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Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Gulin China Riverboat Trip
A cruise along the Li River between Guilin and Yangshuo is an unforgettable experience. As you take in the stunning scenery there's something interesting to see at almost every bend in the river. Between spectacular limestone peaks you'll see graceful bamboo groves, farmers tending rice paddies, and lumbering water buffaloes pulling carts or cooling off in the river. You may see fishermen gliding along on their narrow bamboo rafts, and if you're very lucky you might see one of the famous fishing cormorants. Boats depart from various wharves, according to the height of the river at different times of the year.
Video: the Li River tour in Gulin
I just discovered this video -- I was stunned in July 1997 by one of these tours! I NEVER thought I'd ever experience this again--- and it looks like I will and this time, Linda will be with me!!!!
Please enjoy the video!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
CHINA AND BALI VACATION NOTES
Day 1 Sat. May 21: Fly to SFO
We will fly in the evening to San Francisco to catch our late night flight from California to Hong Kong.
Day 3 Mon. May 23: Hong Kong
This morning early we will arrive into Hong Kong. Upon arrival we will enjoy a tour of Hong Kong that includes a boat ride on old Sampans through the harbor of Hong Kong. Overnight Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Harbor
Hong Kong Harbor
Day 4 Tue. May 24: Hong Kong - Shenzhen - China Cultural Village – Li River
This morning we will travel into Mainland China to the city of Shenzhen and the China Cultural Village. The Chinese Government worked with the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii to create their China Cultural Villages featuring their many ethnic groups found in China, like Mongolians, Tibetans, etc. After our visit to the Cultural Village we will fly to Guilin (Li River) where we will overnight.
Day 5 Wed. May 25: Guilin and Li River Cruise
This will be a highlight day as we sail on the Li River through some of the most beautiful and unique rock formations found anywhere in the world. The scenic drive to and from the Li River is filled with terraced rice paddies. In the afternoon we will return to Guilin, possibly the most beautiful city in China.
This morning we will visit the beautiful Reed Flute Cave before heading to the airport for our flight to Xian. Upon arrival we will do a city tour with a special visit to Xian’s ancient city wall. This may be the best preserved City Wall in the world. Dating back over 500 years, the ancient city wall stretches almost 9 miles around the city with its moat and draw bridges still in tact. The top of the wall is wide enough to put 4 semi trucks side by side.
Day 7 Fri. May 27: Xian – Terracotta Warriors
We will spend the day visiting the Terracotta Warriors, one of the world’s great archeological treasures. We will also visit the Wild Goose Pagoda. Xian is the capitol of 11 dynasties and one of the largest medieval cities in the world. This evening we will attend one of the best cultural shows we will see anywhere in the world – The Tang Dynasty Dinner and Cultural Show. This fantastic show is full of music, dance and colorful traditional costumes. Overnight Xian.
This morning we will fly to Wuhan. Our morning tour will be of the Bell Museum. An ancient tomb (thousands of years old) was discovered filled with bronze bells also found in the tomb. We will enjoy a performance of these bells with authentic music compositions also found in the tomb. We will then take a beautiful drive to the 3 Gorges Dam and our 5 star luxury ship on the Yangtze. We will spend the 5 days 4 nights cruising the beautiful majestic Yangtze River.
Day 9 Sun. May 29: Cruising the Yangtze
Cruising the Yangtze can be more beautiful than cruising the inside passage of Alaska. With lush green mountains, manicured farms and fjord like 3,000 foot cliffs, we will be awe struck at its beauty. We will start our day by visiting the world's largest man made dam. We will then enter the 5 ship locks of the 3 Gorges Dam. The ship's locks of the Panama Canal pale in comparison. Each of the 5 ship locks will raise the ship 60 feet into the air. Spectacular, unique, mystic and magical are the adjectives describing the magnificent scenery along the Three Gorges, unfolding on a monumental scale, equal to the Grand Canyon. Today we will go through the Misty Gorge where we will see exquisite peaks, grotesquely shaped rocks and silvery waterfalls.
Day 10 Mon. May 30: Cruise the Yangtze River and the Three Lesser Gorges
We will start our day with our shore excursion into the Three Lesser Gorges. This is one of the most beautiful places on earth. We will then return and continue sailing through Wu Gorge and on to the grandest Gorge on the Yangtze, the Qutang Gorge.
Day 11 Tue. May 31: Cruise the Yangtze River
Today we will stop to tour the ancient Shibaozhai Temple. Dating back to 1750 this temple is located on top of rock out cropping 700 feet in the air. We can enter Shibaozhai by climbing through a wood pagoda attached to the cliff. It is not as hard as it looks. We will stop on each floor as we climb to enjoy the paintings and sculptures. The view from on top of Shibaozhai of the Yangtze and the local farm lands is spectacular. Fun For Less Tours was the first to start bringing their groups to this special site. Because of us, Viking River Cruises and Uniworld Cruises have added Shibaozhai to their itinerary. NOTE: This day is subject to change depending on the timing of the ship. We may end up visiting Fendgu.
Day 12 Wed. June 1: World Heritage Site: Dazu – Beijing
This morning we leave our 5 star luxury ship on the Yangtze in Chongqing and then drive back into the mountains to visit the special stone carvings of Dazu. Here monks have been carving life size stone carvings for almost 2,000 years. There are 60,000 of them! Most of our passengers have liked this site as well or better than the Terracotta Warriors in Xian. A MUST SEE IN CHINA. This place is rarely on tours offered by others and again will be one of wer favorite highlights of China. We will also stop at a farming community out in the country to see what rural farm life is really like. We will then return to Chongqing and stop for a visit with the Pandas on our way to the airport and our flight to Beijing. This evening we will visit Tiananmen Square before reaching our hotel.
Day 13 Thu. June 2: Beijing
Today we will visit the Temple of Heaven and then head to the Summer Palace (the summer residence of China’s Emperors. This afternoon we will make our anticipated visit to the Forbidden City. A huge complex of palaces, pavilions, courtyards and gardens. The Forbidden City was off limits to common people for over 500 years.).
Day 14 Fri. June 3: Beijing – Great Wall
This morning early we will travel 40 miles north of Beijing to the Great Wall. This extraordinary 4,000 mile long fortification was built to thwart the barbarian invasions. A walk along the enormous towered and turreted wall is spectacular. We will return to Beijing where we will have a free afternoon to shop at Silk Alley or relax before our flight back home.
Day 15 Sat. June 4: Beijing to Bali
This morning we will take the recommended extension to the most beautiful island on earth – Bali!!!
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
WARNING: Most Disturbing Content
I may remove this post within minutes of posting it because I have wept learning more about the boy and his family who had these words on a plaque on a wall in their simple Jewish home. His prayer was that he would be loved by his neighbors and that he would love them. His neighbors, of another faith, showed hate and not love. Neighbors of the other faith celebrated by handing out treats in the street upon learning of the slaughter. The quote from the article about Yaov:
A wooden plaque on Yoav's wall reads:
May it be Your will, Lord God and God of our forefathers,
That I love every one of Israel as myself, and
To graciously perform the positive commandment of loving your neighbor as yourself.
May it also be Your will, Lord God and God of my forefathers,
That you cause the hearts of my friends and neighbors to love me fervently, and
That I be accepted and desirable to everyone, and
That I be loving and pleasant, and
That I be gracious and merciful in the eyes of all who see me.
For the first time in my life I pray for the Lord's swift return.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Considering THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY in 1 NEPHI
Consider these pics, one a map of the bottom of the Saudi Arabian coast which I copied via WINDOWS ONENOTE from GOOGLE EARTH, and the other, a picture found posted to GOOGLE EARTH near the pushpin labeled "waterfall" that is mentioned below.
Hugh Nibley suggests that the last major leg the route taken by Lehi, et al, while in the desert was likely due east along the 19th parallel to the coastal area that may well have been the location of "THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY." I was curious about what could be seen using GOOGLE EARTH and looked at the coastline around the coast on the 19th parallel. (See the yellow pushpin on the map entitled, "Lehi's encampment?")
From there, I headed back south and westward along the coast looking for any other areas that suggested such a favorable land...trees, fresh waters, etc.
Note the yellow pushpins with labels like "sinkhole," and "like Lehi's stopping place?" and finally, "waterfall."
The jpeg of the forest area is found on GOOGLE EARTH near the "waterfall" pin.
I'm not saying that "my" finding is the LAND OF MILK AND HONEY or that it is anything close...I'm ONLY providing the links to stimulate your imagination about one tiny aspect of the Book of Mormon!
and then
Hugh Nibley suggests that the last major leg the route taken by Lehi, et al, while in the desert was likely due east along the 19th parallel to the coastal area that may well have been the location of "THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY." I was curious about what could be seen using GOOGLE EARTH and looked at the coastline around the coast on the 19th parallel. (See the yellow pushpin on the map entitled, "Lehi's encampment?")
From there, I headed back south and westward along the coast looking for any other areas that suggested such a favorable land...trees, fresh waters, etc.
Note the yellow pushpins with labels like "sinkhole," and "like Lehi's stopping place?" and finally, "waterfall."
The jpeg of the forest area is found on GOOGLE EARTH near the "waterfall" pin.
I'm not saying that "my" finding is the LAND OF MILK AND HONEY or that it is anything close...I'm ONLY providing the links to stimulate your imagination about one tiny aspect of the Book of Mormon!
and then
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Two Californias by Victor Davis Hanson
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.
Victor Davis Hanson
| Two Californias Abandoned farms, Third World living conditions, pervasive public assistance -- welcome to the once-thriving Central Valley. The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California. I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated private sector, a stagnant and shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption. During this unscientific experiment, three times a week I rode a bike on a 20-mile trip over various rural roads in southwestern Fresno County. I also drove my car over to the coast to work, on various routes through towns like San Joaquin, Mendota, and Firebaugh. And near my home I have been driving, shopping, and touring by intent the rather segregated and impoverished areas of Caruthers, Fowler, Laton, Orange Cove, Parlier, and Selma. My own farmhouse is now in an area of abject poverty and almost no ethnic diversity; the closest elementary school (my alma mater, two miles away) is 94 percent Hispanic and 1 percent white, and well below federal testing norms in math and English. Here are some general observations about what I saw (other than that the rural roads of California are fast turning into rubble, poorly maintained and reverting to what I remember seeing long ago in the rural South). First, remember that these areas are the ground zero, so to speak, of 20 years of illegal immigration. There has been a general depression in farming — to such an extent that the 20- to-100-acre tree and vine farmer, the erstwhile backbone of the old rural California, for all practical purposes has ceased to exist. On the western side of the Central Valley, the effects of arbitrary cutoffs in federal irrigation water have idled tens of thousands of acres of prime agricultural land, leaving thousands unemployed. Manufacturing plants in the towns in these areas — which used to make harvesters, hydraulic lifts, trailers, food-processing equipment — have largely shut down; their production has been shipped off overseas or south of the border. Agriculture itself — from almonds to raisins — has increasingly become corporatized and mechanized, cutting by half the number of farm workers needed. So unemployment runs somewhere between 15 and 20 percent. Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World. There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business — rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections — but apparently none of that applies out here. It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the regulators’ defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer park with a spider web of illegal bare wires? Many of the rented-out rural shacks and stationary Winnebagos are on former small farms — the vineyards overgrown with weeds, or torn out with the ground lying fallow. I pass on the cultural consequences to communities from the loss of thousands of small farming families. I don’t think I can remember another time when so many acres in the eastern part of the valley have gone out of production, even though farm prices have recently rebounded. Apparently it is simply not worth the gamble of investing $7,000 to $10,000 an acre in a new orchard or vineyard. What an anomaly — with suddenly soaring farm prices, still we have thousands of acres in the world’s richest agricultural belt, with available water on the east side of the valley and plentiful labor, gone idle or in disuse. Is credit frozen? Are there simply no more farmers? Are the schools so bad as to scare away potential agricultural entrepreneurs? Or are we all terrified by the national debt and uncertain future? |
California coastal elites may worry about the oxygen content of water available to a three-inch smelt in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, but they seem to have no interest in the epidemic dumping of trash, furniture, and often toxic substances throughout California’s rural hinterland. Yesterday, for example, I rode my bike by a stopped van just as the occupants tossed seven plastic bags of raw refuse onto the side of the road. I rode up near their bumper and said in my broken Spanish not to throw garbage onto the public road. But there were three of them, and one of me. So I was lucky to be sworn at only. I note in passing that I would not drive into Mexico and, as a guest, dare to pull over and throw seven bags of trash into the environment of my host.
In fact, trash piles are commonplace out here — composed of everything from half-empty paint cans and children’s plastic toys to diapers and moldy food. I have never seen a rural sheriff cite a litterer, or witnessed state EPA workers cleaning up these unauthorized wastelands. So I would suggest to Bay Area scientists that the environment is taking a much harder beating down here in central California than it is in the Delta. Perhaps before we cut off more irrigation water to the west side of the valley, we might invest some green dollars into cleaning up the unsightly and sometimes dangerous garbage that now litters the outskirts of our rural communities.
We hear about the tough small-business regulations that have driven residents out of the state, at the rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a week. But from my unscientific observations these past weeks, it seems rather easy to open a small business in California without any oversight at all, or at least what I might call a “counter business.” I counted eleven mobile hot-kitchen trucks that simply park by the side of the road, spread about some plastic chairs, pull down a tarp canopy, and, presto, become mini-restaurants. There are no “facilities” such as toilets or washrooms. But I do frequently see lard trails on the isolated roads I bike on, where trucks apparently have simply opened their draining tanks and sped on, leaving a slick of cooking fats and oils. Crows and ground squirrels love them; they can be seen from a distance mysteriously occupied in the middle of the road.
At crossroads, peddlers in a counter-California economy sell almost anything. Here is what I noticed at an intersection on the west side last week: shovels, rakes, hoes, gas pumps, lawnmowers, edgers, blowers, jackets, gloves, and caps. The merchandise was all new. I doubt whether in high-tax California sales taxes or income taxes were paid on any of these stop-and-go transactions.
In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when “food stamps” were embarrassing bulky coupons). But I did not see any relationship between the use of the card and poverty as we once knew it: The electrical appurtenances owned by the user and the car into which the groceries were loaded were indistinguishable from those of the upper middle class.
By that I mean that most consumers drove late-model Camrys, Accords, or Tauruses, had iPhones, Bluetooths, or BlackBerries, and bought everything in the store with public-assistance credit. This seemed a world apart from the trailers I had just ridden by the day before. I don’t editorialize here on the logic or morality of any of this, but I note only that there are vast numbers of people who apparently are not working, are on public food assistance, and enjoy the technological veneer of the middle class. California has a consumer market surely, but often no apparent source of income. Does the $40 million a day supplement to unemployment benefits from Washington explain some of this?
Do diversity concerns, as in lack of diversity, work both ways? Over a hundred-mile stretch, when I stopped in San Joaquin for a bottled water, or drove through Orange Cove, or got gas in Parlier, or went to a corner market in southwestern Selma, my home town, I was the only non-Hispanic — there were no Asians, no blacks, no other whites. We may speak of the richness of “diversity,” but those who cherish that ideal simply have no idea that there are now countless inland communities that have become near-apartheid societies, where Spanish is the first language, the schools are not at all diverse, and the federal and state governments are either the main employers or at least the chief sources of income — whether through emergency rooms, rural health clinics, public schools, or social-service offices. An observer from Mars might conclude that our elites and masses have given up on the ideal of integration and assimilation, perhaps in the wake of the arrival of 11 to 15 million illegal aliens.
Again, I do not editorialize, but I note these vast transformations over the last 20 years that are the paradoxical wages of unchecked illegal immigration from Mexico, a vast expansion of California’s entitlements and taxes, the flight of the upper middle class out of state, the deliberate effort not to tap natural resources, the downsizing in manufacturing and agriculture, and the departure of whites, blacks, and Asians from many of these small towns to more racially diverse and upscale areas of California.
Fresno’s California State University campus is embroiled in controversy over the student body president’s announcing that he is an illegal alien, with all the requisite protests in favor of the DREAM Act. I won’t comment on the legislation per se, but again only note the anomaly. I taught at CSUF for 21 years. I think it fair to say that the predominant theme of the Chicano and Latin American Studies program’s sizable curriculum was a fuzzy American culpability. By that I mean that students in those classes heard of the sins of America more often than its attractions. In my home town, Mexican flag decals on car windows are far more common than their American counterparts.
I note this because hundreds of students here illegally are now terrified of being deported to Mexico. I can understand that, given the chaos in Mexico and their own long residency in the United States. But here is what still confuses me: If one were to consider the classes that deal with Mexico at the university, or the visible displays of national chauvinism, then one might conclude that Mexico is a far more attractive and moral place than the United States.
So there is a surreal nature to these protests: something like, “Please do not send me back to the culture I nostalgically praise; please let me stay in the culture that I ignore or deprecate.” I think the DREAM Act protestors might have been far more successful in winning public opinion had they stopped blaming the U.S. for suggesting that they might have to leave at some point, and instead explained why, in fact, they want to stay. What it is about America that makes a youth of 21 go on a hunger strike or demonstrate to be allowed to remain in this country rather than return to the place of his birth?
I think I know the answer to this paradox. Missing entirely in the above description is the attitude of the host, which by any historical standard can only be termed “indifferent.” California does not care whether one broke the law to arrive here or continues to break it by staying. It asks nothing of the illegal immigrant — no proficiency in English, no acquaintance with American history and values, no proof of income, no record of education or skills. It does provide all the public assistance that it can afford (and more that it borrows for), and apparently waives enforcement of most of California’s burdensome regulations and civic statutes that increasingly have plagued productive citizens to the point of driving them out. How odd that we overregulate those who are citizens and have capital to the point of banishing them from the state, but do not regulate those who are aliens and without capital to the point of encouraging millions more to follow in their footsteps. How odd — to paraphrase what Critias once said of ancient Sparta — that California is at once both the nation’s most unfree and most free state, the most repressed and the wildest.
Hundreds of thousands sense all that and vote accordingly with their feet, both into and out of California — and the result is a sort of social, cultural, economic, and political time-bomb, whose ticks are getting louder.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Some Early Lenhard Family Pictures Slideshow: Craig’s trip from Columbus, Georgia, United States to Flagstaff, Arizona was created by TripAdvisor. See another Flagstaff slideshow. Take your travel photos and make a slideshow for free.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
New Little Ditty!
40 Years, 5 Children And 15 Grandchildren Slideshow: The’s trip to Columbus, Georgia, United States was created by TripAdvisor. See another Columbus slideshow. Create your own stunning free slideshow from your travel photos.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Constitution Article 1 Section 10
For Arizona Governor Brewer:
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
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