Saturday May 12, 2007. Greetings from Itea, Greece where the weather is warm, but not really hot and the seas are calm. This is the location of the Delphi and we are at the Port of Itea where there is a small town, but no reason to go there. We have had an incredible trip through the Corinth Canal to get here. The first attempt to dig this canal as a short cut, was begun by Nero in 67 AD…
We have arrived at the port of Piraeus, located about thirty minutes from Athens itself. The weather is pleasant and the seas were calm. Of course Athens is the place of the Panathenian Stadium built in 329 BC. It was the venue for the first Olympic games of 1896. The Acropolis is here some 230 feet above the city and is probably the most famous attraction in Athens. Athens was also the site of the 2004 Olympics and one sees…
I’ve expressed my concerns about the George Orwell government the Bush administration has created. Its political actions are too often hidden from public view, it has been exempted, until now, by the Republican controlled Congress from revealing or explaining its political actions and it has created courts that conduct their business behind closed doors, but which authorize secret surveillance of citizens. (See post 11/6/06) Now we have a report about the actions of a secret court operating under the Patriot…
We are in Mykonos, Greece. Last night, before leaving Turkey, there was a party at Ephesus for the passengers. Ephesus was one of the great Ionian cities and a leading seaport. The great St Paul went to Ephesus where he preached in the synagogues, but after causing protests preached to the gentiles. He was there for two years. He became the center of a controversy when the silversmiths of Ephesus rioted over the loss of work in creating Diana worship…
I’ve reported about the similarity of the teachings of Joseph Goebbels as Hitler’s propaganda minister and Karl Rove’s role in the Bush White House.(See post of 11/3/06) Joe A. Palermo has an excellent post in the Huffington Blog of 5/2/07 regarding the anniversary of the infamous Bush landing on the aircraft carrier to proclaim "mission accomplished." He notes the Karl Rove statement that Rove ran campaigns as if the people watching TV had the sound turned off. That is, the…
I endured the tuexdo dinner with the first engineer. Interesting people at the table. One couple have scheduled a 60 day cruise on this ship. The woman next to me was German and spoke no English. Another couple is from Vancouver, BC. Charlie and his wife are from South Carolina. The woman across from me is from England, but was born in France and tells a story about her family being held by the Germans when they occupied France. The…
Twice before in this blog I’ve reported on President Bush’s appointment of the totally unqualified and unsuitable appointment of Julie MacDonald as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. (See posts of 1//30/07 & 12/29/06)Her outrageous conduct in suppressing scientific data which contradicted White House position and her determined efforts to totally undermine any environmental restrictions were a scandal. However, there was no accountability because with a Republican controlled Congress she was allowed a free hand. She was accurately…
We are crossing the Mediterranean from Alexandria to Turkey. The seas are calm and the weather warm. We’ve spent the night in Paris and then on to Cairo. In Paris there was a parade of WWII veterans celebrating the liberation of Paris from the Germans. There was a large building under construction and the front had been draped with canvas which had been painted to look like a building, but with wavy lines giving it a unique appearance. In Cairo,…
On Friday, May 4th we fly to Paris for the night on our way to Cairo, Egypt to start a cruise on the Seabourn Spirit leaving from Alexandria on May 7th. The Spirit was launched in 1989, but refurbished in 2005. She is a German made 440 foot vessel with a crew of 150 and only 208 total guest capacity. She is considered a five star luxury mega-yacht because of her small size and accommodations as compared to most cruise…
George Bush has exercised only two veto’s at this point in his two term administration. The first was his July 2006 veto of a bill which would lift funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. The second veto occurred this week of the $124 Billion wear funding bill which also would order troop withdrawal from Iraq by October. Only two vetoes is a unique feat given the history of presidential vetoes. Mr. Bush’s father, for example, vetoed 44 bills in…
