February 22, 2025 by wtucker

We Are All Activists

On President’s Day my spouse drove by a protest demonstration in Brentwood with forty people waving signs like “Stop Musk,” “Stop the Coup,” and “Power to the People.” Good for them. It was a cold day. They made page A3 of the Post-Dispatch, with a 4×6 photo.and a QR code to find the article .

At the same time much fewer anti-abortion advocates were passing out literature at the Planned Parenthood Central West End health center. Good for them; they made the front page, three columns, and a 5 x 7 photo.

First, shame on the Post-Dispatch for front-paging one protest, while burying another one. Second, the patriots who want administration change have to get as smart as the Pro-Life movement, which always goes to the location of the issue. Maybe the administration-resisters should protest on the Wash U campus, where the loss of federal grants has crippled research or at the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, which has had most of its employees laid off. And give the Post-Dispatch a call before you do.

Megalomaniac rulers believe that they are resourceful enough to govern alone and that the people who work for them are inter-changeable parts. They assume the government is really a faceless bureaucracy, which can be reformed by putting in new faces. President Trump and Elon Musk may regret their strategies on both counts–their capability and the capability of those who work for them. Phones in Washington will be ringing off the hook with administrative breakdowns. Just wait for it.

For those who want regime change, what should we do? The protesting is great, but apparently media coverage is a problem. We can start by calling our Representatives about the issues we care about: a woman’s right to choose, the environment, Ukraine, assault on DEI, Education. These will be high-profile issues in the next six months. Have you heard of anyone who lost their job because of the DEI purge? Speak up for them! Are you worried about the counter-legislation against Missouri’s right-to-choose amendment? Call your representative!

This is surprisingly easy. An office administrator answers the phone. You state what you want the representative to do. They jot down a “pro” or “con,” and that’s it. This kind of pressure intimidates lawmakers as much as the power of their benefactor, i.e. the Lawless One.

Opposing candidates for the House of Representatives will be coming out to run for office by the end of 2025. We should jump on their campaigns as we are able–at the headquarters or in the neighborhoods. Post campaign signs. Candidates, stop charging for these signs! Congressional representatives will be truly vulnerable in 2026, what with the expected ineptitude of the current administration.

Because citizens don’t tolerate broken promises, we can be confident that the lack of control of inflation will be a campaign issue, even in 2026. We can predict that the potential tariff wars will hit the taxpayers where it hurts. This will inevitably put the wild tariff policies of the current administration in their crosshairs. Voters can definitely blame the administration for making tariffs a high-profile and failing strategy. Another overstep of maniacal self-confidence with a predictable failure. It’s probably not fair to judge an administration on one year’s trends, but no one ever said the voters are patient about their pocketbooks.

Thanks to everyone who stood up for their cause on President’s Day. The rest of us should rejoice that we live in a Constitutional democracy, where change can take place without a real coup. Everyone should start believing in elections, so we can safely elect new representatives without listening to the losers declaring “fraud.” Can we agree that it is primarily a strategy of losers to declare fraud? Put some faith in ourselves to govern as voters.

O.K. , let’s get the politicians nervous, get smart in activism, and get all of us to the polls.

February 20, 2025 by wtucker

Fabricators and Their Fabrications

I notice that the media has begun to cover more fabrications (lies?) than facts and corrections. It is not so much the fault of the media as a commentary on public discourse. The news is what it is, but it reflects the insanity and deceptive daring of our leaders, the weakness of their sycophants, the obligations of professionals, the general need for escapism and the lack of news on topics which readers want to consume.

There is a fuzzy line between dangerous and innocent fabrications, but they all have the potential to distort what we think. Some of us are naive enough to believe that a news source or a baseball general manager tell only the literal truth. In that case, shame on us.

The following classifications range from the sinister, to the professional, to the escapist, and the inane. It is not easy to tell the difference, but let’s try.

Self-Deceptive/ Pathological thinkers– This is the most dangerous unreality. It is psychopathic to the extent that the liar cannot tell the difference between what he/ she says and reality. The Self-deceived reflexively accept anything they say. They cannot recognize a conspiracy or accept reasoning contrary to what they believe. You cannot reason with a self-deceived person. We all know some in this category: the President, some CEO’s, fixated relatives, some sports gurus. When President Trump says that Ukraine started the war with Russia, he convinces himself by saying it. His thinking borders between the pathological and the deliberate.

Deliberate Liars– A very dangerous form of unreality because it is strategic. The liar will say anything he/ she can get away with assuming others can be convinced. The liar creates a world that reinforces ego and plans. The liar needs to surround him/ herself with sycophants who will support lies.

Politicians head this list, but lawyers, advertising consultants and press spokes-persons are close behind. Reality is what you make it, the deliberate liar says. The President keeps a staff of these: Elon Musk, Sean Hannity, Stephen Miller, and most of his Cabinet appointments. Wish I could name others who lie for a living, but you have probably met them.

The Fantasy Maker– A more innocent form of deceit but threatens reality just the same. Fantasies are created either to comfort or to entertain the thinker/ commentator/ self-hypnotized. Makers are either tired of reality, incurable optimists, or obsessed with predictions. Middle managers, budget projectors, baseball general managers, some teachers and actors. Professionals are often compelled to generate fantasies as part of their jobs. Their bosses should know how much to trust them. Teachers are taught to fantasize, because they must see the possible, instead giving in to the cynical. Middle managers have to fantasize to keep superiors and employees happy at the same time.

The Cliche Generator– Usually in control of reality, the Generator needs cliches to produce news, sports, personnel evaluations or conversation. The danger comes from dependency, when only cliches come down the chute. Pretty soon the Generator lives by the trite and facile and does not connect with real news or conversation. Many fantasy makers slip into this category, such as sports writers, athletes interviewed by anyone, and the readers/listeners who pay attention to them. I include publications specialists and spokespeople in every profession, predictors of events, like mediums and sports prognosticators. The acutely boring at any party can be pathologically addicted to cliches. I have to cite a few Spring Training Cliches, courtesy of The Athletic: “It’s a wide-open competition,” “I think we can surprise some people,” “My expectations for myself are higher than anybody else’s,” “I cut out [X] this season.” This shows how the lack of real news generates cliches like crabgrass.

The Hopeful – No one can be blamed for living in hope. It comes of rejecting the pessimism of being bombarded by lies, fantasies and cliches. It is usually deliberate except for the compulsively hopeful who separate from reality completely. Some of us have decided to reside in hope forever, pushing ourselves toward the pathological. Sad that the hopeful might mingle with the self-deceived. Here we find many teachers, nurses, counsellors, and those who must live with all their clients, liars, and fantasy-makers. God bless the hopeful.

You are welcome to add to this list, if you like. I’ll call you “the insightful.”

February 10, 2025 by wtucker

The Emergency Rescue Team

The Department of Education has had a target on its back, since the era of Ronald Reagan. “Eliminate (the Department of) Education!” has been a mantra of Republicans since the 1980’s, a convenient target to reduce government spending. They found in Education a useful lamb to slaughter. Did anyone of them wonder if the public and charter schools received essential benefits from from Title I and Title II, benefits that states could not afford to take over? Not that I have heard.

As a veteran of twenty years’ teaching in high school, I can testify that Title I & II make a difference. The funding of Title I and Title II matter in the classroom. Why?

Teachers want to help every student in the classroom. In most states the normal number of students in a classroom is thirty, thirty-five in some, forty in a few. That is about ten or fifteen more students than any teacher can reach every day. Citizens who are not teachers do not understand this. They imagine a classroom where teachers lecture and write stuff on the whiteboard. How hard can that be?

Every student in the community comes into your classroom. Some of them come from homes with no books on the shelf. Their parents do not read to them as young children, and they cannot help with homework, because they work two or three jobs. Many parents have not graduated from a high school or community college. These are typically the parents of students with individual needs. After you give a brief lesson on the Constitution or quadratic equations, you have to walk over to these students to see if they got it. Some of them have not. It is not for lack of intelligence; it may be for an attention deficit or a learning disability or because they could not finish their homework. These kids deserve an extra two minutes of help, not just words or numbers on a whiteboard.

This is where federal aid is crucial; those five or ten students over the expected 25 are flailing and panicking, stuck through no fault of their own. A Title I teacher walks over and discovers what the issue is. Or a Title II special education teacher steps up to assist where whiteboard notations did not make sense enough for the student to move on. That is no fault of the teacher or the student, but merely the consequences of too many in classrooms and some unattended needs.

Some Americans have never confronted these issues, because someone in their family or someone in their immediate circle have jumped in to help them or their children. But there are too many students who seep through the cracks— especially the ones who labor from misdirection or no direction at all. Who reaches out to them ? The Title I or Title II teachers. They are the emergency rescue team.

If you don’t care about the 25 per cent or the quality of learning that would expand by the support of Title I or Title II, then of course you don’t consider the value of the Department of Education. Let the chips fall where they may. Your kids will sail through.

But if you believe in public schooling, where every kid deserves a chance to grow into capable citizens, then you should care about the demise of the Department of Education.

No one is going to carry the burden of the extra 5-10 students, if no Title I or Title II teachers are employed by the Department of Education. Unless your concern, your voice , your influence on the school board, which is responsible for all 30-40 students in a whole lot of classrooms. Teachers and unions can only protest so much before their pleas fall on deaf ears. They are discounted as lacking preparation or for self-interest.

You wouldn’t say that if you spent a week in any preK-12 classroom. Neither would the soul-less politicians who think they know public education. You would fight for the Department of Education. You would fight for all students, not just the socially enabled ones. You would fight for right of all kids to be informed and responsible citizens.

February 7, 2025 by wtucker

Why You Can’t Get a Decent Service Provider

Headlines about the the numbers and quality in the service professions have been haunting us. How many times have we heard about abuse by, and shortages of, teachers, police, medical care professionals and the people who administer them? Why are we having so many problems with hiring and sustaining the quality of service professionals? Why am I trying the solve a problem that so many others have failed to solve? Who says I have the wisdom to even address theses issues? Good questions. Why, indeed?

The crux of the problem: the cost of improvements and evaluating the quality of them. If we could honestly reflect on, and address these issues, we might get more and better service professionals. What authority do I have to even address these questions, let alone answer them? The experience of forty- five years as a teaching professional and absolutely no financial stake in improving the quality of service professionals. I’m retired, but I do care about the service professions.

My definition of the service professions: any profession with the primary objective of helping people, not producing goods or offering services that must be purchased. How to attract professionals and improve their service?

Raise the number of people performing these services by at least ten per cent.
Offer higher compensation (including benefits), competitive with private professions that require similar levels of education. Teachers, social agency professionals and law and order professionals are typically underpaid for high-stress jobs with extensive training. Taxpayers and administrators will be the first to complain about numbers and cost of services, because they don’t want to spend the money. Fine. You can expect the service programs to continue to offer poor service and attract fewer applicants, because you want the improvements without paying for them. You live in a fantasy land. You can afford it, if you want to pay for reasonable quality. Some countries do it.
Publish an evaluation of these services. Restaurants, hotels, lawyers and architects do it. I always consider these evaluations when I decide to purchase their services. Why can’t we approximate the value of public services, so prospective employees can consider them? An independent agency should be hired to perform the evaluation.
Rate and publish the quality of the relationship between employee advocates (sometimes called unions) and employers (sometimes called management), measured by an independent agency.
Rate-the-raters of both #3 and #4, too. Evaluation is always a two-way street, not easy and not objective.
Create a bulletin board of public commentary, which publishes any decent comments on local service professionals and the organizations that hire them. Responses to such comments could be included.

All these indicators create a means of hiring and evaluating the employers and service professionals and will attract prospective service employees. I would say that job compensation and the ratio of service employees to consumers are critical to making employment decisions, and they are the most objective criteria. Other evaluations can be considered with serious or “grain of salt” perspective. Evaluators should establish their own credibility.

The cost of improving compensation, environment, assessment, and validation of the quality of services can be budget-busting, and that is one reason prospective service employees and the public don’t take public service seriously. Yet we pay private service providers and professional product providers handsomely, because we value their services, and we get a personal benefit. For example, a rendering of a house we want to build.

Public services are not valued by everyone until some shocking incident makes the headlines, and we complain how you can’t get a decent [fill in the appropriate service provider]. We blame the quality of the employee or employe , but we don’t want to pay for something that only affects us indirectly.

We are not a poor nation and at least some of us pay taxes according to our ability to pay. There is no reason to expect that services will improve until we pay for them. And there is no reason to expect that younger or older people will choose a service profession if their talents and prospective work environment are more valued elsewhere.

We do need more and better service employees, but we have to pay for them.

January 25, 2025 by wtucker

Jesus and DEI

“When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ ³and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs [forecasts] of the times.^[^a^]⁴A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign [miracle], but none will be given it except the sign [past reflection] of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away. (Matthew 16:1-4).

In this case “signs” are not ” miracles,” because Jesus refuses to perform one for the entertainment of the Pharisees. Signs are indications of something in the past as witnessed in the present, something we might have missed the first time we read about them? A “reflection of things past.” What if the “sign of Jonah” is Jesus’s commentary on diversity, equality and inclusion?

Jesus was shaming the Pharisees for not realizing that Jesus himself was a sign of God’s message in the present. Jesus was telling the Pharisees, rather cryptically, that, despite their status as the people chosen by God (the Israelites), they had missed the most important sign God had sent: the love of diversity, equality and inclusion. Stay with me now.

Obviously Jesus knew nothing of DEI, but he knew a lot about love, and he interpreted the story of Jonah to show God’s love for all nations. What did Jesus say in his first sermon?

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free (Luke 4:18).

Understandable that the Pharisees did not get this. After all, they were enslaved by the most powerful of pagan nations, the Romans. The Romans were the cruel adversaries of their Chosen nation.

Jonah had tried to run from his responsibility to preach to a pagan city. This is the part where Jonah gets swallowed by a whale and, after three days, “spewed out” (literally) from his holding tank to do his job and preach to the Ninevites. The Ninevites were famous for their cruelty and, definitely not “chosen” of God. Like the Romans, right?

The book of Jonah says that, beside being a city of cruel pagans, Nineveh was huge: Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it (Jonah 3:3). Some commentators think this was an exaggeration, because what city is that big? But the point is ⁴Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” ⁵The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.(Jonah 3:3). Mass conversion of the most evil city of Assyria!

Clearly one of the most successful evangelical rallies in recorded history. Yet Jonah was not hoping that the pagans would be converted. When he found out that he was supposed to preach to the Ninevites, he had run away. He was prevented by a perfect storm and thrown overboard to appease the furious God. The sea calmed and along came a whale, etc.

To me, this is the funny part. In Jonah, Chapter 4, Jonah admits his real reason for running. He was familiar with the Torah. The Book of Exodus said: “you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” (Exodus 34:6-7). He was appalled that God was “gracious, merciful, and slow to anger.”

A rather strange attitude for the most successful evangelist in history! Jonah says,”Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” Jonah was so revolted by the Ninevites that he preferred to die rather than live to see God’s mercy on such an evil city. Some prophet! This is why I call him “the prophet who couldn’t shoot straight.”

This is the crux of Jonah’s problem: tribal anger at the heathen, the “unclean,” and the assumption that God would judge them. He could not live with God’s mercy to pagans. As he finally explains, that was his original reason for taking a ship to the end of the known earth (Jonah 4: 1-2): prejudice and resentment.

Back to Jesus’s commentary on the “sign of Jonah.” As he often does, Jesus connects the Hebrew Bible to his contemporary predicament: “The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah and see, something greater than Jonah is here” (Matthew 12:41-42).

Jesus sides with the Ninevites in this story, not the Hebrew prophet, Jonah.. God continues to be “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” God shows his love of diversity, equality and inclusion through Jesus. God included , along with the “Chosen people,” the pagan city with the worst reputation. God asserted the diversity and equality of the worst of the worst: because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah and see, says Jesus, meaning himself: something greater than Jonah is here” (Matthew 12:41-42).

This is not what an exceptional people want to hear: the pagans are now forgiven just like us. Everyone receives God’s favor. This is a long trip to DEI, but there is no question that the Book of Jonah was talking about the most despised group in biblical history. That God would have mercy on them with his DEI. “The sign of Jonah” is saying “mercy,”and so should we.

Are we going to die on this battlefield of exclusion like Jonah? Or accept the equal mercy of God on the diverse people of the world?

January 20, 2025 by wtucker

The Disastrous Abomination

“History doesn’t repeat itself , but it often rhymes.” Mark Twain’s wry observation comments on how the past anticipates the present and the present rhymes with the future.

Upon viewing the Temple at the threshold of Jerusalem, Jesus’ disciples marveled at its magnificence. To make a point, Jesus said, “You see these great buildings? Not a single stone will be left on another; everything will be destroyed” (Mark 13:2). The words might have been attributed to Jesus in retrospect, or maybe he was an astute political observer who foresaw the sacking of Jerusalem by the aggressive Empire of Rome. His words showed the insignificance of human construction compared to the ultimate verdict of history. The grand structures of mankind can be reduced to rubble. Does Jesus’ prophecy rhyme with our institutions today?

Extending his discourse, Jesus made another puzzling prophecy: “When you see the disastrous abomination [or detestable thing of desolation], then those in Judaea must escape to the mountains” [12:14]; Scholars have pondered what this “abomination” might be. Some speculate the attempt of the Roman Emperor Caligula to place his statue in the Temple around 40 CE. Others remark on the revolt of the Zealots and their betrayal of Israel [Levine, A.J. “The Little Apocalypse,” The Gospel of Mark].

What, then, could be the modern equivalent of the “disastrous abomination,” something that rhymes with the sacrilegious defilement of the Temple? Those who witnessed the January 6 television broadcast of the siege of the Capitol Building, the desecration of the House of Representatives, the battering of Capitol officers with American flags and clubs, could not be blamed for calling it a “disastrous abomination.” It was an unthinkable violation of an institution revered by American citizens.

I remember thinking: This violence will finally expose the extreme nativists and contrast them from peace-loving protesters. We had all witnessed the “disastrous abomination” on live television. We had seen President’s Trump’s inaction in real time. We had seen it all rhyme with the worst desecrations of world history.

Some might say the very same election that inspired the violence was an abomination, because it fraudulently elected President Trump’s successor. Most of a major political party thinks the 2020 election was an abomination.

Some others might say the series of prosecutions of the beleaguered former President were a conspiratorial abomination, the weaponizing of the legal system. Justice must now be viewed in the eye of the beholder.

Like the legal system, history has had its revisionists who re-shape past events to suit their purposes. People have short memories. But usually the original memories, like the assault on the Capitol, survive over a generation. It is the later generations who succumb to revisions, the reframing of the past to suit the schemes of the present.

Not in the land of social media. We have seen the footage of the “abomination” over and over and revisited the violence in the Congressional investigation. Incredibly it dissolved into revisionist history in a matter of months. Since that January 6, President-elect Trump and his supporters have reframed the “disastrous abomination” into a

“normal tourist visit.”
“day of love”
“simple protest” that “got out of hand,”
“legitimate political discourse” (You.Tube 2024 poll)

It is historically unprecedented for a “disastrous abomination” to be revised into “a day of love” in less than a Presidential election cycle. How porous are our memories to be bombarded with the actual media coverage for weeks, only, less than four years later, to interpret those events as a “day of love”?

Apparently overwhelming evidence can be misconstrued by a few quotes on social media. A voting majority of citizens can say that a “disastrous abomination” was “legitimate political discourse.” The most demoralizing realization is that voting-age citizens can be so easily deceived. Now the master of historical revision has been re-elected with the complicity of malleable memories.

I’m not sure if Jesus prophesied this moment in U.S. history, but I’m willing to believe that his prophecy rhymed with it. We have had our own “disastrous abomination,” but have not heeded prophetic warnings. Some of us are surely contemplating an “escape to the mountains.”

January 3, 2025 by wtucker

The Modest, True Believer

The last President to be famous for his personal faith was also a staunch advocate for the separation of church and state, refusing to use his authority to favor churches or religious interests. In his strict adherence to this principle he alienated himself from leading evangelicals, such as Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham.

The primary advocate for the “wall of separation” interpretation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was President Thomas Jefferson. In a letter addressing the establishment clause of the First Amendment, the President wrote:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state. Letter to the Danbury Baptists, January 1, 1802 (https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html).

The expression “wall of separation” inspired a judicial tradition of keeping publicly financed institutions clear from religious beliefs and practices. The doctrine became controversial when the Supreme Court ruled against the recitation of any prayer in the public schools in Engel v. Vitale: ” . . .the Supreme Court stated that the school-sponsored prayer violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment, even if the students could be excused from the room or remain silent.” (1962). https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/educational-activities/first-amendment-activities/engel-v-vitale/facts-and-case-summary-engel-v-vitale

This ruling became the target of conservative Christians in the latter Twentieth Century, as they faulted the government for “taking prayer out of the schools.” In this context Jimmy Carter came to office.

Carter practiced the personal faith that was central to Billy Graham’s ministry. Graham affirmed the church as a community of believers, but what mattered most to him was the personal relationship between the believer and God. That distinction continued to grow after the fall of Richard Nixon, who had thrived under the spiritual endorsement of Graham. Without making a public pronouncement Graham began to distance himself from the White House. That was too late for Jimmy Carter. Graham had already judged him for honoring the “prayer in the schools” ruling.

Carter’s personal faith naturally opposed governmental advocacy for a particular faith. “Personal” implied that all citizens could choose if, or how, they practiced religion without the influence of public funding or support. The church stayed on its side of the wall and government stayed on its side.

With the founding of the Moral Majority by Jerry Falwell in 1979 the language of evangelicalism began to step over the wall. On the issue of abortion Falwell and some conservative Christians began a four-decades-long campaign to flex political muscle and overturn Roe v. Wade. They supported those candidates who publicly avowed their opposition to Roe, making a religious argument a plank on political campaign platforms.

President Carter, himself, did not believe in abortion, but allowed for exceptions such as rape or incest. He also supported Roe vs. Wade as public policy, while it was in the crosshairs of conservative Evangelicals. The Moral Majority believed they could control the public narrative around religious issues by claiming the Christian foundations of America prior to the Constitution. They claimed that Court rulings like Engel v. Vitale showed contempt for the roots of religious practice in America. They advocated for “Right to Life” for moral, historical and religious reasons.

Carter never gave quarter to policies that threatened the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. As he said in 2003,

When a group of Christians tr[ies] to implant through government our beliefs on others as superior, that subverts the basic constitutional prohibition concerning separation of church and state. And when we try to use the federal government to intercede in religious affairs, it inherently weakens the unique character of Christ’s kingdom. https://www.au.org/the-latest/press/jimmy-carter-death-church-state-cham

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth ” ( Matthew 5:13). In his context salt was a preservative and “used for medicinal purposes, to disinfect wounds, check bleeding, stimulate thirst, and treat skin diseases.”(Debie Thomas, Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022), 164, 165, 166.)

As Jesus could have said,”Salt at its best sustains and enriches life. It pours itself out with discretion so that God’s kingdom might be known on the earth—a kingdom of spice and zest, a kingdom of health and wholeness, a kingdom of varied depth, flavor, and complexity.” (D. Thomas).

As President, Jimmy Carter did not favor one spiritual diet over another. Jimmy Carter was salt.

December 29, 2024 by wtucker

The Getaway

Now that we are returning from our seven-day cruise, we should call our ship, the “Been-There-Away” because most of the incredible management of 4500 cruisers is done. The 1400-person crew has masterfully boarded and discharged at least 3500 of those passengers every day.

This is my second cruise, so I should not have been surprised, but the ebb and flow of passengers did not strike me before. On “The Getaway.” we filed two-by-two, like Noah’s original cruise ship, while every Id was checked into the massive data base of passengers and the same routine coming back on board, according to schedule. A slightly less rigorous routine with the thirteen-odd dining rooms at dinner every night. The logistics of mass movement is incredible.

Some highlights of the voyage:

Lunch at Fort Consolation in Honduras, where a nineteenth century fort was re-purposed as a restaurant about half a mile from the pier.The gun-ports and the cannons had been preserved, so I could capture our ship down the barrel of one cannon. The pork belly and plantains captured the essence of old Honduras. More authentic and less attractive, the garbage strewn and fractured sidewalks of the path just a few yards from the tourist village.

Intimate Taste of Mexican Tacos,” with the full range of chicken, pork and seafood tacos right in the middle of the local market. Surprise! We had a Tequila workshop at the end with five rounds of sampling and quart and pint bottles for sale. We bought a pint.
Guided tour of the Chacchoben Mayan ruins, viewing the majestic pyramid-temples, hearing about the amazing calendar-mastery of tenth -century scientists, climbing one modest pyramid with steps enough for the feeble, as well as the athletic.

“The Million Dollar Quartet,” a musical reunion of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Gerry Lee-Lewis set in the 1950’s at Sun Records, based on the actual event. We had seen a similar performance at the Rep in St. Louis just before leaving, but these performers were so talented, the lighting so other-worldly, the music so varied that we attended two performance of the same production on ship.
“Broadway Unplugged,” adaptations of musicals “from Oklahoma to Hamilton,” in tempos and rhythms you’ve never heard before. Many performers were also stars of “Million Dollar Quartet,” although their virtuosity in this performance was less than optimal.
Motown Revue by New Generation in the mid-ship Atrium on Thursday. The host and lead performer playfully entertained with numbers by Otis Redding, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, and their contemporaries. Clapping, dancing, singing gave expression to our collective soul.As with any cruise, the food was excellent, the service exemplary, the recreation satisfying. Probably overstepped my generational limits by taking the waterslide from the top. Ten seconds of gentle sliding bookending ten seconds of dark, terrifying spinning. Recovered the next day in the hot tub, with an hour of moderate boiling. Cannot over-emphasize the therapeutic effects of hot tubbing.

Lowlights include

the hour-plus boarding of the same 4500 passengers. Suggestion: Pay for the expedited boarding.
The unlimited drink feature, which induces too much sour mouth and unnatural gas, even hangover? There has got to be a compromise between paying individually for drinks and paying for all the drinks you can consume in seven days. You have to buy an individual unlimited drink package, meaning you cannot buy someone else a drink at the same time you buy your own. For two unlimited packages and shared alcoholism you can pay twice the price.
the conservation of wi-fi and the cost of multiple users. You have no wi-fi in your cabin, unless you pay for it. Then you pay for each device you use, so you can’t use your phone and computer wi-fi together, and adding a second user requires more fees. The public wi-fi also has a trip-budgeted usage. I think this is a special cruel economy of Norwegian Cruise Lines. I don’t remember having such severe limitations on Princess.
the infirmary options: take a pain pill or see the doctor for $149.50 to get an over-the-counter antacid pill. Got mine from a pharmacy in Harvest Caye, Belize. Not ideal: the Directions for use in Spanish. I hoped I remembered the maximum dosage for Pepto-Bismol tablets.

At the Cafe Du Monde NO: Victoria, Sandra,Matt

I’ll give this cruise a three stars out of four, but some of the problems of all 2000+ capacity cruises — size and expense– are two stars out of four. It’s all about the problems of expediting huge throngs of people. So what is amazing is also excruciating. It could be solved by going on high-priced, lower frustration cruises. You have to decide what you can afford. Did not have to go on a cruise to realize that.

L to R Sean, Spencer, and Jason

Victoria Witnessing the Illuminated Pyramid.

December 22, 2024 by wtucker

Nawlins

The Big Easy has the charm of a nineteenth century JazzTown. We heard Jazz in

in Preservation Hall, a 63-year-old venue that looks like somebody’s basement, but rings with local bands playing for jazz innocents and sophisticates alike. Their final number was a jazz Jingle Bells, which I recorded, but could not upload to this fussy website.