Putting the public back in the Republican Party

Right to Left: Robert (my father), and uncles Bill, and Phil in uniform during WWII

 Being good Midwestern Republicans

Both my parents voted Republican in each election as long as I can remember. It was a long history of Republican support, but I wonder how they would feel about the Republican Party these days.

They didn't seem to like FDR personally though they lived most of their early voting lives during the Great Depression and WWII. In later life my father commented that Harry Truman's Presidency was under-appreciated and under-valued. But it's doubtful that he actually voted for him.

My parents "liked" Ike during the 1950s.  I know they voted for Nixon in every election though I imagine they were ultimately disappointed. 

From what I understand, they were "okay" with Ronald Reagan, but I know they didn't think he was a particularly good actor, and I know they didn't think actors should be in politics.  After all, how can you tell if an actor is telling you the truth?

I'm pretty sure they voted for George H.W. Bush, and my mother probably supported George W. after the death of my father. 

More importantly than their voting record, my parents believed in the value of hard work. They believed that people were generally good. But they also believed at everyone needed to look after themselves and their families.

They went to church most every Sunday and were active in their congregation and in civic activities.  They weren't "joiners" or particularly "social", but had a small circle of close friends and respected professional relationships.  Considering that my father was on the road a lot, was an executive of a manufacturing company, the president of his industry association, etc., and that my mother was raising five children, today I find it surprising that they had any social life at all.

They were just good Midwestern Indiana Republicans.

Never ever talk about Politics

I can remember as a child going to the polling station in Michigan City once with my mother.  She showed me the levers of Democracy behind that heavy velvet-like curtain. But she never told me how she was going to vote. She never EVER talked politics. Nor did my father. If a political discussion erupted at the dinner table, they quickly changed the subject.  A person's political beliefs were personal beliefs. 

Politics, in the mindset of my parents, was not a pretty profession.  It wasn't "dirty", but just wasn't pretty.  I don't think they had grand visions about Democracy, but they had an abiding belief that basic fairness was an essential component of the Republican Party they supported. 

They probably would not have voted for Obama in 2008, but they would have embraced his message for the need for change during the financial crisis.  They weren't fans of big government - believing that the best decisions are made nearest the point of action. 

But they did, in fact, believe in Public Service.

My mother worked in an organization called Service League for many years.  My father was an official of his church. They regularly contributed to charities and local service organizations. 

They had a clear personal understanding of what one's behavior should be in public, and politics wasn't a part of that.

During their lives the tradition of Republican Party seemed their natural affiliation. It fit their understanding of who they were, where their traditions connected, and where their future was headed.  You could be a Republican in public, but you couldn't expose your deeply held beliefs in that arena.  Those beliefs may have animated your Republicanism, but not your public persona.

All the elements of the Republican Party my parents subscribed to now seem long gone.

The 47 Percent  

Mitt Romney has said that the 47 percent of Americans:

who pay no income taxes are people who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.

He also said:

My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

During the Vietnam War I once asked my father what he thought the US should do. I was astounded by his answer.

"I think we should load up planes with food and doctors and engineers," he said. "Most of those people are just hungry. They have no hope. We need to give them what they need to find hope."

This morning I mentally contrasted this statement of a good Indiana Republican with Mitt's remarks.

I don't think he would recognize the Republican Party of Mitt Romney, nor the beliefs (whatever they might be) of the Tea Party Movement.

Putting the Public back in Republicanism

Maybe Ideology is the difference between a person with "a heart of gold", and a person with a heart made entirely of gold.

My parents grew up during the Depression. They helped to win a world war.  They supported the public institutions and the workers who did the day-to-day tasks that made institutions worth while.  They supported the troops and the veterans of wars.  They supported the values that maintained the public in our republic.

The Republican Party -- as represented by Congress and the Senate and the Mitt Romney campaign and the Tea Party factions -- has transformed what it means to be a Republican.

I'm guessing that - were my parents still alive today -- they could not support the goals or the candidates that are represented by this party of the 1%.  I'm guessing they would long for the days when the word Public had real meaning in the Republican Party. 

Met Sin at theTrav Kod Reservoir

In June of 2008 I toured the rural community of Balang, Cambodia, inspecting a reservoir dam that had recently been constructed by Human Translation and Engineers Without Borders.  As noon approached, the Buddhist monk who traveled with us, Mean So Meth, needed to eat as prescribed by his order, so we approached an elderly man who was shaping a timber under a tree with a hand adz.  His name is Met Sin. 

 

Met Sin stopped his work, greeted So Meth with a respectful prostration, laid out reed mats for us, and joined us with four of his grandchildren.  When he learned that I was the father of the man he had come to know through Human Translation, he became curious.  He inquired of my age and we discovered we were both approximately the same age.  He inquired about my health, as he was obviously proud his own good health. He inquired about my grandchildren, as he was proudly supervising four of his own grandchildren. How many did he have? I asked.  He couldn't say for certain.

My son sat beside me, acting as translator, as well as my wife – whom Met Sin respectfully ignored. His youngest grandchild looked to be about two – precisely the age of our own youngest grandchild – standing naked before us while his sister cleaned him off with the water from our water bottle. 

I'd seen several hundred photos of Met Sin's grandchildren through the HT website, so I immediately felt attached to them in a special way: Beautiful children, each with a unique, individual curiosity.

As the monk finished his meal, he got out a piece of paper and began drawing on it, showing it show Met Sin.  My son explained that the monk was demonstrating how voting worked because the historic second national election in Cambodia was coming up.  Met Sin, my son explained, was illiterate and had never voted, and the concept of voting was new to him. His grandchildren listened and watched the exchange with intense attention.

Later I reflected on the parallels between our lives: our ages, our good health, our grandchildren, etc. We both lived in rural, agricultural communities of precisely the same size. He had been rice farming for subsistence in Balang while I had been working in the Napa Valley for wineries and grape growers.  His children might have been my children; his grandchildren might have been my grandchildren; his small house might have been the same house where I had lived for the past 25 years.

Met Sin was even preparing to vote, as we in the U.S. were preparing to vote in our Presidential election. 

But then I reflected on the differences between our histories: Met Sin had lived through Cambodian independence, the reign of the Khmer Rouge, the Killing Fields, the imprisonment of the entire population on  forced labor communes, and the recent Civil War that had left his land riddled with land mines and unexploded munitions.  And yet, when the Civil War was over, he had returned to his ancestral land at the side of this reservoir -- ruined and now rebuilt by Human Translation, EWB, and the community.  He is a survivor.

In 2009 we returned to the Trav Kod Reservoir, and I'd hoped to see Met Sin again.  He was away, working, but we met his wife who showed us the new fish pond where she was raising catfish - another community project sponsored by HT and it's local Community Translation organization.  The little pond was a plastic-lined hole that had been dug beside their hut, and she proudly showed us how they fed the fish with the special fish food that HT had provided.  It seemed like a small thing to my eyes -- a hole in the ground -- yet it's an important addition to their resources: A source of reliable protean. And if there is extra, they can sell the fish for cash.

The reservoir itself was full.  The Army had improved the road and ox carts were crossing the water gate with loads of rice straw.  Children slept in the carts on top of the straw as the caravan moved slowly towards the village.  The previous year I'd seen ox carts carrying wood scavenged from the forests surrounding Kulen Mountain.  At the time, I'd thought that the carts filled with wood was picturesque, until I realized how quickly the land was being denuded of forest.  This site of the rice straw seemed like another small improvement: One that was less severe to the ecology.

I took this photo of the reservoir and one of the current HT team right before my camera's battery failed.  HT had come a long way, and Met Sin's family had come a long way in a few short years. 

When Tobias had first come home from Cambodia on his first trip -- committed to helping the community at Balang rebuild the reservoir -- I was as skeptical as the next person.  But it had come together -- as it still is coming together -- and it makes me proud to know him and his work.  Proud as a father, but also simply proud of another human being.

This Feb and March Judith and I will be returning to S.E. Asia, and I hope to be able to travel out again to meet Met Sin and see how his extended family is growing up.  He's had the pleasure of seeing my family -- at least Arwen and Tobias -- mature these past six years.  I want to see how his grandchildren are fairing too.

Two Years of Change After the Train Wreck

How can I get you to vote in the next couple of weeks.

You've heard the reports: The Republicans are counting on a mid-term landslide to return their candidates to Congress.  They're counting on the frustration of voters of a growing but still small conservative constituency to be so outrageous and noisy -- promulgating lies and innuendo -- that voters who supported Obama's election two years ago will lose heart and stay at home.

I find this tactic really annoying, and it's making me mad.  Really! This is the party that screwed us, and now they're trying to get back in power.

But maybe I'm being too harsh on the Republicans.  Is that possible?

So I started doing a little research on the history of Republican actions -- using their words and reports -- to see if maybe I'm just being too partisan.

I wanted to see if maybe I missed something that might change my mind.

The following clips are -- except the last one -- I found on YouTube.  What I found might help you decide to get out and vote.

The Warnings in 2006

In 2006 -- after six years of Bush-era economics -- economist Peter Schiff was warning that we were heading for a massive recession.  But it wasn't the message that the US wanted to hear.  In fact, Bush economists were telling us that everything was hunky-dory.  Listen to this debate. It's amazing how the two world views diverge: One listing out the reasons for concern, and the other pooh-poohing those concerns. It was a heated debate, so the piece is long.  But watch it.  If you memory of that time is a little flakey, this will bring it back into focus.




My view in 2006
So what was my personal response to the dire warnings that the housing bubble was going to kill the economy?  Like every good American, I listened to the Bush economists, and I went out an spent more!  We bought a second house, and piled on more debt.  It was a nice house, and it helped us out at the time.  But as the housing bubble started to collapse, it became harder and harder to find a buyer for it when we needed to sell.  Fortunately, on a bright day in September of 2008, it finally sold way below what we paid for it.  Our teeth gritted, we lost at least $20,000 on the sale.  But the day the papers closed, we didn't realize how lucky we were.  Why?

The Meltdown Melts Down

Because the very next day Lehmann Brothers collapsed.  And the Dow Jones Industrial Average took one of the biggest nose-dives in history, dropping well over 400 points on a single day.

Remember that day, in September of 2008?



Goodness! But isn't Henry Paulson watching this?  Aren't the Republicans concerned?  Well here is Hank Paulson's response to the crisis:



"It's Not Our Fault"

So it wasn't their fault. It was, according to Paulson, because he couldn't go to Congress -- then in the hands of the Democrats -- to ask for help.

And yet, a few weeks later, that's exactly what Paulson and Bush did. And then Bush explained this thing called TARP to the nation.

Below is the entire address to the nation that Bush gave to us.  In it, he details not only what's going on, but how we got to that state of chaos, and what they were planning to do about it.

Watching this clip is really kind of sad, because for the first time, it seems, Bush actually seems to take some interest in the economy and the real lives of Americans. 



But wait, isn't Bush's address right out of Peter Schiff's portfolio?  Didn't he say the same things?

Well, yeah. His economic policy of "no-regulation" created an environment by which the entire financial structure of the US was threatened.  Everybody -- from Wall Street to Main Street -- was suddenly about to go down the drain.  So they had to act, and they intended to act swiftly. 

The TARP: The Fed to Save Us All!

Bush and Paulson made us a pledge: The troubled assets would be purchased from the banks by the U.S. Govt, and the Govt would hold onto them until their value rose, at which time they would be resold at a profit.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Crisis averted? Right?

Well, not exactly.  Just a few weeks later, Paulson changed the rules: Instead of actually buying the failing assets -- the mortgage backed securities -- the Govt would simply buy the banks for a period of time, letting the banks keep the assets on their books.  This would let the banks reap the benefits of any upward shift in the housing market, and later -- ideally with the money they gained from those sales -- they would buy back their businesses from the Govt.

Nationalizing the Banks -- The real bailout.

But wait! Isn't that the bailout that Bush said he wouldn't support?  Isn't that "Nationalizing" the banks themselves. Well, yeah.  Sort of.  Except the Govt. wouldn't buy all the banks.  In fact, it just meant that the Govt was going to bail out Wall Street.

And when asked about this, Paulson had this to say:



Before Obama
All this happened before Obama even took office. And if you're a conspiracy theorist, you might conclude that the Republicans -- knowing that the Democrats were going to win the election in 2008 -- decided to trash the country's finances so badly that nobody could fix it before the 2010 elections.  (Personally, I don't think that even the Republicans could be that diabolical, but there are some people out there who do.) 

So what did the country look like before Obama was sworn in? The following video, made in October of 2008, tells the story:



What the Republican's Help For America

Obama inherited a three trillion dollars budget deficit when he was sworn in.  The country was mired in two wars. The economy was on life-support.  The unemployment situation was (and is) devastating households, while Health Care costs were rising at a such a rate that 17% of the population had no insurance coverage.  Moreover, the infrastructure of the nation -- both physical and educational -- had been allowed to deteriorate to its worse condition since the 1930s.  


Normally, one would think that both legislators from political parties would see the challenges facing the country, roll up their sleeves, and go to work.  

But it didn't work that way.  Here's a political video purportedly representing where the Republicans were at in  March of 2009:



What the Democrats Did.

So, with no help from Republicans, what did the Democrats accomplish in the two years since Obama was elected?

Here's an abbreviated list of laws signed, aimed at rebuilding the U.S.

• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - Signed on February 17, 2009
  
• Small Business Act Temporary Extension - Signed on March 20, 2009
  
• Serve America Act - Signed on April 21, 2009
  
• Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program Act of 2009 - Signed on April 24, 2009
  
• Helping Families Save Their Homes Act - Signed on May 20, 2009
  
• Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009 - Signed on May 22, 2009
  
• Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act of 2009 - Signed on October 22, 2009
  
• Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009 – Signed on November 06, 2009
  
• Human Rights Enforcement Act of 2009 - Signed on December 22, 2009
  
• Emergency Aid to American Survivors of the Haiti Earthquake Act - Signed on January 27, 2010
  
• Jobs for Main Street Act, 2010 - Signed on February 24, 2010
  
• Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act of 2009 - Signed on February 27, 2010
  
• Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act - Signed on March 18, 2010
  
• Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 - Signed on March 30, 2010
  
• Haiti Debt Relief and Earthquake Recovery Act of 2010 - Signed on April 15, 2010
  
• Haiti Economic Lift Program Act of 2010 - Signed on May 24, 2010
  
• Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act of 2010 - Signed on June 03, 2010
  
• Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act - Signed on June 17, 2010
  
• Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010 - Signed on June 25, 2010
  
• Homebuyer Assistance and Improvement Act of 2010 - Signed on July 02, 2010
  
• Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act - Signed on July 21, 2010
  
• Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2010 - Signed on July 22, 2010
  
• Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act Effective Date  - Signed on July 27, 2010
  
• Temporary Extension to the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act - Signed on July 30, 2010

We still have a long way to go -- especially with unemployment at record percentages.  But there's been a sincere effort to rebuild the U.S., and considering the size of the hole that was dug by Republicans, we've made some real progress.

The idea of returning Republicans to power in either the House or the Senate is madness.  But that's what they're selling.

We have to get out and vote.
It's easy to see we're still on the way out of this mess.  It's easy to mistake progress in this atmosphere of lies and innuendo as no progress at all. 

But please consider where we've been, and how far we still have to go.  We're coming through a valley of despair right now and it's hard work.  But we're headed in the right direction.

Maybe you don't like Obama. 

Maybe the Bush years look really romantic, with all the money we were borrowing, and all the junk we were buying.

Maybe the Republican ideology has its attractions.

But the idea that a nation without government or a nation with a government of business hedonists will be our salvation is crazy!  And that's crap Republicans is serving.

It's really important to vote, to keep the momentum going.

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Iran and its Elections

About fifteen years ago - maybe longer - I was commuting between Northern California and Southern California every week. It was during this commute that I was first reminded of the dilemma of Iran. Today the current protests over the election there brought this memory back to me.

I was taking a shuttle to a rental car company, and I got into a conversation with the driver, who was from Tehran. He had left Iran during the Iranian Revolution. He wasn't a supporter of the Shah, but found himself under suspicion. He had been a professor in Iran, teaching Physics. Now, here in the U.S., he was driving a rental car shuttle. "They are thugs," he said to me then. "They took power using the pretense of religion, but they are thugs."

What do I know about Iran today? Little or nothing! The revolution happened so long ago. What one reads in the paper about Iran has little to do with the people of that country. Over the years those Iranian friends and colleagues that I have met have said little about their homeland. It seems impolite to ask, which makes the fate of Iran seem as distant as the fate of another planet, in a separate galaxy. And yet that distance didn't always seem so large to me.

When my oldest son, Dagan, was born we were living in Washington, DC. Iran was still under the dictatorship of the Shah, but there was a lively exchange of commerce between our countries. Not just oil, but all sorts of goods. The stores of Washington were inundated with the beautiful arts and crafts that were arriving from Tehran. I bought Judith a beautifully hand embroidered coat in celebration of our first child's birth. She still wears it on special occasions, though after so many years it's starting to show its age.

So many terrible things have happened to Iran since I bought that coat: The U.S. Embargo; The 8 year Iran-Iraq war that killed thousands; the 1990 Manjil-Rudbar earthquake in which 40 thousand died; the 2003 Bam earthquake in which 23 thousand died.

During all these events and tragedies, the U.S. has been disengaged, and has treated Iran as an enemy. And likewise, Iran has treated the U.S. as one too.
Now the election in Iran has caused us to hope, and then -- as the drama continues -- to remain silent in expectation and fear.

I for one would like to see Judith wear her brilliantly embroidered coat once again. I would like our two countries freely exchanging thoughts and views, without this veil of threats. I would like to see that country surface from its sadness.

But maybe it's going to take another 30 years. I sincerely hope not.

I don't think Judith's beautiful coat will last that long.

Update on Tonga Riots

In my previous post I mentioned the events transpiring in the island nation of Tonga. It appears, from reports now arriving, that eight people have perished in the riots there. The Matangi Tonga Online Website was down and the offices of the organization were also on fire, so the information I had at hand was not as accurate as I would have liked.

To view some of these terrible images of the aftermath of destruction in Nuku'alofa, Tonga click here!

In my last post, I said I thought I was going to be okay after the 2006 elections in the U.S. Would that I could say the same for those caught up in the happenings in Tonga.

It's still unclear to me if the riots that are being reported are the work of pro-democracy leaders, or if they are an offshoot of social unrest. There have been reports now that the riots were a result of business rivalry and not as a result of the pro-democracy movement.

There's been a lot of posting on the NY Times Blog site talking about the upheavals there.

Other stuff about this turmoil in Tonga reported by the BBC: Here!

Explosive Tonga -- Volcanos and Riots and Democracy

For about six years now I've been kidded by my friends and family about Tonga. I was depressed with the outcome of the 2000 elections; about the rigged votes; about 9/11; about the lies and missed opportunities leading up to the invasion of Iraq; about the destruction; about the moral hypocrisy that seemed to be coming from an unelected administration bent upon consolidating its power.

I was immersed in books that recorded the world travels of past generations of sailors, actively seeking a safe haven where corruption, where it occurred, was on more on a scale of human failings than institutional decay. Scale, beauty, simplicity, safety, and humanity: These were the goals. More and more, I found my mind turning to descriptions of the island kingdom of Tonga.

I'd complain and quip about what was going on this country, and eventually people would ask: So what are you going to do about it?

"I want to move to Tonga!" became my response.

Tonga! Tonga! The dream of an island kingdom in the South Pacific! Lots of sailing! Beautiful people! Simplicity! Life! Maybe another chance for happiness!

I'd laugh at myself, along with everyone else, but once inoculated with the idea, the dream seemed to take on a life off its own.

"I'm a writer! I can work anywhere!"

"So where do you want to be?"

"Tonga, maybe! I think we should move to Tonga!"

Meanwhile, Tobias came back from Europe and started college in Pennsylvania. Arwen tried Pennsylvania and returned to California with me. Dagan meandered between Northern California, Southern California, and Oregon. Judith was teaching in Pennsylvania. I felt like I was holding down the fort in St. Helena while the world was collapsing around me.

"Tonga, maybe!" I kept saying to myself. "Maybe in Tonga I can figure all this crap out!"

By the time the 2004 elections arrived, my disgust with the direction things were moving here had reached a new low. "When are people going to finally wake up?" I demanded. I had done a little election work in Pennsylvania, acting as an election observer at the polls: Helping to roll in the huge, ancient polling machines; helping people with instructions before they entered into their booths; checking peoples' names off of election rolls; helping to tabulate ballots off the continuous-roll ballot machines; cross-checking the results; talking with the volunteer election officials at the little church where I was stationed.

I began to see the election process in the U.S. as an embodiment of those ancient gray machines with their faded black-velvet curtains and their worn, painted levers -- rows and rows of levers aligned into columns of parties, candidates, issues, and initiatives. And the election volunteers themselves, so happy to have someone new to help them out in the basement of that little brick church. They were lovely elderly people from the neighborhood, gray themselves like the old mechanical machines, and slightly frayed at the edges like the velvet curtains. Blue-haired old ladies directed by an earnest old man. Even I, nearing retirement age, seemed young to them. They were as old as the balloting machines themselves, and it seemed that in their eyes they were looking to me, with a bit of hope, that I might take up their work at the next election.

"Tonga!" my heart murmured in denial. "Tonga!"

One of the balloting machines became stuck. It jammed in the middle of someone's vote-casting. It was stuck solid, and the master lever could not be budged. "No problem!" said the elderly man in charge of the precinct. He moved the voter to another machine, and then -- with my help -- we rolled the broken machine aside, opened the back through a set of shiny polished spring-mounted screws, breaking the metal election seal. He could not do it alone, not because the machine was too heavy, but because I was to act as a sworn witness to what he was about to do.

The back of the machine opened downward to reveal the continuous roll of paper, pre-printed with names of candidates, party affiliations, and ballot initiatives for local and county issues. The recordings of each person's vote had been marked like mechanical chicken marks on the roll as the master lever had been pulled. Each vote, a series of punches permanently imprinted beside each candidate.

As I looked into the mechanism of this machine, with its cogs and levers, I felt as though I were looking into brain of the democracy itself: Heavy, technologically ancient, complex, adequately oiled and cleaned, but worn by sixty years of occasional intense usage. It was an artifact of an industrial age that had long since been surpassed by electronics, but still it persisted to stand. I was faced with the fragility of that democracy, yet chastened by the intensity with which the election official performed his volunteer tasks.

"These machines are older than I am," he said as he drew a line through the spoiled ballot on the machine. "Sometimes they just jam like this, and all you can do is mark where the last ballot ended. He pulled out his clipboard and had me read off the dial of numbers in that indicated how many ballots had been cast on the machine that day. 321 ballots! Then he had me read off the number of ballots that had ever been cast by the machine in its lifetime. I don't remember the number, it was so large. He had me read off these numbers three times, marking them down on his clipboard. Then he signed the clipboard, made a note on the huge roll of paper, signed the roll, had me sign his clipboard, and recorded the date and the time. Then we closed up the massive machine and, together, we rolled it out and down the hallway by the stairs.

"Tonga!" my heart murmured. But the sound of it was a little fainter, a little less intense, a bit like an echo of a desire.

Later, as we closed up the polling place, I thanked the poll workers for the experience. It had been a long night, reading off the numbers off the balloting machine, calling the numbers back and forth, checking and cross-checking each others' work. We had formed a kind of team, and we made little quips about what we were doing as we worked. No one spoke of politics. This was just another job, like raking the leaves or straightening the folding chairs into rows at the end of a church social. We were straightening up after a national election like we were straightening up after a dance. It was a strange sort of dance, indeed. But we were tired. Some of the blue-haired poll workers had been there all day, and they were hungry. I'd been there no more than three hours. I said goodnight and walked out into the rainy darkness and drove to Judith's house.

"Tonga?" my heart now seemed to be questioning me. "Tonga?"

That night my desired Presidential candidate, John Kerry, took the county and ultimately the state of Pennsylvania. I had not voted in that polling place where I worked. I knew I would probably never see those poll workers again. Their looks seemed to be asking for someone new to pass the baton of electioneering, but I knew it would not be me who picked it up. Still, I was humbled by their dedication to an idea about democracy; chastened by their matter-of-fact belief in the process; awed by their persistence to "get it right", "double-check it", "Did you get that number Gladys?" It was like watching my parents do the dishes together so long ago: Doing the dishes of an election.

Tonight I read the news from Tonga on the Internet.

In September, King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV died at the age of 88. The royal family was just completing the traditional period of 100 days of morning. To mark the official ending of the 100 days of mourning period for the Royal Family the Lanu Kilikili ritual or the Washing of the Stones will be held at the Royal Tomb at Mala’ekula, Nuku’alofa to be carried out by the Ha’a Tufunga. The newspaper said that they have just started receiving the fine stones that have been carefully selected from the shores of the volcanic island of Tofua.

But then, last Wednesday a riot broke out as some drunken teenagers got hyped up after a pro-democracy protest that had been going on all week in front of the new king's administration office.

Cars were overturned. Grocery stores were ravaged. Windows were broken. Fires were set. Fortunately, no one was killed.

If you're interested in my double life in Tonga, you should check out this story at Matangi Tonga Online.

It's clearly been a tumultuous time for the Tongan people. In another story on the newspaper, a new volcano is breaking the surface of the ocean in the Kingdom of Tonga. Huge rafts of floating pumice clogged the engines of boat that was the first to actually witness the erupting volcano.

In other news, the electrical utility in Tonga has created a big stir. The electrical utility had been privatized a couple of years ago, but now wanted the government to buy back the assets. The price of diesel fuel to run the generators had ruined the profitability of the company, and it was threatening to sell the assets to Chinese interests. Instead, it was decided to sell the power company to a New Zealand firm. There's still some legal issue about whether the original privatization was constitutional to begin with.

All this is sounding hauntingly familiar.

....my sail boat has been sitting on its trailer for a year. Judith thinks I should sell it and get a smaller boat. I don't know.... (...."Tonga!... Tonga!... Tonga!...)



I miss Tonga, having never ever set foot on the tiny island. I miss the Tongan people, having never met a single one. I miss the ceremonies, the island winds, the coral beaches and the palms. My heart still calls out "Tonga!" and I worry about their riot, their volcano, and their electricity.

But here, in Northern California, the leaves are blowing off the trees and the grape vines. It is time for Thanksgiving, after an important election. Tobias is in Cambodia now, but Arwen and Dagan and Kellie and Judith will all be at the dinner table.

The volcanoes are silent in my heart. The riots have been, for the moment, silenced.

I think I'll pour a glass of wine at the Thanksgiving dinner table and propose a toast.

"To Tobias and Tonga!" I'll say.

And, of course, everyone will kid me.

But I think I'll be okay now.