Places – Page 10 – GEORGE ROTHERT

Travel — Not So Broadening

Coronavirus has upset the travel industry. Fear of disease has resulted in restrictions on travel into the United States. Guess what — already fewer foreign travelers were coming to the U.S.

Traveling around the world has been increasing… prior to pandemic angst. Nearly one-and-a-half-billion people traveled internationally in 2019, six-percent more than the year before. But almost two-percent-fewer people visited the U.S. The number of visitors from China is down more than five percent since the advent of trade wars. The Chinese government has also warned its citizens about American gun violence and robberies.

The ever-changing list of travel restrictions has made entering the U.S. more difficult for everyone. An attorney at an international law firm specializing in U.S. immigration put it thusly: “Travelers must be ready for increasingly-hostile questioning from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents about the nature of their travel and itinerary while in the U.S.” People entering the U.S. should expect to face “law enforcement” culture at the border. They should also be prepared to have their electronic devices and data on phones and laptops examined.

Business travelers particularly are avoiding trade shows, expos, conferences and in-person sales calls. Since the current occupant of the White House took office and issued travel restrictions, many have decided that the increased hassle and time required to enter the country are not worth it.

In the Days before Purell

“Henry VIII bathed often and changed his undershirts daily, he was a royal rarity.“

Coronavirus has put sanitation into our collective mind. Keep your distance from others; wash your hands; don’t touch your face. Back in the sixteenth century, King Henry VIII (voted “worst monarch” by the Historical Writers Association, had the same worry. His fear of the dreaded sweating sickness caused him to sleep in a different bed every night.

Without warning, a person would be overcome with headache, neck ache, general weakness and a cold sweat covering the entire body. Then came fever, dehydration and heart palpitations. In less than twenty-four hours, half of those afflicted were dead. The infection was blamed on foreigners — sound familiar? — specifically mercenaries Henry’s father had brought to England to help him seize the throne.

Celestial Litter Patrol — Finally!

“Imagine how dangerous sailing the high seas would be if all the ships ever lost in history were still drifting on top of the water.”

The Soviet Union set off the space race in 1957 with its launch of the Sputnik satellite into orbit. The U.S.S.R.-U.S. competition culminated in 1969 with Apollo 11’s landing on the moon and planting the American flag.

Sputnik circled earth for about four months until the one-hundred-eighty-pound satellite’s elliptical orbit deteriorated. It incinerated when it re-entered the atmosphere. Since that time thousands of objects have been hurled into space, nearly five-hundred in the last year. Only a few met Sputnik’s end. Most of it is still up there.

An estimated thirty-four-thousand man-made objects are orbiting earth: five-thousand satellites — mostly non-functioning — and all sizes and shapes of miscellaneous debris. All this junk is cluttering orbital paths, leaving little room for newer satellites.

(Elon Musk’s Tesla roadster is presently somewhere between Mars and Jupiter, on its way back from a turn around the sun.)

The European Space Agency has decided to do something about it. (You didn’t think the U.S. or Russia would, did you?) E.S.A. has contracted with a Swiss company to develop a space garbage collector. The target date is 2025 to launch ClearSpace-1. This initial mission will be to capture a two-hundred-fifty-pound piece of debris left behind from a rocket launched in 2013.

The project manager says ClearSpace-1 will use a “Pac-Man system” to collect the trash.

One Woman’s Story

March 8 is International Women’s Day. But why do women need their own day? The Seattle Times found out why when it began research for a story about Continental Mills, a local company, owned and operated by the third generation of the Heily family. Continental is known for its Krusteaz brand of pancake, pie crust, biscuit and other mixes.

The Krusteaz web site features a “History” page with a photo of four women at a card table and a heartwarming story of the women of a Seattle bridge club who invented a just-add-water pie-crust mix. They called it “Crust Ease.” (Krusteaz — get it?) Except no one at Continental Mills knew who these women were.

An Immigration Story

The history of the United States is the story of opposition to the immigration of ethnic or socioeconomic groups, one after another. Beginning with the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, those who had previously immigrated fought against the succeeding wave of newcomers whom they perceived as less worthy than themselves.

Founding Father Benjamin Franklin railed against the “Stupid, Swarthy” Germans coming into Pennsylvania. Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, Muslims, Mexicans have all been subjected to anti-immigrant backlash. During the Depression, California tried to keep out “Okies” who were fleeing dust-bowl oppression.

Digression: Noted journalist and food writer Calvin Trillin maintains that the high point of U.S. immigration policy is the Immigration Act of 1965, which allowed a greater influx of people from third-world countries. Previously, quotas favored the British over Asians. “I guess the idea was that people who like bland food make good citizens.” He said. “In food terms, it wasn’t a good policy.”

A half-century ago, upstanding citizens tried to fight off another invading scourge: hippies. Humboldt County, on California’s northern coast, felt it was being inundated by long-haired, unwashed hordes. So much so that local citizens got up a petition to keep the hippies out. The entreaty, with 111 signatures submitted to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors demanded relief from a “mass infiltration of hippies” into their communities.

“Many residents have come upon them bathing in the nude and having intercourse on the beaches of our rivers and ocean,” the petition complained. “We are concerned with their utter lack of regard for the moral, health, and sanitary codes.” The appeal also complained that many of the interlopers were said to be receiving welfare payments.

Fifty years later, life goes on in Humboldt County. Along with Mendocino and Trinity Counties, the area has become known as the Emerald Triangle, so named because it is the largest cannabis-producing region in the U.S. Since the hippie invasion, marijuana has become a strong force in the region’s fiscal health, first as part of an underground economy, then legal and mainstream in recent years.

Symbols of America

“We’re not talking about calling in the guys from ‘Duck Dynasty.’”

From the days of our Founding Fathers, the bald eagle has symbolized America: bold, faithful, strong and determined. The Second Continental Congress in 1782 declared the Bald Eagle as the United States’ national symbol.

Over time, though, hunting, habitat destruction and the pesticide DDT brought the majestic bird to near extinction. By the mid 1960s fewer than five-hundred nesting pairs remained in the U.S. The bird was officially declared an endangered species in 1967. Conservation efforts were so successful that it was taken off the endangered list in 2007.

Benjamin Franklin did not share his colleagues’ admiration for the national bird.