Posted 2:08 PM by Alfred

It’s a chilly, windy, mid-morning here in Honolulu. I haven’t looked outside yet, but the dark shade of the light through the frosted louvers indicate a long day of blasting force most likely brought over from the west, points like Russia, China, Japan, possibly down from the Arctic. Points unknown. 99 days out of a 100 on this island, the tradewinds blow in from the east, on the windward side of the island, sliding over Kailua, Kanoehoe, and points north and south from Sandy Beach to Turtle Bay, slide their way over the Koolaus, and come cascading down the pali and Likelike and points untraversable, past the dens of wild pigs, into Honolulu, even after the trip carrying a fair force.

The last few days, however, have brought the Kona winds, and with them skies full of Vog. The weather makes me miss my native Los Angeles, the crispness that comes into the air when a bit of pollution is introduced, it almost seems like an oxymoron. The Kona winds blow in from the west, past the volcano on the big island, bringing with them the smoke and brimstone from it’s fiery crevasses, sweeping the vog (volcano + fog) over the rest of the chain. I like it. I miss my home. I’ll be there soon, if only for a short time. It’s been too long. It is a strange thing, though, that whenever I leave this island, it is not too long before I itch to come back. I guess this island is my home now.

I woke up this morning having had dreams of the headlines of Terry Schiavo’s death. Sadly, she’s still alive, supposedly in her “last hours.” I assume these are same last hours she was enduring almost 15 hours prior. This business is barbaric at best. I stand by my former suggestion that some maverick or other type of metaphorically hooded individual make haste to Florida and put this woman out of whatever misery she may be encountering. What have we done with our weaving of laws in this country which forces us into the only outlet for letting a long suffering person die is to let them painfully starve to death. Pitiful. And pitiless. The depressing times are far from over, part of me doubts they will ever come to an end. Jeb Bush’s grandstand play was exposed for all it was: hot air. And like the hot wind that blows over the Hawaiian volcano, it produced an unusual and interesting, but in the end temporary and quickly dissipated, spectacle.

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