Thursday, September 22, 2016

Why Not Trump?

If you are considering voting for Trump, I hope you will read this outline of my reasons why I cannot support him and think he would be a disastrous president.  Please try to read it with an open mind.  
1.  Sexist:  
    A.  Sees women as sex objects.   Owned Miss USA Pageant for 19 years.  Thinks it's appropriate to comment on the attractiveness of women as a salient reason not to vote for someone. No actual intellectual rebuttal. Goes right to personal attack of superficial nature.  
When the anchor throws to Carly Fiorina for her reaction to Trump's momentum, Trump's expression sours in schoolboy disgust as the camera bores in on Fiorina. "Look at that face!" he cries. "Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!" The laughter grows halting and faint behind him. "I mean, she's a woman, and I'm not s'posed ta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?"
    B.  Makes lecherous comments about his own daughter.  During a March 2006 appearance on "The View" with his daughter Ivanka, Donald Trump was asked how he would react if Playboy magazine were to ever feature Ivanka's picture on its cover. Mr. Trump responded:  "I don't think Ivanka would do that inside the magazine. Although she does have a very nice figure. I've said that if Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I would be dating her."  EWW.
    A.  Stone-age views on parenthood:  http://fortune.com/2016/04/24/trump-act-like-wife/
    B.  Disrepectful comments about women he disagrees with.  Megyn Kelly: Trump’s animosity towards Kelly first arose when she challenged him over his misogynistic comments about women at the first Republican primary debate in August, saying: “You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals,” and asking: “Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?” It was a tough question, but one well within the realm of relevance, especially, as Kelly pointed out, in the context of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.  Since then, Trump has repeatedly, childishly and abusively taunted Kelly.  Asked about Kelly on CNN after the August debate, Trump said: “you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever,” a comment he later denied was a reference to menstruation.

What could he have been referring to, given that there was no actual blood anywhere in the debate???
2.  Hypocritical.   Law-breaker.  
    A.  Exploited models visas from Eastern Europe, using law which he himself has criticized others for.   http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/10/news/trump-model-visas/
    B.  Cheated people by reneging on contracts. Dishonest businessman who gets rich off the backs of other hardworking Americans.
    C.  Refuses to release tax returns when every presidential nominee for the last 40 years has done so. Hiding something?
    D.  Used his charity foundation to settle lawsuits (illegal)
3.  Immoral
    A.  Adulterer and proud of it.
    B.  Ridiculous birther controversy. Has lied about his role in it. http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/09/17/donald-trump-birther-origins-timeline-foreman-lok.cnn
    C.  Christian? Not buying it.
    D.  Bold-faced liar. “The latest study by fact-checking group PolitiFact found that 27 percent of Hillary Clinton's statements were mostly or completely, pants-on-fire false, compared with 70 percent of Trump's. Trump said this week at a rally that President Barack Obama founded ISIS.
"He was the founder of ISIS, absolutely," Trump reiterated in an interview with CNBC on Thursday morning. Trump also said recently that Vladimir Putin wouldn't "go into Ukraine." (He did, in 2014).https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/27/why-clinton-is-less-trusted-when-trump-lies-much-more/   “He is unapologetic about saying things that are completely and verifiably untrue,” DePaulo said. Experts find Clinton’s lying habits to be more “normal” among politicians in this respect.  “I think Trump is borderline pathological,” Serota said. “But the only person that would know that for sure is his psychologist.”
4.  No experience.  Never held elected office. Questionable policies.
  1. 121 Republican Foreign policy experts signed a letter opposing him as president, calling his proposed policies "wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle."
    B.  Muslim ban goes against Bill of Rights and plays into ISIS’s hands
    C. Ignores science.  Denies climate change.  “Trump has dismissed manmade climate change as a hoax invented by the Chinese.”  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-scientists-idUSKCN11Q2PD
    D.  Anti-vaccination.  Despite science, continues to link vaccines to autism.  http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/17/opinions/graham-cnn-debate/

5.  Not a good businessman.  Not as rich as he says he is.  
  1. Many failed businesses, bankruptcies, no proof of net worth
     B.  Owes millions in loans
     C.  Bankruptcies
6.  Suspicious Ties to Russia.  Praises Putin.
7.  Not presidential.  A divider, not a unifier.  Lacking in diplomacy and civility.
    A.  Says John McCain is not a hero, while he dodged the draft.  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-john-mccain-war-hero-captured/
    B.  Disparaged Muslim family whose son had died for the the US.
    C.  Bully.  Makes fun of disabled reporter.  Claims he didn’t know he was disabled, but has been on a first name basis with the reporter for years.
    D.  Advocates use of violence and personal attacks against any who disagree with him.
“Get him outta there! Don’t give him his coat,” the real estate mogul said. “Keep his coat. Confiscate his coat. You know it’s about ten degrees below zero outside. No, you can keep his coat. Tell him we’ll send it to him in a couple of weeks.”
"So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of him, would you?" he told a crowd in Iowa in February. "Seriously, okay, just knock the hell. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees; I promise, I promise."
Then he denied saying it and says he doesn’t advocate violence.  HA.  
    E.  Embarrassingly boorish hot-headed loose cannon, sexist, negative, belligerent, shameless self-promoter.
In a 1991 interview with Esquire, Donald Trump suggested that sexy girlfriends are the antidotes to bad press: "You know, it doesn't really matter what they write as long as you've got a young and beautiful piece of ass."  
"I could stand on 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and people would still vote for me."
7.  Melania not good first lady role model.   
    A.  Plagerized Michelle Obama's speech at national convention and said she wrote it herself. Later someone else took the fall and claimed to have made the error.  http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/07/19/melania-trump-plagiarize-michelle-obama-speech-orig.cnn
    B.  Claimed to have gotten a university degree in Slovenia, proven false. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/melania-trumps-website-taken-down/
    C.  Nude photos
http://www.aceshowbiz.com/images/news/news-00099502-melania-trump-s-naked-photos.jpg

  
For all these reasons, I hope you will reconsider casting your vote for someone who I believe would be very damaging to our country.
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Wednesday, September 9, 2015

The Return

Returning to Palo Alto after three years' absence was not difficult.  Speaking English all the time is so EASY.  A no-brainer.  I feel totally comfortable.  I'm "in my sauce" as the Spanish expression goes (estoy en mi salsa).  I belong here.  I understand EVERYTHING.  It's a relief.  No more social anxiety about who I should sit next to because they speak clearly and slowly, or need to plan what I should talk about because I know how to say everything I want to express!!!  Hallelujah!  Maybe that is why I no longer feel the need to take a siesta around 4 in the afternoon as I did in Spain.  I'm just not as exhausted by the effort of living in a foreign culture.  Or is it the weather? It feels like there is air conditioning outside every morning until 9, and every evening starting at 6.  With such low humidity, I hardly perspire.  It's much more comfortable than the stifling humidity of August in Barcelona.

We came back to our old familiar house and our battered Prius was waiting for us in the driveway. Everything seemed more or less the same-- the businesses, the neighborhood.  Only grass was dead and brown, thanks to The Drought.  We have traded La Crisis for La Sequía.

In the Silicon Valley, the economy is booming. The house across the street sold for over two million dollars, and it's nothing fancy.  A tiny lot in an average neighborhood, but located in the heart of Google and Facebook land.  A can of soup at Safeway costs $2.50!   In Barcelona I stuffed my two-wheeled grocery trolley to the brim and never paid more than 40 euros.  Here, even at Trader Joe's I never leave with less than $135 worth of groceries, usually more like $150.  And a takeout meal at Chipotle for 4 people totals $45, without drinks.  I've got serious sticker shock!

Prosperity has it's costs.  For example, we are bummed out by the Bay Area traffic-- quite a shock after three years of living without a car and taking public transportation everywhere.  We're really lucky that we don't have to commute like so many people.  Congestion has definitely gotten worse. The cars are certainly larger here.  I've taken to riding my bike as much as possible-- much more than I ever did before.  It's wonderful how flat and wide the roads are, and there are so few cars and people.  For longer trips, sadly,  there are few buses, and train service to San Francisco takes over an hour, only runs about once per hour, and costs $8 each way!  How I wish we had a public transportation system that worked.  I loved the way public transportation in Barcelona was a great social equalizer.  Old, young, middle class, lower class-- everyone jumbled together and forced to interact, to be civil, to live together and recognize each other's humanity.  Here in Palo Alto we all drive around in our big metal boxes, isolated from each other, only rubbing shoulders with the working class cashiers in the stores or the maintenance technicians who cut our lawns, clean our houses, fix our sinks, paint our walls, or deliver our furniture.  All short, transactional encounters. I wish there were not such a great divide in wealth between our city and the one which lies just over the highway, East Palo Alto.

The work of moving just sucks.   I had just spent the last three months going through and packing, sorting, and selling off every last item in our apartment, emptying cabinets and purging.  Then returning home,  we had to unpack everything we had carried, mailed, or stored and go through the entire process again of purging, sorting, filling up drawers and cabinets, and buying new things.  It's enough to drive a person mad.  We had forgotten we even owned half the things we discovered in our attic and storage shed.  One box was cleverly labeled "Surprise!  Crap."  The sheer quantity of items we own is oppressive.

On the other hand, I am happy to back in the land of efficiency, where the internet is king.  I can register for school, buy health insurance, setup cable TV, refinance my mortgage-- do virtually everything virtually, with a few clicks of the keyboard.  No need to schlep across town during the limited office hours to do everything in person!  I love it.

I also am thrilled to be back in a multicultural, multiracial environment (although there are no black people here) where a variety of authentic Asian cuisines are at close hand.  And great Mexican food.   Pho, how we missed you!  Tofu House, my old friend, you are my comfort food.  Chipotle, we'll never leave you again.  What a joy it was to go to the Korean grocery store and stock up on seaweed, kimchee and frozen dumplings, and next door to it was the Indian grocery where I bought mangos by the box and killer samosas.  Vegans are well-fed everywhere in the Bay Area, no explanations needed.

Sadly, we rarely drink beer or wine anymore.  The days of cheap Catalan champagne (cava) are gone. Now I drink Philz divine coffee, but there is a line out the door for it.  Good French bread is harder to find, and more expensive, but delicious bagels are plentiful!  Produce is great here as well, and more varied, but also more expensive.

Of course, it's been wonderful seeing long-time friends.  They haven't really changed, but their children have turned into giants.  Catching up takes all of 15 minutes, and it's great to be able to fall back into comfortable friendships you know you can rely on.  And of course, being closer to family members is a big win.

Despite the long absence, I MIGHT get a hug from friends, if that.  Apparently there is no physical contact allowed here in the U.S.  Man, I used to get two cheek kisses from complete strangers in Spain!  I really miss the warmth of the Spaniards, the effervescence of their personalities.  I miss the way they text messaged daily with jokes and well-wishes, and their effusive use of emoticons, even among men.  People here are more serious, more distant.  Is there an undercurrent of competition I feel? There's some kind of tension that comes with the faster pace of life here.

The physical environment is very different here in the suburbs. Each house separated by fences and lawns.  I love the expansiveness of the sky and the trees everywhere.  I missed that about being in the city.  There is so much SPACE here, and so few people.  It's very quiet and you see almost no one walking on the sidewalks.

The kids have adjusted beautifully.  They are content riding their bikes to and from school by themselves, having a shorter school day (out at 3pm instead of 5 or 5:30!), reconnecting with old friends.  Their public middle school is 20 times bigger than the private school they attended in Spain. It has a pool and grassy fields and they are free to eat lunch wherever they want with whomever they want. No more three courses and table manners!  The campus is sprawling and they have to run to their lockers to change their books multiple times.  They have two locker combinations to remember, two usernames and passwords, student ID numbers, PIN numbers, and more.  Assignments are more computer-based.  Every day they have to log in to the school website where assignments are posted. They email their teachers assignments.  They are thriving.

Mark still watches the Catalan news online.  We've met a surprising number of Catalan or Spanish families at school or through Trevor's soccer.  I am delighted to speak Spanish every chance I get, and Mark is always practicing his Catalan.  Trevor chose to read a book in Spanish last week, which made me happy.

We are content, but coming home is a little anticlimactic, because it is not accompanied by challenge and adventure.  A month after moving back, it feels almost as if we never left.  There's a kind of time warp where our time in Barcelona has folded onto itself, making it feel small and distant, more like a dream than a reality.  Still, I hold it close to my heart.




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Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Gorgeous Norway

We were so fortunate to have the opportunity to visit Norway last July, and we were absolutely enchanted.  After months of living in a densely populated city, it was so refreshing to experience the vastness of the landscape and the magnificence of nature.  I think Norway in summer has the best of three seasons:  the blue water, sunny skies, ripe berries, and verdant forests of summer; the snowy glaciers of winter; and the raging waterfalls and cool freshness of spring, all wrapped into one.  Here are some highlights:

Oslo


We flew into Oslo and enjoyed the Viking Museum.  The wonderfully-preserved thousand-year-old boats are beautiful.  


Nearby is the Polar Exploration Museum which pays tribute to brave, hardy, and determined men like Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen.  

Our next stop was the Vigelund Sculpture Park, which has an impressive set of works which movingly and beautifully express every phase of human life, various relationships and emotions with great tenderness and no little humor.  I loved it.











From there we flew to Bergen and embarked on a four hour ferry and road trip to our home exchange in the village of Leikanger on the Sognefjord.  


It was the first week of July, and ski season had just ended according to a woman we met.  We drove past melting ice fields and roaring waterfalls.  The landscape enchanted at every turn.  


We stopped for the night at Vangsnes, having missed the last ferry and because the boys wanted to watch the World Cup soccer match.  Meanwhile Z and I wandered down to the water and caught the most spectacular sunset imaginable at 11pm!  






The next day we took our first of many ferry rides.  



The house was heavenly, perched on a fairly steep hill with large windows in the kitchen/dining/living area offering breathtaking views of sky, sea, and mountains.  I never got tired of looking out of them.  

The moon at midnight

We were so inspired by the scenery that we wrote some haikus and painted with watercolors.
by Nerissa

by Zoe

Trevor's poem was about Vikings... 



Nigardsbreen at Jostedal Glacier

Our first big adventure was a blue ice walk on the Nigardsbreen arm of the Jostedal Glacier.  It was a warm and sunny day.  We took a short boat ride with our guide across the lake and walked to the retreating glacier.  

View from the car park.  Not too shabby

View towards the car park from the glacier.


Then we put on our crampons, harnesses, helmets, and ice picks.  
Wouldn't want to fall to our deaths into a crevasse now would we?


We were roped together so if one person fell, the others would fall, too.  Ha ha. 
It was like walking on a dirty snow cone.  

Ice which is very compacted and has few air bubbles absorbs red light and thus appears blue.






Some areas were steep but nothing particularly difficult.
Towards the end we found a blue ice cave to enter.  




The ice inside was very slippery and solid, not the crunchy granules of the outer glacier.  

Dream fulfilled.  What's next, climbing ice falls? 


Kayaking near Leikanger

Our generous hosts allowed us to use their community kayaks.  We biked down the hill and launched from the pebbly beach next to the elementary school.  The water was crystal clear but brisk.




H E A V E N

Families were picnicking next to the volleyball court and soccer pitch, all free for the community. What a life!

We even spotted a shy porpoise.  Just a dark fin that disappeared quickly.



The Geirangerfjord

 Our second adventure was an overnight trip to the Geirangerfjord, 
perhaps the most famous of them all because of it's narrow width and beautiful waterfalls.  
After another spectacular drive, filled with bucolic farmhouses and dramatic vistas, we made it to Hellesylt where we boarded the ferry to Geiranger.  





We stayed in a quaint cabin at the Geiranger Ferry Center, definitely recommended.  


Skageflå


For a small fee the ferry center took us in a small boat to Skageflå, an abandoned farm clinging to the mountainside 820 feet up!   It has a jaw-dropping view of the seven sisters waterfall which in times of drought was the farm's only water source.  That meant a steep hike down, a brisk row across, and an uphill climb just to fetch water.  Talk about hardy pioneers!

The trail up to the farm is narrow and steep-- difficult when it snows.  Talk about isolated.  

The family who lived here tied a rope to their children's waists and the other end to a big rock to make sure they didn't go falling off the cliff.  

Sod roof farmhouse.  Probably freezing in the winter.



It is said that once the family did not want to pay taxes, so when the tax collector came up the path, they removed the wooden ladder and he had to turn around and leave them alone.  
See how steep it is?!




Storseterfossen

Near Geiranger is the Storseter Waterfall which is reached by way of a short hike.  
You can actually walk behind the falls into the cave created by the erosion of the flow.  




Visiting with friendly sheep along the way.



Flydalsjuvet

On our way out of Geiranger we stopped at the Flydalsjuvet Vista Point which unfortunately has been made safer so you can't get that dramatic standing-on-a-precipice photo anymore.  But it is beautiful.



I love how nature can make you feel so small.


Dalsnibba

Dalsnibba is another famous viewpoint farther on the road, 
looking over the Geirangerfjord in the distance. 



Don't know the name of this river, but it was gushing and the most beautiful blue due to the silt it carries from the mountain.  Glorious!  
And walking through the pines over the mossy rocks was also so enchanting.


 Urnes Stave Church

We took a ferry from the quaint village of Solvorn across the Lusterfjord to Urnes where there is a famous wooden stave church from the 12th century.  I just adore the brightly colored wooden houses which felt so very midwestern American!  Obviously we copied them, not the other way around.





The small church has beautiful carvings in a Viking/Celtic influenced style.


Tvinefossen

We just stumbled upon this waterfall, which has got to be one of the most gorgeous natural falls I've ever seen.  You can just walk right up to it.




View over the Sognefjord


Bergen


The Bryggen, or waterfront. 

The history of the cod fishing industry in the North Sea is fascinating.  
We took a great tour and learned about the austere monastic life of the (German) Hanseatic League officers.  

This was the room/bed of the head honcho, which is basically just a closet to keep the warmth in winter because they had no heating!!!  The men and boys posted there were not allowed to marry or dally with local women, who were forbidden from certain parts of the wharf.  

 
All the world loves dried cod!  In Spain we call it bacalao.

It was the end of our two weeks in Norway, and I was so thoroughly charmed that I was ready to buy a Norweigan flag and apply for citizenship, until I saw the whale meat at the fish market.


Leproseet Museum

Leprosy is also known as Hansen's disease, after a Norwegian doctor who made great strides in the understanding of the disease.  The museum where they used to quarantine patients suffering from this then-incurable disease was sobering to say the least.

Leprosy is a slow-growing bacterial infection which causes parts of the body to die and fall off. 



To cheer ourselves up after that, we went for a walk.
The enchanted woods. 

The view from the top of the hill.



T and I will never forget the raspberries.  Growing wild everywhere, we picked and picked til our fingers were stained with red.  Small but sweet and juicy, we braved thorns and bugs for the succulent treats. 


Of all the incredible places we've visited in Europe, this one stays with me the most.  Yes, restaurants are ridiculously expensive.  But aside from that, the people speak English perfectly and really you just have to go.  In summer.  

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