Our RV Adventures

A long-time friend questioned my support of Shelley Luther, the Dallas salon owner who was sentenced to jail and fined $7000 for opening her salon because she was having trouble feeding her children.

Greg, I’d have to disagree with you on funding Shelley Luther after she broke the law. What if everyone took this attitude and disobeyed the law? The virus would spread, hospitals would get overloaded — a real mess because people, like Shelley, disobeyed the law. It’s your right to send her money, if that’s your desire. But I think it sends the wrong message that it’s OK to disobey the law, which it isn’t.

There should be a penalty for breaking the law, and she should pay it. If she doesn’t like the laws in the U.S., let her move to another country.

Jim,

Civil Disobedience goes back to the beginnings of our country, I.e. the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere’s Ride, the Battles of Lexington and Concord, to more modern events, Rosa Parks, Lunch Counter Sit-ins, Freedom Marches, etc.

All of these were against the ‘law’. But all changed our history, and our laws.

Don’t know if you actually listened to her statement to the judge. She’s having trouble feeding her family, and the same goes for her stylists. She’s not yet received any money from the government. How long would you let your family suffer before you ‘broke the law’?

I take it you haven’t seen the photos online of lines of cars, miles long, stacked up to get food trying to feed their families, over 10,000 at once. Google “Food lines in Texas” if you don’t believe me. These are people who 2 months ago had jobs and no problem feeding their families.

Now, as far as ‘breaking the law’. Legal scholars all over the Internet are debating the validity of these ‘laws’. Mostly because a law by definition has been passed by a legislature and signed by an executive. These are executive ‘orders’ and there are definitely limitations to the them. Note how many of President Trump’s Executive Orders have been challenged in court, some successfully and some unsuccessfully. They are not absolute.

This is why there have been over 150 lawsuits filed, both on Federal and State levels, challenging the validity of these EO’s, some from the governor’s own state legislatures.

Even a Supreme Court Justice and A.G Barr have questioned some of these declarations. For her part the governor of Michigan answered mass protests against her edicts by threatening to crack down even harder and keep the state locked down even longer.

Now both the Governor of Texas and the Attorney General of Texas have criticized the Judge’s ruling and said she should be released ASAP. Plus the Lt. Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, has paid her fine and has offered to take her place in jail.

Also note that Shelley Luther was not convicted of any ‘crime’, or breaking any ‘law’, maybe because the judge is aware it might not hold up. Instead, she was jailed and fined for ‘Contempt Of Court’ because she refused to apologize to the judge for ‘her selfishness’ as in trying to feed her family.

This in a county that’s released 100’s of actual criminals to protect them from the virus, but yet it’s OK to throw her back in the jail?

And apparently Shelley Luther’s plight has caught the attention of the Internet, since as of 10pm, her GoFundMe account is at about $475,000 with around 13,000 donors, for an average of $40 per donation.

Recently the DOJ had to intervene in several states and localities concerning the complete shutdown of religious services. Even ones where people were parked in the church parking lot listening to the sermon on their radios with their windows up. These people were given $500 tickets from police officers, not wearing masks, who demanded the people roll down their windows to receive the tickets.

See a problem here?

The other thing that is coming up is what are the governor’s limitations in all this. A number of states, Michigan and Mississippi are just two, have 30 day limitations on a governor’s State of Emergency declarations. But these are being ignored. Which is why, as I mentioned above, the governor of Michigan is being sued by her own legislature for overstepping her bounds.

In fact a number of cities and counties around the country have said that they will no longer enforce these ‘laws’ that they no longer think are valid.

Plus some governors have threatened to keep their state in lockdown until there’s a vaccine. So, since some leading epidemiologists say we may never have a real effective vaccine, how is this going to play out? We don’t have a vaccine for the common cold, we don’t have a vaccine for HIV, and even the seasonal flu vaccines are sometimes only 25 to 35% effective.

So what’s to be done about a governor who refuses to reopen their state when the other states around them are opening. An example of this is going on right now in Bristol TN/Bristol VA.

The state line between Tennessee and Virginia runs right down the center of Main St., with stores open for business on the TN side, and locked down tight on the VA side. So restaurant owners on the VA side are going broke while right across the street business is booming.

I guess the virus knows to stop at the state line, right?

Wrapping up, this morning Governor Cuomo released a study showing that 66% of the new WuFlu cases in New York were sheltering at home, not traveling or working.

So much for self-quarantining.
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A Very Apropos Thought For The Day:

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One Year Ago Today:  We were in Nuremberg, Germany

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When Snow White Needs A New Grumpy . . .

Nuremberg, Germany    5/6/2019

I mentioned in yesterday’s blog on our visit to Regensburg how when we came out of the town museum that it had turned cold and rainy.

Well, today wasn’t any better. In fact it was worse, with 30° at 4:30 am this morning, and only up to 32 by 8:30. So everyone was scrambling, including us, for some warm coats/jackets. Everyone had looked at the average temps this time of the year and packed their clothes according, not planning for daytime temps in the 30’s.

In fact the ship sold out of their fleece jackets like the ones we got (on the left)

and had to get the much more expensive ones on the right.

Our Nuremberg walking tour was in the afternoon, so we had lunch up on the Aquavit Terrace which is kind of a light buffet, with both hot and cold dishes. One of which was listed as “Meatloaf”.

Well, it was meat, and it is in a loaf, I guess. But it AIN’T Meatloaf. It’s more like one of those Hormel canned hams. But I guess that some mushrooms and a little gravy makes it all good. Or not.

Today the Skirnir was docked right in town so we were able to step right off the ship and onto our tour buses.

Looking back at the ship we saw that the Sundeck was still configured for the upcoming low bridges.

Not only does the wheelhouse retract into the the deck when necessary, but so does the ‘BBQ Grill’ on the left side. There’s also one on the right side that’s retracted now.

I call them ‘BBQ Grills’ because that’s what they call them, because that’s what they look like. I thought that maybe the cooks use them for BBQ’ing, but actually they’re Auxiliary Control Panels.

The Skirnir has thrusters that can actually move the ship sideways. So they just pull up besides the dock and then move sideways until they’re perfectly positioned. And the Auxiliary Panels let them keep a close eye on the dockside as they’re moving.

Neat!

Our tour started out by passing by a number of the Nazi stadiums, rally grounds, and buildings, including the Federal Building where the Nuremberg Trials were held in Rm. 600. And trials are still held there today.

Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos because of the darkened and curved glass windows on the bus, so just use your imagination.

After our bus tour, we began our walking tour of the old city, including the medieval Nuremberg Castle.

I  will have to admit  that the Castle tour almost finished Jan and I off. The walk up to the Castle was a very steep climb, with largest cobblestones we encountered the entire trip. They were humped up about 4”, very rough, and hard to walk on. And they were wet, due to the on and off cold drizzles we were having.

By the time we were to the top our ankles were screaming for Advil, and we were both hobbling the rest of the day. And we probably wouldn’t have made it to the top without a little help from our friends.

But once we were at the top, the view out over the city was great.

Next up was a couple of very old churches, St Sebaldus, which dates from the early 1200’s.

and the Frauenkirche (Our Lady’s Church), which was consecrated in the mid-1300’s.

The clock in the tower has been ticking away since 1509.

Did I mentioned that everything over here is just OLD.

As we walked through town we passed the Albrecht-Dürer house.

Built in 1420, it was the home of Dürer, a noted Renaissance artist.

We also noticed that a number of houses had these intricate statues mounted on the corner. Not sure what the significance is, though.

We ended our guided tour at the Main Market in the center of town next to the City Hall. Our rendezvous point to meet up later to head back to the buses was the Schöner Brunnen.

A 60+ foot high Gothic spire, the fountain dates from the late-1400’s, and depicts 40 different colorful figures, ranging from leaders of the Holy Roman Empire, Church Fathers, Moses, and seven of the Apostles. Don’t know why the other five got left out. Or four if you don’t count Judas.

Since we were getting a little hungry, we decided to try the nearby Behringer’s Bratwursthausle, listed as the home of the original Nuremberg Bratwurst. But we didn’t know at the time how ‘original’ it was. Founded in 1313, the European Union has designated it as the ‘First Sausage in Europe’.

Now I’m not sure how the Old Sausage Kitchen in Regensburg feels about this, since they’ve been around since 900 A.D. Our guide told us that’s there’s a big rivalry between the two cities over their sausages. I guess now we know why.

Our guide told us that Nurembergers are known for being especially grumpy. In fact she said that if Snow White needed a new Grumpy, she’d come to Nuremberg. And we found this out for ourselves.

We ordered sausages with kraut and bread, and this is what we got.

Note: No kraut.

And though we asked repeatedly, in both English and my halting German, we never got it. And in fact, the more we ask, the grumpier he got.

And before you ask, no, it wasn’t just us. Others from our cruise were having the same problem. And when we tried to get our check, it got even worse. He had them all mixed up, with different tables lumped together. And the more we tried to correct him, the grumpier he got.

But finally settling up, we headed over to other side of the market square to buy some of the famous Nuremberg gingerbread. But what we got was kind of disappointing. Turns out that Nuremberg gingerbread has no ginger in it.

Or cinnamon or cloves.

In fact, it pretty much tasted like an moist oatmeal cookie. But it was tasty, anyway. How can gingerbread not have any ginger in it?

Back at the ship, we took the obligatory nap, gobbled down some more Advil, and met up for dinner.

Jan and I both repeated on our Appetizers and Entrees, with the only new dishes, our desserts.

Jan had a delicious Mango sorbet, so good she almost ordered seconds.

And I had the Blueberry Crumble, also delicious.

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Tomorrow: Bamberg