Early March 2021

Introduction

Pier One is the western-most pier in Old San Juan. The United States Coast Guard station is immediately to the west, at the end of La Puntilla, the point. The pier for the ferry boat service to Catano is just to the east.

Pier One is usually used for visiting naval vessels and, when they are able to visit, small cruise ships. The Al Mirqab, a super yacht, is moored there now.

The Al Mirqab

The Al Mirqab is one of the twenty largest private yachts ever built. It is 437 feet long with a beam of 63 feet and displaces about 9,500 tons. Built in 2008, the yacht belongs to Qatar’s former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al Thani.

Launched in 2008, the yacht was built in Germany, at the Peters Schiffbau Wewelsfleth shipyard, in Kiel. It was, during construction, mostly hidden from view and known only as Project May.

Tim Heywood was the ship’s architect; Andrew Winch Designs managed the interior design. The interior is spacious and opulent, as befits a yacht costing a third of a billion dollars. There are 10 guest suites capable of hosting 24 guests. Each suite has its own bath, living room, and double bedroom. The owners and special guests have two VIP suites for their use.

Guests can do more than look for whales. Al Mirqab has a cinema, indoor pool, outdoor jacuzzi, and various bars to keep people entertained. Guests can use the private helicopter for shore excursions. I suppose a helicopter pilot is one of the 60 crew members. Maybe he/she doubles as the cinema operator or a bartender. One has to cut corners somewhere.

I’ve seen mega yachts in port before, especially the stunning A and the huge Eclipse, both owned by Russian oligarchs. I’ve written about them – see my posts here and here and here.

The USCGC Stone

The Stone, a new ship of the Coast Guard, was in port for a few days during January, after having been delivered to the government on November 10, 2020. She left Pascagoula, Mississippi, on December 22, 2020 for a patrol into the South Atlantic. Her mission was to search for illegal fishing activities. The covid pandemic caused changes in the planned schedule. For example, the crew was not able to disembark in Montevideo, Uruguay because of covid fears.

But they were able to disembark in San Juan, and the alcohol supplies were the worse for it, at least at the kiosco in Plaza Darsena where I sometimes enjoy a cold one in the late afternoon. The crew seemed young, happy, and energetic. And they were a mixed group, both by gender and ethnicity. And they did seem glad to be ashore, at least for a couple of days. Good luck to them all.

FS LA COMBATTANTE P735

The new French naval patrol craft La Combattante was in port for a few days last November. She entered service in 2020. The French realized, after Hurricane Irma in 2017, that they did not have an adequate naval presence in the French Antilles to respond to such disasters. In response, they ordered new patrol craft in 2017. La Combattantte and her two sister ships make up the Patrollers Antilles Guyane (PAG) with responsibilities for patrolling in the French possessions in the Caribbean and Guyana. She was probably in port here after joint training exercises with the Coast Guard. Unfortunately, the crew was not able to disembark – I saw them doing physical training on deck, the poor sods.

HNLMS Zeeland (P841)

Sometime during the fall of 2018, the Royal Netherlands naval patrol craft Zeeland was in port. Like the French, the Dutch maintain a naval force in the Caribbean to support their possessions, including the ABC islands, Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.

The Zeeland was in the Caribbean during Hurricane Irma, and afterwards played an important role in providing relief to the residents of Saint Maarten and Saba.

I rather like the lines of this ship, and I think it is very sporting of the Dutch to keep their radar mast lit up like a Christmas tree. That must certainly give would-be smugglers and pirates pause.

Conclusion

All three of these warships are considerably smaller than Al Mirqab. The Stone is 418 feet long and displaces about 4500 tons; the Zeeland 336 feet and 4,130 tons; the La Combattante 132 feet and 750 tons. And I bet none of them have a pool, or even a jacuzzi.

Note and Sources

See the Wikipedia entries for each ship for more information.

The photos are mine.

Late February 2021

Introduction

The walkway along the ocean into Old San Juan was rebuilt a few years ago. The Paseo de Puerta de Tierra, as it is called, includes signage. One can read about the historical sites along the path – the first, second and third lines of defense, the powder magazine in Parc Luis Munoz Rivera, the ruins of a Spanish observation post.

Some of the signs identify vegetation. I find those informative but intimidating. I realize how little I know about tropical vegetation. So I decided to learn something about palm trees. It is at least a start.

There are palm trees everywhere here. Of course, one would expect that, given the tropical environment. Street vendors sell fresh coconuts. They use machetes to lop off the top to get at the liquid inside. The coconut water is a local treat.

I looked to buy a field guide to help identify palm trees. I couldn’t find one. So I went online. There are resources but I found them difficult to use. For one thing, you need a specialized vocabulary. The leaves (technically fronds) can be pinnate or palmate, or maybe entire or bipinnate. And then there are the trunks. And the roots.

Palm Trees: Background

Palm trees evolved about 80 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous. Some survived the mass extinction that marked the end of the Cretaceous era, an abrupt event marked by the K-Pg boundary. Since then, the Arecaceae have evolved into about 181 genera and 1200 species with most found in tropical and sub-tropical climates.

Palms (known more technically as the Arecaceae) are perennial, woody, flowering plants. They usually have a prominent trunk. The Arecaceae are, like the grasses, monocotyledons – that is, a seed produces one shoot with one leaf. They can take the form of trees, climbers, shrubs, or be stemless.

Palm trees, like other monocotyledons, do not exhibit the secondary growth common to woody plants. The wood does not have growth rings. So-called anomalous secondary growth does occur, but to a lesser extent that woody plants. This gives palm trees their slender appearance.

Palm Trees: Structure

Identification of palms starts with the features noted above. One looks at the fronds first, then the details of the trunk. That usually provides a pretty good start.

Most palm trees exhibit either pinnate or palmate leaf structure.

Palm trees are widely used in ornamental plantings. I suspect landscapers planted almost all the palm trees I see in San Juan. That means some are native species, some are not. That makes their identification that much more challenging.

Specific Palm Trees

Here are some of the palms I’ve identified. I confess I’ve made liberal use of the signage along the Paseo de Puerta de Tierra. But I did also use other sources. Please refer to Notes and Sources.

Puerto Rican Hat Palm – Palma de Sombrero (Sabal causiarum)

This palm tree is native to Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. It is characterized by a thick, straight trunk with a small crown of palmate fronds. In fact, the crown often seems too small given the tree’s height, often over 35 feet.

The fronds were used to manufacture hats, an industry centered in Joyuda, in the southwest part of the island. The industry went into decline in the early twentieth century.

Puerto Rico Royal Palm – Palma Real (Roystonea borinquena)

Another Puerto Rico native, this palm is closely related to royal palm trees in Cuba, Hispaniola, Honduras, Guyana, and Florida, among other West Indies locations. These are tall, stately palms with a graceful crown of feathery fronds and often used in ornamental plantings. Note the prominent crownshaft.

Spindle Palm – Palma Botella (Hyophorbe verschaffeltii)

These slow-growing palms are native to the Mascarene Islands where they are in danger of becoming extinct. They exhibit a smooth trunk that can bulge in the middle, and a distinct crownshaft. The fronds are pinnate. The inflorescences are prominent and covered in a spathe. Spindle palms are often grown in large containers.

Fiji Palm – Palma de abanica (Pritchardia pacifica)

Pritchardia is a genus of 37 species, with most found on the Hawaiian Islands. They are solitary fan palms with full, dense crowns of large, stiff palmate fronds. They do well when planted in groups, and grow up to 35 feet high.

The Fiji palm is found, as its name implies, on the Fiji Islands. Some experts think it originated on Tonga before being introduced to the Fijis. It is said the fronds were used as fans for the Fijian royalty.

Manilla Palm – Adonidia (Veitchia merrillii)

The genus Veitcha includes eighteen species, all located in the Western Pacific – the Phillipines, New Hebrides, and Fiji. They exhibit feathery pinnate fronds and a prominent crownshaft.

The Manilla Palm is native to the Philippines. It produces clusters of bright red fruit around Christmas time; the tree is sometimes known at the Christmas palm. It can grow to a height of 25 feet.

The fruit of the Christmas palm is edible, though said to be not pleasant. I wonder if it could be made into a jam or jelly, or maybe a chutney.

Mexican Fan Palm – Palma Washingtonia (Washingtonia robusta)

The genus Washingtonia includes two species, both native to the United States west coast, and Baja and Sonora, Mexico.

Mexican fan palms are widely cultivated. Examples can be found in Texas, Florida, Hawaii, the Canary Islands, Spain, Italy, Israel, and Lebanon.

The Mexican fan palm grows as tall as 80 feet, on a thin, smooth trunk. It displays a compact crown of palmate fronds. They are often planted in rows along avenues, as they are in the image above.

Foxtail palm – Palma cola de zorra (Wodyetia bifurcata)

The genus Wodyetia contains only one species. The foxtail palm is native to northeastern Australia. It has become a popular ornamental plant, so much so the native trees are in danger from seed poachers.

This species exhibits a slender, closely ringed trunk with graceful pinnate fronds. It has a slender crownshaft and produces large, orange-red fruit. It can grow to 35 feet in height.

Date Palm – Palm datilera (Phoenix dactylifera)

The Phoenix genus consists of about seventeen species and are found pretty much around the world. The date palm (P. dactylifera) shows greyish-green pinnate fronds in a graceful crown. These trees lack a crownshaft. Trees are either male or female; both are needed for fertilization. They can grow up to 70 feet high.

The date palm is famous for its fruit, which has been known since antiquity. However, these trees bear fruit only in hot, dry climates. The north coast of Puerto Rico is too wet and humid for these plants to bear fruit. I wonder if that is true in the generally drier, warmer southern regions of the island. Perhaps Puerto Rico can become a date-exporting nation. In any case, the date palm is widely used in ornamental plantings.

Coconut palm – Palma de coco (Cocos nucifera)

Cocos is a one species genus. Coconut palms have large spreading crowns of pinnate fronds. The smooth, slender trunks are often curved, a rare trait among the palms. Given their wide distribution, their origin is uncertain. Most experts think they originated in the Western Pacific.

A coconut tree typically produces 30 or so fruit a year. The fruits are technically drupes and not nuts. (I’m glad the fruit is misnamed – I’m not sure I could handle writing about cocodrupes). They have a hard shell and weigh four or five pounds. The trees can grow to 80 feet; one has to think a falling coconut represents some danger. In 1982, Dr. Peter Barss, a doctor practicing in Papua, New Guinea, published a paper with the ominous title “Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts” in the Journal of Trauma. Barss noted that, in his practice, 2.5% of the trauma admissions were the result of falling coconuts. He did not observe any deaths.

Barss’ work became the fuel for a persistent urban legend. People claimed more people died from falling coconuts than shark attacks. Officials in one town in Queensland, Australia removed coconut palms from the town beach. Poets got into the fray. The American poet Frederick Seidel wrote a poem he titled “Coconut.” It contains the following lines:

A coconut can fall and hit you on the head,

And if it falls from high enough can kind of knock you dead

Dead beneath the coconut palms, that’s the life for me!

(See the Wikipedia article Death by coconut for a complete attribution).

Now, there have been deaths by falling coconuts. Here are a few.

• Sometime around 1777, a concubine died after she was struck by “a falling green nut.” She was with the court of King Tetui of Managia in the Cook Islands.
• Four people died from falling coconuts in Sri Lanka in 1883.
• A US marine died when a falling coconut hit him in the head as he slept. This was on Guadalcanal, in 1943.
• In 1991, in Sri Lanka, a mourner at a funeral died when struck by a coconut.

The case of the US marine is intriguing. Imagine him, having survived an amphibious assault, battles with Japanese infantry, air attacks, and bombardment by Japanese battleships, dead from a falling coconut.

So some people have died from falling coconuts. I don’t know how that number compares to deaths by shark. I do know that, when I go to the the beach, I find a place in the shade of a coconut tree. But I look up to make sure I’m not directly under any hanging nut, or drupe, or whatever.

Three Not Yet Identified

Unknown One

I used the signage along the Paseo de Puerta de Tierra to identify the palm trees described above. I checked the identification with my palm tree book. See Notes and Sources. But there are several I cannot identify. Here are three of the most prominent.

Unknown number One (above) shows multiple trunks and large palmate fronds. I think it is a palm – I suppose it could be a Cycad or a Cyclanth or a Pandans or possibly a Cordylines. These plants are closely related to palms and are often confused with them by the inexperienced observer, of which I am a perfect example.

Unknown Two

I first thought Unknown 2 (above) was a member of the genus Phoenix and was thus a member of the date palms. It does share the unusual trunk structure and lack of a distinct crownshaft. However, the fronds are palmate, not pinnate.

The more mature example of Unknown 2 shows the palmate fronds to better effect.

Unknown Three

The third unknown has one very large palmate frond arranged in one plane. I’ve seen it used in ornamental plantings – for example, in the thin grass strip between a sidewalk and a building. One can see a good example of this type of planting on the south side of the old federal courthouse in Old San Juan.

Final Thoughts

I guess I’ve learned a bit about palm trees. It is amazing what one can see when one opens their eyes to what’s around them.

Notes and Sources

I relied heavily on the book Palms Throughout the World, by David L. Jones, Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington, D. C., 1995. The two figures are from this book. I got my copy via Amazon.

I used several articles in Wikipedia. The main article – Palm Trees – has links to articles about specific palm trees and other useful links.

I relied on the Wikipedia article Death by Coconut for information on that morbid topic.

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

Early February 2021

Introduction

Street art is constantly evolving. Old works get defaced, painted over. New works appear, get discovered. Here are some of my recent finds. I’ve arranged them by location. Then I’ll share some arranged by theme.

La Perla

La Perla is in Old San Juan, just outside the wall to the north, snuggled between the walled city and the Atlantic. The street art there seems to symbolize the neighborhood’s attempt to overcome a reputation for drugs and crime. I walked through there one recent Sunday afternoon. I found it lively, friendly, colorful.

I found images of people along the walkway by the ocean. They are probably well known Puerto Rican musicians but I have not further identified them. Here are a three of them.

The next four are details of a mural on a long wall. I could see parts of it – others sections were blocked by parked cars.

Calle Cerra

Calle Cerra runs south from Avenida Juan Ponce de Leon. It crosses Avenida Fernando Juncos and goes south for three more blocks. It is a small area rich in public art. And not all of it is wall murals. Here are some examples of yarn art I found on a fence.

Theme: Puerto Rican Flag

Artists often use the Puerto Rican flag as a starting point for their work. Here are some examples. I’ll identify the location in the captions.

Conclusion

I’ve been capturing images of street art here for six or seven years now. I am surprised, when I go through my images, to see how few of the works I’ve captured remain. So enjoy the images above while you can – the originals won’t be there for long.

Sources

These are all my images. In most cases, I’ve done minimal editing – I’ve cropped them to remove extraneous background and adjusted the levels. I did more extensive edits to the second to last Calle Cerra image. I made the background a uniform color and brightened the other colors. I use Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop and sometimes InDesign for my work.

Late January 2021

Introduction

Wall art (street art, street murals, whatever) is temporary. The art fades, becomes defaced, gets painted over. I notice a one-time favorite gone. Sometimes I go through my library of images to remember them. Here are a few. You’ve probably seen some before. But they still intrigue me.

Calle Canale

Calle Canale connects Condado to Santurce. It goes underneath the highway separating the two neighborhoods and passes near the Placita de Mercado. Someone, some group, recently painted the bridge abutment.

Apparently ADMCRU identifies the work of a group of street artists. Click here for other examples of their work. I have to admit I don’t particularly like it. And I miss what was painted over. Here are some recent images of the artwork underneath the new paint.

I had long been intrigued by these works and had spent some time editing them. Here are three examples of my edits.

Copyright?

Someone commented on one of my earlier blogs on street art and wondered if I had obtained permission from the artists. He/she wondered if some of the works were protected by copyright. (I inadvertently deleted that comment before I could reply.)

I did some internet research. Here is what I think I learned. I am free to take pictures of wall art – they are public things in public places. I may or may not choose to identify the artist. In many cases, the artist is unidentified, as in the works above. If the artists name is on the mural, I try not to delete it.

I am free to edit my images any way I wish. Once I capture the image, it is mine and I can do with it what I want. I can share my work informally with my friends, and via, for example, this blog.

What I cannot do is use any of the my edits for profit. I can’t sell postcards based on the images without attempting to contact the artist and obtaining his/her permission and, perhaps, contractual arrangement. Which is too bad because I think some of my wall art edits would make attractive post/notecards.

I wonder what happens to a copyright if a work is painted over, as happened here. The original work no longer exists. My images are a record of what was and no longer what is. Does a copyright still pertain? Anyone care to share your thoughts with me?

Other Examples

Here is a comparison of what is now and once was on a wall on a side street near the Placita de Mercado.

You’ve seen this one before. The Woman with Green Face adorned a wall in the Sagrado Corazon neighborhood. She’s long since painted over.

Here is another mural that has long intrigued me, again in the Sagrado Corazon neighborhood.

Defacement

Here is another example of defacement.

I’m not sure how to translate the words on this mural. The best I can do is “Jose Luis Feliciano Pillo the bird the incest . .” And of course loco means crazy. If you can, feel free to send me a better translation.

New?

I noticed this mural the other day, on a side street off of Calle Cerra. I haven’t done any editing yet but I’m cdertainly intrigued.

The 1492 mural interests me. I’ll have to see what do with it once I start my edits. For example, would it be effective in black and white?

Stay tuned.

Mid January 2021

Introduction

The San Juan Star, the English language newspaper here, devotes two issues in late December to a recap of significant news events. I’ll use that as a starting point for my description of events as I experienced them. I’ll liven the post with images. They won’t necessarily relate to the topic but they’ll add some color.

January 2020

On January 3, the World Health Organization reported an outbreak of pneumonia caused by a new type of corona virus. The first cases were reported in Wuhan, China.

A magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck the south western part of the island on Jaunary 6, Three Kings Day. A swarm of earthquakes had begun in that region on December 28, often with four or five small tremors each day.

A 6.4 magnitude earthquake occured in the early morning hours of January 7, again just off the south western coast. We felt the tremors here in San juan, about 70 miles away, and felt several aftershocks during that day. The earthqauke was strong enough to cause generating stations along the south coast to stop. Power went off across the whole island as crews reviewed damage. Fortunately, the power outage here lasted only six or so hours.

Puerto Rico is in a seismically complex zone and earthquakes are a constant risk. I wrote about that in an earlier post. Refresh your memory here.

On January 17, citizens were working to distribute supplies to people affected by the earthquakes. Officials found a warehouse in the La Guancha section of Ponce filled with supplies (cots, bottled water, disposable diapers, gas stoves, FEMA blue tarps, etc.) dating from October 2017 and that should have been distributed after Hurricane Maria. An activist posted a video on social media; thousands flocked to the site demanding that the supplies be distributed.

That same day, Governor Wanda Vasquez Garced fired Carlos Acevedo, then Director of the Emergency Management and Disaster Bureau. At the time, the Governor stated she did not know of the warehouse. A subsequent investigation revealed she had signed an “Joint Operational Catastrophic Incident Plan” that noted the warehouse and its cached supplies.

On Jaunary 27, the Puerto Rico Health Secretary, Rafael Rodriguez Marcado, said he thought covid would not arrive on the island since there were no direct flights from China to Puerto Rico. He was more worried about the illegal aliens arriving from China as potential virus carriers. He did not give numbers for how many individuals that might entail.

February

San Juan hosted the Caribbean Series (Serie del Carribe) at the Hiram Bitthorn Stadium in Hato Rey. Five countries besides San Juan sent teams. Click here for an earlier post.

On February 24, Neulisa Alexa Luciano Ruiz, a homeless, Black, trans woman was murdered in Toa Baja, in the eastern part of the San Juan metro complex. Someone had called the police and reported, falsely, that Ruiz had used the women’s bathroom in a local McDonalds. The Puerto Rican LGBTQIAP+ community held a vigil at the Unversity of Puerto Rico to pay respect and raise awareness. The theme was that trans lives matter and deserve better.

There has not yet been an arrest in the case.

March

On March 1, Health Chief Rodriguez Marcado said that the coronavirus could arrive in Puerto Rico after all. He noted the first case in the Dominican Republic, brought by an Italian woman there on holiday.

On March 8, the Puerto Rican Health Department noted its first suspicious case – a 68 year old Italian woman who had flown from Italy to Miami to board the cruise ship Costa Luminosa. San Juan was its first port call; Jamaica had barred it for corona virus fears. She was treated at the Ashford Presbyterian Hospital in Condado,

A Panamanian doctor arrived and vacationed in San Juan during the first full week of March. Among other things, he attended the National Day of Salsa – with 25,000 other people – at the Hiram Bitthorn Stadium in Hato Rey. He discovered, upon his return to Panama, he was covid-19 positive. The Puerto Rican Health Department, starting on March 11, scrambled to trace his activities while here.

Governor Vazquez declared a state of emergency on March 12.

Rodriguez Marcado resigned as Secretary of Health, effective March 13. There were at that time three confirmed covid cases on the island.

The first covid-related death occurred during the week on March 15. She was a 48-year old private school teacher, married to a police officer. There were no reports of pre-existing conditions.

Governor Vazquez ordered a full lock-down starting March 19.

April

On April 5, the Health Department executed a contract with contractors Apex and 313 LLC for around a million coronovirus rapid test kits. The contract was worth $38 million dollars. Neither company had experience with medical device management; both had ties to the ruling New Progressive Party. Governor Vazquez, on April 8, defended the contract, calling the arguments against it “distractions.” She alleged that no permission was required since the island was under a state of emergency. Natalie Jaresko, Executive Director of the Financial Oversight and Management Board, stated on April 9 that all government purchases were subject to review.

By the end of April, 92 people here had died from covid.

May

A group of mothers aided by various non-profits sued the government to keep school cafeterias open. They argued that, given the high rate of poverty among school-aged children (6 in 10 by some estimates), the school cafeterias provided a major part of their nutritional needs. The government counter-argument pointed out that 64% of cafeteria workers were elderly and at increased covid risk. On May 7, a judge agreed to consider the lawsuit.

On May 27, 27 year old Erica Rodriguez became the youngest Puerto Rican yet to die of covid.

There were 129 recorded covid deaths as of May 27.

June

Governor Vazquez on June 1 signed new Civil and Electoral Codes. The LGBTQIAP+ and various community organizations opposed the legislation, arguing the process had lacked transparency and the code could create confusion over earned rights such as abortion, marriage equality, gender change on birth certificates, and surrogacy.

The new Electoral Code went into effect before the primaries.

On June 11, Governor Vazquez allowed some businesses to reopen. External tourism remained closed.

As of June 24, 149 Puerto Ricans had died from covid.

July

In a July 12 interview with The New York Times, former secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke reported that President Trump’s first reaction to Hurricane Maria in 2017 was to sell Puerto Rico.

Protestors, some in traditional Taino clothing, demanded the U. S. Government remove statues of Spanish explorers, including those of Christopher Columbus and Ponce de Leon. This happened on July 11.

On July 16, Governor Vazquez again ordered the closure of bars, movie theaters, and gymnasiums.

On the last day of July,Tropical Storm Isaias passed north of the island but close enough to cause damage. About 448,000 people and 23 hospitals lost power; 150,000 lost water service because of the power outage or blocked intakes. Yauco had no power and was cut off by floods or fallen trees.

August

On August 3, Jose Ortiz resigned. He had been the CEO of PREPA, the state-owned power utility. Thousands were still without power. Ortiz could not explain why the power grid, rebuilt after Hurricane Maria, was so vulnerable to gale-force winds.

Island-wide primary elections, orginally scheduled for June, began on August 9. A shortage of ballots in some polling places caused some polling places to reopen on August 16. Governor Vazquez lost her primary.

A 8 cm thick auxillary cable pulled out of its socket at the Arecibo radio telescope during the early morning hours of August 10. The cable ripped through some of the aluminum panels making up the dish. A main cable snapped on November 10; the whole structure collapsed on December 1.

On August 17, the FBI arrested Representative Maria Milagros Charbonier on corruption charges. She was known for her anti-LGBTQ positions.

September

October

An illegal landfill was found in Aguas Buenas. The mayor explained the pandemic’s lockdown had given residents time to do home remodeling projects. The landfill was needed for the trash from those projects. The municipality had requested a permit for the landfill; the request had been tied up for five months.

November

Island wide elections were conducted on November 3. I wrote about them earlier – click here to read that post.

On November 5, the FBI arrested Representative Nestor Alonso on corruption charges.

On November 9. a contract dispute between LUMA Energy and PREPA, the state-owned power authority, comes to light. PREPA may have to pay LUMA $100 million more than expected. The disputes hinges on LUMA’s tax empt status.

On November 16, the Puerto Rican Department of Transportation (DTOP) introduced a new digital ticketing system. The DTOP claimed the new system will end the incorrect issuing of traffic tickets and make routine tasks like license or registration renewal easier.

On November 19, Resident Commissioner Jennifer Gonzalez Colon made a case for statehood on the floor of the US Congress. She noted 623,000 of those who cast ballots in the November 3 election voted yes on the statehood issue, a clear majority. She also noted the question of statehood gained more votes than any other party or candidate on the ballot.

On November 24, Special Independent Prosecutors Miguel Colon Ortiz and Leticia Pabon said they did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute participants in the Telegram chat scandal. That scandal, also known as RikiLeaks, began when the press published transcripts of chats among then Governor Ricardo Rossello Nevares and his staff. The chats were often homophobic, misogynist and otherwise outrageous but apparently not illegal. The scandal did cause Rosello to resign in August 2019 after several days of riots.

December

Yashaira Alicea, a respiratory therapist in a San Juan emergency room, was the first person in Puerto Rico to get vaccinated against covid. Dr. Samuel Suarez also received the vaccine. He treated Dona Rosa, the italian tourist from the cruise ship Costa Luminosa. This happened on December 15.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz said on December 23 she would consider returning to politics and run for office in 2024. In the meantime, she had accepted an offer from an unnamed university in Massachusetts. She said she would write a book about her two mayoral terms with emphasis on crisis management. In August,Cruz lost her party’s primary for governor.

On December 28, Governor Vazquez signed an executive order saying the reconstruction of the Arecibo Observatory was an official policy objective of the Puerto Rican government.

As of the end of December, 1,521 Puerto Ricans had died of covid.

Notes and Sources

Most of this material is from the San Juan Star. I augmented that information with various Wikipedia articles including 2020 in Puerto Rico, and COVID-19 Pandemic in Puerto Rico.

Mid November 2020

Introduction

By cosmic coincidence, seven planets are visible in the night sky this week. Mercury and Venus are visible in the early morning; Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune in the evening sky. Uranus is also visible, but only with the aid of a telescope.

The unusual planetary alignment caused me to think about exploration and discovery. It is sobering to realize how much more we know about the planets than my parents’ generation did. We are in a new age of discovery and it started when I was in my early high school years. It was certainly an exciting time for a kid interested in science. And it is continuing. Did you know that right now there is a probe named after an Italian mathematician headed to Mercury? And three, each from a different space agency, to Mars? Or that a NASA satellite is in orbit around Jupiter? I didn’t think so.

So here are some tidbits about the planets and some of their visitors.

Mercury

Mercury is visible low on the eastern horizon just before sunrise. It is near the star Spica and Venus.

Early Missions

Being close to the sun, Mercury is a difficult target for space craft. There have been two missions to Mercury; a third is on the way. Mariner 10, launched on November 1, 1973, attained solar orbit by mid-1975. It flew by Venus on its way into orbit. Mariner 10 flew by Mercury three times and mapped 45% of its surface. It also detected, in a bit of a surprise, a magetic field much like that of Earth.

The MESSENGER space craft was launched in August of 2004. It made gravitational slingshot flybys of Earth (February 2005), Venus twice (October 2006 and October 2007) and Mercury three times (January and October 2008 and September 2009) before achieving orbit around Mercury in 2011. Out of propellant, it crashed onto Mercury’s surface on April 30, 2016.

The spacecraft’s name shows NASA’s love of acronyms – the full name of the probe was MErcury Surface, Space Environment, GEochemistry and Ranging. Whatever its name, the mission was successful and returned about 10 terabytes of formatted data. Among its notable discoveries – water ice at Mercury’s north pole.

BepiColombo

The European Space Agency in cooperation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency lauched the BepiColombo probe to Mercury on October 20, 2018. It will achieve orbiit around Mercury in December 2025 after gravitational slingshot flybys of Earth (once), Venus (twice) and Mercury (six times). It will then release two small satelittes, in different orbits, to study the planet.

By the way, the probe is named after Guissepe “Bepi” Colombo (1920 – 1984), a mathematician from the University of Padua. He proposed the slingshot flyby manuever as first successfully implemented by Mariner 10.

Venus

Like Mercury, Venus is visible low on the eastern horizon, just before dawn. It is a little higher than Mercury, and a bit to the right.

Early Missions

Venus has been the target for multiple space probes: 18 in the 1960s, 11 in the 1970s, seven in the 1980s, one in the 2000s and five in the 2010s. That is not to say all have been successful – during the 1960s, five missions were successful, and 13 failed for one reason or another – explosions on the launch pad, communications failures, etc.

The Russians had an early interest in Venus. The Venera 4 probe (launch June 1967) sampled Venus’s atmosphere; Venera 7 (August 1970 launch) was the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on another planet. The lander Venera 9 (June 1975) was the first to transmit images from the surface of another planet. Check here for a full list of missions and comments on their success/failure.

Surface Conditions

Venus, named for the Roman goddess of love, is anything but hospitable. The atmosphere (96.5 % carbon dioxide, 3.5 % nitrogen, traces of other gasses) is dense – surface pressure about 92 times that of earth, and hot – surface temperatures of 860 F. Venus is seismically active, with current volcanic activity. NASA and other enginners are beginning to design a Rover of some sort for a Venus landing. It is a daunting task – just keeping the thing cool enough for the electronics to function will be difficult.

Mars

Mars is visible in the evening sky. It will be near the waxing gibbous moon during the week of November 25.

Early Missions

There have been 46 missions to Mars – three more are on the way, all launched during the favorable July 2020 launch window. I’ll focus on those. Click here if you want to review the missions, with comments as to success and failure.

United Arab Emirates Space Agency (UAESA)

The United Arab Emirates created UAESA in 2014 to foster expertise in the space industry. In 2015, it established partnerships with the French and UK space agencies. It has overseen the launch of commercial communications satellites from EADS, Boeing, and others. On September 25, 2019, an Emeriti astronaut was lauched to the International Space Station from the Baikonar cosmodrome.

The 2020 mission to Mars is the USAEA’s first effort at exploring another planet. The Hope orbiter, built by a unit of the University of Colorado with several subcontractors, was launched on July 20, 2020 and will attain orbit in February of 2021. It is designed to study seasonal and localized weather patterns, and will make measurements to try to understand why the Martian atmosphere is losing oxygen and hydrogen to deep space.

China National Space Administration (CNSA)

The CNSA used a Long March 5 heavy rocket to launch the ambitious Tianwen-1 to Mars from its Wenchang launch site, on July 23, 2020. The mission includes an orbiter, a lander, a rover, and a detachable camera. The orbiter should achieve orbit by mid-February 2021, the lander should reach the Martian surface by April, and the rover should begin its work shortly thereafter. It will study the Utopia Planita region, in an area near the 2003 Beagle mission (see the Mars map above). Click here for a well-done simulation of the mission.

NASA

The Mars 2020 Perserverance Rover launched from Cape Canaveral on July 30, 2020. It is now in its cruise phase. This is another in NASA’s on-going robotic explorations of Mars.

The Perservance rover is an impressive piece of technolgy. It is the size of a small car – it weighs about 2,260 Earth lbs, is about ten ft long, nine ft wide and seven ft high. This is quite an advance from the first Mars rover – the Sojourner (landed July 4, 1997) – which was about the size of a microwave oven. Click here for a NASA video showing the rover’s features.

Perserverance should land in the Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. The crater, about 30 miles wide, is near the Martian equator in the Isidis Basin. The crater was apparently a lake at one time as there are inlet and outlet structures and what appears to be an alluvial fan within the crater. Mission scientists think this is an excellent place to find evidence of early life on Mars – in fact, astrobiology is the dominant theme of the whole Mars 2020 mission.

Helicopter on Mars?

And the Perservance is carrying a small helicopter, named Ingenuity. The 4 lb drone is a technology demonstrator – it carries no instruments. The goal is to see if and how it works in the thin Martian atmosphere.

NASA has an excellent website with all sorts of information about the mission. And you can sign up for Mars Newsletters, delivered via email. I wish, with apologies to Ray Bradbury, NASA had named them The Martian Chronicles. Another PR opportunity missed.

Jupiter and Saturn

The two giant planets are near each other, to the south west, in the evening sky, They are now near the waxing crescent moon.

Missions to Jupiter

There have been eight missions to Jupiter – six flybys and two orbital insertions – all managed by NASA. Pioneers 10 and 11 flew by Jupiter in the early 1970s, as did Voyager 1 and 2 in 1979. The Galileo orbiter, launched from the Space Shuttle Atlantis, attained orbit on December 8, 1995. The probe lasted for eight years, burning up in the Jovian atmosphere in September, 2003.

The Ulysses (1992) passed Jupiter on its way to a heliocentric orbit; the Cassini-Huygens (2000) on its way to Saturn. In 2007, the New Horizons passed nearby on its way to deep space.

The Juno orbiter, launched on August 5, 2011, entered orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Juno was suppossed to stay in the original orbit – with a period of 53 days – and then, after a course correction burn, move into an orbit with a 14 day period. However, NASA engineers, prior to the second burn, discovered faults in two helium valves. Mission scientists then decided to maintain Juno in the 53 day orbit.

The higher orbit means that Juno is in a less severe radiation environment., thus allowing the mission to be extended. It is now planned to end it in 2021, with a fatal dive into the Jovian atmosphere.

You can follow the Juno mission by visiting NASA’s Juno website here.

Missions to Saturn

I wrote about this in an earlier post. If you missed that example of erudition and wit, shame on you. You can make amends by clicking here now.

Uranus, Neptune, Pluto

Uranus will rise this afternoon on the horizon to the north-north west and will be best visible about 10 30 PM, here is San Juan. Neptune is visible low in the northwest sky, early in the evening.

By the way, click here for an excellent, interactive website that gives directions and best time to view objects in the sky.

Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to visit both Uranus and Neptune.

Both Voyager 1 and 2, now in interstellar space, are still active. Click here for their current status.

Conclusion

We are living in an unprecedented era of planetary exploration – something we’ve begun to take for granted. I think it is good to get excited about some of this stuff – just like I was back in high school.

If you are interested in a telescope, consider this: sales of telescopes increased by 400 – 500 % over last year. This is undoubtedly due to the covid pandemic. Here’s my plan: wait a year or two and, as things get back to normal, I suspect there will be slightly used telescopes of all sorts for sale. Keep checking Craigslist or other such venues – I’m sure you’ll find a good deal.

Notes and Sources

The Mercury image and many others can be found here.

The image of the BepiColombo probe is from this site.

The BepiColombo image of Venus is from here.

See the desctiption of the twin Venus images here.

Click here for information about the Venus surface image.

Follow this link for more information about the UAE mission to Mars.

You can find more information on the Tianwhen-1 mission here.

The NASA website on the Mars 2020 Perservance mission is excellent, as is their website for the Juno mission.

Mid November 2020

Introduction

The election results are in and it is fair to say the results demonstrate a diversity of political opinions here. As I mentioned in my previous post, most races attracted candidates from five parties, and sometimes an independent as well. So here are the results for a few of the races and an overview of some others.

Late Breaking News

The election commission here, on 11/11/2020, reported finding 184 ballot containers filled with uncounted ballots. Given the closeness of some of these races, one wonders how these ballots will reflect the results I present below. Stay tuned.

Governor

Pedro Pierluisi of the New Democratic Party (NDP) barely defeated former Isabela Mayor Carlos Delgado Altieri of the Popular Democratic Party (PDP). Here are the results by percentage of the total turnout of about 1,200,000,

• Perdro Pierluisi Urrutia (NDP) 32.93%
• Carlos Delgado Altieri (PDP) 31.56%
• Alexandre Lugaro Aponte (Citizen’s Victory Movement) 14.21%
• Juan Dalmau Rodriguez (Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP)) 13.72%
• Cesar Vazquez Muniz (Project Dignity) 6.9%
• Eliezer Molina Perez (Independent) 0.69%

So the pro-statehood NDP retains the governorship, but not by much. In a bit of a surprise, all five parties received enough votes to be registered. That means they have an assured place on the next ballot.

I ran into my friend Eduardo after the election. As usual, he provided me with interesting insights. I asked if there would be a runoff election given that no candidate won a majority. He said not under current law but that is being considered.

Resident Commissioner

The incumbent Jennifer Gonzalez was reelected with 40.85% of the vote. She, like the Governor, is a member of the pro-statehood NDP. In this election, the pro-Independence party candidate, Luis Roberto Pinero, received 6.37% of the vote, last among the five candidates.

Statehood

The non-binding referendum on statehood passed, with Yes votes coming in at 52.34%. Prior to the election, the NDP promised to promote statehood if the referendum passed. It will be interesting to see how this plays out – the invitation for statehood has to come from the U. S. Congress. Given that the House will be majority Democrat and the Senate will (most likely) be majority Republican, it would seem statehood will not be high on anyone’s agenda. And if statehood in general is up for discussion, one wonders how the issue of Puerto Rican statehood meshes with statehood for the District of Columbia.

Tennessee was the 16th state to join the union, and the first state to have been a territory prior to statehood. It seems that Puerto Rico is in a somewhat similar position, I wrote about the so-called Tennessee Gambit in an earler post.

I’m going to check and see how many other former territories had the option of independence or statehood. Texas and California come to mind. I’ll have to research that.

Again, my friend Eduardo has an interesting perspective. He is pro-independence and suggests there should be an island wide referendum with three choices: statehood, independence, and the status quo. The top two choices would then be on the final, binding referendum.

As a San Juan native, Eduardo is full if useful information. One time I asked why a particular stretch of beach, popular with surfers, was called Playa de Ocho, Beach Eight. He told me it was because it was the eighth stop on the street car line leaving San Juan.

I have heard San Juan natives say something is near stop (Parada) 15 even though stop 15 no longer exists. It is a code known only to San Juan natives.

Parada 18 was apparently an important interchange point, and there is a building there named Parada 18. The Parada 18 bar and restaurant is close by, on Avenida Ponce de Leon.

There is, at least the last time I was there, a Parada 18 restaurant in San Francisco, on Haight Street past Amoeba Music heading towards the east end of Golden Gate Park. Check it out the next time you’re in San Francisco. I’m sure they serve Puerto Rican specialties.

Senate and House

Every seat in the Commonwealth is up for election every four years and so every Senator and Representative faced reeelection.

In the Senate, the New Progressive Party lost their 2/3 majority, dropping to nine seats of the 27 in the senate. The Popular Democrats gained seats, to a total of 13. The senate is the most diverse in history with five parties represented: Citizens Victory Movement – two, one each for Project Dignity and the Puerto Rico Independence Party. In addition, there is one senator not affiliated with any party.

The situation is similar in the House, with all five parties represented. The Popular Democrats have 26 of the 51 seats, the New Progressives 21, with two to the Citizens Victory Movement and one each to Project Dignity and the Puerto Rican Independence Party.

And there is always the sceptre of corruption. One NPP representative, Nestor Alonso Vega, has resigned since the election. Vega was indicted by a federal grand jury and faces nine federal charges, including receiving illegal commissions (aka kickbacks), wire fraud, and theft of federal funds from the government of Puerto Rico. He was arrested by the FBI.

No one would be surprised if other arrests were to occur, with similar charges against other individuals.

Mayor of San Juan

Miguel Romero of the New Progressive Party is the Mayor-elect of the capitol city of San Juan. Romero was elected over four other candidates and recieved 36.22% of the votes cast. He is a political veteran, having held several offices. Romero once served as Chief of Staff to a governor, and twice represented Puerto Rico at the Democratic National Convention.

Conclusion

Puerto Rico faces a challenging time with a diverse, divided government. It will be interesting. But I am looking forward to the Inauguration, on New Years Day. In the past it has been a festive time, with music, a procession from the Capitol to the Governor’s Mansion, etc. It will be interesting to see how covid will affect the event.

Late March 2020

Introduction

I suppose everyone has felt, at one time or another, that they were being watched. I sometimes feel that way in my walks around San Juan. I’ve decided to share some of the wall art that may have caused that paranoid feeling.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ve seen some of these before. But there are some new ones as well.

The images have been minimally edited. I’ve cropped them and adjusted levels. I’ll share a more completely edited image at the end.

Unadorned Eyes

I’ll start with an old favorite of mine – Woman witn Green Face. She is gone, having been painted over. But she is still evocative.

Here is a recent find. She iseems to be wearing the uniform of the Puerto Rico national team. Perhaps she is a well know local athlete.

Here’s a somewhat sterner face.

The woman below seems to be curious about something.

I don’t get the next one. If anyone can tell me the significance of a woman holding a rooster with a key dangling from his beak and a pineapple in her other hand I’d like to hear it. I very much like this. Perhaps some day I’ll devote some time to editing it – removing the wires, etc. I think it would be worth the effort.

I’m not quite sure what the next woman is holding. Is it a conch shell? A piece of fish? Some kind of fruit? Any ideas? Let me know.

A friend of mine calls the next one Proud Woman. I like that name for her. She does have much to be proud of.

I really like the next one, except for the window in the upper left. Reto y Resistencia means challenge and resist; the art probably dates from the anti-government demonstrations in August of 2019.

I have to admit I don’t recall where I first saw the Woman on Blue Background. I’ll have to go through my notes and see if I can find a reference to her.

Finally, to end this section, another stern woman, this time on a colorful background.

Bespectacled Eyes

Some eyes peer out through spectacles. Here are a few examples.

I found the Woman with Fashionable Glasses on Calle San Miguel. A resident there saw me taking pictures and graciously came out and moved his car out of the way,

This guy looks pious enough. I first thought he was a priest but I think the jewelry and tattoos signify another type of concentration. I’m not sure what – any ideas?

This old guy is probbly glad he has a fixed income pension, and that happy hour is approaching.

I found the next example on the door of a shop on Avenida Juan Ponce de Leon in Santurce.

Here is another recent find. He looks like he is getting ready to say something important

I’ll finish this section with an image suggesting everything is OK.

Non-Human Eyes

Here are a few examples of alien eyes I found.

I don’t quite get the space suit and the candle, or the three eyes. I suppose it could have something to do with the corona virus but the painting predates that.

I suspect people walking along a pedestrian mall in Rio Piedras get nervous when they see the next example.

The next example is also from Rio Piedras.

The last one in this section reminds me of something that you might see in an old Indiana Jones movie, guarding the entrance to some archaeological wonder.

Disembodied Eyes

Every once in a while I see wall art featuring eyes with little reference to a body. Here are a few examples.

The next eample is more of a disembodied head. This certainly does capture the agony Puerto Ricans felt during the political demonstratons of the summer of 2019.

I like the way the Puerto Rican flag is used in the eye below.

Flower Power

Every once in a while an artist uses flowers as eye cover. Here is one example.

Eyes Wide Shut

One final example. I found this character in a wall in Santurce. Maybe he is dreaming of a plantain.

Editing

As I said in the beginning, these images are minimally edited. I wanted to show one example of more extensive editing. I’ll show the origianal as obtained from my camera, and the final after I worked on it.

Conclusion

I had great fun putting this together. And I have plenty more. Stay tuned.

Notes and Sources

The images are mine. I use a Sony point and shot digital camera and Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop for post processing.

Mid-February 2020

Introduction

As I’ve written before, the street art in San Juan is fanciful, colorful, and ever-changing. I’ll be showing some new works. They may be newly created, or maybe they are just new to me. These images are minimally edited – I’ve cropped them and adjusted the levels. That’s all. I’ll show you an example or two of fully edited images at the end of the post.

The Puerto Rican Flag

Some of the works use the Puerto Rico flag, sometimes optimistically, sometimes not. Here are a few examples.

The second and third stories of a building on Calle Cerra, in the Santurce neighborhood of San Juan.

Sports

A relatively few examples of street art show sports figures. Here are a few.

Animals

Street art frequently employs representations of animals, sometimes realistic, sometimes more fanciful. Here are a few examples.

Faces

Next I’ll show some examples of street art featuring faces – some beautiful, some ironic, all interesting.

Miscellaneous

There are always things that are difficult to categorize. Here are two examples.

Edits

I mentioned in the beginning that these were minimally edited. I’ve been working on converting some examples of wall art to black and white. I’ll show two before and after examples.

Final Thoughts

So there is some of the street art I’ve encountered in the past two months or so. There’s a whole lot more – stay tuned.

Notes and Sources

I took and edited all of these images. I use a small digital point and shoot camera and edit with Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop.

Comments always welcome.