A glimpse into paradise

Me enjoying an authentic Kauai Cigar at the resort.

The morning I left for Hawaii, Seattle was being slammed by a historic snowstorm that kept our plane sitting at the gate for several hours while we waited for a deicing truck to arrive. My friend and I had actually spent the previous night at the airport, arriving at about 1 a.m., before the snow began to fly, and making beds out of some benches in the terminal. My worst nightmare was that I'd wake up the next morning, discover that all methods of transportation to the airport had been crippled by the storm, miss the flight, and thus miss several days of my trip. The fear actually wasn't unfounded — Wednesday's snow was followed by an ice storm on Thursday that essentially shut down everything in the Puget Sound region.

As we waited on the plane, the pilot tried to placate the passengers' frustrations by reminding us that we'd shortly be leaving for "paradise." I wondered at the time whether that was a bit of an exaggeration; I'd never been to Hawaii before and had trouble equating it with a "place of supreme happiness" or "bliss."

The trip actually turned out to be not nearly as bad as it could have been. We arrived on the island of Kauai only two hours later than originally scheduled, following a brief layover in Honolulu. After leaving blizzard-like conditions in Seattle that morning, we stepped off the plane to mid-evening temperatures in the upper 70s and a delightful maritime breeze from the vast expanse of the central Pacific.

And if this place isn't "paradise" in its strictest sense, it comes about as close as possible for a physical setting this side of heaven. Kauai boasts some of the most jaw-dropping scenery I've ever encountered — sheer green cliffs rising straight up out of the ocean along the north shore, waterfalls, and a "Grand Canyon of the Pacific" that, in my opinion, seriously rivals its counterpart in Arizona.

From brokenness to healing: A pattern repeated across creation

The ruins of the building where the assassination attempt
took place in July 1944 are being reclaimed by nature.

In September 2010, my father and I visited Poland with a couple of family friends. While there, we toured Wolf's Lair, Adolf Hitler's Eastern Front military headquarters during World War II, located in a remote wooded region just south of the present-day Russian border. This was the site of an assassination attempt against the Nazi dictator that almost succeeded, and possibly would have saved millions of lives if it had. (It was also the setting of the film "Valkyrie," which you probably didn't want to see because Tom Cruise was playing Claus von Stauffenberg, the main character.)

Near the end of the war, the retreating Nazis tried to blow up the installation, because they didn't want the Allies to use it after they were gone. But many of the structures on the site — including Hitler's bunker, which was designed to withstand an attack — remain intact, while others exist today as ruins. In either case, nature has taken its course in the nearly 70 years since the place was abandoned. Plants and trees grow atop the rubble, while moss and grass cover the sides and tops of the buildings where the highest-ranking Nazi officials once stayed, including the Fuhrer himself, who spent more than 800 days there.

Wolf's Lair, once a site where so much death and destruction was plotted by some of history's most notoriously evil men, is now a tranquil spot in the middle of a forest, where animals make their homes and visitors can walk peacefully through the deep foliage. Creation has reclaimed this place. Life is abundant in a location once symbolic of death.

Let's get it done, Washington

Believe me, I wouldn't ordinarily find
reason to post a picture of Christine
Gregoire on this blog. But she does
deserve recognition for finally
showing some chutzpah.

As a follow-up to my diatribe against the assault on gay rights that continues to rear its ugly, disgusting head across the country — even in the year 2012 — I'm pleased to report that the state of Washington is moving decisively in the opposite direction.

Gov. Christine Gregoire, second-term incumbent who has declined to seek a third term, and is, incidentally, a practicing Catholic, announced last Wednesday that she'd personally introduce legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in Washington state this year. "To me, the state's responsibility is to absolutely ensure equality," she said at last week's press conference in Olympia. "The other is a religious issue, and I leave it to the churches to make that call about marriage."

Amen. It's about damn time.

In my view, the only reason gay marriage isn't already legal in Washington is that the state legislature, to some extent, reflects the culture of this region — pragmatic, polite, but averse to confrontation or risk. It's the reason why drivers in Seattle are far less likely to honk their horn at you, but will scream at you from inside their car, even though they know you can't hear. It also might be the reason why lawmakers in Olympia are behind the voters on certain issues, like this one.

The religious (not to be confused with righteous) opposition has already vowed to take the measure to the ballot next November if it passes. My response to them? Bring it.

About three years ago, Gregoire signed the "everything but marriage law," which, precisely as its name implies, conferred to gay and lesbian couples the same rights and responsibilities as married couples in the state of Washington — just without the title "marriage." At the time, social conservatives did exactly what they threaten to do now: take the issue to voters, who, they predicted, would repeal the law at the polls.

They were wrong. In November 2009, Washington voters approved Referendum 71, upholding the legislation and marking the first time that a U.S. state expanded gay rights through public vote. Remarkably, it was an off-year election, which usually means a higher turnout of older, more conservative voters, and a lower turnout of young, progressive ones.

Fast-forward to 2012. A recent University of Washington poll found that 55 percent would vote to retain the gay-marriage law, and only 38 percent would vote to reject it. (A second poll by a lesser-known political consulting agency confirmed this finding.) These are fairly solid numbers, particularly leading up to a presidential election. Turnout will be huge, especially in the greater Seattle area, including King County, the state's largest with just shy of 2 million residents, where support for the law will be strongest.

Those factors notwithstanding, Washington this year will also likely vote on an initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational use (more on this in a future post). Between that, the presidential election, and other high-profile statewide races, there will be no shortage of progressive voters casting ballots in November.

This is why, from a strategic perspective, 2012 is an ideal year to finally establish marriage equality in the Evergreen State. Though I deplore the very notion of putting others' basic rights to a public vote, Washington law unfortunately makes it far too easy for that to happen. (Pretty much any well-resourced group that's unhappy about a state law can force a ballot measure to overturn it, regardless of whether their position lines up with public sentiment.) If it's an inevitability — and it almost certainly is — let's get it over with now.

The silver lining? I believe that the anti-gay-rights contingent is again making a mistake in calculating that state voters will agree with their mean-spirited position. If Washington state again affirms the rights of same-sex couples at the ballot, as it did in 2009, it will further erode the opposition's self-righteous contention that "the public is on our side" on the issue.

In the year 2012, that's no longer an argument they should be able to make.

Sorry, kids, Mitt's the only guy who can buy your beer

"Seriously, guys, I'm really not so bad. Just give me a
chance — I'll say anything you want. Really, anything!"
(Photo: Gage Skidmore)

Last summer, I had already written off Mitt Romney as the 2012 Republican presidential nominee. The former Bay State governor is old news, I argued. He's the face of the GOP establishment — a toxic trait in the era of the domineering Tea Party, who will demand a fresh face next year. Worse yet, his ambiguous, self-contradictory political record is viewed very suspiciously by a party base whose ideology is increasingly extreme, rigid, and unforgiving.

If I had placed a bet in August on the outcome of the GOP race (good thing I didn't), I would have predicted Romney's collapse long before the Iowa caucuses, which will take place tomorrow.

So, I see it's time for me to change tone a bit. I misjudged on a couple fronts — namely, the uncanny ability of fellow GOP contenders to self-destruct (which, really, shouldn't have been so surprising, considering their overall caliber); and the powerful ally that Romney has found in previous primary campaign experience.

Romney is like the awkward college sophomore who still goes to high school parties. No one really wants him there (they all think he's kind of lame), but he's the only one who has a good fake ID, so they don't really have a choice. They begrudgingly accept his presence, even as they mumble profane insults under their breath when he tries to make conversation. They know he shows up just because he wants to feel important — not because he's one of them. He isn't.

The polls confirm this. Of the "frontrunners" who have taken their turn among the GOP pack, Romney is the only one whose support has neither spiked nor cratered. In fact, his average polling has been stuck between 15 and 25 percent the entire time, never once passing the quarter-century mark by more than a point. (Notably, his three closest rivals all have done that, two of them by significant margins.) Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, and Rick Perry have all drawn their own versions of the Matterhorn on the poll tracking graph, reaching their respective summits before taking a nosedive. (Gingrich, I believe, isn't done falling yet.)

So, there you have it: The kids at the party don't want Romney there, but they're basically resigned to his presence, which explains his tepid, if relatively steady, poll numbers. Periodically, a cooler kid — perhaps a good ole' boy from Texas, a slimy congressman from Georgia, or a former pizza executive — will draw attention to himself, and the crowd will flock in his direction, until they realize that the kid, however cool he is, doesn't have a fake ID. And the party-goers are again confronted with the harsh reality: There's only one guy who can get the booze, so they can't dump him, even if they don't like him.

This is where the Republican Flavor of the Month phenomenon comes from, and it makes sense. Indeed, Romney is the only candidate among them who would be seriously competitive with Obama (whether or not he should be is another discussion). But GOP loyalists are right to view him skeptically, or even disdainfully, and thus constantly search for a better alternative. His persona (and appearance) corresponds nicely with that of a used-car salesman. He comes across as phony, even when he's probably being sincere. He's driven by personal ambition, not genuine concern for the country. He simply longs to be president, so much so that he'll say or do anything to achieve that goal — as evidenced by his sharp, often absurd position reversals and indeterminate stances. He knows that running as a Republican for president of the United States requires an ideological tone at odds with what he used as a candidate for Massachusetts senator or governor.

Still, he's survived the bumps and bruises of past campaigns at both the state and national level. These experiences, more than anything else, are probably how he's managed to stay viable this time around, despite his liabilities as a candidate and his transparently fake, self-serving nature. He may be the smelly kid, but at least he doesn't wet his pants in class, the way some others do.

It would be tempting to conclude that the Obama camp is more fearful of Romney than the other GOP hopefuls. I don't think that's true. I think they've viewed a prospective Romney nomination the same way that he has — with an air of inevitability — and have crafted their strategy accordingly. They've already begun to paint him as a serial flip-flopper who has no core (thank you, Bush/Cheney 2004), and they've seen that his above-the-fray, statesman-like facade quickly falters when he's stressed, frustrated, or pissed off. Will he be the formidable challenger that polls and pundits predict? I'm not yet convinced he will.

Regardless, it's increasingly difficult for me to envision a scenario in which Romney is not the nominee. Gingrich hasn't suffered a knockout punch (yet), but he's got plenty of baggage that could deliver one at any point, and he lacks Romney's war chest and ground game. All Romney needs to do at this point is be content with his lackluster poll numbers (he can't do much better), and sooner or later, he'll probably get it in the bag.

Sorry, Republicans, we know you don't like him, but he's gotta stay at the party. Just stick him in the corner and go socialize with the cool kids — but next time, invite at least one who has a fake ID.