and private agents patrol the boundaries. (In Montana the Department of Fish and Wildlife patrols private boundaries for landowners.) Keep Off! Signs appear everywhere. Trespassing can land a large fine and even jail time. Though the wildlife is no longer the exclusive property of the king, we cannot hunt on the king’s land.

That’s “freedom.”

When the king controls the volcabulary and we cannot even use words to mean what they actually mean; when slavery is freedom and democratic government is oppression; when the king sets the table for his friends and fences everyone else out and calls it freedom, we are royally screwed. That we don’t know that, that we cannot even understand the concepts, is tribute to the effectiveness of the National Association of Manufacturers, who set off in the 1930’s to reverse the course of history and stop democracy in it’s tracks.

They succeeded. Go vote about it now and see what it gets you.

We made it out of the Alps, spending last night in Chamonix, France, and traveling to Courmayeur, Italy today. The transportation system here is remarkable. Not only are the trains and buses clean and spacious, but they are on time. There is public transportation to and from everywhere. Not only that, but there is a remarkable trail system here, with signed trails between every community. No distances are given, only the amount of time it takes.

The transportation system in the US, by comparison, is not very good. Buses are reserved for the needy, and trains were replaced by autos after World War II. What passenger service we have is only in or between heavily populated areas. Public transit between smaller towns and cities is difficult at best. The country was designed for ownership of cars.

It is what it is, but so much of the US is that way because business interests wanted it that way. Oil companies wanted automobile travel, which led to suburban sprawl and gridlock. Neighborhoods are designed with few services, necessitating a drive for the simplest of errands, like getting a quart of milk. Market advocates like to brag about efficiency, but we are not efficient. We are wasteful in our habits and our towns and cities are poorly designed. If markets caused that, then perhaps markets could use some fixing. Or maybe we can simply scrap that ideology and try things that actually work, and work well, in other places.

There’s some amazing engineering feats over here – a ten mile tunnel under Mt. Blanc, and a cable from system from Courmayeur to Chamonix that goes up to 15,000 feet. The cable system was the result of a bet between engineers back in the early 20th century. It is one of the longest spans in the world. That is the picture above.

Other things that I like over here:

Coffee is very good. US coffee has gotten better over the years, but drip coffee is a rarity here. Everything is pressed through machines. I have come to like caffe’ Americano with milk. That is an expensive habit back home, so I’ll go back to my usual. (Also coffee is drunk at a table or standing bar. There is no carry out and no cooffe on trains and buses, and no wasted paper cups like those that pollute the American landscape.)

Bakeries and pastry are quite varied. This is becoming more so in the US, but where I grew up we had three kinds of bread available, all white. Italian pastry is beautiful, intricately designed and dressed up with fruit. It is such a shame to defile it.

There is not a lot of meat or eggs on menus, so I’ve come to like various strains of pizza and some pastas. I am not hurting for energy nor am I hungry, and I’m not gaining back any lost weight. We’ve eaten a lot of cheese, which can be quite moldy tasting to the American palate. We don’t recognize any of it so try to stick with hard and off-white stuff and hope for the best.

Beer is everywhere, hardly a big deal, served alongside Coke and bottled water most everywhere. It is mild beer, pilsner and lagers, with alcohol content around 4%. It is far tastier than American lagers like Bud and Coors. It is sold by the can or bottle, and not in multipacks.

And wine is everywhere, many varieties and brands, none recognizable. I learned from various writers that even the experts cannot tell cheap wine from expensive, and so do not think much about what we buy. And even if we find something we like, the odds are we won’t find it again. Very good wine is quite affordable in Italy and France, and ridiculously expensive in Switzerland. A bottle that costs €4 in Italy might run 16 Swiss francs, though the two currencies are roughly equal.

We have not encountered any “supermarkets” in our limited travels. There are small markets that carry everything in small quantities. They are often just a hole in a wall that opens up into many rooms once inside. They can be quite fun, and are low-priced, usually locally owned.

Ice is a rarity. I do miss ice, but public fountains running a steady stream of ice cold alpine water are a true delight. But at 3AM after dehydration caused by hiking, lukewarm room water does not satisfy like ice water.

We have encountered no storefront health care – it must be hidden away somewhere. We hear ambulances now and then. Each country here has first-class public health care, according to WHO. Frankly, I have not encountered anyone not in good health except for a guy who sat on the next door balcony in Argentiere hacking away as he smoked 15 cigarettes. Poor devil.

Tomorrow we are off to Murren, Switzerland. I am guessing that the Eiger peak is in that area, and that in Clint Eastwood’s movie The Eiger Sanction, the town below where George Kennedy sat looking up the mountain was Murren. I could be wrong about that, but I do maintain strongly to this day that that was Clint’s worst movie ever. I love the guy and his work, but that movie blew bleu cheese chunks.*
_________

*It is indeed the location of the mountain and the place where the filming was done. The movie was panned, and it bombed at the box office. Pauline Kael called it a “total travesty” and Eastwood blamed everyone but himself for its failure. A British climber died during filming.

I am viewing American politics from a distance now, but I’ve not been involved on the ground level for eleven years, since the 2000 Nader campaign. I won’t vote again unless there is someone or something that is worthy of the effort. Not voting enables me to speak my mind, like the bumper sticker says: “Don’t blame me. I didn’t vote.” It’s the ultimate expression of citizenship: not to participate in the sham.

There are issues of importance. Who will be the next president/senator/mayor are not among them. I might vote for coroner, as when someone dies I want to know if foul play was involved, so a vote matters there.

The primary issues that are important to me regard civil liberties. Citizens United is a good focal point for confronting and exposing corporate power. The current amalgamation of corporations and government is eroding what we have left of our civil liberties, and the name of that game is fascism.
Continue reading “An ingenious system of government by distraction” →

So, we’re in a hotel in Argintiera, France. We are dead tired, having had a long climb and hike today. We are just settling in for sleep when we hear a guitar tuning up. There’s a market square across the way, and they are having live music tonight! I asked for a new room, but was told that it is just as noisy anywhere in the hotel.

I could endure this if the guitar player knew more than four chords. I even know them – C, Am, F and G, the most overused chord progression on the planet. The drummer is above average, and the lead singer has a low tone David Bowie-type voice. Might as well enjoy it.

So what to do when kept awake by live music? Sirota time! He wrote a really good piece on the Innocent Bystander Fable,this idea that Democrats are powerless to advance a progressive agenda because of mean old Republicans. He destroys the myth in short order. Of course they are not powerless! I take it one step further – they use this as an excuse because they want what they are getting: The Republican Agenda. after all, both parties have the same financiers, so whose policy is it going to be? Voters, or bribers?

Anyway, a comment at the end of the article was so good that I reprint it here:

Because if the President is so powerless then why does it ever matter who is sitting in the White House? If the President is powerless than there is no reason whatsoever to support Obama or anyone else for the office, it would be a waste of time, energy and scarce resources.