Tom's Musings

Let me start by asserting that I am a big fan of science. Contemporary society has only been possible through a radical cognitive revolution that encompassed inductive reasoning, rational thought, and core scientific methods. Such a conceptual revolution typically is associated with Francis Bacon (b. 1561), known as ‘the father of empiricism,’ though earlier but (alas) temporary conceptual breakthroughs along similar lines occurred during the Islamic Golden Age almost a millenia earlier. Obviously, many others contributed to this ‘revolution.’

Nor should we forget the long  struggles to free society from its preferences for understanding the world about us premised on superstition or revealed truths. Think about Galileo’s (b. 1564) struggle with Pope Urban VIII over his heliocentric theory of our solar system and many other conflicts all the way down to the 1920’s Scopes trial that convicted a Tennessee teacher of exposing his students to the dangerous theory of evolution. Even today, entrenched right-wing ideologies ridicule and attack those products of our best scientific processes when research challenges sacred preconceptions and values. Consider HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s dismissal of accepted  medical research in favor of agenda- driven beliefs as he directs our nation’s premier health agency. In case you missed it, vaccines generally do work. Good science confirms that.

Moreover, I have spent much of my professional life in the academy. Admittedly, I was never a scholar by disposition but, as the saying goes, most of my friends and colleagues were of that ilk. Being the Associate Director of a top university- based multi- didciplinary research entity for many years afforded me great opportunities to see rigorous analytical methods being applied to our more pressing social policy challenges. I remain grateful for being able to associate with the best and the brightest.

Nevertheless, even these best and brightest can succumb to errors derived from self-interest and cultural myopia. That is only human. Let me only touch on two, shall we say, methodological conundrums.

Economic rationality. I spent the vast majority of my professional life surrounded by economists. In general, I liked them even if they were a testy and disputational lot. Surprisingly, they seemed to like me, significantly more than did my social work colleagues. Nevertheless, I am moved to quibble with a dominant pillar of economic research.

Somewhere in the 1960s, there was a significant revolution in what would be considered good science within the discipline of economics. Descriptive work suddenly was replaced by quantitative techniques and a highly theoretical approach to the discipline. Higher mathematics and abstract manipulations replaced broader or more balanced attempts to understand our economic world or society in general.

Fancy econometrics became the sine qua non for acceptable analysis and, most critical to academics, publication in peer reviewed journals. Practitioners of the dismal science wanted their discipline to look more like physics. Complex equations were the way to do that, and to further separate economic members of the academy from those in the softer social sciences and, of course, the public. Obscurity was its own reward.

These fancy econometric explorations have their uses, don’t get me wrong. But they also have built-in limits, especially when one seeks to apply results to the real world. Over time, it became clearer to us doing applied work in the academy that newly minted Ph.D.s in economics were interested in theory, not practice. Even the character of the doctoral students had visibly changed, increasingly being dominated by Asian and Eastern European countries which produced math and computer whizzes who knew little about institutional realities, key historical lessons, or human idiosyncrasies. A close economics colleague at the time bemoaned this trend that we all observed.

To my mind, the core issue with the new economics boiled down to this. Increasingly, at the start of each Institute (the Institute for Research on Poverty) brown bag, the presenter would go through a litany of assumptions that the audience must accept in order to make the math work. Essentially, these assumptions turned humans into stick figures only motivated by achieving one’s optimal utility or wellbeing as measured in dollars. All cultural factors, institutional idiosyncrasies, and emotional intrusions were dismissed. People were reduced to mini calculators operating in perfect markets that dismissed annoying issues like externalities or asymmetrical information flows. In such an ideal world, with everything monetized into dollars, the math worked very well indeed. Economics did look like physics until you looked closely.

I considered this quirk early in my career. This tendency to reduce humans to homo- economicus struck me as overly stylized and simplistic. I decided to test my concern. There was a poverty policy tactic generally termed wage-bill subsidies. Essentially, the government would subsidize the wages of harder to employ job seekers, thus improving their labor market prospects, at least according to economic theory.

After all, classic economic theory had reduced decionmakers to utility- maximizing automotons. Hiring supervisors would see a reduced  wage bill (the outlay to secure a unit of labor services) and favor the subsidized individual. That was obvious … no? The problem arose when it became clear that such programs were significantly under- subscribed. In short, the subsidies went under- utilized. Most economists were flummoxed.

So, I conducted an unorthodox study of this reform strategy by doing something unconventional. I and my team did a series of paper surveys, personal interviews, and focus groups. That is, we talked to decision-makers … real people! That was something respectable economists seldom did. Good thing I was not one of those.

Amazingly, our results suggested that people simply are not human calculators nor utility- maximizing automatons. Their reasoning is far more complex than economists assume, too complex to cover here. One perverse outcome of my research suggested that wage subsidies could hurt job seekers in some circumstances … a counter- intuitive outcome. Some hiring supervisors saw the public subsidy as a red flag, suggesting that the cost of taking such a person might well exceed the value of a subsidy. In general, however, the hiring process involves more than estimating future utility, a fairly subjective endeavor indeed. Feelings, intuitions, and preconceptions enter into such decisions.

The bottom line, for me, was this. Humans are more than calculating stick- figures that go around calculating monetized utility all day. They are, inconveniantally, quite human.

The ‘gold standard’ of social science research. Among my other observations of methodological conundruns stood a counter- intuitive blasphemy. Good science might just confound good policy making, at least in some situations. Now, what could that possibly mean?

This story goes something like the following: I spent a year on leave from the University of Wisconsin working at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This was during the early years of the Clinton Administration. My primary reason for this segue into the real world was to work on welfare reform … a hot issue at the time. Now, remember this, welfare reform had been described by a previous Secretary of HHS ((Joseph Califano) as the Mideast of Domestic Policy. These issues were so contentious that I oft remarked that I knew I was getting closer to the truth when no one agreed with me. It was not an avocation for the faint of heart but I thought it grand fun.

Planning for national welfare reform was to be headed by two Harvard Profs (David Ellwood and Mary Jo Banes) who had accepted high political positions at HHS. In addition, a number of academics and research types had been recruited to spend time in D.C., as I had been. The point of all this was to guarantee that Clinton’s welfare reform would be guided by the best research possible, not by seat-of-the-pants ideology. Science, not politics, would prevail.

I recall the phone call from Ann Segal asking how quickly I could get to Washington. I told her I would have to finish my semester teaching responsibilities and take care of my mother’s affairs (she had passed that Spring of 1993). Ann suggested I get to D.C. as promptly as I could … they would be moving quickly on the reform agenda. Surely I wouldn’t want to miss working on this policy vessel before it was launched. It turned out I had nothing to worry about; I saw on day one that the reform agenda was yet stuck in dry dock and would remain there for some time.

Unlike Trump’s menagerie, Clinton’s team was filled with really smart people. These truley were the best and brightest who expected, more like demanded, decisions to be based on excellent science. By ‘excellent,’ they wanted support based on rigorous observational studies or, preferably, by interventions supported by gold standard experimental studies. A ‘gold standard’ study employed  randomly assigned subjects into one or more experimental groups along with a control group. This approach would ensure that extraneous factors would not confound any observed effects. Other protocols are essential but random assignment is key.

Now, here’s the rub. Random assignment studies worked best for distinct, segmented interventions where individual subjects could be assigned to separate treatments and a control group. At the time, we had plenty of those studies to examine. The difficulty, in my eyes, was that the true impacts (as opposed to spurious results from non-randomized studies) usually were quite small even though statistically significant. You could reduce welfare use and raise family income but not by much.

While scientists can get excited by statistically significant results, policy makers demand something more … substantive significance. Take the following situation as an example! Clinton said reform must be budget neutral. He also implied that his package would include a time- limit on receiving assistance. Thus, we were forced to come up with interventions that would land large portions of the welfare population in jobs, and decent jobs at that. If not, public jobs would be required and that would be more expensive than just giving recipients a monthly check. There would go budget neutrality. Nor was there any political will to kick people off assistance when they hit their time limit if they had played by the rules.

But the best science we had said that existing reform initiatives (those that had been rigorously tested) would have marginal impacts, outcomes well short of what was required to be cost neutral while keeping to a time- limited program structure. I quickly realized that the best research was leading us astray. How was that?

The so-called best research focused on topics that lent themselves to gold standard randomized experiments. That is, they typically focused on one or two isolated interventions. What I (and a few others) realized was that we needed radical changes that would transform the entire culture of welfare offices as well as radical changes in basic programmatic concepts. But there was no existing research support for such radical ideas, especially in a policy area rife with political turmoil. Washington was a difficult town in which to effect dramatic change. More to the point, changing the culture of larger systems presented so many logistical and methodological challenges that they were seldom, if ever, subject to rigorous study.

At one point, I and another academic colleague on leave (Rebecca Maynard from the University of Pennsylvania) argued that Clinton should not propose a national package. Rather, make the states a true laboratory of reform with support for dramatic transformation in the way business is done. Perhaps in that environment, some states could experiment dramatically while others would follow the best examples supported by existing research. In effect, states would become the unit of analysis in a national experiment.

But that was not to be. Clinton had promised to end welfare as we knew it. The planning process plodded on. By the time the President’s plan was released, it was too late. The Republicans under revolutionary House Republican leader Newt Gingrich would soon take control over the reform agenda. And they had no interest in research.

Concluding thoughts. I have been out of the policy and research games for some time now. But I was moved to comment on a couple of my old concerns after reading The Road to Freedom by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz. He took apart contemporary classical economics while attacking the use of utility- optimizing stick men at the center of so- called rigorous analytics. I could not agree with him more.

One final thought on my assertion that the best research can thwart good policy. Sometimes after my time in D.C. I was asked to participate on a National Academy Expert Panel to look at the best ways to evaluate the national welfare reform passed in 1996. I had an opportunity to express my concerns and found the panel sympathetic. The final report reflected that but welfare would soon disappear as a major issue.

The thing is that, despite all limitations, science and inductive rationality are the most promising avenues toward progress. But we must always remember that science is not ultimate truth. We must continue to assess our techniques and question our assumptions. The search for truth never ends.

Perhaps the AI machines that will soon replace humans in doing high level cognitive tasks will do a better job.

“By any historical measure, the new data … by the ‘Partnership for Public Service’ is documenting the worst employee engagement and workforce sentiment I’ve seen for the federal government. To put things in perspective, in a typical year, agencies work hard to get their scores from the high 60s to the mid-70s, or even the 80s. This year the average is 32. No federal agency is the ‘best place to work’ at this point.”

                     Elizabeth Linos        

                     Harvard University

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On occasion, I have commented on the systemic erosion respecting the very notion of public service in government. For example, there had been a time when the best and the brightest vied for positions within America’s foreign service elite. In addition, from the 1930s through the 1960s, top college grads from the best schools migrated to Washington to contribute their skills toward solving society’s challenges. During that final decade (the 1960s), agencies like the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and the Peace Corps attracted top academic talent. It was seen as an honor and privilege to confront the nation’s issues.

Even in the late 1970s, federal agencies boasted highly skilled personnel. NASA traditionally was a bright star in the federal constellation. The top planning entity in the Department of Health and Human Services, the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), was another. It was said that ASPE’s technical staff in the late 1970s could rival a top 10 university’s economics faculty in quality.

The concept of an exemplary public service began to decline when President Reagan asserted that government was not the solution to our problems. Rather, it was the problem. Republican orthodoxy routinely associated the civil service with inefficiency and waste. Nothing exemplified that trope more than Trump’s unleashing of Elon Musk and his DOGE team. They promised $2 trillion in savings. After mindlessly ravaging through the bureaucracy, and then silently backtracking on most cuts, few dollars were ‘saved’ but any remaining staff morale was utterly devastated. Musk’s rampage surely left remaining staff with the impression that their work was unimportant at best, perhaps even incompetent or utterly useless.

Data from the most recent Partnership for Public Service annual survey is revealing. The average score for staff engagement and positive sentiment fell by over 40 percentage points during the first year of the ‘second’ Trump era. That is a galactic decline in morale. Almost three-in-five survey respondents asserted that they are less engaged than in the previous year, another tectonic shift.

Part of the problem could be assigned to political indifference or even interference. Only 7.5 percent of respondents said that high-level agency political leaders generate supportive motivational sentiments among staff. All agencies are bad but some are incomprehensibly abysmal. Less than 3 percent of survey respondents say that Robert Kennedy’s political staff at HHS provide them with any positive motivation.

Ideological loyalty, not agency mission, dominates institutional culture today across federal agencies. Some one-in-four report being afraid to report wrongdoing. Fear and job insecurity are rampant. Few wish stand out, or take chances, or innovate. Staff are tolerated at best, not encouraged to be innovative nor inventive. An aura  of authoritarian rule, and top-down control, now permeates institutional life. People merely want to survive, not serve a larger purpose.

The result is a radical decline in service quality. Some 37 percent claim that their working unit now provides services of lesser quality. Try getting help from Social Security, the IRS, or the Center for Disease Control these days. In a recent blog, I mentioned chatting with a former NASA consultant. He confirmed that recent NASA mishaps widely are being attributed to a degraded quality of management.

But the decline of our public service ideal obviously did not start with Trump, nor is it entirely the fault of Republicans. Back in the 1970s, my late wife was appointed to a high level Wisconsin Gubernatorial panel (aka The Stevens- Offner Commission) that was devoted to overhauling the State’s civil service system. She had recently managed a large study of ‘women in state government and thus was considered an expert in personnel matters.

At the time, Wisconsin was still considered a positive outlier in terms of good government performance. When I worked in Wisconsin’s state government during the early 1970s, federal officials and outside consultants routinely observed how extraordinarily high was the quality of the state’s bureaucracy. Wisconsin had long been thought of as a laboratory for democracy. My experience in Wisconsin’s civil service generally supported the kudos being received.

I considered that fact on numerous occasions. One contributing factor, it seemed to me, was the manner in which the civil service was organized at that time. Politics were separated from the execution of policy by an organizational framework that depended on civilian boards to oversee agency operations. These citizen boards were structured in a way to minimize political interference into agency operations. Politicians set policy but technical experts executed it. Governors eventually could reappoint these citizen boards but it took time. (Note: the University still functions this way.)

Anyway, I recall my spouse coming home from one of her high-powered Civil Service committee sessions with the news that they would recommend dismantling this semi– independent governing board concept to give the governor much more control over the bureacracy. She argued that the top political executive was elected by the people and therefore should exercise more control over the execution of his or her policies.

I smiled at her pronouncement before predicting that, in about a decade, Wisconsin would lose its preeminent reputation for excellence in government. It might not happen immediately, but the state eventually would forfeit its reputation as a well-run state. Alas, Wisconsin soon would come to look like all its’ other peer jurisdictions.

My spouse and I debated the issue for some time, a discourse I cannot detail here. In the end, sadly, Wisconsin did go the way of other states … beginning when the governor was given more control of the state bureaucracy. By the way, it was a decade later that she surprised me one day by stating that I had been right on that issue, and the panel (including herself) had been wrong. I believe that was the one and only time during our 50 years together that she said I was right about something … about anything. I think it took me a week to recover.

Of course, once given some control, politicians want more. Political appointments extend further and further into the bureacracy. Merit is replaced with loyalty. Ideas increasingly flow down, not up. Experience and expertise are replaced by unthinking obedience. I had enjoyed my time working in Wisconsin government (1971 to 1975). But I was grateful that I escaped to the University when I did, before the shining light that had been Wisconsin’s concept of public service had faded into mediocrity.

I also had an opportunity to spend a year working at the top planning entity (ASPE) for the federal Department of Health and Human Services. This was in the early 1990s, when the Clinton administration was working on Welfare and Healthcare reform. As I suggested earlier, the staff at ASPE were yet bright and hard working. Still, they could no longer attract the top talent they once did. Few of the permanent staff had doctorates by this time. Former members of ASPE from the late 70s were now ensconced in think tanks like The Brookings Institute or were on the faculties of R-1 research universities.

Later, while I was Assistant Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Director Barbara Wolfe and I worked with ASPE management to develop a pipeline for newly minted Ph.D.s to accept ASPE staff positions. We had some success but could not reverse the longer-term trend.

How can we revitalize public service? Some things are obvious … stop villifying public servants would be a start. But at the heart of the matter lies the corrupting connection between politics and the execution of policy. Deciding what direction to take is one thing. But having the best people possible executing policy is equally important. Let us not forget that some of our most important decisions should be disconnected from political control … justice being one and managing our economy (via the Federal Reserve) being another. We should do the same with conducting our elections and, I might suggest, with attracting and retaining the best people in public service. Some aspects of governance simply are too important to be left to the politicians.

I watched with bemused cynicism as reports of voter sentiments during the last presidential election trickled in. Many reported that prices dominated their choice of leader. In short, bacon cost too much. For that, a majority of Americans were willing to elect a wannabe autocrat who, just a few years earlier, attempted to subvert the Constitution to illegally remain in power. The electorate (once again) chose a malignant narcissist who shows every sign of being a pathological sociopath. Perhaps social norms prevented MAGA supporters from revealing their more authentic motivations … rank racism and virulent misogyny.

Admittedly, costly bacon is a pain in the ass. Still, it distracts us from the 900 pound gorilla in the room. For me, the reelection of Donald Trump is a defining capstone to America’s long march toward rabid self-abuse and a self- imposed decline. What could I possibly mean by that?

America’s economic history over the past century can be divided into two dominant chapters. From the Great Depression through the 1970s, public policy was premised on neo-Keynsian thought. Government would partner with the private sector to offset market failures and smooth out inevitable excesses intrinsically embedded in unregulated capitalism. During that period known as the great convergence (late 1930s through the late 1970s), economic want diminished dramatically (except where perpetuated through pure social discrimination), inequality was reduced substantially, and upward social mobility became a norm. Each new generation could expect to do better than the previous one.

The key policy inflection point reversing all that came with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Call it supply-side economics or the return of neo-classical economic thought, a new paradigm became the default position of policy thinking. Government now was the cause of all our problems. The solution was to be found in a misapplication of Adam Smith’s views on unfettered capitalism (in truth, Smith articulated numerous warnings and caveats about free markets). 

Efficient and unhindered markets, with prices guiding individual and collective decisions, were suddenly glorified. Humans were now reduced to hyper-rational actors whose individual calculations of personal utility, when aggregated, would magically result in an optimal society. Choices based on any notion of the public good were derided as misdirected and wrong-headed, no matter the expressed intentions.

The re-emergence of classical economic thought was no accident. Its conceptual roots can be traced back to the creation of Mont Pelerin Society in 1947 where intellectual giants such as Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek laid out the rational underpinnings for turning the clock back. The movement picked up steam in the early 1970s when future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell articulated a strategic plan for gaining control over essential social institutions such as the media, the courts, and educational systems. By the 1980s, the policy and economic inflection points were realized. The kind of people and ideas that brought you the great depression were back in charge.

The results should surprise no one. Existential threats such as climate change are being ignored. After all, free markets will take care of that threat. Artificial Intelligence (AI), which some refer to as Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0), is being permitted to unfold absent serious reflection and systemic preparation. Equally serious, classical economic thought allows both wealth and power to be concentrated in the hands of a few oligarchs. That is the 900 pound gorilla I mentioned earlier. It is called hyper- inequality.

What does that mean? Well, today the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans hold some $56 trillion in assets, the equivalent to what 90 percent of the remaining population control. Some 87 percent of all stocks are owned by wealthiest households. In 2024, those at the top of the wealth pyramid (the infamous 1 percent) held about one-third of the nation’s goodies while the bottom half fought over some 2.5 percent of what remained. Economists measure inequality by what is known as the GINI coefficient. In recent years, the U.S. has had the highest GINI coefficient among all advanced nations.

The reasons for this growing imbalance are complex but an increasingly regressive tax system that rewards the rich likely shares a good deal of the blame. Unlike the post WWII era, when we expected the wealthy to pay a reasonable portion of the nation’s bills, we now largely exempt them from that basic civic responsibility. As Warren Buffet has asserted repeatedly, his appointments secretary pays disproportionately more in taxes than he does. Today, the federal government spends $7 trillion per year while collecting about $5 trillion in revenues. Trump’s extention of his earlier tax cuts favoring the richest Americans guarantees that our public debt will continue to grow exponentially.

The stock response is that we spend too much. This is nonsense when we comparatively position our spending in light of our peer nations. The real villain is that we don’t ask those who have seen their fortunes explode in recent years to pony up their share. And let’s face it, a $40 trillion dollar debt cannot grow indefinitely absent serious consequences. Our coddling of the elite will come back to bite us in the ass.

There are small signs (based on recent isolated election results) that the average American may be getting it, finally figuring out that classical economic thinking has done nothing except reward the richest among us while slowly impoverishing most of the remainder. Let’s face it, Americans generally are not the sharpest arrows in the quiver.

Prior to Reagan’s election, wages tracked productivity gains among workers with remarkable precision. After that inflection point, productivity continued to increase while wages stagnated. The surplus value accrued to the owners of capital, not to workers. A question remains … can this continue indefinitely? My response … not likely.

Even today, the top 10 percent of earners account for 50 percent of all consumer spending. This is the highest level ever recorded. Households in the bottom 60 percent of the distribution spend 95 percent of their income on essentials. They have no surplus resources. This is a far cry from the the post war period when  public goods were fostered and supported by proactive government actions. During that era, a robust middle class emerged. Back then, the so-called American dream was real. Even an average kid like me from a working class family could easily work his way to a doctorate degree and a marvelous career at an R-1 university. Today, upward social mobility is becoming a dream for the privileged few.

As the elite inches toward measuring their assets in trillions (not billions), might they conclude they have enough. Elon Musk conceivably could pass the trillion dollar threshold soon. Might he conclude that the next billion has such limited marginal utility to him that contributing to the greater good might become attractive. After all, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and others followed the example of Andrew Carnegie by pledging a good deal of their fortunes to philanthropic purposes.

That is possible but not likely. Already, billionaires like Peter Thiel are fighting against such impulsive generosity by their fellow members of the elite. History does not afford us many examples of the wealthy voluntarily sacrificing  for the public good.

Looking back at our history, we did have periods of similar hyper- inequality. One period strikes me as particularly illuminating. Our ante-bellum southern society had a class of enormously wealthy plantation owners who were surrounded by poor whites and enslaved blacks (humans whose lives had been monetized and constituted much of the elite’s assets). The future Conderacy was marked by extreme wealth unevenly distributed and a similarly asymmetric power structure. The elite ran things with impunity.

Did the Southern elite ever consider replacing slavery with some model of paid labor, as many northerners advocated? No, they preferred to fight to preserve their privileges at the cost of some 700,000 lives. Even after losing that horrendous conflict, they managed to recreate an unequal society through sheer terror and egregious Jim Crow laws.

One basic problem we face is that disequilibria built into unfettered capitalism is self perpetuating. Inititial differences in economic outcomes increase as concentrated wealth seeks to control decision-making and thus shape future policies to their own advantage. More wealth translates into more power means more wealth and even more power. That cycle will continue unless some exogenous force (revolution or some government response) intervenes. Unfortnately, society’s safeguards have been eviscerated or dismantled over the past several decades. In consequence, that cyclical process appears to be accelerating. Look who controls the media and other key institutions today.

Finally, back to my main point. Think again as to how concentrated wealth has dealt with the public good in the past. In general, they used their superior resources for selfish purposes. Mostly, they fought social legislation tooth and nail. Worse, they resorted to violence to maintain their hegemony. How many robber barons hired private armies to attack workers at the end of the 19th century? It turned out to be a common practice.

Now, think about the following scenario: what is likely to happen when AI renders most humans obsolete. Right now, that is a likely outcome as the next revolution barrels ahead at warp speed. Most jobs, even many technical positions, will disappear.

Do you really think that the elite will say ‘let’s pause and consider the human costs of what is emerging.’ Of course not, at least not when considered in light of history’s lessons. So, let us consider the following conundrum. What will society do with all those (possibly) redundant humans that will emerge in a more robust AI world? And who will make those decisions when the elite fully controls our political processes?

Hmm, a disturbing dystopia indeed!

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“It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.”

                    Robert H. Goddard

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I haven’t written anything since returning from South America in late February. I am sure many of you were hoping I had finally decided to end my indulgences in self-absorbed musings for some more productive pastime … like exercising or dieting. Sorry to disappoint you but that particular shift in focus toward a more healthy and productive lifestyle likely will never happen … ever!

No, since my return to reality I have been catching up on my personal reading obligations. Belonging to three book clubs (plus being drawn to the many other attractive literary works that catch my attention) can keep me quite occupied. It is a bit like being back in school or my professional career with all those endless deadlines, a likely source of those residual anxieties that generate my recurring nightmares.

I have discovered that spending one’s life juggling anxiety- producing responsibilities can’t easily be discarded even upon retirement. You simply find new things to worry about. But that particular life challenge can wait to be explored in a future blog.

Today, I want to touch on a couple of leftover points from my recent ocean travels. Toward the end of our journey, Viking has a tradition that I rather like. They bring in many of the staff that help keep us safe and comfortable during our travels. The staff members walk down the aisles and on to the stage to thunderous applause. (See pic below).

It is difficult to see but the ship’s staff is drawn from around the globe. They represent, in a real sense, the diversity that is our human family. Oh, I don’t want to gloss over the residual classism that exists on the vessel. The top spots on the boat’s staff tend to be filled by northern Europeans … with the lead officers likely to be Norwegians. I mean, really, the captain of this Viking vessel actually was named Vikingsson.

Still, I was taken with seeing the apparent harmony among people drawn from so many different cultures working together. It was as if it really were possible to successfully meld people drawn from virtually every conceivable racial stock and societal perspective into a harmonious whole. I could not help but think there was a lesson in that for us all.

That got me thinking about another experience from our recent trip. The gentleman pictured above was one of the expert lecturers on the Viking ship. Based on his extensive relationship with NASA, he gave a number of fascinating talks on the exploration of space and on the remaining mysteries still extent in the vast cosmos out there. His talks revealed just how little we yet know about our world. This pic was taken when he happened to be on our tour of a maritime museum in Valparaiso Chile. On that occasion, I had a chance to chat with him about a personal favorite of mine … space pioneer Robert H. Goddard.

Goddard was a throwback to an era when individual men (or women) of vision could change the world pretty much on their own. You know, like Albert Einstein reconceptualizing our universe while working in a Swiss patent office. Goddard grew up in my hometown of Worcester Mass during the beginning of the 20th century. As a young man, he dreamed of humanity breaking the binds of earth to explore the heavens above. His fantasies seemed wildly improbable at a time in the early 1900s when airplanes were rickety contraptions with an uncertain future.

Goddard never abandoned his dreams even after becoming a physics professor at Clark University in Worcester (my Alma Mater). While there, he persevered in his work to develop a primitive liquid fuel rocket. Apparently, he was persistent as well as forward thinking.

Almost exactly a century ago, on March 16, 1926, he launched the world’s first liquid fuel rocket on a farm located on the outskirts of Worcester … a site that later would become Pakachoag Golf Course. This was a 9-hole public course on which I spent many hours as a kid cementing the reality that I had no future in the game. His initial venture into space was not an impressive flight. It reached a height of 41 feet, traveled a total distance of 184 feet, and lasted a total of 2.5 seconds.

Still, it demonstrated that a technology was feasible for breaking gravity’s grip. After all, the original Wright brother’s flight at Kitty Hawk was less than impressive, managing to travel only 120 feet during a 12 second flight. Unfortunately, Goddard’s wife was supposed to memorialize the event in film. Alas, she forgot to take the lens cap off the camera. Oh well!

During my misspent youth, I recall one day when I was hacking my way around my favorite golf course. I noticed a group of men in suits gathered at a spot adjacent to the hole I was playing at the time. Curious, I edged closer. I was taken aback to recognize Werner von Braun, the former Nazi refugee who managed America’s space program during the post-WWII era as we raced against the Soviets into outer space. He, and other luminaries, were there to mark Goddard’s singular contribution to space exploration.

Our planet is a bit like the Viking vessel on which I spent over two weeks. People from across our planet worked together in relative harmony to keep the ship functioning and on course. When you are bouncing around on a vast and turbulent ocean, you recognize your own vulnerability. You then appreciate the support and skills from those about you. Surely, there must be a larger lesson there for all of us.

The Centennial celebration of Goddard’s remarkable achievement reminds me of another personal insight of considerable moment. When Goddard launched the first of his many rockets a century ago, our understanding of the cosmos was quite limited. We could only see as far as our own galaxy … the milky way. As we actually began to explore space, and improved our technologies, we realized just how vast the cosmos was. Today, we understand that the Milky Way is merely one of perhaps four trillion galaxies out there, each containing hundreds of billions of stars. Appreciating our insignificant and remote position in the cosmos is humbling indeed, or at least should be.

Our human experience in space has resulted in another essential insight. Several astronauts have commented on a similar reaction to seeing our home from the heavens above. Looking down toward our fragile planet, they are struck by a singular emotion. There are no boundaries … no separation into countries, nor ethnicities, nor races, nor cultures. We are an indivisible family, floating apparently alone in a vast cosmos. The things that seemingly separate us are transient and insignificant. What binds us together is central to both our survival and our future.

I will end this message by noting a book just published by an old Peace Corps colleague, Peter Adler. In truth, he was not part of my group but did serve in India during the 1960s (India-40). Importantly, he did have the good sense to marry a lovely gal from my PC group (India-44).

Anyway, Peter’s fictional work is a cautionary tale for our times. His America is torn asunder by those who would destroy all because they want to create some form of singular society based on ethnic purity. In his work, the radicals tearing society apart are dedicated to purging what they consider impure elements within the nation, much like today’s MAGA movement seeks to recreate an Aryan, Christian society in America. it is a very old, self-destructive, impulse. Yet, Peter’s fictional vision of hell may well predict our intermediate fate.

Here’s the thing. When you reorient your perspective, such dystopian aspirations seem ridiculous. We truly are a vulnerable species floating on a fragile planet in a remote part of an inconceivably vast universe. We either see ourselves as part of a single human family or risk perishing as we pursue selfish and destructive ends.

In the final analysis, that choice is ours.

Below is a shot of our ship, the Viking Jupiter, as it lies docked in Valparaiso (Chile). Our final port of call is a quaint city built vertically from the sea. Its patchwork areay of streets are narrow and difficult to navigate. It has the feel of San Francisco but older, more worn, and a bit down on its luck. We were surprised that Santiago, the capital, was yet another 75 miles inland.

We arrived at our final port of call after one last day at sea. I was struck with a bit of nostalgia and even regret that the shifting panoramic scenes outside our veranda would soon be at an end. At the same time, there was an awareness that it was time to go home. A few more days of gorging on the endless array of culinary delicacies laid before us and they would have to pry me into the airline seat. Alas, I see a diet in my immediate future.

The going home process is never easy. We forced ourselves to arise very early on Sunday, the 21st. After mustering off the ship according to a remarkably orderly logistical plan, Viking put all of us with orange 4 tags on a bus to Santiago. After an almost 2 hour trip, we would have a whole day to wait for our Delta 11:00 PM departure that evening. We could have squeezed one more tour in but chose to wait in a luxurious Radisson hotel lounge area reserved for us instead. They fed us snacks and drinks throughout the day.

By the way, you could stay in the President’s suite at the Radisson when you are in town. It will only cost you some $2,500 per night … before taxes. I have no idea what you get for this princely sum, never having experienced such luxury.

We did walk around the area of Santiago adjacent to the hotel. That area had a distinctly different feel from what we experienced in Buenos Aries or Montevideo. Frankly, it looked like any American city. We soon found ourselves in an area of upscale restaurants and a retail mall that would rival any that might be found in the states (and I have been to the Mall of America on numerous occasions).

On thinking about it, this may have been a good way to segue from charming South America back into the more sterile, if convenient, environment that awaited us back home. Perhaps that was the plan from the beginning.

Anyway, after the usual airport crush of international travel and almost 12 hours on airplanes, we were back in Madison. We knew we were back to reality when the brash 25 degree air hit us outside the Madison airport. What happened to the high 80s we had enjoyed just the day before.

I must be old. I’ve been sleeping a lot since returning. Travel never tired me out as much in my prime. Still, we have all these great memories to recall 😀, like the distant past when I was in my prime 😞. They all will remain part of us, the good and the not so good.

I am back!

Punta Arenas, in Chile, was the first stop as we headed into the Pacific ocean on our way north to the Capitol of Santiago. Like Ushuaia, this also was first settled as an ideal site to store prisoners. There was nothing but miles of impassable mountainous terrain to the north. It also has grown with the tourist boom but, in addition, enjoys a surrounding area more conducive to the usual economic pursuits.

This settlement was later augmented by immigrants from Croatia and Russia. Aiding in its growth was a strategic placement on the Magellan Straights, a connector between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Trade, especially prior to opening the Panama Canal in 1914, found this a convenient stopping point.

The city lays claim to be the most southern city of more than 100,000 residents in the world. Take that…Ushuaia, Argentina. Magellan is treated as a hero here with many things named after him. I find that odd since he never completed his circumnavigation of the world, getting himself killed in the Phillipines. But there it is.

Upon leaving Punta Arenas we began our journey through seemingly endless archipelago that offered us continuing vistas of breathtaking beauty. In case you didn’t know, Chile is long and narrow with the southern tail composed of countless islands. We  wound our way through this maze as we headed toward our next destination  … the Amalia Glacier.

Amalia Glacier is the 2nd largest glacial field in the world, if I recall correctly. The total size (we can only see a small portion of it) is immense. I recall it being noted that enough water is trapped in this vast sea of ice to satisfy the world’s population for several decades. Seems improbable but that’s what they say.

Alas, as in much of the world, the glaciers of South America are receding. Someday, not too far in the future, no one will be able to gaze upon these marvels.

From this magical place, we push on over the vast seas. I can only imagine how endless, enchanting, and yet insidious they must have seemed to the mariners of old. I must admit, the waters out there are seductive. I find myself entranced by the endless sways, the incessant mutations of color and mood. It is like a narcotic. One can imagine why young men took to the seas despite the hardships and dangers.

Our next stop was at Puerto Montt and the nearby lake named Llanquihue. What is remarkable about this area is how it was settled. In the mid 19th century, the Chilean government made generous offers to skilled German farmers and craftsmen … offering land, subsidies, and tax breaks if they would emigrate and develop this area. They wanted Catholic settlers but got mostly Protestants. That aside, the project worked. Like the Italian, Croatian, and other ethnic communities found elsewhere on this journey, the German influence is found everywhere.

Llanquihue is the largest lake in Chile and is surrounded by volcanic peaks. The temperate climate makes it a lovely vacation spot. The entire area is growing rapidly, attracting refugees from hot, arid Santiago to the north.

What screams for your attention, however, are the peaks across the lake. There are several active volcanoes  🌋. The first pictured above is located in Argentina. Did I mention that Chile is a narrow country? 😀

The last one is a typical cone shaped volcano. It erupted only a decade ago and might do so once again in a couple of decades. The last blow threw so much ash into the air that the Buenos Aires airport, a continent to the east, closed down. Beauty and danger combined. That often is the case, isn’t it?

We have some time today as we sail north along the coast of Chile. So, I thought I might cover a few moments enjoyed at the bottom of the world … the Cape Horn area. Though these seas historically were known as the graveyard of ships and mariners (especially in the days of sailing vessels), we experienced exceptionally calm waters … at least according to those who make this a routine port of call. It wasn’t until last night, after leaving Amalia Glacier, that we hit rougher seas once again.

This pic above is Ushuaia. A city of about 82,000 souls, the whole region now counts some 180,000 inhabitants. The larger region has grown by some 50 percent in the last 15 to 20 years. I suspect this growth has been generated due to the port being a key launch point for tourist visits to Antarctica. Ushuaia has the distinction of being the southernmost city on the planet.

It also enjoys exceptional beauty, being framed by the southern most west-east reach of the Andes chain. The adjacent peaks frame this settlement in a spectacular fashion. There is, however, only a thin stretch of land between the mountains and the sea available for development or habitation. That provides a limit on possible expansion. It is gorgeous but chilly throughout the year. High temps in summer occasionally hit the high- 60s, only if you are lucky.

The start of civilization here is attributable to the powers in Buenos Aires deciding this would be a good place to send incorrigible prisoners. After all, where could they flee? To the north stood the formidable Andes. To the south, the freezing waters. They were stuck.

The prison, closed in 1947, is now a museum. The 2nd pic above shows a typical cell as they were in the old days. They were small and must have been freezing for much of the year. In addition, the prisoners worked at various jobs. The museum contained many artifacts shaped by the more talented of the incarcerated. The final pic above is a shot of Ushuaia facing north. Gorgeous,  indeed, though the residents just might have experienced a touch of claustrophobia on occasion.

After leaving Ushuaia, we sailed though the inner passage (Beagle chanel). With barren landscape on both sides of the ship, the dangers faced by the old sailing ships is quite apparent. You make your way through a maze of barren islands that seem endless. They are striking but void of virtually all human or floral activity.

However, interspersed among the harsh, barren landscape are several glaciers. That is, we sailed though what is called Glacier alley. Enjoy the pics below. They hardly capture the beauty presented to us.

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As noted, we visited Amalia Glacier yesterday. I will touch upon that experience in the next installment.

That is Cape Horn in the distance, the southernmost point of land until you reach the Antarctic continent. Having read many books about early explorers, those crazy mariners who would spend two or three years risking their lives on the high seas seeking gold and glory, my curiosity was aroused about this notorious place. So many adventurers died in these same treacherous waters whose unpredictable and even deadly seas ended their lofty aspirations. I oft asked what could motivate so many to risk their lives in such a fashion. The odds of success were not great.

Well, there was Sir Francis Drake of course. He came around the Horn, then surprised the Spanish before plundering a good amount of their gold and silver. He then circumvented the globe, returning to Queen Elizabeth 1st with much booty for her majesty. His personal take amounted to some 20,000 pounds or about $100 million in today’s currency. Most others were not as fortunate. Now, here I am though, alas, my fortune surely will be diminished, not enhanced, by the journey.

We are told the seas are calm today, an unusual condition. That was not the case around the Falkland Islands. On our approach to Stanley (the Capital) and on our exit, the seas were very turbulent. Getting around the ship, even making it to the bathroom, presented a challenge. During the night, the rolling, bumping, and banging was most disconcerting. In fact, I feared rolling off the bed on numerous occasions. I could just see explaining a broken bone or two from a fall off the commode 😞.

Based on comments made by our guest lecturers, it was touch and go whether or not we would land at Stanley. The odds were 50-50 at best. But the captain expertly  negotiated the challenge and all went well. There was an additional concern that the tenders taking us to the pier might be problematic. But that went smoothly as well, nothing like a boat trip I recall on the north shore of Kuai where ocean swells kept pitching our craft totally out of the water. Now, that was a ride.

We learned that such problems were common occurrences when sailing in northern and southern waters. Many other tour vessels have been forced to entirely skip this port of call. On our trip to Iceland last year, two planned stops in Greenland were canceled at the last minute due to ice buildups in their harbors. Instead, they took us to Nuuk, the capital. At least that port was open.

One lecturer on this vessel shared that he was on one of the first Viking ships back in 2015, when the company was just starting their ocean cruises. His voyage began in Bergen Norway before heading out to the North Atlantic. He chuckled as he mentioned the horrific sounds of crashing during one stormy night. The next morning, he learned that some $64,000 worth of wine had been lost due to inadequate storage of this liquid of the gods. It was a steep learning curve for Viking. Now they have ships all over the world and expect to further expand their fleet dramatically over the next five years. They have got the drill down pat.

The straights of Magellan and Drake’s passage remain treacherous even for today’s powerful ships. We were informed that two Chilean pilots are on board. Their experience enables us to get closer to various land masses than many ships would risk. I’m happy they are aboard. Truth is that I would hate to become a news headline … boat filled with old farts sinks off Cape Horn.

Above we have the southernmost home in the world (excepting Antarctica but that’s all ice so doesn’t count). The building you can see is a lighthouse and a home for the keeper. So what, you say! Thing is, a family volunteers to live there (for pay but in total isolation) for one full year. All supplies are periodically brought to them. The recent inhabitants (a couple with three kids and a cat) have liked it so much they just completed a three year tour. Wow, while I’m not a big fan of people, that kind of isolation eventually would wear down even a misanthrope like me.

Above is the southernmost tip of the Americas and (as noted) all other land masses north of the Antarctic. Last year, when we sailed to the north of Iceland, we reached the Arctic circle. Now we are approaching the other end of our planet. Alas, the Antarctic Circle is still a number of miles south. But I’m happy.

I can’t help but think about my parent’s generation. They never traveled much of anywhere. Florida was an exotic land to them. Only WWII got two of my uncles overseas, one as a Marine in the Pacific and the other as a sailor in the Atlantic (I know he was part of D-day). But that was it. That generation saw so little of the world. We, on the other hand, are so fortunate. I have visited every U.S. state as well as 30-plus countries on four continents (five by next year). Just this past year Mary and I have been to the top of the civilized world and (today) to the bottom.

We will soon be winding our way back north through the islands and rocks that proved to be the watery graves of so many in the past. We are headed to Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city in the world. After that, we reach Punta Arena, our first stop in Chile. From there we meander along the Chilean fiords which contain some spectacular glaciers. Well, a former neighbor of mine tells me they are spectacular 😀, and he always struck me as a straight shooter.

The adventure continues.

Power without limits:

I started this when we were at sea, headed to the Falkland Islands … the Malvinas to the Argentinians. But more on that later. During our journey through rather rough seas, we attended a lecture on what is generally called Argentina’s Dirty War. This sad piece of history covers events that happened during the 1970s and 80s, but whose consequences remain with us today. More importantly, that piece of history may have relevant lessons for Trump’s America today.

Argentina, and other South American nations, had always been susceptible to military coups. What led to the coup of interest in this case was the sudden death of Juan Peron in the mid 1970s. His demise took place shortly after he had again been reelected as President after a period of absence from power (he was first elected in 1946).

Peron had appointed his 2nd wife (Isabel) as Vice President but she had little experience or support. The Military leadership (disenchanted with Peronism) saw their opportunity and pounced. They dismissed Parliament, the Supreme Court, and ruled by absolute decree. They also ruled by terror.

During their 8 year reign, they rounded up some 30,000 individuals. Virtually all of these unfortunates were never seen again. Many were tortured and shot. Others were drugged and dropped into the ocean. Imprisoned pregnant women were allowed to have their babies before being eliminated and the child given to a military family to raise.

One aspect of this sad story strikes a contemporary chord. Those deemed enemies of the Junta were picked off the streets, or from their homes and places of work, by men with no identification driving cars with no license plates. No warrants were obtained, no judicial review existed. These people just disappeared. Hmm, seems familiar to how ICE operates in America today.

These atrocities did not take place absent opposition, however. First, the mothers, later the grandmothers, would march each week on the center of government demanding information on their loved ones. This went on for years and years. As the Junta’s popularity decreased, the leaders became desperate. To rekindle support, they attacked the Malvines (the Falkland Islands under British control) in 1982. They thought the Brits wouldn’t care but failed to appreciate Margarate Thatcher’s iron will. It took the Brits about 74 days to oust the Argentinians but at a considerable cost of lives and treasure.

Still, there is an upbeat ending to all this. The Junta collapsed with their failed attack on the Falklands. Argentina, which had suffered from coups periodically in the past, has been a democracy ever since 1983. More importantly, for the first time in history, the military leaders were brought to account. After being tried, many of the Junta leaders were given life sentences. The process of trying those for their crimes stopped for a while, presumably due to fears of another military intervention.

That, fortunately, never happened. Rather, the trials of hundreds more who allegedly were guilty of heinous human rights violations have been carried out. Some were acquitted but over a thousand others eventually were convicted and sentenced. It would be wise for Donald Trump, and his minions, to remember this part of Argentina’s past. Karma does exist. One cannot act with total disregard for basic human rights and not fear some form of ultimate accountability.

It should also be recalled that American policy in that era supported many of these Juntas and military dictatorships not only here but throughout South America … Chile (and Pinochet) being another egregious example. This unforgivable policy (which began under Nixon and was reinforced under Reagan) was known as Operation Condor. Too bad those responsible for our own national sins in that sad era were never made to account for their sins against humanity.

A Land of Immigrants:

I have found one aspect of this journey particularly surprising. I thought of South America as being overwhelmingly Spanish or Portuguese (Brazil). But a wide range of immigrants have added to this continents culture. In Buenos Aires, Italians have profoundly impacted local culture and language. Locals told us that you should not come here to practice your Spanish. The local version has been corrupted, or enhanced if you will, by many Italian words and phrases. It is a dialect based on a fusion of two cultures.

And the food! Well, beef from their ranches remains a favorite of course. And empanadas are ubiquitous. Still, one can hardly go a block without seeing a pizza and pasta joint. Germans and Irish have also exercised considerable input into local customs and culture.

Here is another example. We stopped in the port of Puerto Madryn. This is a growing town that was settled in 1865 by emigres from … Wales. The original settlers amounted to some 150 brave souls from that far off corner of the United Kingdom. Despite the small numbers, their culture continues. You see Welsch street names and other signs that the ethnic origins of what is now a bustling metropolis of 140,000 have not been forgotten.

We were given a tour of the first school in Puerto Madryn. All that was interesting enough. But I noticed that the cakes offered us were based on an old Welsh recipe. When they showed us local cultural dances, we were taken by how British they looked. In fact, at one point I remarked that the moves reminded me of an Irish Jig. No tangos here.

While we found more diversity in Argentina and Uruguay than expected, the record is not without blemish. Back slaves once represented a significant portion of the population. While slavery was abolished here before it was ended in the States, African Americans were never integrated into the society. Many were killed in war or forced to emigrate. Few Blacks remain today.

Who would want to live here?

We visited the Falkland Islands today, which many of us recall only because the Brits and Argentinians fought over the place in the early 1980s. To be honest, disputes among several nations go back to the time that explorers stumbled upon these rocks in the 17th century.

What those explorers found was an archipelago comprised of some 700 islands. The place has a stark beauty, no doubt about that. But it strikes us as a harsh place to live for the 3 to 4,000 souls that call this place home.

To be entirely honest, it is difficult to see the attraction here. Yes, there is that rugged beauty and numerous beaches. But you are isolated in the middle of nowhere. It is 300 miles to Argentina and they don’t like you, so most flights from here go to Chile which is further away. Oh, you could fly to the UK but that’s 7,500 miles away.

Then there is the balmy weather. It is Summer here right now and guess what greeted us on our trip to see the cute penguins… snow squalls. That’s right … snow! Now, they do get a few warm days in December but this would not be the place to work on your tan. The guide also mentioned that most locals work two jobs. They have to. Imported stuff, like fresh foods, are incredibly expensive. One banana would cost about a British pound.

Still, I get a sense that people are happy. They certainly are attached to their British roots. In a referendum a few years ago, 98.8 percent voted to remain attached to the U.K. with a 92 percent voting turnout rate. You never get that kind of consensus on any issue in the States

And yes, the penguins are damn cute. See below:

Off toward Cape Horn tomorrow.

The image above was taken from our stateroom veranda as the sun began its descent to the west. Earlier, we had departed from Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. Before that, we had a delightful stop in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. Until we arrive in Santiago, future stops will be more intimate.

Both centers of government are located at the mouth of the River (or estuary) of Rio Plate. This water system connects the South American coast with the heart of the continent including today’s Paraguay,  Bolivia, Chile, and Western Brazil. Not surprisingly, as colonial powers began sniffing around in the 16th century, they quickly decided that military hegemony over this area was most essential. Control the entrance to the river and you could effectively exploit the riches to be found inland, including hoped for treasures in gold and silver.

The question was who would win the contest? With such promised riches, several nations competed for supremacy  … Spain, Portugal, France, the Dutch, and (of course) England. The Portuguese established a hold to the north in what would become Brazil. Spain to the south in what became Argentina. The north side of the Rio Plate is where these two maritime nations met.

After many skirmishes and battles, the Spanish pushed the pesky Portuguese back to the north. In 1776, Argentina was recognized as a separate and distinct entity by the Spanish crown, separating it from Peru which was the original colonial base on this continent. For a while, the powers in Buenos Aires sought hegemony over much of central and southern portions of South America. But the locals in Montevideo, Asuncian (and other growing jurisdictions) pushed back. They wanted to control their own destinies. The contours of today’s South America began to take shape.

In the early decades of the 19th century, the locals followed a pattern established by their American cousins to the north. The British helped the locals in North America form militia to fight during the French and Indian wars. Such militia forces later helped end British rule in the colonies. Likewise, such local forces were used by Spain to push back Portuguese incursions from the north. Similarly, they were essential when the locals decided that rule from Spain was more trouble than it was worth. It was not long before Spanish control ended in the early decades of the 19th century.

To keep this manageable, I will keep my comments on the two capitals very brief. Both have areas of neo-classical architecture, adjacent to charming (often cobblestone) streets along with modern skyscrapers that contain million dollar residences. You can feel the cultural differences in the foods, music, and even local enthusiasm. In 2022, Argentina won the Word Cup in football (soccer). Four million people crammed the main avenue (broadest in the world) to celebrate.

We were fortunate to be in Montevideo during the annual Carnival Season. It is a 40 day event of rioteous color, imaginations on steroids, and latin music. You would have to be here to appreciate it. Our stay was too short.

Before signing off, a comment about the Viking Ocean experience. Aside from the excellent food and service, it is clear Viking caters to a more mature crowd… old farts that is. No kids, no casinos, no frivolous nonsense. One thing it does offer are excellent guides at each stop. One comes away with a greater appreciation of what they have experienced.

What really impresses me is the educational experiences provided on board during the travel portion of our journey. Perhaps I should not be surprised. After all, Viking is a significant supporter of PBS in the States, more essential after Trump cut its federal funding. But we also discovered that it supports ventures such as Seawatch, an international effort devoted to ecogical causes.

On this trip, we have had wonderful lectures on history, astronomy, and ocean ecology. The resident experts really know their stuff, being members (for example) of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Astronomical Society.

Of course, we have the usual diversions … music and even an opportunity to keep up with our favorite sporting events like Big Ten basketball 🏀 and the Superbowl.

Excuse all errors. Have to run. The adventure continues.