Loner's Club

Aloha Fellow Loner

Welcome Back

to

Our Stretch of Waikiki Beach!

Click on the photos!

A crowd of cute Japanese tourist girls in their cute outfits.

"Every crowd has a silver lining. "

P.T. Barnum

"For the last few years, it's been so chic for everybody to be

miserable.

Like if you're in with the cool crowd,

you can't be happy."

Lenny Kravitz

"Good sense travels on the well-worn paths;

genius, never.

And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason,

is so ready to treat great men as lunatics. "

Cesare Lombroso

"I have never wished to cater to the crowd;

for what I know they do not approve,

and what they approve I do not know. "

Epicurus

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Did you read The Catcher in the Rye?

or

Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters?

Were you a lonely adolescent

in a strange world?

You probably heard that

J.D. Salinger,

the famous writer/recluse

died recently.

The "poet laureate" of the loner

was often chided

and wondered over

because he didn't play

the celebrity game.

He didn't pontificate,

nor push his opinions forward.

He just wanted to live,

and to write.

A recent piece by Lillian Ross

in the Feb 8, 2010 New Yorker

reflected on her long friendship

with the author.

I wanted to share a few of his remarks, which she remembers,

with you:

"I think I despise every school and college in the world,

but the one's with the best reputation first."

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"If your child likes - loves - you,

the very love he bears you

tears your heart out

about once a day

or once every other day."

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"No matter how he ( famous scholarly writer) stuffs his readers

with verbiage,

it never amounts to a core of truth."

"It takes me at least and hour to warm up

when I sit down to work (write). . .

Just taking off my own disguises

takes an hour or more."

><>

"There are no writers anymore.

Only book-selling louts and big mouths."

"God,

How I still love private readers.

It's what we all used to be."

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Yes, God bless us disguised loners,

Every One!

ALOHA, cloudia

Bonus:

"Writing, real writing, is done not from some seat of fussy moral judgment but with the eye and ear and heart; no American writer will ever have a more alert ear, a more attentive eye, or a more ardent heart than his."

Adam Gropnik

Golden Rules

Aloha Friend!

Click on the photos

Home Sweet Home - Hawaiian Style

"...if Americans felt the level of economic security that people take for granted in, say, Germany, France, or Denmark, it would be a huge improvement over what we have now. People should be able to count on healthcare, a decent retirement, and other basic necessities of life. To a large extent, even upper-middle-class Americans can't assume this level of security."

"There is an incredible elitism in the idea that autoworkers, steelworkers, and textile workers are losing their jobs or facing pay cuts because they don't have enough skills or education to compete in the twenty-first century economy . . . Plenty of foreign doctors would be delighted to come here and work for less than most American doctors, but they are not allowed to because our doctors are protected by trade agreements. Yet in these same trade agreements conservatives dismantle protections for American blue-collar workers, calling the protections

'barriers to trade.'"

"I don't think we have a free market model.

what we have is the wealthy using their power to control government

and shape the rules in ways that redistribute wealth upward.

The so-called free-marketers don't want the market left alone;

they just want the government to structure the market to serve their interests. . .

Show me someone who's made lots of money, and I'll show you how we wrote the

rules so that he or she made money."

Two creatures sharing a moment, yet unaware of one another.

"In the three decades prior to 1980 the U.S. economy was relatively strong. It grew steadily, productivity increased rapidly, the unemployment rate was low, and the benefits of that economic growth were shared widely.

It was a virtuous circle in which more productivity translated into wage increases, which gave people more buying power, which translated into more demand. . .

But as unions lost strength, gains in productivity didn't translate into wage growth. Instead the benefits of all that productivity increasingly went to those at the top. . . Reagan also blocked increases to the minimum wage which meant that the real value of the minimum wage was eroded each year by inflation. Average American workers saw their real wages stagnate between 1980 and 1995.

Because many people were losing income,

borrowing was the only way they could maintain their standard of living."

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Perhaps you've heard it said

that the Golden Rule means

that those who have the gold

make all the rules.

In 2002, economist Dean Baker wrote a piece called:

The Run-up in Home Prices: Is It Real or Is It Another Bubble?

His reasoned predictions of a Bust where ignored.

He is co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research [CEPR]

and posts a popular blog at the American Prospect [Here].

The quotes above where taken from an interview

in the February 2010 issue of The Sun

[Here]

He ended the interview by saying:

"People are looking for alternatives.

The dominant economic paradigm is hugely vulnerable.

We just need to reframe the debate."

ALOHA! cloudia

Camera Dog

Aloha, Friend

Welcome to Wednesday

in

Waikiki

click on the photos!

"A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. "

Robert Frost

"At the age of four

with paper hats and wooden swords

we're all Generals.

Only some of us never grow out of it. "

Peter Ustinov

"If you live to be 100,

I hope to live to be 100 minus one day,

so I never have to live without you."

Winnie the Pooh

Captive sky - or imprisoned eye?

"There are always flowers

for those that want to see them."

Henri Matisse

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My camera

is just like a dog:

Eager to please.

But sometimes

when I point it towards a

little miracle

all it sees

is my finger.

I suppose that's

what all the advanced

lenses and filters are about.

And when the camera loves you

it's canine devotion

is whole-hearted

as it is

fleeting.

ALOHA, cloudia

Tucked Away

Aloha, Friend!

It's

Tuesday

here in

W A I K I K I

Do click on today's photos!

On a small island, strange combinations of OLD/NEW and BIG/Small

are commonplace. Here we see a Waikiki bungalow amidst high-rises

that have grown up around it.

"There's only one corner of the universe

you can be certain of improving,

and that's your own self."

Aldous Huxley

When a formerly rural area becomes "modernized" compromises must be made.

I love Windward Mall, in Oahu's Kaneohe Town, across the Ko`olau mountains from Waikiki/Honolulu (here on the Kona side of the island).

There is still a small-town feel to Kaneohe,

and the modest mall is in sharp contrast to Ala Moana Shopping Center

("Hawaii's Center") a 10 minute walk from my boat/home.

Ala Moana is a world bazaar

with people from all over Hawaii and the world rubbing shoulders.

In the photo above you can see

a little-known graveyard that is hidden away in the parking lot of Windward Mall

up against the ramp to the upper-parking! That is where I got these pictures from.

Mostly, the peaceful anachronism is hidden behind a big wooden fence.

If you didn't know it was there, you'd never notice it.

It seems to be well protected and well cared for by the mall authorities.

"The art of progress is to preserve order

amid change

and to preserve change amid order."

Alfred North Whitehead

These wild fowl, who live there, seem sleek and healthy!

"In times of change, learners inherit the Earth,

while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped

to deal with a world that no longer exists."

Eric Hoffer

Dear Sister Rufina was probably Portugese from the Azores, or perhaps Filipina.

She only had 23 years.

Thank you for building our Hawaii of today!

"It is not flesh and blood

but the heart

which makes us fathers and sons."

Johann Schiller

Margaret was born in 1900 and lived until 1943.

What amazing changes she must have seen!

Her descendants may shop at the mall.

Your Aloha and hard work are appreciated!

(Do click on this photo to see the porcelain image;

These were quite popular back in the day

and are seen an many of our

older graveyards.)

"Family faces are magic mirrors.

Looking at people who belong to us,

we see the past, present, and future."

Gail Lumet Buckley

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ALOHA, cloudia

Mon, Hon

Aloha, Friend!


Welcome to

Monday in

Waikiki

click on photos!

"Health is the thing that makes you feel

that now is the best time of the year."



Franklin P. Adams

"We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us."


Baroness Anne Louise de Stahl

"Don't ask what the world needs.

Ask what makes you come alive,

and go do it.

Because what the world needs

is people who have come alive."

Howard Thurman


ALOHA, cloudia