While watching The Open Golf Tournament this morning the rich voice of the former Irish golfer, announcer Ewan Murray, reminded me of a visit Anita and I made to Cobh early in our 11-day Ireland and Northern Ireland tour in 2019.
While visiting this lovely seaport town, on Eire’s south coast, we chose to visit the marvelous Lusitania Memorial, where we opted to watch a small TV screen and listen for a few minutes to another deep, dubbed Irish voice representing Martin Mannion, a passenger on the ill-fated RMS Lusitania who survived. The ship had sailed from New York on May 1, 1915 carrying 1962 passengers and crew… and 173 tons of munitions.
Six days later the Lusitania was sunk by a U-boat torpedo 11 miles from the South coast of Ireland on May 7. Only 761 people surived. Over 60 per cent perished!
A post I read today showed that the newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic had mentioned the weapons prior to the sailing.
Here is that post about the Lusitania sinking… in which Winston Churchill’s name comes up… if you’re willing to scroll about 16 pages down…
A photo taken in Sydney, Australia in 2008 – one of those used in my revised One Planet video.
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My 1983 pro-environment anti-nuke song has gained new, urgent relevance.
Back in 1983 the situation was so scary that I wrote two songs on the nuke issue.
Note on March 7, 2022: even more perilous.
In 2016, I replaced the old One Planet video with a much better video produced using new equipment and software. It contained new, HD photos taken by me with the same great, old, quotations from gifted female and male thinkers on world issues.
Having done a very small editing of the 2016 version II I now call the video,
Dr. Vandana Shiva, author of the above photo’s quote, born in November, 1952, is a brave, brilliant agricultural activist from India, known as the Seed Lady for her successful securing of seed banks of key, traditional plants against their extinction. Traditional seeds are now threatened by the patenting of seed for profit perpetrated by powerful corporations like Monsanto. This article from 2019 indicates that the valiant seed battle continues. The older ways are sometimes less threatened by flooding and the “food crusaders” are fighting hard to preserve India’s heritage of a vast variety of plants and seeds.
Sorry you couldn’t get through last night. We are thus far without symptoms… but not without crazy shopping stories… which I am saving for my memoirs… or a big party during a lull between pandemics…
Our phone message bank was full. A first for us. Our devices are powered up. My memory, as usual , is sporadic and, at 10% charged, suspect. Auntie mentioned the PHONE MESSAGES FULL crisis last night and I will immediately see to that. It slipped my “mind.”
Pamela Palmater knows how badly First Nations have been treated historically and how small amendments squirrelled away in many huge omnibus bills by PM Stephen Harper have been cynically used by PM Justin Trudeau to divide and conquer – particularly in the current Wet’suwet’en pipeline issue.
A spectacular view of the wave-fashioned coast near the Blue Grotto at Qrendi, Malta
On Sunday, March 21, we took a small minibus on a guided visit to the south of the island of Malta. What looked like a long lineup and the diminuitive boats didn’t inspire enthusiasm, and we’ve seen other grottos, so we passed on this short trip. We shopped for souvenir tea towels, etc and my camera had brunch.
Folks returning to the dock from their short, Blue Grotto trip
Another group setting out for the Blue Grotto in one of those wee boats.
Our minibus took us SW to the Blue Grotto, E to Marsaxlokk and then back past the airport to Valletta.
Flag of Malta. The George Cross in the top hoist corner was awarded to Malta by George VI in 1942 “for their courage during the war.”
While I was waiting in a surprisingly nice gift shop the owner pointed up over my head to the official Flag of Malta . She said something I remember sort of like:
“You know we have this other flag. It was given to us by the British, having bombed the crap out of us during WW II!”
For more on the history of Malta that explains the above quote and the Arabic influence see the first post on Malta: Sicily and Malta.7
We then motored east to the lovely seaside port of Marsaxlokk, very busy and fascinating on a Sunday. We enjoyed the colour of the buildings and shopped at the large, pleasant market that stretched for quite a distance along the shore selling everything under the formidable Maltese sun.
Painted doors in the lovely little town of Marsaxlokk
Locals and visitors at Marsaxlokk’s Sunday market.
Getting close enough to pay for a delicious tangerine 🙂
Mass was being celebrated at the Church of Our Lady of Pompei in Marsaxlokk.
The homily praised Saint Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, canonized a week earlier on Oct. 14.
At the Church of Our Lady of Pompeii a homily was being preached about Archbishop Oscar Romero of Salvador, canonized a week earlier. Being out of touch but remembering this martyred hero very well, my first thought was “Is Liberation Theology alive and well here in Malta?” Research done at home later dismissed that hopeful idea.
It seems to have required an Argentinian, Pope Francis, to finally beatify in 2015 and recently canonize Saint Oscar Romero, murdered by a right-wing death squad on March 24, 1980 while celebrating mass. Bombs outside the Cathedral in San Salvador also killed between 27 and 40 others and wounded over 200. (See above link.)
Now to stroll back and wait for our tour’s minibus.
Anita and Shay (sitting) wait for our minibus to collect us.
Sunday 5 PM activity at this charming little play area near our hotel.
But back to our story… We sauntered back to a corner where our minibus would pick us up before noon, still enjoying the place and chatting at the corner with our fellow Sicily/Malta traveller, Shay.
Then our little group returned, past many dwellings not far from the airport that have been built to house refugees, safely to our hotel. For the last time, we took the #14 bus to Valletta, where we ate in an interesting restaurant. Our table was beside a Bullfighting poster from 1996.
While “14-ing” back into Valletta for a last visit and meal I snapped this woman relaxing by the road.
Stairway, yep, nice, wide stairway.
A charming view before we headed down into town.
Sunday afternoon near the fountain, this young woman was, shhh, milking the cow.
This leant a certain style to the place. Fortunately, all we saw were stacked cows where we were.
We were transferred to the airport once again, one of the things that Insight Vacations includes in the price of its tours. Our route home was Valletta > Catania > Frankfurt > Toronto.
Taxiing before takeoff from Catania, Sicily’s Mungibeddu (Beautiful Mountain), and its godlike namesake nymph, Aetna, gave us a special farewell blessing:
We got our only decent view of the top of Mount Etna
Our time in Sicily and Malta was full of history, art, fun – and a little luck.
Toward the Front: We were tens of thousands strong
Marching Down Bay Street
For humans to have a future on Earth we must urgently make some complicated choices to stop our fouling of the delicate biosphere, which we carelessly “nest” in and share with other living things from the tiniest to the huge.
Speakers we listened to yesterday were mostly young people. They came from across Canada and the Lakota were with us from the U.S.A. Many speakers were indigenous. A lot of chi miigwetches (“big thank yous” in Ojibwa) were heard.
Some speakers at Friday’s “Strike” were a little naïve in statements that listed a whole bunch of things that apparently can and must all be done. Many hard trade offs will have to be made. There will be winners and losers. But we adults had given up trying to stop abusing the planet and have been asleep for decades while the rug was gradually pulled out from under the democratic system. It has happened on our distracted, gadget-smothered watch. We’ve spent way too much time managing our complicated, mostly electronic, “toys.”
While we’ve fiddled like a famous Roman Emperor, our planet has caught fire.
And household recycling, for instance, has become a farcical, shallow, population-fooling exercise. Our cities are afraid to admit how much has been spent on those opaque plastic bins and huge, blind, job-cutting trucks that carry so many “recyclables” that are, by design or circumstance, non-recyclable eventually to dumps. Instead of dealing with the problem, we have used fossil fuels to transport our garbage across oceans to poor countries destitute and/or corrupt enough to accept it.
Single-use plastics, happily not used by those at the Climate Strike for drinks, must be eliminated, not taxed. Our tap water is drinkable, yet Nestlés is raping underground and pristine lake water in both wealthy and poor, thirsty settlements worldwide to put environmentally under-priced water, plain or profitably flavoured and coloured by that corporation, into single-use bottles! Council of Canadians is trying very hard to fight this here. This is a great, doable start.
Anyone who has been in a hospital has seen the mountains of efficient, but polluting, throw-away plastic packages that keep throw-away, plastic-plus-metal medical syringes and other tools sterile. Eliminating these will not help to make or keep free health care for all easy to maintain. Finding our way through complex environmental and economic issues will not be as easy as expressing our goals in attractive slogans. But somehow we must change fast.
One thing Greta Thunberg is right about is that we need awareness, political protest and real sacrifice for these hoped-for changes to become reality. The handful of families that control the world by dominating our Cabinets, Prime Ministers and Presidents can no longer be resisted simply by voting. Humans are becoming glamorous turkeys – just one more exploitable farmyard resource.
So we quickly need to learn to use our backbones and our legs.
First sighting ever of a Scarlet Tanager – In our back yard!
Great blue heron; a rushed shot.
A cormorant couple…
Rough-winged swallow
Our back yard has never been so popular for so long.
Hung the hummingbird feeder on the sunflower seed feeder today, March 15.
Our Magnolia took a while to bloom but it was worth waiting for.
Philadelphia vireo. Camera and sharp eyes of my spotter made a clear identification possible.
This spring we have had some lousy weather, not much fun for us until the spring migration of birds through “Our Woods.”
The bad weather (wind and rain and cold) has turned into a blessing, since the warblers, kinglets and other migrating species that fly north through our back yard and the park with a stream behind us have been forced to sleep over a few days more than usual. A frequent walk north by the two small lakes is great, but we can see them from our dining room bay and master bedroom windows because they like to visit our back yard.
This year we have been paying extra attention and had several first sightings, including the northern goshawk, canvasback duck and pied-billed grebe (see previous post.)
Anita saw a black-throated green warbler last week – a first for this year.
May 10 was a birding bonanza! A spectacular first-ever sighting of a male Scarlet Tanager, and in OUR back yard! Our Spotter saw at the bay window the Tanager, a catbird, Nashville warblers, a female yellow warbler, a palm warbler, a black throated blue warbler, female, then male rose-breasted grosbeaks, white throated and white crowned sparrows, a song sparrow, and a brown thrasher.
On May 13, with the aid of my Spotter’s keen eye and my SONY 200 mm zoom lens we were able to clearly identify a Philadelphia vireo, vireo species being very difficult to distinguish from each other. See last photo above.
The grosbeaks stayed from the 10th to the 14th, departing this morning before 7 A.M. on a rare fair weather day. The white-throated sparrows stayed over a week and the white-crowned since Friday. They haven’t left yet!
Today an American Redstart was finally seen after being heard for a few days.
We are still hoping for an indigo bunting, having seen one in 1996 on the back lawn and in 2011 at the sunflower seed feeder.
The hummingbird feeder went up today. My target was May 3…
My SONY alpha A-6000 mirrorless SLR has come in handy for getting enough detail on birds that don’t wait around for me to take notes. I’ve used it mainly set up for quick action: continuous shooting medium or high (important for quick-moving subjects like warblers and swallows feeding over water). I was able to confirm the rough-winged swallow from its shape and colour with the very blurry photo above. I have been playing with DMF auto focus with manual assist to fine tune or rapidly and crudely adjust focus. Perfection is impossible in some situations.
The Greek theatre, Ear of Dionysius and the Apollo Temple area are shown here. The tour also explored the Piazza Duomo, with which we were very familiar. Our local expert was excellent in describing these sights.
Perhaps the largest Greek theatre on the planet is here in mainland Siracusa. One can see that controversial, too high peak of the Santuario della Madonna even on this hill!
At the top back overlooking the theatre are several caves
Christened by Caravaggio, this spectacular ear-shaped cave has wonderful acoustics!
70′ High and 200′ Deep
Water divides Ortygia (Ancient Siracusa) from mainland Siracusa
One has to use one’s imagination here…
Then we had a lunch break and left for Ragusa, about 2 hours away including a rest stop.
90.3 km on the Bus with Tour Director, Barbara, and our skillful, creative, safe driver, Roberto.
Ragusa-Ibla – The Old Town
Our local expert for Ragusa was again excellent in describing these sights. We visited the Old Town on Friday afternoon and slept in Ragusa.
Ragusa Ibla (Old Town) on our approach at 3:30 PM. It was terribly damaged in the earthquake of 1693 but its citizens opted to remain and rebuild. Many of the wealthy started a “new” town on another hill.
These gardens in Ragusa-Ibla are magnificent but the trees are threatened
This palm has been killed and many others here and elsewhere are dead or threatened by Red Palm Weevils
Sundial to the right of this Ibla Church determined when farm workers would start and stop for rest.
A nail in the middle of the top line creates a time telling shadow but one needs sun for this
The sisters who weren’t at the wedding in San Giorgio Cathedral were praying inside…
Several of our group are also in this photo. I was on the Duomo stairs within for the bride and groom…
Recently Canadian Cabinet Minister, Jody Wilson-Reybold, tried to respect the Rule of Law as Attorney-General of Canada in deciding to let the courts continue to prosecute Québec Company SNC Lavelin for paying bribes to land lucrative Libyan contracts between 2001 and 2011. Shortly after that the Minister was demoted from her tricky dual role of Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to Minister of Veterans Affairs by PM Justin Trudeau.
Flashback to the recent, embarrassing and ongoing fiasco in an extradition case requested by our frenetic regime to the south:
Prime Minister Trudeau and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland repeated over and over and over that Canada is a Rule of Law country after arresting Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou on December 1, 2018 and holding her for extradition to the USA, where she may be prosecuted. President Trump made remarks that imply that the USA is using this threat of prosecution as a bargaining chip to get a better trade deal with China – all of this at the expense of Canada’s relationship with China and putting at serious risk three Canadians being prosecuted by the Chinese for various crimes. One of these, Robert Schellenberg has been convicted and, since the jailing of Ms Wanzhou, sentenced to death for drug trafficking.
mightyturk 