Spring in Tucson

It is, of course beautiful and sunny. The bad news is that there is a really serious drought. The desert doesn't look good. really thirsty and not many flowers.

In town, where people water, it is a different story, naturally. here are some shots of my host's patio:

Tomstone Rose.

Nancy's  hedge, overgrowing her south fence. The Lady Banksia, originally from Scotland, proves very adaptable, flourishing in the desert. The largest rose bush in the world is of this variety, in Tombstone, hence the nickname. [Enlarge this to get the full effect.]

Ka'u & Kona Coffee

St. Jude's Guatemalan neighbor has a small roasting operation. He showed it to me today. he biuts most oof his beans from growers all over the island then roasts and packages them to order for vendors here and on the mainland. He paclaged up two ro three pounds each of Kona, Ka'u naturalmente (a rought version, with lots of black ones that have to be removed before roasting), and Hawai'ian Blend, which is very clean, prepared for mainland sale. he added a pound of fine Ka'u peaberry and then refused any hint of payment. (At retail prices this would be well over $200 worth!)

I let him do this because arguing is indecent, people know how to treat clergy in his culture, and he is actually doing quite well. His shop is pretty extensive, he sells all over the world, and his house, though modest, looks quite comfortable, and he appears to have a swimming pool for his three boys! He has been here in Ocean View for the past twelve years.

Mahina

If you ever find yourself in Captain Cook, HI (just south of Kona on the Big Island), don’t miss the Mahina Café, and be sure to try the Hawai’ian Plate – a tasting menu of indigenous foods – mostly pork, cooked in various ways that taste really distinct. Mahina means “moon”, as our server explained. Rachel is a native Hawai’ian, who is very well-informed about the state’s history. The indigenous people have a lunar calendar, much like the plains Indians, in which each moon has a name. Together with the stars, especially the Pleiades, the moons guide the agricultural life. (We are now in the Harvest Moon.)

                Rachel explained that pigs came to the islands (along with dogs, taro, and bananas) with the very first settlers, whose origin is unknown – somewhere in Polynesia, around 1500 years ago.

Replica of ancient Polynesian ship

The various dishes in the sampling plate are traditional to the luau, and traditionally cooked underground.

Upper right: shredded pork and beef (laulau), wrapped first in taro leaf and then in ti leaf for underground cooking.

Lower-left, shredded pork. White cube, taro-root flan.

One of them is smoked with the wood of a Hawai’an tree similar to mesquite. It produces prickly thorns, however, and the native joke is that the Europeaans brought it not just to feed the cattle with its beans, but to force the Hawai’ians not to go barefoot!

                I told Rachel about Bishop Whipple and our devotion to Queen Emma. She seemed happy to hear it. She observed that the conquest of Hawai’i followed immediately upon the subjugation of the plains Indians, and the history (deracination, linguistic suppression, deportation, and boarding schools) was similar. She also pointed out that by the end of the 19^th century, there were only about 40,000 Hawai’ians left. Since most of the were eope of some meansa, there are plenty of pretenders, nowadays, to chiefdom (ai’i) and royalty. Most well-known is Prince Quentin Kawananakoa,

Vesture is royal, rather than academic, I think (see below).

Also heir to one of the largest mainlander planters (James Campbell), Prince Kawananakoa was a member of the State Legislature and erstwhile minority leader. He has never been elected to national office, perhaps because he is a Republican, which seems a little odd for a royal pretender!

                Possibly because of this kind of anomaly, a cousin of Kamehameha the Great, five times removed, Prince Noa Kalokuokamile  (Kalokuokamile  III) is supported by some. .

Coffee Roasting and Witness Protection

So  it does rain here. Technically a desert, this part of the island got plenty of rain in the last couple of days - cold and grey, too. Anyway, it's still beautiful.

My friend, Sharif, went to visit friends at the north end and came back with the news (rumor) that Ocean View has a lot of Witness Protection Program clients. I wonder, if it's so well known, whether it's really that safe for them! OceanView also has a reputation of being armed to the teeth!

Who knew?

We roasted some green Ka'u peaberries today - really good.

It has been at least 20 years since I roasted my own coffee During that time, I acquired a perfect roasting-pan - a heavy aluminum, camp-style, folding omlette pan, with the wooden-insulated handles extending "from the diameter, not the radius" as the late Don Lohr (our coffee guru) used to say.



These are somewhat hard to come by nowadays. This was the first time I had used the pan, which my friend Virginia Howell got for me at the Berkeley Ashby Bart Saturday flea-market many years ago. It works like a dream. McKinnie Place has an outdoor, gas BBQ which was also perfect.

Only a week t go here in Ocean View, and then I will spend a few days looking around Hawai'i before returning to Tucson. then I plan to go to Berkeley for a couple of weeks.

Showers

St Jude's offers free showers for all comers on Saturday mornings, complete with a complimentary soup lunch. Lots of takers, because many people live here without running water. There are many Marshal Islanders, who are among the most destitute.



These kids look just like our patrons.

Ka Lae

South Point is the imaginatively named southernmost point in the United States. At latitude N. 18.9111, which places it roughly parallel to northern Yemen and Taiwan. It is also a place where poor crazy people jump off the cliff. The park service considerately provides a ladder for them to climb back up,

Prescinding from these delights, I contented myself with admiring the incredible blue of the Pacific here a short way from the house at St. Jude's.

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Later, I listened to Amy Goodman online, to learn about the kick-off of The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald's new online journal in collaboration with Jeff Scahill, Laura Poitras, and the E-bay magnate. Everyone should follow it. Or listen to or watch the Democracy Now interview with them (scroll down to third video).

Drove up the east coast to a black-sand beach (below). Beautiful day. Typical view, above.

As you can see, the sand is pulverized lava. Nice little waves - not much surf for the real aficionados, but great for children.