Works Progress Administration

On this day, May 6, 1935, Franklin Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration, the New Deal's largest and most ambitious agency. During its run, which ended in 1943 and cost about $11 billion, the WPA employed 8.5 million out-of-work people on 1.4 million individual projects; it built 651,000 miles of roads, streets, and highways; constructed or repaired 124,000 bridges, 125,000 public buildings, more than 8,000 parks, and nearly 900 airport runways. The projects had to provide a real and lasting contribution, and could not take business away from private companies.

It wasn't always the most efficient operation, however, and its critics gave it nicknames like "We Poke Along," "We Play Around," "We Piddle Around," and "Working Piss Ants." WPA employees were derided as "shovel-leaners," an accusation John Steinbeck addressed in his essay "A Primer on the '30s": "It was the fixation of businessmen that the WPA did nothing but lean on shovels. I had an uncle who was particularly irritated at shovel-leaning. When he pooh-poohed my contention that shovel-leaning was necessary, I bet him five dollars, which I didn't have, that he couldn't shovel sand for fifteen timed minutes without stopping. He said a man should give a good day's work and grabbed a shovel. At the end of three minutes his face was red, at six he was staggering and before eight minutes were up his wife stopped him to save him from apoplexy. And he never mentioned shovel-leaning again."

As an example:

It's also the birthday of filmmaker Orson Welles, born George Orson Welles in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 1915. He was hired by John Houseman to direct a production of Macbeth in 1936. The production was part of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Theatre Project, which put unemployed theater people to work. Welles, 20 years old, set the play in Haiti, and substituted witch doctors for the weird sisters; he was hailed as a prodigy.

Aldous Huxley

"There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception." 

Vladamir Nabokov

 "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness."

"A sense of security, of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness; a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die."

Marcel Proust

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." 

I Did Not Know This

It's the birthday of physicist Leo Szilard, born in Budapest, Hungary (1898). In 1939, a few years after coming to America, knowing that German scientists had discovered nuclear fission, he drafted the famous letter that Albert Einstein sent to President Roosevelt advocating the development of an atomic bomb. Three years later, in the Manhattan Project, he and Enrico Fermi oversaw the first nuclear chain reaction. "We turned the switch and saw the flashes," he wrote later. "We watched them for a little while and then we switched everything off and went home. That night there was no doubt in my mind that the world was headed for grief." In 1961 he published a book of satirical fantasies on the misuse of science called The Voice of the Dolphin, and the following year he founded the Council for a Livable World, a lobbying group for arms control.

Galway Kinnell

"Maybe the best we can do is do what we love as best we can."

Marcus Aurelius

" Everything is in a state of flux, and nothing remains the same. So be prepared for change, and embrace it as a natural part of life."

Boldog Karácsonyt

Today is Lisa Kathleen Cupit Keen's birthday!
Happy Birthday, Lisa!
[December 25, 1959 - February 24, 2006]

David
Kaposvár

Real Fine Love

Well now I never went to college, babe 

I did not have the luck

Stole out of Indiana 

In the back of a pickup truck 

With no education higher

Than the streets of my hometown 

I went looking for a fire just to burn it all down

You got a real fine love

You got a real fine love 

One I am unworthy of

You got a real fine love, baby

Well I thought I had a line on something

Baby no one else could say

They couldn't find it their hearts to just get out my way

And out of nowhere and for nothing

You came into my life

I've seen an angel or two before 

But I never asked one to be my wife.

You got a real fine love

You got a real fine love 

One I am unworthy of

You got a real fine love, baby

Well you can sprinkle all your teardrops 

Across the evening sky

But you cannot hide that twinkle 

Of starlight in your eye

I left my map way back there, baby 

I don't know where we are

But I'm gunna pull my pony up 

And hitch my wagon to your star

You got a real fine love

You got a real fine love 

One I am unworthy of

You got a real fine love, baby

Well maybe it's just a little thing 

The way I feel tonight

A little joy, a little peace, and a whole lot of light

John Hiatt

https://youtu.be/FMQszu5kw5c?feature=shared

Baruch Spinoza

"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice." 

Martin Luther King, Jr

 "I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation."

He ended with, "When we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Flâneur

Flâneur is a French noun referring to a person, literally meaning "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", or "loafer", but with some nuanced additional meanings. Flânerie is the act of strolling, with all of its accompanying associations. A near-synonym of the noun is boulevardier. Traditionally depicted as male, a flâneur is an ambivalent figure of urban affluence and modernity, representing the ability to wander detached from society with no other purpose than to be an acute observer of industrialized, contemporary life. The flâneur was, first of all, a literary type from 19th-century France, essential to any picture of the streets of Paris. The word carried a set of rich associations: the man of leisure, the idler, the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street. However, the flâneur's origins are to be found in journalism of the Restoration, and the politics of postrevolutionary public space.

Saturday, March 11, 20:30/8:30pm, Istanbul - Cool

After spending the first week seeing the main tourist areas in the Old Town, the Sofia Hagia, Topkapi Palace & the Grand Bazaar, Anna, Lyle & I spent the 2nd week visiting areas of the sprawling metropolis I had not traveled to in October, when Mary & Dave were here. Istanbul is enormous, with close to 20 million inhabitants. While taking the ferry out to the Prince's Islands, we had a sweeping view of the city, perched as it is above the Marmara Sea; we could see buildings in either direction, East or West, as far as the eye could see! It was impressive. (I flew in to the old airport, from Budapest, riding the Metro from there to the Old Town, Sirkeci station; I believe I counted 15 stations; it took over an hour.)

Our 12 days are up and I left Istanbul yesterday evening, heading for Bulgaria. The train was an overnight sleeper, but that is a misnomer, because every couple of hours we were disturbed by border guards or the conductor. To be honest, other than border control, I don't know what that was all about. I disembarked in Dimitrovgrad, rather than take this particular train to Sofia, the capital. At the rate we were going, I was going to miss the connection to Bucharest, so by taking the train from Dimitrovgrad, I could cut across the middle of the country, meeting up with my train in Gorna Oryahovitsa. Save myself 5 hours or so. I'll catch the overnight sleeper in Bucharest later this evening and arrive Budapest tomorrow morning. Hopefully, refreshed, but that is to be determined.

My companion in the 2-bed sleeper out of Istanbul was a young Turk by the name of Ular. He was shy about his English, but soon warmed to the practice. (I was grateful he wanted to speak to me at all.) Ular had spent a few days with his family and was returning to his studies in Sofia; he is 20 & a medical tech student at one of the universities there. Although he did admit he is not so interested in the Biology, but is passionate about the Physics(!). He wants to be remembered 'forever;' I think he meant 'immortalized,' like Galileo & Copernicus. I was impressed and told him so. He then asked me if I had ever been to Vancouver, Canada, although it took me a few tries to understand what he was asking, as his accent was thick. I said I had and it was his turn to be impressed. I asked, "Why?" By this time, Ular had brought Vancouver up on his Maps app, and he pointed to all the green around the city, the mountains with Whistler, Banff and Lake Louise. He said there is not much 'greenery' in Istanbul. I don't know if he is the determined type or just naive. You don't need to travel half-way around the world to find 'green' on a map: he could travel to Slovenia or Italy or Austria for glorious mountains & forests. Ular then asked me if I liked Philosophy, which I do, but I had my doubts we could say much about it, what with all of the technical terms used to describe the different -isms: Stoicism, Existentialism, Nihilism, etc. He said he was agnostic, yet believed we had a 'soul.' He was referring to Religion, but close enough. He did not follow his parent's belief in the Muslim faith. He is not alone, as there are about as many young women in Istanbul without head-scarves as with, in my observation. It was getting late and he asked if I was sleepy, if I wanted to lower the beds. I thought that was a good idea and thus the end of our conversation.

As I was leaving the compartment, he turned in his bunk and I whispered, "Thanks & good luck! Now, go save the world!" He smiled & I closed the door.

More later. 

First Days in Istanbul

[Once again, apologies, as I started writing this on Wednesday, but put it aside & I just finished it on Sunday evening…oh, bother!]

Istanbul Wed March 1 Hi: 11°C/52°F Lo: 8°C/46°F Overcast & windy

Lyle & Anna arrived from the airport in the middle of the afternoon, yesterday; my flight was the day before, Monday. Since I woke up in Istanbul, I was able to make contact with the Airbnb host after breakfast and he told me that since the apartment was empty, I could take the apartment at any time, no need to wait for the 3 p.m. check-in. I thanked him for the courtesy, not wishing to trudge around town with my luggage in tow. The rental was easy to find, as it was just up the hill from the last station on the M1 tram line, no missing my stop, everyone off! 

I had stayed the night, Monday, at a small hostel in the Sultanahmet section of Istanbul, close by the Hagia Sofia & the Blue Mosque. That became clear at 6 a.m. the next morning, when the 'call to prayer' rang out across the city. Being so close to, like, 4 major mosques, the sing-song cadence was more 'cacophony' than musical. Unlike hostels in other major European cities, this backpacker inn had a working kitchen on the ground floor, and the following morning, there were Turks coming & going, ordering breakfast, even though they were not staying at the hostel. When I asked for coffee, my table-mate laughed, as it was a large mug with cream; the young man, from Australia, asked if I had ordered such a  'tall white;' I shook my head, no. He speculated that the cook heard my American accent, if you will, and assumed I wanted an 'Americano,' not a shot, as he was drinking it (an espresso). My breakfast consisted of a couple of pieces of sliced salami, a small piece of hard cheese, olives, sliced green pepper, a ramekin of rose hip jam and 3 cookies(!); with a side plate of scrambled eggs topped with a Turkish spice mix. Oh, and a large basket of sliced baguette. It was 'lezzetli,' delicious.

The Australian looked to be in his mid- to late-20's, traveling around Europe for six months. I asked him why he was here in winter, when it was nice & warm in his part of the world. It was apparently a matter of timing; he had the time, so he made the trip. A very pleasant & handsome man, we did not talk long, as he was to meet some friends he had made, to go exploring Istanbul, much as I was.

Our rental apartment is conveniently located at the junction of five different means of transportation: the M1 tram, the Metro Red Line, a funicular, many buses & a plethora of public ferries chock-a-block at all hours with commuters crossing over to the Asian side of Istanbul, across the Bosporus Strait. We can easily get to any part of Istanbul we want, which is terribly convenient. But the apartment itself leaves much to be desired, with some things needing repair, but the inexpensive rent is worth the hassles. More on this later. 

Happy Birthday to Me (Me, not you!)

Budapest Monday Feb 27 Overcast skies Hi: 5°C/41°F Lo: -1°C/30°F

Thank you to everyone who wished me a "Happy Birthday," yesterday, and a 'shame on you,' to all who forgot 😅. This morning, I am in Budapest; I have a flight out to Istanbul at 15:30/3:30p.m., this afternoon. For the next two weeks I'll be spending time with Lyle & Anna Breaux, from Uptown N'Awlins, in the Beyoglu section of Istanbul, on the European side of the Bosporus. Last October, I spent a week in Istanbul with Mary & Dave. At the time, we had visited all the major sites, and I thought we had seen Istanbul; on my last day in town, I had a couple of hours before catching my train to Bulgaria, so I took one of the harbor tour boats around the Strait that lasted a little over an hour, and boy, was I mistaken: we had seen only a small part of that city. It is huge and we had yet to step foot on the Asian side. So I mean to rectify that on this trip.

The news says that the U.S. is dealing with record cold & snow in the Northern reaches, while the South baked in 80° temperatures(!). In February!?! That doesn't sound right, and it does not bode well for the summer. This was shaping up to be a mild winter in Europe, until the middle of January, when the temps started acting more like winter and it got cold! It will barely reach the 40's today here in Budapest, after a string of mild Spring days in the middle of last week. We were excited, thinking Winter was receding, until it didn't. Istanbul should be in the high 50's, low 60's during our stay the next 12 days. Perfect.

More later.

Happy Mardi Gras, ya’ll!

Vienna Mon Feb 20 Hi: 4°C/40°F Lo: 14°C/57°F Beautiful Early Spring Day

This morning, I am on a very nice Austrian train slicing thru the lovely verdant countryside…it's so much better than the trains in Hungary, I must say…this, after a German overnight sleeper, shared with a young American student from Tampa Bay; Trey is studying at a Christian Brothers school in a very small Austrian town (which I now forget the name)…he did not board the train until 2am, waking me; he was in Dortmund for a Bundesliga soccer match (for those who aren't aware, this is one of the top leagues in Europe, and Trey was pleased with himself for even being able to get a ticket; he said it was a bucket-list item he could check off)…Trey is an older student, in his 30's, studying to become a priest; we had quite a lot to talk about.

I am on my way back to Kaposvár, a change of plans, after spending the weekend in Cologne with Robin & Fanni…my original idea was to leave Cologne and head for Zurich, for a day or two, then board the famous Swiss Glacier Express from Zermatt to Chur, which I have been looking forward to since I arrived in Europe…unfortunately, I am feeling a bit sore and my throat has been bothering me; also a nasal drip that has exacerbated my throat…Robin suggested I skip Switzerland for the time being, as it is very cold there and it is possible I might be coming down with the flu or a cold…it would be best to go home & relax, stay warm, wash my clothes and prepare for the trip to Istanbul on the weekend…sound advice, which I am taking. 

While in Cologne, Robin took me around to see their version of 'Mardi Gras,' called simply Carnival…Cologne is known for the largest celebration in the EU…it reminded me of New Orleans, but dare I say that the young'uns dress up more here than we do now…and we found a small orchestra playing N'Awlins Mardi Gras music…mostly Jazz, but instrumental covers of classics from Professor Longhair & Big Al Carson…I asked if any of the guys in the band were from New Orleans, which pleased them, but no, they just love the sound…don't we all. 

It was great to see Robing & Fanni; unfortunately, Robin is in the middle of his tax season, and being an accountant, he had clients at his home office throughout the day, today, and I made a hasty retreat, so I wouldn't be in his hair…plus, I am looking forward to making up a 'mess' of chicken soup.

More later…

From Last Week…

Budapest Wed Feb 15 2023 Cold Hi: 8°C/45°F Lo: -2°C/28°F Spring Springs?

[I meant to post this last week, and forgot! Go figure…]

I'm back in Budapest! I do love this city; it has come back from the pandemic in a big way; there are crowds wherever I go, even tho' it's February(!)…for accommodations, I'm staying at a small hostel on the square called, Oktogon, which is somewhat like Times Square in New York City, but not so much…in one of the bunk-bed rooms, 5 young women from Poland arrived yesterday, and Felipe, the Chilean desk clerk was answering their questions about their safety here in the heart of BP (how the locals say, Budapest)…they need not worry: this is the safest city I have ever lived in…in another room, 3 American women are sharing space; I'm very interested in asking them why they are here in the middle of winter…unfortunately, I haven't seen them since we 'checked-in' at the same time and it wasn't the right moment…there is a couple with 2 teens from Poland, and a single mother with 2 pre-teen boys and an older teen girl from Scotland…I can't understand half what they are saying, but they are very sweet… I needed to see the Dentist Zsofia, as there was an inflammation in one of the molars…it turns out NOT to be a cavity, thank the Lord, but that doesn't mean it didn't sting when she started scraping away the dental plague to get a better look at why there was bleeding and tenderness around the tooth…she wants me to return next month for a deep cleaning(!) 😨

Population Decline

Since the start of the new year, I've noticed a greater number of articles related to 'population decline'…I assume this is a result of the changing global climate, with its toll on economic issues for young families going forward (the cost of raising children)…I direct your attention to this link, below, addressing China's changing demographics…this does not seem to be a problem in India, which is projected to take the 'prize' of most populous state…there was another article that made mention of the conservative family values in India: that if more women were allowed into the workforce (given access to more educational opportunities), the Indian economy would/could/should expand by 60%(!) [depending on source; unfortunately, I can't find the article where I saw this statistic]…unfortunately, this increase in education for women portends fewer women having children, curtailing future growth…the graph below was part of an article discussing how hard it has been for the French government to shore up its pension obligations…Macron wants to change the age of retirement from 62 to 64, which doesn't sound draconian, but is causing crippling strikes across France…as the population ages, there are fewer workers to fund pensions…what to do? 

Since Brexit, businesses in England have found it harder to find employees; EU citizens working in the UK were 'kicked-out' and there aren't enough native workers, at least, not enough wanting to do the work that the 'others' were doing…I had a conversation with a young Hungarian woman (I'd say in her mid-20's) on a plane-ride from England a few years ago, who was returning home on holiday…she was one of those workers, at her job at a pizza joint in London, hoping to save enough to attend college…she mentioned how she made 'much more' there, than in Hungary (and also said she would definitely return home for said education).

There are, of course, plenty of people who would gladly take those jobs…Europe has the same problem as the U.S.: too many economic/climate refugees looking for a better life…the challenge is to create an orderly process of absorbing them…getting over our fear of the 'other,' doing the hard work of weeding out the 'chaff' from the 'grain,' to paraphrase the Bible…our Christian duty?

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/18/china/china-population-drop-explainer-intl-hnk/index.html

Good News!

I thought we might all benefit from some good news, you know, for a change:

______________

Native to the waters of Australia, sea dragons are a stunning and unusual fish. But they face a number of challenges in the wild because of warming oceans, harmful fishing practice and more.

In 2019, Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography - part of U.C. San Diego - opened an exhibit intended to create an ideal habitat for breeding these colorful cousins of sea horses. And last week, the aquarium announced a breakthrough: the first successful transfer of eggs from a female sea dragon to a male.

As with sea horses, sea dragon males - not females - are responsible for carrying eggs. [That ain't right! D-] After a courtship dance, the female transfers the eggs to the male's tail, where he fertilizes them and then carries them for four to six weeks until they hatch.

"We're elated to be able to witness this at the aquarium," Jenn Nero Moffatt, senior director of animal care, science and conservation at U.C. San Diego, said in a statement. "It's extremely rare for sea dragons to breed in captivity, so this is a monumental milestone for all of our staff."