A Reflection On Cruise Ships

I read this article in CounterPunch and figured this might be worth a read considering the recent vote in Key West

 

Invasion of the Cruise Ships by ALAN FARAGO

A week ago, a referendum by voters in the city of Key West, Florida, resoundingly defeated a plan that would have lead to vastly more cruise ship passengers. Voters came from different points of view; some environmental, some fed up with the ceaseless river of low-brow tourism, but a strong majority agreed the cruise ship industry has harmed the fabled island’s quality of life. What is interesting is that voters were given a chance, at all.

The cruise ship industry is a major component of global tourism and one of its fastest growing segments. In the 1960′s my parents took an expensive Lindblad cruise ship expedition to the fragile Galapagos. While cruise liners had a storied history shuttling passengers across oceans, it was early for adventure travel to a destination made attractive by difficult transit to a unique place. What would keep millions of travelers from visiting the Galapagos, I wondered.

Nothing, it turns out, but supply and demand. In the past half century, the cruise ship industry has matured into a global leviathan, politically powerful and insulated by international law, serving all classes of passengers to every exotic local on the planet with a port to handle the transfer of passengers. What happens to the places and the people, themselves, who live in cruise ports? And beyond the question of people, what happens to the cultural fabric of a place when cruise ships disgorge hundreds of thousands, or millions of people, on a place?

One industry publication wows, “More and more homeports in Asia are now capable of serving large, luxury liners — of note: the number of international liners arriving in Shanghia’s specialty port of luxury ships was 62 in 2012 and is expected to jump to 150+ is 2013.” Venice, Italy had been buckling under the weight of tourism well before the cruise ships arrived.

But what happened, since, has fundamentally altered the balance of commerce in one of the world’s unique and special places. Trinket shops, serving cruise ship customers, have pushed out local businesses on every principal route in the city. Indifferent mass market retail outlets cast an ugly shadow on street scenes. A strange separation prevails between high-end travelers who buy hotel rooms starting at $1000 per night, Americans who can no longer afford four and five star hotels because of the plummeting dollar, cruise ship passengers who pay significantly less, and local citizens who– if they are not landlords or property rich– may appear like dispirited flotsam at the industry’s ebullient high tide line.

So far, the local people are getting the worst of it in Venice as they are in Key West, Florida. The numbers of visitors simply overwhelm the local culture that was the attraction, in the first place. What survives in its place is a hybrid, manufactured experience that retains the outward appearance of the original culture but is otherwise wholly re-fitted to serve a transient mass market. The T-shirt shops, the trinket stands are all outward manifestations of the soft bigotry of low expectations. Not that the industry isn’t working in over-drive to sell its version of careful, sensitive incorporation of cultural values: Crystal Cruises is launching a new alliance with Hollywood’s Magic Castle, with magicians from the world-famous private club coming aboard to showcase and teach secret magic tricks in an uber-intimate setting.

The line also is partnering with the renowned USC School of Cinematic Arts, which brings sophisticated movie-making education onboard, enabling guests to create iMovies on their iPads.Additionally, Carnival Cruise Lines is introducing a new Hasbro, The Game show activity, which offers larger than life adaptations of popular Hasbro games such as Operation, Connect 4, Yahtzee, Monopoly and others presented in a TV game- show format popular in the 1970s. Kids love the excitement of the game show while parents feel a sense of nostalgia for the games and shows they grew up with.

An exciting new “Dancing with the Stars” experience will be featured on board Holland America ships. Six theme cruises in 2013 and early 2014 will feature “Dancing with the Stars” events including dance lessons, a chance to meet the dancers, ask questions and take photos, and a dazzling production starring celebrities and the famed dance pros. In collaboration with PLAYBILL®, the theatre’s most recognized institution for over 125 years and a name synonymous worldwide with Broadway, Regent Seven Seas Cruises is introducing a “Spotlight on Theatre” voyage that will star two-time Tony Award winner Patti LuPone, Tony nominee Norm Lewis and two-time Tony Award nominee Howard McGillin as they sing their hit songs, participate in live Q&A sessions and more.

The cultural erosion caused by cruise ships is inescapable. Cities like Miami and Fort Lauderdale essentially become pass-through locations, bearing the weight of services with little benefit to the local tax base. In Venice, the costs of maintaining an island economy, under stress from rising seas and commerce depending on boat transportation for every activity, are difficult enough. But the essential character of the place — its food culture — has been infected by a kind of lassitude. For the 99 percent, Venice is coasting on appearances, including chefs and restaurant owners. It is not just Venice. What the cruise industry fetishizes — the commodification of culture — eats at the core of community.

Cruise ships cast a depressive shadow over coastal destinations, no matter how many Disney attractions are summoned for support. The industry measures its progress in breathless tens of billions of annual revenue and investment, disgorging passengers as regularly as the geyser Old Faithful. Passengers with passing knowledge of places they visit, have queued in remote airports, packed bags at TSA checkpoints, and aimed through concourses toward the ubiquitous all-you-can-eat buffet. The profit model: feed the customers like crazy, let them out for a walk in ports, buy a t-shirt, but return them to spend more on board. Letting people out for air is what cruise ships do, but for the culture they overwhelm, there is no relief. Local economies only benefit from the cruise ship industry where insiders have managed to figure out how to sluice passengers to their inventions.

The local insiders who spear-head cruise ships need turnover. They need volume, and the profit machine — limited though it may be to insiders — tends to also overwhelm due process and democracy. Allowing citizens to vote on cruise ships, as occurred in Key West last week, is the exception to the rule. The default rebuttal of the cruise ship industry and its assorted parts is that they are only providing what the market wants. Supply and demand. But if simple economics harm the very underlying attractions of place, there ought to be government.

Otherwise, every coastal community that serves cruise ships will eventually revert to the mean: providing walks, carts, and conveyance routes so people can be aired in herds before recollected to eat and spend after tax earnings, aboard. Ocean liners in the early 20th century bore the imprimatur of romance and adventure. Is this dystopian vision of the industry too harsh? Can coastal communities otherwise cope with declining economies like fishing (too much demand, too little supply because pollution and failure to manage fisheries) or end-of-the-road, small scale economies that offer few opportunities for children? What ought to determine outcomes, in the regulation of the cruise ship industry, is maintaining character of place and cultural fabric.

These are tangible, core features of coastal communities that have struggled, often for centuries, for independence. In destinations sought by cruise ships, citizens beware: the industry’s rising economic tide does not lift all ships. Then, too, wisdom on this matter is buried in the groaning expectations of the buffet line. The industry’s belt needs tightening, and only local destinations are equipped to do it. In Key West, for the time being, the voters just tightened the industry’s belt.

 

Alan Farago is president of Friends of the Everglades.

 

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Recycling Continues To Fail

Behold a Key West recycling bin.

I have no explanation why people would throw trash in recycling and leave their trash an empty:

Nowadays recycling is pretty simple in Key West where we have single stream. Clean your cardboard plastic and metal and dump it in one container. That's all it takes. Plastic bags are not recyclable, nor is food or dog shit or rags and cotton waste. How hard is that?

Impossible for a lot of people who live at water's edge on a small vulnerable island very close to nature. I'm not one to imagine that we will reverse global warming or gain Utopia by virtue of recycling, and maybe the whole program is nothing more than a feel good measure for a population that generates twenty five percent of the worlds trash (while generating one third of the world's economic activity I might add!). Nevertheless it is a mark of the lack of any kind of social commitment or discipline that recycling bins overflow with common-or-garden trash every single day across this town. Wherever they be from.

Waste Management finally got the much desired blue recycling bins and at the same time the count commission scrapped requirements for competitive bidding for the waste contract which sounds at best unethical and at worst illegal so one wonders what kind of legal eagles are advising the County. Perhaps that was why when I wrote an email to waste management enclosing he first photograph asking what happens when recycling gets polluted, my reply was a form letter of no apparent substance or decipherable meaning.

I remember decades ago when a friend told me of an article she had read about how people in New Zealand had to clean and crush cans before they threw them out and we wondered at such strict trash requirements. Since then I have taken to recycling as second nature without much of a thought about it, except when I see stuff that makes me wonder, once again, about the self interest of my fellow humans. Washington State is a marvel of disciplined trash disposal, and if the San Juan Islands can do it, why can't we?

It's not that hard to do, and if it does no discernible good as critics claim, it does no visible harm either as far as I can tell.

It's time Key West got serious about recycling, as serious as it got recently on the subject of rejecting bigger cruise ships.

 

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Lignumvitae Channel

I advocate stopping to check out the views as one drives up the Overseas Highway, so I took my own advice.

There are lots of places to stop and walk or sit so bringing a camp chair and maybe a folding table would be no bad idea.

In the photo above you can see the water main installed with the new highway in 1982. It's the pipe that supplies water from the South Florida aquifer to the islands. Most weekends this quiet spots near the water are filled with anglers, visitors from the mainland enjoying their fishing far from the big cities.

The waters are shallow and still relatively clear though the clarity has been reduced by the years of pollution washing through these islands.

These dried cement bags are widely used to support the land at the waterfront. They make an interesting pattern.

Tall boats and sailboats have to pick their channels to get from the south (ocean side in local talk) to the north side (gulf side) of the Overseas Highway.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that lots of people prefer not to stop and actually get out of their vehicles but instead slow down to an aggravatingly slow speed on the bridges to take their photographs. It is a reminder of the unusual nature of the highway that went to sea for those of us that live here, but I do wish they would stop, get out and do their photography as one should.

Tis is where the salt water brushes up against the land.

And splendid views they are, even from the road itself.

Lignum vitae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Boulevard Construction, The Never Ending Story

There is much excitement in Key West at the prospect of major changes on North Roosevelt Boulevard, principally the plan to start two way traffic on the Boulevard on the morning of the 12th, except now it is postponed till the morning of October 16. Deadlines are not the contractor's strength. Businesses have been pleading for the change saying their sales have dropped by orders of magnitude since the Boulevard was torn up and made one way last year. I got stuck in it this morning on my way back to work from my flu shot.

The change may improve sales but there is a certain amount of trepidation that drivers will be confused and wreck, rain may flood the street enough to close one direction of travel and back ups will extend forever as cars try to cross the opposing direction of travel to go shopping. This is in the future when the change is made but locals are already feeling the effect of the planned changes.

At the moment, after months of inactivity the contractors have burst into life, paving smoothing and doing all those construction jobs day and night that if embraced from the start would have seen the entire $40 million job completed by now. And in order to accommodate the activity surrounding the plan to open essentially three lanes (one each way and a turn lane, maybe) by Wednesday, inbound traffic is reduced to one lane only.

The back up is monumental. Traffic is monitored at each intersection by blue flashing lights and a police officer so the flow is orderly but it is so slow it feels like rush hour on the mainland. Will two way traffic improve this or will it choke in both directions? About the time the Federal Government defaults on its debt we should know the answer to that....

It's like a funeral procession, eight miles an hour with lengthy pauses at traffic lights. The former speedway inbound on two lanes is long gone and the complaints in the paper about epic speeding should also disappear, likely to be replaced by epic whinging about the delays.

The construction has been necessary for a long time. The crown of the boulevard is too high and the road has been subject to inundations with rain or high tides or a combination thereof. Supposedly that's been taken care of by excruciatingly slow work on improving the storm drains. The road surface was quite torn up so now we should get a median with cut outs for turning and also a new traffic light at Searstown just to slow down the flow a little bit more. One day, after I'm dead most likely, Key West will discover intelligent traffic lights that respond swiftly to the weight of traffic approaching the light.

The prospect of the incoming flood of thousands of people for Fantasy Fest in two weeks doesn't make this mess any the more palatable. I avoid it as much as possible preferring the slower and more scenic route of South Roosevelt, along Smathers Beach. Hence the drop off is sales I suppose along this monumental scene of trench warfare. Among all the orange barrels there is one inbound lane and one brave cyclist figuring out the cycle path and pedestrian "sidewalk" through the construction. Everything else is closed to traffic.

One more year of this? Really?

PS Two way traffic was initiated on the morning of  Saturday the Eleventh and though traffic does have some bottlenecks a week later it seems to be working okay. Intense work on the construction site has slithered back to a more laid back pace so nothing will be completed quickly.

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Ah Tah Thi Ki Museum

The name means the place where we go to learn, and the video presentation in the theater makes it clear this gorgeous building was created using tribal monies only. As Chief Billie explains in the video, gambling has made the tribe a lot of money, and he decided the tribe needed to preserve its institutional memory, or what's left of it.

The tribe has a ton of land but for whatever reason the huge parking lot is built across the road from the museum requiring pedestrians to cross the street. Traveling in October is the best time in Florida if you want to avoid crowds, as you can see, but what they do in winter I don't know when there are lots of people around. A parking lot next to the museum might have been better.

Inside the permanent exhibit consists of a series of dioramas depicting historical life in the Seminoles' Everglades. Hunters:

Their peculiar headgear can, it turns out be unwrapped into a blanket, which seems like a lot of cloth to carry on the head.

Meanwhile back in the village the distaff members of the tribe are doing womens' work of course. Grating porridge and pounding corn, as one does, all carefully explained. The women seem elaborately overdressed for doing the household chores,call me sceptical but I suspect things were a tad bit tougher and rougher than depicted.

It turns out the soft supple hides the Indians tanned not only took a great deal of labor (female) but they also used the brain of the deer to treat the hide which was apparently how they got the particular softness of the finished product, much valued by white traders.

I have noticed certain similarities the whole world over and marriage is one of those beliefs we all have in common. I'm not sure homosexuality was on the cards in the average Seminole village but I only draw that conclusion by inference in the dioramas.

In the kitchen Seminoles ate the yellow stuff in the pot, a porridge called sofkee Recipes From the Everglades - How the Seminole People Cook which was left by the fire for anyone who felt hungry, which I think is quite civilized. The woman in the picture below is making flatbread to eat with the sofkee. If that doesn't appeal they had venison kebabs or turtle steaks or alligator meat. Sides of heart of palm (not from the can) rounded out the healthy Seminole diet. Which if that doesn't sound like your kind of diet picture the poor Inuit of Alsaka, a people who get to eat raw whale blubber which they think is delicious and call Muktuk. If you live too long in snowfields that's what happens to your taste buds. Give me Florida heat any day.

And then there was the travel diorama, the nuclear Seminole family traveling by canoe to visit neighbors in nearby independent villages.

Silversmithing was a Seminole skill and tools were on display.

They also had fun as it turns out, playing games including during the highly anticipated Green Corn festival when spiritual mysticism played its role in village life. They also played a form of stickball trying to high a post planted vertically in the ground with a round object. Women used their hands, men had to use lacrosse type sticks. Much merriment ensued.

Cheyenne was snug in the air conditioned car and we spent an hour, the last available hour of the day walking the museum. We missed extra temporary exhibits on display and we didn't get to walk the trail in the back of the museum through Chief Billie's former campground.

Well worth the admission, nine bucks for adults, six bucks for us seniors over 55. I am looking forward to spending more time there on my next visit. I'd rather have been a Seminole than a Koreshan if I had to live in the Everglades, perhaps, but more about that later.

Key West on Dwellable

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Beer At Seven In The Morning

Check out those three Honda Ruckus scooters, symmetrically parked. Makes you think scooter spaces could be a tad wider.

Parking continues to be an issue in the city but plans to make changes always get shot down. So reside trial spots are still reserved for people with Monroe labelled Florida tags or city issued stickers. The new labeling is pretty loud and you'd be hard pressed to muddle these spots with non residential parking.

I always walk with plastic bags in my pocket but dog waste comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes...

People seem to like Cheyenne more than me. Maybe I should dress her in pink Crocs too.

A Key West staple, but not drinking and riding hopefully:

Resupply underway at Don's Place where beer is for sale at seven am, for those in need.

Lovely Key West, Truman Avenue, haunt of a few visitors...

B-b-b-ut I need my porn early in the am...

More dog waste, or wasted dog:

Must have been a good walk. Can you tell the real thing from the statue:

No beer, no porn, no convenience store. Seven in the morning is a bad time to be walking Key West.

"Exclusive cottages." Exclusive? Humphf.

"No Parking" unless you live here, know the owner, or know what the real deal is. Otherwise don't risk it.

And don't get shirty with the 911 operator when they do tow your car for you. It's not our fault!

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