Villefranche-sur-mer September 2017 - 3

Dear Friends,

The bay of Villefranche (called the rade) has been very busy for the last few days.  It is the time of the Trophée Pasqui, a celebration of traditional sailboat designs.  It is also still part of the summer season although the end of it.  A couple of days ago there was not just one but two big cruise ships in the rade to spoil the view and drop off way too many people for this beautiful little town.  I am told that somedays in the summer there are three of these monsters.

The cruise ships leave in the evening and the rade becomes much calmer and more beautiful.

Even with no cruise ships when the sailboats begin their daily parade around the rade then continue on to St-Jean-Cap Ferat, Beaulieu and Nice, the rade can seem quite busy.

I have had great fun watching these beautiful sailboats get underway and sail around under full and partial sail.

We will be leaving Villefranche soon, and I among the many things that I will miss will be these graceful sailboats.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Free Public Universities and Technical Colleges

Dear Friends,

While the reasons for the increasing requirement for a college degree to get a job are debated, the fact that a college degree now is the equivalent of what a high school degree was a generation ago is not in doubt.  As a candidate for the Presidency, Bernie Sanders proposed that public universities and technical colleges should be free of tuition and fees.  He later agreed to change that proposal so that public universities would be tuition and fee free for families whose income was less than $125,000.  Senator Sanders has introduced a bill to accomplish this result and provides that the Federal government will pay 2/3rds of the cost and a tax on Wall Street speculation to pay for it.

I think that the current legislation does not go far enough.  We should provide public universities and technical colleges free from tuition and fees to all students qualified to attend.  The estimated cost of such a proposal is around $70 billion a year.  In calculating that cost, there is no offset for revenue generated by the additional jobs or the additional productivity of the workforce.  Nor is there any offset for the reduced demand for Federal government educational loans and grants.  Just as a point of comparison, the Senate just passed a bill increasing the military budget by more than $80 billion without batting an eye.  If that budget is ultimately approved, the United States military budget will be equal to the military budgets of the next ten countries with the largest military budgets.  We would have much stronger country with our current military budget and a workforce that is more college educated with much less debt.

Senator Sanders has proposed to pay for his bill with a tax on Wall Street speculation.  Depending on who is doing the estimating, the proposed Wall Street speculation tax would result in an increase of $60 billion to $300 billion of revenue.  Much of the rest of the industrialized world has or is adopting such a tax, and the United States has had such a tax in the past.  There is no evidence to support the claims by Wall Street that the tax would stifle productive investment.

When the Republicans and establishment Democrats say that providing tuition free public university education would bankrupt the United States, they are lying.  They have been bought by Wall Street.  I will not support any candidate who does not publicly and passionately support tuition and fee free public university and technical college education for all.

Thanks for reading any please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Villefranche-sur-mer September 2017 - 2

Dear Friends,

As I am typing, I am scratching the sand out of my hair.  The last few days have been unseasonably windy.  During the periods where the wind is strong, they have been sustained force 5 or 6 and today we saw gusts of at least force 7 on the Beaufort scale.  Force 7 requires spray coming off the waves.  Unfortunately a couple of days ago, three boats were lost one in the marina and two in the bay.  One was rescued off the beach with only mild damage but the other two were lost.  Of course this wind is nothing like the hurricanes back home.  Being hit full blast by even a force 7 wind (28-33 knots) is frightening.  I cannot imagine what 185 mph would be like.  Fortunately, the wind generally settles down in the evening so I can enjoy the view of the bay from our balcony.

The wind has kept us from swimming but really nothing else.  Saturday is market day so we spent an hour or so walking among the various vendors of all things from fruits and vegetable to clothes to mattresses.  We did some provisioning for a few days with asparagus, avocados, strawberries, bread, ham and a sundried tomato pâté.  The man who sells the pâté has many types, all of which are great.  Normally, we get more than one kind and then never finish all that we buy so this time we just got the sundried tomato one.

Once we were properly provisioned, we went home for lunch and then decided to walk to Beaulieu (a couple of miles each way).  We said we were going to get some items that are not available in Villefranche like hair gel for Jane's sister, white out to correct the errors in our French homework and shoe inserts.  All of those items plus food, wine and everything else is available at the Super U.  However, before we went to the Super U, we stopped at the Gran Caffe (no I did not misspell it, it is Italian).  In the winter I have a chocolat chaud because it is probably the best in the world although when we go to Paris we will try the chocolat chaud at Angelina which some people say is the best.  We will see.  But this time Jane had chocolat chaud which was not at its best (not thick enough), and I had un verre de rosé and a delicious sugar cookie with chocolate.  I suspect the chocolat chaud was not up to par because it is out of season, and it is unfair to describe the cookie I had as a sugar cookie, but you will have to travel to Beaulieu to see for yourselves.  The wind was still disrupting the beach in Villefranche when we walked home.  You can see the waves crashing into the beach chairs and umbrellas.

Saturday night we were invited to have dinner with our French tutor and her family.  She has two children ages 2 and 4.  The 4 year old is within a month of our youngest grandchild.  It was fun to talk with them in French as their French was only slightly better than ours.  Our tutor and her partner were perfect host and hostess, and we had a great time and a wonderful meal.  We spoke both French and English, but I have to admit by the end of the evening we were tired and speaking exclusively English.  We will long remember the wonderful evening and their warm hospitality.

Today, we slept in and after breakfast headed to St-Jean-Cap Ferat for lunch.  The walk takes us along  the bay for Beaulieu past the house that used to belong to David Niven.  On the landward side of the walking path, you pass villas of the really, really, really rich; and on the seaside you see yacht after huge yacht anchored in the bay.  In the marina are the smaller boats of 150 feet and under.

There are restaurants lining the marina.  Fortunately the marina was in the lee so the wind was not constant, but the gusts swirled around and knocked signs and menus over with some regularity.  We chose a restaurant that had a menu we liked and a table in the shade.  They were very busy and warned us that it would be slow and it was.  But what did we care, it was a beautiful day, and we could look out over the marina full of beautiful boats or up at the hills behind Beaulieu and see the very tall bridge leading to Eze.

So about three hours later we began our walk home.  The full impact of the wind hit us as we were walking by the beach in Villefranche and a gust hit us from behind.  Fortunately it was from behind because I think the sand would have blinded us, and we would have fallen off the sea wall, if it had hit us straight on.  The good news is despite the big wind and swells coming into the bay all the boats seem to be holding, but we are very happy that we are in our apartment and not bobbing around in a sailboat in the harbor.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal