California Free Press

Here's How the 'Jet-Owning Oligarchy' Harms Both Planet and Workers

A Cessna Citation jet aircraft is seen at Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in this aerial photo taken near Healdsburg, California on June 1, 2021.

(Photo: George Rose/Getty Images)

 

by Kenny Stancil, May 1, 2023 from Common Dreams

A new analysis catalogs alarming facts about the destructive private jet industry, which is emblematic of runaway economic and carbon inequality.

Research published Monday details how the working class is paying the price, in more ways than one, for the "jet-owning oligarchy" to hop around the globe in their personal luxury planes.

It's well-established that private jet travel by the super-rich is worsening the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis. Adding insult to injury, this conspicuously carbon-intensive consumption is being subsidized by ordinary taxpayers, as the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Patriotic Millionaires make clear in their new analysis.

Entitled High Flyers 2023: How Ultra-Rich Private Jet Travel Costs the Rest of Us and Burns Up Our Planet, the report catalogs alarming facts about the private jet industry and makes recommendations about how to rein in this potent symbol and manifestation of escalating inequality.

To begin with, "private jets emit at least 10 times more pollutants than commercial planes per passenger," the report notes. "Unsurprisingly, approximately 1% of people are believed to be responsible for about half of all aviation carbon emissions."

Amid a surge in wealth inequality since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, "private jet use has increased by about a fifth, and private jet emissions have increased more than 23%," the report points out. "The private jet sector set industry records with regards to transaction and dollar volume in 2021 and 2022."

While a coronavirus-era boom is evident, the industry has been growing steadily alongside wealth inequality since the turn of the century. As the report states: "The size of the global fleet has increased 133% in the last two decades from 9,895 in 2000 to 23,133 in mid-2022. This bonanza was accompanied by an unprecedented number of business jet operations, 5.3 million in 2022."

"If we can't ban private jets, we should at least tax them and require them to pay to offset their environmental damage and subsidies."

According to the report, "The median net worth of a full and fractional private jet owner is $190 million and $140 million respectively." A minuscule 0.0008% of the global population belongs to the jet-owning class, which consists mostly of financial and real estate tycoons.

Last year, billionaire Elon Musk, "the most active high flyer in the United States," bought a new jet and took 171 private flights, or about one every other day, the report notes.

In so doing, he single-handedly "contributed to the consumption of 837,934 liters of jet fuel," states the report, and he "was responsible for 2,112 tons of carbon emissions"—132 times more than the entire carbon footprint of an average person in the United States.

In a statement, report co-author Kalena Thomhave, a researcher with the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at IPS, called private jets "a microcosm of our system of wealth inequality even beyond their image of extravagance."

"Private flyers pay just 2% of the taxes that primarily fund the Federal Aviation Administration, yet nearly 17% of flights handled by the FAA are private," said Thomhave. "Meanwhile, private jets contribute disproportionately to carbon emissions while often representing significant tax savings for their wealthy owners."

As the report observes: "Thousands of municipal airports in the U.S. are funded by the public, but many primarily serve private and corporate jets. These airports may not offer scheduled passenger service, but they still offer airport runways subsidized by taxes."

Such regressive taxation is the product of industry lobbying, the report explains:

The largest player in the private jet lobby, the National Business Aviation Association, has spent an average $2.4 million each year since 2008 lobbying the federal government, primarily for tax giveaways. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the industry specifically lobbied for Covid relief, particularly "medium to long-term liquidity assistance and relief from air transportation excise taxes," even though industry demand was quickly climbing.

As wealth inequality soars, so too does the value of the private jet market, which grew from $32.3 billion in 2021 to $34.1 billion in 2022, the report notes. With wealth being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and little to no downward redistribution on the horizon, the private jet industry is projected to expand further in the coming years.

Report co-author Omar Ocampo, a researcher with the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at IPS, said that the private jet industry's expected growth this decade "provides us with a great opportunity to levy a luxury transfer tax on private jet sales." He added that "the revenue raised from this tax can be invested towards developing a green transportation system."

According to the report, "A 10% and 5% transfer fee on pre-owned and new private aircraft would have raised $2.4 billion in 2021 and $2.6 billion in 2022."

In addition to imposing a transfer tax on all private jet sales, IPS and Patriotic Millionaires recommend the following steps be taken:

• Levy a private jet fuel tax;
• Institute a "short hop" surcharge;
• Resist efforts to increase passenger facility charges until private jet owners pay their fair share;
• Create a sustainable transportation equity trust fund;
• Increase TSA security oversight of private jets; and
• Pass the Aircraft Ownership Transparency Act.

According to the report, Musk would have paid nearly $4 million in additional taxes last year if a transfer fee and jet fuel tax had been in place.

"Private jet travel by billionaires and the ultra-wealthy imposes a tremendous cost on the rest of us," said Chuck Collins, another co-author of the report.

"Not only do ordinary travelers and taxpayers subsidize the air space for private jets, but the high flyers also contribute considerably more pollution than other passengers," said Collins. "If we can't ban private jets, we should at least tax them and require them to pay to offset their environmental damage and subsidies."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Off the Top of My Head

One Positive Thing: Lower Pollution and Greenhouse Gases

by John Lawrence, March 24, 2020

Among all the negative things that are happening because of the coronavirus, there is at least one positive thing: air pollution and the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) is way down. The pandemic is shutting down industrial activity and temporarily slashing air pollution levels around the world according to satellite imagery. There are fewer cars on the roads, fewer airplanes flying, fewer ships at sea. The downturn in economic activity means that less power is being consumed; therefore, less coal is being shoveled into power plants around the world. It's a veritable demonstration that it is possible to reduce pollution, reduce global warming and in other ways have a cleaner, healthier planet.

Paul Monks, professor of air pollution at the University of Leicester, predicted there will be important lessons to learn. “We are now, inadvertently, conducting the largest-scale experiment ever seen,” he said. “Are we looking at what we might see in the future if we can move to a low-carbon economy? Not to denigrate the loss of life, but this might give us some hope from something terrible. To see what can be achieved. It seems entirely probable that a reduction in air pollution will be beneficial to people in susceptible categories, for example some asthma sufferers,” he said. “It could reduce the spread of disease. A high level of air pollution exacerbates viral uptake because it inflames and lowers immunity.” Agriculture could also get a boost because pollution stunts plant growth, he added.

One of the largest drops in pollution levels could be seen over the city of Wuhan in central China which was put under a strict lockdown in late January. The city of 11 million people serves as a major transportation hub and is home to hundreds of factories supplying car parts and other hardware to global supply chains. According to NASA, nitrogen dioxide levels across eastern and central China have been 10-30% lower than normal.

This period, when the pandemic is not under control, is an opportunity to think differently about the economy. What are essential goods and services? Definitely we need food, clean water and sanitation services. We need garbage collection. People need enough money to supply essential needs for themselves. We could also ask what are inessential needs? Some of these are going to sporting events, going to movie theaters especially when we can watch movies at home, going to music events at arenas especially when we can listen to music at home, going on cruises. With the increase of capabilities for working from home, going into the office is not a necessity for a lot of workers. This can be increased with the result that there will be fewer cars on the road, less rush hour traffic and less GHG emissions. Getting cars off the road is a long term goal for a green economy. This would mean fewer car sales, but it would be better for the environment.

We should ask what are essential activities to keep people healthy and safe and think about doing away with other activities which don't increase the health and welfare of human beings. After dithering for years over the homeless situation, homeless people are being put up in motels and hotels post haste as a public health issue. This is a positive development and goes to show that the homeless situation could have been ameliorated years ago if we had the will to do it. The provision of money to average Americans will not hurt the economy. It will only help the economy. During the 2008 Great Recession trillions of dollars were given to the banks to bail them out. Much of this money went to bail out investors and hedge funds which had made huge bets on the economy. Many of these bets paid off, and their bets were covered in full by the Federal Reserve when the individual Wall Street banks couldn't cover them. Obviously, these rich people did not need that money to continue to cover their own 'essential needs' or the needs of their families. It was money given to gamblers while Joe six pack got zilch. We don't need an economy which caters to rich gamblers and showers them with money when they bet the economy will go down bringing suffering to millions.

At this point the Fed has the capability of bailing out the average American family especially if they have lost their jobs so they can continue to eat and pay rent. This support for average Americans will function also to stabilize the economy and maintain GDP but at a lower level. Perhaps the 70% level that consumption contributes to GDP cannot be maintained, but this might actually be a good thing by eliminating things that are not essential to the health and welfare of the population while driving air pollution and greenhouse gasses down. Neel Kashkari President of the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve siad on 60 Minutes that the Fed needs to be "overly generous" to the average family, something they weren't when the economy tanked in 2008. The Fed is committed to not letting any banks or major US businesses go under. They could just as well make sure that no American families go under. Andrew Yang's idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) not only helps families survive. It will help the economy survive.

Off the Top of My Head

During WW II, Cars and Gas Were Rationed. Would the American People Accept Such Sacrifices in the War on Global Warming?

by John Lawrence, March 10, 2020

Evidently not. Despite warnings that we have less than 10 years to do something before there is runaway global warming, nothing much has been done. Yet the coronavirus has set the world's consciousness on fire in just a few short weeks. Why hasn't global warming gotten the world so up in arms? During WW II everybody had a job; everybody worked, yet there were government mandated limits on consumption. All kinds of things were rationed especially cars and gas. Yet economic activity expanded due to ramping up the war effort. Today the economy is going into a tailspin because large crowds have been proscribed. All the money that has been added to GDP by music events and professional athletics has gone bye-bye. This is not necessarily a bad thing because people might be better off staying home and reading a good book rather than being out at a sporting event. I know. I know this is a very unpopular opinion.

The point is that, during WW II people had the basic necessities, and everyone was employed. They just couldn't have the icing on the cake until after the war when rationing was lifted. Then the economy boomed. Perhaps there is a lesson here for how to mobilize a society to get a handle on global warming.  In the few short weeks that government spokesmen have decried cruise ship and airplane travel, green house gas emissions (GHGs) have actually decreased. If the government proscribed these and other activities such as automobile travel (think gas rationing), GHGs would decrease even more rapidly. Then, if the government went on an investment spree in terms of renewable energy the way it did on planes and battleships during WWII, there would be full employment. People would just be limited temporarily until this war is won in how they could actually spend their money just like in WWII.

Then after a totally green economy is achieved fueled by green renewable energy, the barriers on spending money would be lifted. Could this even work? Some authors don't think so. William Greider writes in "Secrets of the Temple":

World War II was a model of the possible. In theory, if a national consensus of purpose developed, if people would accept temporary limits on their economic choices as well as regulatory controls on wages and prices, the nation could literally rebuild itself, almost overnight. With the right choices, America could practically double the productive capacity of its economy and advance innovation and dramatically multiply new wealth and incomes. These economic choices, however, were really political questions: who would take the sacrifices and who would take the rewards? Whose consumption would be restrained and whose production would be encouraged. All this consigned extraordinary powers to government, perhaps tolerable only in war. No one, including the most ardent Keynesian planners, has ever figured out how to recreate a comparable combination of creative sacrifices in peacetime or how to sell it to a free society.

And that, dear reader is the crux of the matter. How do you sell the necessary war time effort to combat global warming to a free society? Sure the coronavirus has had the salutary effect of decreasing cruise ship and airplane travel with the concomitant decrease in GHG emissions. At the same time the stock market has gone into a tailspin. If the same kind of effort were made in behalf of global warming, we could expect the stock market to go into the mother of all tailspins. Is it worth it or should we consign future generations to the fate of runaway global warming and an uninhabitable planet?

Abraham Maslow wrote a book, "Towards a Psychology of Being" in which he identified a pyramid of needs starting with D-needs. D-needs are the basic needs of food, air, water, housing and clothing. You might throw in medical care.Then, as you ascend the pyramid, higher order needs are revealed once the lower order needs are met. At the top he identified B-needs or self-actualization which might mean developing all your latent higher order capacities such as becoming a great musician. What seems to me to have happened though is that society has intervened in this process to impose superfluous needs on people. Let's call them S-needs. These needs have to do with all the materialistic consumption that a commercial society imposes or tries to impose on people through advertising so that Maslow's higher order needs are really short-circuited. That's why I say that staying home and reading a good book might be more beneficial in and of itself than attending  a professional sporting event in addition to protecting one from the coronavirus.

What an enlightened society would do to combat global warming is exactly what America did during WW II. D-needs were well satisfied due to a full employment society in which certain kinds of consumption were discouraged while making sure that everyone was fed, clothed, housed and had adequate medical treatment. Could in Greider's words a " national consensus of purpose develop" in which people felt it was more important to delay certain kinds of consumption in order to develop the green infrastructure needed to get global warming under control? The world needs America's leadership on this because America is largely responsible for the GHGs already in the atmosphere, and, if America will not have a sense of urgency, why should any other nation which is just starting to develop a consumer culture?

Will Americans Sacrifice to Save the Planet from Global Warming?

by John Lawrence, January 21, 2020

President Kennedy famously said,"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." That was in 1961. 59 years later we are faced with a problem - global warming - that can't be solved just by Americans taking action within America. We must now ask, "What can you do for your planet?" Global warming makes nationalistic boundaries irrelevant. We must now think of the planet as a whole and come up with global solutions. We are all related, and we are all connected whether we like it or not. We must give up old rivalries, animosities and lifestyles. Will Americans sacrifice their consumerist lifestyles to save the planet for future generations? Don't bet on it.

In 1979 President Jimmy Carter gave a speech asking for Americans to give up their consumerist lifestyles.

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we have discovered that owning things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We have learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

Carter put solar panels on the White House. When Ronald Reagan was elected, he promptly took them down. Global warming was not on either of their radars in those days, but those symbolic acts characterize the two parties' attitudes towards global warming to this day. The Democrats believe the scientists and believe we must do something about global warming post haste. Republicans, and Trump in particular, are global warming deniers. Ronald Reagan delivered the following quote: "Approximately 80 percent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation. So let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards for man-made sources." It goes to show his ignorance on the matter. He wanted Americans to have more material goods, not less. "They tell us we must learn to live with less, and teach our children that their lives will be less full and prosperous than ours have been; that the America of the coming years will be a place where — because of our past excesses — it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true. I don't believe that." His dreams were all involved with material accumulation, of course.

George W Bush's response to the 9/11 attacks was "go out and shop!" Time magazine wrote:

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush didn't call for sacrifice. He called for shopping. "Get down to Disney World in Florida," he said. "Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed." Taken on its own, this wasn't such a horrible sentiment. But Boston University historian Andrew Bacevich has made a convincing case that it was part of a broader pattern of encouraging financial irresponsibility. "Bush seems to have calculated — cynically but correctly — that prolonging the credit-fueled consumer binge could help keep complaints about his performance as Commander in Chief from becoming more than a nuisance," Bacevich wrote in the Washington Post in October. Now we're paying the bill.

So the issue of global warming does call for sacrifice. It calls for sacrificing gas guzzlers and instead driving hybrid or full electric cars or taking public mass transpostation. It calls for eating less meat because the factory farm production of cows pollutes the planet compared to eating the same grains that are first run through a cow. It calls for a less consumerist lifestyle, reusing plastic bags and getting away from one use items. It calls for recycling as much waste as possible. It calls for cutting back on air travel and jet fuel pollution. It calls for working with people in the rest of the world, instead of trying to control them, for a common cause and common purpose. It means cutting back on the world's worst polluter - the US military.

All of the measures that need to be taken call for a less consumerist society instead of a using it once and throwing it away society. It calls for young people to join the Peace Corps, a green oriented Peace Corps, instead of a polluting military. It calls for solutions to the problem of waste production by young entrepreneurs. It calls for replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and doing this with a sense of urgency because we don't have much time left to get it right. The Green New Deal encompasses all these concerns. Ramping up this effort must be undertaken with the urgency manifested in the buildup for World War II. All of this will decrease economic activity as we've known it because less things will be bought and sold and more will be reused. We must replace a throw away society with a sustainable society for the future whatever sacrifices in profits and business activity must be made.

Off the Top of My Head

Boeing's 737 MAX Should Never Fly Again

by John Lawrence, November 21, 2019

But I have a constructive suggestion as to what Boeing can do with them: convert them back to regular 737s. The 737 MAX is a kluge. What they did instead of redesigning the plane from scratch was to take two bigger engines and put them on the 737 that was designed for the smaller engines. This made the plane aerodynamically unstable. They tried to make up for this instability with software. It wasn't a very good idea. The software known as MCAS wasn't up to the task of keeping an aerodynamically unstable plane in the air. Consequently, in short order two of the planes crashed taking everyone with them.

Therefore, Boeing should just take the new engines they put on the 737 fuselage, that was designed for the smaller original engines, off and put the original 737 engines back on. Thus the planes which have a long and safe track record as 737s could go back into service as 737s, and the 737 MAX could be retired permanently. The engines that were taken off could be set aside awaiting a completely redesigned airplane that was designed aerodynamically for those engines. Thus nothing would be wasted, and they wouldn't have to just scrap all those 737 MAXs that are sitting on the ground somewhere. One thing is certain: no one wants to board a 737 MAX again even if Boeing says they have all the kinks worked out.

Off the Top of My Head

Too Much Technology?

by John Lawrence, November 30, 2018

The Lion Air plane crash that killed 189 people was caused by a tug of war between the plane's two pilots and a computer. Due to faulty readings from one of the plane's sensors, the computer pointed the plane's nose downward while the pilots tried to keep the plane either level or ascending. Before planes were so highly computerized this never would have happened. Even with computers onboard, the pilots taking manual control of the plane should have overridden the computers. This is a design flaw incorporating too much technology. Evidently, there was a procedure to override the computers, but it was far from intuitive.

I got my private pilot's license many years ago, but haven't flown recently. However, I know enough about the essentials of flying an airplane to know that this accident never would have happened on a plane that the pilots actually were responsible for flying and not the computers.

Think of a car's cruise control system. When you put a car on cruise control, it is essentially being run by a computer at least as far as the car's speed is concerned. The computer keeps the car at a constant speed. However, the driver at any time can put his foot on the brakes or accelerator and immediately override the cruise control. This should have been the case on the Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane as well. As soon as the pilot took the wheel, the plane's automated system should have been overridden. Since it was not, this is a design flaw in the plane.

CNN reported:

Former US National Transportation Safety Board air crash investigator and CNN aviation analyst Peter Goelz told CNN the data clearly showed issues with both the speed and altitude of the plane.

 

"There is something obviously wrong in both the air speed and the altitude which would point to the flight control systems," he said. "These are fly-by-wire systems -- highly automated -- and pilots may not be able to troubleshoot failures in a timely manner."

 

This is exactly the problem: the planes are too highly automated. There's no reason why a human pilot relying on simple instruments like an altimeter, airspeed indicator and attitude indicator shouldn't be able to take off and land a plane. These basic instruments are fail safe. Even if these instruments did fail, the pilot should be able to take a look out the window in "normal weather" as was the case that day and control his attitude with the "stick". Since the weather was normal that day, the pilots could have done everything manually.

 

Boeing is putting too much technology into planes making the pilots not only redundant, but unable to take over flying the plane when the technology fails. Of course, this penchant for too much technology makes it possible for Boeing to charge a lot more for the plane. The more technology, the more the price goes up. Sometimes, the simpler, the better. A plane's computers should be easily disabled the same way a car's cruise control is disabled - by a slight pressure on the control wheel.

 

The pilot's control wheel is called a yoke. The pilot uses the yoke to control the attitude of the plane, usually in both pitch and roll. Rotating the control wheel controls the ailerons and the roll axis. Fore and aft movement of the control column controls the elevator and the pitch axis. When the yoke is pulled back the nose of the aircraft rises. When the yoke is pushed forward the nose is lowered. When the yoke is turned left the plane rolls to the left and when it is turned to the right the plane rolls to the right.

 

The plane's automated systems - also called "fly-by-wire" - need to be automatically disabled as soon as the pilot touches the yoke. If they had been, this horrific accident could have been averted.

Passenger Trains: Our Hope for a More Sustainable Future

Published on Sunday, September 19, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

by Olga Bonfiglio

President Obama's proposal to spend $50 billion on transportation infrastructure—including 4,000 miles of rail lines—couldn't be a better expenditure of our federal tax dollars.

After spending two days on the Empire Builder, the long-haul Amtrak line from Chicago to Seattle/Portland, I quickly realized that our investment in trains should be readily and heartily embraced.  And, if more Americans were to take such trips, I’m sure they, too, would choose trains as an alternative mode of travel.

Amtrak staff was courteous and responsive to passengers, a bit quirky as train people can be, but absolutely delightful while we all traveled the miles and hours together across the country. Riding the train, especially on an overnight, was romantic and adventurous and we kept to our schedule despite the numerous times we had to yield to freight trains.

Actually, it’s a miracle that Amtrak has lasted these past 40 years since President Richard Nixon deliberately designed it for failure.  Different administrations—both Democratic and Republican—have either ignored passenger rail or, like President George W. Bush, actively sought to scuttle it.

James McCommons, author of Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service tells the story about Amtrak and America’s relationship with trains along with some great travelogues of his year-long train trips around the country.

He points out that most legislators who vote on appropriations for passenger trains have never ridden a train, which severely works against Amtrak. Others have been adamant that Amtrak make a profit.

Truth is, there is no public transportation system in the world that earns a profit.

What is clear is that train networks serve as a means to an end, namely, they contribute to an area’s economic development, an idea that is capturing the attention of more and more mayors across the country, especially in this weak economy.

Actually, highways and airports are not money-makers either and the federal government subsidizes them to the tune of $180 billion per year. Amtrak only gets $1 billion. Unfortunately, many Americans don’t realize that a transportation network is one of the benefits of their taxes.

The reason that Amtrak has been short-sheeted is that passenger rail has simply not been a government priority.

After 100 years of moving people within our cities and around the country, trains lost favor because people were sick of the rapacious and corrupt conduct of the railroad corporations. The vehicles were dirty and staff was rude or mean. Ridership had been steadily declining since 1920. After World War II, the nation made a dramatic switch to invest in highways because our roads were poor and lacked connectivity and, well, people liked driving their cars. It didn’t help that the automobile, oil and tire companies conspired—or at least lobbied—against the public transportation system for their own interests as depicted in the 1996 PBS film, “Taken for a Ride” and its 2008 Part II version. 

Promoted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 required citizens to finance the Interstates by paying 15 to 20 percent of the price of a gallon of gas. The 46,876-mile Interstate system took 35 years to complete and cost $128.9 billion.  The feds paid 90 percent of the cost or about $114 billion—$425 billion in 2006 dollars— even though the Interstates were under the control of the states.  Governors and mayors signed onto this massive public works plan without hesitation because they saw it as an economic development tool for their cities. They would be proved wrong within a couple decades.

As more and more people needed and bought cars, they found themselves stuck in more traffic jams and having to contend with endless road repair. Operating an automobile amounted to $6,000 to $7,000 per year (outside its purchase) and the accident and death rates related to cars—at least 40,000 deaths per year—were overwhelming.

Building the Interstates in the cities also drastically changed urban life, something Eisenhower never intended and experts never foresaw. Neighborhoods were torn up to make way for the highways. Social stratification and racial discrimination intensified as middle class white people migrated to the suburbs and left poor people and minority groups behind in the cities. Downtowns that were designed for pedestrians became congested places and the influx of cars made them frustrating to navigate. Old buildings were demolished to create surface parking, which then created gaping, ugly holes in the cityscape.  People felt unsafe and increasingly reluctant to go downtown. Retail moved out to the suburbs and the companies eventually followed. Of course, all of this out-migration ended up depleting the tax base and making ghost towns out of our once vibrant and prosperous downtowns.

By the late 1990s transportation engineers and analysts began questioning the Interstate’s “externalities” as they costed out pollution, energy waste, land disruption, accidents, time wasted in traffic jams.  They also learned that spending hundreds of millions of dollars to add highway lanes and interchanges didn’t relieve congestion.

The airlines tried to make up for their operational costs with reduced legroom, poorer air quality and overcrowding. Greater demand for air travel also necessitated building or expanding airports, which all takes up a lot of tax dollars.

With the 1990s came new attitudes toward cities and toward the environment. Young people and empty nesters found cities a “hip” place to live and began moving back. They reduced their car usage and demanded more public transportation options. People started a movement to restore historic buildings and revitalize their downtowns.

Meanwhile, rail advocates were keeping Amtrak alive, albeit by a thread. Among them was Gil Carmichael, a former highway lobbyist, owner of five car dealerships and an airport charter service. He later founded the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver where he advocates for what he calls Interstate II.

Interstate II (http://www.texasrailadvocates.org/InterstateII.htm) involves double- or triple-tracking 20,000 to 30,000 miles of mainline freight railroads, establishing corridors for high-speed trains and eventually electrifying the trains to replace diesel engines. Carmichael estimates this could all be done in 20 years for two cents on the motor fuel tax.

“We have this incredible railroad network that goes out all over this land from city center to city center. That's what is so amazing. It's already there,” said Carmichael (in McCommons).

Another idea train advocates promote is the re-establishment of a combined freight and passenger rail system through private-public partnerships that work with state transportation departments.  Dedicated passenger lines have a multiplier effect that can relieve traffic congestion, reduce freight bottlenecks, diminish flight delays, reduce this country's carbon footprint and accommodate people without cars or the means or desire to fly.

When Amtrak was created, politicians, lobbyists and fiscal conservatives really wanted to deep-six passenger rail altogether within two years. It was only through political wrangling and arm-twisting that train advocates were able to save passenger rail by separating it from freight and calling it Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. That did not mean, however, that it would be efficient, well-funded or make a profit despite Nixon’s caveat that the new railroad be off the government dole as soon as possible.

The United States has never had a vision for an integrated railroad network nor has it adequately funded one, says John Gibson, vice president of Operations Research and Planning at CSX (quoted in McCommons).  Instead, passenger rail has been a hit and miss enterprise as Amtrak has tried to put its trains on networks owned and managed by the freight companies.

Could there be a renaissance in trains? Yes, says McCommons, because as the nation’s population increases, as more people decide to lead urban lives and as cities increase in density, it makes sense to use rail—especially with energy costs expected to climb.

“In terms of efficiency—fuel savings, lower carbon outputs, smaller footprint on the landscape—the advantage is really rail,” said Anthony Carbonell of the Lincoln institute of Land Policy in Cambridge (quoted in McCommons). “It has been significantly underinvested in and disadvantaged against the other modes. We once had good train service in this country. We need to recover that capacity.”

The Obama administration clearly sees the possibilities of rail and so it gave Amtrak $8 billion in the stimulus package and another $1.3 billion for car rehabilitation and infrastructure repair on the Northeast Corridor. Vice President Joe Biden, a well-known train buff and consistent passenger during his senatorial days, obviously had a lot to do with this boost for Amtrak. 

This is all a good start but we still have a long way to go.

So, ride the train if you haven’t already, and encourage others to ride also, including your congressional representatives. It's a great way to get this country back on track!

Olga Bonfiglio is a professor at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and author of Heroes of a Different Stripe: How One Town Responded to the War in Iraq. She has written for several national magazines on the subjects of social justice and religion. Her website is www.OlgaBonfiglio.com. Contact her at [email protected].

Obama Boxed In On Afghanistan

Obama is boxed in by his own rhetoric on Afghanistan. While running for President, in order to look tough while condemning Bush's war in Iraq, Obama made comments to the effect that Afghanistan is the real war we should be fighting because that's where al Quaeda is located. So it would be precipitous for him just to pull out now. He would look weak, the last thing any Democratic President needs. There may be legitimate reasons for keeping a miltary prescence on the ground in Afghanistan, but for the most part they escape me. They seem to boil down to "al Quaeda might come back." Well, yeah, and then again they might not. They may go elsewhere like to Somalia, for example. Is it worth sending young people into harm's way on a "maybe"?

I think, as much as I hate to say it, that Obama's decision to send more troops is all about political calculations. First, Obama is turning out to be an avowed centrist. He doesn't want to do anything too radical at least during his first few months in office. Leaving Afghanistan abruptly at this time would be too radical. There is too much on his plate here at home to have to deal with a firestorm from the right about leaving Afghnaistan abruptly. He would like to get health care passed. He would like to do something about jobs. Better to let Afghanistan remain at the status quo than to have to deal with another firestorm from the right, another distraction from his main goals. And it would give Republicans additional ammunition in the upcoming congressional elections of 2010. Better to neutralize that by remaining in Afghanistan, and there is always the possibility that something can be improved there, but I doubt it.

Besides he can always pull a Nixon, declare victory and pull out of Afghanistan just before the 2012 election. At that point Obama will look pretty good if 1) a substantial health care bill has been passed, 2) the job situation has substantially improved and 3) he has just completed a successful war in Afghanistan. Why not pull a Nixon and use the ending of the war as a tool to get reelected? Nixon promised to end the Vietnam war, he hinted that he and Kissinger had a "secret plan," but conveniently let it drag on until just before the next election which Nixon won handily only to be tripped up by Watergate a few months later. This sounds cynical, I know, and in Nixon's case the cynicism is certainly justified. But Obama cannot survive in office without making political calculations as well, particularly when that's all the other side is doing. If the Republicans ever do anything except from political calculations, it will be news to me.

Obama has already set the groundwork for withdrawl from Afghanistan with his announced exit strategy which gives McChrystal 15 months to get things done or else. That would put us into mid 2011 just a few months before Obama would be revving up his reelection campaign. How convenient! My prediction is that he will declare victory at that time and pull out. Better to have the firestorm from the right then as part of a referendum on his reelection campaign than to have it as another distraction now. Besides ending the war then will leave the Republicans - if they should replace him in 2012 - without an ongoing war which they would dearly love to inherit from him. If Obama wins in 2012, it leaves him with a clean slate for his second term during which he can take a more radical stance on a number of issues since he won't ever have to deal with another election campaign. At that point he would have a shot at making a major change in the Weltanschauung or zeitgeist of the country, the way Reagan did, but in the opposite direction. 

So there are many advantages from Obama's perspective for continuing the war in Afghanistan at this time both geopolitical and political. Of course, all calculations of this sort can turn out to have been unfounded. Things can go awry. The war, as wars are accustomed to do, could turn dirtier and messier. The economy could get worse instead of better making the expenditures in Afghanistan seem like an even bigger waste of money than they already are. Obama could end up being boxed in by reality and not merely by his own rhetoric.

Rail Transportation in US Needs to Replace Car Culture

On Robert Reich's blog yesterday Linda said this:

I live out close to motown and over the years I have had many conversations with people who are studying the feasibility of alternative transportation systems.

Amtrak needs to be subsidized in this country because it is such a small, archaic system. If you want to go somewhere, try finding a scheduled train that goes there. It doesn't exist...except for some old established routes in the Eastern sector that date back to the pre-highway days. Anyone who has been to Europe knows what excellent train service is...it is one of the most convenient, safe and comfortable ways to travel. Imagine being able to drink a cup of coffee and catch up on the morning news quietly on your way to work each morning.

The U.S. has put a huge investment in roads and creating infrastructure to support the auto industry because automobiles have been at the core of our industry since the industrial revolution. But personal cars may soon become obsolete, whether we like them or not. The oil supply could run out a lot quicker than people realize. For example, I live in a town close to the auto factories where people commute let's say 35 miles a day to work. When gas prices were high last spring, it cost upwards from $20 a day for some employees just to make the daily round trip to the factory. It is conceivable that in the next five years, or even the next couple years, that gasoline prices could rise to the point where a single commuter roundtrip would cost $100. What would happen then? How would people get to their jobs?

Trains are a much more energy efficient way to get people to their jobs than cars. Right now in Michigan, local government is looking into a way to get an old railroad line working in our community and people are very excited about it.

You say that it would take decades to build a good railroad system..not necessarily, especially if it were a major national priority. Obama wants to build the infrastructure: this would be a great way to put people to work and give people jobs, and in a very short space of time, it would be an industry that would be self-sustaining and stimulate other sectors of the economy.

Obama says he wants to work on the infrastructure by building more roads, and this worries me. I think it's time to get in there and suggest that we work on a railway system instead.

Linda

Tuesday, 25 November, 2008

Art a Layman said this:

As far as a profitable venture goes, that will greatly depend on our cultural propensities. Now we can argue chicken or egg but the fact is that American consumers don't want to leave their cars at home. That has been the reason for the long and prosperous car industry in America. Even more, in America cars have become an extension of our personna. Many consumers seek cars with styling that fits the image they have of themselves or dream of having. That's one of the reasons we still see big engines and high speed capability. Americans thrive on big and it seems that mankind in general is enthralled with speed, but none more than we Americans.

There are many areas around the US where existing rail infrastructure would be a good start. There are many others where suburban expansion, for miles around, has moved much of the populace away from existing railroad tracks. This will mean expanding tracks, establishing way stations, quite often on privately owned land. Some owners will jump at the chance to sell their land for a profit, others, for whatever reason, will not want to sell. No problem, eminent domain laws, simple. Except that lawsuits ensue, possibly all the way up to the Supreme Court and again, Tempest fugits.

Now I'm not familair with Europe but my understanding is that rail systems have existed there for a long time. Further the population/land density is significantly different than in the US. If rail transportation was vital as cities expanded certainly that would have been considered in municipal planning. In the US no such consideration was necessary. Major cities where the industrial sector is situated around the urban centers likely are better suited for rail transportation as a means of commuting to work, which would have to be the primary driver of the industry. In cities where I have lived there has been great movement away from urban centers by businesses, manufacturing, distribution, etc., to avoid crime and to establish places of work closer to where residents live and allow for ease of expansion, to say nothing of cheaper land costs. This has located many large employers, beyond retail, into small cities and towns within a 25 to 50 mile range of where their workers live, in all directions.

Art a Layman

Tuesday, 25 November, 2008

Here is my response:

I'm totally with Linda as to rail transportation. Art your remark that you've never experienced rail transportation in Europe is telling. They are so far ahead of us. As an example, I spent three weeks in Holland a few years ago. I could get anywhere in the country by rail and back to Amsterdam the same day. But here's the kicker: I never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a train to Amsterdam from any where in the country. Even in former communist countries like the Czech Republic you can get anywhere by rail and/or bus. Some of the connections are Toonerville Trollies but so what? When you add the TGV in France and other high speed rail, you have a marvelous transportation system in which you don't need a car to get anywhere. Even so there is a mix of cars, rail and air transportation in Europe.

Here in San Diego all city buses are LNG. That's what makes living downtown tolerable. You can stand in back of one of these buses and breathe freely, and they don't pollute. The only problem is the private charter buses are gas based and you don't want to get near any of these. San Diego has increased its trolley system (using European built cars) using existing and former rights of way. Only problem is it's underutilized due to car culture. It's still not to the level it was in the 1890s in terms of network. Also suburban commuter trains are doing well here. The Coaster transports commuters to north county using rail lines shared with Amtrak and BNSF freight trains. Just this year they added an east-west link from Oceanside inland to Escondido called the Sprinter - again using former rights of way.

Car culture in this country is created by advertising. Why else do you think every other add is a car ad on TV? (The rest of the ads are for pharmaceuticals - something that should be outlawed.) Urban cowboys are created by advertising. It's that simple. Remember when smoking was accepted as de rigueur? Smoking culture was created by advertising. Since it has been verboten and negative ads went on TV against smoking we've seen smoking come to a point of being socially unacceptable. The same thing could be done with car culture. It would take government prohibitions against certain forms of advertising as it did with smoking.

The trolley and streetcar network was deliberately sh*tcanned by the auto industry to get people to buy cars and use more gas. In LA they used to have a wonderful network of streetcars and trolleys. This is being brought back. Many people don't know this, but LA has built a wonderful trolley system using mainly old rights of way. You can go to Pasadena on the Gold line, anywhere in downtown (yes, there is a downtown in LA) on the Red line. You can even get from Union Station to LAX on the Blue line. They just need to extend the Red line all the way to Santa Monica. Right now you have to get off and take the Metro Rapide which is a high speed, limited stop bus that can control the traffic lights in its favor. Exclusive bus lanes for buses on freeways is also being done in southern CA.

Fortunately, we don't have to wait for the Federal government to do everything. Cities and municipalities have already been taking action to get cars off the road and reduce the senseless suburban commute. Urban planning such as the CCDC in San Diego has been encouraging high rise infill projects next to trolley lines and downtown high rises as an alternative to living in suburbia.

All that cities need from the Federal government is a little encouragement (and money) to do more along these lines. That's how it normally works anyway. So I disagree with Art's pessimism about rail transportation. It can be done, Art, but you gotta believe. Just like the EV1 which was crushed by GM, rail in this country was deliberately deconstructed by the auto and gas industries especially in LA, the epicenter of car culture.

Trucks use the public highways at little expense for maintenance while railroads have to pay to maintain their own track beds. Government could change this incentive structure. The widening of freeways and creation of additional lanes, bridges and underpasses has gone to insane heights in CA in order to accomodate more and more vehicular traffic, a large portion of which is trucks moving goods that could be moved by rail including all sorts of toxics and nuclear waste. Do you like driving in the next lane alongside that? On some freeways around here it's a permanent non-stop building project. It never ends. It's nuts.

Art, do yourself a favor. Go to Europe and ride the trains! It's very convenient. The scenery's outstanding and the food's not bad either!

John & Judy's Vacation 2007 - Part 4 - Seattle

We left Coeur d'Alene and cruised 30 mile on I-90 to Spokane, a major, inviting looking city I wish we had had time to explore. After stopping at the YMCA for a swim and a mocha, we continued on I-90 through the Yakima Valley and over the Cascade Mountains via Snoqualmie Pass. What a scenic drive. We stopped at the Snoqualmie Pass rest area to find free coffee and cookies waiting for us. Also all the rest areas we stopped at in the state of Washington had free Wi-Fi. What a progressive state! There was snow on the mountains. Here are a few pictures of our drive to Seattle. Remember you can click on any picture to see a larger version.

Finally, we're in Seattle. We settled into our hotel room at the Sixth Street Hotel disappointed to find no free internet access for the first time on our trip. The advantage was that there was a pretty good restaurant in our hotel which saved us from having to go out in the rainy weather. In Seattle there's a Starbucks on every street corner and sometimes there's one mid-block too.

The next day Judy wanted to go to the Rosalie Whyel Doll Museum in Bellevue. While Judy perused the dolls, I took some pictures outdoors.

Later that day we went to Pike Place Market, Seattle's main tourist attraction, where they throw and catch the fish. We weren't too impressed. We didn't actually see them throw any fish, and there were too many tourists there. So we walked down the street and had dinner at  McCormick and Schmick's Seafood Restaurant. We'd been to one in San Francisco last year and the food was as good this year.

The next day Judy wanted to rest in the hotel room while I checked out some of the downtown Seattle attractions. My first stop was at the brand new Seattle Public Library, an impressive, unorthodox structure designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas built in 2004.  Of course they have free internet accesss on their computers or your laptop and a coffee bar right in the library. I  actually did a blog entry from there, the one on Einstein. This is actually the  coolest and most  impressive  library I've  ever been in except perhaps for the one in Paris, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. Check out the pictures. The geometrical patterns are fantastic!

After I checked out the library I went to the Seattle Art Museum. The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) just opened its new expanded version this year. It has been in the same location since 1991 in a high rise and as time goes by it has taken over more floors of the high rise. It still has room for expansion as it owns the four floors located directly above it. The rest of the building is owned by WaMu.

The above photo is the cafe at the art museum. After I toured SAM (no photos were allowed), I headed for the monorail station for the ride to Seattle Center where the space needle is located and site of the World's Fair in 1962.

Finally, it was time to head back downtown on the monorail.

The next day we took the ferry to Bainbridge Island.

We could barely see Mt. Rainier through the haze. Mt.  Rainier is an active volcano about 50 miles from Seattle, and on this day, for the first time in Seattle, the weather was not rainier.

On the trip back to Seattle the sun came out. I couldn't resist snapping a few more pictures of the Seattle skyline.

Here's a few other shots taken around town. For the complete Seattle picture album, click here.

 

The next day, October 9, 2007, Judy and I headed for the SeaTac Airport. We had one more adventure in store - the Seattle Transit Tunnel. Seattle busses are free downtown so we boarded a bus outside our hotel which dropped us off at the entrance to the Seattle Transit Tunnel, an underground transit system for busses. Here we picked up the bus for SeaTac for the outrageous fare of $1.35 apiece, I think it was. In 2009 they will have both busses and light rail utilizing the tunnel, the only underground transit system in the US which will be shared by both bus and rail. The rail connection will then link downtown with SeaTac Airport.

Judy was tired and couldn't wait to get home. After we got through security at the airport, she perked up and we had an uneventful (the best kind) flight to San Diego, just a short hop on Alaskan Airlines. They served Seattle's Best coffee on the plane, a definite plus.

John and Judy's Vacation 2007 - Part 3 - Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

It was either raining or threaten- ing to rain the whole time we were in Idaho and Washing- ton. We met Judy's sister, Jeanette, at the Perkins family restaur- ant. I had never been to a Perkins before. The food was good, they had homemade pie and the prices  were low compared to southern California. Everything including real estate was more reasonable here. I had reserved our motel, La Quinta, where we stayed four nights, online through hotels.com for $70. a night although the price from their own website was twice that much. It had everything - two queen beds, a remote for the TV that actually worked, a full kitchen including dishwasher and breakfast was included. You can't beat that.

The next day Judy hung out with Jeanette while I explored Coeur d'Alene. General William Tecumseh Sherman, after he had laid waste to the south in the Civil War, had come out here and established a fort called Fort Sherman, naturally. The name Coeur d'Alene had been given to the local Indians by French fur traders who thought the Indians were pretty sharp traders with hearts like a shoemaker's awl. Coeur d'Alene is a pretty little town that has grown to include on the outskirts all the mall stores that you can find everywhere in the US.  We felt right at home. It still retains a small town flavor though in the old part of town - no fast food restaurants there, not even a Starbucks. The downtown hamburger joint, Hudson's, was celebrating its 100 year anniversary so naturally I had to go there. The menu was very simple: hamburgers, cheeseburgers and pie. No French fries!

Coeur d'Alene is located on a beautiful, enormously huge lake. Here are some pictures. Please remember that you can click on any picture to see a larger version.

There is a nice visitors' center with a sculpture of the "coeur."

There is a resort right on the lake.

There is a nice new public library.

The old chapel from Fort Sherman is still there:

Here are some shots around town. Sherman Avenue is the main downtown drag. For more pictures of Coeur d'Alene check out the album by clicking here.

That night we had dinner at Jeanette's house:

One day we took a drive to St. Marie's, a little logging town about 60 miles from Coeur d'Alene. More beautiful lakes and rivers. No water shortage here!

That night we spent some time with Jeanette and her family, and Jeanette did some energy work on me.

Judy and Jeanette had a lot to catch up on, not having seen each other for 14 years. Our last night together we went to the Tomato Street restaur- ant.

The next morning we went east on I-90 headed for Seattle. We stopped at the Seattle Valley YMCA, a beautiful new facility where Judy waited for me while I swam. Then we had our coffee and pastry at the coffee bar there and bought a couple of sandwiches for our lunch. There was frost on the ground that morning!

John & Judy's Vacation 2007 - Part 2 - Napa Valley and Portland, OR

From Modesto it's only about a 90 minute drive to Napa. We got to Napa early in the afternoon and had the rental car till the next morning so we checked out the town of Napa which is the biggest town in the Napa Valley and located at the southern end. It's a cute little town.

Then we drove the 15 miles or so up Rte. 29 to Yountville where the California Veterans Home is located. After checking in with Mr. Wolfe, and unloading our things at the Hospitality House we took Dale out for dinner. Remember you can click on any picture to see a larger version.

The next morning, after we turned our rental car in and Dale picked us up, we celebrated Dale's birthday at the Gillwoods Cafe where we had breakfast.

Then we went exploring some Napa Valley wineries. We started out with the Hess Collection. After what seemed like an interminable ride up winding roads outside of the town of Napa, we finally discovered the place. It turned out to be our lucky day because we got a free tour AND a free tasting. After checking out the extensive art collection, Dale and I went on the tour, one of the best I've been on. Our tour guide, Yaeko, then invited us for the free tasting. I think they normally charge $10 for four wines. After tasting 5 or so I decided I'd had about enough. Dale was driving so I didn't have to worry about the winding roads. Dale had ailments which prevented him from participating in the tasting, but I let him do all the sniffing he wanted on my samples before I proceeded to imbibe them. Judy didn't go on the tour, but she got in on the free tasting too. After I got home, I ordered two bottles of the Su'skol Chardonnay online. Mmm Mmm good! I can truthfully say all Chardonnays are not created equal! I hope what I ordered was half as good as what I had in the tasting room.

Then we headed for Clos Pegase at the northern end  of the valley near the town of Calistoga. From Yountville you go through the towns of Oakvillle, Ruther- ford, St. Helena and finally Calistoga. The Napa Valley is narrow with just one major highway - Highway 29. There is also the Silverado Trail along the eastern side of the valley. The Napa Valley is just 35 miles long.

Clos Pegase also had an extensive art collection - mostly sculpture. These wineries are owned by rich men for whom winemaking is somewhat of a dilettantish pastime. On the tour I learned that only 4% of California wine comes from the Napa Valley. Most of the rest comes from the Central Valley where we'd just been, Modesto and Stockton, but it is of inferior quality since they allow many more  grapes per vine and they "overoak" it. That is, since there's not  much of a fruity flavor, they let it sit in the oak barrels longer so at least it has some kind of flavor. These are the grapes that go into Charles Shaw (Two Buck Chuck) and Gallo. The other thing is that Clos Pegase only uses  French Oak for its barrels which cost over $1000. apiece whereas, for the Two Buck Chuck variety, they use the inferior American Oak. After this day of education about wine, I was beginning to feel like a wine snob which reminded me of the excellent movie, Sideways, starring Paul Giametti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen  and Sandra Oh about two guys' road trip through the California wine country only they were in a different California wine country in and around Paso Robles, Los Olivos and the Santa Ynez Valley. Check it out on DVD if you haven't seen it! Here's some pictures from Clos Pegase:

   

Later that night Dale dropped us off at the Amtrak bus station in Napa, and we bussed it to Martinez where we caught the train for the overnight to Klamath Falls in a sleeper car and then by Amtrak coach to Portland, OR. Before we leave Napa here's a few more pictures of Yountville and to see our photo album of the Napa Valley including last year's pictures click here.

The California Veterans Home sure is a beautiful place located in Yountville, home of the most expensive restaurant in the US, the French Laundry, where you have to make reservations six months in advance. The CA Vets' Home is sandwiched in between a beautiful golf course on one side and the prestigious winery, Domaine Chandon, on the other. Last year we visited Domaine Chandon for a tasting and toured and tasted Robert Mondavi winery as well as Berringer winery where they make excellent White Zinfandel, Judy's favorite. For the complete photo album of Napa Valley including this year's and last year's pictures, click here. A few more pictures of California Veterans Home before we leave Dale and head on up to Portland, OR on the train:

Finally, we're on the train at 11 PM and escorted immediately to our upper and lower berths. Judy got the lower berth where she could see the mountains and rivers lighted by a full moon, and I got the upper berth where you had to be a contortionist to cram yourself in there. But I was up for the following sunrise picture about an hour outside of Klamath Falls. In the morning we ate breakfast in the dining car, but, like Cinderella, we had to be out of our compartment by the time we got to Klamath Falls or else we would turn into pumpkins. At Klamath Falls I hauled all our luggage about six cars down the train to coach class. (Why pay for a compartment when you're done sleeping there?)

As you can see, it rained all the way to Portland.

After we arrived at Portland's Union Station and checked into the Mark Spencer Hotel (probably the best hotel experience of our vacation with excellent coffee and pastries as well as other breakfast victuals included), we headed for Powell's Books only a block away and a Portland landmark as it's the largest brick and mortar book store in the world housing both new and used books. Here is a picture of Union Station and Powell's Book Store.

The next morning I picked up our Thrifty rental car in downtown Portland and we headed out over the Morrison bridge on I-84 along the Columbia River Gorge headed for Coeur d'Alene, Idaho to visit Judy's sister, Jeanette, and her family. Here's some pictures taken along the Gorge and later in farming country.

John & Judy's Vacation 2007 - Part 1 - San Diego to Salinas, Modesto and Stockton

We left San Diego on the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner at 6:10 AM on Sep- tember 24. After changing in LA to the Coast Starlight, we headed north through Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo arriving in Salinas around 7 PM. Took a taxi to our motel on John Street. The next morning I walked to the YMCA (luckily located only a few blocks away) for my 30 minute swim. I used my Y card every day of the trip at YMCAs in California, Oregon and Washington and there was never a charge. After we ate our included breakfast at the motel, I called Hertz to come get me so I could pick up our rental car. Then we headed for the Steinbeck Museum located in downtown Salinas.

Here's some pictures of our train ride to Salinas, our station stop in Santa Barbara and the scenery north of San Luis Obispo. You can click on any picture to see a larger version of it.

John Steinbeck is my favorite American author, and he grew up in Salinas. He wrote about life in the Salinas Valley and in Monterey which is close by on the coast. The townspeople didn't always appreciate having their dirty laundry hung out in public, but now that Steinbeck is safely dead (having won the Nobel prize in 1962), they have built and dedicated this excellent museum to him which chronicles his life in literature. According to Wikipedia: "In fact, claiming [The Grapes of Wrath] was both obscene and misrepresented conditions in the county, the Kern County Board of Supervisors banned the book from the county's public schools and libraries in August 1939. This ban lasted until January 1941.^" Some of my favorite Steinbeck works are East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, Tortilla Flats, Of Mice and Men, The Red Pony and Travels with Charley. Several of Steinbeck's books were made into movies including East of Eden starring James Dean, Grapes of Wrath starring Henry Fonda, Of Mice and Men and The Red Pony. Here  are some pictures from the Steinbeck Museum.

We had to cut short our visit to the Steinbeck Museum in order to drive to Modesto and have dinner with Judy's daughter and grandson by 5 PM. After checking into our motel, we went to Malissa's duplex on Rumble Road, and Judy met her grandson, Huck for the first  time. Here is a picture of their meeting. The next day Judy babysat Huck while Malissa went and worked out; then they visited while I checked out Modesto. Then we went out to dinner. Here are some more pictures of Huck and Modesto.

The next day we went to the Children's Museum in Stockton. After dropping the dogs off at Doggie Day Care in Escalon, Malissa drove us through a part of the country where they grow a lot of almonds. Malissa pointed out that the correct pronunciation is not ALmonds but AMMONS. I tend to think that only people who grow them or live near there pronounce it AMMONS, but, neverthless, they probably don't care as much that you pronounce it correctly as they do that you keep buying them. Huck had a lot of fun at the museum because he had to do and see everything.

Finally, it was time to say good-bye to Malissa and Huck and head for Yountville in the Napa Valley to visit Judy's cousin Dale who lives at the California Veterans Home. Goodbye Baby Huck and Malissa!

Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise

Marion, the titular head of my cultural exchange group, asked me if I wanted to go to the Impressionist exhibition in Auvers-sur-Oise. It was being held in a large chateau on the outskirts of this small village where van Gogh had spent his last days and is buried next to his brother, Theo, at the local cemetery. The tickets were reasonable so I hopped the train for the hour or so journey to Auvers. We stopped at Pontoise (also on the Oise River), another Impressionist landmark, as Camille Pissarro, one of my favorite impressionists, had lived here. An excellent book by Irving Stone called "The Depths of Glory" is about Pissarro's in some ways tragic life. He was the only Jewish impressionist and, after marrying the family "bon" (the maid), his mother wouldn't even speak to her grandchildren for the rest of her life. Also Pissarro had many of his paintings destroyed when the Germans used his house for a stable in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

I arrived at Auvers which is a very small village. Here van Gogh lived in a small room above the Ravoux Inn which he painted and can be seen here. He also painted some of the buildings of the town like the church (below), but mainly painted en plein air in the fields outside the village. I stopped into a French bakery for a tarte tatin since I couldn't resist French pastries, and made  my way to the Exhibition Impressioniste. The ticket taker asked me if I had come "seule," which I didn't understand so I was frustrated again because they understood me, but I didn't understand them. Later I realized he was just making small talk by asking me if I had come "alone" which I had since, I guess, there were no other takers in Marion's cultural exchange group. It was a very impressive exhibition for having been staged way out in the middle of nowhere albeit a place with a rich history in terms of van Gogh's having lived there in very spartan quarters I might add.

After touring the town and seeing van Gogh's room, I walked to the cemetery to see where van Gogh lay next to his brother, Theo. Theo's wife gave up her place at his side so the two brothers could be buried next to each other. They had a lifetime friendship (although not without a few rough spots) and Theo, an art dealer, was Vincent's main financial support. Their correspondence contributed much to documenting Vincent's life.

After that I caught the next train back to Paris pondering the fact that van Gogh had only sold one painting in his lifetime and was another tragic figure who had given up everything for his art only to live in poverty and not be rewarded. Ironically, now his paintings sell for millions of dollars and are exhibited in museums all over the world including the van Gogh Museum - entirely devoted to his work - in Amsterdam. Another great collection is in the Kroller-Muller Museum also in the Netherlands which is located in a National Park. One rides a free white bicycle to get to it, and then leaves the bicycle at the park entrance when finished.

Irving Stone has also written an excellent book about van Gogh: "Lust for Life."  It was also made into a movie. Vincent van Gogh didn't have any children who might have benefited from his legacy, but Theo's wife and son, Vincent Willem van Gogh, continued the family business after Vincent's death in 1890.

This is from Wikipedia:

Auvers-sur-Oise (May - July 1890) In May 1890, Vincent left the clinic and went to the physician Dr. Paul Gachet, in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, where he was closer to his brother Theo. Dr. Gachet had been recommended to him by Pissarro, as he had previously treated several artists and was an amateur artist himself. Here Van Gogh created his only etching, a portrait of the melancholic Doctor Gachet. As it turned out the doctor was as much in need of help as his patient: Van Gogh commented that Gachet was "sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much". Wheat Field with Crows with its turbulent intensity is often, but mistakenly, thought to be Van Gogh's last work (Jan Hulsker lists seven paintings after it). Daubigny's Garden is a more likely candidate. There are also seemingly unfinished paintings, such as Thatched Cottages by a Hill. Van Gogh's depression deepened, and on July 27, 1890, at the age of 37, he walked into the fields and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. Without realising that he was fatally wounded, he returned to the Ravoux Inn, where he died in his bed two days later. Theo hastened to be at his side and reported his last words as "La tristesse durera toujours" (French for "the sadness will last forever"). He was buried at the cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise. Theo had contracted syphilis (though this was not admitted by the family for many years) and, not long after Vincent's death, was himself admitted to hospital. He was not able to come to terms with the grief of his brother's absence, and died six months later. In 1914 Theo's body was exhumed and re-buried beside Vincent's.

Monet's Home at Giverny

Claude Monet was one of the few impressionists who actually made pretty good money at his art later in life. During a three week stay in Paris, I spent one day visiting Monet's home in Giverny which along with his gardens and lilly pond is kept in much the same state as he left it when he died in 1926. Monet's famous paintings of his gardens, pond and Japanese bridge which celebrate the beauty of nature don't tell the story that they were first created by the meticulous Monet who then later painted them. So he was a gardener, pond builder and bridge builder in addition to being a painter

From the Gare Saint-Lazare train station it's about a 45 minute trip to Vernon. From here it's about 4 km to Giverny to which you can either walk or take a bus. I took a bus for the trip out, but, once I had the lay of the land, I felt confident to walk back to the train station through the Foret de Vernon. One of my best memories is hiking through the Foret de Vernon, listening to Take 6 on my cassette player on a beautiful French afternnoon.

In 1877 Monet did a series of paintings of the Saint-Lazare train station, and I was fortunate enough to attend an exhibition at the Musee d'Orsay of the paintings of the Saint-Lazare by both Monet and Manet. In those days the trains were steam engine powered and the stations were dirty, sooty places, but fascinating nonetheless. From 1916 to 1926, Monet worked on 12 large canvases called "The Water Lillies." After the Armistice for World War I was signed, Monet donated them to France. These paintings can be viewed at the museum of the Orangerie in Paris which is near the Tuilleries Gardens which is just west of the Louvre.

On the beaches of Normandy, he met fellow artist Eugene Boudin, who became his mentor and taught him to use oil paints. Boudin taught Monet en plein air (outdoor) techniques for painting. Monet was a non-conformist eschewing the techniques of the conventional art establishment at the time. Instead he joined with artists such as Renoir, Bazille and Sisley to create a new approach to art which came to be known as impressionism.

It was at Giverny that he began his well-known series which later made him famous. He painted the series of twenty-five "Haystacks" between 1888 and 1891. In 1892, he exhibited a set of twenty-four Poplars at the Durand-Ruel gallery; from 1892 to 1898, he painted the series of Cathedrals, "Matinées sur la Seine " and then the Japanese Bridge , Wistarias and Water Lilies with their interplay of sky, clouds, grass and flowers.

After 1900 Monet became famous and continued to paint the "controlled nature" of his gardens and lilly pond at Giverny. Monet lived and painted in Argenteuil, Rouen and London among other places.

His first wife, Camille Doncieux, with whom he had two children died in 1879. He later married Alice Hoschede and moved into the Giverny house in 1883 where he lived and painted until his death. In his later years he suffered from cataracts which affected his painting. His sight somewhat recovered after cataract surgery. In 1911 Alice died and in 1914 his son, Jean, died.

At Giverny there is a nice gift shop as well as the house and gardens which you can tour. The town itself is very small. It's a beautiful way to spend a day and get back to the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris by nightfall.

Marx, Einstein and Goethe

What do Marx, Einstein and Goethe have in common? They were all born in Germany. I was traveling on the Deutches Bahn across the lower part of Germany from Munich to Freibourg following the Danube River to its source. Part of my trip was a pilgrimage to the birthplaces of my heroes Marx and Einstein. Einstein was born in Ulm and I was eager to see how Ulm had honored their "homey," one of the greatest thinkers the human race has produced.

I got off the train at Ulm and headed for the Information Center. Almost every town in Europe has one, and they are very helpful pointing out local points of interest. I was told there was no "Einstein house." The house where he was born had been torn down, no doubt by the Nazis. There were just 2 monuments to Einstein and that was it. I got directions and set out to find the first one, a 3D sculpture version of the famous picture of Einstein sticking out his tongue. After some searching I found it. It was OK but it was just sitting there by the side of some building. There was no information about Einstein or anything.

The second monument was near the train station, and I frantically searched for it since my departing train was almost due. Finally, I found it - a nondescript, graffiti-covered obelisk in a dimly lit, underground walkway. One had to search to even find the name "Einstein" anywhere on it. What a disgrace! I boarded my train and continued on my way passing the source of the Danube, but I don't remember where.

After a sojourn in the Black Forest, I continued by train with my Deutches Bahn Rail Pass up the Rhine to Koblenz. From there I headed up the Moselle River with my destination being Trier, the birthplace of Karl Marx. I wondered if his birthplace had honored him any more than Ulm had honored Einstein. I got off the train to take a detour to Burg Eltz, a castle that had been in the same family for 800 years and had not been destroyed by Allied bombers during World War 2 because they couldn't find it, so deep in the forest was it hidden. This was highly recommended by Rick Steeves, my travel guru. I always tried to l"ive like a local" as he recommended even to the point of not booking any advance reservations on this trip, a practice I lived to regret when I got to Berlin.

Burg Eltz was a pleasant 45 minute hike through the forest, and I took a tour through the castle. Unfortunately, there was no English tour, and my rudimentary German was hardly sufficient to understand anything our tour guide had to say. The Germans seemed to eat it up though as they paid rapt attention laughing frequently. It seems that opening castles like these up to tourists is the only way families can afford to keep them since the upkeep is tremendous. It was neat to see a bunch of German families relaxing on the veranda after the tour, drinking beer and gazing out over the serene forest. I wanted to join them, but I needed to get to Trier in time to get a hotel room for the night.

Trier had been a Roman town, and there were Roman ruins around the town. I stayed by Porto Negro, the Black Gate, which was part of the ruins. Everywhere I went the first thing I did in the morning was go for a swim in the local municipal pool. Usually the pools were very nice. I remember the one in Rothenburg was outstanding as was the one in Trier. After breakfast I proceeded to explore the town. There was a Karl Marx house, the house where Marx grew up, a middle class burgher's house, naturally. For some reason I didn't get to go in. Maybe it wasn't open that day. There was a Karl Marx Haus bus stop, a Karl Marx Big and Tall men's clothing store and a Karl Marx Kebap house. I was very impressed! They even had a poster of Marx at the local Information Center. I think there was even a local beer called Karl Marx. I came to the conclusion that the most you could aspire to even if you were the most famous person in the whole world was to have a beer named after you. It seemed that way all over Europe.

Leaving Trier I headed for Erfurt, formerly in East Germany, and also Weimar and the Wartburg Castle where Luther supposedly threw his ink pot at the devil. Erfurt was interesting. This former Communist stronghold had some residential streets where the houses were worthy of Beverly Hills. Who used to live here I wondered? I thought everybody lived in huge grey apartment blocks. Evidently not everybody. Finally, I realized that these mansions must have been occupied by Communist Party officials. At least somebody was living well under Communism.

My goal from Erfurt was to hike the Goethe Wanderweg, a hiking trail in the Thuringian mountains where Goethe used to hike and go to find peace and quiet to write his books. I found that Goethe was the real German hero far surpassing Einstein and Marx. There were Goethe monuments and Goethe houses everywhere. Goethe had written "The Sorrows of Young Werther," about a young man much like Holden Caulfield in "The Catcher in the Rye." In fact "Sorrows" was a sort of German "Catcher."

I took the train out of Erfurt heading for some little town where the trail head was located. As typical for my travels in Germany and elsewhere, I could not find the trail head. Sometimes I spent hours looking for a monument or some point of interest that sounded like a really big deal in the guide book. Usually the locals had never heard of it and could have cared less. So much for living like a local!

Finally, I asked a man working in his garden, "Wo ist die Goethe Wanderweg?" He very kindly pointed it out to me. It was a very unobtrusive entrance I must say. I had built it up in my mind to the point where I expected flashing neon lights indicating the start of this historic trail. Finally, however, I was on my way. Soon I found that the trail was indeed very well marked. There were multiple signs pointing directions at every crossroad. I checked out the tree house where Goethe loved to write, the party house where he loved to party etc. etc. As I hiked further, I noticed that the trail started to narrow. All of a sudden there were no more signs and no more German tourists. I was glad that I had refilled my water jug at that last rest stop although the barman seemed to have a difficult time understanding why anyone would be drinking water. It commenced to get darker and darker as I hiked further into the Thuringer Wald. I was lost, lost in a German forest, not speaking very much German and needing to get to the next town to catch the train back to the quarters in Erfurt I was renting from a private family whom I never saw the whole three days I stayed there.

At last I came upon a woodcutter's cottage. I kid you not. There were three German woodcutters deep in the forest. I asked them for directions, but they just sort of waved me on as if they didn't want to be bothered. I did finally luck out and get to the train station just in time to catch the last train back to Erfurt.

In Weimar I searched in vain for the Goethe house while the locals were having a street fair eating wurst and drinking beer. They knew nothing and could have cared less about the Goethe house. I also searched in vain for the famous statue of Goethe and Schiller arm in arm (which was nice because they hated each other) in front of the Deutches Natonalische Teater or something like that. Finally, I gave up and in my frustration decided to down a few cold ones myself. I walked up to a tent and drank a few, got into a conversation with the bartender who spoke pretty good English and had been to California. He said he had been on the freeways there and the drivers were all "Assels." I couldn't have agreed more. In my stupor I headed back to the train station only to have the serendipity of stumbling on the famous statue of Goethe and Schiller hugging each other. My day was...complete. I retired to my bedroom in the private house and watched German television.

Heading for Berlin, I had some difficulty finding a hotel room because I didn't have an advance reservation. I had learned my lesson. I had taken this "living like a local" stuff too far. Finally, I found one for which I paid the most money for the worst dump of my trip. I learned my lesson. It took me 3 days to find a suitable swimming pool. Finally, I found the Sports Scwimme Halle a place where you could really swim laps. Like most European locker rooms, you put a coin in the locker, extracted the key and pinned the key on you while you swam. When you came back to the locker and inserted the key, the lock opened and you got your coin back. I hadn't had any trouble with this arrangement before, but today after enjoying a nice swim in a pool that seemingly had no bottom, I noticed my key missing. Oh no, I thought. Here I am in a foreign country, barely speaking the language, dripping wet and all my ID, my wallet, my passport, my money, everything that I own, practically, is locked up in a German locker, and I've lost my key!

Finally, I summoned up all the German I knew and went up to the locker room attendant. "Ich habe mein schlussel verloren," I said looking helpless and forlorn. He was very nice and without much adieu opened the locker for me. Needless to say I was relieved!