Oh Danny boy ....

the rates, the rates are falling.
Oh Danny Boy, Brokaw has stepped away.
Oh Danny Boy, your colloquialism's appalling.
Oh Danny Boy, today's your final day.

I watched you there,
In hurricane and tempest,
Afghanistan was not too far away.
You sat and stood,
Like television's Everest
"Part of our world,"
each night I'd hear you say.

Oh Danny Boy,
You once wished us all "courage."
Your eyes grew wet,
when war was in the news.
But Danny Boy,
your fairness lost its moorage
Instead of facts,
you gave us just your views.

Schieffer's too old,
and Roberts isn't ready
To take your place,
no matter what they say.
But Danny Boy,
the ratings were not steady,
So Danny boy,
you have to fade away.

Ship a B+; people made it worth the trip

Okay so this is the last post on the trip. I told you that the Valor was the flagship of the Carnival fleet. So I thought I would post a few images from around the ship to let you know what it's like.
This is one of them. They are bas relief sculptures of American heroes and heroines. Now a few of these things would be okay, and maybe that was the idea, but they seemed to be everywhere! Teddy Roosevelt, George Washington, Martha Washington, Sojourner Truth, on and on. And they were illuminated with - you guessed it - red, white, and blue lights. And there were eagles all over the place too. Golden eagles, rampant eagles, the Eagle's Lounge even had some that looked quite lifelike.

Allow me some personal bias here. I work in Washington, and there's sculpture everywhere there. Good stuff, heroic stuff, stuff that means something. In comparison, these things looked cheesy and cheap, perhaps because I was expecting something else when I read about the ship.

Anyway, the bars and lounges were also named for heroes (or heroines) including the room where they have karaoke, the Paris Hot lounge, which is filled with statues of Josephine Baker, the actress who went to Paris to find work because of segregation laws in Hollywood. There was also the Lindy Hop bar, named for Charles Lindberg, which featured a rotating piano bar with several scale models of the Spirit of Saint Louis hanging from the ceiling. It was okay. Cornelia and I went there one night, and the guy playing the piano was talented, but after a while, it was like "why are we here?" so we left.

Another room was Winston's Cigar Bar, which was amidships and was the place that you went if you wanted to smoke without being in the casino or outside. This place was laid out in "faux" red leather couches and wood paneling and featured a happening jazz trio. These guys were laying down a def groove, with upright bass, piano and drums. I would have liked to catch their act more, but the room was so smoky all the time that I could only stand to be in there a few minutes. Cornelia is real allergic to smoke too, so we kind of caught the trio's act on our way to dinner.

We ate dinner each night at the Washington Dining Room. We had late seating because we did not want to be rushed while enjoying the warm weather. The people at our table were the best part of the trip. One couple was from Idaho, and partied the night away. Long after we had gone to bed, they would be up doing stuff. Another couple was from Minnesota, and the wife was also a cosmetologist. Another couple was from Rhode Island and another couple was two singles -- one guy from Louisiana and his girlfriend from Texas. The conversation around the table each night and the good times we had after dinner at the shows and in the disco made this trip.

By the way, this ship had a PHAT disco. It is called "One Small Step" after Neil Armstrong's phrase when he landed on the moon. The guys spinning in this joint were smokin' and they kept the groove going until the wee hours of the morning.

Some people go on cruises to enjoy the shipboard life. I tend to like where the ship is going. If the ship were going somewhere cold in February, I'm not likely to be on it. This one was going somewhere warm and that was what made all the difference.In the end I would give the Valor a B+. It was a good trip, the food was good, the entertainment was top notch, although some of it did not fit my taste. The musicians were as good as I have heard anywhere. But the booming of the waves was irritating, and it took three days to readjust to being on land because our cabin was tossed around a lot. Was it worth what we paid for it.? Yeah I guess so. Would I go on the Valor again? Maybe. It is a younger crowd, and we did have a good time. And that is why we went on vacation. Later, y'all. The Rave will turn to other stuff next time.

Freedom ain't a state . . .

like Maine or Virginia, but it sure beats being in the joint. I wanted to stop my cruise blogging to comment on today's release of Martha Stewart from jail.

She's out, run for your lives!

It's kind of like the old Godzilla movies, where the monster starts stalking Tokyo and you see all the people staring with their mouths open and then running in terror (but of course the screams never matched the mouth movement). Martha boarded a private jet in West Virginia today and winged her way back to her New York mansion, where I'm sure everything was PERFECT.

Of course, now Martha has to start house arrest for the next five months, but she can receive her $900,000 a year salary, can work 48 hours a week, and can waltz around the house, which she bought for $16 million in 2000. Today she ran around with her horses.

While in home confinement, Martha can also entertain colleagues, neighbors, friends and relatives - as long as they're not criminals. Convicted felons aren't allowed to consort with other convicted felons.

Did we forget that? Martha was convicted of a felony, of obstructing justice and lying to the U.S. government about her shenanigans involving the sale of ImClone stock. And did we forget that her perfect highness was once a stock trader herself?

But now, the media predictions are that she will step in crap and come out smelling like a perfect tea rose cut from her immaculate garden. Why? Because she has two TV shows (including a new version of "The Apprentice" on NBC) and her multi-billion dollar housewares and clothing empire to run. And she still faces an SEC hearing on her ability to run a publicly traded company.

But isn't her story uniquely American? Michael Milken bilks people in junk bonds and he gets a light prison sentence and rebuilds himself; Bill Clinton gets some head from an intern in the White House, and now he's an author, a heart by-pass survivor and is co-leading Tsunami relief; this writer does his best to screw up his life, and yet is forgiven and redeemed. So there's hope for Martha, too.

Maybe prison was a little humbling for her. Maybe she realizes how fleeting prosperity and riches can be. In her statement after getting out of the joint, Martha echoed Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, saying "there's no place like home."

I personally like Oscar winner Morgan Freeman's statement in The Shawshank Redemption: "Everybody's innocent in here; didn't you know that?"

Maybe Martha has learned something. Or maybe she's putting a happy face on the same stone-cold opportunist she was when she went to prison. Let's hope not.

Is it Sint Maarten or St. Martin?

Either way, you spell it, it was a great place to be in February. We landed there the day after our stop in St. Thomas, so there was back-to-back snorkeling (we were on the Dutch side, which has the better beaches; the French side apparently is more rocky).


The ship terminal is very modern, which is a new addition because apparently in recent years, passengers had to be tendered into the port city (Phillipsburg). We decided to skip the onboard excursion and save money on the trip to Dawn Beach, where we wanted to go snorkeling. Orient Beach is more famous for being a "clothing optional" beach, but even Dawn Beach was topless if you wanted.

We skipped the cabs inside the ship terminal because they were $15.00 a person if you did not have three or more people. If there are more than three people in your party the price drops to $6.00 a person.

There are plenty of locals outside the ship terminal willing to drive you around and we were able to negotiate a price of $7.00 each to get to Dawn Beach. It was a little bit of an adventure, because the car was beaten up and the driver had his wife in the car with him, but he got us where we wanted to go and promised to come back when we asked him to be there. And he did! Not bad huh?

The water was rougher on Dawn Beach than in St. Thomas, but the sun was warm and the sky was clear, so I enjoyed that part of the trip. But my mask leaked and so I curtailed my snorkeling. Cornelia spent the better part of three hours in the water, and because she was wearing her shorty wetsuit, she was able to enjoy a great time. There is a coral reef right off shore (you could see it from the beach) and the fishes were abundant. Cornelia even saw an octopus in the wild, changing colors to mask itself and everything. But my leaky mask and the strong current limited my enjoyment.

Our driver told us that St. Maarten has to import all its food (on the Dutch side) because things will not grow there very well. The French side, according to him, is more verdant and has vineyards and more agriculture. It also has more of a European feel, with sidewalk cafes and shops that seem more appropriate for Marseilles or Nice than a Caribbean Island.