Pic of the Day 2019-01-28: the Shipwreck of State

I try to make my posts as relevant as possible to current events or special days. Yesterday was a fail,[1] and today is a bit of a stretch. Venezuela is in crisis. I have never been there, but have been close . . .  so this POTD features Aruba, a few miles to the north. In addition to the subtle nod to Venezuelan chaos, it is also part of my rebellion against winter this year.

There are several wrecks around Aruba, including the beached ship pictured here.

Several submerged wrecks make Aruba a good diving destination. The largest ship is the SS Antilla, a German merchant ship scuttled by her captain to avoid capture just after the outbreak of WWII in 1940. The SS California was a wooden steamship that wrecked off the N coast of Aruba in 1891. A lighthouse built two decades later to avoid similar outcomes is named for that ill-fated ship.

Plato relates Socrates’ use of the Ship of State analogy (Republic6. 488a–489d) to comment on selection of and qualifications for leaders of democracies. Here’s hoping that Venezuela can put a man at the helm who understands the winds of change and looks for the guiding light.

Thanks for looking!

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[1] 27 January is International Holocaust Remembrance Day; observed on the anniversary of the “liberation” of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp by the Soviet army in 1945. Sadly, I was unable to locate my pictures of Auschwitz and Birkenau for a somber POTD post.

Go to MAP of all Pic Of The Day locations!