Flying on White Knuckles and Guts

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Thoughts o n Travel

 

Many years ago, my uncle Vic, who was a northern bush pilot, replied to us when we told him we would be flying with Calm Air, that we would be flying “on white knuckles and guts.” I was dismayed when I heard that, but now, about 50 years later, that describes pretty well all commercial flying.

Our first flight was with Air Canada to Montreal. It was not fun.

I have flown many times in my life.  But only a couple on times first class. All of them were accidental and not planned. The first time we got nudged into first class when our Greek Driver in Athens failed to wake up from his deep and restful sleep in time to pick us up and bring us to the airport. Our kindly concierge at the hotel we were staying helped us out by standing in the traffic of an 8-lane major road through the city flagging down a cab for us. As a result, we got to the airport just barely in time as boarding at really ended the KLM staff said they could no longer give us our assigned seating in steerage and with great reluctance gave us a first-class seat, even though clearly, we did not deserve it. The staff were obviously disappointed that such peasants as us we were getting such special treatment. This was the best punishment we ever got for malfeasance.

 

More recently, Chris and I have learned that we cannot handle steerage seats any more so we have been springing for Premium Economy. Pretty darn good, even if it is not first class. I know that  flying in luxury puts my ‘man of the people’ street creds in jeopardy, but so be it.

 

We thought we had purchased Premium economy seats for the 3 entire flights, but learned, much to our dismay, that this was not to be. Then when we walked through the aircraft, we realized there were such seats but they were denied to us. As a result, we were crammed in our seats like pigs in a sow gestation pen.  This reinforced our determination to fly better next time. After all, the alternative is to leave more money to our ungrateful lads. I realize that this story of woe will not attract much sympathy.

 

Then when we arrived in Toronto airport our woes continued.  In a word, that airport experienced a melee. We were sent to 3 different gates by Lufthansa, each a considerable distance apart, before we had the right one. Each one required a lengthy walk.

 

Added to that, I must admit, I worried a bit, about all the Hasidic Jews in the Montreal Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport, thinking they might attract modern terrorists,  but of course no terrorists ruined our tranquil flight. The airlines did a good job of that.

 

Even in such relative luxury I could not sleep in the plane. After all, when I tried to sleep, I had only been awake for about 12 hours. Some people managed to sleep but not me. I suffered. This was too much for my circadian rhythm to digest.

 

When we arrived in Bucharest Romania, we needed 3 different passes for her walker, even though the two previous airports required none. Once again German efficiency was lacking. Next, we had to walk down 3 flights of stairs carrying that well-permitted walker. Of course, all of this added to the stress of travel as we worried (again) about missing our connecting flight.

 

One thing is clear, flying is no longer idyllic if it ever was. Tranquil flights are a thing of the past. We all fly on white knuckles and guts.

 

Well, we did arrive in Bucharest, world weary.  Ready to go. To sleep that is.

 

Drones from Russia

2025 Cruise up the Danube River

 

Just a couple of days before we ventured out on our 3 flights that ended in Romania, we were watching PBS News and listened to a story about Russian drones bound to kill Ukrainians got a bit off course and flew over Romania. Holy shit, I thought, will we be that close to Russian drone attacks? I never thought I would be that close to danger. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a chickenshit. How could this happen? Apparently, they flew over Romania for 12 minutes and could inadvertently have set off World III in the Balkans just as World War I had been set off in the Balkans. After all, Romania is a member of NATO.  And you don’t mess with NATO.

Partly, the war was avoided because Romania just does not have the cash or resources to defend itself against drones. It has an air force that could repel a few traditional forces, but could do nothing about drones over its it’s sovereign territories.  In this case at least, that was a good thing. It was also good that Romania did not call the other NATO countries to defend it. Reminds me a bit about George Bernard Shaw’s play, Arms and the Man, in which a soldier from the Balkans, Serbia I believed, had an ammunition bag filled with chocolates rather than bullets.

It turns out there is a lot more to worry about in the Balkans than I ever realized.

 

 

Worries

2025 Cruise up the Danube River

 

For the past two months I have been worried about the Air Canada strike.  We were scheduled to fly by Air Canada. My sister and her husband had booked a tour of Scotland and needed to fly Air Canada to get there. Then the Air Canada strike started and their flight to Toronto was cancelled.  Air Canada refunded the money for the flight but paid nothing for the consequential damages such as the coach tour that would follow. It was not cancelled so the tour operator refused to pay back the prepaid air fare. That was a major loss. Needless to say, we wanted to avoid that, but it was beyond our contol.

 

Then the union representatives advised their members to accept the Air Canada offer, but 91% of those members turned it down. This was 3 days before we were hoping to say bon voyage. Now I was seriously worried.  I was already considering booking a new flight, but then, I found out the union and Air Canada had agreed to send the outstanding issues to arbitration. As a result, the union workers remained on the job. And I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Whew!

 

I have decided after a personal request or two, to send my travel reports as we travel.  That flies in the face of advice I have been given and have been following on previous trips not to post about them until we are back, so as not to tip off any burglars that our house is open for them to ply their nefarious trades. But now I want to let those miscreants know that our house will be occupied by our son from Edmonton Alberta and he is tough. So beware, burglars will be inviting disaster to befall them if they attempt larceny while we are gone. That worry is gone. But still worries and travel go together like love and marriage.

 

Prelude to a Cruise up the Danube River

2025 Cruise up the Danube River

I made the mistake of telling a few people I was going on a journey through the Balkans of Europe.  They impressed upon me the importance of blogging while on the journey. That sounds great in theory, but puts pressure on the blogger.  These trips are often filled with events and stuff, leaving little room for blogging. But I thought it would be worth a try.

 

 

Sitting in Steinbach waiting for our trip to the Balkans we noticed that some of the countries we are going to visit, like so many of our provinces in Canada, have serious wild fires spreading to communities. Are we hopping from the frying pan into the fire? Are flying into an inferno? Is the world becoming enveloped in flames? Is this the apocalypse? Now?

 

Not pleasant thoughts for the beginning of a travel adventure. Actually, I don’t want any adventures other than adventures of the mind. That is the only kind of adventure travel I enjoy and look forward to.

 

I never had a burning desire to see Romania, or Bulgaria, or Serbia, or Croatia or Hungary. But these were the countries we signed up to see. So here we go. Why?  Well, after returning from our jaunt last year across half the country and back again, to Nova Scotia and back, we were tired in body and soul. It was a bit much for old timers. And we are old. There is no denying this unpalatable truth.

 

Then friends were going on a trip to Europe to join a cruise up the Danube River from Bucharest Romania through all of those countries, and there happened to be 3 rooms open. That woke us up from our doldrums. And with very little thought, we plunged. We signed up without analyzing carefully what was involved. We liked the idea of letting someone else transport us after a long car trip. Being with friends might be fun, though we usually favored trips by ourselves or with close family members.  Specifically, we never asked ourselves why would we go to these countries? After all, I wanted to go to Scotland. The land of the Scottish Enlightenment. The home of David Hume. Secondly, we never looked very closely at the price.  The health insurance alone was astronomical. We never added it all up. How was the possible?

 

After we committed ourselves, we were frankly shocked at the total cost. As an example, our health insurance for 2 weeks through relatively average countries with average health systems, would cost us more than a 3 month stay in the USA where they have the most expensive health care system in the world! How does that make sense? But we were committed. Stupid and committed. Not a good combination.

 

Then I decided to do some research into these places and I was very pleasantly surprised. They were interesting. Maybe we were not so stupid after all. The trip looked fantastic. The countries looked fascinating. We were travelling with congenial friends.  Who would not want to sail through the “powder keg of Europe?” The Balkans. The place where the Great War began? Well, when I put it that way. I don’t know. Who would want to see that?

 

So off we go.

Conflict Entrepreneurs”

Extremism, Left-wing Extremism, Political Violence, Right-wing Extremism, The Sleep of Reason

 

A lot of people in America, and elsewhere, are going crazy over the shooting of Charlie Kirk. The killing of Charlie Kirk because the killer disagreed with him was completely despicable. At the same time, from what little I have learned about Kirk, in my he is not saint.  But he has generated a lot of controversy, and because he is now dead, a lot of hero worship.

 

The Utah governor, in talking about Kirk referred to “conflict entrepreneurs” that drown out the voice of the moderates, whose voices represent the majority. Most people don’t want to go to the far left or far right, as they see it. They want the temperatures to go down on debate, but they are stymied by these entrepreneurs. The social media algo rhythms amplify the voices of the extremists. There is no economic benefit to the social media corporations to look at the moderate’s views when people are so attracted to the views of the extremists. Social media rewards the views of the extremes because that is what engages the attention of people, so the social media gives people what they want, not what they need.

 

As CNN’s David Irvine said, “there is a market for crazy in America.” That is a bitter understatement  I think he is bang on right. There is no market for reasonable. There is no market for sane. At least, not in social media.

 

A lot of people are ignorant about political violence against the right.  A lot people are ignorant about political violence on the left. In both cases because their sources of news are very limited. A result there is plenty of ignorance to go around. As Alyssa Griffin, a conservative CNN commentator, said, “They are getting information from these rage entrepreneurs and are not getting the cold hard facts.” That applies to many people.

 

And that is unfortunate for all of us. We all suffer the consequences of ignorance.

The Soul of America

Extremism, Left-wing Extremism, Political Violence, Right-wing Extremism

 

I enjoyed listening to American historian Jon Meacham, the author of The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels, on CBS Sunday Morning. Robert Costa interviewed Meachum, asked him right off the bat, “What is the state of the American Soul?”  Meachum’s answer was appropriately blunt: “We are in a dangerous place. There was no ‘once upon a time’ in America. There is not going to be a happily ever after.” No those are for fairy tales.

 

Meachum did say that these are times where history is very important. History is always important, in my opinion. Hiding the truth as Donald Trump urges is not the answer.  Ugly truths must be confronted; not swept under the carpet. Meachum acknowledged to Costa: “there are times when you and I can agree what can be replicated. This is not one of those times”.

 

The television show included an outrageous claim by Charlie Kirk when he was alive: “Donald Trump is the guardian of western civilization.”  Even though Kirk has now been lionized by the right, that is a statement from a man who did not appreciate history. He also said, “the entire Democratic project [referring I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he was referring to the Party, not the system] is how quickly can we turn America into a hell hole.”  I know people in America who would drink up such stuff. Stuff like that is very popular on the right, though it is patent nonsense.

 

Costa asked Meachum why America reacted with such violence so often. To this Meachum said,

 

“Political violence erupts in America when there is an existential question—who is an American? Who deserves to be included in ‘We the people,’ or ‘All men being created equal’? When that is in tension, when we don’t have common agreement about that, then, if you look at it historically, violence erupts.”

 

Meachum said, instead, much more wisely, “We don’t want to end up in the situation where because you do not agree with someone you pick up a gun.” If America reaches such a stage—and it certainly looks like it might—the American project is bankrupt.”

 

Meachum asked a very good question of Costa: “Are we going to be able to see each other neighbors?”

 

Or will they only be able to see each other as enemies? If the latter, that country is dead.

 

Meachum put it this way:

 

“When we lose the capacity to engage in argument and dissent and debate peaceably, we are breaking faith with the American covenant. And the American covenant is that we live in contention with each other, but we’re not at each other’s throats.”

 

I wonder though if Meachum is right. It seems to me he is being a bit of a Pollyanna.  Meachum said, “this is why history is important.  There is not much in the current moment that we want. The country is about dissent, and respecting each other; it is not about hunting each other down.”

 

More and more, I see Americans as hunting each other down. More and more I see anything else as fairy tales.

 

 

Recurring American political Violence

Extremism, Left-wing Extremism, Political Violence, Right-wing Extremism

 

As we all know, America has been inundated with violence, including, of course, political violence. It is everywhere and it keeps coming back.  The left blames the right; the right blames the left. But they are both responsible.

 

Here are a few incidents that stand out, but there are many. Usually more than one every day.

 

An assassin with a rifle tried to kill the candidate for the American presidential election, narrowly missing his head and nicking instead his ear. Some think God changed the direction of the bullet so that the bystander behind him was shot instead.  The American left is lucky Trump was not killed.  Had Trump been killed he would have been revered as a political hero for a century.  When Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in 1968, he was not liked by 83% of the population. He has been a hero ever since.

 

Some acts of political violence have been incredibly violent. For example, the man who walked into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s house and assaulted him with hammer. His wife had an armed detail, but that night she was in Washington, so he had no protection.   Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump made jokes about it. Another man walked up at the home of Representative Gerry Connolly in Virginian with a baseball bat looking for him and his staff members. Someone lit the door of Bernie Sanders’ house on fire. An obviously unwell man came to the house of Supreme Justice Kavanagh looking to harm him but was talked out of it. The list goes on and on. It will go on and on. Because Americans don’t want to do anything about it.  Except pour more guns into the fray to protect their leaders.

 

Americans are largely content with this. That is the only thing that surprises me.

 

Scientific Refugees

The Sleep of Reason, The War on Smart

 

I recently posted about the cuts of the Trump administration to the National Institute of Heal (‘NIH’) and the National Science Foundation which it funds. In that  post I mentioned how bad this was for the health of the world.  Now I want to point out another uncomfortable result.

 

As a result of the cutbacks entire labs have already been shut down and many more are on the way. And with them goes all that incredible scientific research which will go unfunded. Many scientific grants have already been rescinded and many more will soon face the same fate. Scientists on the ground or in labs are already being shut down.

 

According to Dr. Leana Wen, some of them have been shut down for highly dubious grounds. For example, if their research contains Trump-despised keywords such as “gender” or “health equity” or “coronavirus” or “vaccines” or “HIV,” they were the first ones on the chopping block. At the same time billions in funds to American universities, once widely recognized as the best in the world have been frozen. Many universities have had to slim down their budgets. As a result, there are hiring freezes at these universities with funding to graduate students and post-doc that are also frozen. As Wen said,

 

“there are already really significant impacts on American scientists and also on young scientists, many of whom are now saying, well, they don’t know if they want to stay in the sciences because they don’t know if a future for them here.”

 

 

As a result, places like Europe, China, and even Canada are aggressively trying to recruit American scientists. Wen said,

 

“My own anecdotal evidence is that China has been laying out the red carpet for all the graduate students being kicked out of America…I think the brain drain is real.”

 

Imagine that. For decades the United States has poached scientists from around the world. Now they are being poached! It is clear that this will lead to the end of American supremacy in science.

 

As Dr. Wen said,

 

“The European Union is investing 600 million euros to recruit American scientists. The French parliament has a bill to establish a new category for scientific refugees from the US. And I just have to say, this is really unimaginable.

 

And those scientists will help countries like China to develop the best technology, including military technology. This could herald the end of American dominance.

 

Trump is Making America Stupid Again, and it could pay a hefty price for that.

 

In the world of dumb, Donald Trump is king!