By Andy Sundberg

October 16, 2012, will be the 50th Anniversary of the signing of legislation that brought to an end the right of Americans living and working abroad to compete in world markets under the same terms and conditions as everyone else.

As background text for the solemn jubilee mourning of this sad event, the attached 50 page document has been prepared to help you better understand the myriad arguments that have continued to be put forward to keep justifying not only this strange and uniquely self-destructive fiscal initiative, but also many other changes in US laws and regulations that have been introduced during the last 50 years that also have also contributed to the ever mounting difficulties overseas Americans face all over the world today.

The first steps of this sad story were taken only three months after John F Kennedy became president in January 1961. In a tax reform message addressed to the US Congress, President Kennedy stated on 29 April 1961:

“It is no more justifiable to provide tax exemptions for individuals living in the developed countries than it is to provide tax inducements for capital investment there. Nor should we permit totally unjustified tax benefits to be obtained by those Americans whose choice of residence is dictated primarily by their desire to minimize taxes.

“I, therefore, recommend that the total tax exemption now accorded the earned income of American citizens residing abroad be completely terminated for those residing in economically advanced countries; that this exemption for earned income be limited to $20,000 for those residing in the less developed countries; and that the exemption of $20,000 of earned income now accorded those citizens who stay (but do not reside) abroad for 17 out of 18 months also be completely terminated for those living or traveling in the economically advanced countries.”

Read this again very, very carefully because it will henceforth be set in stone as the subsequent conventional mindset which will be adhered to by both American political parties. There is no virtuous reason why a US citizen would want to live and work abroad. All such decisions are “dictated primarily by their desire to minimize taxes”! How does he know this? He doesn’t say, nor does he or any of his successors ever feel the need to do so.

And this being by definition the default nefarious motivation for living overseas, the US Government obviously should then apply the appropriate punishment and go after overseas Americans, harass them, and keep taxing them no matter where they live and no matter what they might actually be doing. Sadly this negative and retributive attitude will never thereafter change.

The following year, on 16 October, 1962, when a significant portion of President Kennedy’s proposal had quickly been enacted and had now become the new law of the land, he issued the following triumphal statement saying:

“I HAVE today signed H.R. 10650, the Revenue Act of 1962. This is an important bill – one possessing many desirable features which will stimulate the economy and provide a greater measure of fairness in our tax system.

“It includes several provisions designed to reduce tax avoidance on incomes earned by American companies and individuals at home and abroad. By limiting the opportunities to escape tax liability, it makes the distribution of tax burdens fairer and increases our total tax revenues from those sources.

“In summary, this bill makes a good start on bringing our tax structure up to date and provides a favorable context for the overall tax reform program I intend to propose to the next Congress.”

How President Kennedy and his administration came to the conclusion that adding a unique and complicated extra tax burden to US citizens living abroad was supposed to help the economy of the United States is an extremely enigmatic and complicated story, and one whose legacy endures to this day. It established a new orthodoxy that every subsequent administration and Congress has loyally adhered to.

It is also well worth noting that neither President Kennedy, nor his two immediate successors, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, showed any real interest in coupling this extra tax burden with even a modicum of new benefits, nor even the right of overseas Americans to be able to vote in U.S. federal elections. It was history turned upside down and destined to be another period of “taxation without representation” that would make a mockery of one of America’s most fundamental founding principles.

This voting right only eventually became possible fourteen years later after the necessary legislation had finally been enacted during the Ford Administration, and even then it was and would remain a complicated and far from fair process. And, given the role that individual States continue to play up to today in setting some of the most important qualification parameters to vote in their States, many U.S. citizens who are born abroad to parents from these States, and who remain abroad, cannot qualify and still today cannot enjoy this right to vote in Federal elections.

And, sadly but emblematically, no President has ever felt the need to propose offering overseas Americans the right to have their own direct representation in the U.S. Congress, or even to have a separate voice of their own anywhere else in the U.S. Government.

During the subsequent five decades, as the U.S. tax code ballooned from 14,000 to more than 70.000 pages, many nefarious innovations were introduced. The U.S. dollar became the default currency in which overseas Americans were assumed to be transacting all of their financial activities, and so with moving exchange rates they could be making dollar apparent capital gains on transactions in a foreign currency that were actually real life losses. But this didn’t matter. They would be required to declare all such transactions and pay U.S. taxes on these real loses because in dollars they looked like apparent gains. Where they were supposed to find the funds to pay the taxes on these losses would be a problem that overseas Americans had to solve for themselves. But if they failed to declare these transactions, and pay the subsequent U.S. taxes on these losses, they might face not only fines but actually be charged with a felony and be sent to jail.

And then along came the requirement to file annual reports about every foreign bank account that an overseas American possessed, and submit reports about all transactions above a certain minimum amount. And, once again, failure to file such reports could lead to heavy fines and possible jail time, and this, not for having done anything wrong, but just simply for failure to file such reports! And with the new FATCA impositions about to be implemented, this reporting fiasco will explode!

Finally, it merits at least some mention that fifty years ago, before these extra fiscal and financial reporting burdens were put on the shoulders of overseas Americans, and while they were still fully able to compete with the citizens of other countries in the same foreign markets, the United States had enjoyed more than sixty-seven years of unbroken trade surpluses with the rest of the world. During the subsequent decade, after this new toxic tax burden was imposed on those living and working abroad, the U.S. foreign trade position began to weaken, as many had predicted, and a trade deficit appeared for the first time in the 20th century in 1971. As the tax burden on overseas Americans became increasingly heavy and increasingly incomprehensible, these deficits soon became a permanent fixture of U.S. trade performance, and we are now in our 36th straight deficit year with the cumulative amount of these trade deficits now exceeding $8 trillion.

It is not very obvious so far that the current Administration in Washington, despite the enthralling campaign promises that were made in 2008, has any serious interest in leveling the worldwide playing field for trade. The results for the first eleven months of 2011 already show an impressive deficit for this most recent year of more than $500 billion, which is the worst trade performance of the last three years, and this deficit still grows each and every day at a rate in excess of $1.5 billion. The aggregate trade performance for the first three years of the current administration is now a negative $1.4 trillion!

This history of the sad and incomprehensibly self-destructive behavior of the United States during the past 50 years, which is unique among all of the major trading nations of the world today, is well worth reading and contemplating.

As has been stated many times before, major world powers don’t always decline due to destruction coming from outside. They sometimes infect themselves with terminal obsessions from within that, alas, seem to then become incurable. This doesn’t have to happen this time to Uncle Sam, but to avoid it something rather urgent needs to be done before it becomes too late.

So Let Us Now All Rise Up, Join Together to Throw off These Shackles, and Take Appropriate Action to Prepare for a Much More Positive Future for All of Us, our Heirs and for Our Country. After five decades of living passively with increasing insults and incomprehensible harassment, now is the time for overseas Americans everywhere to join together to resist our government’s self-destructive behavior.

Let’s get appropriately organized to work creatively, diligently and effectively to reclaim our rights to be respected and to be able once again to compete all over the world free of the self-defeating impositions that have been so gratuitously imposed upon us by our own U.S. Government. We need to bring back the respect and fundamental rights we once all enjoyed, and that we fully deserve to all enjoy once again. Let’s go for it! As our nation’s history has clearly shown, working together the right way really works!

Andy Sundberg is a Fellow and Secretary, the Overseas American Academy, Geneva

Jack Widdowson 3 November in Bern:Ballett performance, "Ein Winternachtstraum" (photo©2011, Stadttheater/Philipp Zinniker)

From Cathy Marston

Jack has been an apprentice dancer with the Bern:Ballett since August through our collaboration with the London Contemporary Dance School. He is on a post-Graduate course in performance.

Although he only started dancing a few years ago he has enormous talent.

His creativity and dedication are inspiring to all around him and he is very hungry to learn from the experienced dancers around him.

On Thursday 3 November he danced the role of Demetrius in our world premiere “Ein Winternachtstraum” (“A Mid-Winter’s Nights Dream”, after Shakespeare’s Midsummer Nights Dream) with my choreography.

He had jumped into this solo role from the corps de ballet after another one of the company’s dancers broke his arm three weeks beforehand. Jack was wonderful on stage and displayed a great ‘presence.’

(photo©2011, Stadttheater/Philipp Zinniker)

(photo©2011, Stadttheater/Philipp Zinniker)

As choreographer and director of the Bern:Ballett I am devastated that such a talent may not be able to develop.

The dancers of the company are shocked and upset; Jack is a much loved, funny and kind colleague.

We are hopeful though, that his determination to recover will bring him back to us in due course.’

Thank you for your work to find the person who did this to Jack.

Cathy Marston

Ed. note: Read Antonio Padron’s earlier guest blog on GenevaLunch, for background:  an interview with Anouar Gharbi, president of Right for All

I had been wanting to report to people in Latin America and Switzerland about the plight of the Palestinian people. I decided to interview Anouar Gharbi and express my wish to him to  join the boat, “Freedom Flotilla 2″.

It was late in the afternoon and I was anxious.  I had heard that hundreds of people applied for the chance to show solidarity with the Palestinian people and I there would be no chance that I, a small freelance reporter from Cuba, would be selected. I decided to take my chances and call Anouar Gharbi to let him know of my worries. He said it was not looking good, but that he would try for my name to be selected.

I woke up the next day and my heart sank; I had not received a call from his secretary. I believed that now I would not be able to tell this story to the Cuban and Swiss people. I went to check my email and there was a message from Anouar Ghabi confirming that I had been selected to go onboard the Swiss and German boat as part of the flotilla to Gaza. I wanted to jump with excitement.

I was told there was to be a meeting in Bern. The meeting would be an information session by a Swiss government department to inform us about the kind of things we could expect on this adventure. There was the possibility of encountering danger, as happened with a Turkish boat when it was boarded by Israeli forces last May.

I headed for Athens in order to get to Corfu were I was told by the organizers that the ship, the “Stephano Corini” would be docked. I had never been to Greece before and I was not disappointed: the country is beautiful, especially the land of Corfu where the beaches remind me of my own country.

I settled down in the modest but very comfortable hotel the organizers had recommended, then received a telephone call instructing me to fly from Corfu to Athens to meet the organizers and other activists for a briefing about the kind of things we might encounter during this adventure. I thought to myself after the meeting that maybe this is not a good idea. We went through all the possible scenarios and it was pretty scary to know that Israeli forces might react with violence. But in the end I thought that to tell the story it was worth embarking on this endeavor. I headed back to Corfu, where we expected to sail in the next three days.

For the next two days we were constantly briefed by the organizers about the progress of negotiations with the Greek government and the apparent pressure put on by the Israeli government to not allow the flotilla to sail from Greece. We were not discouraged by the news. We tried to relax on the beach, enjoy the sun and have a good time between information sessions and constant drills.

On the fifth day the Greek government told our organizers that they had decided the flotilla would not be allowed to sail. Spirits fell in the group. Some started to pack up and head home due to the frustration and economic strain of the endeavor.

But there were some who refused to give up, such as American ex-marine Brian Curdy, who went from the jungles of Vietnam to the American base in my country, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He told me his government had lied to him during the cold war and that he felt betrayed, and he felt it was his duty to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. He was wounded by a mortar in Vietnam and he felt that the Vietnamese had all the right in the world to fight against the American soldiers.

The thing that amazed me the most about the flotilla is that there are people who are willing to put their lives at risk and to spend their own limited personal resources for such a worthy cause.

The trip did not come through. But I am sure that it will not be the last time such an effort will be made and I believe that one day I will be able to take that trip to Palestine.

Anouar Gharbi was born in Tunisia; he is the president of Right for all/Droit pour Tous, created in 2000. He and his family live in Geneva.

I first met Anouar Gharbi on a clear and beautiful day in April. He does not at first look like an activist involved in pro-Palestinian activities, but more like a lawyer representing angry wives and jealous husbands. When you speak with him, you notice that his soft-spoken voice disguises an iron determination to have his voice heard.

When he talks about the Middle-East, Gharbi is candid but frank. He thinks the “Arab Awakening” is a positive step in the right direction. But he quickly points out that the Arabs have a long way to go. It is not enough that the Egyptian and Tunisian people and many others have said “enough is enough”.

“Democracy is a process, not a quick militant action.” He notes that Israel can no longer call itself the only democracy in the Middle East. “Hope is alive,” Gharbi says, after seeing the millions who turned out to protest and demand change.

On Osama Bin Laden: Gharbi comments that Al-Qaida’s philosophy of violent jihad has become irrelevant, even completely outrageous. “The people want change. The men in power in the Middle East need to hear the voices of their populations. It is not enough to change faces; it is necessary to change policy. Many Arab leaders have supported the anti-Israeli resistance, but have not heard the cries from their people. In order for there to be progress, the people must be heard.”

On Syrian President Bashar Al Assad: Gharbi will tell you that his support for the many Arab resistance groups such as Hamas, PFLP and
Hezbollah, has been exemplary. “A strong Arab, but he has lost the support of his people by repressing them.”

Gharbi calls the situation in Gaza “catastrophic. The people in Gaza lack medical supplies and they live on donations. It does not help that the Israeli government has stopped all necessary aid from reaching the Palestinian population. That is the main idea of the flotilla to Gaza, to break the siege imposed by Israel. The international community must understand that in order to help the population in Gaza, the right amount of pressure must be put on Israel.”

When asked if Palestinians and Israelis can live side by side, he quickly points out that the Palestinian people must first be allowed to choose their own government without facing negative consequences from the international community. “They must be supported,” he says. “There are extremist forces on both sides.  There are those who want peace and those who want confrontation. In order for both people to live side by side, both sides must be heard and their opinions and rights must be respected. In relation to the rocket attacks by Hamas, both sides have accused each other of starting the offensive.”

Gharbi’s decision to establish his organization, Droit pour Tout, followed the 2000 visit by then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the Al Aqsa-mosque. “We are different peoples. This does not mean we can’t live together, it just means that we must each respect our differences.”

We turn our conversation to the September 11th terrorist attacks against the United States. When asked about conspiracy theories, he pauses and reflects. “While the attacks were most definitively perpetrated by Al Qaida, it would be a terrible mistake to think that the attacks did not help to serve long-held American interests to control and occupy the Middle East” for the region’s vast natural resources. “It was a shame that Osama Bin Laden could not be brought to trial. A lot of questions remain on this subject.”

The decision to form a no-fly zone over Libya is a controversial one for him. Western governments’ intentions might appear honest but their economic interests are ever-present and no one seems to pose the question, why Libya and why not Syria. “It is a dangerous game that Nato  is playing,” Gharbi says.

Gharbi argues that “pressure must be put on the Israeli government to respect United Nations resolutions”, noting that the only resolution the Israelis seem to respect is the foundation of the Jewish state. “Why hasn’t Israel been bombarded yet?” The international community decided to bomb Iraq because it did not respect the international community’s decisions, he points out, and Arabs are still waiting for the international community to say to Israel that “enough is enough”.

It was with great sadness that I learned that Don Curtis, a wonderful American who had been living here in Geneva for many years, had passed away last week on the 16th of June.

There will be a memorial service for Don at 3pm on Thursday, the 23rd of June, at the Emmanuel Church (formerly the American Church), 3 Rue de Monthoux, across the street from the Kempinski Hotel.

His family has asked that instead of flowers, you might want to consider a donation to the foundation, “SOS Villages d’Enfants Suisse, Cp 30-31935-2.”

Don was the former head of the Vestry at the American Church when I served as one of his colleagues there a decade ago.

He was a most kind and gentle leader, with much creativity, enthusiasm and generosity.

As this story published by Forbes in 2009 also indicates, Don was an active participant in the overseas American tax arena, as chief executive of Curtis & Co., and he was a key provider of much needed advice for many Americans here in Geneva.

Ed. note: Andy Sundberg, founder of American Citizens Abroad, occasionally contributes to this guest blog.

I was standing at the bar at Clubhouse in Geneva one evening recently, passing some time drinking and talking with my boyfriend. The place was packed with runners and soccer fans that night. Two men I didn’t know, and who didn’t know me, grabbed my handbag from the bar, where it was sitting right next to me, and ran out of Clubhouse.

I didn’t see it happen and I was oblivious to the fact that my bag was stolen.

My story ends well, though.

I turned around and suddenly saw my handbag being placed next to me at the bar. Two servers who were working at Clubhouse had seen my bag being stolen. These two men chased the thieves, and they must have done it without thinking twice because they caught up to them. They got my bag back and returned it, next to me.

Iain, one of the two servers explained what had happened and that the Geneva police were waiting outside for me to go to the station and file a complaint. It took about 30 minutes to do so, then I went home with all of my belongings: nothing was stolen. And the servers who caught the thieves were unharmed. Later, when I sent Iain an e-mail to thank him and say I was surprised, he told said it’s normal for them to help and protect customers.

Every time I tell my story to people, they are amazed. “You are so lucky,” I hear, because most such stories end badly.

I was very lucky to get my bag back. I only had three francs and change in my wallet, but my two credit cards (one French and one American), my US driver’s license, and finally some lip gloss, and receipts were among the miscellaneous things that were more important to me than the change. I’m working as an au pair, and it would have been a huge financial blow for me to have had to replace those things, especially my American cards.

Two weeks after the incident, I am still amazed that people I had never met would run after thieves to return a purse to a stranger. The thieves could have been carrying weapons. The two servers from Clubhouse are my heroes: although there is evil and criminal behavior in the world, human kindness also exists.

I hope that by sharing my story here, people who read it will do two things:

• keep a close eye on your things when you are out, whether in Geneva or any other city, even if it does not seem like a crime city
• think about the impact you can have on someone else’s life by helping them, no questions asked, just going out of your way—even a little bit, it doesn’t have to be chasing a crimina.

Matthew Stevenson is a Swiss-based writer, author of Remembering the Twentieth Century Limited, a collection of historical essays. He is also editor of Rules of the Game: The Best Sports Writing from Harper’s Magazine.

(Reprinted with permission from New Geography)

Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey (photo, 2009, Ellen Wallace)

Given that no one likes Switzerland’s banks, coo-coo clocks, high prices, smugness, dull cities, cheesy foods, or yodeling, I realize that it is too early to speak politically about “the Swiss Model.”

But it needs to be pointed out that while the European Union evaporates and Homeland America goes for broke, the world’s second oldest democracy (1291) has trade and budget surpluses, a multi-lingual population, a green network of trains and buses to every village, excellent public schools, and a federal-style government that is closer to Thomas Jefferson’s America than the bureaucratic monarchy that gives the king’s speeches in Washington.

Yes, the Swiss recently voted against the construction of minarets (NIMCP or “not in my cow pasture”) and for the eviction of immigrants convicted of serious crimes. (Would you vote “for” protecting the immigration rights of the rapist next door?) But a quarter of the students in Geneva’s public schools are foreign, and—in the age of focus groups and slick pollsters—the democracy remains in the hands of its citizenry, for better or for worse, which every two months votes on the referendums of the critical issues. On this month’s ballot is gun control.

A mythical Swiss story involves a man on a morning bus, chatting with someone standing near him, exchanging pleasantries about work and the weather, and discovering that his commuting friend is also the president of the Swiss confederation.

I had a similar experience. I had arrived at the Geneva Press Club on my bike, and discovered that the woman sitting near me was also the president, Micheline Calmy-Rey. To be clear, she was at the front of the room, and I was in the audience. But her unassuming manner was that of a bus commuter, and had she walked into the room unescorted, I would not have marked her as the leader of the country.

In a way, she is not. To be president of Switzerland is to be the head of a seven person federal council, whose members are apportioned according to the political parties in the parliament. Real power in the country remains vested in the villages and in the twenty-six cantons. Think of the Swiss president as the unlucky committee person who has to keep the minutes.

After the European revolutions of 1848, Switzerland adopted a federal constitution, in part modeled on the American system, although instead of the imperial presidency (which Jefferson called “a bad edition” of the Polish king), the Swiss went for an executive council. Benjamin Franklin had the same idea earlier for the U.S., but lost out to the more presidential Adams and Madison.

Each year, the members of Switzerland’s federal council draw straws for the presidency and the other executive offices, such as the portfolios for justice, sport, and economics. Technically, the chief executive is composed of the entire collective.

Recent presidents include Hans-Rudolph Merz and Doris Leuthard (often the Swiss president is a woman). The Merz administration, however, proved the limits of a referendum democracy in the fast-paced, somewhat dictatorial age of globalization.

From the German-speaking part of the country, and regarded by his critics as a small town politician, Merz had the misfortune to horse trade with Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi. The diplomatic row began when Hannibal, the son of the Libyan president, was arrested in a Geneva hotel for having mistreated his servants.

No one in Geneva doubts that Hannibal Qaddafi’s servants were treated little better than Arab slaves. The staff at the posh hotel reluctantly called the police to intervene. Warming to the Ali Baba-like themes of the crime, the local press published Hannibal’s mug shot, and the crisis was off to the camel races.

After picking up two Swiss businessmen in Tripoli with expired visas, Father Muammar — Qaddafi, that is — threw them into solitary confinement and vowed to release them only if the Swiss punished the Geneva police, apologized to Hannibal, and groveled inside the colonel’s tent.

Agreeing to Qaddafi’s terms, because the great Swiss trait is accommodation, Merz flew to Tripoli, thinking he had a Clintonian deal to return triumphantly to Bern with the Swiss hostages.

Instead, the colonel-for-life lectured Merz on the finer points of visa legislation, and the Swiss president flew back to Bern with only the hostages’ luggage, which had been loaded onto the presidential executive jet. The hostages had to serve humiliating prison terms, and a grateful nation watched Merz retire at the end of 2009. A government of “sapeur pompiers” (volunteer firemen) is not without its comic charms.

As she was then minister of foreign affairs, Calmy-Rey was not blameless in what the press calls the “Affaire Qaddafi,” but that didn’t prevent her from becoming president this year, her second time in the position.

At a press conference, she admitted, in so many words, that a rotating federal council perhaps wasn’t the best way to deal with erratic strongmen. Her actual words were much more diplomatic; she suggested that the council had lacked the “resources” to manage the crisis.

In person, I liked Calmy-Rey much more than I expected. Her image in the press is as a glad-hander, someone unwilling to tell Swiss detractors to stick it. She wore a head scarf to meet Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In person she’s thoughtful, well spoken, conversationally direct, up on the details of government, ever-so-slightly humorous, and modest, as if she were mayor of a small commune, which is another way to understand Switzerland.

I have been in Washington press conferences, and they are like a Versailles levée compared with a Swiss question-and-answer session. Calmy-Rey shared the modest dais with two officials and the head of the press club, as if they were panelists at a Rotary meeting.

Her formal remarks were confined to a budgetary review of the pluses and minuses of supporting “international Geneva,” the sprawling network of UN-related organizations that have come to roost in the city. At the cost of billions, laid on in office infrastructure and tram lines, the hope is that peace becomes part of the Swiss brand.

Everyone in the room who wanted to ask a question did, and Calmy-Rey stayed as long as it took to recite the liturgy on Brazilian floods, Middle East protest riots, banking secrecy, bilateral relations with the European Union, Kosovo’s future, nuclear Iran, building plans at the United Nations, Armenia and Turkey, the surplus of the federal budget, and more, until the room felt like a class eager for the break.

The conference hardly made the daily papers. The only sound bite was her answer to a question about whether the Swiss were prepared to give asylum to the WikiLeaks founder and publisher, Julian Assange. Calmy-Rey gave a broad, politically evasive smile, and said, in somewhat fractured English, “We cannot give what we have not been asked to give.”

Meaning: Neither Assange personally, nor any government, had approached the Swiss to grant him asylum. If I had to guess, I would say the Swiss would pass on granting asylum to Assange, just to avoid more aggravation with the Americans, who routinely use the Swiss as punching bags on banking secrecy and their nonaligned status in world affairs. In another context Calmy-Rey said, “We know we’re alone,” and that was a weakness in dealing with Qaddafi.

I found Calmy-Rey realistic and self-effacing on Switzerland’s diplomatic nether world. The country has to straddle “international Geneva” and its many world agencies with another Swiss impulse, which, in the words of George Washington, is to avoid “foreign entanglements.”

Switzerland has come through the recent economic horrors with its budget in surplus ($3 billion), and without any of the Euro debts that followed the long weekends in Ireland and Greece. Power remains in the cantons and the communes, which decide what to teach in the schools, how much tax to collect, and who lives in the villages.

Refreshing, as well, is that the Swiss president can travel in a motorcade of one (I noticed that her driver is a woman), if not on the bus. When Calmy-Rey was in her first term as president, my daughter Laura was in high school. One night at dinner she described shopping after school in a discount department store. In the checkout line she stood next to Calmy-Rey, who, by herself, was buying a blouse.

An additional bonus is that we now know that Andy, who is best known to many as the founder of American Citizens Abroad, was born on a truly special day, for on 6 January, over the centuries, the following have happened (credit goes to onthisday.com): the South Sea bubble was discussed, George Washington was married, Samuel Morse demonstrated the telegraph for the first time, the first commercial airplane flight took place, South Vietnam and the US launched a major offensive, known as Operation “Deckhouse V”, in the Mekong River delta, Britain recognized the Communist government of China – and the comic strip Peanuts debuted.

By Andy Sundberg, born 6 January 1941 in Hoboken, New Jersey

69 and All’s Well

An intergallactic report card

Birthdays are those special occasions when we can generously and gratuitously grant ourselves a brief indulgence to step back for a moment to reflect on the meaning of all this, and to contemplate what, if anything, we might have accomplished so far.

Obviously, we are free to choose any parameters we want and make any kind of calculations we think might enhance the significance of any bold claims we might be tempted to make.

After quickly having to admit the embarrassing lack of anything of any great moment to boast about, my search for bragging rights wandered off in the direction of how many different kinds of frequent flyer credits I might have accumulated to date, as the bits and pieces of “me”, in carne this time, were carried along, gratis, as a passenger within our inter-galactic space-time continuum.

So, for what it is worth, here are my accomplishments as of 3pm (Hackensack, NJ time) on the 6th of January, 2010.

On My Watch: Data from my birth certificate suggests that I have now been breathing continually for a full 69 years, which translates to roughly 604,830 hours (throwing in the leap year bonuses), which also comes to about 36.3 million minutes, or 2.17 billion seconds. Now that’s quite a few heartbeats!

Spinning Around the Earth: At the latitude where I have spent most of my life, a spot on the surface of the Earth moves tangentially at a rate of 1,073 kilometers per hour as the Earth spins. So this means that I have now spun through 649 million kilometers around the Earth’s axis since I was born.

Orbiting Around the Sun: As a “year” is the word we have assigned to define one complete circular tour our Earth makes around the Sun, I have now completed 69 of these full solar orbits as a free passenger on Spaceship Earth.

Accumulating Solar Orbit Frequent Flyer Credits: As Spaceship Earth circles around the Sun at a speed of 107,100 kilometers per hour, I have now clocked up 64.78 billion kilometres in solar orbit.

But that’s not all:

Cruising Toward Hercules: Our solar system, carrying Spaceship Earth along as a free passenger, moves within our Constellation, which we call “The Milky Way”, in the direction of the stars and planets comprising the Constellation Hercules at a rate of 72,360 km/hr. So I have now traveled 43.76 billion kilometers from whatever we want to call the starting point in space where I was born onward in this Herculean pilgrimage.

But wait, there’s still more:

Mega-Cruising Toward Leo: Our entire Milky Way Constellation moves through space toward the Constellation Leo at a rate of 2.16 million kilometers per hour. So I have now travelled 1.30 trillion kilometers from wherever we were when I was born in an intergalactic safari pursuing this elusive lion.

After all of this space travel, I still feel remarkably refreshed, thanks to whomever it was who decided to let me travel first class this time around. My only frustration is that I still haven’t figured out how to cash in all of these myriad frequent flyer credits, and the library of new travel brochures is awesomely intimidating.

A Few More Facts about Our Little Space Ship

Planet Earth is the third in distance from the Sun and the fifth largest in diameter. The mean distance of the Earth from the Sun is 149,503,000 km (92,897,000 mi). It is the only planet so far known to support life, although some of the other planets have atmospheres and probably contain water.

The Earth is not a perfect sphere but is slightly oblate, or flattened at the poles. The diameter of the Earth, as measured around the North and South Poles, is about 42 km (26 mi) less than the diameter of the Earth measured around the equator.

The Earth in Motion

The Earth and its satellite, the Moon, move together in an elliptical orbit about the Sun. The eccentricity of the orbit is slight, so that the orbit is virtually a circle. The approximate length of the Earth’s orbit is 938,900,000 km (583,400,000 mi), and the Earth travels along it at a velocity of about 107,100 km/h (about 66,000 mph).

In common with the entire solar system, the Earth is moving through space at the rate of approximately 20.1 km/sec or 72,360 km/h (approximately 12.5 mi/sec or 45,000 mph) toward the Constellation of Hercules.

The Milky Way galaxy as a whole, however, is moving toward the Constellation Leo at about 600 km/sec or 2,160,000 km/sec (about 375 mi/sec or 1,350,000 mph).

The Earth rotates on its axis once every 23 hr 56 min 4.1 sec (based on the solar year). A point on the equator therefore rotates at a rate of a little more than 1600 km/h (about 1000 mph), and a point on the Earth at the latitude of Portland, Oregon (45° north), rotates at about 1,073 km/h (about 667 mph).

The Earth’s Vital Statistics

Equatorial circumference – 40, 076.5 km (24, 902.4 miles)
Polar circumference – 40,008.6 km (24,860.2 miles)
Equatorial diameter – 12,756.34 km (7,926.42 miles)
Polar diameter – 12,713.54 km (7,899.83 miles)
Total surface area – 510,100,000 sq. km (196,950,000 sq. miles)
Volume – 1,083,230,000,000 cubic km (259,880,00,00 cubic miles)
Average density – 5.52 (water = 1)
Mass – 5.98×10^21 metric tons
Average temperature – 14C (57F)
Highest temperature – 58C (136F)

So Now You Know!!

And Now You Can Calculate Your Own Travel Results Too

If you want to calculate your own travel results so far, you can use the Birthday Calculator. Don’t touch anything except the number in the blue box at the top. Put in the number of years you have accomplished so far and the rest will calculate automatically.

Anyway, all the best and I hope you will enjoy the rest of this very welcome New Year 2010.

The reason, a helicopter delivering scaffolding and gradually lowering it onto the building that houses the Old Droguerie right in the centre of Nyon.

The noise of the whirring blades attracted the attention of passersby and the children coming home from school. All were fascinated by the skilful manoeuvring of both the helicopter pilot and the construction workers clinging on while putting the roof-like structure into place. There is a shortage of property in this area, so I guess this way of extending upwards is one way of getting a roof over one’s head!

Over 60,000 candles were lit by volunteers on Saturday night in the grounds of the Chateau of Prangins. The reason: to mark the 10 years the chateau has been the home of the Swiss National Museum.

Luckily there was no rain or wind on the night, the air was crisp and clear and when nightfall came, the thousands of tiny tea lights glowed in the courtyard, in the gardens, and around the trees in the grounds.

This spectacular light show was appreciated by the many visitors to the village for the event.

Trish Thalman, one of the volunteers who had come from Gland to help, said “there was a really good sense of creative community on the night, with everyone working together and being able to see the fabulous results at the end”.

Fabulous indeed.

Note: there are several more photos from the evening in my new Nyon Notes album; select “Photos” from the menu bar at the top of the page.