What a Neat Place, #3

Here today!

What a Neat Place, #2

Here for three days!

After 3 Days At Sea...

Mostly what I have available to me in the short time before we leave port is video--not sure I even took a still picture of "the Rock" itself, as there's so much going on!  I put a picture or two on Instagram....

Here, at least, is a zoomed-in picture of my ship from somewhere up on the Rock...

Travel day tomorrow, then an island stop.

What a Neat Place!

Here for several hours!

Going To Places I've Never Been

Leaving today on what will be my longest cruise ever, a cruise out of Amsterdam heading south and west.

A Few Pictures

Slept in and didn't try to crowd 100 things into today, and still had a great time.  Took a 2nd canal cruise today and still saw new things.  Here are a few pictures:

 If it says freedom, I'm there!  This is in the garden behind the Rijksmuseum.

 How many bridges can you see?

 No doubt I'm in Amsterdam.

The narrowest house in Amsterdam, only 2.5 meters wide at the bottom.

A Day of Extras

Before I talk about today's activities, let me confirm a few stereotypes about Amsterdam and the Dutch.  Yes, they're very tall--I've encountered plenty of women at least as tall as I am, for example.  Yes, in general they're very attractive.  And yes, everywhere you go you will encounter the smell of colitas rising up through the air; I'm probably going to have a contact high for 4 days after I leave Amsterdam.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about today.

We took a half-day excursion that took us to the windmills at Zaanse Schans, the fishing village of Volendam, and the wooden shoe factory at Marken.  Zaanse Schans strikes me as the Colonial Williamsburg of the Netherlands; it was very picturesque and interesting but nothing extra happened there.

Our next stop was Volendam, where, among other things, we learned how Dutch cheese is made (the town of Edam is right down the road, and Gouda is a little further away).  Our cheese instructor demonstrated a cheese cutting tool, and after cutting a few slices and giving it away to a few in our tour I noticed that I was really hungry.  So when she asked who would like to help demonstrate a second tool, I jumped at the opportunity and volunteered.  She called me up, asked me to cup my hands, and then she demonstrated a hand-held cheese grater.  For each type of cheese she mentioned, she scraped across a wedge of gouda and added more grated cheese to my hands.  When she was done I had about a ton of cheese in my hands, and that certainly took the edge off my hunger!

After dinner we went to a bakery and learned how stroopwafels are made.  Our demonstrator called up another man to help her, and she walked him through the process of making one.  The last step in the process is to use a cookie cutter-type device to make the stroopwafels perfectly round, but that leaves some excess from around the edges.  When she asked who would like to try a taste, I was adamant that I would.  She joked that I looked so hungry so she gave me the entire excess!  Then, of course, she cut up the actual stroopwafel and passed out pieces for others in the group to try.

By this time I was getting a reputation amongst our group as the guy who gets everything!  Hey, you can't get something if you don't ask for it, right?

It was time to board a boat and go out to Marken to see the wooden shoes made.  Long story short, I was the last person accepted onto the boat.  The captain asked if I'd like to join him in the wheelhouse.  Imagine the look on everyone's faces, sitting in their sets up the upper deck of the boat, as I walked by all of them with the captain, entered the wheelhouse, and closed the door behind me!  I took video of our departure from Volendam and our docking in Marken, and I took it from within the wheelhouse itself!  He even let me drive the boat for a bit!

When we got to the wooden shoe factory, I made a point of telling our group that I would not volunteer to help make any wooden shoes!  Laughs all around, and I made sure to sit in the back so that I wouldn't be volunteered!  Our shoe maker didn't ask for any volunteers for assistance.

My day started well before 5 this morning (still not used to the time zone), as my first picture today is timestamped 5:13 am.  It's now 11:04.  I'm ready for some beauty sleep.

Update, 7/20/18:

 Zaanse Schans

A street in Volendam

Volendam

Cheese being grated into my hands

Been a long time since anyone called me Captain Miller, but there you go.

A demonstration in the wooden shoe factory

California Time

I haven't found a setting that will set my blog posts to "local time", I have to choose a time zone.  Since most of my life is in the Pacific Time Zone, that's where I'll leave the blog.  Blog time = Pacific Time.

Which makes for some fun posting, sometimes.  Because right now it's 2:42 am on Thursday, making it dinner time back home!  I could manually change the blog to Greenwich+1, or whatever the setting is, but whatever.

The blog stays on California Time.  Because it seems I'm still on California time!

Made It!

Left San Francisco on time, but damage to the cargo bay made us over an hour late out of Toronto.  But the 787!  It's everything good you've heard about it, and then some!  Just one point, it's so nice to be able to look out the window without having to hunch over, it's that tall.  I was very impressed.  Growing up as I did in the 70s and 80s, and doing some flying in those decades, it still amazes me that a 2-engine aircraft can fly from North America to continental Europe.

We eventually made our way to the hotel, and after a change of clothes:

Blogging Will Be Lighter Than Usual For Awhile

Tomorrow, rather early, I'm off on my last trip of the summer, returning home only a few days before I have to go back to work.  But what a summer!  San Juan Island, the Yucatan, and now--I don't want to tell you just yet!  (Gotta give you a reason to come back here and check!)  I've scheduled a few posts to pop up periodically for the next many days, just to let you know where I anticipate being!  I will say that part of this trip is a cruise, and there will be at least one 3-day stint out in the water with no ports, which means no wifi at all, and thus no posting.  And when I get to the ports I'll probably want to explore these places I've never been before!  So again, blogging will be light.

However, the first couple days of the trip, and the last couple days, will be spent in large cities, and from there I'll be able to post pictures and updates.  In fact, I look forward to doing so!

So, a hint.  Tomorrow I leave on Air Canada.  Why Air Canada, and why a connection in Canada?   Because Air Canada flies Boeing 787's on the route from Canada to my first destination, and I want to fly on that aircraft!  (I hope they don't swap aircraft on me.)  Given the time zone changes and flight times, I probably won't post at all tomorrow.

Check back Wednesday!

(P.S.  Yes, my house is in good hands!)

Privilege

Words and their definitions are important:

First of all, “privilege” is a misnomer. Privilege has to do with special treatment. If one group faces discrimination, it does not necessarily mean another receives a particular privilege. If Gingers get picked on, it doesn’t mean the rest of us enjoy non-gingered privilege. What we are talking about are relative advantages, which are indeed real. Overuse of the word “privilege” turns people off; they are then less likely to stop and listen.

Opponents of privilege discussions must recognize, generally speaking, that life is easier in this country if you are born white, male and heterosexual. Denying this is an over-reaction. We must acknowledge that not everyone begins life with the same resources and benefits. Many face unfair hardships along the way – some are linked to race, gender, and religion.

Admitting that certain folks have relative advantages over others, however, does not make you a Lefty. I can admit the realities of my own unearned advantages without self-flagellating, liberal, white guilt.

Liberals who talk the most about “privilege,” however, need to recognize that they do not go far enough. There are numerous potential advantages that affect one’s chances in life. It is not just race and gender identity. Consider the enormous and disparate impact of wealth, attractiveness and intelligence. A man’s height is statistically significant when considering his potential for professional success; a person’s posture and weight also play a role.

And consider one of the most powerful unearned “privileges” that only some children enjoy: a two-parent home.

If liberals weren't trying to bludgeon their political opponents into silence, they'd consider these facts. 

We'd all be better off if, instead of creating false "unearned privileges" in order to merely reverse the perceived power structure, liberals would work to help those they deem disadvantaged to overcome their disadvantages.  It seems to me that, given their language and actions, liberals would prefer a Harrison Bergeron world to one in which disadvantages were overcome.

Should Students Who Don't Attend High School Graduate From High School?

The mayor of DC is looking in the right direction:

The mayor of Washington, D.C., explained why she used her first veto to reject a bill that would have allowed chronically absent students from graduating (sic) on Thursday.

Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser shot down an emergency bill passed almost unanimously by the D.C. Council in June, according to The Washington Post. The bill would have permitted students with more than 30 absences in a class to graduate or advance to the next grade...

“Ultimately, we believe that mastering the content through one of those alternatives (summer school, credit recovery or competency-based courses) will set students up for long-term success in college or career, and this legislation undercuts individualized graduation plans created for each student,” the mayor explained.

Free Universities

This article includes our service academies, which, while technically "free", aren't truly comparable to civilian universities.  In fact, in my day, we used to say that "West Point is a $180,000 education shoved up your *** a nickel at a time."  The rest of the schools listed, though, are tuition-free universities, although there are some catches.

The schools are:

Berea College

This small school in Kentucky has a singular mission: to attract underprivileged students committed to working hard.

College of the Ozarks

Dubbed Hard Work U, this is one of the hardest Midwestern schools to get in to, with an 8 percent acceptance rate.

Deep Springs College

This incredibly small all-male liberal arts college is in California's remote High Desert. Although obtaining a spot is highly competitive, every student is awarded a scholarship that covers tuition and room and board.

Webb Institute

Founded by the shipbuilder William Webb, this little engineering college in New York is tailor made for those who want to pursue a very specific career...There is only one academic major and one degree offered at this institution but as the school says, "if you can design a ship, you can design anything."

Toxic Masculinity Femininity

It's absurd, and not very healthy, to believe that all men are evil. It's absurd, and not very healthy, to believe that all white people are evil. It's absurd, and not very healthy, to believe that a physical characteristic defines people as evil.

But if we're to be bombarded with talk of so-called toxic masculinity, we should also address its female counterpart, toxic femininity:

Yes, toxic masculinity exists. But the use of the term has been weaponized. It is being hurled without care at every man. When it emerged, its use seemed merely imprecise—in most groups of people, there’s some guy waiting for an opportunity to fondle a woman’s ass without her consent, put his hand where he shouldn’t, right? That’s who was being outed as toxic. Those men—and far, far worse—do exist. Obviously. But wait—does every human assemblage contain such men? It does not. This term, toxic masculinity, is being wielded indiscriminately, and with force. We are not talking imprecision now, we are talking thoroughgoing inaccuracy.

Most men are not toxic. Their maleness does not make them toxic, any more than one’s ‘whiteness’ makes one racist. Assume for the moment that we could agree on terms: Is maleness more highly correlated with toxic masculinity than is femaleness? Yes. Ipso facto—the term is about maleness, so men will display more of it than will women. The logical leap is then concluding that all men are toxic. The very communities where ‘toxic masculinity’ is being discussed most are the communities where the men are, in my experience, compassionate, egalitarian, and not at all toxic.

Calling good men toxic does everyone a deep disservice. Everyone except those who seek empowerment through victim narratives.

For the record: I am not suggesting that actual victims do not exist, nor that they do not deserve full emotional, physical, legal, medical, and other support. I also do not want to minimize the fact that most women, perhaps even all, have experienced unpleasantness from a subset of men. But not all women are victims. And even among those women who have truly suffered at the hands of men, many—most, I would hazard to guess—do not want their status in the world to be ‘victim.’

All of which leads us directly to a topic not much discussed: toxic femininity.

Sex and gender roles have been formed over hundreds of thousands of years in human evolution, indeed, over hundreds of millions of years in our animal lineage. Aspects of those roles are in rapid flux, but ancient truths still exist. Historical appetites and desires persist. Straight men will look at beautiful women, especially if those women are a) young and hot and b) actively displaying. Display invites attention.

Hotness-amplifying femininity puts on a full display, advertising fertility and urgent sexuality. It invites male attention by, for instance, revealing flesh, or by painting on signals of sexual receptivity. This, I would argue, is inviting trouble. No, I did not just say that she was asking for it. I did, however, just say that she was displaying herself, and of course she was going to get looked at.

The amplification of hotness is not, in and of itself, toxic, although personally, I don’t respect it, and never have. Hotness fades, wisdom grows— wise young women will invest accordingly. Femininity becomes toxic when it cries foul, chastising men for responding to a provocative display.

Where we set our boundaries is a question about which reasonable people might disagree, but two bright-lines are widely agreed upon: Every woman has the right not to be touched if she does not wish to be; and coercive quid pro quo, in which sexual favors are demanded for the possibility of career advancement, is unacceptable. But when women doll themselves up in clothes that highlight sexually-selected anatomy, and put on make-up that hints at impending orgasm, it is toxic—yes, toxic—to demand that men do not look, do not approach, do not query.

Young women have vast sexual power. Everyone who is being honest with themselves knows this: Women in their sexual prime who are anywhere near the beauty-norms for their culture have a kind of power that nobody else has. They are also all but certain to lack the wisdom to manage it. Toxic femininity is an abuse of that power, in which hotness is maximized, and victim status is then claimed when straight men don’t treat them as peers.

Creating hunger in men by actively inviting the male gaze, then demanding that men have no such hunger—that is toxic femininity. Subjugating men, emasculating them when they display strength—physical, intellectual, or other—that is toxic femininity. Insisting that men, simply by virtue of being men, are toxic, and then acting surprised as relationships between men and women become more strained—that is toxic femininity. It is a game, the benefits of which go to a few while the costs are shared by all of us.

That is a rather large excerpt, but it contains just a glimpse of the totality of the article.  How about this observation, near the end?

The movement that has popularized the term ‘toxic masculinity’ shares tools and conclusions with those who see signs of ‘white supremacy’ everywhere they look. Intersectionalists have in common with one another a particular rhetorical trick: Any claim made by a member of an historically oppressed group is unquestionably true. Questioning claims is, itself, an act of oppression.

This opens the door for anyone who is willing to lie to obtain power. If you cannot question claims, any claim can be made.

I found intellectual value in this article and recommend you read the whole thing.  I did, including the blurb about the author--who happens to be a former professor at The Evergreen State College, as leftie a school as can exist!  Perhaps the views expressed in the above article are an indication why she's a former professor there :-)

In general, men are physically stronger than women.  And men who use their physical strength to harm women--or anyone for that matter--are cretins.  Their behavior is abhorrent, and they deserve punishment.  But is only physical harm to be defined as evil?

What about emotional blackmail in relationships?  Can you come up with a male counterpart to these two common sayings?

Happy wife, happy life.
If momma ain't happy, ain't no one happy.

Is there (more than) a kernel of truth to those sayings?  And if there is, do they indicate the foundations of a healthy relationship?  I've heard women happily bandy these sayings around, reveling in the power they convey.  I've never heard a man brag about slapping his wife around.

Hopefully, neither physical nor emotional abuse is a defining factor of masculinity or femininity.  Perhaps, instead of focusing on the sex of the perpetrator, we should focus on the behavior and the individual who commits that behavior.

That is, if we truly want to live in a world of equals instead of victimhood.

Update:  I've just finished reading all the comments at the above link.  Get past the several about the author's choice of single phrase, and there's much wisdom in them.  Even some of the ones I didn't entirely agree with gave me some morsel to chew on.  Too many to quote here, although I especially liked the one that pointed out that too much of anything--even fresh water--can be toxic.

The Best News To Come Out Of Iran In Years

I hope this is true:

Chocolate milk boosts exercise recovery more than sports drinks, new research suggests.

The popular milkshake allows athletes to intensely exercise for around six minutes longer than sports drink without tiring, a study found.

The chocolaty drink also improves exercisers' heart rates and lactic-acid levels, which causes cramp, just as well as beverages marketed for post-activity recovery, the research adds.

Study author Dr Amin Salehi-Abargouei from Shahid Sadoughi University in Yazd, Iran, said: 'Chocolate milk contains carbohydrates, proteins, fats, flavonoids, electrolytes, and some vitamins which make this drink a good choice for recovery in athletes.

'The take-home message is that chocolate milk is a low-cost, delicious and palatable option for recovery and provides either similar or superior effects compared with commercial drinks.'

Of course, this news does me no good unless I, you know, exercise.

Some Brits Don't Like President Trump

I don't like their prime minister much, but I wouldn't do what they're doing if she were to come to Sacramento.

This video is pretty funny, though :)

Liberals are so predictable.

Good For Everyone But Socialist-Greenies

It's not the "democratic socialist" countries of Europe that are lowering CO2 emissions:

Once more, science provides bad news for global warming alarmists. U.S. CO2 levels again declined during 2017, despite overall global output again rising. Credit U.S. fracking and the natural gas boom. But don't worry: the hysteria won't end.

The new report, based on U.S. data, shows clearly the U.S. continuing downward trend.

"The U.S. emitted 15.6 metric tons of CO2 per person in 1950," wrote the Daily Caller. "After rising for decades, it's declined in recent years to 15.8 metric tons per person in 2017, the lowest measured levels in 67 years."

That's right. 67 years. Green groups and leftist climate extremists should be exulting. The U.S. has found a way to produce more GDP — making all of us better off — with less energy.

Meanwhile, Europe has imposed massive economy-deadening regulations on its economies in order to reduce CO2 output. How has that worked?

Last year, European output of CO2 rose 1.5%, while U.S. output fell 0.5%. For the record, the disaster predicted when President Trump left the Paris climate agreement and rejected draconian EPA restrictions on power plants hasn't materialized. On the contrary, the U.S. model has been shown to be superior...

The truth, and it's proven by the hard data, is that CO2 made in the USA will not choke the world to death or cause it to massively overheat. And you can thank capitalism for that.

Because capitalism, unlike socialism and its welfare-state kin, hates waste. So it does all it can to be efficient. That means using as little energy as possible to make things. And this predates any of the current CO2 hysteria.

Have you hugged a frakker today? Have you advocated for relatively clean, safe, plentiful nuclear energy today?

Political Theater

If you're going to propose stupid laws, you should be made a fool of:

Democrats who drafted a bill to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] suddenly announced Thursday night that they would vote against it if the legislation went to the floor, after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told Fox News he intended to call their bluff.

"We know Speaker [Paul] Ryan is not serious about passing our 'Establishing a Humane Immigration Enforcement System Act,' so members of Congress, advocacy groups, and impacted communities will not engage in this political stunt," Reps. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Adriano Espaillat of New York told The Hill and other news outlets. "If Speaker Ryan puts our bill on the floor, we plan to vote no and will instead use the opportunity to force an urgently needed and long-overdue conversation on the House floor."

So-Called Free Riders

Back in the olden days of a couple weeks ago and more, when I was an agency fee payer as opposed to a union member, one of the union arguments in favor of required agency fees was that I should pay so as not to be a "free rider".  I always countered that I was a "forced rider", and neither side in the debate changed its opinion.  This article discusses the "four key points" made in the Janus decision, and here's the section about so-called free riders:

The Problem of Free Riders

Next, Alito turned to the problem of free riders, who shirk paying dues but can still count on unions to bargain for them and represent them in grievance hearings. Without being able to compel some form of payment, union backers say, bargaining units will be unwilling or unable to advance nonmembers’ interests — and it would be unfair to ask them to.

Alito rejected that reasoning, arguing that the representation of all workers in a given shop is the responsibility assumed by a union when its members vote it into existence.

Unions are obliged to fulfill that responsibility whether or not they are rewarded for it by nonmembers like plaintiff Mark Janus, he wrote, and the privileges they gain from being the sole designated force arguing on behalf of labor — most importantly, a seat at the table in negotiations with management — “greatly outweigh any extra burden imposed by the duty of providing fair representation for nonmembers.”

Interestingly, Alito did leave open the possibility of a kind of fee-for-service model, with unions imposing a specific charge on nonmembers for specific duties, like representing them in grievance hearings.

“Individual nonmembers could be required to pay for that service or could be denied union representation altogether,” he wrote. “Thus, agency fees cannot be sustained on the ground that unions would otherwise be unwilling to represent nonmembers.

Excellent reasoning.

Those Selfless Union Leaders

The Janus decision is going to take a bite out of union coffers, so what do they do?  Plan for budget cuts, of course.  Oh, and give union leaders a pay raise:

We reported exclusively in May that the National Education Association planned to cut $50 million from its budget, anticipating that it would lose 300,000 members in the wake of a Supreme Court decision ruling agency fees unconstitutional.

NEA’s national headquarters took in $385 million last year, and its proposed two-year budget will affect virtually every aspect of operations. Vacant staff positions will go unfilled, leading to a reduction of 16 percent of spending on compensation. No layoffs are planned.

Spending on travel will be cut 4 percent. Publication costs cut 27 percent. Office expenses cut 15 percent. And so on.

Even the national union’s largest and most important expense, cash grants to its state and local affiliates, will be cut by 9 percent.

But one line item in the budget will actually increase: salaries for the union’s executive officers.

The base salary for NEA president Lily Eskelsen García will increase to $293,434. NEA’s vice president and secretary-treasurer will each receive $257,954. Additionally, all three executive officers receive cash allowances equal to 40 percent of their base salary — at least $103,182 each — to cover benefits and living expenses.