Mid January 2020

Introduction

The San Juan Star, the English language newspaper here in Puerto Rico, published a month by month review of events that occurred in 2019. I selected a few from each month to illustrate the range of things that happened.

January 2019

As you can imagine, much of the year’s activities involved the Puerto Rico debt crisis. The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), signed into law by President Obama in 2016, caused the creation of the Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB). The board is itself controversial here – seven members are appointed by the President of the United States, and one ex-officio member by the Governor of Puerto Rico. The FOMB reviews and approves annual financial plans and statements for bond issuers, including the University of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rican Electric Power Authority, etc.

A sub committee of the FOMB raises an objection to more than $6 billion in Puerto Rico bond debt. In addition, FOMB recommends that the government – owned public broadcasting corporation be converted to a private non-profit entity.

February 2019

The US Appeals Court in Boston reviews the language regarding appointments in PROMESA. Judge Laura Taylor Swain grants the FOMB 90 days to remove language deemed unconstitutional. FOMB Chairman Jose Carrion informs the Governor that the Board could use its sole discretion to manage Puerto Rico’s funds during the 90 day period.

Federal authorities review the Department of Education to seek information concerning the activities of Secretary of Education Julia Keleher.

March 2019

Governor Ricardo Rossello Navares announces he will run for a second term. He then vetoes Senate Bill 950 which would have limited access to abortion. The House rejected Senate Bill 1000 which would have banned so called “conversion therapies” to change sexual orientation of minors. The governor then signs an executive order banning such therapies.

The governor signs an executive order mobilizing the Puerto Rico National Guard to help ship goods to the islands of Culebra and Vieques. The freight ferry of the Maritime Transportation Authority was ineffective.

April 2019

Julia Keleher resigns from her post as the Secretary of Education. The next day, she accepts a professional advisory contract, at the same salary, to the Financial Advisory and Tax Agency Authority. After public outcry, she resigns from that as well.

The FOMB files over 200 lawsuits to recover payments made by the government in conflict with Puerto Rican laws and the U. S. Bankruptcy Code.

Two of the four shipping companies that provide transportation between Puerto Rico and the mainland begin talks as to a possible merger, TOTE Maritime would merge with the Luis Ayala Colon company. The combined entity would control 70% of the mainland-Puerto Rico shipping business.

May 2019

The FOMB decides to include several municipalities under its jurisdiction. In addition, it files lawsuits to recover $1 trillion from bondholders who bought bonds issued above Puerto Rico constitutional limits. In addition, the FOMB files other lawsuits against the advisory firms that helped issue the bonds.

Rosa Emilio Rodriguez, federal attorney for the District of Puerto Rico for the last 13 years, retires. She indicates there are ongoing cases involving corruption and ‘ghost’ employees in the government work force.

June 2019

President Trump nominates W. Stephen Muldrow as head of the Puerto Rico Federal Prosecutor’s Office. The United States Senate subsequently confirmed the appointment.

Governor Rossello Nevares fires Raul Maldonado Gautier. He had been the Chief Financial Officer and Secretary of the Department of the Treasury. Maldonado had described an alleged ‘institutional mafia’, which included the governor, within the department. Maldonado’s son, Raul Jr, starts a social media campaign against the governor.

July 2019

On July 10, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office issues a 32 count indictment against former government officials. The FBI arrests Julia Keleher and five others.

The RickyLeaks scandal erupts. On July 8, 800 pages of messages between members of the administration are leaked to the press. Some of the messages were considered vulger, racist, and homophobic. One message called San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz  ”a total daughter of a bitch”. Others showed that the governor had shared confidential government data with people outside the government. Still others shared jokes about the deaths from Hurricane Maria.

Mass protests ensued. Puerto Ricans were especially incensed by how lightly Rosello Navares and others seemed to take the loss of life because of Maria. On July 12, over a million protested across the island. Old San Juan was shut down. Cruise ships had to be diverted to other ports. On July 21, the governor resigns as the head of his political part and states he would not run for reelection. On July 22, after 11 days of protests in front of the governor’s mansion, the governor announces he would resign effective August 2.

The governor called an extraordinary session of the legislature to attend to the appointment of Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia as Secretary of State.

August 2019

Justice Department Secretary Wanda Vazquez, who had previously announced she had no interest in becoming governor, decides she would not relinquish her position after all. This makes her, according the the Puerto Rican Constitution., in line to become governor.

The House confirms Pierluisi as Secretary of State, but the Senate does not. In spite of that, Pierluisi is sworn in as governor. The Senate President challenges the process. The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico declares the process unconstitutional. Wanda Vazquez Garced becomes governor, the third in three days.

September 2019

Governor Vazquez Garced states she will not intervene in the merger of Tote Maritime and Luis Colon Ayala. Two days later, she changes her mind and says she will intervene.

November 2019

Renowned astrologer Walter Mercado dies.

The FBI arrests Senator Abel Nazario, along with seven others, on charges of theft or bribery in connection with programs that receive federal funds. He announces he will run for senator as an independent candidate and completes the requisite paperwork to do so.

December 2019

Residents in communities along the southwest coast, especially Yauco and Guayanilla, begin to feel small earthquakes.

To the surprise of no one, Governor Vazquez Garced announces she will run for reelection.

Summary

So here are some of the events in Puerto Rico in 2019. It was quite a year. 2020 is an election year here. All offices will be contested. There will be political rallies all summer, ending with election day in early November. The governor is sworn in on January 1 and then the governor and her/his family walk from the capitol to La Fortalezza, the governor’s mansion in Old San Juan. I’ve been in Old San Juan for the two previous inaugurations – they are truly festive events.

More on that later.

Notes and Sources

The images of Judge Swain and other individuals were taken from the web. The other pictures are mine.

Most of the information is from the December 23, 2019 issue of the San Juan Star. I found other information in Wikipedia; articles on RickyLeaks, Judge Swain, etc.

Early January 2020

Introduction

Saturn was visible, bright in the western evening sky, from our balcony for much of December. One night in particular, it was close enough to Mars to appear as one bright star. As I thought about the two planets, I realized just how much has been discovered about them in my lifetime.

Back in the fifties, I suppose I knew as much about Saturn as any other kid interested in science. I knew it was a planet, the sixth from the sun. I knew it was a so-called gas giant, second in size to Jupiter. Of course, I knew the ancients knew Saturn and I certainly knew about the rings. I had read of, but probably did not remember, that Christiaan Hugyens, an eminent Dutch natural philosopher, discovered Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, in 1655. And I was certainly ignorant of Giovanni Domenico Cassini’s discovery of four more Saturnian moons during the period 1673 to 1686. I did not know that Titan was named by John Herschel in 1847. Herschel chose names for the seven moons (his father, William Herschel, had discovered two more moons) from the Greek Titans, brothers and sisters of Cronus, the Greek Saturn.

Facts

So here is a summary of some basic information about Saturn.

• Saturn is named after the Roman god of harvest and time. Saturn is equivalent to the Greek god of time Cronus.
• Christiaan Huygens discovered Saturn’s rings in 1659. Galileo had made observations of Saturn as early as 1610 but the poor optics of his telescope could not resolve the rings. Instead, Galileo thought he was seeing a ‘triple planet’.
• The diameter of Saturn is about ten times greater than the diameter of earth.
• Saturn is an oblate spheroid. That is, the equatorial diameter is greater than the polar diameter. Saturn looks like a flattened ball.
• Saturn rotates quickly on its axis, completing one rotation in about 10.7 hours. It takes 29.5 years to orbit the sun. So there are about 1,006 days in a Saturn year.
• Saturn is tilted on its axis and to about the same extent as earth. Like the earth, Saturn experiences seasons.
• Saturn’s atmosphere consists of the gases hydrogen, helium, ice crystals, ammonia, and ammonia hydrosulfide. The last three appear as white, orange, and yellow, respectively, which combine to create Saturn’s brownish-yellow appearance.
• Storms, visible as White Spots, occur in Saturn’s upper atmosphere.

Early Probes to Saturn

Three space probes have flown by Saturn; another achieved orbit around the planet. In addition, the Hubble Space telescope has provided multiple images of the ringed planet.

Pioneer 11

The Pioneer 11 spacecraft, launched on April 6, 1973, flew by Jupiter of December 3, 1974, and by Saturn on September 1, 1979. It returned images and other data from twelve instruments on board. It was the first space craft to fly by Saturn. Here is one image from the mission.

Pioneer 11 and its sister Pioneer 10 are two of five space probes that have or will leave the solar system. In 4 million years or so, it will pass near the star Lambda Aquilla. Could, sometime in the distant future, the ghost probe be of interest to space traveling aliens? NASA prepared for that – each Pioneer has a gold-anodized aluminum plaque with information that, presumably, aliens can understand. Click here for information about the plaques.

The Voyagers

The nest two probes to visit Saturn were the twin Voyagers, 1 and 2. Voyager 2 was launched from Cape Canaveral on August 20, 1977; Voyager 1 on September 5, 1977.

The Voyagers captured images of Saturn and some of her moons. In addition, the instruments on board measured the wind speeds at the top of the planet’s atmosphere – 1,100 miles per hour at the equator, with speeds falling off towards the poles. Above 35 degrees north and south, the winds change from the easterly direction at the equator and blow both east and west.

Images of Saturn

If you want to see a video of Voyager 2’s approach to Saturn click here. Six hundred still images were used to make the video.

Voyager 2 had a slightly different camera system than her sister. The image below, in false colors, shows details of two of Saturn’s rings.

Enceladus

The two Voyagers paid attention to some of Saturn’s moons on their flybys. The image below is of Enceladus. You’ll hear more of her in a bit.

Voyagers – Still Working

Like Pioneer 10 and 11, the two Voyagers are leaving the solar system. After a successful flyby of Neptune, in 1989, NASA extended the mission so as to explore interstellar space. The two probes are currently beyond the outer edge of the heliosphere, the vast bubble-like space that is created by and surrounds the sun. The interstellar space outside the heliosphere is denser, colder, with more energetic particles than the volume within. Click here if you want to see data like current speed, mission elapsed time, distance from earth, instrument status and other data, all updated in real time. The Voyagers communicate with earth via their on-board transmitters; The Deep Space Network captures their signals. Click here for information on that.

By the way, Voyager 1 will encounter star AC +79 3888 in only 40,000 years. Rest assured – like Pioneer 10 and 11, the Voyagers contain greetings from earth. It is somewhat more elaborate than the plaque on the Pioneers. Click here for information on the Voyager’s golden disc.

Hubble Space Telescope

Although not a space probe, the Hubble telescope has provided images and data from Saturn. The space shuttle Discovery carried the Hubble into low earth orbit on April 24, 1990, and deployed it the next day. It has been serviced in orbit five times; each time it was drawn into the bay of a space shuttle and repaired and upgraded before redeployment.

The Hubble’s designer expected the telescope to last 15 years. It has been gathering images for more than 19 years now and is expected to last until 2025 or so. NASA will augment and then replace the Hubble with the James Webb Space Telescope, now scheduled for launch on March 30, 2021. Click here for information about that mission.

Cassini-Hyugens

The Cassini-Hyugens probe lifted off from Cape Canaveral the night of October 15, 1997. There were really two probes: the Cassini, a NASA endeavor, was to orbit Saturn. It carried the Huygens probe, created by the European Space Agency, designed to land on the surface of Titan. For a video of the launch click here.

Getting to Saturn is not a simple task. It took seven years, with two gravitational boosts from Venus and one the the earth-moon system. The route also included a fly by of Jupiter,

The above schematic does not capture the relative motions of the planets as they orbit the sun. For an animation that does, click here.

NASA controllers switched on some of the probes instruments at each flyby, both to test them and to gather data. For example, one set of instruments listened for lightning on Venus – none found.

The Cassini-Hyugens probe entered orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004. On December 25, 2004, the Hyugens separated from Cassini and, with only a wake-up timer working on board, floated through space towards Titan. This phase lasted 22 days. Hyugens encountered Titan’s atmosphere on January 14. The wake-up timer revived all the instruments on board; parachutes deployed; and the probe settled though Titan’s atmosphere. The probe landed on Titan 2 hours and 30 minutes after entering the atmosphere. The Huygens transmitted data for another hour and twelve minutes after landing. Unfortunately, a software error caused 350 images to be lost – 350 were transmitted rather than the planned 700.

Titan

The Huygens probe, and subsequent observations from Cassini, showed a moon with ephemeral rivers, seasonal lakes, ice, and rain – but of methane, not water.The next image created from several images during the descent, appearr to show a dendritic river channel.

I’ve written about Titan before, in an earlier post. Warning: That post has some equations. Trust me, you can read it without worrying about the math. And it does have poetry. Check it out here.

Enceladus

Recall that one of the Voyagers acquired images of Enceladus (see above). Cassini found that Enceladus (Saturn’s sixth largest moon) was full of surprises. It is coated by clean ice, which reflects most of the incident light, and which covers liquid, salty water. In addition, jets of icy water gush out into space.

Saturn

Cassini returned stunning images of Saturn and her moons. One of Saturn’s most perplexing features is a hexagonal structure near the north poles, in which storms can be observed. For a video showing storms within the hexagon, click here.

Cassini acquired this image from behind (i.e., farther from the sun than) Saturn. Earth is visible as a pale blue dot.

The Cassini, like the two Voyagers and the Hubble, lasted longer than expected. In fact, NASA extended Cassini’s mission twice. Finally, in 2017, as its propellants were running out, it was put into a series of orbits that ended with a fiery plunge into Saturn’s upper atmosphere. Click here for more information on Cassini’s so-called Grand Finale.

The New Age of Discovery

Christopher Columbus discovered Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493, during what is known (by Europeans anyways) as the Age of Exploration. I submit the exploration of Saturn (and Mercury and Venus and Mars, etc.) show we are in a new, mostly unappreciated, age of exploration.

Some might say I’m too limited in this – these discoveries are the inevitable continuation of the scientific revolution. In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari speculates on the future of Homo sapiens. In his last chapter, he focuses on biomedical issues. He wonders if humans will bio-engineer themselves right out of existence and, if so, what will replace them.

I don’t know about that. I do know Saturn was a bright presence in the early evening sky a few weeks ago, and it was fun to look at it and think about how much has been learned about it and her sister planets.

Notes and Sources

All of the images are from NASA-sponsored websites and are thus in the public domain. To get to these sites, google Voyager 1 mission, or Cassini mission, or similar. The search results will include the NASA sites.

Harrari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Harper Perennial, 2018 (Paperback edition). Highly recommended.

The featured image (the one above the title) was taken by Cassini two days before it burned up in Saturn’s atmosphere.

Late March 2019

Introduction

My time here in San Juan is getting short. I’ll soon be heading back up north. I thought I’d share a few images I’ve collected, in no particular order and with little or no commentary. I’ve done minor editing on all of them; some have received a more complete treatment.

More Faces

I’m intrigued by the art work I see on walls in some neighborhoods, especially the works depicting faces. Here are a few of them.

Street Art, Not Wall Art

Not all street art is wall art. Check out this example of street art.

Nature

Maps

I enjoy poring over maps. Apparently an artist in Pinones does as well.

Wildlife

Consider the shark in the bottle.

Miscellaneous

I’m not sure of the cultural reference, if any, in the next two.

Check back for more. Maybe I’ll do some image editing over the summer and add a new post or two. You just never know.

Notes and Sources

These are my images, edited to a greater of lesser extent in Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop.

Mid March 2019

Introduction

The Ironman 70.3 returned to San Juan for Saint Patrick’s Day. More then 900 athletes from North and South America (and a few from Europe) participated in the swim – bike – run competition. The event is in reality a half – Ironman, with a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride, and a half-marathon to finish. The events are twice as long in a full Ironman.

I live about a block away from where many of the race activities occur, so it is an easy task for me to take pictures at various points along the course. I’ll share some of them in this post.

The Start

The first leg of the triathlon is the swim. The athletes start in groups according to age and gender at five minute intervals. The elite men and women go in the first two groups. The swim is in the Laguna de Condodo. The start is at the Condado end of the Puente dos Hermanos, the bridge of the two brothers.

The groups are called into the water at five minutes intervals and begin their swim when a horn goes off.

The Swim

The waters in the Laguna were warm (about 78 degrees F) and calm. Volunteers in kayaks watched over the swimmers who were guided over the course by a series of orange floats along the route.

The Swim – Bike Transition

The swimmers use a ramp to leave the water. They then run about a quarter of a mile to where the bikes are stored. The athletes run with their bikes for about seventy five yards before they can mount and start the 56 mile ride.

Bike Mount and Start

The riders had to reach a line before they could mount their bikes, They then biked up a small hill to leave the park and head towards Dorado and back.

Bike Finish, Dismount and Run Start

It was a great day for a bike ride. There were no showers and the wind was not a factor. The riders came back into the park, dismounted, went to the bike corral, put on their running shoes and started the half – marathon.

In terms of my interest in getting pictures of the event, the run is the least interesting. I mean, how many pictures can you take of runners grimacing with pain? So I’ll show only this one.

The Results

This year, for the first time I can remember, athletes from the United States won both the men’s and women’s competitions.

Cameron Hackett did the swim in just over 25 minutes, the bike ride in two hours and twelve minutes, and the run in just under an hour and a half. His total time was four hours, eleven minutes, and thirty nine seconds. Christopher Portugal Reibel, from Peru, finished second about four and a half minutes behind Hackett.

Heather A. Jackson crushed her opponents. With a total time of four hours and nineteen minutes, she beat Carolina Dementiev of Panama by nearly 32 minutes.

You can click here to see the full list of participants and results.

It was a great way for me to spend St. Patrick’s Day, especially since later that afternoon we went to a friends apartment for a traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner. And we did not once have to worry about snow flurries.

Notes and Sources

The images are all mine, edited with Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop.

Mid March, 2019

Introduction

In this post, I’ll show a few more examples of San Juan street art arranged by themes. My organizational scheme is rudimentary – I’m sure there are other ways to organize and display the works that I see. This is a follow-up to an earlier post – click here to see that one.

Foliage

Here are a few examples of street art dominated by foliage. Some are fanciful, some just fun, and I’m not sure about others. The first is on a piece of plywood protecting a building being remodeled on Calle Loiza. This area is undergoing rapid gentrification. In the last year, an Irish Bar and a Korean barbeque opened in that neighborhood. I wonder what kind of establishment will be put in this building – maybe a flower shop?

Here is another example, this time from along Avenida Fernando Juncos.

Here is another example from that same neighborhood. Are they wall flowers or exotic dancers?

Flowers or females? Here is another example, this time from Condado, illustrating the connection. This is on a shutter that was pulled down over Pinky’s, once a popular breakfast place. The space is now a Chinese dumpling restaurant.

Here is one last example, from near the Placita de Mercado in Santurce. The red background is unusual – I haven’t noticed many examples that use much red at all. I wonder why. The hand reaching through the wall is also unusual. Sad to day, this work has been defaced.

Faces on the Wall

Here are some faces on the wall from around San Juan. The first is from Rio Piedras, near the University of Puerto Rico. Is his name Baghead, or is that the name of the artist? Or is it a cultural reference to which I am ignorant?

Maybe Baghead is pointing to Calle Loiza, the home of the next face. This reminds me of something from an Indiana Jones movie – think of it covered with vines and other tropical foliage, guarding the entrance to a cave, home to some kind of archaeological treasure.

The next is a red-haired young woman from Avenida Fernando Juncos, in Miramar. Is she angry? Anxious? Happy to see me? What do you think?

An older woman shares the wall with the Woman with Red Hair. Together they keep watch over their neighborhood.

A somewhat more fanciful face is in Santurce, along Avenida Juan Ponce de Leon, near Parada 18.

Finally, two examples of colorful faces, the first from Rio Piedras.

Notes and Sources

Errata: In the last post showing Faces on the Wall I said the Woman with Six Arms is found in Santurce. I was wrong – she is from Montreal. She is still beguiling.

The images are mine, edited with Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop, some images more than others.

Early March 2019

Introduction

I’m going to group some the the street and wall art I’ve seen by theme, as I did in my last post about the street art here in San Juan. Click here to see that post. I’ll show some examples of wall art related to food, then some faces, and then one just in time for spring training.

Food

While not a major theme, I have found several examples of wall art showing food in one form or another. The fist one seems to celebrate Puerto Rican coffee which, by the way, is excellent. I wrote about the recovery of the local coffee industry here. Check it out.

Cheeseburger anyone? Hamburgers are popular here – in fact, there is an iconic place near here named El Hamburger. It is immensely popular, with a cheese burger and fries for $5.50. And they now have some local craft beers. What more could one want?

How about some local fruit? Mangoes, papayas, pineapples, passion fruit, guava – take your pick. Here is one pineapple for your consideration.

Faces on the Wall

I’ve shown you the Woman with the Green Face before. I find her evocative and beguiling. She’s been painted over so my photos may well be her the only way she will be remembered.

I like the Woman with the Blue Face as well. She is more severe than the Woman with the Green Face, more, ah, in your face, as it were.

The Woman with Veil is also from the Sagrado Corazon neighborhood. This was an immense undertaking – she fills a three story wall. There is a religious theme about this work but I’m not sure I understand it. Anyone want to help me? Leave a comment. She is still there – much faded but still overlooking her neighborhood.

Here is another face with what seems to be a religious them. I just found her – the Woman with Rooster and Pineapple overlooks Avineda Fernando Juncos in the Miramar neighborhood. This is another large effort – she is on a wall about two stories high. Maybe some day I will retouch the image and remove the wires in front of her. A project for a rainy day. Again, I’m not at all sure of the symbolism. What’s with the rooster holding a key? And the pineapple? Please leave a comment if you can help me.

The Woman with Six Arms also needs retouching – another rainy day project. But she protects her Santurce neighborhood. Or is she encouraging you to do something untoward?

I hope you don’t think all the faces on the wall are of women. The Golden Buddha protects a no parking zone in Rio Piedras.

Finally, I hope you don’t think all the faces are even human. This version of King Kong overlooks a side street in the Puerta de Tierra neighborhood of San Juan.

Fun

As a kid, I used to love to read that major league pitchers and catchers had to report for spring training. It convinced me winter would soon be over. There is a winter league in Puerto Rico, and last year the team from Santurce was league champion. A fan in the Manillas area celebrated their accomplishment in a most appropriate manner.

Notes

These are all my images. I used Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop to make various adjustments to the original images.

Late February 2019

Introduction

The Greeks believed the Muses – nine of them – were the sources of inspiration for their artistic endeavors. Each muse had a particular domain. For example, Clio inspired the Greek historian Herodotus when he wrote his histories; Calliope inspired Homer as he wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey.

I was thinking about them because there are nine representations of the Muses in the plaza in front of the Center for Performing Arts here in San Juan. I found the sculptures intriguing and wanted to match each to the appropriate muse. This was more difficult than I had imagined. The sculptor has created new Muses that don’t relate directly to their Greek heirs. You’ll see them in a bit.

There was some debate in the ancient world as to the number of Muses. Some authorities claimed there were three; others nine. Diodorus Siculus, writing in the first century BC, seems to have put the matter to rest when he wrote:

Writers similarly disagree also concerning the number of the Muses; for some say that there are three, and others that there are nine, but the number nine has prevailed since it rests upon the authority of the most distinguished men, such as Homer and Hesiod and others like them.

(See Notes and Sources)

The Muses, daughters of Zeus by Mnemosyne, are considered minor gods in the Greek pantheon. Mnemosyne was the Titan goddess of memory. Zeus created the Muses to celebrate the victory of the Olympian gods over the Titans and to allow his followers to forget the past. Apollo, the god of music, art, and poetry, taught them their skills..

Representations of the Muses

Over the centuries, the Muses have become associated with symbols of their artistry. Here is a list, adapted from Owlcation, describing the Muses and their paraphernalia.

• Calliope, the superior Muse, inspires poetry, rhetoric, music and writing. She is often depicted with laurels in one hand and Homeric poems in the other.
• Clio, the muse of history, is portrayed with a clarion in one arm and a book in another.
• Erato inspires love poetry and is shown with a bow, love arrows, and a lyre.
• Euterpe created musical instruments to help provide inspiration for songs and poetry of love, war, and death. She holds a flute and is surrounded by other instruments.
• Melpomene, depicted with a tragic mask, inspires rhetoric and tragedy.
• Thalia inspires comedy and is shown with a comedic mask.
• Polyhymnia created geometry and grammar. She is shown wearing a veil and looking upwards to the heavens.
• Terpsichore inspires dance. She also created the harp and education. She is shown with a laurel wreath and dances with her harp in her hands.
• Urania created astronomy and is shown with stars, a celestial sphere, and a compass.

One depiction of the Muses is on the walls of the Palace of the Vatican. Rafael’s Parnassus shows various figures from Greek history. Here are two excerpts from that fresco.

The Muses of Santurce

If you have read my previous blog entries on street art here, you would already know that Puerto Rican artists have their unique blend of Caribbean and European influences. This is certainly true of the Muses of Santurce. (If you haven’t read my blog entries on street art, shame on you. Click here and here and here and here and here and here to get caught up.)

The Performing Arts Center in Santurce opened in April, 1991. The Center consists of four performance venues and two restaurants, surrounding a central plaza. The plaza, the Juan Morel Campos Plaza, is home to nine life-size statues of the Muses created by the sculptor Annex Burgos, in 2005. He used local artists as models, many of them practitioners of the arts depicted. While inspired by the Greek Muses, Burgos was not constrained by them. His Muses show Caribbean influences and relate to art forms unknown to the Greeks.

I tried to relate Burgos’s version of the Muses with the descriptions of the Muses given above. My efforts are documented below.

The Muse of Literature

Burgos depicts his Muse of Literature holding a book. Perhaps she relates to Calliope since, among other things, she is the Muse of writing.

The Muse of Theater

The two Greek Muses, Thalia (comedy) and Melpomene (tragedy), are often paired. Burgos transforms them into one Muse.

The Muse of Corporal Movement

One of the Santurce Muses seems as if she were captured while performing an elegant dance. If I’m right, she is Burgos’s representation of the Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance, or as he says, corporal movement.

The Muse of Music

Euterpe is associated with music. Burgos’s Muse of Music is making music with a conch shell.

The Muse of Vocal Music

I can’t easily relate the rest of the Santurce Muses to their Greek counterparts. Again, Burgos was inspired by the nine muses of the Greeks, but not constrained by them.

The Muse of Architecture

Burgos depicts this Muse presenting a model house for review, perhaps by a client.

The Muse of Design

This Muse is holding a caliper as in implement in her artistry.

The Muse of Plastic Arts

The plastic arts involve modeling or molding various materials in three dimensions, e.g. sculpture and ceramics, or art involving the representation of solid objects with three-dimensional effects.

The Muse of Cinema

This art form was clearly unknown to the Greeks. Burgos shows her with reels used to hold film.

So there are the nine Muses of Santurce. They greet visitors to the Center for Performing Arts in fine style.

By the way, Burgos has other public art in Santurce. He created three larger than life avocados for the Plaza de Marcado in Santurce. I think, but I’m not sure, he is also responsible for sculptures of sea shells at a park in Condado. I will have to check that out.

Notes and Sources

See the Wikipedia entry for the Muses here. It has the complete citation for the quote by Siculus.

Some of the introductory material is from Owlcation, a site celebrating the humanities with several pages on Greek history. Click here to go to that site.

The two excerpts from Rafael were taken from the Wikipedia entry for Parnassus. Click here for the site.

The images are all mine, edited and otherwise tweaked with Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop.

Mid – February 2019

Introduction

Readers (all 14 of you – thanks to each of you) of my blog will surely have noted my interest in the wall art I see around San Juan. I saw something the other day that caught my attention. That caused me to think about some of the works I had seen. Hence this post.

I thought I would try to identify themes in the works. I found this quite challenging – easy for some, impossible (at least for me) for others. So here are some of the themes I’ve identified and examples for each.

Politics

Some of the street art is distinctly political. Consider the example below. By the way, I’ve written about Puerto Rico’s status before. Click here to see that post.

Puerto Rican Flag

I suppose this could be political as well. Many artists use the flag as a central part of their work. To me, the flag is sometimes a design element, sometimes a major theme. See the examples below.

India

I’ve noticed a couple of examples of wall art that evoke the Indian sub-continent. I can’t quite figure out why. There are, by my informal observations, very few people here of that heritage. I know of only two Indian restaurants in all of San Juan, and I think one is out of business.

Some Caribbean islands have a substantial population from India. The British abolished slavery in the early 1830s. Sugar cane is a labor intensive industry and estate owners on British islands had to turn to an indentured-servant system for their workers. Some of them came from India. Trinidad and Tobago, for example, have a substantial population of people descended from Indian sugar cane workers.

But that was not true in the Spanish colonies. Slavery continued until the 1870s and slaves still provided labor. So I don’t know why images that evoke India occasionally appear on the walls here.

Women

Women often appear on the wall art here, as the two examples above show. Here are some more.

Full disclosure: The next image is not from Puerto Rico. It is on a wall near the open air market in Rochester, NY. But our friends Antonia and Thomas tell me that is a Puerto Rican neighborhood. I posit the artists were displaced from San Juan, and but for that the art would have been here. Anyway, that is my theory and I’m sticking to it.

Other Themes

I’ll save examples of other themes for another post. I will show one below to pique your interest. Just think of what it would be like for this creature to give you a back rub. I call this theme Fanciful Animal.

Puzzlement

I said in the beginning I had seen something that caught my eye. It was in Santurce, in an area with few other examples of street art. I’m not quite sure what to make of it.

I have to think this is the work of an artist with a fetish for women’s underwear, red at that. I wonder who it is. Is it the guy at the gym, on the treadmill next to me? Is it the bartender at the Video Bar? I suppose it could be a woman – is it one of the baristas in the Starbucks I go to, in Condado?

Thoughts like this keep me awake at night.

Notes and Sources

The images are all mine, enhanced in various ways in Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop.

Mid January, 2019

Introduction

Our balcony looks over the Port of San Juan. I can watch the cruise ships enter and leave port, and observe the freighters coming and going. It has become pretty routine by now, but every once in a while I notice things and wonder about them. This has happened three times in the last couple of weeks.

Steel

Pre-Maria, Pre Tariff

Before Hurricane Maria, I would see a ship carrying steel come into port about every six or seven weeks. Here is an image from pre-Maria.

The Sheng Qiang, registered in Hong Kong, delivered steel to the Port of San Juan in February 2017. When a ship docks at Pier 14, it is met by a phalanx of fork lifts. In this case, the ship’s cranes lifted steel from the hold to dockside, and the forklifts moved the steel to different locations on the pier.

Although I don’t know for sure, I have to think this was steel from China. Since it was in a Chinese ship, and carried steel from China, the Jones Act did not pertain. And that meant it was at market price.

I’m not sure what happened to all that steel. I’m sure much of it stayed here for construction projects on the island. Perhaps some of it was transshipped, on smaller vessels, to Caribbean islands with more modest ports and docking facilities.

Post-Maria, Post Tariff

But things have changed. President Trump has instituted tariffs on Chinese steel. I haven’t noticed any steel shipments since I arrived in late October, 2018. It is possible steel has come into the New Port. I can see ships entering there, but I can’t see the unloading areas. But it seems most ships to the New Port are container ships, not bulk freighters.

Last week a steel shipment did arrive, but it was not on a Chinese vessel.

The Donaugracht arrived in port about a week ago. Registered in Amsterdam, she belongs to the Spliethoff fleet. According to the company website, their ships work multiple routes, including the Baltic/Northern Europe to the Caribbean. Interestingly, the website does not mention Puerto Rico as a destination. One would have to think the Donaugracht’s appearance here was out of the ordinary.

She carried steel – rebars and wire rolls. I would have to think it was not Chinese steel. Was it European? From somewhere not affected by Trump’s tariffs? I’d have to think so.

So steel, apparently non-Chinese, arrived in port from a shipping company that doesn’t typically sail here. As I say, I wonder if it all as to do with the Trump steel tariffs.

By the way, the Donaugracht had an unusual deck cargo – yachts. I wonder if rich Europeans, maybe Russian oligarchs, own them. Perhaps the yachts are being shipped here in anticipation of their owners’ arrival for the peak season here.

Click here to see an earlier post of mine about concrete and steel.

Coal

There is a bulk freighter here now delivering coal from Colombia. The UBC Toronto, registered in Cyprus, arrived here from Puerto Brisa, in Colombia. Puerto Brisa is a new port, constructed to help export coal from coal mines in the mountains of Colombia. You can see a promotional video of the new port here, complete with choral music in the background. Coal exporting has never looked or sounded so good.

Strange Thing Number One

There are several strange things about this. First, the ship’s name. When I see UBC, I think of the University of British Colombia, which is in Vancouver and not Toronto. Not unexpectedly, the University of Toronto is in Toronto, and it is not a satellite campus of the UBC, at least so far as I know.

Strange Thing Number Two

Next, why is coal being delivered to San Juan? Now, to be sure, Puerto Rico uses coal (and other fossil fuels) to generate electricity. There is a 454 MW coal-fired generation plant in Guayama, and Puerto Rico imports about 1.6 million short tons of coal from Colombia to operate it. By the way, this is about 0.2% of the coal burned in the mainland USA.

But Guayama is on the Caribbean coast, about 50 miles from San Juan. Will all this coal be trucked there? Why wasn’t the coal delivered to the port at Ponce, which is much closer to Guayama?

The unloading process is slow. Shipboard cranes lift coal by the large bucket full and empty it into a portable chute, positioned just before the ship arrives. Trucks drive under the chutes and get their fill of coal. The drivers then cover their load with a tarp and drive off. There is a steady stream of trucks. I suppose they could go from here to Guayama, but I doubt there are that many dump trucks on the island. So the coal is stockpiled somewhere close to the port. But that means the coal has to be moved twice, which is inefficient.

As I say, I have more questions than answers about this one.

The Royal Dutch Navy

The Royal Dutch Navy is in port, again. (Click here to see an earlier post on this topic). The HNLMS Zeeland, an off shore patrol vessel, is docked at Pier One in Old San Juan. The Zeeland is one of four Holland class patrol boats, at least one of which is stationed in the Caribbean to patrol around the Dutch Antilles.

The Zeeland requires a crew of 52 and carries up to 32 extra personnel – helicopter pilots and mechanics, marines to man the two fast (40 knot plus) small boats, various others. She is equipped with one main weapon – a rapid fire (up to 120 rounds per minute) 76 mm gun as well as various smaller machine guns. The prominent tower carries a Thales system phased array radar system. At a length of 355 ft, and with a displacement of about 4,000 tons, she is smaller than some luxury yachts. To see some earlier posts about luxury yachts I’ve written about, click here and here and here.

I don’t know why the Zeeland is here. I suspect the commanders are in various discussions with their US Coast Guard colleagues. I hope the crew is having fun. Perhaps I’ll run into some of them later today, at Doug’s Pub in Old San Juan.

Notes and Sources

See Wikipedia entries for Spliethoff Shipping, Donaugracht, UBC Toronto, and HNLMS Zeeland.

Click here for a useful and succinct summary of energy sources and issues in Puerto Rico as published by the US Department of Energy.

I took all the images.

Late December, 2018

The recovery from Hurricanes Irma and Maria is continuing. There is progress, but there continue to be issues. Below I’ll give snippets of various topics. My information is from the San Juan Star, the English language newspaper here, unless otherwise noted.

Federal Government Shut Down

The Federal government is shut down as I write this. I’m not sure of all the effects this will have here. At a minimum, the forts in Old San Juan (El Moro and San Cristobal), operated by the National Park Service, will have shut down, as would El Yunque, the tropical rain forest on the northeastern end of the island.

The government here is watching carefully. An extended shut down might slow the flow of relief funds from Washington to Puerto Rico. For example, government officials fear delays in funds for the Nutritional Assistance Program, $40 billion for reconstruction, and $3 billion for the health program here. And there are probably other funds in the pipeline that could be delayed if the shut down continues.

Border Security

Puerto Rico attracts at least a few illegals. The US Coast Guard has primary responsibility for stopping them. Just last week, the Coast Guard stopped 41 nationals from the Dominican Republic found crossing the Mona Passage. A Coast Guard spokesman said they were traveling in unseaworthy makeshift vessels. They were all repatriated to the Dominican Republic.

In a separate incident, the Silver Wind of the Silver Sea Cruise Line came across a small boat taking on water. The cruise ship rescued 13 Dominican migrants from it. They were treated with a ride to the Barbados, the Silver Wind’s next port off call. There they were turned over to local authorities.

I hope President Trump doesn’t hear of this. He might want to build a wall around Puerto Rico. I think even an attractive steel slat wall would be a bad idea here. What do you think?

Death Toll

Generating an accurate death toll from Hurricane Maria proved more challenging than one would have thought. The governor, last February, acknowledged the difficulty when he commissioned a study by the School of Public Health at George Washington University. In August, the researchers returned with an estimate of nearly 3,000 deaths attributable to the storm and its aftermath. This was far more than the original, official estimates.

Governor Rossello created a 9/20 Committee to assist the government in revising death certification procedures. The goal is to improve information management regarding fatalities caused by natural disasters.

Coffee

The coffee industry here suffered greatly from Hurricane Maria. The crop was pretty much wiped out. But there is hope. Two varieties of coffee plants are grown here – Limani and Fronton – and plants have been germinated from seeds and are now in the ground.

In addition, the Starbucks Foundation donated seeds of a third variety, the Marsellesa, and the seeds have survived the required quarantine period. Soon the seeds will be distributed to nurseries and then, after they grow into small, sturdy tress, will be distributed to coffee plantations. It will be about three years before these plants begin producing beans.

I feel better now about getting my morning coffee at the Starbucks in Condado.

We went to an historic coffee plantation and processing plant a few years ago. Our good friends Marilu and Mundo took us. It was in the mountains north of Ponce. I had my camera but for some reason I don’t have many images of it. So the image below will have to do.

Street Lights

PREPA, the Puerto Rican Power Authority, is responsible for for about 220,000 street lights around the island. Other entities, cities, town, Department of Transportation, are responsible for others. Of the PREPA lights, 106,000 are still out. In a recent government hearing, PREPA acknowledged it did not have enough crews to do the necessary repairs in a timely fashion. PREPA stated it would start hiring contractors to help, and expects their efforts to start by February, 2019.

The reporter noted: “It was not immediately clear why it took so long to reach this realization.”

Indeed.

I did note local contractors working on the street lights in Old San Juan. They’ve all been restored and the old city looks very welcoming.

I don’t know who is responsible for the lights on the bus lane in back of our building. They still await repair.

PREPA

PREPA is for sale. The government issued a RFQ – Request for Qualifications – from interested parties early last month. The government here wants a company interested in managing and operating all facets of the energy distribution and transmission system. This will be accomplished via a public-private partnership. According to a statement by Governor Rossello, the winning company will be expected to transform and modernize Puerto Rico’s energy system. In fact, the government has a stated goal that, by 2050, all energy generated here will be from renewable sources. So the winning company will have to work with that expectation.

By the way, Puerto Rico currently generates about 5,500 MWs of energy, the vast majority from fossil fuels – natural gas, diesel, and fuel oil. Solar arrays account for about 140 MW, and hydro-power another 156 MW.

There are, as you might expect, many opinions about the power system here. In one initiative, the Rocky Mountain Institute, in conjunction with Save the Children, plans to install micro-grids to power 12 schools. The first, at an elementary school in Orocovis, includes a rooftop solar array (of about 15 kWh capacity) and a large lithium-ion battery. The whole system, including the expenses for rewiring the school, cost about $120,000. It is expected that excess energy will be sold to PREPA thus generating a revenue stream for the school.

On a larger scale, another group is advocating for the use of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), a technology being developed in the states. SMRs have a generation capacity of between 50 and 300 MW. In one proposal, the SMRs would be placed underground and thus less prone to hurricane damage. The fundamental idea, as I understand it, is that SMRs would be spread around the island creating a series of interconnected generation and transmission grids.

That would seem to be an improvement over the current situation. The largest generation plants are on the island’s south coast. That means the main transmission lines have to traverse the mountains to get to the more populated northern coast. The transmission lines proved to be vulnerable and suffered great damage during the hurricanes.

As might be expected, the mere mention of nuclear energy created a backlash. Representative Denis Marquez Lebron, of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), introduced a bill in the house to prohibit the ‘generation of nuclear energy.’ Those are apparently his words. I’m not exactly sure what he was trying to say. Marquez, in his speech, referred to the Ukraine (obviously Chernobyl) and Japan (Fukushima) as reasons to ban nuclear energy here.

In early December, the government revealed it had received RFQs from five interested companies, not yet identified. The government did note that they were regulated international energy companies, whatever that means.

Pork

Puerto Ricans love their pork. Many families travel to lechoneras outside of the cities, but especially in towns in the mountains. A lechonera is a pork barbecue – whole animals are cooked for hours over an open fire. When they are ready, you can choose whatever part of the pig you want. Pork liver? Give me a minute. Spare ribs? Not a problem. Kidneys? Coming right up.

There are numerous side dishes available: tostones (fried plaintain chips), amarilla (sweet yellow plaintain, arroz (rice), among others. And it is almost always swilled down with Medalla, the local beer.

But there’s trouble in trotter town. There’s a shortage of pigs.

This would seem to be an easy problem to fix. Put a male pig with a female pig (or two or three – I admit to ignorance when it comes to swine husbandry) and problem solved. So it must be more complicated than that.

My guess is the swine infrastructure was damaged, and therefore the growers missed some generations of little piglets. But, according to the paper, this situation is temporary. And that should make the pork-lovers of Puerto Rico happy.

Hotels

Many of the large hotels in Puerto were damaged, some extensively. Here is a list of some of the major hotels and their current status.

• Ritz Carlton Dorado Beach – reopened.
• El San Juan Hotel, Isla Verde – reopened June 1.
• Vendanza Hotel, Isla Verde – reopened August 1.
• Dorado Beach Hotel, Dorado – reopened October 1.
• St. Regis at Bahia Beach, Rio Grande – reopened October 29.
• Caribe Hilton, San Juan – closed until the summer, accepting reservations as of December 21.
• W Retreat and Spa, Vieques – reopens December 31.
• Condado Plaza Hilton, Condado – undergoing renocations, no opening date announced.

I walk past the Caribe Hilton a couple of times a week. During the week, a crew of workers is toiling away. Weekends, not so much.

Cock Fighting

This is not directly related to Hurricane Maria and the recovery efforts arising from it. But it is of interest (at least to me) and illustrates the difficulties of a one size fits all approach to regulations.

President Trump signed the so-called Farm Bill last week. One provision bans cock fighting in the US and its territories. Cock fighters here are livid, and promise they will take their sport underground.

Cock fighting is actually a pretty big business here. There are 70 cock fighting arenas around the island. One estimate suggests the industry generates $18 million annually, and is responsible for 117,000 direct and indirect jobs.

I wonder how one takes cock fighting underground. Do you create make-shift arenas in the mountains? Will they be close to the lechoneras? That would make for a nice day – watch (and bet) on cock fights, and then eat barbecue.

I’ve never been to a cock fight. Maybe I’ve missed my chance. I was in a bar one night and watched some cock fights on television. They were less bloody that I would have thought. When one bird established an advantage, the handler of the losing bird removed his animal from the ring. So it was not a fight to the death.

That I was in a bar, drinking beer and watching televised cock fights, probably shows just how much I have fallen. But its been a fun ride.