HinesSight

Treasury secretary nominee favors Kyoto Treaty

George Bush seems to be warming up to the reality of global warming. Henry Paulson, his nominee for Treasury Secretary, is a supporter of the Kyoto Treaty and an avid environmentalist.

My head is reeling. Could it really be true that Bush has converted to fact-based, rather than faith-based, policy making? If so, the foundations of my Bush-bashing world will be shaken. I’ll be finding good things to say about a President who, up until now, has blundered along from faulty gut instinct to faulty gut instinct.

I worry that this is an aberration though.

Physics tells us that the quantum world is founded on probabilities, not predictable determinism. Just as there is a small but real possibility that a sub-atomic particle will tunnel through a solid barrier and be found on the other side, there must be a small chance that George Bush will do a few things right, if only at random.

Regardless, the conservative blathersphere is starting to bear its fangs against Paulson because of his Green leanings. Back in April a coalition of free market-based policy groups urged Bush not to appoint Paulson. One of his neo-con sins is that he has served as head of the Nature Conservancy which, horror of horrors!, seeks to conserve nature.

Can’t have that. Thus Human Events, a national conservative weekly, warns darkly: “Treasury Nominee is Ideologically, Ethically Challenged.”

Well, President Bush, give me more ideologically and ethically challenged appointees like Henry Paulson, please. You’ve got a long way to go before you begin to govern from the center, like you promised back in 2000. But it’s never too late to start.

Same with governing from a grounding in scientific facts. Try it. Whether or not you like it, the Earth and future generations certainly will.

Bush’s upside down Memorial Day

I’ve never flown the American flag on Memorial Day. I’m certainly not going to start now, because George Bush’s misguided policies have turned this day of remembrance upside down.

If I were to fly a flag, it’d have to be flown the same way, just as it was back in the Vietnam War protest days.

I used to be proud that American men and women died so we could preserve our freedoms. Now I’m not proud that our freedoms are being taken away so, supposedly, we won’t die.

That’s not the American way. That’s the cowardly way. The Bush administration wants us to forget “Live free or die” and adopt its neo-conservative creed of “Live unfree or you may die.”

I remember when conservatives were the staunchest defenders of the Constitution. I’ve got a long memory. Those days are long gone.

Now American citizens can be detained indefinitely without charges being filed against them. Now American phones can be wiretapped without a court order. Now the American president can decide on his own which laws he wants to comply with.

Bush likes to say that we’re fighting the terrorists there so we won’t have to fight them here. Well, since Al Qaeda wants to take away our freedoms, they don’t have to fight us anywhere to do that. George Bush is doing it for them.

And now an apparent cover-up of unprovoked murders by American Marines barely raises anyone’s eyebrow. Ho-hum. Another day, another military atrocity. We’re in a war. Collateral damage is to be expected.

Do you know what “collateral damage” means? The death of innocent people. Think about it. Death. Non-existence. The ending of what may well be a person’s one and only opportunity to experience life on this planet. Gone. For little reason.

American wars used to have good reasons behind them. The Vietnam War was an exception, though the Domino Theory was a heck of a lot more believable than the Weapons of Mass Destruction Theory.

It’s taken me a long time to admit this to myself, but I’ll say it: I don’t support the troops in Iraq. How is it possible to support the troops who are fighting an unsupportable war? Especially when what is known about American atrocities is almost certainly just the tip of an atrocity iceberg.

I’ll proudly fly an American flag, right side up, the day the last American soldier leaves Iraq. That’s when this country will truly honor the troops--with an admission that they have been fighting a dishonorable war.

I’m learning to Tango with life

I got sent to remedial Tango class last Monday night. The guest instructor, Carlos Rojas, observed me dancing with my wife for a while. Then he walked over and said, “You’re not letting her finish her steps. You’re going to dance with Jodi now. Every time you interrupt her moves, she’s going to stop.”

Jodi is Carlos’ tall, slim, charming, attractive, and highly skilled dance partner. With a teacher like that, I didn’t mind getting some remedial instruction. We started dancing. Then she stopped. We started again. We stopped again.

Eventually I began to understand what I was doing wrong. Basically, I’d gotten the idea in my head that leading meant doing what I had in mind. Continually.

After leading a step, my mental focus was immediately shifting to the next anticipated step. I’d lost touch with what my partner was doing. I wasn’t aware of what position she was in when I tried to lead another move. Jodi's frequent stops were telling me that she hadn’t completed her own following step, yet I had already started to lead a new move.

I love how Tango is a reflection of life. My friend Bill, a fellow dance student, has been writing about his own Tango life lessons here and here (read them; his essays are great). I’ve done the same, most recently musing about “The Romance of Tango.”

The fresh insight that I got from Carlos and Jodi is that however I dance with a partner is a reflection of how I dance with myself. Whatever problems I have dancing Tango are intimately related to the difficulties I have partnering with me.

This morning I started to butter a piece of bread. While my knife was still spreading dabs of heart-healthy Take Control, I realized that I’d already begun to think about taking the newspaper upstairs and reading it while I watched some cable news. I was several steps ahead of myself and the day had barely begun.

Yeah, it’s a cliché: “Be here now.” But clichés often contain a lot of wisdom. That’s why they’re repeated so frequently.

You can’t dance Tango properly if you aren’t aware of what’s happening at every moment. As it is happening. Not as you think it is about to happen, or as it just happened. You and your partner are dancing in the moment, not in the future or past. If you lose touch with the moment, you lose touch with your partner.

And yourself. Carlos told us that Tango is the Ph.D. of social dancing because it is so spontaneous. There are no set patterns. Tango flows from the music, the man, the woman, the setting, the mood. It is infinitely creative, ever-changing, unrepeatable.

Just like life.

I have my daily habits. Toast, newspaper, cable news. Then cereal, checking the Internet, emailing. But every day is different. I’m not the same; my wife and dog are not the same; the world is not the same. The daily dance never repeats itself.

So I’m making a resolve to Tango more attentively with the multitudinous partners I encounter every 24 hours. Laurel, Serena, store clerks, birds, sun and sky, blogging, the toilet, food, my car. The list is endless.

One thing at a time. Allow my partner to do his/her/its own thing, as I am doing mine. Don’t rush a move—either my own or someone else’s. Lead, follow, lead, follow. Allow yin and yang to alternate. Do, relax, do, relax. Move to life’s natural harmony, not to the beat of my own self-centered intention.

Carlos said that if your partner doesn’t do what you anticipated, you don’t stop in your tracks and think “What the #&!@?” Rather, her move becomes the next step. And you Tango on.

Just like life.

Bush’s immigration plan is one big photo-op

Here’s why I’m disgusted with George Bush in general, and his immigration reform plan in specific.

From the May 1 issue of TIME magazine, in an article about how the White House hopes to hold on to control of Congress by preaching to the right-wing faithful:

Deploy guns and badges. This is an unabashed play to members of the conservative base who are worried about illegal immigration. Under the banner of homeland security, the White House plans to seek more funding for an extremely visible enforcement crackdown at the Mexican border, including a beefed up force of agents patrolling on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs).

“It’ll be more guys with guns and badges,” said a proponent of the plan. “Think of the visuals. The President can go down and meet with the new recruits. He can go down to the border and meet with a bunch of guys and go ride around on an ATV.”

Yes indeed. On May 19 this AP photo appeared in the Portland Oregonian and many other newspapers, including the Arizona Daily Star. Sure made me feel glad that our southern border was more secure now. Gosh, now that I’ve seen our President riding around in a Border Patrol ATV, I’m on board with granting amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens.

Not! Unfortunately, the Senate was today.

Photo-op policy making wins again. And the Democrats sheepishly provided the votes to give Bush the Senate bill he wanted (38 were in favor of the bill, 4 were against; most Republicans opposed the bill).

Shades of “No Child Left Behind,” Bush proposes an unworkable but sound-bite friendly piece of legislation and the Dems are eager to line up behind it. Baaaah! Baaaah! The presidential border collie barks and the sheep-like Democratic Senators vote as directed.

I expect to be disappointed by George Bush. I had much higher hopes for the so-called opposition party. Which is that in name only, as evidenced by today’s vote.

I’m waiting for someone to oppose rewarding crossing the border illegally with citizenship, and to oppose rewarding businesses who hire low cost foreign workers with higher profits. It looks like the House Republicans are the best hope for a genuine alternative to Bush’s nonsensical “the longer you’ve broken the law, the more we want you as a citizen” legislation.

Democrats, once again you’ve been taken in by a president who has no more substance than a photo-op. That’s pathetic.

Toughest Jack, Bauer or Reacher?

It’s a difficult question. Between Jack Bauer and Jack Reacher, who is the toughest tough guy? I’ve been tossing the two of them around in my mind, trying to decide who’d come out on top.

The wisest answer would be: it depends. You don’t want to piss either of these guys off.

I know, because I’m a huge fan of both the Fox series “24,” where Bauer does whatever the hell he feels like, Counter Terrorism Unit bureaucracy be damned, and the Lee Child novels, where Reacher, an ex-military policeman and drifter, similarly operates both inside and outside the law in the name of truth, justice, and Jack’s Own Way.

In an unarmed mano-a-mano, you’d have to bet on Reacher. He’s 6’ 5” and about 250 pounds. Puny Bauer and his pussy martial arts moves would barely get Reacher warmed up.

I fondly remember one Reacher bar fight which began with him calmly sitting at a table. He’s confronted by half a dozen guys out to give him a bad time. Reacher suggests that they should take a hike. Their leader says, “If we don’t, what are you going to do?”

Reacher then describes in exquisite detail what will happen. “You and I are going to go out to the parking lot. You’re going to take a swing at me and I’ll break your jaw. Then you’ll take another swing and I’ll break your right kneecap. After that, I’m going to come back inside and finish my beer." Which, of course, is exactly what happened.

Bauer can handle himself in any sort of situation, but almost always he’s got a gun in his hand. In the last Lee Child book I read, “One Shot,” Reacher dispatches four well-armed guys (who seriously deserved to be dispatched) with just a knife. Bauer maybe could do that too, but he’d have to work at it harder than the other Jack.

Yet Bauer can fly a helicopter. That gets you extra points in the Jack vs. Jack matchup. So does Reacher’s expert sniper ability, though. The one area where Bauer clearly kicks Reacher’s ass is cyberspace. I’m not sure whether Reacher even knows how to turn on a computer.

He definitely wouldn’t have a clue about how to download satellite tracking images to his cell phone, which Bauer seems to do every couple of minutes. Reacher favors old-fashioned pay phones. Bauer is never without a cell phone that possesses an inexhaustible battery except, strangely, at the end of last night’s episode. Bad for Bauer. Good for kicking off the suspense of next season.

What tilts my toughest-of-the-tough vote to Reacher is how dependent Bauer is on Chloe. He probably couldn’t figure out how to get to the nearest Starbucks without her. When it’s a Jack against the Evildoers, he shouldn’t need a computer nerdette to get him through a firefight.

“Infrared satellite shows a lookout on the second floor at the end of the corridor, Jack.” What a weenie. Reacher would just stealth his solitary way up the stairs with a Ka-Bar and fillet the guy without a trace of electronic assistance.

In the battle of the Jacks, this blogger has it backwards. Reacher rules. Except, when your Internet connection goes haywire, as my piece of shit Linksys router did today. That’s when I want Bauer and Chloe on my side. Otherwise, Reacher’s the man.

Iraq and self-licking ice cream cones

A few days ago Laurel and I spent an interesting evening with someone who had just come back from a tour of duty in Iraq. He told it like it is: awful. He was asked, “Often it’s said that the media just reports the bad stuff that’s going on in Iraq. Do you think that’s true?”

His response: “Actually, the situation is a lot worse than the media is reporting.” He had nothing good to say about the Bush administration’s failed war policies. This is from a guy who had his boots on the ground.

He quoted an officer who likened the American presence to a self-licking ice cream cone. Meaning, the insurgency problem is mostly caused by our efforts to quell the insurgency. Patrols go out in their inadequately armored Humvees. They get attacked because they are patrolling. Then more patrols go out to deal with the attacks.

It’s an insane policy. Aaron Glantz, who also has had first-hand experience of what’s happening in Iraq, wrote in January 2005 about what a resistance fighter told him:

"We have to fight for our country and our religion," he told me, "so when an American Humvee goes by, we attack it. Sometimes there are American snipers on top of the police station, so we hit the police station. Sometimes there are no Americans around, so we just hit the police. When anyone puts himself on the Americans' side, he's a traitor."

But why are the Americans on patrol to begin with? Officially, we are told they are patrolling the streets, hunting down insurgents. My experience in Iraq leads me to believe that the Humvees themselves create the insurgents.

… What, exactly, is the point of these Humvee patrols? Why are American soldiers being sent out night after night to be attacked by Iraqi nationalists? If America suspended these Humvee patrols and pulled out of Iraq, these fighters would go back to their regular jobs. As it is, no amount of armor will keep American soldiers from dying in Iraq.

When you’ve got a self-licking ice cream cone, the only way to stop the messy drips onto the floor is to throw the cone away. Which is just what should be done with the Bush administration’s crazy Iraq policy, ASAP.

Hail and rhodie blossoms. Ah, Oregon.

White hail and red rhododendron blossoms. A haiku is in order.

Man, that was one insane thunderstorm that blew through south Salem a few minutes ago. I’m glad my camera is water resistant. This photo was taken from inside the house through an open sliding door, but the wind was so strong, the rain blew right in on me.

Our thunderphobic dog, Serena, survived the storm. Barely. After she frantically crawled into our bedroom closet, her usual first line of defense against thunderstorms, Laurel found her a new safe spot under a shelf in the pantry. Serena panted her way through the booming and seems to be pretty much back to her normal serene self.

The romance of Tango

“Tango is just a man walking with a woman so she will fall in love with him.” As soon as our guest Tango instructor spoke those words, I knew that he had the rapt attention of all the women in the class. The men, too.

I’m a romantic at heart. But after sixteen years of marriage I’ve gotten a bit lackadaisical in the romance department. The shelves are thinly stocked except at the predictable times: our anniversary, Laurel’s birthday, Valentine’s Day.

So both of us are enjoying the romance of Tango through our Monday classes here in Salem. Last week Carlos Rojas led us through helpful drills and shared some Tango philosophy.

“Guys, Tango is simple,” he said. “It’s just walking with the woman in a way that will make her fall in love with you.” Carlos and his lovely dance partner demonstrated how this should be done. Then, we all followed suit.

The woman takes the man’s arm. And when he’s ready, he takes a step. She follows, because she’s attached to him. Where he goes, she goes. Leisurely. Calmly. Together. He leads with his whole body, not just his arm. He doesn’t pull her around; he brings her with him gently, yet decisively.

“The man is responsible for his partner,” Carlos added. “He makes sure that they don’t run into any other couples. He ensures that she doesn’t get hurt. He takes care of her.” Then Carlos asked a question of the class, which he answered himself:

“So, who is at fault if the woman makes a wrong move? Always, the man. Always. If he led her to make a wrong move, then it’s his fault. And if he didn’t know that she wasn’t skilled enough to follow his lead, then it’s also his fault. So, it’s always the man’s fault.”

Now Carlos definitely had the women in the palm of his hand. But again, the men too. I understood what he was saying. It was part of the romance of Tango. And he made the men in the class feel better with his next words.

“Ladies, you’ve got to remember that Tango is five times more difficult for the man. Be patient with him. He’s got to lead. He’s got to be aware of the music. He’s got to know where other dancers are in the room. He’s got to avoid them when there’s a chance of a collision. All you have to do is follow. That’s much easier.”

In her book, “The Tao of Tango,” Johanna Siegmann says, “Tango represents the very essence of the male and female energies; the dancers are the physical representation of these energies in each of us…Life, after all, is a Tango—the male and female energy in each of us engaged in a dance to strike the right balance.”

This is what I find so romantic about Tango, how the dance reflects the archetypal essence of how a man and woman should relate. It brings you back to old-fashioned basics. Courtesy, chivalry, seduction, sensuality.

Arm in arm, walking in a way that will make her fall in love with you.

Politics, my dear, the thrill is gone

It’s time for me to admit that my long term relationship has gone sour. I’ve been shacked up with politics almost my whole life. I was reading my mother’s National Review back when William F. Buckley was a youthful stud.

I mostly look for good loving on the other side of the political tracks now. But so far this year the lefties have left me just about as cold as the righties. No matter whether they have a “D” or an “R” after their name, I’m not getting turned on.

The thrill is gone.

I’m glad that yesterday Kulongoski won the Democratic primary for governor. About as glad as I was after getting off a cramped five hour flight from Maui recently. I was uncomfortable but I said to myself, “it could have been worse.”

That’s the same way I felt about John Kerry. Better than the Bush alternative. How can you get enthused about the Oregon gubernatorial race, though, when “at least Kulongoski isn’t as bad as Saxton” is your main motivation to hook up with his campaign?

Maybe some people got married because they felt that their spouse wasn’t as undesirable as the other folks they dated. If so, that’s sad. Which is precisely the state of politics in Oregon and the rest of the country right now.

Sad.

It’s been a long time since I was genuinely excited by a candidate or political party. Howard Dean and MoveOn, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t been responding to emails from organizations like yours. I give them as much attention as the penis enlargement come-ons. Actually, less.

Progressives of America, you’re more attractive to me than the neocons. I also find red peppers more attractive than green peppers, and I try to avoid both varieties. I’m tired of looking over the political menu and being forced to choose between something that tastes bad and something that tastes worse.

Come on, candidates. Aren’t there some of you out there who can make me really hungry for your tasty positions, as opposed to leading me to hold my nose while I reluctantly vote for the least disgusting ballot choice?

The “Kerry Haters for Kerry” weblog is still up. Presciently, the last post on November 5, 2004 said:

Despite a massive outpouring of support from those who loathe him, John Kerry has lost. The entire KH4K community is filled with a combination of dread and relief -- in other words, roughly what we would have felt if he'd won. But maybe in different proportions.

To all who visited and participated, we say: The KH4K cause does not end today. It ended Tuesday! Our fight has not just begun. It's over! Where do we go from here? Somewhere else!

Like, Oregon in 2006.

Paving over paradise

We just got back from ten days on Maui. Paradise. And it’s being paved over. Sound familiar, Oregonians? Be careful about who you vote for in November. That “we’ve got to respect property rights” verbiage may sound fine, but what it really means is: paradise needs paving.

Which it doesn’t. Not now, not ever. We’ve been to Maui almost every year since 1991. The traffic keeps getting crazier. The ocean views keep getting filled with condos. The construction cranes sprout faster than palm trees.

Don’t get me wrong. Maui still is a wonderful place to visit. So is Oregon. However, if you live in either of these paradisiacal places and care about sustaining a livable environment, you’ve got to be concerned. This Maui resident says that he’s thinking of moving.

I’m positive I’m not alone as I watch the island of Maui slowly die at the hands of greed and exploitation.

I wake up almost every morning to Realtors rushing around outside dragging perspective [sic] buyers with them up and down the streets of my neighborhood with small computers chirping and cell phones squawking.

I believe that Maui was meant to be visited. After only five years here, I feel it is time to move. The lack of respect for this amazing place along with the painfully obvious destruction disguised as growth has gotten the better of me.

This visit we experienced a symbolic reminder of how over-development is harming Maui. Well, not so symbolic, really. A jackhammer in room 103 when you’re staying in 204 is pretty darn real. A condo below us was being renovated.

I gently (and not so gently) suggested to the resort manager that guests come to Maui for rest and relaxation, not to listen to loud construction noise for several hours a day. My sacred post-swim/beach afternoon nap was thrown for a noisy loop. As the Wonder Pets say, “this is serious!” (add a lisp for the proper Ming-Ming effect).

Our complaints had no effect. Instead of ocean waves and birds we got to listen to electric saws and drills. That’s modern Maui in a nutshell. All too often making a buck comes first. Harmoniously relating to the environment and fellow human beings takes a back seat.

Yes, it’s more pleasant creeping along in a traffic jam on Maui than it is on an Oregon freeway. You can watch the waves rolling in rather than grass seed growing. And the air passing through the window that your elbow is hanging out of usually is warmer (except for today—Oregon is “enjoying” a record breaking heat wave).

There has to be a limit to growth, though. On Maui. And in Oregon. Special places like these need to be preserved. We’ve already got plenty of LAs in this country. If I want to smell exhaust fumes and gaze upon wall to wall concrete I can always hop on a plane and visit my daughter in Hollywood.

Back in the 80s I spent some time on a Fiji island. There wasn’t much to do at the small resort where we were staying. That was the idea. Not doing much. One afternoon a Tahitian girl showed us how to make a native something or other. I don’t remember what it was. I do remember the girl.

She was gorgeous. A classic Tahitian beauty. Wise too. My fellow vacationers were mostly from Australia and the United States. Someone said, “Have you ever been to America?” “No,” she replied. Then she was asked, “Would you like to go?”

She tossed back her long dark hair and smiled. Her words stuck in my mind.

“Why would I want to? In America you live in big cities, work hard, and then die. Why should I leave here?”

There was an awkward silence. I could sense that we all were thinking, “Good question.” In an instant the proud U.S. citizen belief that ours is the land everyone wants to come to had been buried under the sparkling Fiji sand. I thought to myself, “Why do I want to go home? That’s the real question.”

Polynesians like this girl were the first inhabitants of Hawaii. I wonder what they’d think if they could see it today. Probably just what the Native Americans who settled in Oregon would think if they saw this state now. Pardon the stereotype, but only one word seems to fit their reaction.

Ugh!

Congratulations to the Napili Bay sidestroke champion

Namely, me. One reason you don’t see a sidestroke trophy in this photo is that the fools in charge of swimming championships don’t consider the sidestroke to be a competitive stroke.

Another reason is that no one except me entered the sidestroke event that I’ve been taking part in the past nine days on Napili Bay here on Maui, perhaps because my mind is the only place it’s been publicized.

Regardless, I love the sidestroke. It’s a contact lens wearer’s dream because your face stays out of the water all of the time. And you can enjoy the scenery while you swim, rather than staring mostly at water.

Every day I swim thirty minutes back and forth across the bay. I’ve been doing this every time we’ve visited Maui, which is at least fifteen times. I don’t understand why the sidestroke hasn’t caught on more, given all the exposure it’s gotten from me.

I’m a picture of elegance, in my own mind at least. I always face toward the open sea, ready to deal with a tsunami or great white (more realistically, a snorkeler who isn’t looking where he’s going).

I’ve evolved a sidestroke medley routine: 20 sidestrokes, then 10 highly modified backstrokes (my hands don’t come out of the water and I use a frog kick). Repeated for the 30 minutes, through flat water and wavy water, calm winds and high winds. My sidestroke gets me anyway I want to go, so long as it is back and forth across Napili Bay.

So I can’t figure out why my beloved sidestroke gets pitifully little respect. This brief article is typical. It snidely says:

Why would anyone give serious attention to the sidestroke? It’s neither powerful nor particularly graceful (or fast). Sidestroke is not a competitive stroke so it's not useful for racing. Some may see it as a remnant of an earlier age of swimming, a kind of evolutionary anomaly, an archaic remain of swimming strokes long surpassed on the evolutionary chain.

Obviously the author hasn’t seen me swimming the sidestroke. I am a blend of grace, power, and speed. I’ve never seen a dolphin during my sidestroking, undoubtedly because they lurk just offshore gazing with awe upon a member of another species who rivals, if not surpasses, their swimming ability.

Today a girl wearing fins was swimming various strokes across Napili Bay at the same time I was. For a few minutes we were close enough together for me to gauge our relative speeds. During her butterfly strokes I’m pretty sure I was staying ahead of her. Only when she switched to a crawl did she start to slowly move past me. With fins, remember.

So I believe I’m justified in claiming the sidestroke championship of Napili Bay. I will call my title the Beckwith, in honor of Fred Beckwith, who in 1859 became the swimming champion of England using the overarm sidestroke.

Ah, those were the days.

Meaningless Maui musings

Hey, what do you expect from me after eight days on Maui? The big questions of life have been reduced to meaningless musings.

Can a woman match too perfectly? What you can’t see in this photo is the palm tree on Laurel’s cap that mirrors the palm tree on her t-shirt. And note how the innermost color of the shirt’s tree precisely echoes the color of her shorts. Muy matcho, senorita!

Isn’t “guys” a masculine term? Restaurant staff always say to us, “Hi, guys. How’re you doing? I’ll be your server today.” What if they said “Hi, gals” to Laurel and me? I’d be sort of offended. Why isn’t Laurel? Oh, almost forgot. Men rule the world. That’s why people are called “mankind.”

Along these lines, what non-genius thought up the “Old Guys Rule!” product line? Caps and t-shirts with this unappealing message are everywhere on Maui. I rush past the displays, looking the other way. Don’t want anyone to think that I consider myself such a beast. Haven’t seen a single person wearing this crap. Probably never will.

Generously-sized people in skimpy bathing suits glorifying the body God and McDonalds gave them, good or bad? Jury is still out on this question. More research to be conducted on the beach in a few minutes. Tentative answer: depends on number of rolls of body fat.

Since Buddha-nature made beards, why is there also snorkeling? The two are incompatible. Trust me, I know. I use goggles and a nose clip now instead of a mask. With my narrow face, water still leaks in. Here’s my inner snorkeling dialogue: “Where are the damn fish…shit, water in my goggles…hell, water in my snorkel…no fish anywhere…this sucks… should have stayed on my mat… shit, more water in…”

When Einstein said that time passes at varying rates for different observers, was he speaking of women and men shopping? I see an Aloha shirt. I look at the size: XL. I buy it. Total elapsed time: 90 seconds. Laurel shops for dichroic glass earrings. Time stands still. A few days ago I asked the saleslady if she had a cot and a blankie so I could take a nap while I was waiting for my wife to make up her mind. She didn’t. I slept standing up.

Why do visitors to Maui wear plain white t-shirts, just like they do at home? Guys, check out the bargain bins at the Front Street tourist emporiums. $4.99 for a colorful t-shirt. Sometimes $3.99. Spend a few bucks and brighten up the beach. Just remember to match.

What weird trick of the mind leads a 57 year old man to spend a full hour staring out to sea, trying to remember the name of the third Wonder Pet? I came up with Tuck and Ming-Ming just fine. Linny escaped me. Considered running up to one of the many preschoolers on the beach and asking, but I was determined to come up with the name myself. Finally did. Around dinnertime.

Another productive Maui day.

Strolling to the Ritz, Maui style

We just strolled to the Ritz. The Kapalua Ritz-Carlton on Maui. As you might expect, it’s, well, ritzy. Laurel heads up the Ritz-Carlton way on her usual morning walk. She had to miss today, so I went with her on an afternoon substitute outing.

We began at our Napili Bay condo. This is where I do my own exercising. Thirty minutes back and forth across the bay every day. Laurel’s a walker. When on Maui, I figure ocean swimming is the thing.

Laurel usually drives the short distance to Oneloa Bay. We did this afternoon also. Molokai is in the background.

It’s a surfer beach. Most of them were gone by the time we arrived. Got to follow a lithe bikini-clad female surfer up the path to the parking lot though. Good timing. Sorry, don’t have a photo.

Next stop, a hole on one of the Kapalua golf courses. Beautiful. Too bad I play such ugly golf. I’ve heard that the wind is so strong on the courses, sometimes the ball blows right back at you. Could be. Or maybe I was being kidded. Regardless, this is one windy side of the island.

Doesn’t stop people from staying at the Ritz-Carlton though. Maybe it’s the view that entices them.

We headed down the hotel’s pathway to the ocean. Per usual, Laurel was way ahead of me. Her “shopper’s walk” is much faster than mine. She’s put in a lot of training.

Maui guidebooks say that Fleming Beach Park is where you take your BBQ grill when you want it sandblasted. From previous visits I can believe it. Wasn’t horribly windy today, however. It’s a pretty nondescript beach. Decent boogie boarding but not that inviting.

The Ritz-Carlton main entrance is.

The grounds are full of flowers. Like this red don’t-know-the-name.

From the Ritz we headed up the hill to the Honolua Store. It’s got that old time Hawaii feel to it.

On the outside, at least. Inside, Laurel avidly browsed through a pile of t-shirts that, for the life of me, looked almost exactly like the one she had on. Female shopping has its own logic to it, I’ve learned.

These, Laurel tells me, are Norfolk pines. If they’re not, blame her. They’re the Napili trademark. I believe they were planted by sailors in the 1800s who needed straight wood for masts and such. Kind of incongruous for Hawaii, but reminded me of Oregon.

And that was our stroll. Got back to the car too late to finish up with a sunset photo. You can interpolate one from my previous post.

Lastly, if you’re the praying sort, pray for bigger waves on Napili Bay. My boogie board is gathering dust. Or rather, sand.

Oh, no. Iran embraces the euro!

Vacationing as I am on Maui at the moment, I’m not going to spend much beach time worrying about Iran taking a step toward selling oil in euros rather than dollars.

But when I read about this in the Honolulu Advertiser today, I couldn’t help remembering how Willamette University economics professor emeritus Russ Beaton has told Laurel and me that the Iraq war was fought, in large part, to prevent OPEC from moving to a euro-based oil sales/trading system.

Russ is a progressive friend of ours. He’s forgotten more about economics than I’ll ever know, and I don’t pretend to begin to understand the intricacies of foreign exchange and currency markets like he does. I do know, though, that prior to 2003 Iraq started to sell oil in euros. Look what happened to that country.

The Advertiser article said:

But if one day the world’s largest oil producers allowed—or worse, demanded—euros for their barrels, “it would be the financial equivalent of a nuclear strike,” said A.G. Edwards commodities analyst Bill O’Grady.

“If OPEC decided they decided they didn’t want dollars anymore,” he added, “it would signal an end to American hegemony by signaling an end to the dollar as the sole reserve currency.”

End to American hegemony? To the Bush administration those could be fighting words.

It’s strange to think that Iran could do more damage to the United States by leading OPEC to embrace the euro than by building a nuclear weapon. Apparently this is true, though. Hazel Henderson discusses why in an interesting essay, “Iraq, the Dollar, and the Euro."

Bush likes to talk about how strong the U.S. economy is. Actually, it’s resting on the shaky sand of massive trade and budget deficits, supported only by a massive infusion of foreign dollar-denominated capital. Take that support away and our financial sand castle starts to vanish.

Watch out, Iran.

From maddening to Maui in eight hours

Aren’t vacations fun? You spend a week running around like crazy, getting ready to spend a week relaxing. Then when you get home, you spend another frantic week catching up on everything that didn’t get done while you were on vacation.

Sometimes vacations seem like a net relaxation loss to Laurel and me. But that doesn’t stop us from meandering off to Maui most every year. As we did yesterday.

After a semi-sleepless night spent worrying about what we’d forgotten to pack, we headed up to the Portland airport at the not so jolly time of 6:45 am. With terrific timing, this got us to I-205 just when everybody in the metro area was driving off to work. We got to follow them for quite a few dreadfully maddening snails-pace freeway miles.

How do you stand it, Portlanders? If you do this every day, why aren’t you as crazy as Los Angeles commuters? Judging by the behavior of our fellow I-205ers, you probably are. Nonetheless, we made it to the Hawaiian Airlines ticket counter with time to spare. Which I promptly spent at my traditional first vacation stop, the airport Powell’s Books.

Then, on to Maui. After waiting an eternity for a National Car Rental pickup, I found Laurel and our bags waiting at curbside. Already missing our dog, she was thrilled that a drug-sniffing Beagle had given our checked luggage some close attention as it came off the carousel. For some reason she said that the dog seemed most interested in my boogie board.

Sorry, my canine friend, you were about thirty-seven years too late.

After making our obligatory stop at the Kahului natural food store to stock up on organic vegetarian supplies for our Napili Shores condo and enrich the local economy with legal green stuff, for the second time in a day we got to spend a lot of time staring at the rear bumper of cars slowly creeping along the highway.

Except now the highway bordered the warm Pacific, rather than southeast Portland. Big difference. Still, when you’ve just sat on an airplane for almost six hours, it isn’t much fun to crawl bumper to bumper into Lahaina.

How do you stand it, West Maui locals? Don’t you sometimes feel like kicking every tourist off of your island so you could drive faster than 20 mph? I did yesterday, conveniently forgetting that I was one of the potential kickees.

Once we set foot on the beach, however, all of the day’s maddening moments were forgotten. Here'e Laurel enjoying the powerful amnesiac effects of yesterday’s Maui sunset.

Today’s wasn't too shabby either.

It isn’t 100% paradise here, though. This afternoon I went to Napili Beach by myself while Laurel was shopping. I settled down on my mat for some reading, swimming, and people watching.

The people watching, a.k.a. (for me) babe watching, isn’t so hot on Napili Bay this time of year. Mostly out of shape family types and older folks. So when I saw a youngish guy and his shapely thong-clad girlfriend walking toward my end of the beach I channeled all of my psychic energies into a silent plea of “Sit down…here.”

And they did! Just ten feet or so to my left. There is a God. Albeit one with a sense of humor. For the guy laid down to the right of the girl.

Which meant that between me and the girl’s eminently attractive bikini-clad breasts was the guy’s head. And when they rolled over, between me and the girl’s eminently attractive thong-clad butt was the guy’s own unappealing rear end.

Trouble in paradise. I had to keep subtly shifting around quite a bit to improve my babe-watching angles, burning up calories that I had planned to spend bobbing around on my boogie board.

Well, you probably aren’t feeling sorry for me. But you should. It’s tough beaching it on Maui. Tomorrow I’ll be back hard at work on my mat. Say a “more thongs” prayer for me.

Salem, let’s Tango!

Come on, admit it: you have a Tango fantasy. You’ve seen Tango danced sensuously in movies. You’ve heard it called the original forbidden dance (it’s got some company now). You’ve pictured yourself in poses like…

OK, my fellow Salem residents, you and I will never look like that. But we can still dance Tango. I’m doing it. And believe me, if I’m doing it, anybody can do it.

So get yourself down to the Micah Building next Monday evening. Give Tango a try. Beginners are welcome. Not-beginners too. Here are the particulars:

Argentine Tango Classes
Every Monday, except holidays.
7pm beginners, 8pm guided and intermediate practice
Micah Building Ballroom (second floor), 680 State Street
Smoke and alcohol free. All ages.
No partner needed. Drop ins welcome.
Leather soled shoes recommended.
Cost: $7 per session adults, $5 students

Laurel and I will miss the May 8 class. But we’ll be back Tangoing on the 15th. A guest instructor from Portland, Carlos Rojas, will be teaching on May 15 and May 22. I hear he’s good. He might even look like…

But again: everybody can feel Tango no matter how you look or how old you are. After a few months of classes once in a while I blurt out to Laurel, “Wow! That felt Tango-y!” Which means, of course, most of our moves don’t. We’re making progress, though.

I’ve written some about our Tango experiences. Here, and here. So has my friend and fellow Tango-er Bill Long, here and here.

Come and join us. A Salem Tango Classes flyer can be downloaded by clicking below. Help publicize this much needed addition to our town’s social scene.
Download tango_flyer.doc