Well, this was odd. Woke up this morning after a night of rough seas to discover this little thing stuck on my seawall. Called the Coast Guard who had no reports of a missing boater, but still did a yucky hike through the water and shore to look for any other things (lifejackets, paddles, bodies). Turned up negative so I flipped this up onto the seawall, filed a ‘found boat’ report and can claim it in 30-60 days or so if no one else reports it missing.
The strange world of life in the country…
Would have been nicer if it was a yacht
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You should check out wordle.net to get an idea of what people are talking about. Visual representations of blogs and other sources. Very cool
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The USCGC Dallas will soon be in Georgia
A US Coast Guard cutter will be arriving in the Georgian port city of Poti despite the presence of Russian forces throughout the outskirts of this Georgian city. Russians have called this plan ‘devilish’ and the amount of aid being delivered comparable to what you could buy ‘in a flea market’.
Stars and Stripes reports the Cutter Dallas is in the area and delivering aid, and while officials haven’t said which ship will goto Poti you can probably surmise there are not a lot of US Coast Guard ships in the region. The Dallas dates back to Vietnam where it shelled sampans with her five inch guns and also took part in US operations in Kosovo. The Dallas has also trained with many of the Naval forces of countries in the Black Sea so she has some familiarity with operations there.
Still, this is going to be an interesting few days.
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Changing her tune?
Der Spiegel is noticing a change in Germany’s relationship with Georgia in light of the Russian invasion last month. Never a warm ally of Georgia and not a fan of NATO membership, it now seems the Russian’s have overplayed their hand such that Angela Merkel is now being forced closer to Georgia whereas she was once Russia’s best contact in Europe
The Russians had won the short war and were now rolling their tanks through the Georgian heartland. Merkel watched the TV with dismay as Russians looted and did everything they could to destabilize the country.
Her attitude changed. It was no longer dominated by annoyance over Saakashvili. Now she was enraged at the highhandedness of the Russians. It seemed to her that they wanted to oust the Georgian president from office. Merkel is extremely sensitive to the issue of regime change. She knows how long and difficult it was to bring democracy to Eastern Europe. Merkel sees Saakashvili, for all his faults, as a democratically elected, legitimate president. Georgia became for the chancellor a country that has to be helped.
Nevertheless, she remained skeptical when she flew to Tbilisi. She spoke with Saakashvili, and something must have happened during their two-hour meeting because, afterwards, Merkel gave a press conference that made headlines around the world.
Just another example of former Eastern Europeans (Merkel is from East Germany) being a bit more worried about the Russian’s actions than some in the West.
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The Washington Post is reporting that Margaret Thatcher’s condition is deteriorating and she now suffers from dementia. She forgets that her husband has passed and has to be reminded several times of this and other things. At times she is reportedly quite lucid and cognizant, but at others it seems she cannot remember simple things.
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Chavs aren't born they're grown.
One thing I often notice about British expats to the US is the sort of ’shock’ at how US parents are involved in the lives of their children. Of course they love to ridicule the ‘helicopter parent’ (as do Americans) but once that formality is out of the way there is a second realization that comes as quite a punch. When they realize that their neighbor in the nicer house with the better job is actually taking three hours to help with the local school’s academic calendar, or a social function, or an extracurricular activity (instead of say going to the pub with their mates) they have a sort of ‘are we doing something wrong’ moment?
Of course with any expat there is the question of is this ‘better or worse’ which in reality usually equals just ‘different’ but today I read an article (inflammatory though it is) that points out some of the ‘differences’ with being a child in the UK and other countries. Suffice it to say the article is not at all pleased with either British parents basically leaving their kids ‘in the garden to grow on their own’ nor the social welfare state that has accepted nearly anything a UK parent can dish out without regard to the long-term impact on the children.
One interesting statistic and observation in an article full of them was this on ‘in the home’ in the UK:
Eighty percent of British children have televisions in their bedrooms, more than have their biological fathers at home. Fifty-eight percent of British children eat their evening meal in front of the television (a British child spends more than five hours per day watching a screen); 36 percent never eat any meals together with other family members; and 34 percent of households do not even own dining tables. In the prison where I once worked, I discovered that many inmates had never eaten at a table together with someone else.
Let me speculate briefly on the implications of these startling facts. They mean that children never learn, from a sense of social obligation, to eat when not hungry, or not to eat when they are. Appetite is all they need consult in deciding whether to eat—a purely egotistical outlook. Hence anything that interferes with the satisfaction of appetite will seem oppressive. They do not learn such elementary social practices as sharing or letting others go first. Since mealtimes are usually when families get to converse, the children do not learn the art of conversation, either; listening to what others say becomes a challenge.
Unfortunately, statistics in the US are still pretty poor for many a thing, from pregnancy to teen alcoholics so it’s not simply a matter of saying do this and all will be better. Materialism here is as great if not greater than back in the UK.
Anyway, worth a read.
UPDATE: Or you can just get the user’s guide to being a Chav now out on Amazon.
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She’s been part of the Unified Team of the former Soviet States.
