9.20.2011

Moving day...

Morning world,

As you may have noticed, this one has been on hiatus since about April. Lot of real world betwixt then and now, notably a bar exam and getting killed at work. As a result, this little corner of madness has been pushed aside.



Love you, Johnette

I've missed it, yet I realize that it is untenable in its current form.  But, in typical compromise fashion, I've decided to try a different approach. One that will allow me to dump some short term thoughts and the like on willing victims.

So, I'm moving to Tumblr for the foreseeable future. Predictably, the URL is http://gothlaw.tumblr.com Come pay me a visit, I'll pour you a drink, and we can share some thoughts. But, for now, 'tis moving day...hope to see you soon.



Did I mention that my new digs are cozy?


-d.s.

4.15.2011

Can't read law news anymore...

It's a shit show, for real. Terrible rulings/actions the past few days. Kentucky ruled that the State Bar can restrict an attorney's public expression; South Dakota is trying to remove a judge who called cops racist for profiling Indians; the 9th Circuit ruled adversely to homeowners seeking just compensation for regulatory takings....


...ugh....Just a bad week.

So, let's tone this down a notch, with an Emo Alpaca.


Bring it, cruel world...







.d.s

Sighday is here...

Couldn't come a second too soon, either.

Long, weird, wild week. Like a microcosm of Bipolar disorder: Ups, downs, never level...often in the same day. Holy shit, am I exhausted.

No one describes it better than the Man in Black.

Trent Reznor, okay, I get it...this is yours
But, no way is it cooler than Johnny Cash.
There are few things that are.




.d.s.

4.14.2011

WWII in one 5 minute animated .gif

Reality, you've been trumped.


Truth is Truthy...




.d.s. 

Coolest Mug Ever...

Not too much into the accumulation of stuff...But, I do love some coffee, and more particularly, I love coffee mugs.

I have found a new one to add to my collection, and, I'd more than willing to bet some you folks would rock this bad boy too.




Pure awesome...I especially like the notch for cookies.

H/T Neenz

Mug available at Uncommon Goods for less than $20!




.d.s.

Fuck Yea! Thursday

Got some great news today...personal, legal. Still, it felt good.

Now, just need to find a way to get off the Island, and back to the mainland. That, however, is a story for another time.

What shall we play today, lads and lasses? How about...



Fuck yea!




.d.s

4.13.2011

Wednesday's Geeked Over Playoffs...

Tonight, out long national nightmare concludes. The Stanley Cup Playoffs finally begin. In it's honor, I have begun the PLAYOFF BEARD, the most venerable of Lord Stanley's traditions...


Max Talbot, of my beloved Penguins, rockin' a great playoff beard...


My efforts aren't quite as impressive; however, I am only 7 days into my Playoff Beard...


Not too shabby. Not too shabby at all...



But, this morning I'd like to share with you two of my other favorite things about the Stanley Cup playoffs, one so happens to be of the musical variety, the other, awesomeness....


FIRST, the Penguins Goal Horn....



BWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH



SECOND, there's nothing like listening to the Blackhawks' iconic "Chelsea Dagger", particularly when it comes at the expense of the choking  perpetually choking Vancouver Canucks.



Schadenfreude never gets old...


Anyway, have fun kids and let's hope for a helluva' lot of fun over the next few weeks!
.d.s



4.12.2011

Truly good news for the Planet...

Sunrise in Eden was rocked out today, and, for good reason. I found the most kick-ass, feel-good story ever today. One that should make the Earth pretty pleased (or, at least somewhat optimistic)...




You mean you do love me?



According to the Guardian, Bolivia is about to make serious, serious history-changing law with the passage of A Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra (The Law of Mother Earth) 


The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities".

"It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all", said Vice-President Alvaro García Linera. "It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration."



 Hmmm, I wonder where I've heard this before...



Oh, I'm sure the proposal/law will be plenty ridiculed and patently ignored by those who want to exploit Bolivia's natural resources (cuz that's never happened before *wank*). And, let's face it, the legislative preamble is all kinds of flaky


 She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation.


But, as a first step, and an eye-opening first move? I'll absolutely take it. You know who else would?


Dumpster Muffin, that's who...




.d.s.

 

100% Topical Tuesday, promise

This may seem like an odd choice. Edenbridge's "Sunrise in Eden"...but, trust me, later on it's gonna' make a helluva' lot more sense.

Not to mention, the guitar work in the jam-bridge this one is fantastic. Think about "so good, you'll weep".


Beautiful, beautiful song.
Beautiful, beautiful musicianship.
.d.s.

4.11.2011

Sad news for the First Amendment*...

*lest I rehash this here, my feelings on creepers are pretty well set. I am however, much much more worried about abuse of the legal process for a quick, cheap political kill. 


Philip Greaves, world-class creeper and author of the notorious "Pedophiles Guide" (a/k/a a code of conduct for creepers to stay within the boundaries of the law), was -as you may remember, the subject of an attempted indictment by the State of Florida. A cheap, grand-standing political prosecution, based upon "obscenity", was set up for a quick-kill and cheaper political points.

Well, it worked.  Greaves pleaded no-contest/nolo in exchange for two year probation, to be served in his home state, and not having to register as a sex offender. The result of the settlement/plea means that he will continue to keep on, keeping on: nothing has changed, except that he's now considered a criminal, whereas previously he had no criminal record.

Defending pedophiles isn't my bag. But this was just horseshit from the word go. Carry on with your regularly scheduled march to the police state and brain-dead, uncritical populism.

Full story at BBC



.d.s.

Blue Monday...

Both a theme, and an excellent 1983 tune from New Order. 

Yep, waaaay better than Orgy's cover of the same.




.d.s

4.08.2011

I defy you to not laugh...

Ladies & Germs, this week's absolute win...Have a drunken/stoned/debaucherous weekend miscreants.



Where is your god now, mofo?





.d.s

Fuck a Nebraska Judge right in the ear...

In the srsly wtf category, via agitprop literature American Bar Association Journal comes this heart-felt story of judicial emphathy




Advocates for rape victims are raising concerns about a Nebraska judge’s threat to jail a 24-year-old woman who is refusing to testify about alleged childhood sexual abuse.



Huh? Por qua? Que? What the fuck?


Judge Paul Merritt Jr. of Lancaster County said the woman would be held in contempt of court and jailed for 90 days if she doesn’t testify, the Lincoln Journal Star reports. His order was stayed pending the woman’s appeal, which argues she will face disgrace and humiliation if she testifies.



Do it, goddamit. Do it!!!



What kind of horseshit is this? Lady doesn't want to testify to horrific abuse. The prosecutors may have to find additional evidence to make their case absent her cooperation. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot...she's already made their fucking case for them:


The alleged victim cooperated with investigators last August, reportedly getting Riensche to admit to inappropriate touching in a recorded conversation, the Associated Press reports. In March, however, she refused to answer questions in a deposition. 


So, let me get this straight. She cooperated with investigators, gave them enough to get the creeper to essentially hang himself, and now, because she no longer wishes to aid in the investigation, via deposition, then she will  be jailed? Lookit, I understand the Defense gets an opportunity to depose the lady. I do. But, the guy has already admitted to molesting her.  Why doesn't the defense counsel do the right fucking thing here and settle/plead out this piece of shit.

More importantly, why issue jail time to a woman who's having to relive trauma which all-but assuredly fucked her up...at the risk of imprisonment. Inherent contempt powers can be tailored much more narrowly than this. So, why not?



Whether you're 24 or 7, it all hurts, Fuckface.




-d.s.

Friday: So far, so good....

Now, enjoy a fucking hilarious, yet brutal start, to your day...

...and yes, I do have some things coming. What? I have no idea, but there are about 12 things half-done, so I'll pick 2 or 3!


Fuck and Yes, please.




.d.s.

4.07.2011

Fuck Thursday...

Started by waking up too early, then another quake in Japan, followed by a fight (which, I fear, will not be the first of the day, but hopefully the only one with this person).

Not particularly angry. Just apathetic. And, tired of being spoken to as though a child.

So, have some thumb-sucking for your shit Thursday.



Fuck it. 
We all deserve this...
.d.s.

4.06.2011

Tribute to the first Horror Film.

The German Expressionist film, 1902's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. 





If you're so inclined you can Google all of the wonderful (and occasionally supremely flaky) discussions of German Expressionism contained therein, and the impact that the film had on later noir film-makers.

Or, just follow this link (cuz I'm a sweetheart) --> http://tinyurl.com/455rdeu

Anyway, enjoy, and I'll see you kids later.



Sleep tight.





.d.s.

Guess what? Mind. Blown.

Humanity may, just may not be the center of the universe. Hate to break the news to anyone still living in pre-Renaissance feudal Europe.

I wish I could embed this fantastic Flash piece  Portugese site, HTwins.net. Therein you get the true scale of the Universe, and all life, features and matter (hypothetical or otherwise), from the impossibly micro (Quantum foam), to the boundaries of this plane of existence (930 million light years across).

Please, go now. You won't be disappointed, although you might be humbled...rightly so.


The universe is so vast in scope that our frail simian brains cannot even fathom it without caving in ourselves.

No petty description of hell or heaven or eternal delights or silly superstition puts humanity more in its place than pondering the imponderable that is our universe...and possibly our multiverse.

Wednesday is NOT winning...

All but won my arbitration yesterday, thank you limine hearings. But was a long, long day.

Wednesday here is gloomy, raining and otherwise humpday 'meh'. Still, that's cool, maybe people will leave me the fuck alone and I can get my work done (or just get drunk in the office).

Let's have some appropriate apathy/self-loathing music, shall we? From New Orleans hails the progenitor of the Southern Sludge style: Crowbar. These guys are living legends, never mellowed one bit, and importantly, their lyrics are solely based on pain, self-loathing, anger, anger over pain, pain over self-loathing and self-loathing over anger (I believe you get the point now).

This little ditty has the appropriately uplifting title, "I have failed".


Do not listen to these lyrics if you've just been fired.
Trust me, I did it once...surprised I'm still here to tell the tale.
-d.s.

4.04.2011

Congrats to Rogue and Jess of the Cruxshadows...

What a cute couple...


Jess Rogue and Rogue from the Cruxshadows are owed a great big Shadow Shout-Out. After living in sin for over a decade, the two got married last September. But, this weekend, even larger news to report...The couple had a munchkin. And goodness is she cute :)


Well, she wasn't cute then...




Seriously, congrats to the pair. They've made great music and a great relationship for a decade. What happens to the Cruxshadows is anyone's guess. I suppose there will be a real quick maturation process and some introspection. But, no matter what happens, even if the ride ends with us, their journey is just beginning....



36 hours? Fashionably late aren't you young lady?




.d.s.

Our species is doomed. DOOMED!

Why today, you may ask?

boobs.
breasts.
tits.
tatas.
teats.



 Gaugin wants to know what's the big deal with breasts?


Whatever you call 'em, they are clearly evil...at least to one deranged nutjob at the National Museum in Washington...

From the Washington Post

Screaming “This is evil,” a woman tried to pull Gauguin’s “Two Tahitian Women” from a gallery wall Friday and banged on the picture’s clear plastic covering, said Pamela Degotardi of New York, who was there.
“She was really pounding it with her fists,” Degotardi said. “It was like this weird surreal scene that one doesn’t expect at the National Gallery.”


Want to see the "EVIL"? Of course you do...It's Gaugin's "Two Tahitian Women", and so clearly trafficks to our base, prurient interests that it has no artistic merit. Whatsoever.



pr0n




There is some good news to the extent that some people (mainly ones visiting museums) don't take kindly to the attempted destruction of an international treasure...
“She was really pounding it with her fists,” Degotardi said. “It was like this weird surreal scene that one doesn’t expect at the National Gallery.”

The woman who allegedly attacked the painting was “immediately restrained and detained” by the museum’s federal protection ser­vices officers, who charged her with destruction of property and attempted theft, Ziska said in a statement.

The painting’s alleged attacker was “tackled by a guy who was visiting the gallery,” Degotardi said. She described him as a social worker from the Bronx.



So, well done Bronx social worker. And, well done to save the painting. As of this writing, no damage has been reported.





...of course that does nothing to diminish the fact that our entire species is well and truly fucked.


h/t Kleph




.d.s 

Monday's Late Start...but at least you get a great band...

Denmark's Volbeat. A bizarre combo of metal, punk, rockabilly and country-swing.

I love these guys. Hope you enjoy 'em too :)




Fantastic.




.d.s

3.31.2011

Thursday is having a helluva weird one...

Not a great one, not a shit one either.

In these moments of exceptional weirdness, only one thing will suffice: The Cramps...



Bikini Girls With Machine Guns...
 Another classic.
.d.s

WTF? And not in a good way...

Apparently, GoDaddy.com CEO Bob Parsons has a dick the size of a thimble...Otherwise, I can't understand why on God's Earth he would do the following:



This year, GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons went on an African vacation and shot an elephant. He recorded the whole thing on video.

There's one scene where a swarm of "hungry" villagers rip flesh off the dead elephant.
All the villagers are wearing bright orange GoDaddy-branded hats, too.

Parsons says he did it because the elephant was eating villagers' crops. Opponents say there are non-lethal ways to solve that kind of problem.


And people wonder why I detest humanity....





Totally understand, big guy....



Anyway, if you're down with the killing of an endangered species, and yet more human depravity on display, here's your vid. In the meanwhile, I'm really glad I'm not using GoDaddy.com for any of my hosting needs.

Seriously, what the fuck...





.d.s

3.30.2011

Oh, Internet, I can't quit you...

You truly are the gift that keeps giving. If I need to waste time at work, amuse myself with dick jokes, watch porn of the variety only available in Berlin, or just check the scores of a D-III football game, you are there for me...



Why yes, I would like some People's Wagon fucking, please.
[unzips trousers]
 

But the internet is so much more than an idyll; sometimes it provides you with jaw-dropping instances of why humanity, as the dominant species, can't continue on indefinitely....Like so...


Via AOL

Richard Simmons, the fitness guru best known for his "Sweatin' to the Oldies" exercise videos, is now teaching air travelers how to avoid a disaster.

Air New Zealand has recruited the ever-enthusiastic workout guru to recite the in-flight safety instructions in his own emphatic style.



 WTF?
RICHARD FUCKIN' SIMMONS, THAT'S WHAT!!!


Sometimes words just don't do just to the WTF factor here...But, here's a partial transcript....


"Hi, everybody, In the next three minutes we're going to work hard, work out and get you fit to fly," Simmons begins.

"First let's stretch it out, and loose that baggage. Stretch it up to the overhead locker or slide it under the seat in front of you. Stretch and slide!

"Yeah! You're a giraffe!"


And, you didn't think I was going to let you go without the video, did you?



AND LET'S KICK BUTT!!!!





-d.s.

Wednesday Insomnia Breeds Misfits...

Went to Huggo's last night: Easily my favorite upscale restaurant here in Kona (although if you want to drive to Mauna Lani or Waikoloa, there are some serious restaurants up there...including a very nice Ruths' Chris near the Kings' Shops).

Anyway, stuffed myself on Kona Brewing Co. Fire Rock Pale Ale, Lobster cakes w/Aioli, NY Strip, potatoes, asparagus (and filched a lil' of Monkaygirl's Taste of the Islands Linguine). So came back in a food coma...likely drunk...and crashed at 9:00.






Lo and behold, ten til three and what happens? Wide. The Fuck. Awake. Not like I have to make a 5 hour round trip drive or anything today, then get back and write a brief...not to mention it's humpday. If I survive today, raise a glass in my honor, cuz I'll probably be drunk by noon.

On with the show: Today's selection features a lil' band you've probably heard of...they adorn the denim jackets of punks and metal heads, and have for almost three decades. You can see the iconic logo just up above (feel free to 'Apple click-Save as'). But, we're not gonna' do the newer stuff. Nope we're going back to the OG...Glen Fucking Danzig.  Runty powerbroker of trash metal, and progenitor of the "devil lock" haircut (of which, your's truly once rocked).


Last Caress...it's a classic.
You are welcome.
-d.s.


 

3.29.2011

Miss VHaven..

Slammed today, kids.  Enjoy the absolutely beatific, pup-tent-inducing, MissVhaven, via, Pinup Post.


(c) Ron Wilkerson Photography

Divinity has a face (and some bitchin' shoes!)





-d.s.

Tuesday found some grungy rock n' roll....

Courtesy of Bo Hicks, booze-slingin', Whole Foods-memorizin', Chinese Dentist-playing musician/bartender/homie; and of course, the Kracken of wellthatscool.com.

Artimus Pyledriver: Awesome, awesome stuff. To say this is Lynyrd Skynryd meets Motorhead is a very apt analogy.

Enjoy kids. And, hey, if ya' like goins' on, dick jokes, and southern stuff (dogs, sad bears n' bees, football, beer, music, etc).  then check out Well That's Cool, and also Tower of Bammer.


Swamp Devil...
Awesome!





-d.s.

3.28.2011

Gettin' down on Friday

By now, you're all familiar with the abortion of tween-tainment, Rebecca Black's "Friday" (<== no way am I linking to that). In all of its autotuned, musical oblivion and lyrical inanity, it could be the worst thing published in the musical catalog over the past decade.

But, it does lend itself to a particular dark humor.

Enter Matt Mulholland, with his own brilliant, but depressive take on "Friday" (and Fridays, in general). A buddy of mine, a lawyer in Alabama, sent me this on Twitter. And, felt it necessary to share because A) it's funny, and B) this is exactly how I spent my Friday: Verge of angry tears, head in my hands, trying to get drunk enough to make it all go away....

...it didn't work.


The upside is, I did laugh sardonically for an hour as I kept this one repeating on my iPhone. Perhaps you will get a lil' enjoyment or catharsis out of it?



H/T to Espyonaj.
 
 
 
 
d.s

"Liberation" of 'Ghan...We are monsters (NSFW)

Another day, another round of liberation from the brave U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

I'll put a big jump in this one, but just know that what you are going to see is VERY VERY graphic. It depicts the actions of America's Kill Team in Afghanistan: displaying severed heads, mutilated corpses, murdered teenagers, and other such depravities.

We have no business here. None. What. So. Ever.

Like every other would-be conquerer of Afghanistan, we have resorted to depravity that is near-unimaginable: Happened to the Moghuls, the Mongols, Alexander of Macedon, the British, the Soviets, and now us...as though history were at all irrelevant.


Anyway....BIG JUMP NOW.
























Holmes took to carrying Mudin’s severed finger with him in a zip-lock bag. “He wanted to keep the finger forever and wanted to dry it out,” one of his friends would later report. “He was proud of his finger.”
 Cover-up photos courtesy of Der Speigel & Rolling Stone.
Excerpts quoted & (c) Rolling Stone 2011.








On January 15th, 2010, U.S. soldiers in Bravo Company stationed near Kandahar executed an unarmed Afghan boy named Gul Mudin in the village of La Mohammad Kalay. Reports by soldiers at the scene indicate that Mudin was about 15 years old. According to sworn statements, two soldiers – Cpl. Jeremy Morlock and Pfc. Andrew Holmes – staged the killing to make it look like they had been under attack. Ordering the boy to stand still, they crouched behind a mud wall, tossed a grenade at him and opened fire from close range.



The rest are far too graphic for even my stomach to handle. Suffice it say, the links above show the vicious, brutal, inhuman and barbarous actions of the "Kill Team". And they are not alone. If anyone thinks for one second that a drone that kills tens of innocent civilians is a more sterile warfare, then you are sadly mistaken.


War is a sick fucking enterprise, and not a single one of the actions we've been engaged in since 2001 has been justified. Not one. Afghanistan didn't attack us; Iraq didn't declare war upon us. And they have every good reason and right to continue killing U.S. soldiers as long we continue with our imperial follies: We are the invaders, and every nation -every person- on the planet recognizes the right to self-defense.




The face of terrorism...and it isn't the little muslim child....


The photos collected by soldiers included many shots of local children, often filed alongside images of bloody casualties. At one point, soldiers in 3rd Platoon talked about throwing candy out of a Stryker vehicle as they drove through a village and shooting the children who came running to pick up the sweets.





-d.s.

Monday has got to do a better job...

Absolute doldrums.

Still getting my ass kicked with Sr. Partner out of town.

Getting kind of pissed off at Hawaii: Love the locale here, but the people aren't the greatest: I live in Geezer-Central. If I hear one more motherfucking piece of shit Jawaiian/Reggae/Hawaii tune, or light jazz, I may stab someone. Not to mention, this is a remote place...If you're not down with all-outdoor activity, all the time, then you probably don't want to move to West Hawaii. And, trying to find folks to hang out with is im-fucking-possible.

And lucre. Filthy, nasty lucre. So damned broke because our entire economy is based solely on fossil fuels. The slightest variation in fuel prices, sends a spike that ripples hellishly across the fiscal landscape: Produce becomes a luxury commodity; essentials become prohibitive. (and because I signed a shitty contract last year, but there you go).

So, there we are. Really pissed off this morning; primarily about practicing law, money and being really fucking isolated out here. Maybe it'll pass. Who knows? Who cares? I'm going to go have a drink.

On tap today is whatever I feel like doing :) (but, I do want to update the City of Refuge...got some more information that I need to add to the record and correct).

But, until then, let's have some Deicide, because it seems like an appropriately pissed off kinda' tune...Fuck Your God (and it does have some pretty sweet zombies).







 Brutal. Simply brutal.




-d.s.

3.24.2011

Thursday Misses Drunk Metallica...

Listened to "...and Justice for All" over the weekend, and lord is that album still powerful, powerful stuff. And, it was the last of Cliff Burton (RIP) and the old, awesome Metallica.

In tribute of drunk Metallica, I give you the shit that didn't suck.


Black Tee Shirts; grungy hair. Alone in a warehouse. 
This is what Metal was meant to be...


Incidentally, the film "Johnny Got His Gun", based on the excellent Dalton Trumbo novel of the same name, is a depressing, powerful statement on war and the grist mill of trench warfare. The fact that Donald Sutherland is Jesus and Jason Robards is Dad just steals the show.
If you don't weep or get a bit unsettled, then you're probably not human (or a Republican).

3.22.2011

Wedding from Hell: Surviving Tsunamis

 Just another day in the neighborhood.


Good god. Let's never do that again, shall we? I am about to weave you a tale that would make the children from Lemony Persnicket's "Unfortunate Events" gnash their teeth in anxiety. Putting it shortly, everything was a freakin' abomination of Biblical proportions.

In that "wrath of god" way, let's talk about the biggest calamity, and one that's not terrible humorous: Japan's 9.0 earthquake off the Sendai Coast, in the Honshu Prefecture. If you think 9.0 sounds pretty massive, that's because it is...It is the 4th largest earthquake in recorded history: And, because of the algorithm used, it actually winds up being about 1000 times more powerful than the ones that struck Kobe and Haiti. And that ignores the hundreds of magnitude 5-6.6 quakes that were started all along the Ring of Fire...


Hundreds....Everywhere.
Surrounded by water, and unstable earth for thousands of miles.


And, as the people of the Pacific Rim could tell you, yours truly included, this wasn't even the worst of what was to come...No, the worst --for that day, at least-- was the massive tsunami that was spawned. A tsunami isn't like a beach wave, that undulates in gently and floods everything...It's a buckling of the sea floor, which raises the water level by tens and dozens of feet. When you live near the coast, all it takes is 2-4 feet to flood you out. Japan got hit by an immediate 30 foot wall of water, killing tens of thousands and causing tens of billions of dollars of damage....


And it was without warning....


Sure, you say, that's Japan...What does that Island archipelago have to do with Hawaii, which is 2000 miles away?  Let me answer that with this observation. We, like Japan, are on a fault line; with our shores being simply seafloor ramps from the earth's bottom. That makes any sort of rise in the water level potentially deadly. And, since we largely live on the coasts, it makes any tsunami damage potentially crippling.

There's also the matter that Tsunami energy travels thousands of miles, largely unimpeded.



Note the Purple area of tsunami energy: It's half the size of Australia...


I'll spare you my evacuation details: Suffice it to say, I spent a sleepless night, with a dozen people from my wedding party, getting drunk in my office. After the dawn arose, we moved to a "tent city" further up the hill. The scariest part, as the tsunami is blasting us with 8-12 walls of water, you can't hear a thing...dead silence except for the sound of waves and water crashing that you normally here.

But it wasn't just a little splashing: It was an inundation along the West Coast. 53 homes destroyed, 1 swept off to sea, dozens of businesses and resorts damaged/destroyed, hundreds of people out of work, and $300 million dollars worth of damage in toll.

And this was a "small tsunami"


This guy is a dumbass, but I'm glad he was...
You can get an idea of what 8-12 feet of water coming at you looks like.
...and it went on for hours...



This says nothing of the irradiation coming our way via the trade winds, Japanese refugees, destroyed economies, and a week of dangerous surf, dangerous critters and god-knows-what washing up on the shores of Paradise.
But, one of the saddest things is that Pu'uhonua o' Honaunau, the City of Refuge, was destroyed (yes, where I was going to be married two days later). For two thousand years, this was a place of asylum for those who violated the caste system, committed taboo (kapu) acts, or were displaced survivors of war. If you made it to the city, you were granted clemency, if not then, like so many other acts in Hawaii at the time, you were killed.

We don't have pictures yet, but my understanding is that the Great Wall has been completely destroyed, the ancient canoe village washed out to sea, the great temple (heiau) damaged, and myriad human remains swept away and uncovered after hundreds of years of rest.



No word on the tikis...


 

Thus, while we were comparatively lucky, all is not right in paradise. And it's a damn shame. But, not a single person died here, and for that, we are even more fortunate.






-d.s.