Times and Travels: 2017

Friday, July 14, 2017

Book reviews

Monday, July 10, 2017

Links to publicly available opinion pieces

Wisconsin State Journal Letters to the Editor:
Immunize all children around the world (2014)
Keep funding for TB at the forefront (2013)
Urge funding of Global Fund causes (2009; scroll to find it)
Support bills to control tuberculosis (2007; scroll to find it.)

Other Letters to the Editor:
Reproduced from the Janesville Gazette: You can help infants here and abroad (2010)
Reproduced from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: State employees not the enemy (2010)
Evansville Review: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria—a Good Investment (2010)

Facebook:
Why the Occupy Movement is Important to Me (2011)
My experience as a public sector escapee to the private sector (2011)

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Ireland, UK 2017: 5/23 Day 21 - Final day, water and mountains

"By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes,
Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond,
Where me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond.

O ye'll tak' the high road, and I'll tak' the low road,
And I'll be in Scotland a'fore ye,
But me and my true love will never meet again,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond."
~Loch Lomand, Traditional Scottish song

For a beautiful rendition of this song, watch John Barrowman perform it in Glasgow.

Distance: 242 miles
Scenery: Breathtaking

Language fun fact: a "firth" is a sea inlet, or bay. Even though it's all part of the Atlantic Ocean, these inlets are given their own names.

Bridges across the narrowest parts allow traffic to take a shortcut.

The firths flow into rivers and lochs. The Falls of Foyers became our first target of the day--a waterfall along the River Foyers--which originates at Loch Ness.

Somewhere in this area, a mile to the west of the falls, is a cave. It's not a tourist site. Although a few Outlander fans have reportedly managed to find it, the directions they have left don't make it very easy for anyone else to find it...at least we didn't. The inhabitant of the cave, James Fraser, 9th of Foyers is real. He supported Prince Charles during the Scottish uprising and he escaped after the battle of Culloden, and lived in hiding for 7 years. The story was fictionalized by Diana Gabaldon in her book Voyager to apply to HER character of James Fraser.

"'The laird, one of the few fortunates to escape the disaster of Culloden, made his way with difficulty to his home, but was compelled to lie hidden in a cave on his lands for nearly seven years, while the English hunted the Highlands for the fugitive supporters of Charles Stuart.'"
~Diana Gabaldon, Voyager

I reluctantly abandoned my quest to find the cave and we continued our drive to marvel at the beauty of the area around Loch Ness.

Near Glencoe, we stopped in the area of the Glencoe Massacre. This event occurred in 1692 when members of the Clan MacDonald were killed in their sleep under orders of Secretary of State John Dalrymple by Captain Robert Campbell and his men. The soldiers serving under Campbell had enjoyed MacDonald hospitality for 12 days before receiving the kill order. Thirty-eight people were killed immediately, while others fled to the mountains and died of exposure.

Despite the gruesome history, I think this area of the Scottish Highlands are the most beautiful and felt glad we left this for the last day.

The road took us along several lochs, the largest being Loch Lomond.

Our last scenic stop before Glasgow was to Finnich Glen. A local man stopped at the side of the road who gave us directions, warned us that the way down was steep. We found a reasonable path down to the water.

What we photographed looked sort of like the scenes in Outlander, when Dougal challenges Claire about being a spy for the last time, but since arriving home and conducting further research, I have found that what we were really looking for was across the road from where we took our pictures. <Sigh> Next trip.

We arrived in Glasgow, returned our final rental car and checked in to our final hotel to get some sleep before our journey home.

Monday, May 22, 2017

Ireland, UK 2017: 5/22 Day 20 - Orkney

"I'm on a boat (I'm on a boat) I'm on a boat (I'm on a boat)
Everybody look at me
'Cause I'm sailing on a boat (sailing on a boat)
I'm on a boat (I'm on a boat) I'm on a boat
Take a good hard look at the mother*ing boat (boat, yeah)"
~The Lonely Island (feat. T-Pain), I'm on a Boat

Distance driven: 242 miles
Boat time: 40 minutes each way
Tour bus: about 100 miles covered with 7 stops

We're officially Britain "end to enders"! That means we traveled from one end of "mainland" Britain--the Land's End area of Cornwall--to the other--John O'Groats in Scotland. Okay, we cheated a little bit by flying from London to Edinburgh, but I'm counting it anyway.

From John O'Groats, we took a boat to Berwick, a city on one of the 70 islands that make up Orkney.

Historically, Orkney has more to do with its Viking/Norse history than with Scotland. In 1468, the King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden mortgaged the islands (along with the Shetlands) to Scotland as dowry payment for the Scottish King to marry Margaret of Denmark.

Scapa Flow is a sheltered area of water around Orkney used for shipping and a base for the British fleet. Ninety-two wrecked ships lay in Scapa Flow, 52 of them German vessels from World War I. At the end of the war, surrendered ships of the German fleet were held in Scapa Flow until the allied countries could decide how to divide them. The German commander in charge gave an order to deliberately sink the ships instead.

During World War II, old ships were deliberately sunk in the eastern approaches of Scapa Flow to prevent German U-Boats from getting among the ships at anchor. A German U-Boat DID get through, though, and sank a British battleship.

Winston Churchill ordered the construction of a series of causeways to block the eastern approaches to Scapa Flow. These causeways were built by Italian prisoners of war held in Orkney. The industrious (and artistically talented) POWs also built themselves a chapel, using salvaged materials.

Later addition to post: BBC Scotland video on Facebook

More than half of the North Sea oil reserves have been extracted, so oil rigs like this one sit idle.

The next stop on our tour was the city of Kirkwall. St Magnus Cathedral was built by a Viking before Orkney belonged to Scotland. Parts of it are more than 800 years old.

While agriculture and tourism are now the biggest industries in Orkney, fishing is still a big deal.

I wanted to visit Orkney to see the stone age village of Skara Brae. Built before the Great Pyramids, Skara Brae was buried for 4,000 years until a storm stripped away some of the grass mound that covered it.

Eight houses have been excavated, all linked together by a series of low, covered passages.

Each house is made up of a large square room, with a central fireplace, bed on either side and a shelved dresser on the wall opposite the doorway.

Some of the beaches around Orkney are gorgeous, but I wouldn't think they'd be the kind for sun worshipers. Orkney doesn't get very warm even in the summer and the wind blows pretty strong.