I recently wrote up our Celebrity Ascent cruise experience and also wrote about St. Kitts. This is about the other four ports that we visited. Most of our ground activities were planned by ChatGPT.
Barbados
Despite the fact that the U.S. had just kidnapped the democratically elected leader of Venezuela, about 500 miles south, the port was relaxed.
We did the 20-minute walk to downtown Bridgetown, past the Harvard Club of Barbados (the Palestinian flag):
We ducked into the Church of the Holy Trinity (1830; rebuilt 1999):
Downtown is quiet and geared toward locals.
The National Heroes Square honors Rihanna
The synagogue (1654; rebuilt in 1833 after a hurricane) operates services on Shabbat with 30-40 people attending, mostly vacationing Jews. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and a museum the rest of the time. Robert Kraft probably wouldn’t want to feature the historic Jews of Barbados in a Super Bowl ad. Like other Europeans, they showed up to make money in sugar cultivation, didn’t object to slavery, and moved elsewhere when the industry was destroyed by the 19th century sugar beet revolution. Intolerance isn’t always bad (see below; Jews prevented from owning enough slaves to work a plantation):
The synagogue was restored in 1987 and the Barbadians remain proud of it:
We got some ideas for repainting the Honda Odyssey from the taxi stand and headed over to the Atlantis Submarine dock:
Make sure to pay extra for the front seats!
As in the U.S., people are leaving the coronapanic signs up. Atlantis used to pack about 50 people into a small tube and the virus prevention strategy was a 5-cent mask:
A short walk away is the modest house where Rihanna grew up:
Back to the port:
Summary: a pleasant slow-paced island.
Tortola
Arrival:
We walked by the Supreme Court:
And Avis rental car?
To get to the Botanic Gardens where Donald Trump’s National Park pricing system prevails (foreigners pay 3X):
Science reminds us that “uncontrolled transport of plans and soil” is harmful to natives (uncontrolled transport of humans, on the other hand, always benefits natives):
Tortola is where a lot of people pick up their Moorings rental catamarans. They run a market where everything necessary for a good week on the water is available:
ChatGPT told us to go to Cane Garden Bay, which is more crowded than any beach in Florida (fewer people than on some parts of Miami Beach, but the sand is not nearly as wide):
We had a nice lunch at Rhythm+Sands. The obligatory Caribbean spiny lobster:
The port includes a #Science lesson:
Here are are parked next to our brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters on Norwegian Epic, which seems to follow an almost identical itinerary:
Sailing away, we see some of the same sights as those enjoyed by the Moorings bareboat renters, but from a higher perch and with about 10 restaurants to choose from within an easy walk from our berths:
St. Lucia
We did a morning snorkel trip on a catamaran that included views of the famous Pitons.
Marigot Bay, where I was able to tell fellow snorkelers, “That’s just like the yacht that our family had when I was growing up”:
It turns out that St. Lucia was the birthplace of two Noble laureates:
Celebrity warned us about robberies when ashore, but we never felt unsafe walking around Castries. (We weren’t warned about crime in any of the other ports.)
St. John’s, Antigua
The port is a bit unnerving, with locals aggressively hawking their services. We were reminded to stay safe by wearing a mask:
We visited the downtown museum, inside an old courthouse. We learned that people who lived in Antigua for 3,000 years were wiped out by immigrant Arawaks from South America. After they killed all of the natives, the Arawaks lived in harmony with nature by slash-and-burn agriculture.
Just up the hill, the Catholic cathedral (1845):
Then it was time for a water taxi to Dickenson Bay, a ChatGPT suggestion that we didn’t love. Most of the facilities are controlled by Sandals, an all-inclusive resort.
Sailing away:
Conclusion
Given our own beach-adjacent status here in Florida, I don’t think I would have wanted to spend a lot of time at any of the above islands. It is more or less the same idea as what we have here in Jupiter, but with much less convenience (can’t just drive 10 minutes to the Apple Store at the Gardens after the iPhone fails; can’t get 50,000 different SKUs at a Publix supermarket 7 minutes away). Coral reef snorkeling would be an exception, but there are denser coral reefs in other parts of the world.
Coming from the miserable Northeast or Midwest, though, probably a cruise around the smaller islands in a Moorings catamaran would be great or even just a hotel stay in Barbados.
As New York City moves toward a ban on pet dogs (consistent with the Hadiths; see Nerdeen Kiswani’s February 12 tweet that stirred up Rep. Randy Fine), a former Club Med in Florida has gone in the opposite direction: a Fido-welcome all-inclusive resort. Here’s a report on a weekend spent at Sandpiper Bay. We brought the kids and Mindy the Crippler, our golden retriever.
There are tons of great restaurants in Stuart and Port St. Lucie. Why would anyone want to eat three (or five) meals per day at the hotel? We met a lot more people than we would have if we stayed in a regular hotel and everyone dispersed at mealtime. Of course, not everyone agrees that this is a great system…
The setting is right next to a marina on the St. Lucie River:
One can sit on the shore in the shade and read a book with birds and jumping fish for company:
This isn’t a “drop off the kids after breakfast” place like Club Med. There are some kid-oriented activities, but not enough that kids or teens can form a tribe and entertain each other. Where the resort shines is in tennis. The grounds are shared with RPS, a boarding school for future professionals, similar to Bradenton’s IMG, though much smaller (Mindy the Crippler introduced us to some of the boarding students; they do academics 4 hours per day and sports training 4 hours per day and they seem to love it. Some students do all of their sports training at RPS while living at RPS, but then do virtual school for their academics, e.g., the (free) Florida Virtual School). There are group tennis lessons every day except Sunday and you can also arrange private lessons with RPS staff.
If the kids are getting on your nerves, the good news is that unlimited alcohol is included. Don’t expect high-end vino, though, and, in fact, the Kirkland wines are superior to what we were offered at Sandpiper Bay. Perhaps that was just as well because I consumed just one drink per day as a result. There’s a relaxing riverside adults-only pool that also has a hot tub that is actually hot.
Not too many people had brought dogs, but all the ones we met were friendly. They included two Corgis, several Doodles, a Spaniel, and a Standard Poodle. There were no hassles regarding paperwork (i.e., undocumented canines are not illegal) or weight limits. Dogs were welcome almost everyone in the resort, but not within the pool fences nor inside the various buildings, including restaurants and bars. Consistent with most of the rest of Florida, it was possible to eat or drink at outdoor tables, including at the main buffet restaurant, with a dog. Mindy the Crippler used her dog bed despite the sizing mismatch:
The resort is equipped with an arcade (pay per game) and free ping pong, pool, and table shuffleboard. The shuffleboard table was a magnificent 22′ regulation length example, but almost unplayable because the hotel managers hadn’t figured out that they needed to buy wax for it (I told them to call up Shuffleboard Federation and order the correct speed for their table; they also had no silicone spray that I saw nor did they have a wiper to use between games; all very sad considering the time and trouble that some wood nerds had gone to when building the 22′ playing surface).
What about the fact that the resort isn’t directly on an ocean beach? It’s a 20-minute drive to Jensen Beach, one of the nicest in Florida.
A lot of the staff members had warm and welcoming personalities. As with nearly every other hotel in the U.S., though, they’re somewhat understaffed. Expect to wait in line and don’t expect daily room cleaning.
How are the rooms? The family rooms are huge, much better than the family room we had at Club Med Michès Playa Esmeralda (Dominican Republic). The Club Med “family room” was just a regular-sized room chopped up with more doors to the point that there wasn’t anywhere for the entire family to hang out except in the queen-sized bed of the “parents’ space”. At Sandpiper Bay, the parents’ room has two huge sofas and plenty of space for the entire family, including the pup who got her own bed ($75/day extra for the animal). The kids’ room is small, but sufficient:
What kind of people did we meet?
A retired but super fit pickleball enthusiast from Albany, traveling with his wife.
A mechanical engineer from Tampa and biomedical engineer wife who came to the U.S. from Cuba at age 16 and eventually earned a PhD in biomedical nerdism (she could be featured on my four random immigrants page, though I don’t think a Democrat politician would want to highlight her due to the fact that she was unequivocally anti-socialism and generally pro-Trump (at least preferring him to the Democrat alternatives)). They were celebrating their 20th anniversary and had left their children behind with grandparents.
An architect from Delray Beach whose firm was about to finish a Palm Beach barrier island starter home ($100 million construction cost; I was afraid to ask what the land had cost or what his firm’s fees might have been; remember the WSJ says $200 million is the new luxury home buy-in).
a mom from Plano, Texas on a three-night break with two kids and a grandma (father left behind to take care of a cat; a great metaphor for modern marriage)
A pre- or post-trip suggestion: the Port St. Lucie Botanical Gardens (admission is free; donations encouraged). They’ve got about 100 orchids and several hundred cacti and succulents.
Conclusion: The price is fair. The location is great. The dogs are friendly. The food is about what you’d expect from a Hilton or Marriott. You’re not trapped as you might be at a foreign all-inclusive. If you forgot something, drive 10 minutes to Walmart or Publix. If the kids are bored, take them to the Regal movie theater or go another few minutes to Hobby Lobby, downtown Stuart, or the Play Money unlimited pinball and video arcades (one in Stuart and one in Fort Pierce).
Packing list:
your own ping pong paddles
your own Pickleball gear
your own tennis racquets and balls
your own shuffleboard wiper, silicone spray, and speed wax
Nearest airports: Stuart (if flying yourself), PBI, Vero Beach. It’s 1:45 from FLL with a lot of interesting things to see and do on the way. It’s 1:53 from MCO with absolutely nothing to see or do in between (you could take an indirect route from MCO, though, and stop at the Kennedy Space Center in one direction (allow a full day) and Valiant Air Command in the other (all a couple of hours).
Prices right now
I checked for March 7-14, 2026. The site gives the same price for two adults or two adults+two kids. Riverside life begins at $324/night plus ruinous taxes:
This is about a January 2-12, 2026 trip on the Celebrity Ascent from/to Fort Lauderdale via the following ports:
Tortola, British Virgin Islands
St. Johns, Antigua
Barbados
St. Lucia
St. Kitts
TL;DR: It’s a big ship, but you feel like family. The officers and staff are warm and friendly. The food is much better than on Royal Caribbean. The ship orchestra and the house band (Blue Jays with Jessica Gabrielle) were superb.
The Machine
Celebrity Ascent was completed in 2023 by Chantiers de l’Atlantique at a cost of $1.2 billion and holds about 3,300 passengers on a typical cruise, plus 1,400 crew. She’s notable for having a “Magic Carpet” that can slide up and down the ship, serving as a restaurant or bar most of the time, but also an embarkation platform for the ship’s tenders at ports where there isn’t a pier.
I don’t think she’ll win any beauty contests, but Ascent is very functional! In St. Lucia:
Note that there is no place on board to land a helicopter. If someone gets sick and needs to be evacuated, only the Coast Guard or one of the private contractors that the Europeans like to use can extract someone from the ship with a hoist.
With 73,000 hp of Wärtsilä diesel power (five engines total), I’m not sure that Greta Thunberg will want to be a customer. That said, the hull design is 22 percent more fuel efficient than older ships. How is it possible to advance the art of naval architecture, already relatively mature during the Second Punic War (2,250 years ago)? The efficiency doesn’t come from an improved hull shape, but from pushing air out at the bow and, thus, enabling the ship to ride on a cushion of air rather than clawing at the draggy water. Prof. Dr. ChatGPT, Ph.D. Naval Arch. explains:
Modern cruise ships sometimes use air lubrication systems (ALS) that pump compressed air through tiny openings in the hull—usually along the flat bottom.
1. Reduced Skin-Friction Drag
Water is ~800× denser and far more viscous than air.
Replacing direct water–steel contact with air–water contact drastically lowers friction.
Skin friction accounts for 50–80% of total resistance at cruise speeds.
2. Lower Fuel Consumption
Typical real-world savings:
5–10% fuel reduction on large ships
Sometimes higher on wide, flat-bottomed hulls (like cruise ships)
Many modern ships include air lubrication, including vessels from:
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Wärtsilä
Silverstream Technologies
Some notable cruise lines have retrofitted ALS systems to existing ships to improve efficiency.
Air-bubble (air-lubrication) systems have a longer history than most people realize—they date back over half a century, but only became practical for cruise ships fairly recently.
Air lubrication always worked—but it needed:
Cheap, efficient electrical power onboard
Sophisticated control software
Environmental pressure (fuel cost + emissions)
Better hull designs to keep the air where it belongs
Cruise ships finally ticked all the boxes.
The Stateroom
Booking about three weeks before departure we got literally the last room available on the ship, other than an inside cabin. We had a Concierge Class 285-square-foot stateroom including the veranda, which ends up becoming part of the room because of the top glass panel’s ability to slide vertically. It’s a clever design. Our room was laid out like the photo below, except that we had the two halves of the bed split with a night table in between. We could have used outlets on both sides of the bed, but found an outlet on only one side. The bathroom felt spacious.
The in-room HVAC doesn’t dehumidify as much as one would expect, nor does it bring significant fresh air into the room when the veranda window is sealed. Humidity without the window open would range from 50-65% (how do they avoid mold?) and CO2 levels in the middle of the night would go over 1,300 ppm (a real nightmare for Greta Thunberg!). Data from an Airthings Wave Enhance:
(I’ve seen CO2 go to 1,000 ppm in some hotels in humid environments, such as Miami. The ASHRAE standard is 800-1,000 ppm. CO2 by itself isn’t harmful (up to 5,000 ppm is tolerated in submarines), but is an indication of how much fresh air is coming in. Atmospheric CO2 is about 430 ppm. In my old Harvard Square condo (crummy 1880s construction) with just one person in the bedroom (me), the CO2 level reached 700 ppm in the middle of the night.)
The Passengers
Typical passengers seemed to be the same kinds of folks who would move into the The Villages (the most active over-55 active community in the U.S.?). Here are a couple of brothers who were, I think, traveling with their parents (flamingo suits from Amazon):
Exercise on Board
There is a beautiful and never-crowded gym on Deck 15 looking straight out at the sea in front of the ship:
Ascent lacks the “walking/jogging track all the way around Deck 5” that was a conventional exercise solution on older ships and instead has a bizarre serpentine track on (crowded) Decks 15 and 16 that is also used by people getting to and from lounge chairs. The lack of the conventional all-around-the-ship track was my biggest disappointment, which I guess means that everything else was at least pretty good!
Here’s the track. Notice that it isn’t shaded, unlike the typical round-the-ship track, and it is surrounded by clutter and people. (The Magic Carpet is in the background in its higher position.)
Food
The food is a significant step-up from what’s offered on Royal Caribbean, the parent company of which acquired Celebrity in 1997. This is good and bad, I guess, I lost weight during every Royal cruise and gained some weight on this Celebrity trip.
One important source of weight gain was that, unlike almost anyone in the U.S. and certainly unlike anyone on Royal, the baker for Ascent was able to make a high quality croissant. These were hard to resist at breakfast. (Fortunately, they were just as bad as Royal at making donuts! The worst Dunkin’ does a better job.) Then at about half the other meals in the buffet they had addictive bread pudding. There was always an option for Indian food at the buffet (4 or 5 dishes plus bread) and typically at least two or three other Asian choices.
A friend who owns some superb restaurants did the Retreat class on Celebrity and said that the dedicated restaurant for those elite passengers exceeded his expectations. We hit the specialty steak restaurant on Ascent and were somewhat disappointed. They can’t have a gas grill on board for safety reasons and, apparently, don’t know how to use induction and a cast iron pan. The steaks are, therefore, rather soggy. We ate in the main dining room and buffet restaurants after that.
The Pool
There’s an indoor solarium pool for Alaska and European cruises. Here’s the outdoor pool (big enough for water aerobics and kids to goof around; not really big enough to swim for exercise (though it emptied out towards sunset so maybe one could)):
Still open and empty because everyone is dressing for dinner?
There are some hot tubs, but they’re not quite hot enough (i.e., you could comfortably sit in one for an hour):
The Spa
If you’re doing an Alaska cruise it probably would make sense to pay for Aqua Class, which includes access to these heated loungers looking out at the sea (not all that appealing on a Caribbean cruise!). The SEA Thermal Suite:
Sports under the Stars
Our cruise coincided with NFL playoffs and people enjoyed the big screen experience in the “Rooftop Garden”:
Entertainment
The resident musicians, singers, and dancers were all great. I personally wish that cruise lines would do full plays or musicals rather than assemble songs from disparate sources and string them together, but apparently I’m a minority of one and attention spans dictate that shows last for just 45 minutes. Some of the guest stars were fantastic, notably Stephen Barry, an Irish singer with a fun attitude. Steve Valentine did a mind-bending Vegas-quality magic show. The technical aspects of the theater were up to Broadway standards or beyond.
Some of my favorite shows were ones where the ship’s orchestra got together with one of the singers from a smaller group and just played music. I’m more of a classical music fan, but the high level of talent live was compelling.
For Kids
There is a small Camp at Sea for kid kids, which some of the youngsters on board seemed to like. My 16-year-old companion rejected the Teen Club, finding only boys playing videogames.
Unlike on Royal Caribbean, there weren’t many under-18s on board. That said, I never saw a child or teen who seemed bored or unhappy. They were loving the food, the scenery, the pool, etc.
The Bridge
The bridge is worth seeing. It’s a masterpiece of ergonomics. Apparently, the captain takes direct control of the Azipods when docking. I had expected a joystick and a computer to figure out what to do with the bow thrusters and the Azipods, but that’s not how it is done.
The Dancers (Bear+Woman)
Art imitates life (“Based on May 2024 surveys, approximately 31% to 37% of women in the US and UK indicated they would prefer to be alone in the woods with a bear over a strange man, with higher rates among younger women (up to 53% for 18-29 year olds in the UK).”):
Conclusion
The whole trip cost about $8,000 including all of the extras, such as Internet and a couple of shore excursions, but no drinks package and only a few extra-cost drinks. We could have done it for less if we’d booked farther ahead or chosen a more basic room. It worked out to $800 per day for great scenery, fun entertainment, more food than I should have eaten, and an introduction to five islands, three of which were entirely new to me and the other two that I hadn’t visited for more than 20 years.
I will remember the warmth of the Celebrity crew. Everyone seemed genuinely interested in welcoming and taking care of us.
[For the cruise haters: We could have flown to a Caribbean from FLL, stayed in a hotel, picked restaurants, and flown back, for about the same price (or 50 percent more for the same level of luxury?). The boat ride itself has value to me, however. I love to be on deck when arriving or departing. It’s a different kind of understanding of how the Caribbean is put together geographically and culturally than one might get from being airdropped by Airbus A320.]
We recently took a cruise on the Celebrity Ascent to five Caribbean islands: Tortola, Antigua (annoying/aggressive vendors at the pier), Barbados, St. Lucia (nicer than I remember from 35 years ago, but statistically much more dangerous), and St. Kitts (minus Nevis). St. Kitts turned out to be our favorite among the above. Orientation map:
Basseterre:
(Norwegian Epic at left and Marella Discovery nursing her calf at right.)
The drivers tend to be colorful:
Our official Celebrity shore excursion consisted of a 22 people on a 22-passenger minibus whose driver went by “WhatsApp” and doubled as a guide. He showed us around downtown and then took us north towards Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Roughly once per minute he honked the minibus horn, not due to Maskachusetts-style road rage but because we were passing someone he knew. He would add a straight-arm wave that looked a lot like the purported Nazi salute of Elon Musk (neither, in fact, a Nazi salute according to Wikipedia, which requires the palm to be down). With a population for both islands of around 55,000, one is never far from a friend or acquaintance on St. Kitts and Nevis. (Our cheerful driver was never that far from an ex-girlfriend either. He had five children with three different females, each of whom had kicked him to the curb. “I live with my Daddy now,” he said, without apparent disappointment.)
Brimstone Hill Fortress is a great example of the wastefulness of military spending. The British spent 100 years building the fortress and it fell after one month to a French siege. Note that the Kittitians follow the same pricing program for their national park that the hated dictator Donald Trump has imposed for U.S. National Parks, i.e., foreigners must pay a higher rate:
Maybe the British troops were easily defeated because they were always on their phones?
If the guns of the day had been of Iowa-class quality they could have shelled Sint Eustatius (still part of the Netherlands):
Immigration has It’s sobering to think how short-lived the sugar industry was on St. Kitts and similar islands, considering the destruction to native peoples and cultures that resulted from the immigration of Europeans and Africans (involuntary, mostly, for the latter).
The victors get to design and print the stamps:
Our driver explained that as St. Kitts became wealthier, the native-born didn’t want to work in the cane fields. “We imported labor from Trinidad,” he said, “but it turned out not to make economic sense because they remitted most of their wages back home. So we shut down the sugar industry.” (Of course, in the U.S. it makes perfect economic sense to bring in migrants who will remit their wages back to Somalia!)
We eventually worked our way down towards the southern portion of the island, home to a Marriott and a new luxurious Park Hyatt that our driver says is now the best hotel. One can see the Atlantic to the left and the Caribbean to the right.
A few scenes of downtown:
The handset was missing from this old phone booth. If the U.S.-European war over Greenland destroys most of the Earth and all printed and electronic records how would a future archaeologist determine the function of the miniature red house?
What would a basic room at the Park Hyatt cost for January 25-31?
Burdened with kids? A one-bedroom villa is $4,105 per night. I guess the average American will have to keep toiling at his/her/zir/their job to support the Somali day cares rather than enjoy life on St. Kitts during the peak winter season!
St. Kitts also might be a no-go zone for Massachusetts elites. I didn’t see a rainbow flag on any of the churches nor on any house and it’s tough to stay healthy because smoking “essential” marijuana is prohibited at the portside food court.
Despite the epic length of Minneapolis in December, I neglected to include a few photos. Here are official posters within the Skyway from the local government:
(Unless the person in the vaccine promotion photo is at least 75, he/she/ze/they isn’t eligible for both flu (age minimum: 65) and COVID-19 (age minimum: 75) shots in the Science-driven UK NHS system.)
What kind of person can drink a “Homie” Coke without being guilty of cultural appropriation?
The smartest folks in Minnesota says that Somalis “[contribute] $8 billion to the Minnesota economy” (presumably annually):
Vang: Somalis don’t contribute anything? How about $8 billion to the Minnesota economy. https://t.co/srVSXEj9LB
This could be true if $8 billion in federal welfare funds flow into Minnesota because 80 percent of Somalis in Minnesota are entitled to welfare:
But if this is a contribution in the conventional (non-welfare) sense, why isn’t there any other country in the world that will pay us to send them Somalis whom we have chosen to deport? Or that will set up a migrant recruiting booth in Mogadishu? Other countries don’t want to become $8 billion richer every year?
Having heard that politicians and bureaucrats in Minneapolis were handing out $1 billion to anyone who asked nicely, no matter how ridiculous the stated reasons, (NYT) I decided to head there in early December. Sadly, I didn’t find Tim Walz as easy a mark as Haji Osman Salad, Sharmarke Issa, and Khadra Abdi did, nor as easy a mark as 27-year-old Abdifitah Mohamud Mohamed did, and, therefore, I was compelled to slave away in a downtown office tower for three days. This is what I left behind (Palm Beach climbing out of PBI):
I arrived into a city where people need to be reminded to wear “bottoms” in the -7 degree temps:
(Shout-out to the folks who made the light rail system actually go into the airport and scheduled trains for every 15 minutes, even on a Sunday evening! (I love public transit almost as much as Ayatollah Mamdani and agree with him that it should be free! (so as to declutter our road system, designed for a country of 150 million people and now overwhelmed by a country of 350 million-ish))
The view from the office building where I worked included the Federal Courthouse and, just behind it, a marijuana store. In between, apparently, there used to be a strip club:
The fabulous Skyway system allows for a lot of urban trekking without ever being exposed to the harsh elements. This connects private and government buildings throughout the town at the 2nd floor level.
Senator Amy Klobuchar says that the hemp industry (a.k.a., marijuana, cannabis, or weed) is a cornerstone of the Minnesota economy (second only to diverting federal funds into the hands of young fraudsters?):
MN’s hemp industry powers farmers, small businesses, and thousands of jobs.
I stood with our farmers and business leaders to oppose last-minute federal overreach that would harm Minnesota’s economy and hurt consumers. pic.twitter.com/I2eMKgxTSx
Consistent with Senator Klobuchar’s promotion, I was able to find marijuana for sale right within the Skyway system.
The only depiction of a heterosexual family that I found within the entire Skyway system:
(I asked Grok to analyze the above image, without saying anything about the races of the people in it: “Specifically for Black husband/white wife unions, studies show they have about twice the divorce rate of white husband/white wife couples by year 10, or a 44% higher likelihood overall compared to the national average.” ChatGPT and Gemini refused to speculate on this subject.)
I had to try the cuisine for which Minneapolis is best-known, i.e., Goat Biryani (“Tasty Halal goat meat served over aromatic biryani rice, topped with sautéed vegetables, raisins, and fresh herbs for a rich and satisfying meal.”) I also got a “Sambusa”, not to be confused with an Indian samosa, and they threw in a banana for reasons that were never explained:
This was at Mama Safia’s, a restaurant that was torched in the peaceful protests of 2020. NPR:
In my peregrinations on the Skyway, I stumbled into a government building:
Note that the government takes the official position that it should spend taxpayer dollars on “disparity reduction”:
If Person A works 0 hours per week and Person B works 80 hours per week, it is the government’s job to try to make sure that they both have equal quality housing. If Person A played Xbox for all of K-12 and Person B studied then the government is required to spend money on getting A and B similar jobs (“Employment”).
To listen to public officials and local media in Minneapolis, the city is an integrated “community” of Somalis, white people with the federal checkbook, et al. That was the opposite of my experience. I never saw a Somali or Somali-American eating lunch with a white person in any of the dozens of Skyway restaurants that I looked into. I was the only non-Somali in the Somali restaurant. Everyone in the pinball bar was white. The Somali-American at the front desk of the office tower where I was working had so little connection to what went in the building that he couldn’t tell me if the tenant I was visiting was in his building or not, much less on which floor (the tenant occupies two entire floors of the building; the front desk guy had been on the job for 1.5 months). The two Somali Uber drivers that I had were unable to follow directions in English from the Uber app and took numerous wrong turns (this worked against their financial interest since Uber didn’t give them more money than the original quote). (By contrast, Uber drivers from Egypt and Ethiopia were able to follow the route. I never had a native-born Uber driver. My drivers were Mehad, Waleed, Hassan, and Abdihakim.) Consistent with Minnesota Compass data, in which two-thirds of Somali households had reported income of less than 200% of official poverty, I never interacted with a Somali in a job that would have disqualified him or her from taxpayer-funded housing, health care, food, and smartphone. (That’s not to say that a non-dependent Somali household doesn’t exist in Minnesota; the chart below shows that 19% of Somali immigrant households don’t receive what is no longer called “welfare”. Also, keep in mind that “native households on welfare” below would include some households headed by children of immigrants.)
Speaking of people who are eligible for welfare… the public library is on the Skyway system and it is a magnificent building that also seems to double as a homeless shelter:
The library doesn’t celebrate excellence in writing, but rather diversity in writing:
To my delight, there was a magazine on how progressives who mouth land acknowledgments can put their words into action and actually give their land back to Native Americans:
For a city that claims to welcome Islamic migrants, the religion of Rainbow Flagism is surprisingly prominent. A “Be Proud At Your Library” rainbow library card is available, for example:
Within this vast array of Rainbow Flagism books, Has the Gay Movement Failed? from University of California Press was a standout:
He revisits the early gay movement and its progressive vision for society and puts the left on notice as failing time and again to embrace the queer potential for social transformation. Acknowledging the elimination of some of the most discriminatory policies that plagued earlier generations, he takes note of the cost—the sidelining of radical goals on the way to achieving more normative inclusion.
Rainbow Flagism is, of course, not the only religion covered by the library. Patrons can prepare for Kamala Harris’s favorite holiday with some featured books:
The library heavily features books on fascism, a timely subject now that the U.S. is under the boot of a fascist dictatorship (one that, nonetheless, the people who alert us to the fascism won’t flee; instead of moving to Canada, Mexico, Europe, or Asia, millions of Americans say that (1) the U.S. is governed by a fascist dictatorship, and (2) they are taking zero steps to get out of the U.S. and into a non-fascist democracy).
A couple of items for sale at MSP that relate to the handing out of $1 billion in taxpayer dollars that Americans outside of Minnesota had to pay:
A Follower of Science at the airport who chose to wear a respirator over a full beard:
Some photos from an October 2025 visit to Frederick, Maryland that are relevant to our observance of Transgender Awareness Week…
Formerly Christian churches have been mostly converted over to Rainbow Flagism, e.g., a Lutheran church founded in 1738:
The United Church of Christ, founded in 1745:
Their principal flag:
The chamber of commerce folks have adopted the full trans-enhanced religoin:
The shops around town generally adhere to Rainbow-First Retail in which shoppers must pass by a sacred flag as they enter. Perhaps under the guidance of the above business organization, the rainbow flags at businesses nearly all have a “Protect Trans Kids” inscription within the Biden-style trans triangle:
We hit Frederick on the way back from a history tour of Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia and the Antietam battlefield from the War of Northern Aggression. Because we visited during the shutdown (October 3, 2025), it was a great lesson for the kids on how times changed. In the mid-19th century government workers had to come into work every day and toil in extreme temperatures in order to receive pay. In the 21st century, government workers are guaranteed to get paid while sitting at home and the taxpayers who must fund their paychecks are denied entry to various historical sites and museums.
The “ferry” part of Harper’s Ferry is now bridged for the convenience of trains and hikers. Harper’s Ferry is the HQ for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the town is rich in resources regarding the trail. As recently as 1970 only about 10 people per year hiked the entire trail. Today it is more than 1,000 per year.
The ironwork done in 1893 is still keeping the trains from falling into the river, 132 years later:
The machines that were so critical to Union success in the War of Northern Aggression continue to roll through Harper’s Ferry:
The “park store” in town is run by a private group and was therefore open. It was, apparently, women who did most of the fighting in the Civil War (there was no section for “men’s history” or “white history”):
Spotted in a local’s driveway and pointed out by our keen-eyed 10-year-old (don’t miss the “Punch More Nazis”):
Below is the closed visitor center for the Antietam battlefield. Just as education wasn’t “essential” during coronapanic, this educational facility isn’t “essential” during a shutdown (i.e., the workers get paid at 100 percent and the kids who show up and try to learn something get nothing).
Here’s a sobering reminder of our insignificance. Soldiers whose names are long-forgotten fought and died for control of Burnside’s Bridge. The Sycamore tree at the far end was there during the battle and it remains there today, 160 years later.
The battlefield isn’t as dense in sculpture as Vicksburg or Gettysburg, but there are many beautiful pieces nonetheless. Examples:
We eventually made it back to Bethesda where the kids learned about the health benefits of marijuana, the importance of Black lives specifically (Korean restaurant door), and the evils of plastic straws (imagine telling a 1970s high schooler that one day marijuana would be considered “essential” and plastic straws would be considered tremendously harmful!).
Marjorie Merriweather Post famously built Mar-a-Lago, but lived in that modest $18 million (value used by New York judge) shack only during “the Palm Beach season”. She lived in Northwest Washington, D.C. during the spring and fall and in the Adirondacks during the summer. Her DC place, cozy by Mar-a-Lago standards, opened as a museum in 1977 and somehow I missed it while growing up in Bethesda, Maryland. My excuses: I started working full-time at NASA (on Pioneer Venus in 1978); I was too young to drive; the museum is nowhere near the Metro; despite high crime rates, Jimmy Carter wouldn’t send the National Guard into the city (he was too busy appeasing the Ayatollahs).
Ms. Post loved dogs, decorative art, orchids, Japanese gardens, and aviation (her private four-engine turboprop Vickers Viscount ferried everything but the gardens with her among the three estates).
The Museum costs $20/adult, but it is free for federal government workers suffering the trauma of receiving 100 percent pay for 0 percent work:
… offering free admission to those receiving SNAP benefits. Present your EBT card upon check in at the visitor center. and receive complimentary entry for 4 guests.
Ms, Post was apparently prescient regarding the kind of society that the U.S. would one day become. A sculpture on the outside of her mansion shows a youth with a swan:
ABC (“Three of four suspects were apprehended” but, as far as I can tell from searching, our noble media never updated us regarding the names or backgrounds of any of the suspects):
The “mansion” itself is unremarkable compared to Mar-a-Lago and, but the contents and gardens are spectacular. A hillside Japanese garden is small, but awesome, and contains some of the stone lanterns that are virtually impossible for consumers to buy today (cheap cast concrete versions are available):
Ms. Post loved her dogs and built a cemetery for them, as well as for the departed canines belonging to family and staff members, on the estate grounds:
Ms. Post built a greenhouse for her orchids (note the modest Islamic dress; in any group of people in Washington, D.C. in October 2025 there was typically at least one person wearing hijab or abaya and at least one person wearing a COVID-19 mask (both indoors and out)):
Some fake iOS background blurring:
The interior is jammed with interesting objects so it is impossible to do justice to them. There are a couple of Fabergé eggs (maybe Optimus can make replicas of these for all of us?):
Here’s an idea of how much there is to see in the “icon room”:
Ms. Post collected a ton of figurines that included dogs. A few examples:
Homage to the highest tech devices of the day:
A couple of personal favorites:
Let’s exist through the COVID-19-safe gift shop:
As far as I can tell, 100 percent of the objects in the museum and estate were made either by East Asians or white Europeans. Ms. Post’s prime years coincided with an almost complete shutdown of immigration to the U.S. Nonetheless, the gift shop reminds us that we should celebration immigration/diversity:
We are informed by Science that there are at least 74 gender IDs, but most of the books for sale celebrate the achievements of people who identified with 1 out of 74:
I wonder if today’s insanely rich people, who are far richer than Marjorie Merriweather Post ever was, will one day leave us beautiful estates in which to wander. It doesn’t seem as though we’re going to get this, though. When Bill Gates sends $200 billion to Africa, for example, it doesn’t even leave a lasting mark on Africa (there are more needy Africans today than ever before, I think). So let’s raise a plastic glass before we eat our Costco ramen to the woman who left Americans this evidence of what the dining experience used to be:
I want our kids to appreciate Playstation 9 when they’re adults and, thus, I take them to art museums whenever we travel. The Rhode Island School of Design Museum is a decent-sized crowd-free museum in which the art can actually be appreciated. We learned that the ubiquitous Dale Chihuly is a RISD graduate and former teacher:
We also learned about queer knitting and queer resistance:
And that one could get academic credit for taking a course titled “Queer People/Places/Things”:
At the subscription library Providence Athenaeum we found a database #Resisting computerized management:
One lonely storefront clung to the five-year-old theory that Black Lives Matter:
An Episcopal church associates the sacred Rainbow Flag with a quote from Jesus: “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Is the implication that Jesus went to the bathhouse regularly? If not, how is a practitioner of Rainbow Flagism loving his 25 or 50 new friends the way that Jesus loved people?
A United Church of Christ:
The First Baptist Church mixes Rainbow Flagism with cautionary words about the dictator in the White House: “Speech Remains Free When We Pay Attention”. The folks who supported forced vaccination and forced masking celebrate #BodilyFreedomForever:
I visited Providence, Rhode Island to check in with a professor at Brown and to torture our 10-year-old with some art museums.
The highlight of the visit was the massive liberation of previously sequestered carbon on Saturday, September 27 via Waterfire.
Here is some of the wood set up and also one of Elizabeth Warren’s cousins paddling in a dugout canoe:
While there we learned that cherished American liberty has been replaced by the cruel tyrannical rule of a king. Also, there is no urgency about protesting the situation and we can endure three additional weeks of tyranny before holding a “No Kings” march:
It’s important to “fight Trumps fascism”, but only one day out of every 14:
While living under fascism don’t forget to also help support Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad by feeding every Gazan fighters’ kids:
The RISD Museum’s Charity, circa 1550, reminds us that we will never run out of resources if we promise to fund an unlimited number of other people’s children:
The officials who work in the State House want to remind you to (1) use all of your federal EBT/SNAP benefits, and (2) adopt a pit bull.
The 10-year-old caught a break when we spent the afternoon at the Electromagnetic Pinball Museum, about 12 minutes north in Pawtucket. It’s an all-white group of people embedded in an all-Black neighborhood of, I think, Cape Verdean migrants enjoying a comprehensive welfare lifestyle. Here’s a thoughtful exploration of AANHPI cultural heritage and also a machine with an Elizabeth Warren theme:
What’s on the mind of Brown students? Free Palestine and Boycott Israel; Fight Against Fascism; organize a bbq restricted to students with one skin color; go on vacation with fellow students of one skin color.
