Sitka
From Juneau it's the ferry for 2 days to Prince Rupert.
The weather is bad, cool, rainy, blowing. I am told by other, more regular passengers, that this is the norm.
We've our own berth, and so retire there to read, occasionally walk the decks, see the inane movies in the lounge.
When the Purser announces that for those interested we'll be stopping in Sitka for a couple of hours and any passengers interested can book a tour, I sign up. Never mind that it's at 2:00 AM, anything beats the monotony of the voyage.
Now the first place we go is the Russian Orthodox Church - St. Michaels, the center of Russian Orthodoxy in North America. And our guide is immensely informative and we are surrounded by Russian Icons, from as far back as the 15th Century, there are artworks and candleabra and there is much to look at and photograph, but I dare not look too distracted....
Our guide is very well informed, and my hopes that we'll have a moment to peruse the collections are dashed, an hour lecture and we're done, on to the next destination.
It's 3:00 AM, black outside, raining, we pass various points of interest - the Salmon run (and here he stops on the bridge and tells us about the millions of Salmon below we can't see, because it's pitch black and raining, finishing with "it's quite a sight...."). There's the old WW2 Army base and there's the totem poles, all of which are nigh on invisible in the pitch black of night.
And eventually, as the sun is beginning to pale the sky and there's a hint of daylight in the east we head back to the Ferry. The girl hasn't found it so interesting, me, I've loved it.
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- Category: Miscellany
Juneau
An uneventful trip on the Ferry, the scenery; glaciers and mountains, is beautiful.
There's talks on whale watching, we see none, other passengers report distant sightings of the spume and splashes.
We reach Juneau and it's beautiful - the glaciers behind the city, the way that they've done an amazing job of preserving the older buildings, built up and down mountainsides, there are shops filled with maritime antiquities, old books, it's somehow all very cool.
Our first stop is a hotel, any hotel, and we end up paying $200.00 a night for one in central Juneau. That's life in the big city.
But on the plus side we can walk around and explore, which we do.
The next day we find a place where we can pan for gold (aptly named "gold creek") and show some in the pan - my obligations for the trip are now fulfilled and the daughter has to acknowledge that I was right - although she begrudges me the creek ("It's called gold creek dad....").
We walk out to a point near the city and explore the tidal pools, no great discoveries here, mostly a crusty bed of mussels that the daughter is loathe to step upon, and then it's time to leave again upon the ferry...such is this whirlwind trip of Alaska.
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- Category: Miscellany
Occupying Wall Street
The discontent grows. First the London Riots, then the Americans occupying Wall Street. The police, despite being paid by the people, are not answerable to the people and do as they please, whether it be arresting under age protesters or macing peaceable demonstrators.
This is foreseeable, entirely, as people generally discover that the system is rigged against them, there's that vague discontent that comes from misgovernment and the realization that capitalism by it's nature is evil, that a 2 party democracy is no democracy at all, that corporations have all of the rights of individuals without any of the responsibilities or expectations, that through every crisis that crushes a hundred, a thousand families there are those at the top who still get richer.
It's the French revolution all over again, with the only qualifier being that the difference between the haves and the have-nots in the French revolution was no where near what the difference is now. The rich with their contempt for the mules who've carried them to where they are now, the powerful who make the policies that favour the rich, the police who enforce with cruel zeal and immunity their long held fantasies of policing, and the disquiet grows.
The deficit is overwhelming, this "money as debt" is not working out, the debt will never be paid. It could be paid tomorrow, the wealthiest in the country could pay it down immediately without any impact or notice to their day to day lives, it is, after all, only numbers somewhere held in a computer, but to do so would be to relinquish some measure of control or power, would be to acknowledge guilt or accountability, would be give up what they've so hard won or inherited.
They'll resist, who wouldn't? But this gross inequality could be easily remedied, and people are beginning to sense the injustice of it all.
This diet of candy bars and television, it's made the people weak, it is what, after all, it was formulated to do, education is no longer education - to be educated is to be worried, no, it's all trade-school and employment, keep the wheels of this juggernaut turning, it must be fed. more oil, gas, hours at work, with savings and due diligence you can still get ahead....
The day will come when we lift their heads upon pikes, the rich and the powerful, their money and power, numbers held in a computer, so vast as to be mere abstractions, will vanish, it was after all only an illusion and when this is done we'll be free.
Meanwhile the people are occupying wall street, burning London, and the people are restless, there is that vague, undefinable sense of having been cheated, swindled, but the machinery has grown so large and complex that no one can put a finger on where it all went so terribly wrong....
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- Category: Rants
Resurrect Dead The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
Not only a play this weekend, but a film too.
It's the Calgary International Film Festival, which offered quite a few films that I'd like to see, but unfortunately work and more work suck up nearly all of my time.
But today there's Resurrect Dead The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles.
Which is quite interesting. Now I've linked to the Toynbee mystery before, and it's fascinating, and fair to say that the documentary does it justice. More than that, but to explain might destroy the pleasure of watching it. I've taken the liberty of lifting this quote from the Globe and Mail:
...Some of the “dots” they connect include a South Philadelphia street address, a 1980 late-night Larry King radio phone-in show, a one-act David Mamet play, information from local shortwave radio buffs and messages that appeared on bus-stop handbills.
I'd give it a very worthwhile.
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- Category: Film
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