Hypocrites Du Jour

An interesting day today, one sure to go down in the annals of hypocrisy:

First up, we have professional pinhead and lying loudmouth Rush Limbaugh. Back in October 1995 he was in fine form, railing against durgs and those who use them:

Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.
-- Rush Limbaugh, October 5 1995 show transcript

Can you guess what happened to Limbaugh today?. Let him dig his hole a little bit deeper first, before you make your guess:

What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use, too many whites are getting away with drug sales, too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too.
-- ibid.

Ready to find out?

Today, Rush Limbaugh was arrested on drug charges, specifically fraud to conceal illegally obtaining prescription painkillers. We're not talking about faking a bad back in order to score a few pills from a sympathetic quack, we're talking about serial doctor shopping to the tune of 4,350 pills in one 47 day period.

Limbaugh's mugshot, shopping list

This case has been brewing for a few years; the highlight of course was Limbaugh's October 10, 2003 on-air announcement that he was entering rehab to overcome his addiction to OxyContin and Lorcet. Today's arrest and immediate release was part of a plea deal in which he will avoid incarceration if he continues his rehab, pays a token fine, and stays out of trouble for 18 months.

Hybrid Hypocrisy

Gas prices in the USA have gome from around $2/gal to over $3/gal this year. Everyone has their own opinion as to the reason for such an increase; personally I believe it's no coincidence that over the same period of time Exxon/Mobil made a record three-month profit of $9.92 billion.

The recent public outrage has naturally been followed by an avalanche of politicians attempting to use it to their own advantage.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R) and a few other political hacks held a press conference at a BP gas station in Washington D.C. today. Touting their support for alternative energy sources and hybrid cars, they promised to investigate the matter thoroughly, and proudly pontificated on their own responsible approach to energy conservation.

Such support apparently only exists as a show, however: shortly after driving away from the press conference in a hybrid vehicle, Hastert was caught abandoning it for his gas-guzzling SUV to complete the three block trip back to his office:

Return of the Champions

Here we stand, or here we fall;
History won't care at all.
Make the bed, light the light;
Lady Mercy won't be home tonight.

I had long ago abandoned any hope of seeing Queen live in concert: they hadn't played on stage in public since 1986, Freddie Mercury was dead, John Deacon had retired, and they hadn't released an album in over a decade. Imagine my surprise and joy at learning of their world tour with frontman Paul Rodgers (Bad Company, Free).

Tonight, Alex and I attended the Seattle concert... the fulfillment of a life-long ambition, all the sweeter because it never occured to me that it could happen.

Technically, it's only half of Queen: Freddie is still dead, and John is still retired. Nevertheless, even with only half the original members it's still an event to behold.

The concert was excellent; unlike some other classic British bands the vocals have not deteriorated at all over the decades. Brian May's guitar remains uncannily similar to how it sounds on the albums, and they even introduced some excellent new arrangements of some of their classic songs. I particularly liked the slow acoustical version of Hammer to Fall, which quickly swells to it's familiar arrangement for a hard-rocking finale.

There were only three disappointing parts of the evening: the lack of any material from ...A Kind of Magic; the elimination of I Want It All from the set list; and Roger losing a drumstick during the fast drum fill in Fat Bottomed Girls. :-)

Paul Rodgers has the impossible task of filling Mercury's shoes. He's a great vocalist, particularly on the slower tracks such as Reaching Out and Bohemian Rhapsody, and wisely doesn't attempt to mimic Freddie's vocal or performance style. Rhapsody was particularly touching as it was effectively a duet with (a recording of) Freddie Mercury performing the introduction with Rodgers taking over for the finale.

With Brian, Roger, and Paul all sharing lead vocals during the show we were completely spoilt. Brian's Love of My Life and Roger's These Are the Days of Our Lives were excellent, and Paul's rendition of the older Queen classics was superb.

There are only two dates left on the tour: Portland on the 11th and Vancouver on the 13th, so it's unlikely that you're going to catch them if you haven't already. Regardless, there is an excellent DVD of the concert already available.

As you can see, we had excellent seats; row 17 on the floor, only six seats away from the catwalk. At $200 each it was by far the most expensive concert I've been to... but this was a price I was happy to pay.

Ixtapa: Thursday/Friday

Everyone had a bad night's sleep last night; I woke up with both sides of my back a solid knotted mass of muscle; Heidi didn't feel rested at all. We had arranged to meet the Lynch's at 10:30 for a ride on the banana boat, but Heidi was so tired that she went back to bed. I took one of the Somalgesic pills we bought the other day, and my back eased slightly.

After breakfast, Tasha and I made our way to the beach. Another stinking hot day with high humidity; it was good to be near the water. Raymie and Peter were there, and after a short wait I went on the banana boat with Raymie and Tasha. I sat up the front with Tasha between my legs; she loved the bouncy parts but didn't like getting sprayed with water.

Back on the beach I took Tasha for a swim in the ocean. More squealing and jumping. Heidi was there by the time we got back to shore, and we all went for a ride on the banana boat. At $5 each, it's hard to beat.

Over lunch I realized that my back was troubling me to such a degree that I needed to do something about it. I remembered that at the far end of the beach past the sailboats was a make-shift tent where you could get an hour massage for $25. We walked over there, and while I organized a massage, Heidi went sailing with Peter and Aedan.



After the massage I felt a great deal better, and indeed ready to tackle the day's featured event. At 5pm, Heidi, Raymie, and I hopped into a taxi and drove for about 30 minutes to Playa Larga (Long Beach), near the town of Zihuatanejo. You may remember Zihuatanejo from The Shawshank Redemption as the paradise that Andy planned to escape to. Although they actually filmed the Zihuantanejo scene the US Virgin Islands, this area boasts some spectacular beaches that we had a great time exploring:


Our horses definitely had some personality; mine refused to let any other horse get in front of him, and as such frequently jolted forward to head off any young upstart colt who fancied himself a leader. Heidi's horse was a lazy beast; after noticing that he refused Heidi's orders to trot, our guide (Pastore Sanchez; more on him later) gave Heidi a motiviational instrument (visible in her left hand above), which had very little effect (other than making Heidi feel sorry for the horse.)

Nevertheless, we had a magical time exploring the beach around sunset:



Back at the ranch, we were offered our choice of beer or soda, with only the beer being actually available (what can I say: it was a tough holiday!) Riding is thirsty work; enough so that Heidi had her second ever beer:


Pictured with Heidi is the aforementioned Pastore Sanchez, a true character. He speaks enough English and we enough Spanish in order to have a conversation with him about the Mexican rodeo that was playing on a nearby TV:

"So, Pastore, have you ever done that?"

"Si, amigo. When I was young and...."

"Loco?"

"Si, crazy niño! One time..."

(he starts miming the actions of a matador)

"I stand there, bull, he ees theees"

(mimes a bull snorting and pawing the ground)

"I want to run away, but nothing happen.... Mi sopladores: up here," he says, indicating his throat.

"Sopladores? Um??"

He looks right at Raymie: "What you say them? Testículos?"

Raymie is a bit embarassed: "Um, we say.... I don't know.... balls?"

"BALLS? You say BALLS?"

It was hard to have a meaningful conversation after that, as everyone in the vicinity was roaring with laughter. So next time you're on Playa Larga in Zihuatanejo, ask Señor Sanchez about his cojones :-).

Taxi ride back to the resort in time for the "International"-themed dinner and this desktop wallpaper sunset:

Friday

Our last full day in Mexico. We had a lazy breakfast, and made it down to the beach in time for Tasha's turn riding a "horse" on the beach:




Coincidentally, a beach volleyball game was just starting so I joined that while Heidi filmed Tasha's adventure.

At noon we caught a water taxi across to Ixtapa island, which is about a mile offshore (visible in the sunset above). This expedition was billed as "Lobster Lunch", and didn't disappoint:


...although it could equally have been called "Lazy Liquid Lunch", as alcohol and hammocks were both free of charge:



After a quick splash in water to freshen up, we caught a taxi back to the mainland, where I summoned the courage to join the circus:


They offered trapeze training each day of the week, but it wasn't until our last day that I was able to make it. It was a lot of fun but rather disorienting: trying to remember what you were supposed to do, remembering which way was up, all while listening to the coaches and trying not to look like a fool. On my second attempt I completed the routine: a leg swing followed by a backwards somersault dismount, but time ran short before I could get on to the more exciting part which involved being caught by a coach on the other swing.

Next up we attended the Mini Club Med awards ceremony, where Tasha (and all the other kids) got a medal and gave us a semi-rehearsed dance routine.

Dinner on our last night was definitely the culinary highlight of the entire holiday: "Chef's Showcase", featuring duck a l'orange, quail, canapes, and all manner of delicious deserts that tasted as good as they looked:

The River of Tequila!

Nordic salmon with canapes; quail with raisin.

Dessert to die for!

So that was about it! We all enjoyed Mexico, but by this time we were ready to head home. We're not sure where our next adventure will take us... I'm hoping to do a summer trip into the Cascade mountains, but for now.... adiós, amigos!

Ixtapa: Tuesday/Wednesday

Peter and I had arranged to meet at 9:30 for some breakfast before heading off to try out the sailing. Even though there was barely any wind we decided to give it a try. At first we just sat there with the sail limp, so I hopped off and pushed the catermaran out beyond a rocky point. We caught a bit of a breeze at that point, but for the next 40 minutes it was a case of trying to find a breeze that would take us anywhere! We decided to head back in and try again later in the day if the wind picked up.

We met back up with Heidi and Raymie. All the kids were at the club, and Heidi and I discovered we were dog tired, so we decided to have a siesta... very decadent, seeing as it was only noon! If you had to sleep on these rock-hard matresses, you'd need the extra rest too.

We woke up in time to grab the last of the lunch, and then grabbed Tasha and headed back down to the beach for some more sailing. The wind had picked up considerably, so after a short wait for a boat to come back in we headed out quickly into the bay.

Much better this time! The breeze had grown considerably, and there was no problem getting going in any direction we wanted, and turns were much easier as the sail whipped around quickly. Tasha's first time on a sailboat: "I loved it!"

Mexican theme at dinner tonight: Lots of fajitas, echiladas, refried beans, mexican rice, and especially churros, a sugared deep-fried pastry.

Heidi and Raymie stayed up late partying a la piña colada, while the guys sacked out early.

Wednesday

Today we seemed to be running about 30 minutes late for everything: a rush to catch breakfast before it ended, and the same for lunch. We spent most of the morning at the beach: playing in the ocean, relaxing on the sand. Tasha seems to really enjoy jumping over the waves, and is fascinated by the way the waves "come out of nowhere".


We'd been eyeing the banana boat for a few days, and decided to try it out:


...it was a lot of fun: not too scary, but still a bit bouncy, particularly when you cross over a speedboat's wake. After the banana boat, I had another spin on the jetski while Heidi and Tasha went back to the room. I'm glad Heidi didn't see what I was getting up to on the jetski. On one jump I must have got at least 10 feet in the air: I counted to three before hitting the water again :-D


After another enormous lunch, we hopped in a taxi for an excursion that we had booked: swimming with dolphins. There's a large aquarium right in the heart of Ixtapa that seems to exist solely for giving tourists the opportunity to spend some time in the water with some playful and friendly dolphins.

Having Tasha along meant that we couldn't do the more adventurous things such as hitching a ride on a dorsal fin, but we still had a really great time:



Ironically, once you're in the water with the dolphins, you don't get nearly as good a view of them as when you're standing on the side of the pool: they're designed to be camoflaged, and when you've only got your head above the water all you can see are reflections, until a long nose lifts up out of the water and slips past you. As they glide past, they were happy to let you stroke their stomachs or gently feel their fins.

We were in a tank with a mother and her two-year-old baby; they were both extremely comfortable with people, even nudging us out of the way if the wanted to get between us. They were very gentle, barely moving their tails as the slipped through the crowd of people floating in their tank, but you could tell that even the baby was very strong and could easily break your leg with its tail if it wanted to.

The combination of all the people, a very deep pool, and some vigorous dolphins squeaking and surfacing unexpectedly was too much for Tasha: she clung to us and was very reluctant to get anywhere near them. "Too big!" She did touch them a few times as they slid past, but after a couple of minutes of terror she needed to get out of the tank.

I can sympathize: I've heard the phrase "being in another animal's domain", but it wasn't until I was in the water with the dolphins that I truly understood what it meant. We were virtually helpless as the dolphins played with us. A sobering thought when you realize that there are other animals equally at home in the water as dolphins but not nearly as benign. Specifically: if a shark wants you, there's nothing you can do about it and you won't see it coming.

Dinner tonight was fittingly a seafood theme: octopus salad, tilapia, mahi mahi, etc. Tomorrow we've got planned another excursion involving animals that are even bigger, but for now I'll leave you with another Mexican sunset.

Ixtapa: Monday

We set the alarm earlier in order to catch up some time, and made it to breakfast before they closed it down. Huge chunks of bacon, as well as cereal, fruit, etc. It would be very easy to put on a lot of weight here. Today it is slightly cooler: high-level haze, with a moderate breeze. Welcome relief!

During breakfast Heidi's back spasmed, undoubtedly due to two nights on the rock-hard beds they feature here. She went back to the room for some relief while I took Tasha to the kids club. Unfortunately, Tasha balked at going to the club with about a dozen different excuses, so it was back to the room to rethink our plan for the day.

Tasha and Heidi decided they wanted to get their hair done in braids. There was a long line and it takes a long time per person, so we were in for a fair wait. I decided that I didn't want to get my hair braided (heh), so I took a taxi ride into Ixtapa to scout out some more powerful painkillers for Heidi's back.



The taxi dropped me at a little mall, and I wandered around for a while noticing all the signs trying to lure American tourists in: "Hamburger here!", etc.


Mexico is notorious/famous for their liberal dispensation of powerful medication without a prescription, and I was assured that I could obtain something like Percocet without trouble. The first farmacia I tried either didn't have it or didn't want to give it to me, instead directing me to another one a block further up. This farmacia was in the back of a tourist-trinket shop, and the lady looked on the shelves to see what they had. After a short game of charades, she presented me with a medication called Somalgesic^TM. I didn't recognize any of the active ingredients (Carisoprodol, Naproxeno), but the magical phrase Su venta requiere receta médica on the side spoke of the medicine's power.

Back at the resort, I checked online to see what I'd scored. I was mildly surprised to see Google.com come up in Spanish, but was quickly able to find out exactly what Somalgesic is: a combination of a muscle relaxant and a powerful anti-inflammatory... as it turns out, medicine we already had in our arsenal.

Tasha's and Heidi's hair weaves were now finished:

...not bad for 40 bucks! The only problem is that a criss-cross pattern of Tasha's pale scalp is now exposed, pushing my paranoia about keeping her out of the sun into the stratosphere. A quick trip to the boutique secured a spray-on sunscreen that I'm sure she'll be sick of by the end of the trip.

Around this time my back started to get stiff too, so we took it easy for the rest of the night. Tasha and I went for a swim in the pool, and we then went to dinner. Tonight, it was a French theme: onion soup, roast lamb, battered frog's legs... plus a whole pastry shop full of pies and cakes, including Baked Alaska.

Tasha was spending the night with the Lynch's, so we dropped her off there and both took some muscle relaxants for the tortuous night's sleep.

Ixtapa

Got up in Seattle at 2:30am, left at 3:08am. Easy drive to airport. Long line at checkin; only a few people assisting. Lynch's arrived late. Plane was overbooked, but we all got seats, even though ours weren't together. Lots of people were in the same boat, so after some musical chairs we all ended up together.

Plane was around 30 mins late taking off because of a safety issue: someone's tray table wouldn't stay shut. Some duct tape and we were away. Heidi slept the whole first flight.

Tight connection at Phoenix; being late meant our plane was already boarding by the time we got there. Hot-footed it through the terminal, ignoring the signs that said our flight had departed. They had held the flight for us because there were 20 people making the same connection as us.

Flight to Ixtapa: they made us close the blinds so they could show a movie. Stupid. No meal service on either flight; we were ravenous. Tasha behaving very well, hadn't slept since 2am.

Arrived at Ixtapa in crushing heat and humidity. Terminal was bigger than I expected, but we were soon treated to our first taste of Mexican efficiency when it came time to go through immigration control. Two 737s had arrived at the same time, and they had 4 inspectors processing arrivals. An hour in a very long, uncomfortable line and we were through. The baggage claim hall was deserted because the immigration check was so slow -- as people dribbled through they were able to collect their bags and leave pretty easily.

We got our bags, played the "are you going to get your bags searched" lottery (traffic lights with a button), and we were officially into Mexico! There was the expected lady with a "Club Med" sign waiting to hand us a taxi voucher. We paused for a second to withdraw some cash, buy a few essentials, and to consider waiting for the Lynch's but as we would be travelling in a car instead of a bus we decided to head off. (We found out later that this was a wise decision: soon after we left, one of the immigration computers broke down, causing another hour delay).

Club Med is a "short" distance from the airport. It was difficult to gauge the actual distance due to the requisite high-speed hair-raising taxi ride. The roads were mixed: near the airport they were potholed, but gradually improved as we neared the coast/resort. Lots of winding bends as we came down the mountains. I was watching the speedometer, and was praying that Mexico uses the metric system as we were regularly exceeding 110 in a 60 zone.

Other interesting things seen on the journey:

• A man on a donkey (on the same road as us)
  
• Lots of trucks carrying bottled water
  
• Very few new (looking) cars
  
• Lots of VW Beetles (old-style)
  
• A car with a completely demolished front-end weaving all over the road
  

This last item was the only thing that gave our driver pause; he carefully slowed down to around 80 km/h as we passed (speed limit was 40 km/h) before gunning it back up to cruising speed.

We arrived at the resort and were greeted by the Club Med "G.O." -- a French term, whose English translation is "Guest Organizer". These are the young student-types working for around six months to make some holiday money. They're young, full of energy, extroverted, and apparently all from Vancouver, B.C.



We were signed in, and Heidi and I received the most important item of the week: our wristbands, which give us access to the open bar. We also were offered a drink, which we nervously accepted after being assured that all of the water and ice at the resort was filtered.

We were shown to our room:





...where we unpacked and then went for a walk to explore the grounds. It's a huge resort with everything: horse riding, soccer, sailing, fishing, 4 pools, etc.... and, of course, an open bar, where we settled ourselves to wait for the Lynch's. It's an odd experience to order alcohol at a bar and then wandering away without paying for it... something that will require a great deal of practise to get used to.



The Lynch's arrived, and we joined them for dinner. The restaurant is a semi-open building: it's technically inside, but the walls are giant open arches. Birds are aware of this, and during meals (especially during the day) they will often swoop in and snatch an unattended morsel.

The food itself is incredible: it's an enormous four-room buffet, total area which exceeds a tennis court. They apparently offer different food each night based on a theme, but they also have the traditional spag bol, pizza, fries, and hotdogs for the gringos. Just when you think you've seen it all, you wander through an arch into another room and have to rethink your entire plan of attack.





Following dinner we were extremely tired: as well as having been up for an extremely long time, we were pretty much sapped by the heat and the humidity. Following some face-painting and some more exploring, it was time to crash out and get ready for the next week!

Sunday

With the two-hour time difference and the lack of sleep, we didn't wake up until 10am local time. Breakfast ended at 11, so it was a bit of a rush to lathered up in sunscreen, find everything, and rush Tasha off to Mini Club Med. We got to the restaurant, only to discover that daylight savings had kicked in and we had lost another hour... it was now nearly noon!

We made our way to Mini Club Med, where we bumped into Raymie and Claire. Their group was just finishing up at the beach, so we headed to the restaurant to catch up with them for lunch.

Heidi and I spent some time just sitting around: looking at activities and what excursions were on offer. There was also the boutique with clothes, etc, plus a small stand with some silver jewelery.

At 3pm we went to the kids club to pick up Tasha, who was having a great time in the kids pool. We went back to our room for another round of sunscreen, and then headed for the beach.

A word about the heat: it's damn hot here. Heidi doesn't seem to find it as hot as I do, but to me it's as bad as an Australian summer. I checked the weather station during the day: 96 deg F at 82% humidity... and only the first month of Spring! Our room is air-conditioned, and once you leave it you've got about 20 minutes before the sweat starts dripping off you. I found myself in a dilemma: the less I wore the cooler I was, but the more likely to get burnt by the sun.

The beach was very nice. We had to carry Tasha over the dry parts of the beach because the sand was too hot. We found a pair of recliners under a palm tree and set up camp. I then took Tasha down to the water for her first swim in the open ocean (lots of squealing and running away from six-inch waves). I took her out beyond the swell, and we floated around for a while. Once she was comfortable we tried a bit of body-surfing; the amount of sunscreen we were both wearing made it difficult for her to cling to my back, but we managed to catch a few waves (and get dumped at least once).


As well as all the official Club Med activities, there are a lot of entrepreneurial types along the beach: guys selling hats and hammocks, as well as offering all sorts of rides: banana boats, jetski, deep sea fishing, etc. We hadn't brought any money, so we went back to the room to collect some, intending to ride the banana boat (only $5 each!)

By the time we got back there, however, they were packing the boat up for the day. They were still offering the jetski, so I rented it for a half-hour's fun. There's an island a short distance offshore, and the shoals around the rocks create some waves much larger than those on the beach. After a bit of experimentation, I found the right angle to approach the waves so I could get airborne over the top of them.

Returning from one particularly lofty jump, I saw a guy in a longboat waving me off and blowing a whistle, which I presumed meant "hey, dude, take it easy" so I slowed down a bit. After pottering around the bay wondering what to do, I realized that the guy was still chasing me around and blowing his whistle... uh oh. What's that he's waving? Oh, a gas can! Ok, I get it now; he just wants to fill up the tank! Five minutes later, I was back out at the reef flying over the waves again.

Back to the room for a shower and a change of clothes, then on to the bar for a serious investigation of the open bar and the piña coladas, margaritas, and Corona they have on-tap.

We met up with the Lynchs for dinner, which tonight featured an Asian theme: sushi, noodles, thai chicken, etc. Also on offer was sashimi from a 220lb tuna caught earlier that day:



After dinner, we kicked back and relaxed. Heidi and Raymie went to the bar, while Peter and I took the kids for a swim in the main pool which I'm convinced had to be heated as it was warmer than the slightly cooling evening air.

Another busy day; we were dead tired and glad to hit the sack.