Thank You Mr. President

ALOHA to Our Visitors;

To The Obama Family & to YOU :)

"Your idol is shattered in the dust

 to prove that God's dust

 is greater than your idol."

Rabindranath Tagore

"Strange violin, are you following me? 

In how many far cities

 has your solitary night

 spoken already to mine?"

  Rilke

"Turn your face to the sun 

and the shadows fall behind you. "

 Maori Proverb

Did you know that here in the US: middle class taxes are down, the economy is improving, and the bailouts of Wall Street, AIG, and General Motors, are on track to turn a profit potentially in the billions for us taxpayers?


President Obama and the Democrats have accomplished much of value in the face unrelenting partisanship.




According to BLOOMBERG:   
No Congress Since 1960s Has Impact on Public as 111th

• For the first time since President Theodore Roosevelt began the quest for a national health-care system more than 100 years ago, the Democrat-led House and Senate took the biggest step toward achieving that goal by giving 32 million Americans access to insurance.

• Congress rewrote the rules for Wall Street in the most comprehensive way since the Great Depression.

• It spent more than $1.67 trillion to revive an economy on the verge of a depression, including tax cuts for most Americans, jobs for more than 3 million, construction of roads and bridges and investment in alternative energy;
• 
  
•  
• ended an almost two-decade ban against openly gay men and women serving in the military,

• ratified a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

• approved legislation to help rescuers and clean-up crews suffering from illnesses linked to the wreckage caused by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City.

• The S&P 500 Index has gained 38.9 percent since Congress convened in January 2009, thebiggest increase for a two-year congressional session since 1997-1998, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

•  in Ohio, for instance, the legislation created 122,000 jobs for teachers, police officers and construction workers.

“This is probably the most productive session of Congress since at least the ‘60s,”  “It’s all the more impressive given how polarized the Congress has been.”

 Alan Brinkley, 

 Historian, Columbia University.




Welcome home to Honolulu, Mr. President.
Here you are loved.




          And thank YOU for visiting :) cloudia

Aloft by Millions

A l o h a !

click on the pics

"Give me a pen

and a place to write

and I can move the world."

Cloudia

 (with apologies to Archimedes)

"I knew that someday

with luck

I'd be 50 -

but I never really believed it."

How many megapixels are YOU shooting? Tell me in comments.

The President should be landing here on Oahu today.

Kayakers near his (rented) Kailua home are already respecting an enforced exclusion zone

that encroaches on their usual routes.

"That's OK. We like him."

 One paddler told the TV news.

Like most Hawaii residents, Barry's parents and grandparents lived in

rentals and apartments - not a family compound like the Kennedys and the Bushs.

At this time of year ancient kings closed the passes over the mountains.

Energy is low around solstice time,

and they were wise enough to know that it was time to nurture

the waning light,

time to feed the incipient coals

so that light may rise again.

Nurture YOUR little flame-

perhaps by seeing it as one

in a sea of candles

held aloft by millions of people

like you

and like me.

We are the sparks of tomorrow.

Never forget to pass your wise kindness

on the those needing it.

Would you rather live with a tiger in the house

or a rabbit?

The year of the tiger is winding down.

The gentle rabbit is on her way.

You and I-

we've seen it many times before.

So remember to take time

to waste time-

that's sometimes the wisest investment

you can make.

Thanks for spending some time and attention

here

with us!

What small secret pleasure do you enjoy this time of year?

And how many Mega Pixels do YOU shoot?

Fondly, cloudia

Dry Running

A  L  O  H  A !

Still Here!

"Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist

but the ability to start over."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Moana Surfrider. 100+ years of Aloha

"Speech is of time,

silence is of eternity."

Thomas Carlyle

"Art is the only way to run away
without leaving home."


Twyla Tharp

"If you neglect the welfare of others,

ultimately

you will be very lonely."

Dalai Lama

"Christmas waves a magic wand
 over this world,
 and behold,
 everything is softer and more beautiful."


Norman Vincent Peale



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My feet are dry.

That is no small thing.

Though we have had some Winter Rains

 here in the Islands-

(Sorry for that Pineapple Express, West Coast :(

-and my carpets here on the boat 

have been damp for two weeks or so,

slowly slowly we climb out of the slime and muck;

sometimes literally!

Those of you who know about our emergency (HERE)

know what I'm talking about.

Meanwhile. . .

First Lady Michelle Obama,

 her girls & the dog are waiting in Kailua

for the President to join them this week

on this island of his birth.

The press has taken over a ballroom

 (at least!) at the Moana Surfrider

and strange, stiff, focused men

 in slightly "off" aloha shirts

are seen around Oahu

 talking into tiny headsets.

I feel pretty safe. 

We're having a "Dry Run"

for the Asian Pacific Summit

 which will happen here in 2011

requiring coordination of several heads of state

moving about on one tiny island

converging on the Convention Center

a few blocks from here.

(Juicy: The chi chi Waikiki Edition Hotel
overlooking this harbor

is already booked solid for the event.  It's popular with diplomats - who knew?)

Folks are stoked that President Local Barry

 is coming home.

And he's sure to be seen around the islands,

golfing with high school friends.

(Our new Governor has been known to the Prez

since childhood as his parents' friend!)

I'm sure it's reviving for him to be in a place 

where he is appreciated.

It's almost as much of a thrill to see him

 and the girls eating Shave Ice

as it was to see Johnny Depp among us.

(We still miss ya, Johnny - please come back swoon -

 I mean soon.)

So yes, I'm still here! I missed you - 

but a wet boat in a rainstorm

is not the place to work on-line.

So now I'm off to see what YOU

 have been up to these few days.

Thanks AWFULLY for looking in today.

Leave me a comment so I can hear your breathing :) 

     fondly, cloudia

Captain Beefheart, Dead at 69

Captain Beefheart & Frank Zappa

Don Van Vliet,

 aka Captain Beefheart,

 dead at 69

(AP) – 2 hours ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Musician and artist

 Don Van Vliet, who performed a complex brand 

of experimental rock under the name Captain Beefheart,

 died Friday. He was 69.

Van Vliet was probably best known

 for the album "Trout Mask Replica,"

 which was released in 1969

 by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band.

The album's angular, dissonant take on blues rock

 and Van Vliet's growling, surreal lyrics

 put him outside the mainstream,

 but staked his place in rock history.

Rolling Stone magazine recently ranked "Trout Mask Replica"

 number 58 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

 The album was produced by fellow experimental rock pioneer 

Frank Zappa, a high school friend from the desert town of Lancaster,

 Calif.

By shunning commercial success and a more accessible sound,

 Van Vliet became a role model for subsequent generations of musicians.

 His music is cited as an influence on the rise of punk, post-punk

 and new wave.

 Beefheart is also claimed as a kindred spirit by free jazz musicians

 and avant-garde classical composers.

In the 1980s, Van Vliet turned full-time to art.

 He painted in a raw, expressionistic style and showed

 his acclaimed work widely even as he withdrew from the public eye.

He is survived by his wife of more than 40 years.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Related article

• 
  
• Captain Beefheart Dies at 69 
  Hollywood Reporter - 3 hours ago
• 
  

On The Way

It's ALOHA Friday

in Hawaii!

"Great events make me quiet and calm,

it is only trifles

that irritate my nerves."

Queen Victoria

See the little Prince leaving his royal parents and going into the Hawaiian

AfterWorld?

Lobby mural in the Leiopapa a Kamehameha Building (State Office Tower). 

235 South Beretania Street, Honolulu,

  named after little Prince

 Albert Edward Kauikeaouli Leiopapa a Kamehameha;

 Born to King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma

 on May 20, 1858,

 he was only four-years old when he passed away

 due to meningitis on August 27, 1862.

 The spirit of the young prince, affectionately known to the people as

 Ka Haku O Hawai'i "The Lord Of Hawai'i,"

is said to inhabit the building named in his honor to this day:

Leiopapa a Kamehameha translates to"

 "The Flower Of His Father Kamehameha."

Much hope rested on this little boy whose godmother was

Queen Victoria.

Hawaii still loves protocol and pageant.

This is the Brothers Cazimero's Christmas Show

at the historic Hawaii Theatre

"You can become a winner

only if you are willing

to walk over the edge."

Damon Runyon

(for Robert Cazimero)

Iolani Palace by Night.

Electrified by Edison himself, years before the US White House.

Honolulu's citizenry gathered right here

at eve to watch the lights come on all at once,

a bit of magic we take for granted today.

 "Our children

 (and elderly parents! cloudia)

 give us the opportunity

 to become the parents we always wished

 we had."

Louise Hart

By Day

"Morality may consist solely

 in the courage to make a choice."

Leon Blum

In Gingerbread!

"And I had but one penny in the world. 

Thou should’st have it to buy gingerbread." 


 William Shakespeare,
 Love’s Labours Lost

"The child with his sweet pranks, the fool of his senses, commanded by every sight and sound,
 without any power to compare and rank his sensations,
 abandoned to a whistle or a painted chip, to a lead dragoon, or a gingerbread dog,
 individualizing everything, generalizing nothing,
 delighted with every new thing,
 lies down at night overpowered by the fatigue, which this day of continual pretty madness has incurred.


 But Nature has answered her purpose with the curly, dimpled lunatic.
 She has tasked every faculty, and has secured the symmetrical growth of the bodily frame,
 by all these attitudes and exertions /an end of the first importance,
 which could not be trusted to any care less perfect than her own." 


 Ralph Waldo Emerson

Meanwhile. . .

May you delight in everything that comes today.

May the child in you stir

and awake

for a season of Wonder

and radical Hope.

That is my wish for 

YOU.

        What is YOURS?  cloudia