The company DroneUp! made the news in 2021 when it announced that it signed a deal with Walmart to do drone delivery. Recently it announced it a new all-in-one delivery service that could be rolled out to any store and deliver packages within 30 miles and under 10 pounds, all while automatically maintaining flight safety rules. In their spare time, they also manage to release the occasional cute video, like this one, on Facebook.
With all this right around the corner from my house, and with the fact I buy a lot of things from our local Walmart, you’d think I’d have a never-ending stream of drones dropping off items on my front porch.
And you’d be wrong. Why? Because I don’t live in Virginia Beach.
See, DroneUp! approached my city about adding drone delivery, but my city insisted that every drone position be operated like an airport. Yup, that’s a thing. Essentially my city council wanted every Walmart to run under the same restrictive rules that airports do. Never mind that the FAA doesn’t insist on this. Never mind that there is more restricted airspace in Virginia Beach then my city, with the nearby Oceana and Norfolk airports contributing to plenty of civilian and military flights everyday. Nope, my city insisted on stupid antiquated rules.
So instead of drone delivery, we get nothing.
Local government elections get ignored too often. As a society we argue over national elections, but fail to show up to local elections. That’s how we get crummy school boards that push pornography in school libraries, crummy state prosecutors that let criminals run free, and crummy city councils that equate drone delivery to running an international airport. On a bigger scale, we’re seeing some states, like Florida, tackle issues like squatting head on, while other states allow criminals to kick people out of their homes and trash them. We’re seeing some states like Georgia get ahead of election security while others allow it to falter.
If we don’t pay attention to our local problems, it’ll be impossible to solve the national ones.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.
Okay, let me get say this before I get into the details of our ten-day cruise. Yes, barely, we can afford a cruise. So I’m not bragging about our wealth. Because we have nothing to brag about.
To celebrate an anniversary birthday for Mrs. Marathon Pundit–I’m not going to reveal the year–we departed on a Caribbean cruise earlier this month which concluded last Friday where it began, Fort Lauderdale.
Which cruise line? Let’s just call it Joyful Cruises.
This post is designed to start an honest conversation about cruise ships, one that you will be less likely to find in dinosaur corporate media, largely because cruise ships are major advertisers with them.
I have no such restraints. Oh, I am not a doctor or any sort of health professional.
On the upside, a cruise makes affordable–barely again, for us–visits to remote places such as Carribean islands. I can drive from my home near Chicago and reach Key West, Florida in a couple of days. I can make it a week-long trip with extended stops. I cannot drive from Key West to the Bahamas.
The highlight of the cruise for us were the excursions in Charlotte Amalie, US Virgin Islands, St. Lucia, Martinque, and Antigua. Issues with high waves cancelled plan stops at “Joyful Cay” in the Bahamas and Dominica. I understand, snowstorms and hurricanes force highway closures and baseball games are rained out. But according to a cruise Facebook group, those stops were also cancelled on that same Joyful cruise ship, which departed the same day our cruise ended.
To compensate for the missed stops, our already paid for excursion was refunded and we each receivedc a $75 on-ship credit.
Fewer stops means more time on the ship–more time to interact with other passengers–and more time to become ill.
And people get sick–not just motion sickness–on cruise ships. Norovirus, commonly but mistakenly referred to as “stomach flu,” is a big problem on cruises.
Outbreaks of the stomach bug have surged on cruise ships this year, reaching the highest levels seen in 10 years. Since January 2023, there have been 13 confirmed norovirus outbreaks [My note–there were just 12, one of those was salmonella and E. coli] on cruise ships under U.S. jurisdiction — that’s more outbreaks in six months than there have been during any full year since 2012, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More…
Most recently, a norovirus outbreak in June on the Viking Neptune sickened 110 passengers (over 13% of the ship’s guests) and nine crew members with vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal cramps, according to the CDC. The CDC has tracked outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness on cruise ships through its Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) since 1994.
Several weeks prior, a Celebrity Summit cruise ship reported an outbreak of norovirus that sickened more than 150 passengers and 25 crew members, per the CDC. It was the third norovirus outbreak on a Celebrity Cruises vessel this year. Another popular cruise line, Royal Caribbean International, has reported four outbreaks since January.
Late on the eighth day of our Joyful Cruise, Mrs. Marathon Pundit became quite ill, and her symptoms were fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. I visited the medical center of the ship on her behalf, the medical staffer explained that my wife would need to be confined to our stateroom–really, it was a tiny cabin—for 24 hours. Or longer if her symptoms continued. Notably, he didn’t say “quarantine.” Per CDC protocol, my wife was required to complete a form about her illness and conditions. He provided her with anti-diarrheal medication, the charge for it was $14.
A day later it was my turn to get sick. How sick?
While sitting on the toilet doing, well, you know, I took advantage of the compact bathroom in our stateroom, which allowed me to simultaneously and painfully vomit into the sink. A two-for-one cruise ship special! And four days later the soreness remains. The lower back muscular pain from the unnatural vomit-induced contortions severely challenged my fit body.
I didn’t bother to visit the medical center–I already knew what was wrong with me. And I didn’t need fill out a report. As we disembarked our ship in Fort Lauderdale, I overheard a few other passengers complain about “stomach flu,” and there was a mention of it on the unofficial cruise Facebook page organized by another passenger.
Getting sick with norovirus on a cruise is surprisingly common. Last year, the Miami Heraldreported, “Some people know it as the ‘cruise ship virus’ because it’s often the cause of over 90% of diarrhea outbreaks on cruise ships, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
Neither Mrs. Marathon Pundit nor I were officially diagnosed with norovirus. But that 90 percent CDC statistic works for me.
So far in the seven weeks of 2024, the CDC has reported official illness outbreaks on two cruise ships, one was confirmed as norovirus.
On the flipside, norovirus is not a cruise ship-exclusive bug, it’s far more common in schools and nursing homes, according to the CDC.
The CDC reports on norovirus cruise ships outbreaks are incomplete, because they don’t include people like me who silently suffered in their staterooms, or passengers who didn’t exhibit symptoms until after disembarking.
Still, not everyone gets sick on cruise ships. Most don’t. And of the folks we mingled with on our Joyful cruise, most said, even after over a dozen cruises, that they’ve never gotten sick.
Where did we go wrong? Out of convenience, we ate all but one of our cruise meals–three of them most days–in the crowded “hot bunk” style set up in the buffet dining hall, even though our cheapskate package allowed us, with a reservation and paying an eighteen percent “cover charge,” to dine in some of the restaurants. Mrs. Marathon Pundit, who you’ll remember got sick first, spent a lot of time in the ship’s spa.
Our cruise ship boasts that it can hold over 3,600 passengers–our trip was sold out–and it has a crew of over 1,300. Most of the crew sleep in compact steerage rooms in bunk beds. Perhaps that’s too many people in too small of a space for too long of a time.
Our two port cancellations increased the odds of illness. You’re more likely to get sick with any bug on a massive cruise ship as opposed to a beach or a rain forest.
I’m not a germophobe. During the COVID pandemic, I was against the lockdowns and mask mandates. While I don’t have any specific suggestions, I believe cruise lines can do better, even if that means simply informing passengers that they face a norovirus risk. COVID warnings, many that have turned out to be exaggerated, have desensitized us to health advisories, so it’s no surprise that the handwashing stations outside the buffet halls were little used. Washing hands of course is a good thing.
My guess was that the median age of the passengers on our cruise was 65–and most were overweight. That meets my definition of a vulnerable population.
When I returned home, I entered “norovirus” into the Joyful Cruises website search box. I received just two matches.
Do better.
Will we go on a cruise again? Perhaps on a smaller ship. And not for ten days. Supposedly a norovirus vaccine is in the works. If it’s available and we decide to head to sea again, I’m taking that jab.
I’m going out for a run now, despite that back-muscle pain from the puking.
And once again, Happy Birthday Mrs. Marathon Pundit!
John Ruberry, pictured on that cruise, regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.
Captain Lockyer:I may have been misinformed. I understood Mr. Lafitte was in command in Barataria
Jean Lafitte:If you’re offer is good it will stand up under fire.
The Buccaneer 1958
I usually don’t pay attention to what is trending on twitter but when I saw “Mr. Bean” trending it jumped out at me. I presumed something had happened to comedy legend Rowan Atkinson so I clicked over.
Atkinson’s comedy has been making people laugh for decades. His TV series from the Thin Blue Line and Not the Nine O’clock news are guaranteed to raise a smile and his characters have been iconic from the incredible Edmund Blackadder, to Secret Agent Johnny English. He even did one Doctor Who parody titled “The curse of fatal death” that was a spot on sendup of the series.
But of all the characters he has played the most iconic is Mr. Bean. The simple and to some degree simple minded fellow who tries very hard to get by in this crazy world of ours. It is the role he is most identified with.
Atkinson is also known to be outspoken on free speech and comedy defending both while others run and hide and has never been shy about his opinions. Six months ago he wrote the following op-ed on the subject of Electric Cars:
I love electric vehicles — and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped.
Sadly, keeping your old petrol car may be better than buying an EV. There are sound environmental reasons not to jump just yet.
Electric motoring is, in theory, a subject about which I should know something. My first university degree was in electrical and electronic engineering, with a subsequent master’s in control systems.
I must admit that I was not aware of his background in engineering as you don’t see a lot of actors with this type of degree but it shows in this piece where he brakes down both the advantages and limits of current electric cars and brings up a subject that those pushing the cars (and getting rich off of subsidies) don’t mention:
In advance of the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow in 2021, Volvo released figures claiming that greenhouse gas emissions during production of an electric car are nearly 70 per cent higher than when manufacturing a petrol one.
How so? The problem lies with the lithium-ion batteries fitted currently to nearly all electric vehicles: they’re absurdly heavy, huge amounts of energy are required to make them, and they are estimated to last only upwards of ten years.
It seems a perverse choice of hardware with which to lead the automobile’s fight against the climate crisis.
He doesn’t bring up the fires and the cost of repair which are rather significant but he does note that better alternates are on the drawing board from solid state batteries to Hydrogen models but that in the meantime we end up with a lot of bad batteries left over. He then pivots to another point, usage:
Currently, on average we keep our new cars for only three years before selling them on, driven mainly by the ubiquitous three-year leasing model.
This seems an outrageously profligate use of the world’s natural resources when you consider what great condition a three-year-old car is in.
When I was a child, any car that was five years old was a bucket of rust and halfway through the gate of the scrapyard. Not any longer. You can now make a car for £15,000 that, with tender loving care, will last for 30 years.
It’s sobering to think that if the first owners of new cars just kept them for five years, on average, instead of the current three, then car production and the CO2 emissions associated with it, would be vastly reduced.
And he closed with this bit of advice:
Friends with an environmental conscience often ask me, as a car person, whether they should buy an electric car. I tend to say that if their car is an old diesel and they do a lot of city centre motoring, they should consider a change.
But otherwise, hold fire for now. Electric propulsion will be of real, global environmental benefit one day, but that day has yet to dawn.
Read the whole thing, it’s a good solid argument that is made from the climate change perspective.
Well apparently the folks in Britain who have known and loved Mr. Atkinson for decades have taken his argument to heart and that’s made some folks very mad
Mr Bean is blamed for slump in electric car sales: Rowan Atkinson is accused of 'damaging' public perception of EVs by House of Lords report after describing the vehicles as a 'bit soulless'. Can't criticise NetZero policy?https://t.co/DE0Omqr0vL via https://t.co/yKLuHcxeAT
The Lord’s environment and climate change committee has since been told the actor was partly to blame for ‘damaging’ public opinions on electric vehicles (EVs).
It comes as new petrol and diesel cars are due to be banned from 2035 under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak‘s net zero strategy – a plan designed to encourage drivers to buy EVs.
The Green Alliance pressure group said: ‘One of the most damaging articles was a comment piece written by Rowan Atkinson in the Guardian which has been roundly debunked.’
What seems to be the problem is that Mr. Atkinson made a solid rational argument concerning the actual goal our green friends supposedly have, that is reducing Co2 emissions and our green friends don’t seem to have any counter other than claiming it to be “debunked” which sound a lot like the vaccine companies talking when people were warning about the side effects of the shots.
The New article has this handy dandy graphic that makes Atkinson’s point for him
And again, note that Atkinson didn’t talk about things he could have brought up. High Cost, Limited Range, Lack of Charging stations, performance in cold, repair cost, battery fires or even the human cost of the child slave labor to get the lithium.
Bottom line if they have a better and more rational argument rather than just an agenda to push there are certainly a whole lot of other prominent lefty stars out there that the public would trust who could deliver it for them.
If they had one that is.
If not much easier to blame Mr. Atkinson for raining on their gravy train.
German Woman talk show host:Mr. Williams, why do you think there is not much comedy in Germany?
Robin Williams:Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?
Today at Don Surber’s site he celebrates the contributions of various ethnic groups, starting with Blacks as it’s black history month and ending with the WASPS who founded this country making all those other contributions to America possible. He notes many people who might have been forgotten a few I had never heard of and in going through the list he has this section about Jewish Americans:
As for Jews, I can go on all day about them. They gave the country physicists, Irving Berlin and a host of comedians. Jews invented Hollywood by founding Columbia, Fox, Paramount, Universal and MGM. Even the Warner Brothers were Jewish. Could we kindly stop the anti-Semitism already?
Emphasis mine
That reminded me of this Dave Chappelle bit on Kanye & Jews:
Now the hesitancy to talk about Jews in Hollywood/Entertainment or bring it up is something I’ve never understood. When various ethnic groups come to a country and start a business you will see family coming over and joining in. There is a reason why so many pizza places were run by Italians.
If people start a business, especially people outside the dominant culture they tend to hire family and people from their same ethnic group, additionally people who come to a country looking for work tend to check first within their ethnic group, same culture, same language and once they assimilate they and/or their children & grandchildren branch out.
So see a lot of XXX and sons, but you very rarely see XXX and grandsons because by the time you reach that generation the kids are Americanized and go their own way.
So Thomas Edison not withstanding if Jews went all in on entertainment, if Jews founded Columbia, Fox, Paramount, Universal MGM and Warner Brothers why should anyone be surprised if.
They tended to hire a lot of Jews when they started.
A lot of Jews tended to gravitate to the entertainment business
And a ton of Jews are still in the business today.
This makes sense particularly if you consider that Jews historically have not been particularly loved or treated well through history. Why wouldn’t you get involved in an industry that is:
Profitable
Secure (meaning that it won’t disappear)
Has influence
And gives you the change to put the Jewish point of view out there
Alas because some were far leftists you had a leftist point of view pushed too but I digress.
Bottom line I’m not about to get my knickers in a twist because ethnic Jews took the risk to get into the ground floor of the entertainment business which provides comfort and joy to people all over the world and still reaping the rewards of that risk. If you have a problem with that then that’s your problem.
But neither am I going to deny that’s the case because people might feel upset about it being said openly. Frankly I think the reaction of of a Jewish person to the “Jews run Hollywood” business should be: ”Yeah Jews are big in Hollywood and I’m damn proud of it!”
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s just the way things went naturally.
I’ll leave you with the Robin Williams joke I started with, he delivers it better than I write it.
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 