Aloha, Aloha

And while we're saying goodbyes, let's not forget the airline that just recently carried us back across the Pacific from the Hawaiian Islands, Aloha Airlines, which shut down passenger service this weekend after once again filing for bankruptcy protection.

Aloha.

On a Sad Personal Note

I'm mourning the death of a building, and a great local institution.

The Wausau Club, the private club in Wausau, Wisconsin, where our wedding was held, closed its doors a few years ago, and was facing possible demolition before three investors picked it up and made public plans to rehabilitate it and reopen it as a restaurant, several shops and catering facilities.

Now, it's been made known the investors have run aground and will likely to be able to complete their plans for the famous and well beloved building.

It holds many happy memories for many of us, and is the sign of a time past perhaps never yet now reclaimable.

Bowling for Altoona

In his zeal to win over the voters of working class Pennsylvania, candidate Barack Obama took his magic into the bowling alley over the weekend in Altoona. Unfortunately, he couldn't break a 37.

Memo to the campaign: Keep your candidate in situations where he does what he does best. Winning.

Class Act

It's been a big week for Chelsea Clinton, former first daughter who's out on the stump the past few months campaigning for her mother, Senator Hillary Clinton, occasionally alongside her father, former President Bill Clinton. Having done a pretty good job of fencing the press corps, and keeping them at a safe distance (no interviews allowed), she has nonetheless shown to be a faithful and undaunted spokesperson for her mother at college campuses and other campaign stops across the country.

At a college in Indiana earlier this week, she was faced with a question she'd not yet been asked, when a male college student asked her how her mother handled the Monica Lewinsky crisis.

Chelsea handled the question with great grace and dignity, and is being hailed by many, including those supporting other candidates, for her response in telling the young man that really it was none of his business. As it was supposed to be the last question of the gathering, she entertained another question, this one about global warming. As it turns out, the Lewinsky question came from a Clinton supporter who has gone on record in the media subsequently indicating that Chelsea Clinton's response did not change his support for her mother.

More recently, a couple of days ago Chelsea Clinton was asked on the campaign trail if her mother would make a better president than her father was. Again, she handled the question deftly, and responded, quite emphatically, in the affirmative.

Her most recent line of questioning this weekend had her assuring the audience that neither her mother nor her father had asked her to campaign for the Clinton campaign these past few months, and that she was doing it because she firmly believed in her mother as the person best qualified and suited to be, as she expressed it, Her President.

Brava, Chelsea.

Bill and Hillary Clinton might be criticized for all manner of things in their years of public service, but the thing they've clearly done most right is raising an incredibly gracious, articulate and elegant daughter.

Feeding a Starving Nation

I continue to be amazed by the messianic elements of the Obama movement, particularly so when those who might otherwise have rejected organized religion and would be sitting in secular campsites are lining up to happily drink the Kool-Aid. It speaks to me of a deeper need that an entire segment of the electorate seems to have, to want to be led, to want to be inspired, to want to have their hopes and dreams fulfilled in the life and leadership of one person. I've never completely witnessed this before in my lifetime, and yes, I find it frightening.

Herewith, "We Are Building a Religion" and "Personal Jesus."

Baby Bees

I've only been stung by a bee twice, and both times, I sat on the bee.

The first time, I was in high school, got out of the shower and sat down on the edge of my bed. At the time, colors like avocado, orange and gold were in fashion, and my floral bedspread completely hid the small body of a bee waiting there for me to sit on it. Since I'd been doing sewing recently, I thought I'd accidentally left a stray needle in the bed. It hurt. Bad. Poor bee.

This afternoon I was over at the swimming pool, spread my beach towels out on the lounge chair and settled in to relax and sunbathe, when suddenly, I felt like I had been poked in the shoulder with a sharp knife. I couldn't imagine what could inflict that much sudden pain. I got up, shook out the towel, and there it was, the struggling carcass of a tiny baby bee, which clearly had not been able to withstand my body come down in a crushing blow on its little stinger. I felt bad for the bee, truly. But this really really hurts.

Poor bees. Poor me.

Maya In the Middle

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, conspicuously absent from his prescheduled events this past week, surfaced last night in a most unexpected place--his home city of Chicago--at St. Sabina Catholic Church, a predominantly black congregation, where poet Maya Angelou was being honored in advance of her 82nd birthday upcoming on April 4th.

Maya has been an outspoken and steadfast supporter of Senator Hillary Clinton, and continues to proclaim her support for Clinton in spite of the fact that she acknowledges Obama as a worthy opponent. She is also a close friend and mentor to Oprah Winfrey, Obama's chief patron, and to Wright, Obama's self-proclaimed spiritual mentor.