tropical reflections

Our family just returned from two weeks in Kauai.  We rented a house on a beach referred to by the guidebooks as “remote”, reached by a narrow bumpy road and a bridge.  There was a large flat screen TV in the house but it got no reception.  The local newspaper was hard to find and headlined such news as “large waves expected on the north shore”.  Forget about laptops and blackberries.  We didn’t bring any of these contrivances.  The lack of electronic connection proved almost as relaxing as the tropical breezes, warm salt water and the clucking of the ever-present chickens.

Growing up in the DC area, the daughter of a political science professor and a politically active mother, I’ve always been interested in politics, and as much as I care about the issues, it also retained some aspect of a game to me, with election excitement reaching its zenith right about the time of the World Series.  But being in Kauai, I realized that this election had become deadly serious.  I wasn’t enjoying any aspect of the contest because too much is at stake if my team loses.  Plus the electronic gizmos took on an addictive quality, and my impression of how much I could influence the process enlarged to a grandiose extent.  I found myself checking Yahoo every hour to see if the world had fallen apart in the interim, and berating myself for the lack of steps I’d personally taken to prevent its collapse. 

But in Kauai you are in the middle of the Pacific ocean and the power of nature takes precedence.  (of course it always does, but out there it is obvious).  the sun comes up, the moon changes phases, the waves roll in. An avocado falls and a rooster rushes to eat it.  These things will not change if Mc Cain is elected.  Sure, global warming might eventually submerge the Island, and I’ll want to flee there to live, or further, away from the United States, in a grass hut in Fiji or something.  But the distance and perspective, the sense of things greater than all this nonsense and our capacity to transcend it, is a sense I’m keeping with me, even as my tan slowly fades.

But back to political ranting.  I’ve been sincerely trying to understand the mindset of middle american mainstream man, and find myself more flummoxed than ever.  I can deal with coherently thought out opinions that differ from my own.  I can even learn from them.  What frustrates me is all the people whose thoughts lack coherence–who seemingly can’t link up the most obvious of dots.  For instance, seventy percent of Americans, last poll I read, think the Iraq war is a mistake.  McCain has supported this war from the beginning.  So how can a majority of Americans think Mc Cain is “superior on national security?”

Or take the fact that Clinton, a supposed “tax and spend” Democrat, left the US budget with a SURPLUS.  Now, under the Republicans we have the highest national deficit in history.  So how can people think that Republicans are more reliable managers of the economy?  Or if a majority of people, as polls seem to indicate, think Obama knows more about economic issues, and economic issues are the ones most pertinent to their day to day lives, then why the hell aren’t they voting for him?

An element of logical thinking is missing.  Also any understanding of subleties involved in these issues, or any sense of history, even a capacity to remember what MC Cain said last year, or last month. 

God forbid you should impugn the intelligence of these salt of the earth Americans.  But higher intelligence involves the incorporation of disparate ideas into a coherent whole. If someone can’t come up with a coherent argument then I find no reason to respect their intelligence.  Their good intentions, yes.  Their pain and anger, yes.  But their intelligence, sorry, no.

game show sarah

I have to give Sarah Palin credit for spunky composure. She’s in water clearly above her head but she keeps on swimming.  She delivers her five or so talking points with a steady sincerity and a perky smile.  Unlike her running mate John Mc Cain, she doesn’t fidget and shift her eyes like she’s searching for the nearest bathroom.  If she was the moose shootin hockey mom on Candidate for a Day, she’d be doing damn well.

Trouble is, we can’t give her ten thousand dollars, a new Chevy Suburban and a years worth of Banquet dinners and send her home to Wasilla.  This isn’t a game show, more like a horror show.  She really is running for Vice-President.  If the McCain ticket wins, she really will be one 72-year old heartbeat away from the Presidency.  So it remains disconcerting that she is appallingly ignorant and has nothing substantive to say about the complex issues we face in the world today.  (even though she delivers that nothingness oh so well).  Its still discomfiting that can’t name a single magazine she reads regularly, thinks dinosaurs walked the earth the same time as humans, and doesn’t believe polar bears deserve protection. The person who’s judgment we truly should be assessing is Mc Cain’s.  What on earth was hethinking when he selected this woman? In what kind of disrespect does he hold the American people?

Luckily, Americans seem to be slowly waking up, separating image from substance, realizing that the 2008 election is not a reality show, or like I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the Jerry Springer show.  Last night, even participants in a Fox news poll overwhelmingly voted Joe Biden the winner in the debate.

And, Sarah, as for turning to the mom next to you at a soccer game and asking what she thinks, the last political discussion I remember having at my son’s soccer game involved an animated discussion over whether any of us women had ever slept with a Republican or would ever consider doing so.

The answer, Sarah, sorry, was no.  Gosh darn it, cute as your hubby is, we just don’t want those Republican cooties.

I still love you, Jackson

I have to admit I was nervous about seeing Jackson Browne last Tuesday night.  I’ve had a crush on this guy since 1972 and while this was the 17th time I would see him in concert, he hadn’t performed live in Portland in six years.  It was Rosh Hashanah, and we had front row center tickets, a pretty religious experience as far as I’m concerned.  “Let your illusions last until they shatter,” Jackson warned on his album The Pretender, but some illusions deserve to last, and I didn’t want to see Jackson Browne gone all paunchy and washed out. 

Well, nothing to worry about.  He’s sixty and still going strong.  He played a bunch of hard-hitting new songs, and reinterpreted a lot of his old material in a way that expanded their range rather than (like Dylan often does) just tweaking the audience.  Jackson Browne has it all.  He’s an excellent musician on both guitar and keyboards and has a great voice.  Most of all, he is a superb songwriter.  He has a way of conveying deep emotion without cloying sentimentality but also without any irony or remove.  He speaks straight to your soul, or mine, anyway.  Unlike, say, the Rolling Stones, he’s not trying to be twenty, but he hasn’t lost any of the passion or intensity of his youth.  He’s aware of his power to move an audience and he’s not ashamed to use it.

Plus, his hair (yeah, I know its dyed) still hangs in that perfect shock over his eye and he still looks great in his jeans.