A Tale of Two Chemists: Passage and Politics

Passage and Politics … Wednesday 17 - Thursday 18 April 2013

The passage from St Simons, GA to Charleston, SC went just fine. We pulled up anchor at 9.15am on Wednesday and covered the 150 nautical miles in just over 25 hours. Everything went pretty much to plan except that the winds stayed more to the NE for much longer than we had expected and were quite light so we ended up motor sailing the whole way. The seas were a little bumpy with a 3-4 ft short period swell from the east, but I used a Scopolamine patch and felt fine the whole trip. Gloria took some meclazine and other than feeling sleepy also felt well. We seemed to manage the night watches a little better, switching over every two hours or so, with the back up person sleeping either down below or in the cockpit. We had prepared sandwiches for lunch, ate freeze dried chicken and rice for dinner and then peanut butter on toast for breakfast. Sunset was a bit of a bust, but the sunrise this morning was awesome. We did see quite a lot of wildlife including dolphins, turtles and loons in significant numbers. During the night we could hear the loons making their characteristic haunting cry. As ever there was some excitement in the hours of darkness avoiding large commercial vessels which in this case were primarily entering or leaving the Savannah River. However, the most excitement came as we were entering Charleston Harbor. We passed and admired a 42 ft Valiant called "Willow" that was leaving the harbor (we took note because these are my favorite yachts). Five minutes later we heard "Willow" making a Pan/Pan/Pan call because they had spotted an overturned vessel in the channel with people clinging to the sides. 'Willow' went to the rescue, picking up the people and calling in help from the Coast Guard, who had a couple of boats on the scene in less than 10 minutes. Thankfully it didn't sound as if anyone was injured. We are now anchored in the Ashley River just across from the City Marina - where you have to pay $5 / day to land your dinghy and you can't use their showers … unless you happen to find one with the door open!

32 46.517 N, 79 57.215 W

Sometimes during this trip we have had a sense of living in a parallel world. The things that we fret about on a daily basis are of little interest to most people (winds, waves, tides, charts etc) and it can feel very distant from the lives we were living and the world that we read about in the news. However, it has given us more time to think about some of the issues that we face and prompted by todays news I want to share some of my thoughts. I was aghast to read that the proposed gun control law went down in flames in the Senate. The fact that every poll indicates that the majority of people in America want more gun control suggests to me that we no longer live in a Democracy. At the most fundamental level I believe that the process of government in this country is broken and our elected officials are failing in their duty to the people they represent. I see two major problems. Firstly, the process of "checks and balances" that was written in to the constitution only works if lawmakers can work together for the good of the nation as a whole. At the minute this isn't happening and politics has become so polarized that government is effectively paralyzed and nothing is getting done. Secondly, leaders across both parties and all branches of government are failing abysmally in their efforts to articulate a long term vision for where the country is going and a plan of how to get there. By it's nature, such a vision is likely to span changes of party majority so if the country is ever to pursue anything other than short term goals then there needs to be a more shared view of what we are trying to achieve. If todays government (all parties) were a leadership team in any private or public company they would be fired for their inability to lead. As a quick aside, can anyone think of an example, other than a war, where the people of America have rallied together across party lines for a common purpose? I did consider the space program and putting a man on the moon, but I suspect that even this was partly driven by "cold war" motivation. In our former jobs we were always encouraged not just to complain about a problem but also to provide some solutions. So my suggestion is that the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties each articulate succinctly their view of the country they would like to see in 20 years time, and that they then work together to pull out some themes where they agree. My suspicion is that there would be more in common than you might expect and it would be really helpful to have some shared vision to work towards. No doubt there would be some differences, particularly in how to achieve these ambitions, but if you know where you are trying to get to it's easier to imagine some give and take on how to get there. If you take healthcare as an example and the debates that have raged for the past several years (decades) - it might have been helpful to hear whether both parties subscribe to the view that it is a moral imperative for a civilized country to provide reasonable healthcare for all it's citizens. I assume both parties do believe this, but maybe not, and the principle or the goal was totally overshadowed by the arguments on how best to achieve it. Moving on to the specific question of gun control. I understand that the constitution gives citizens the right to bear arms. But as a nation we have already accepted that this doesn't mean any arms. For instance, as private citizens, we are not allowed to build or own nuclear bombs or other weapons of mass destruction. Well actually not quite true - depending on how you define "mass destruction" we are allowed to own such weapons. How many people died in the Colorado and Connecticut shootings? We call them massacres for a reason. So the principle is established that we don't have the right to bear any weapon - we just need to agree where to draw the line. I personally think that automatic weapons could be defined as weapons of "mass destruction" and there is no justification for any private citizen to own one. Regarding the issue of documentation - seems like a no-brainer to me to tighten up on documentation and background checks - so why is it so difficult to get this agreed? Again there's plenty of precedent - I recently had the pleasure of applying for a Florida State fishing license - let me tell you that is quite a process and I'll bet you a lot more detailed than is required to buy a firearm in some places. I was told by a friend that the reason that the NRA fights tooth and nail against every aspect of gun control is that they fear if they give an inch it will only be the thin end of the wedge. So again we need to define where we want to end up and get broad buy in. I'm not generally a big fan of referenda, but it seems to me that it would be very powerful to hear the view of the people on some of the major questions and then have the elected politicians work to meet what the electorate wants not what the lobbyists want. That is democracy - what's happening now is a disgrace.

Mike