Vindication of the Knights of St. John

Well, Malta turned out to be really nice. Time constraints did not allow me to visit the Neolithic sites or the catacombs, but I got about 3 full hours in Valletta. On a business trip, that is a lifetime. On Wednesday, it held off raining just long enough for me to do a walkabout. It was cloudy, very windy (think tropical storm winds), and there were puddles everywhere. Nonetheless, I struck out on foot and finally got to see much of the city. It is fairly touristy in terms of the restaurants and shops, but when you get off the main streets, there are a numnber of nice local eateries.

There are a lot of churches and old fortifications and even a beautiful bell tower that is a monument to the folks who lost their lives during the second world war. I wanted to get into the Church of St. John, but the other visitors were obnoxious and kept pushing past me in line until the line was too long for my time line. I must say, I was a bit stunned.

Nonetheless, all was not lost. I took my lunch hour (actually the conference let us have 105 min) and went back - no lines. The tour, self guided, was of the most beautiful church I have ever seen. Art, design, everything, was absolutely amazing. The floor is covered with gravestones with the most colorful designs. Each of the eight knights has a chapel room on either side of the main sanctuary and each had to donate all of the statuary, gold sacraments, paintings, etc for each chapel. The front of the sanctuary has beautiful organ pipes, a golden falcon and a very intricate silver chandalier. Off in side rooms are Flemish tapestries typically 3 x 3 meters. There are ancient choral books and vestments for all of the masters of the knights who led the church for so many years. The order is still active; I believe it is http://www.orderstjohns.org/ or com or the like.

Our group had a reception that night at the hall of the Knights of St. John. It was actually a three level hospital that they built (top floor for wealthy, middle for artesans, bottom for poor) as part of their dedication to service. For its time, it was quite modern with individual beds and essentially private duty nurses. That was very rare for a ward-type hospital. It did seem wierd to have light cocktails and finger foods in what was once a hospital.

Malta turned out very nice. The locals are friendly (the tourists are not) and very helpful and so polite.

The Maltese Falcon

I saw the movie years ago with headliner Humphrey Bogart ... the Maltese Falcon. So I was fairly excited to get the actual chance to visit Malta. I did a bit or fesearch and was hoping to see things such as 16th century forts:






Catacombs from the time of St. Paul:

Or neolithic temples:

I became suspicious about things in general when we taxied past the sign that pointed to Valletta. You see, our exec asst who is supposed to handle overseas travel is leaving our group and sat on my conference registration until the conference hotel was booked out. I had to use corporate travel to find a hotel in the accepted price range and I ended up in the Intercontinental, not a bad hotel, not in Valletta, but in St. Juliens, about 10 km away by street driving.

Not to be deterred, I arrived and settled in around 4 PM and then struck out "zum fuss" to explore my corner of Malta. The short walk started with a quick right hand turn at the end of the hotel and up the stairs for a few hundred yards past mostly small pub-style bars and light eating establishments. I headed toward the waterfront where I was told there was a "boardwalk" that rings the city. The view was nice, but the walkway was cut off by construction. I doubled back a bit and worked through a main street that had shops and housing, all in a state of disrepair. It looked pathetic in many ways, especially with the number of buildings missing walls or with peeling plaster or rust stains all over the railings. It could have been pretty. After awhile I thought that a lot of the general decay could look much better with just a coat of paint, as attested to by the occasional dwelling that had been painted.

As I turned one corner, there was a very modern shopping mall, not of the type we see in the burbs, but one more suited to a city without much space. Moving on, there was a fantastically beautiful private condo surrounding a small harbor with a sea wall. There were many really upscale restaurants there.

Continuing my journey around the edge of the water, the "boardwalk" came and went as some portions were blocked by private property and other parts ran out of space due to streets. A second harbor contained a lot of private boats, many for pleasure or fishing. The fishing boats are brightly painted with intricate designs. One peculiar feature, that I must find the origin of, is the fishing boats all have human eyes on the port and starboard sides of the bow. These boats look at you.

I went on a bit further and decided that the path I travelled looked seedy enough that I should return before dark. Hunger finally hit and I decided to try the fancy condo area as the restaurants have outside seating overlooking the small harbor. It was the right choice for one dining alone. There were 8 restaurants on four levels, split by the wide stairs that decended to the harbor. The choices were: Japanese, Mediterranean, Italian, Chinese, steakhouse, Brazilian churrascaria, Italian fusion, and a second Mediterranean. Most of the menus looked too heavy for me. I light to eat light on the first day of adapting to time zone blitz. The Chinese place was very upscale so that is where I went. Awsome hot and sour soup, really nice chicken and beef satay, and a wonderful spicy shrimp dish loaded with fresh vegetables.

So, it was now about 9:30 PM, clearly dark and I had to walk the seedy path. Surprisingly, there were many walkers about and this gave me some solace. As I turned down the final street toward my hotel, about two blocks ahead of the stairs, I found out that I was in the middle of the club district (which had looked so seedy at 5 PM when everything was closed). Lots of music and young people and water pipes set up outside. Now I could also see that very near my hotel were two very lit up casinos. Now I know why people come here.

Back to the hotel to catch up on a few e-mails and get some sleep.

This morning I awoke to what I thought was watering of the many palms outside my hotel room, but it turned out to be a heavy rain shower. Great, I had only yesterday afternoon and this morning to do any sightseeing ... hope the rain abates, my conference starts in 5 hours.

Run Forrest ... or ... Stupid is as Stupid Does

It has been one of those days. Work is in overload. I checked my itinerary today and figured I had to leave work at 2:30 to catch my flight to State College, PA. Plenty of time.

I got to the airport and went to check in and said I was on the 4:25 flight through Philly. Deadpan look from ticket agent. "There is a 4:35, sir." I pulled out my itinerary and my jaw dropped. 4:25 was the arrival time for Philly! Departure from Charlote ... 2:36 PM. Current time ... 3:15 PM.

So, not only did I lose my upgrade (from seat 2D to 19D), I now arrive at 10:15 PM instead of 6:30. No liesurely dinner in a quaint college town. Now dinner is rushed at Philly airport. Oh, and I missed dinner with my boss.

Stupid is as stupid does.

A Promise Fulfilled

After letting this post lay fallow in the long Brazilian winter, it is time to replant with thoughts that I have been too busy to share.

I promised one of my two readers some time ago that I would add some comments around why I think the best days for the US are still ahead of us.

It would be easy to be pessimistic ...

• China owns so much of our debt that they could buy us.
• The dollar is in freefall thanks to our continuing to print money for which we have no real value (goods or services or real assets)
• The country is bogged down in two major overseas wars
• We are under the continual pounding of proposed changes from the most liberal, socialist president since Lyndon Johnson (or maybe even Franklin Roosevelt)
• The country is equally divided by those who seek more from the government and those who seek less, and the relationship between the two is acrimonious and dogmatic
• Unemployment is very high, feeding the current business downturn
• Business is generally in the tank and the government owns way too much of it

Sarcastically, one might say that, since there is nowhere to go but up, our best days HAVE to be ahead of us.

Looking at our problems, they have all been there before. There was a time we thought Japan would own us. The value of the dollar will stay low unless we reign in spending and borrowing - it can be done. We survived Roosevelt and Johnson, although they both saddled us with social programs that are about to go belly up. We have had many heated differences of opinion many times in our short history. Unemployment and business activity goes in cycles. Much of this will fix itself.

What I point to in my optimism is the indomitable spirit of our citizens. We are risk takers as a country (immigrants, the backbone of our history, are risk takers by definition). We are creative. We tackle problems head on and come up with new and exciting ways to do things. We will move away from oil because someone will figure out a way to make big money by doing so. Our universities will provide many options for tackling some of the difficult barriers that private industry cannot spend resources on. It will be a collective effort of our diverse society that will move us forward. Our very national fabric pushes us to try to do our best to be the best. The technological path forward is loaded with powerful new tools to do our work: nanotechnology, genetics, artificial intelligence, aerospace expertise, to name a few. No matter the problem being tackled - climate, health care, trade, technology - risk takers, technical, social, and economic, have shown time and again that they are willing to back the hard choices that move us forward. We have a history of this type of inventiveness and there is no reason to think that will change. Think of the last 200 years in this country and look at all we have done in business, social justice, science and technology. Risk takers will keep us at the forefront. Our best days still lay ahead.