It is Monday, October 28, the morning after the Nats dropped the third straight World Series game at home to the Astros in another lackluster performance. Not the same without Sherzer. Odds for taking home the trophy don’t look good.

So  we are now in  Lima. We passed over  the equator two nights ago, but it is surprisingly cool here due to the chilly Humboldt Current which moves the frigid, Antarctica currents north along the western coast of South America. On shore typical high temperatures this time of year rarely exceed 70 with lows in the 50s. Mornings are usually gray, but the clouds and mist often burn off in the afternoons brightening the seascape and landscape.

 We were here in the late 1970s when we visited our good friends, Hank and Mel Ackerman in Lima. Hank was bureau chief of the AP at the time, and we spent about 10 days with them and their two young children getting a journalist’s perspective on the country. My most vivid memory was touring with Hank one of the huge barrios in Lima. Now euphemistically called an “informal settlement,” the Lima barrio was our first exposure to abject poverty on a massive scale. We also visited Cusco and spent a day in Machu Picchu.  Except for our near death experience due to eating street food in Machu Picchu (duh), the trip was fabulous.

So we are back in Peru, a country of more than 33 million and the center of the vast Incan Empire in the 14th and 15th Centuries. The first of three stops was yesterday in the port serving the small, bustling city of Trujillo on the northern  Peruvian Pacific Coast several hundred miles north of Lima. The main attraction of Trujillo is its proximity to two major archeological sites considered among the best in South America. So the theme of the day was ancient history.

Our two guides for this excursion were women in their forties, both very enthusiastic and proud of their Peruvian heritage, but very difficult for me to understand because of their heavy Spanish accent. The ruins were from two civilizations that preceded the Incan civilization. The first was the Moche civilization, which was dominant in the area for first several centuries in the Common Era. The second was the Chimu civilization, which lasted from 900 CE until the Colonial conquest in the mid 16th Century. One of the guides described herself as a proud Moche descendant and complained that the Incas got all the attention and credit while earlier and just as important civilizations were overlooked.

We will visit the big archeological museum in Lima  and learn more, but what is most interesting is just how far back their history goes. There is evidence that human life in what is now Peru was present as early as 11000 BCE though not much is known about these early human civilizations before about 2000 BCE.  Archeologists now have identified some 18 distinct civilizations prior to the Incas, many quite large and complex with centuries-long histories. One area we visited   was Chan Chan, an ancient, partially restored, Chimu city, which covers several square kilometers. We walked over a mile through a small part of the old city with its restored, adobe walls that made you feel like you were in a huge maze. Without a guide it is the kind of place that you could get lost in for weeks. The other ancient  city was the site of the Sun and the Moon Temples of the Moche civilization, huge impressive adobe structures carved out of the hills.

What archeologists now know about these early people is that religion was very important and for some involved human sacrifice. The sun and moon were both worshipped, and these early Peruvians believed in an afterlife. Rulers were buried in tombs with their prized possessions to help them get a good start in the next life, very similar to the religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians at about the same time. The restored art work on the walls of the city also looked to me to be very similar to the art of the Egyptians. They also were united behind a strong ruler, and war was central to their dominance. If there were peaceful cultures or civilizations in those ancient times, they did not survive long enough to leave a trace. I guess you could call this one of life’s sad lessons. We are still dealing with this aspect of our human nature today. In spades.

The town of Trujillo is a city of around 200,000 and thriving with traffic jams, lots of honking and the sidewalks full of people. While many of the homes were modest, and the narrow streets had their  usual trash and graffiti, you got the feeling that overall it was a fairly robust and dynamic town. The villages we passed through on our way to the ruins were a different story though not as bleak as what we saw in Ecuador mainly due to the fields of corn and potatoes around them, permitted by extensive irrigation. 

I could not help noticing that the vast majority of homes in the village were only half completed. There was a first floor, but on most houses rebars extended into the air waiting for a second floor to be built. The guide later explained that besides running short on funds to build a second floor, the real reason was that in those villages, only houses that were completed had to pay real estate taxes. 

The entire coastal area of this part of Peru is bone dry but viable for farming due to irrigation. When I asked our guide if it ever rains here, she replied, “Yes, of course, it rains. I heard there was a good shower about 20 years ago.” 

Next post will be about Lima, a mega-city with a population of over 11 million, making it the second largest city in South America, just behind Sao Paola.

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After a day at sea we arrived in Ecuador at sunrise on October 24, the morning after the Nats won the second game of the World Series from the heavily-favored Astros. Thankfully I am able to watch on the ship’s television. Inning Seven will go down in the history books.

At 6:30 in the morning the Zaandam tied up alongside a long pier across from two Mexican naval vessels and  near a vast harbor with scores of moored fishing boats. This port town in Ecuador is called Manta, a city of about 200,000 and very different from Panama City. There are no high rises here, and most buildings are old, some quaint, but most mundane. Our excursion began at 7:30 and took us as quickly as it could directly out of Manta on a winding two-lane country road along the coast. The only road near  where we were which appears on Google Maps is “Pan American15, ” but it is hard to believe what we were on is major highway. The narrow road took our bus loaded with two dozen passengers from the ship up and down steep hills for a drive taking over two hours. We passed through a dozen or so small villages– settlements, really—and one small fishing village. Our destination was a large national park about 50 miles to the south along the shore, which was home to one of the county’s largest “dry forests.”

The real story of the morning for me, however, was what we saw along the way. Embry and I have seen first hand a lot of poverty in the world. We have visited remote settlements  in Tanzania and Kenya and in India and Southeast Asia where people live in makeshift homes or huts along dusty roads, often without power or fresh water. We were not aware that villages like this dominated this part of South America, but here they were, staring us in the face. Every settlement we passed along the way consisted of homes similar to those we saw in the jungle in Panama but even more bleak. This may have been due more to the surroundings than the homes themselves. Instead of a luxuriant rain  forest with blue skies overhead, the houses we saw along this lonely stretch of road in Ecuador were surrounded by gray bushes and shrubs covered with dust under a steel gray sky. Our guide,–also very good, like the one yesterday, knowledgeable and easy to understand– pointed out that this part of Ecuador was just coming out of its winter season when it does not rain and all the leaves fall off the trees and shrubs. This was the “dry forest,” the main attraction of the tour. In the mist and under the dark gray morning skies, to us it mostly looked like a wasteland and another reminder of just how hard scrabble life is for a lot of people on the planet Earth.

The other thing that he pointed out was that Ecuador is one of the most climate-diverse countries in the world with dozens of microclimates. Not only is most of the country mountainous with peaks well over 10,000 feet, Ecuador  also includes the Galapagos Islands. 

On our way out we drove through a cloud forest with fog and mist and along occasional fields of green. Most of the time though, everything was gray and dreary.   When we arrived at the national park, except for two police cars, our bus was the only vehicle in  a parking lot that could accommodate at most about 50 cars. Though overcast the area was beautiful in a haunted sort of way with towering cliffs and a wide, sandy beach surrounding an inlet from the Pacific. Most of us in our group took off our shoes and walked along the two mile-long beach for an hour or so before hopping back on the bus. A couple of Scots and two younger guys from our group jumped in the chilly water and paddled around, later insisting that it was really not all that cold.

The trip back brought us to a small archeological site in a  deserted valley served by a trickle of water which when the rains come in several weeks will turn into a raging river. Our two-mile  hike along the riverbed took us through several banana farms and small huts occupied by subsistence farmers. Emaciated goats, horses and occasional pigs roamed the area. At one point when the trickle in the riverbed emptied into a small pool, we saw a dozen or so women  washing clothes and a couple bathing. This is a part of Ecuador that I suspect few tourists see. You could not call it representative of the whole country because Ecuador is so diverse in terrain and climate. The bulk of the population of this small country, smaller than any other country in South America except Uruguay and about half the size of France,  lives in the mountains in and around Quito. At an altitude of almost 10,000 feet Quito has a metro population of  over three million in a country with a total population of only 15 million. It is too bad that we will not be able to go there. It is the second highest capital in the world and the closest, large city to the equator. It is also too bad we will not get to see the Galapagos Islands.

In stark contrast to the poverty we observed as we inched along on the winding two-lane road, we had lunch on the top of a coastal mountain overlooking the sea at a small, upscale resort with outdoor tables surrounding a swimming pool and a hot tub perched at the edge of a cliff. The food and service were excellent and another reminder that vast disparities are a way of life here. 

On our return the sun finally burned through the gray clouds and mist and turned the gray Pacific Ocean into sparkling blue. The dust covered shacks that we passed on the way back did not seem quite so bleak as they did going out, but it will take more than blue skies to transform lives of toil and, what would appear to me anyway, with more than their fair share of misery.

I suppose that a shortcoming of this cruising adventure is that we will see so little of the countries we visit and our experience will be superficial, just skimming the surface. This is surely a fair statement to which I reply that just a touch is better than nothing. Tomorrow another day at sea and then our first of three stops in Peru.

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I had no idea what to expect from the rest of Panama. As we were approaching the series of locks on the Pacific side of the canal, the tops of thin skyscrapers in Panama City  peeped above the hills. Not your typical backwater town, I noted. Indeed! As we reached Panama City around nine pm, the skyline was lit up like lower Manhattan; and when we woke up the next morning in the predawn mist, the comparison that came to mind was Hong Kong. The thin city extends along the shoreline facing due south for something like 10 miles with rows of 50-60 story buildings that soon sparkled in the morning sun. 

The Zaandam  was anchored in a vast harbor dotted with  dozens of other vessels, mainly large commercial ships and fishing boats. We were up early to begin our first excursion, which departed for shore via tender at 7:00, along with about 25 others in our group. The boat ride to shore was only about 15 minutes, taking us to a large, private marina with  a whole bunch of million dollar yachts and a handful of large sailboats tucked away in floating slips that I calculated must experience something like 10-foot tidal variations.  There our guide and our tour bus for the day met us. 

We departed from the marina before eight and did not return to the ship until after four. It was a long day. We began by driving through the city with its mix of glistening new condos and office buildings and older neighborhoods with more modest buildings, many showing their age. Before we left the city the bus took us though the Canal Zone where the Americans used to live and which is now the most prestigious part of the city with many mansions and large homes. We then drove over the mountains and through the dense rain forests, passing by a number of small villages tucked away under banana trees and clearings in the dense forest where the houses were small and scruffy with tin roofs and cement block walls. Some had makeshift fences  around muddy “pastures” containing  goats and pigs and laundry drying in the warm, morning sun. Along the way our guide pointed out a few “informal settlements,” where squatters now lived but  actually fewer than I had expected to see. 

The sights and experiences of the day included a boat ride in search of wildlife on a secluded part of Gatun Lake, (We saw several monkeys, two sloths and a bunch of birds.), then a visit to a tiny, aboriginal village on the lake, and finally a visit to the new part of the Panama Canal, which we had not seen since the Zaandam made the passage on the old  section.

The guide was excellent. Probably in his early or mid thirties, he looked to me a little like Cory Booker and was passionate and enthusiastic about his country. He was also honest, pointing out the resentment toward us Americans for controlling the canal for so long and how the treaty signed by Jimmy Carter giving the canal back to Panama in 1999 averted a full scale revolution. He did not shy away from gently pointing out the income, class and ethnic disparities that currently exist in his country. 

The part I will remember most vividly is the aboriginal village. On a tiny peninsula in Gatun Lake, we visited a village of thatched roof huts where about 12 Indian families live —about 60 people including maybe a dozen kids. They have lived for a decade or so on Gatun Lake after they were forcefully removed from their homes in the rain forest to the south, which is now a national park. These people are no taller than four, at most four-and-a-half feet, and the men wear loincloths and the women colorful skirts and flimsy tops. The huts are elevated and have virtually no furniture. You can’t easily figure out how they survive. 

Well, one way they survive is hosting tourists like us, putting on a show of dancing and music, selling their arts and crafts, and telling their stories (through a translator). It felt to me at times  like we were guilty of exploitation. Certainly the small tribe we visited would not do this kind of thing unless they had to. Certainly it is not the core part of their life as hunters and fishers and subsistence farmers. Certainly the invasion of their privacy is not something they would wish for. But yet here they are. Is this how tribes like this survive into the 21^st Century? They are part of a larger group of Panamanian aborigines estimated to number about 28,000 people. You can’t help asking how long they will last.

Part of the challenge of this trip will be keeping the countries straight. A day here and a day or two there. Before long a lot will be hard to keep straight. Was that in Panama or Peru? Argentina or Uruguay?  This may not turn out to be quite as confusing as it might be because the central story of the South American continent is a shared story: Humans migrated here from Asia via the Bearing Straight several thousand years before the Common Era. Some of these ancient civilizations were quite complex and sophisticated, comparing favorably with what we know about  what was happening about the same time in ancient, advanced societies like Egypt, Mesopotamia and China.  Civilizations came and went in South America; and by the mid part of the 15^th Century, three vast empires had emerged: the Aztecs and Mayans, mainly in what is now Mexico, and the Incas in the western part of South America. These civilizations counted their numbers in the millions. Many lived in cities with populations in the hundreds of thousands. Then in the mid 16^th Century when the Spanish Conquistadors arrived, life changed forever. While the advanced weapons of the Europeans–and their horses–made the slaughter of the native population easy, diseases brought with them to the New World were the real killer, resulting in deaths totaling in the millions. The European invasion came close to wiping out an entire  population.

 Colonialism was the norm for the next three hundred years until the wars of liberation and nationalism of the mid 19^th Century, which created independent countries for the first time. That is the essential history you need to know which affected all the countries that we will visit. Individual countries, of course, will have their own unique history and culture, but the engine that drives each one is the same: colonialism. They are still living with this legacy as they continue to chart a path forward. As we cruise to our next port, there are newspaper reports of violent protests in Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina; and Brazil is  borderline  lawless. Should be interesting….

So what else is important about Panama?

• It is mainly a rain forest. Over 140 inches of rain fall a year in many places, and that affects all of life. Without the rain in the mountains, there would be no Panama Canal. There would not be enough water to replenish the water drained out when all the ships pass through.   Our guide warned us that it would rain on us; and that afternoon, the clouds poured out buckets. By late afternoon it was all over, and the sun peeked out just before it sunk below the Pacific.
• It is mainly jungle.  The population of five million is smaller than that of the Washington metro area. Panama City accounts for almost half of that with over two million people.
• It is a very new country, not gaining its independence from Columbia until 1904.
• It has toyed with socialism and had its share of dictators, Noriega being the most infamous.
• The disparities between those who have and those who don’t stare you in the face with fancy cars, fancy yachts, towering apartments and gated residences in and around Panama City and lots of tin-roofed shacks in the jungle areas.
• International commerce drives the economy  due to the canal, two large container ports, one on each side of the country, the world’s largest duty free shopping area, and tourism. Compared to many other South American countries, the economy is considered robust.
• If it has not already become apparent in this blog, the rain forest is spectacularly beautiful.

Now on to Ecuador!

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The passage through the Panama Canal did not disappoint. After a night at sea, on the morning of October 21st we rose at 5:15  when we were  to arrive at the Caribbean breakwater before entering the canal. After several days of cruising with rarely a vessel in sight, we saw  sparkling lights dotting the horizon everywhere as ships patiently waited in line. Cruise ships typically pay a premium to be able to break in line as was apparent in our case as we motored directly to the first lock as the sun was just starting to peak above the horizon. I  counted 26 ships behind us, all freighters, tankers or container ships. We watched from our balcony as the ship in front of us, a behemoth, red tanker, slowly started rising in the first lock.

So here is the deal on the Panama Canal, considered from its completion to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. For centuries it had become apparent that the easiest and fastest way to get from Europe to Asia, or vice versa, would be sailing through the narrow isthmus that connects the North American and South American continents. It was only about 50 miles wide at its narrowest point. If you could just figure out how to do it, you could save thousands of miles of travel at sea and cut weeks off the time—10 hours versus over three weeks for a modern freighter. But the hills were the problem. There were a lot of them, and the smallest were still almost 90 feet above sea level.

The French were the first to try it. In the late 18th Century, when the land was still part of Columbia, they negotiated a treaty, which gave them the rights to build a canal. It took over 20 years for them to throw in the towel, after tens of thousands of deaths and the realization that cutting a ditch over 150 feet deep for much of the 50 miles was not feasible. Most of the deaths came from sickness and disease—yellow fever, malaria, and cholera—than from accidents. The price was too high for the French. They bailed.

Enter the Americans. By the end of the 19^th century,  Teddy Roosevelt, had his eye on the real estate and as president in 1904 persuaded the fledgling Republic of Panama to let the U.S. take over the canal project from France. The agreement provided for the U.S. to build and control the canal for perpetuity. It took just over 10 years to get it done, but not without losing over five thousand workers and costing what in today’s dollars would amount to over $ 8 billion plus another $25 billion paid to Panama and more than quadruple that to France. The solution was a series of locks—three on the Atlantic (Caribbean) side and three on the Pacific side—and creating a  massive body of water in the middle,  Gatun Lake,  by damming up two rivers.  It was an engineering masterpiece and still functions successfully with one new series of locks (wider and longer for the bigger commercial vessels)  completed three years ago. For the past 19  years the canal has been owned  and operated by Panama (the Torrijos-Carter Treaty in 1977),  which gained full control on the last day of the Twentieth Century. About 14,000 ships pass through annually or between 35 and 40 ships a day. Based on size and tonnage, the average fee paid by vessels using the original two-lane locks is estimated to be around $150,000 with cruise ships and large commercial vessels paying a lot more. The fee for the Zaandam was reportedly around $450,000 though I could never get anything definitive on this. The larger vessels using the new, one-lane locks pay more than double what the ships in the older section pay. All this produces over $2  billion in gross revenues annually, nets about $800 million for Panama, and is the main driver of Panama’s relatively strong  economy. Supposedly the canal is open to small, private vessels as well, but we did not see any vessel in the canal or waiting in line for passage that was not a large, commercial vessel.

The experience for me I suspect will turn out to be one of the trip highlights. Just being part of a passage experienced by passengers and crew on more than a million other vessels from all parts of the world for more than one hundred years was special. The weather cooperated as well with no storms or rain, which for Panama this time of year was unusual. Most of the crossing is on Gatun Lake. This 45-mile stretch was gorgeous with lush, dense rain forests lining the banks of the lake  and no sign of any human activity or habitation until we reached the last series of locks taking us back down to sea level on the Pacific side.  For some reason it took us about 12 hours to complete the passage, about two hours more than usual, and we did not arrive in Panama City, our next port of call, until just before nine pm.  Panama City will be the subject of the next blog.

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We are at sea today 50 or 60 miles off the coast of Columbia, headed west toward the Panama Canal, cruising at 18.8 knots. Our scheduled entry to the canal is 5:00 o’clock tomorrow morning. Winds are out of the southeast at 10-12 knots with two-foot seas glistening in the morning sun. Clouds dot the blue horizon with showers and an occasional rainbow. Does it get any better? All I can think of that would be better is being on a sailboat in these near perfect conditions though there is nary a sail to be seen. 

Yesterday the Vaandam  was docked all day in Aruba, a tiny country off the coast of Venezuela.  The island, a protectorate of the Netherlands, is only 20 miles long and 10 miles wide and  has a population of around 100,000.  Its white, fine-grained sandy beaches are considered among the most beautiful in the world. Embry and I did not let the opportunity go to waste. Right after breakfast we headed out with towels in our backpacks and hiked about two miles to the nearest beach, where we rented two lounge chairs under a palm umbrella. Embry got in her swim in crystal clear waters with perfect temperatures while I sort of bounced around in the salt water and floated effortlessly. We strolled down the beach for lunch at a raunchy bar where we sat across from a bunch of drunk, beefy, middle-aged, laughing Americans with tattoos. Two foot long iguanas slivered up under our table begging for a morsel of food, and grackles perched fearlessly on the chairs around us.  Welcome to the islands! This will probably turn out to be the only experience we will have like this since the Pacific Ocean will much colder and rougher, and the South American ports will not be as lazy and laidback as Aruba. 

As we dozed away and read our books under the shade canopy, it was hard for me not to notice about a half dozen women and one guy under the canopy next to us, all in their early twenties, clad in very skimpy bikinis and all drop-dead gorgeous. I wondered if there might be a beauty contest going on somewhere. I could not help making the comparison between these 20-somethings and all us 70 and 80-somethings on the ship. A lot happens to our bodies over a lifetime. Were we passengers on the Vaandam ever that young? Did we ever look like that? Will they look like us in 50 or 60 years? Of course, the answer is yes, sort of. Such is life and our fate as homo sapiens on the planet Earth.  And looking  back on it as a septuagenarian or an octogenarian, you can’t help observing, my, how fast it all goes by.

Back on board that evening Embry and I had dinner at the fancy, onboard restaurant, which is not included in the standard fare and offers fixed-priced, gourmet meals for an additional $50. But for us it was free because we had received a special gift card upon our arrival from an anonymous source. We also received a special gift card entitling us to free alcoholic  beverages  for the entire cruise, limited to 15 drinks per person per day. Only 15 drinks per day? My goodness. While it is a bit of a mystery, we suspect that we are being cultivated for something. Once we figure out who is cultivating us, I will sign up and buy whatever it is they are selling. In  any event the meal was spectacular and worth ever penny that we did not have to spend. And we are indeed taking advantage of the drink gift card though, rest assured, we are staying well below the maximum allowed free drinks.

The service was also spectacular at the fancy restaurant as it has been everywhere  on the ship since the moment we arrived and leads me to my conclusion as to what is so appealing about cruising. Every employee we have passed onboard–and I mean every employee, no  exceptions—looks you in the eye, smiles, and says something like, “Good morning, how are you today?” Many also ask us if we need any help, just let them know. Now where, other than being on a cruise ship, do people smile at you all the time and ask how you are doing? I can’t help wondering how Holland America trains these people. Some hotel chains come close like the Ritz Carlton or the Hyatt or Marriott resort hotels, but nobody does hospitality training better than Holland America. I also can’t help thinking how much better the whole world would be if hospitality training was a required course for everyone on the planet. Having another person—someone you do not even know—greet you, look you in the eye, smile, and say hello is transformative. It makes you feel so good. It is contagious. You can’t help smiling back and something like, “Hope you have a good day too.” If we all did this to each other all the time, would there be wars? 

And to be clear: it is not because Holland America hires only “nice people.” They hire ordinary people just like every company does. The Holland America cruise ship experience is exhibit A that people can in fact be trained to be nice to other people, even if it is only during working  hours and on a superficial level. But, hey, this is a start and better than the day-to-day meanness and acrimony that are too much part of our lives in the “real world.” And I am convinced  that when all is said and done, a major part of the cruising experience is the hospitality you receive every day, every hour, no exceptions. If only one of the candidates for president would step forward and promise, “Mandatory hospitality training for all, no exceptions,” he or she would be elected, hands down.

The other thing that stands out about the crew on the Vaandam is their diversity, and I will return to that in a later blog. Now, on to the Panama Canal, one of the wonders of the world I have always wanted to see. Stay tuned….

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On Wednesday, October 16, Embry and I boarded a Holland American  cruise ship, the M.S. Vaandam. The 20-year old ship is considered small (and old) by today’s standards, accommodating “only”  about 1,500 passengers and  500  crew. The cruise began in Ft. Lauderdale and 35 days later will end up in Rio with 17 stops and excursions along the way. We will spend several days in Rio after the cruise and then make our way  flying back  to Buenos Aries  for a few more days on our own before flying to Washington two days before Thanksgiving. It is a big trip, maybe not so big when compared to our around-the-world-without-flying adventure in 2015 but still big for us. Just two codgers trying to squeeze a few  more drops out of the lemon.

I have to give all the credit to Embry. She is the one who comes up with these travel ideas and makes all the arrangements. I just tag along for the ride. I have thoroughly enjoyed every trip. Last time we added them up, between the two of us we were just short of visiting 50 countries. When we return we will have added another eight: Aruba, Panama, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, the Falkland Islands, Uruguay, and Brazil. We will pretty much have checked everything off our must-visit list.

My guess is that most people reading this will have been on at least one cruise. If not it should go on your bucket list. The way cruises work   nowadays is that because there is a wide range in pricing depending on how big your cabin is and whether it has a widow or balcony, the experience is surprisingly affordable by people who do not consider themselves rich, and most cruises on mid-market ships like those in the Holland American fleet serve a pretty broad range of passengers, not just a bunch of rich white folks. For example, we had dinner last night with a group from Detroit who were retired skilled blue collar, union workers—and, I might add, Trump supporters. And having a mix is a good thing since living inside the Beltway limits our exposure to people who pretty much think like we do. Besides Americans from different walks of life and parts of the US, in just two days we have met or dined with people from the UK, New Zealand, Canada and Japan.

The thing that stands out most about this cruise, however, is the demographic profile of our fellow passengers: mainly people in our age bracket or older. There is a smattering of people with canes, wheel chairs and walkers, and lots of  people with gray and white hair. You could call it a virtual, floating retirement community. As one whose career was providing technical assistance to developers of retirement communities, I feel right at home. It sort of figures since a 35-day voyage does not accommodate most people with jobs or kids in school.

The two days in the  Caribbean have been spectacular—gentle seas and breezes with Carolina blue sky, white cloud puffs and blue-green waters.  We have not seen a single sailboat or private motorboat since leaving Ft. Lauderdale. Our vessel has skirted the north coast of Cuba and passed Haiti to our east and will arrive at eight tomorrow morning in Aruba. As with most cruises there is something going on most of the time if you are interested—cooking classes, card games, lectures, concerts, and evening entertainment—and food is ample and ubiquitous. Not sure if  power walks around the deck for a couple of miles each day will help keep the pounds off. To keep from gaining five pounds a week may be our biggest challenge. So off to a good start. Following the day in Aruba we head for the Panama Canal. Stay tuned. 

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Dear Friends,

I know you are going through some hard times right now. You do not like Trump any more than I do.  He has stolen your party. He has forced you out. The ideals of a smaller, smarter federal government, personal responsibility, fair play in a robust private sector, responsible foreign policies, and balanced budgets—these Republican ideals are gone, vanished.  Having a vulgar, self-dealing narcissist in the White House is not any more your cup of tea than it is mine.   Your response has been to call yourself an Independent. Some of you may still call yourselves Republicans but are really RINOs (“Republicans In Name Only”), having had your fill of Donald Trump.

But you have a problem. Whom are you going to vote for in 2020? It won’t be Trump, that is for sure. But which Democrat can you vote for? What if the Democrats do not nominate a center-left candidate? What if it is Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren? Several of you have told me that you will sit this one out. 

And that becomes a real problem, not only for us Democrats but for the country. It is a problem because if the Independents, moderates and former Republicans do sit this one out, Trump will be in for four more years. We need you because we do not have four more years to waste.

Now it is possible that Trump may not survive the Whistleblower incident. He would appear to be in a meltdown mode right now, but we can’t count on his self-destruction. While the House probably will impeach him, the Senate most likely will not convict unless matters get really, really worse.  The only certain way to get rid of Trump is to vote him out in 2020. We need your help to do this. 

So hear me out on why you should not rule out a progressive, Democratic candidate. 

There are two issues that I have heard you complain about with regard to your voting for a progressive Democrat. The first is personality.  Some of you have told me that you held your nose and voted for Hillary but would not do it again for, say, Elizabeth Warren. She is just “too shrill,” too much like Hillary, and too far left-wing. And you think Bernie is a socialist nutcase, with Trump-like, authoritarian tendencies. There may be personality issues with other candidates as well. My response is that compared to who we have in the White House right now, any human who can fog a mirror is an improvement. I am asking you to put aside personality when you walk into the voting booth. I am asking you to think about policy and the future of the planet Earth.

The number one issue of our time—perhaps of all time—is climate change. Trump and too many, elected Republican officials deny that climate change is happening or if it is, that human activity has anything to do with it. We have pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement and are pursuing an all-in carbon policy, and that will continue if Trump gets reelected. Need there be any other reason not to sit this one out?

There are, of course, lots of other reasons. Our foreign policy is a mess. Trump’s heroes are dictators. He has alienated our allies and befriended our adversaries. Trump has exploited the divisions in our country and made them worse. He is a racist. His immigration policies and actions are cruel. He is trying to shred the social safety net, and his policies benefit the rich rather than the poor and middle class. He is a habitual liar. The list is long.

While you would never call yourself a progressive or a liberal, I believe that in your heart you  agree in principle with many of the progressive policy goals: universal health care coverage (but not Medicare for all), a fair and reasonable immigration policy, fair and reasonable trade policies, stronger gun control policies, more affordable, public higher education, and preserving a social safety net. You may disagree on the methods but not so much on the goals; and overall, I believe many of the progressive positions should not be deal killers—though I recognize that the devil is in the details. 

The major disagreement it seems to me has to do with how we pay for all the “good things” the progressives want to do. The progressive, left wing of the Democratic Party sees the rich paying for the new initiatives and proposes higher taxes on the wealthy. Some of you see higher taxes as a non-starter and a brake on a robust economy. However, following the last tax reform, the situation now is way out of balance. I call your attention to David Leonhardt’s op ed piece in the October 6 New York Times (“The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You”), which shows that the super-rich now pay a lower share of their income than the average American taxpayer. For bleeding hearts like me, this is an absolute no-brainer. Of course the wealthy should pay more! Though hardly super-rich, yes, I would agree to pay more taxes to further a progressive agenda. I realize that for a whole bunch of reasons this may be a stumbling block for you. I am asking that you put this one aside for now. I realize there are probably a bunch of other issues as well that you disagree with, not so much as to the goal but the methods– like a guaranteed living wage, legislation encouraging stronger labor unions, and more government “over regulation.” No president is going to be able to achieve everything or even most of his or her policy goals anyway, so you need not panic. Chill out for now. The stakes are just too high.

And there is one other reason, and this may be just as important as the climate change reason. Donald Trump has debased the presidency and has put at risk the role of the United States as the leader and guiding light for democracy on the planet Earth. If our democracy goes down the tubes, what is going to happen to the other countries in the world? Just as the climate change issue is showing us how fragile our planet is, the presidency of the most corrupt administration in American history is showing us how fragile our governance is. Trump has convinced about forty percent of the American electorate that our press writes fake news, that facts are what you want them to be, that he is infallible, and that whatever it takes to get elected is fair game. If he can get away with his reckless and, frankly, unamerican actions, our democracy, our country and indeed our planet are in deep trouble.

Now there is one message that I have heard from you that resonates with a lot of people and that is that you are sick and tired of the divisions in our country and the us versus them attitude with not much room in the middle. You believe our country needs more than anything a leader who can pull us together rather than divide us. The very heart of Trump’s strategy, of course, is to divide us and play to his “base.” I agree with you on the need to come together and will be hoping that a Democratic candidate will emerge that has the ability to do this without sacrificing the principles of more fairness and less income (and class) disparity. That said, the voting process does not mean selecting the best person for the job but rather the best choice among those who are running for office. Think “any normal, functioning adult.”

So, my moderate and independent friends, suck it up. Keep your eye on the ball. Hold your nose if you have to, but for God’s sake, do not sit this one out. Vote for the Democrat opponent even if that person turns out to be Elizabeth Warren or (God forbid) Bernie Sanders. The world our grandchildren will inherit depends on it.

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At a hastily-called news conference held today, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham flanked by every Republican senator except Mitch Romney, repeated their unequivocal and unyielding support for their beleaguered president.  Here is the transcript of the brief news conference.

McConnell: Thank you for coming. I am going to read a statement and then along with my esteemed colleague, the distinguished senator from South Carolina, will answer your questions:

“No quid pro quo.”

Now the senator and I will take questions.

Reporter: That is the statement?

McConnell: Look.  After careful review of the record, we believe there is no evidence to support any wrongdoing by the president and that a full-fledged investigation will begin tomorrow to determine if former vice president, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, should be sent to prison and also to determine the whereabouts of Hillary Clinton’s emails, which the president believes are somewhere in The Ukraine. Furthermore we believe that the so called whistleblower should be identified and tried for treason and if convicted executed. The whistleblower should be tortured if necessary to provide the names of those who collaborated with him; and  when identified, they all will be tried and executed. Does that answer your question?

Reporter: Are you disputing the facts associated with the complaint by the whistleblower?

Graham: What facts? What is a fact? This whole ordeal is a pathetic nothing-burger. The complaint in the press is not an exact transcript but a summary prepared by those associated with the Deep State. The whistleblower was not even an eye witness. The whole fake story is contrived by Democrats to unseat a popular leader they do not like and who they know they can’t beat at the polls. Our president is a leader who many others and I believe is the greatest president to ever live including George Washington.

Reporter: But the president himself has  admitted saying the things in the complaint.

Graham: That’s what the fake news says, but you know what he said was not a quid pro quo.

McConnell: Yes, I agree and furthermore  even if Trump had said those things like he admits he did, there is nothing wrong with that. A president has to defend himself just like everyone else has to, and he has to fight back. There is no law saying you can’t ask  a foreign leader to give you dirt on an evil adversary.

Reporter: What or who is the president defending himself from?

McConnell: From Sleezy Joe Biden. Lying Biden is guilty as charged of canning the excellent prosecutor in The Ukraine who was in the process of jailing Biden’s crooked, despicable and totally evil son. He will be locked up along with his dad,  Sleepy Joe. Trump is doing the country a favor by exposing Sleezy Joe for who he is, a pathetic ner-do-well, who can’t shoot straight and who will have to run his campaign from jail. The investigation of the entire Biden family including their pets starts tomorrow.

Graham: Yes, yes! The American people know that the fake press can’t be trusted and that there  are no such things as facts. We Republicans have our facts, and the no good Democrats have theirs, which are fake facts. It will all boil down to whose facts you want to believe. The Republican base will always believe the president’s facts given the fact that he has never told a lie and never made a mistake. The faith in the president by his devoted base will get him re-elected. Long live the president! 

Commentary by the editor of Faux News

It is possible that the impeachment inquiry will backfire and result in the reelection of the most corrupt, immoral, and incompetent president our country has ever seen. It is also possible that the concept of a fact becomes a casualty of cable TV and alternative news networks. If half the population were watching Walter Cronkite every night instead of Sean Hannity, disputing facts would not be an issue.  This is the fragile world we live in.

But what also cannot be disputed is the “fact” that the Democrats did not have the option of casting a blind eye on a president  who has stepped over the line numerous times and also has admitted to the actions contained in the whistleblower’s complaint.  Using the office of the president to force a foreign power to intervene in our election cannot be allowed to stand. The precious democracy we cherish is at stake.

So let the chips fall. Let the Republicans argue that there was no quid pro quo and proclaim that Trump’s actions were not illegal. Let the Democrats pursue the impeachment inquiry honestly and deliberately. I have not given up hope in the American people. I believe that while Trump may not be removed from office by the impeachment process, there are still enough Americans who are able to distinguish between fact and fiction that will vote this scoundrel out of office. I realize that this falls into the category of an act of faith. The stakes have never been higher. If we do not as a nation rise to the occasion, God help us. God help the planet Earth.

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Living With A Wild God is a 2014 book by Barbara Ehrenreich, which I recently read for a book group. The author wrote Nickel and Dimed, a book about her experience working for a three-month period as a minimum wage worker, an insightful book about the new working class, which I enjoyed immensely. This book, however, is very different. It is the story of her struggle to make sense out of the world (her “quest for truth”), having grown up in a somewhat dysfunctional, working class household with two avowed atheists for parents. The subtitle on the cover of the book is “ A non-believers search for the truth about everything.”

What I find most engaging about the book is despite describing herself as an atheist, what Ehrenreich  describes is her lack of belief in a certain type of god–a rigid, monotheistic god.  Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, made the comment at a recent gathering at our neighborhood Episcopal church that when someone says he or she is an atheist, she often asks, “Now tell me the characteristics of this god you do not believe in.” She often answers that she does not believe in that god either.

Now while Ehrenreich’s concept of “The Other” or “The Presence” would probably not fit nicely into an Episcopal bishop’s understanding of God, it comes dangerously close to mine. She acknowledges a Divine “Presence” in all of life  and the validity of mystical experiences. These experiences–like the one she had at age 17 in a Death Valley town called Lone Pine– cannot be explained by science but are nonetheless real. She also believes humans are not fundamentally different from other animals but rather only higher up on the food chain and that the presence of “The Other” is throughout all of creation. If this sounds a lot like animism, I suppose it is. I have always described myself unapologetically as a closet animist.

Most people today are aware that the mainstream Christian Church in the U.S. and most developed countries is in decline. I think that one reason for this is the association of the Christian Church with the kind of rigid description of God that Ehrenreich rejects. We Christians should enlarge the tent and broaden our understanding of the Divine Presence in our lives. Rigid, strict “orthodoxy” is a turnoff for many GenXers and Millennials and for a lot of people who like Ehrenreich are on their own spiritual journey. Most humans ask these questions: Why are we here? Why do we die? What is this all about? Simplistic, pat answers may satisfy some people, but they are fewer and fewer in our secular age.

Now I have been an active church-person almost all my life. I am an Episcopalian, and the Episcopal Church is very progressive in a lot of ways. It has led the way on issues of inclusiveness and sexuality and is generally  pretty good on social justice issues. But we still have to say the Nicene or Apostles Creed at every service. These ancient creeds describe the type of God that makes no sense to Ehrenreich or, for that matter, to me. Here are some of my questions:

[We believe in] God the Father: Is God really  a human-like deity? Why a “he” and not a “she”? Does God really have two hands, two feet and male organs? Ok, maybe we should not take this literally, but if that is the case, why is this language in there?

Jesus his “only son.”Now I know that for some this is the absolute essence of Christianity. But if God is not really a “he” but, like Ehrenreich says, more a Divine Presence, how can a “Divine Presence” or “Other” have a son? Even if God is a he, how exactly does this fatherhood thing work? I mean he is up there and Mary was  down here, right? But where exactly might “up there” be? And what about Joseph? The Gospel of Mathew traces Jesus’s linage through Joseph, not Mary, all the way back to  Abraham. That would imply that Joseph was the father. And how come Jesus is God’s only son? There are a lot of planets in the universe, probably well into the trillions. Isn’t it possible that there might be another son somewhere else? Keep in mind, we say in the creed that God is the maker of “heaven and earth and all that is seen and unseen.”

Jesus came down from heaven. So if he came down here from up there, what was he doing up there before he came down here? And why did he come down here to save us? I know, you really aren’t supposed to take this literally and that this idea is the cornerstone of Paul’s theology, but still…

Jesus descended into hell. (Apostle’s Creed) Why did he do that and where exactly might hell be?  Is it below the Earth’s surface? How far down? What was he doing there for three days?

Ascended Into Heaven.I suppose what comes down goes back up, but you get the picture.

[Jesus is now] seated at the right hand of God.  Back to his god-man thing. Why would God have hands and why the right hand? And why are God and Jesus just sitting there and not doing anything?

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. So what about judging all these dead people? I thought that Christians believed that when you die you go to heaven or to hell and do not have to wait around until Jesus comes back. Some or maybe all of these dead people have been waiting around over 2,100 years  for his return.

We look to the resurrection of the dead (“body” in the Apostles Creed). Does this imply we are stuck with the bodies we die with for eternity?  Given a choice between living in eternity as a 25-year old versus an eternity as a 90-year old, wouldn’t most people choose the former?

I can hear some of my Union Seminary classmates groaning along with a lot of others who are devout Christians.  Doesn’t this guy get it? Doesn’t he understand? This language is symbolic. It is not supposed to be taken literally.

Well, maybe not, but the challenge is that even if the language is not taken literally, it still represents an effort of humans to describe in human language what is beyond description and beyond human understanding. Short answer:  much of the creed that Episcopalians are supposed to say at every service just does not make sense. At least it does not make sense to me though it is perfectly ok to conclude that this is just another nail in the coffin that proves I wasted four years of my life going to seminary. In any event, I don’t say the creed anymore myself. 

 The God that is meticulously described in the two major creeds of the Christian Church is what Ehrenreich has rebelled against and a lot of other, self identified “atheists” are rebelling against. I am not an atheist, but I have to agree with her that rigid monotheism is a turnoff for many. It should not have to be this way. God by definition is too vast and mysterious for us humans to fully understand or keep in a box constructed by us.  If truly “believing” the Nicene Creed is the only ticket to being Christian, it represents a pretty high bar. Good luck on turning around the decline of mainstream Christianity. 

Living With A Wild God if nothing else raises a lot of questions. It is honest—brutally honest at times—and, like most of what Ehrenreich has written, insightful. It surely gets you thinking.  It also suggests that we who have stuck with the church–albeit painfully at times–should pay attention.

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At 4:00 PM today President Trump issued an official hurricane warning for Iowa, which he said was in the direct path of Hurricane Dorian. Despite an immediate rebuttal by the U.S. Weather Service, the president persisted and upped the ante to declare the entire state of Iowa a disaster area, thus qualifying for millions of dollars for federal relief aid. Republicans universally applauded the action, citing among other things his warnings regarding Alabama issued earlier in the week.  Several senators, led by Lindsey Graham, argued that were it not for the president, the entire state could have been destroyed. The Governor of Alabama praised the president for his courage and forethought and thanked him for the millions of dollars that have been diverted from schools, shelters and day care centers in states like Maryland, New York and Massachusetts to assist the citizens of Alabama. 

Trump lashed out again about fake news and lambasted the press for not giving adequate coverage to the hurricane in Alabama and then against the “deep state” for posting government information contrary to what the president was saying. He announced that by Executive Order he was permanently closing down the Weather Service.

Several citizens in Iowa interviewed by Faux News expressed bewilderment that the state would be in the direct path of a hurricane since there is no evidence that any hurricane has ever reached the state or any state close to it. They went on to add however, that they were grateful to the president for shutting down schools, shelters, and day care centers in Maryland, New York, and Massachusetts to divert funds to Iowa, which would be received just in time for the Iowa primary. 

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