Would the real "Joe the Plummer" stand up.

An article from Counter Punch about "Joe the Plummer" well, more like "Joe the (sort of) Plummer."

http://www.counterpunch.org/macaray10172008.html

U.S. Debates - The little I saw sure stunk.

I cannot get over what passes for debate in the U.S. elections. There on the television last night, Obama and McCain flung accusations and statistics like squirrels at a nut farm. They would say "it's no secret that nine out of ten Americans say your economic program doesn't work, that you supported exactly 73% of Bush's economic plan, that 100% of your adds are bogus" and the story went on and on.

There was McCain, as usual, trying to dumb down his audience with some asinine story about "Joe the plumber" (such an obvious line of bullshit--aren't all plumbers named "Joe") trying to make ends meet and worried that Obama's economic plan would be the death of him. And McCain goes on to say (for shame) that Obama actually promotes "sharing the wealth" of the nation, though for some reason, this sharing of wealth somehow involves poor people having to pony up for the rich guys. This from a guy who thinks, though is not sure, he owns 9 houses. God forbid the rich actually share wealth with the poor as American taxpayers are asked to "share" their wealth with Wall Street criminals in a trillion dollar bail out plan. Why didn't Obama jump all over that?

Why didn't Obama jump all over the common refrain of the Bush administration that Democrats "tax and spend" instead of cutting taxes and cutting spending. This following nine years of Bush's "borrow and spend" agenda, that involved huge tax cuts to major corporations while attempting to fund a trillion dollar war in Iraq. I don't get it.

The accusation portion was absolutely hilarious, with McCain almost in tears over Obama's attack adds linking some of his supporters to racist white southern hillbillies. It's the Republican Party for God's sake, there's a lot of racist white hillbillies in the fold because when you get the Christian Right on your side, all the wackos will follow. If this weren't ridiculous enough, McCain pleads for Obama to publicly repudiate the negative statements of his campaign adds then proceeds to launch a full frontal assault on Obama's association with some Weather Underground radical from the 1960s. Unbelievable: "Mr. Obama, you must stop these hurtful attack ads, oh and by the way, your pal is a known terrorist."

How can Obama sit there and not say "McCain, you're a putz."

And what's with McCains arms anyway, it's like he's holding a barrel. Was he forced to hold a barrel for weeks on end as a POW? Sorry for the attack ad, but at least he's constantly in hugging pose for world leaders when they come to visit. Should McCain croak in his presidency, you have Sarah Palin, the ultimate Dan Quayle ready to the take the reigns of the most powerful nation on Earth, a woman who cannot remember a Supreme Court case and cannot name a newspaper she reads, or as Matt Damon said in an interview "I want to know if she thinks the Earth is 4000 years old, because I think it's important that the person with the nuclear codes thinks the Earth is 4000 years old." She's the barometer of how low American politics has become, starting with Quayle, then George W. and now Sarah P., the dumbest politician ever to threaten to be President.

Ugh, it makes me sick to see this charade played out on American TV screens and then have pundits try to analyze who won. Nobody won, the American people lost, they always loose.

Will The Last Person Out Turn Off The Light? My response.

Andre, interesting article about the Cook Islands. My wife and I were there two years ago and witnessed much of what you write about. For such an island paradise, we couldn't fathom that the Cook Islands was actually shrinking in population and tourist development was virtually at a standstill. Your article is not complete, however, since there are other factors stifling the economy in the Cook Islands. We spoke with many people on Rarotonga, Aitutaki and Mangaia about the plight of the Islands and for most the story was the same: adults leave to seek work in New Zealand, leaving the children home to be cared for by grand parents. We heard quite the opposite about the labour shortage you mention, and perhaps this is only the situation on Rarotonga. In Aitutaki and Mangaia, there were no jobs. About a decade ago (if I remember correctly) the Government of New Zealand severely cut the Cook Islands civil service and took away many subsidies that helped support the Cook Island economy. Unemployment soared and wages plummeted, forcing many to seek employment in New Zealand as wage slaves predominantly in the shipping industry, where they're ghettoized and suffer drug and alcohol addiction. Given the choice, the vast majority of Cook Islanders don't want to leave, and some return by extradition, fighting addictions and criminal records.

If Rarotonga is hurting economically, they're nowhere near as badly off as the outlying Islands. Many on Aitutaki claim Rarotongans do their utmost to dissuade tourists from venturing forth. We heard this first-hand from people in Rarotonga when we said we were planning on flying to Aitutaki. We were told it was too commercialized, there's nothing to do, its full of mosquitos and swamps, that it has no "soul." We ventured to Aitutaki anyway and nothing could have been further from the truth. It's a veritable paradise in the South Pacific, with all the scenery of Bora-Bora (according to travel writers) at a fraction of the price. Their soul is evident everywhere, from the children waving as you pass them on a motorcycle, to the local dancers and drum bands that consistently rank highest in Maori and South Pacific dance competitions. The single largest boon to Aitutaki's economy was the filming of Survivor: it provided three months of full time work for a large percentage of Islanders and was bringing thousands of dollars into the stagnant economy; however, its reverberations were being felt hundreds of miles away in Mangaia.

Aitutaki was positively cosmopolitan compared with Mangaia, an Island that has seen it's population drop by half in the previous decade. There are only about 600 souls left on this unspoiled Pacific jem that was once an exporter of pineapples (reportedly the best in all the South Pacific) and coffee. Cheap exports from Asia and Central America eventually squashed these cash crops and now what few people live on the Island exist solely for the meagre tourist dollars. They claim too that Rarotonga does little to market them to the tourists that arrive in the Cook Islands, preferring to keep all the tourists to themselves. While we were on Mangaia, there were rolling blackouts, actually blackouts of 20 hours per day because diesel was in short supply. We found out later that the one tanker used in the Cook Islands was booked to bring Survivor supplies to Aitutaki and thus Mangaians had to go without fuel and fresh supplies for weeks on end, further diminishing their tourist appeal. Mangaians are wonderful people and fiercely loyal to their Island and the land of their forefathers. Tere, our guide on a cave tour in Mangaia, said the Island had been approached numerous times by big resort pitchmen and every time Mangaians turned them away. I asked Tere why, when the population was dwindling so drastically, they could turn down such major investment. He said it would be an insult to their ancestors, that Mangaians were connected to their land and they would never sell even an inch their Island to foreign investors. Mangaia was one of the last Islands in the South Pacific to adopt Christianity as well, the first three or four missionaries were killed and eaten, so perhaps distrust is a cultural trait. I asked what would happen if the population went to zero: he said he hoped it wouldn't, that all they wanted was enough tourism so they could keep their way of life intact, that's all they ask for. Stubborn, yes. Stupid, no. There are probably few places in the world that have the rugged untouched beauty of Mangaia and it's so refreshing to hear they insist on keeping it that way.

Back in Aitutaki, there's another deterrent to big development. Land ownership has been divided and subdivided for centuries into a dizzying web of small plots. Any attempt at purchasing a parcel of land requires hundreds of signatures of sale, by people living on the Cook Islands and those ancestors living abroad. Our lagoon tour guide "Captain Fantastic" said the Survivor crew required acceptance from over 400 land titles in order to use seven islands in Aitutaki's lagoon for two months. Captain Fantastic's oldest son, "Captain Nuisance" told us he hoped Aitutaki wouldn't get any more developed than it already was, that he didn't want Survivor fans flooding into the Island. For them, like Mangaians, it was about achieving a balance between tourist development, the environment and the laid back lifestyle many appreciate. It was what makes the Cook Islands such a beautiful place with such a beautiful spirit.

My fear is that panic over global warming will be the ultimate death knell to Island economies as people decide flying is bad for climate change and choose to take their vacations closer to home. You cannot get to the Cook Islands with flying or braving the open ocean and I'm sure most people choose the former. Cook Islanders need our tourist dollars to a) keep the big developers away and b) to ensure their proud culture can subsist on their Islands. What you get out of the deal is a few weeks in paradise. It's an even trade I would think.

Sincerely,

Paul Panchyshyn
Winnipeg, MB
Znet reader

Pacific Island Nations: Will The Last Person Out Turn Off The Light? From Rarotonga, Cook Islands

A subject I know a lot about. Here's Zltchek's article and my response. I'm awaiting a follow up, or even just an acknowledgment.


Pacific Island Nations: Will The Last Person Out Turn Off The Light? From Rarotonga, Cook Islands

May, 06 2008By Andre Vltchek
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The sea is blue, beaches consist of golden sand, and palm trees are bent almost to the water surface. Underneath hardly detectable waves, marine life is fascinating and diverse. On hotel terraces, the coolness of coconut juice burns the refined throats of jet setters. Traditional huts rub shoulders with some of the most expensive resorts in the world. 500 US dollars would hardly sustain a couple for more than a day here and it is not meant to - this may be one of the most expensive parts of the world.

Welcome to Rarotonga - the main island of the "Cooks", a country covering a huge expanse of the Pacific Ocean. "Raro" may be the main island of the country, but the length of its coastal road is only a bit over 31km.

The Cook Islands, a former New Zealand colony, are the subdued English speaking answer to their Francophone neighbor and one of the most lavishly posh places on earth - French Polynesia.

With all that beauty, one would expect an enormous influx of foreigners, uncontrollable population growth, a local demographic explosion. But the opposite is true: the Cook Islands are losing people at an alarming rate. And despite the arrival of desperate migrant workers from Fiji, the Philippines and elsewhere (almost 300 were given permanent residency status this year), the total number of people living here is declining rapidly.

Between 2005 and 2007, according to statistics of the Ministry of Education of the Cook Islands), student enrollment in elementary schools decreased by 6%; by 20% since 1996; all as a result of migration.

There are now 60 thousand Cook Islanders living in New Zealand alone. The total population of the Cook Islands is only around 18,700, of which between 10 and 12 thousand live in Rarotonga.

"I can definitely understand why people are leaving", explained a painter Ani Exham-Dun who owns the small gallery Art@Air Raro - a Cook Islander who was born in New Zealand. "There is nothing they can do here. Another day a girl was caught painting graffiti on the wall in the capital. As a punishment, she was told to scrub graffiti off the wall. That's what the government did, instead of thinking how to make the life of local young people at least a little bit more exciting."

Boredom is, of course, only one problem the Cook Islands have to struggle against. With luxury tourism becoming the main money earner, prices have skyrocketed. A small bag of cassava chips at the gas station now costs almost 4 NZ dollars (3.50 US dollars) while a milkshake sells for 7 or even 10. Food, like in the rest of the Pacific, is mostly imported from New Zealand or Australia and is exorbitantly expensive. But the local minimum wages are stagnating at 5 NZ dollars an hour.

"The Cook Islands are one of the best performing countries in the Pacific", explains Elisabeth Wright-Koteka, Director of Central Policy and Planning Office of the Prime Minister. "Our people want the same standards as New Zealand. But we do not have enough resources to satisfy them. Independence was both a blessing and curse. Blessing: because we have our own country and we have freedom of movement, which is guaranteed by the fact that all of us are in possession of New Zealand passports. If we wouldn't have it, we would be just another Tarawa (in Kiribati) - overpopulated, stuffed and desperate. Curse: because now we don't have enough people and we have to import workers from the Philippines and Fiji and even that is not enough to fill the gap."

The Cook Islands are not the only country that is exporting people to the richer nations in the area.

There are more Samoans and Tongans living abroad than at home. These two countries are sending young people to New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere, so they can support families at home. More than half the GDP of Tonga is covered by remittances and foreign aid, Samoa not being far behind. According to "Statistics New Zealand", in 2006, Samoans were the largest Pacific ethnic group in New Zealand, making up 131,100 or 49 percent of New Zealand Pacific population (265,974)." The entire population of (independent) Samoa is around 180,000. Over 50,000 Tongans live in New Zealand, further tens of thousands in Australia and the United States. 112,000 live in Tonga itself.

Needy people from some of the poorest nations in the Pacific - like PNG (Papua New Guinea) and Solomon Islands - find it difficult to obtain visas. Only the relatively well off and educated citizens can secure their trips to Australia, New Zealand or the United States, leading to brain drain.

Three Micronesian countries - Palau, RMI (Republic of Marshall Islands) and FSM (Federated States of Micronesia) - have a "Compact" agreement with the United States: a deal that brings foreign aid to government coffers, while allowing American military bases to be built on the territory of these nations. Citizens of Palau, FSM and RMI can travel to the US and settle there. They can also send their children to study. Many educated ones never come back. Some of the families from Kwajalein Atoll (where Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site (RTS) is located) that receive rent money from the US government never spend it in the Marshall Islands.

The 2006 ADB Study on Remittances in the Pacific states, "Migration is very significant in Pacific island states, especially in Polynesia, primarily as a response to uneven economic and social development. In many Pacific island countries, the remittances that flow from internal and international migrants to family members at home have been of growing importance, again especially in Polynesia where they often represent the single most prominent component of national income. They reach levels rarely found elsewhere in the world."

But in the Cook Islands, claims Elisabeth Wright-Koteka, migration is not necessarily about remittances. "It is different here than in many other island nations. It is not about escape from the culture like in Samoa or Tonga. It is not necessarily about money. We have a culture of migration. We are sailors. Our whole history is about movement. We used to be a colony of New Zealand and we used to send migrant seasonal workers. Migration became part of our culture, of growing up. Young people always like to go away and experience how it is to live in big cities, in "big smoke". Some come back. The biggest cohort of returnees is that of the people in their 40's who managed to save money abroad and want to start their new life back in Cook Islands".

The Secretary of Education of the Cook Islands, John Herrmann would probably agree, but due to migration he is facing urgent problems: "I am struggling to find secondary school teachers", he explained at the meeting with UNESCO representatives. "Many of our teachers have left the country and we are increasingly relying on overseas teachers, particularly on those from New Zealand."

In fact, almost the entire country is now relying on foreign workers and professionals.

A skilled masseuse in one of the luxury resorts on Muri Beach turns out to be a university-educated economist from Suva, capital of Fiji. Although she doesn't want to be identified, she is ready to assess the situation on conditions of anonymity: "There are more than 600 Fijians working in the Cook Islands. About one half are employed legally, the other half overstays. After the last military coup in Fiji, the situation is extremely bad. Families are breaking apart because they have no means to survive on meager salaries. We are forced to leave. But unlike the Cook Islanders, we have only our own (Fijian) passports and now we need visas to go almost anywhere. The Cook Islands are one of the best countries for us to work. There is almost no racism here, unlike elsewhere in Polynesia. People are very welcoming and compassionate. Wages are low for them, but excellent for us. Many Cook Islanders are leaving for Australia or New Zealand and there is always a demand for foreign workers. We are simply filling the gap."

It is obvious that the problem is becoming increasingly severe. The Pacific is losing people. Environmental refugees are pouring out of Tuvalu, which may be the first country to become uninhabitable due to global warming and the rising sea level. Kiribati is facing the same problem, plus overpopulation and social malaise. And the same can be said about the Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI) with some of the worst ecological and demographic problems anywhere in the world (mainly as a result of the US nuclear experiments and present day missile range on Kwajalein Atoll).

Social destitution and racial intolerance in the larger Melanesian countries (PNG, Solomon Islands and Fiji) are sending tens of thousands of people to distant shores, in search of better living or simply survival.

And Polynesia, that eternal paradise once immortalized on the canvases of Gauguin, is not doing much better than the rest of the Pacific. Riots in Tonga, child abuse and feudal oppression in Samoa.

"I left the Cook Islands and went to New Zealand", recalls Elisabeth Wright-Koteka. "But I decided to return. I simply like to be here. I like my job, my house. I would like my kids to grow up here. To be a Cook Islander... What is it, really? Maybe a sense of belonging, something we carry inside. It is abstract. We are like Parrotfish from a long reef - a fish that travels the world but always finds its way home. But coming back doesn't mean that we stay in one place forever. Maybe our lot is exactly that: a movement between the wide world and the reef."

As she speaks, a light breeze begins to penetrate the tropical heat. It is suddenly easier to breath. But the water of the Pacific is slowly rising while there are more and more people boarding planes with a one-way ticket that will take them far away from the palm trees, transparent water and quiet nights of unspeakable Polynesian beauty.


ANDRE VLTCHEK - novelist, journalist, filmmaker and playwright. Co-founder of Mainstay Press publishing house for political fiction and LibLit. His latest novel - Point of No Return - tells the story of war correspondent covering New World Order conflicts. He lives in Asia and South Pacific and can be reached at andre-wcn@usa.net

From: Z Space - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3482

Things to do in Fort Lauderdale on Easter Sunday

Church... and nothing else.

Greetings from Fort Lauderdale the land that prays on Easter Sunday and even the mighty capitalist machine grinds to a halt. We were expecting a day of shopping and sight seeing here but it looks like one last day at the pool. We may take our binoculars up to the rooftop pool and scan the city to see if we see a place that's open, somewhere in this vast swamp of houses and cellular phone shops.

A wonderful thing happened our last day in San Jose--we lost our camera. I know what you're thinking, besides the obligatory Paul "sexy" beach pictures being lost to the unfortunate soul who found the picture, how could loosing a camera possibly be a good thing. Well, let me explain.

Many years back, I was drunk (surprise, surprise) and on the way back from Cozumel to Cancun. I put the camera in the back of taxi then failed to pick it up. The next day, after realizing where I left the camera, I called the taxi company. They told me: "oh no senior, nobody turn in a camera." Drat, the camera was gone and with it about 20 photographs of Cozumel. Now, today, we're talking about memory cards and hundreds of pictures so there was a lot at stake.

We lost, or rather, I most probably lost the camera on our Friday tour to Poas volcano, La Paz waterfall and the coffee country. We realized after returning to our hotel and putting our feet up for the night that our camera was gone. It was a casual kind of "where's the camera, dear?"

"I thought you had it dear."

Then panic, the type of panic that only comes when you KNOW you lost something and KNOW you're not going to find it. We hustled downstairs to the gift shop thinking we may have left it in there, and as we scurried around the gift shop, an employee from the front desk came in and said: "Is Mr. Paul here?"

I said yes and he told me to get the phone. The tour guide, a man named Esteban, was on the line.

"Hello," he said, "It is Esteban, I have your camera here, you left it on the bus."

He continued, "I know you're flying out tomorrow, so we can bring it to you first thing in the morning if you want."

The next morning, at 6:00 am, following a restless nights' sleep, Juan Carlos, the driver of the tour, showed up at our hotel in San Jose with our missing camera.

Of all the wonderful things we saw and the great people we met along the way, this one act of kindness and generosity left such a positive lasting impression of Costa Rica and the Costa Rican people. Such small acts do wonders for tourism.

We will never go back to Mexico.

Do you know the way... again, I know, try something new.

Hola everyone from the Hotel Don Carlos, back in San Jose. It is nice being back because the air is cool and we have no more scrawney little airplanes to contend with. We flew back from Tambor, near Mal Pais, earlier on a single engine jallopy with a copilot who had Turettes syndrome. No problem until he took the stick to land the plane. Keep it steady big guy.

Well, tomorrow we are off on a day long tour of areas around San Jose because, with Easter weekend, everything and I mean EVERYTHING is closed. You cannot drink beer on either Easter Sunday, Good Friday, or Holy Thursday. What is an alcoholic to do around here? Again, I am going to keep this a little short because this keyboard has characters that are all screwed up--the question mark is the dash and the dash is the question mark. I cannot figure out if this is a Spanish setting or someone screwing around with the keyboard. Perhaps any of you Spanish speaking people out there can explain why a question is a dash and vice versa.

I will go into much greater detail on this blog once I get back to Winnipeg and have a more reliable computer to work with. I have taken a gazillion, no muchas gazillion photographs for everyone to enjoy or use as a sedative for those nights after eating 30 chicken wings and having those EVIL GUY CHASING YOU dreams. (Sorry, I cannot find quotation marks and the asterisk is the left bracket, while the left bracket is the right bracket--come on you Spanish guys, explain that).

So this is where I stop because it is time for Julia and I to say TO HELL WITH HOLY THURSDAY and go drink some wine. Besides, my welts are oozing puss and I need to go reapply some betopic cream I bought in the Cook Islands for the huge welts I suffered there. Do not worry, I am sure that by the time I get back to Winnipeg, the spider larvae will have already hatched and consumed my leg. You can call me limpy if you wish.

Hola, from the dust!

Greetings everybody from Mal Pais, pronounced mal-pa-ees. This is a Spanish keyboard and it is giving me fits--I am typing the wrong letter every couple of word so I am going to keep this short. We will be back in San Jose tomorrow and back to a keyboard that is more agreeable to my typing style. The trip is almost over and we have had a great time, stayed in great places, ate delicious food and drank lots of delicious liquor. I am just writing to tell everyone that we are still alive and that the only reason I have not written is because I have not had access to a computer for the past week. We went zip lining today and Julia did her best impression of a howler monkey. As is typical of all my trips, I have broken out into some large red welts that Julia has, for some reason, not been lucky enough to get. I look forward to hugging everyone when I get home and spreading this plague. Until San Jose, it is Paul checking out and buenas nochas!

Lizards Eat Flies--The Law of the Jungle

It was truly a sad spectacle. Yesterday I sat on a hammock near a gurgling river and watched the brutality as a small lizard ate a fly. The fly was alive when it first found itself in the clutches of the lizards jaws, its little legs fluttered with each chomp. Forty five minutes later, it was all over, a satiated lizard darted away with a satisfied demeanor and a few fly guts left on the chair. The horror... the horror.

Yes, you know you are on vacation when you can waste a good chunk of time watching this spectacle. I'm writing from Esquinas Lodge, deep in the jungle and things here are magnificent. Yes we're still alive, and there's no snake bites or tarantula encounters to speak of. In fact there's barely any insects here at all: you can hear them, millions of them, but you're lucky to them. We saw some tarantula "dens" but they are a shy spider, worried the dreaded spider wasp will attack them, paralyze them, then lay their wasplings in their belly. Indeed, if I faced such doom, I wouldn't wish to expose my hairy body during the daylight.

We arrived at Esquinas Lodge early on Tuesday after leaving Don Carlos at 4:45 am. The flight was interesting, a small airplane packed the fuselage with travelers heading to the South and the forests and fish filled waters of the Golfo Dulce. Over Costa Rica it was dense forest virtually everywhere, quite different from Honduras and Nicaragua that seemed barren, with few pockets of trees dotted with plumes of smoke, the last vestige of slash and burn deforestation. We landed in Golfito on what could be described as a road and got off the plane in the humid air and curtain of tropical foliage. Yes, winter was officially over.

We arrived at Esquinas Lodge and promptly napped for two hours before exporing the grounds, lodge and pool. This place is incredible. I have few words, few metaphors, few adjectivs that can truly do it justice. It's a tropical paradise, everywhere you look there's long strands of colourful flowers, green vegitation and all encompassing sounds of the jungle, a caucophany of bird chirps and insect buzzes and bleeps. It's virtally impossible to make out the number of noises eminating from the forest. You could not design a more complete tropical lodge even with the masters hollywood movie set designers.

On day two we did what everyone would do, we went off for hike through the tropical rainforest, to learn of the flora and fauna of this forbidden land. We saw stately mahogany trees, figs, "panama hats", palms, banana and even a tree the locals call the kerosine tree: a tree, when cut, that emits an inflammable vapour. The animals were less obvious, a few birds, butterflies, termites and ants. The forest floor is ruled by ants, the hard working in leaf cutters, dilligently returning their leaf harvest to the mound and the ants that live symbiotically with a horned plant where the ants derive their nectar of life and where the pant get an army of aggressive defenders in the violent life of the jungle. Our guide, Jose, said: "Don't touch, ants are very painful." Good to know. We chose not to touch, but I was tempted to lick the poison frogs to see just how they tasted.

The next day we decided to strike out on our own...

Do you know the way...?

Greetings everyone from San Jose, Costa Rica. After a death defying taxi ride we made it to the Hotel Don Carlos in one piece. We almost killed a motorcyclist and rode with two very old grumpy Texans, one of whom uttered "good thing I didn't bring a gun, I woulda shot someone by now." The sums up for us the land of freedom, the good ol' US of A. Our hotel in Florida was nice and we loved the roof-top hot tub and pool but geez the States gets on my nerves.

We arrived in Montreal just minutes before the big storm. Within twenty minutes of getting to the hotel, the snowflakes were the size of cotton balls and fell vigorously. Within a few hours, it was an all out assault, with winds gusting near 100km/h and the hotel across the road was barely visible. We decided to simmer in the jacuzzi tub because, by divine intervention, someone must have screwed up and given us the the "Honeymoon Suite." Boo hoo.

The next morning it was bedlam. We got up at 4:55 am and hustled downstairs to take the shuttle to the airport and met a mob in the lobby. The shuttle hadn't been there for thirty minutes and we knew were weren't going to make the next one either. Our flight left at 7:45 am and it was showing "on time." At 6:45 we finally pushed onto the shuttle and to our surprise, it took 5 minutes to get the airport. Hmmm. It took one hour for the shuttle to return, yet it only took five minutes one way. Are we to believe it takes 55 minutes to get back to the hotel?

Whatever, we got to the airport and it was pregnant with travelers, or rather, traveler wannabees. People were sleeping everywhere, on the carpet, on baggage belts and in chairs. The line for Air Cubana looked like it was 500 people long, but we found the lone WestJet counter and were second in line. No problemo. But when we arrived at our gate, the flight was delayed because they couldn't get fuel to the aircraft. Moments later we saw a snow plough at our gate so another problem was solved. But we continued to wait.

We struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to us: Roy was his name, and what started as idle chit-chat eventually merged into a full blown debate on movies, authors, Wal-Mart, the United States, Iraq War then back to movies. Roy remined me of Woody Allen, a manic dynamo of run-on sentences and self depricating humor. He would say: "What's your favourite movie... mine's Apolocolypse Now, the story in that movie, wow, and Silence of the Lambs, that first scene, you know, where they say Hannibal is a Monster, the screenplay, out of this world, and to think it had an 11 million budget, wow, that's puny by today's standards, so what's you favourite movie...? Roy sat in front of Julia on the plane, and as everyone was seated on a full plane, turned to Julia and said loudly: "So, how's that skin rash?". Roy sold paper for the Irving Family, but was also a screenwriter. He had a big screenplay in the works, a mystery called "Final Draft" about famous mystery authors disappearing in the grizzly manner of their best sellers. An interesting concept indeed, but I could imagine a movie mogel seeing another thick pile of paper and grunting "goddamn, Roy, not another one." We wished Roy well in Fort Lauderdale as he had 15 minutes to get from the Airport to his cruise. We got our bags and he was still waiting.

All was good, we got to Fort Lauderdale three hours late, checked in and headed to the bar for a drink and lunch. We struck up a conversation with another man at the bar. He was interested by us being from Canada and wanted our opinion on the United States election and the Iraq War. We were happy to oblige. There's so much news about the primaries down here, but none of it really makes sense, and this guy, Dave, said he really didn't understand it either. This begs the question. If you don't understand your system, how is it democracy? I won't bore you with the whole of the conversation, because Roy was far more interesting, but he said Iraq was a U.S. military base now and would be forever more because the United States could never stand for $300 dollar per barrel of gas. I could not have summed it up better myself.

Again, what's the deal with this county? The taxi driver wouldn't accept credit cards and Fort Lauderdale Airport was abuze with the blinketty-blinks and buzzes of laptop computers and the lonely conversations of people on cell phones and Blackberries. Airport have become a dumping ground of the electronically disposesed. How can you wait for an airplane and NOT do something with a battery powered box? We'd had enough, the people at the airport were grumpy as Hell's janitors and we did not look forward to another plane ride.

But here I sit writing an email from the Hotel Don Carlos and thinking about bedtime. We're up at 4:15 am to travel to Esquinas lodge and I'm ready to really get away from everyone. As long as there's no scorpions, we'll be fine.

Costa Rica Itinerary: In Search of the Utopian Scene (Again)

Well everyone, ie. me, back to my blog "Paul's Project." So much for a project, I cannot call it a project when I haven't written in about six months. Damn it's hard for me to write right now because a piece of skin I sliced on my pointer finger just fell off and the fs, rs, ts and gs are excruciating. Crimony!

I thought I should re-engage the blog in case I get a chance in Costa Rica to write something to folk back home like: "Julia was eaten by a 50 lb tarantula" or "Julia ran off with a howler monkey named Biff." All plausible story lines in this nether region we're going to visit. It's funny how we always start to plan a regular, run of the mill trip, then end off at some far flung shit hole in the middle of a bug infested jungle. What gives?

Ever since I was a curious teenager, I've always been in search of what friends of mine called the "Utopian Scene." I mean, Utopia is really a great place, right? It's pretty much perfect and nothing can really ever be perfect, but it can be close to perfect. It's like Calculus, when you always do that stupid equation: if a parabola approaches infinity then you can figure out the volume of some stupid three dimensional bowl on a piece of graph paper, then you proceed to get drunk, miss three labs, drop the course, take more History and work for WestJet. But that's off topic, the Utopian scene is nearing infinity, getting as close to Utopia as humanly possible: that's my mantra. Aitutaki, Cook Islands, pretty damn close--save the giant cockroaches, devilish mosquitoes and sea cucumbers. I'm sorry, sea cucumbers are just gross.

So where the Hell are we going?

After extensive deliberation, researching the whole country, emailing places, talking to people, obsessing, drinking, then obsessing more we've arrived at this itinerary:

March 8: Fly to Montreal, La belle Provence.

March 9: Fly to Fort Lauderdale, in Florida, the Jeb Bush state.

March 10: Fly to San Jose, Costa Rica, to stay at a place called the Hotel Don Carlos. (http://www.doncarloshotel.com/index.htm)

March 11: It's off to nowheresville, flying Natureair to a rainforest ecolodge near the southern town of Golfito. It's called Esquinas Lodge and it's buried in the virgin rainforest of Piedras Blancas National Park. Here's the link, this place looks great. (http://www.esquinaslodge.com/)

March 14: It's back to Golfito to be picked up by boat and taken to Playa Zancudo, a beach spot not far from the Panamanian border that, according to Lonely Planet, is "off the beaten track, even by Costa Rica standards." We're staying in a lovely teak hut at a bungalow place called Cabinas Los Cocos. (http://www.loscocos.com/)

March 17: We're flying back to San Jose then making our way either by plane or bus to Mal Pais in the Nicoya Peninsula. We're staying at a place called Moana Lodge which will be the second time in three years we've stayed at a place called "Moana." (On Mangaia, in the Cook Islands, we stayed at a place called Ara Moana--remember, the corrugated steel shed). This place is a little higher end, though, as we gradually re-introduce ourselves back to civilization. I'm sure by this time I'll be talking to a hand print on a volleyball, with Julia saying "stop talking to that stupid volleyball, I'm right here!" Here's the link to this swanky two star resort. (http://www.moanalodge.com/)

On March 20th it's back to San Jose and the Hotel Don Carlos for a return engagement and some nice urban exploring for a couple days, checking out restaurants, museums and the zoo so Biff can eat some gnats off Aunt Bea.

On March 22nd it's back to Fort Lauderdale for a couple days before heading home and if all turns out according to plan Julia will have gotten over Biff and I will not be covered in some heinous rash or welts from miscellaneous insect bites.

Don't you just love the Utopian Scene? Updates coming soon.