[img nocaption float=”right” width=”640″ height=”426″ render=”<%photoRenderType%>”]8868[/img] Yakutat Bay, Alaska
WE SET SAIL from Juneau last night around 9:00 p.m., just as the sun was finally breaking through the clouds–the days are long up here. Tuesday morning began with a lengthy panel discussion featuring Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, Michael Gerson, Terry Eastland, Fred Kagan, Phil Terzian, and Claudia Anderson. Up for grabs were a broad range of political issues and we opened the floor to questions right off the bat. The session became a discussion with the audience on topics ranging from immigration to healthcare reform to taxes to the future of the Republican party–it was a great chance for everyone to get involved.
Afterwards, Claudia Anderson gave a presentation of clips from Arab television which had been translated by the stalwarts at MEMRI. It was by turns harrowing and hilarious. For example, one clip featured a young child being interviewed by an Arab TV program: the boy told the interviewer that his mother was in paradise after having martyred herself by killing five Jews. In another spot, an Arab commentator railed against America soft drinks for being–you guessed it–tools of the Zionists. Pepsi, he informed the audience, stood for “Pay Each Penny Save Israel; Coca-Cola, he claimed, has invested “hundreds of millions of dollars” in efforts to topple the Iranian regime. Have a Coke and a smile!
As the morning’s activities were wrapping up, the Oosterdam began its entrance to Yakutat Bay, home of the Hubbard Glacier. The Hubbard is some 76 miles long, and at the mouth is roughly 40 stories high and 5 miles across. (In the photo up top, it’s the icy blue thing in the middle.) The Oosterdam picked its way carefully through an ice field to get reasonably close, although while standing on the ship’s bow, you could occasionally feel a dull thud as it clipped large floating chunks of ice. (At the cocktail party on Day 1 of the cruise, the first song the band played was an instrumental version of the theme to Titanic. Cruise humor.) Any concern one might have had, however, was muted by the excellent wine being served on deck which, combined with the cold, sharp air, made for a most excellent afternoon.
Next year’s cruise won’t have any glaciers, but it will have lots of sun and girly rum drinks as we sail the Caribbean beginning on March 24, 2008. If you’re interested in hearing more about it, send an email to [email protected] and we’ll give you all the details as soon as we have them.
–Jonathan V. Last
