[lbo-talk] cruise report

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sun Jul 29 11:06:54 PDT 2007


Greetings from the ms Oosterdam, approaching the Hecate Strait. Yeah, there's something hilarious about the whole idea of The Nation cruise, but it's pretty damn nice. The ship is pretty comfy, like an upper middlebrow hotel that floats.

The crew - the visible staff, that is, upstairs, as opposed to the invisible folks downstairs - seem heavily drawn from Dutch colonial history, esp Indonesia. Apparently many stay on board for months or years, sending money home.

Ralph Nader is here. Saw him walking down a hallway in a dark suit looking like he missed a career as a funeral director. He introduced himself at the briefing session for speakers as "a consultant to GM."

The Nation cruisers seem like a very agreeable bunch - mostly fairly old, and wow do they love The Nation. You do get asked questions like "whose your favorite Democrat" [i.e., presidential candidate]. I've got to come up with a better comeback than "they all suck." Advice welcome.

Doug



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