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"Crossing The Line": Senate GOP Ponders Hagel Strategy
Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, President Obama's nominee to become the Secretary of Defense, struggled during his confirmation hearing last week, but that's hardly derailed his chances. Thus far, Hagel has not yet lost the support of any Senate Democrats, and over the weekend, he picked up the backing of a second Senate Republican, Nebraska's Mike Johanns.
With this in mind, when Hagel's nomination is brought to the floor for an up-or-down vote, there's no real doubt that a majority of the Senate will vote to confirmation him. The question for Republicans, then, is whether to allow the up-or-down vote to happen.
Since Hagel appears to enjoy the support of most, if not all, Democrats, Republicans would have to filibuster his nomination — something that has never been done to a Cabinet nominee since the advent of the 60-vote threshold nearly four decades ago, according to Senate records.
Several Cabinet nominees have failed to win the backing of a majority of senators — and others have withdrawn their names before reaching the Senate floor — but a filibuster would mark a serious breach in the unwritten protocol that governs the Senate.
I've been digging around for two weeks, trying to find an example of a cabinet secretary facing a filibuster, and my research is in line with Roll Call's findings — it just hasn't happened. Not only has no nominee ever been defeated by a filibuster, no nominee (since the cloture threshold was moved to 60 votes) has ever even faced a filibuster.
The closest example I could find was Ronald Reagan's nomination of C. William Verity to serve as the Secretary of Commerce in 1987. At the time, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) threatened to filibuster Reagan's choice because Verity supported increased trade with the USSR. (Helms argued Verity supported "selling the Soviets the rope with which to hang the free world.") But Helms eventually pulled back, dropped his threats, and the nominee was approved on an 84-11 vote.
In 2006, there was also a cloture vote on Dirk Kempthorne's Interior nomination, but only eight Senate Democrats registered their opposition, there was no filibuster or attempt to block an up-or-down vote, and Kempthorne was confirmed with a voice vote.
So, in 2013, Republicans have to decide whether they're prepared to break new ground.
From the Roll Call report:
No Republicans have said yet that they will demand Hagel clear that 60-vote hurdle, but the possibility has been bubbling below the surface in the Senate in recent days.
An aide to Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, who has been among the most vocal opponents of Hagel's nomination, said Feb. 1 that "all options are on the table." […]
Top aides insist there is no discord among leaders, but statements made in the wake of Hagel's highly scrutinized appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee indicate there could be a difference in opinion. The consensus among leadership aides, however, is that if a filibuster is to happen, it likely would be staged by a junior member.
There is no formal head count on whether a filibuster would block Hagel or whether it would fail, but it would cross a line in the sand when it comes to Senate norms. And if you're thinking it might reinvigorate the debate over reforming the institution's filibuster rules, you're not the only one.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, February 4, 2013
February 5, 2013 Posted by raemd95 | Secretary of Defense | Chuck Hagel, filibuster, GOP, John Cornyn, Politics, Republicans, Senate | Leave a comment
"Rove Vs. King": Don't Be Fooled, Republican's Have Every Reason To Exaggerate Their Differences
Yesterday Kathleen Geier noted the most interesting political story of the weekend: the rapidly escalating war of words on the Right between so-called "Establishment" Republicans led by Karl Rove and Tea Party "Conservatives" as represented by past and future Senate candidates deemed "undisciplined." The immediate flash-point is a gratuitous slap at U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-IA), a potential candidate for Tom Harkin's open Senate seat next year, by American Crossroads president Steven Law by way of explaining to the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny the purpose of a new Conservative Victory Project the group is unveiling:
The group's plans, which were outlined for the first time last week in an interview with Mr. Law, call for hard-edge campaign tactics, including television advertising, against candidates whom party leaders see as unelectable and a drag on the efforts to win the Senate. Mr. Law cited Iowa as an example and said Republicans could no longer be squeamish about intervening in primary fights.
"We're concerned about Steve King's Todd Akin problem," Mr. Law said. "This is an example of candidate discipline and how it would play in a general election. All of the things he's said are going to be hung around his neck."
I am mystified by this gambit from Rove's hireling. Yes, Steve King is crazy as a sack of rats. But the man is an excellent retail politician back home with an intensely loyal following. If the idea of Law's macho posturing was to intimidate King from a Senate race, it is very likely to backfire. The Iowa Republican's Kevin Hall explains:
Steve King is beloved by Iowa conservatives and if you go to war with him, we will go to war with you …
Telling Steve King he can't do something is also a surefire way to get him to prove you wrong. I'm sure people like me saying he can't win a statewide general election was enough to rile up the good Congressman. But having a so-called "conservative" group spending big bucks to attack him is likely to spur King to fight back … And he'll have a few hundred thousand Iowa Republicans fighting alongside him …
And this is from a guy who has all but endorsed Tom Latham–the presumed Rove favorite to represent the GOP in the Iowa Senate race.
More generally, I will issue an early warning about how the MSM will once again turn this kind of intra-GOP battle over strategy and tactics–and power–into some sort of ideological struggle, with the Rovians treated as "moderates" and the Steve Kings of the world as plain old average-white-guy conservatives–you know, sort of the conservative equivalents of Barack Obama.
My own ultimate test for "extremism" is whether the person in question would be perfectly happy with a one-party dictatorship for his or her "team," with the "other team" being silenced or perhaps hauled off to prison. Every single thing about Karl Rove's history tells me that he would cheerfully, giddily endorse that scenario. He may consider Steve King a poor instrument for achieving that happy destination, but I doubt a country ruled by either would feel a bit differently.
So while we can all enjoy a power battle between these two men on King's own turf, let's don't get fooled into calling it a "struggle for the soul of the GOP" or any such thing. That struggle ended with the final conquest of the Republican Party by the conservative movement in 2009, and won't reemerge until they lose at least one more national election. But you will never hear that from folks on the Right, who have every reason, internal and external, to exaggerate their differences as they jockey for position.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, February 4, 2013
February 5, 2013 Posted by raemd95 | GOP, Politics | American Crossroads, Conservatives, Iowa, Karl Rove, media, Republicans, Steve King, Teaparty | Leave a comment
"Brag Wall": The President Is Not There To Massage The Fragile Ego's Of Capital Hill
If you walked into the home of an acquaintance and found yourself facing a wall of dozens of pictures of him shaking hands with powerful people, you'd probably think, "What a pompous ass. And how insecure do you have to be to put these things up on your wall? I get it, you're important. Sheesh." In Washington, however, these "brag walls" can be found all over town, particularly on Capitol Hill, where nearly every member of Congress has one.
Maybe some offices do it just because that's what everyone else does, but you'd think that if you're a senator or member of Congress, the fact that you're an important person would be self-evident, and it wouldn't be necessary to make sure everyone who comes into your office knows that you've been in the same room as presidents and other high-ranking officials. There are some commercial establishments, like your local deli, that might put up pictures on their walls with the celebrities who have stopped in, but that's an understandable marketing effort. But when it comes to individuals, the only other place I can think of that I've seen that sort of thing outside of Washington is on MTV Cribs, in the homes of athletes, actors, and musicians, who often have displays of them with other celebrities. And they, I imagine, are also desperately insecure about their importance, forever fearful that it could evaporate at any moment and they'll wind up the next Corey Feldman. So they put up the pictures of them hanging out with Tom Brady or Usher to assure themselves that they really are as big a deal as the people around them are contractually obligated to tell them.
I raise this because of an absolutely pathetic article in Politico today, detailing how Democrats on Capitol Hill aren't feeling enough love from President Obama:
The topic of Obama's relationship with his own party in Congress invariably draws raised eyebrows and did-you-hear-this-one stories.
One of the most well-connected Democrats in the capital said he came away from a recent meeting with Hill Democrats "astonished at the contempt they have for our president." The members made clear that, after largely backing Obama in his first term, they would oppose him if he tried to make cuts to entitlements in the name of deficit reduction.
Obama and his top aides generally get along well with the Senate's Democratic leadership — though there were real tensions over the fiscal cliff compromise – but while the likes of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer are in frequent contact with the White House, rank-and-file Democratic senators rarely hear from the president.
To bring up the topic of Obama and his old colleagues with members of Congress themselves, not a class of people lacking in pride, is often to get stared back with daggers. Hemming and hawing often take place, good-sport recollections of always hearing back from staff are brought up and occasionally come requests to go off the record. But, among some Democratic senators, there's a willingness to put their names with their statements.
"I think they might have done more," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) when asked about the president's outreach to the Hill in the first term. "I think they might have learned more by doing more."
Now, I understand that building personal relationships with members of Congress is important, but it's not important as an end in itself, it's important because it helps the president accomplish his policy goals. To paraphrase the line spoken by a thousand reality show contestatnts, the president isn't in Washington to make friends. Are there policy implications to Obama's alleged indifference to congressional Democrats? Was there a critical bill that failed because some senators felt they weren't being massaged enough? Provisions in big bills that Obama didn't get because he couldn't fend off a fit of pique from a member of his party over the lack of invitation to a late-night poker game up in the residence? You won't find the answer in the story, because this is Politico, and they find policy questions like that to be dullsville.
In fact, a better question for a piece like this might be, if Obama does so little to massage the fragile egos on Capitol Hill, how was it that he got so much legislation passed? He did more legislatively in his first term, even with an unusually intransigent opposition, than any president since Johnson. Could it be that the non-personal factors end up being much more important than how many members of Congress get to utter the phrase, "As I told the president when I was at the White House the other day…" on a regular basis?
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, February 4, 2013
February 5, 2013 Posted by raemd95 | Politics | Barack Obama, Capitol Hill, Congress, Democrats, Entitlement Cuts, Republicans, Sheldon Whitehouse | Leave a comment
"Just Another GOP Liability": Biting The Hand That Feeds Them
Paul Krugman noted on ABC's This Week yesterday that the GOP's problem is that their "base is old white people."
This is largely true. Exit polls show that Mitt Romney won all voters 65 and older by 12 percentage points, and white older voters by 22 points. Barack Obama won all voters under thirty by 23 points, and nonwhite young voters by 36 points.
Such numbers are a big problem for the GOP amid fast changing demographics, as we've heard often in recent months.
But here's an interesting question raised by the same data: If the GOP leans so heavily on older white voters, then why is it leading the charge to cuts entitlements for seniors?
Politics is supposed to be about who gets what, but things often don't work that way. In 2011, the New York Times ran a fascinating chart about the percentage of personal income that comes from government benefits in different states. It showed that hardcore Republican states—where a lot of those older white coservative voters live—relied most heavily on benefits, with Social Security the largest form of assistance. In a previous post, I looked at John McCain's margin of victory in 2008 in those states with the highest reliance on government benefits:
West Virginia: 28 percent of all personal income in this state come from government programs. McCain won the state by 13 points.
Mississippi: 26.2 percent of personal income from government benefits; McCain margin: 13 points.
Kentucky: 24.8 percent income from benefits; McCain margin: 17 points.
Arkansas: 24.5 percent income from benefits; McCain margin: 20 points.
South Carolina: 23.4 percent income from benefits; McCain margin: 9 points.
Alabama: 23.4 percent income from benefits; McCain margin: 22 points.
These numbers make you wonder: Do older GOP voters really understand that the conservative assault on government "handouts" may end up reducing their standard of living? And, if they do get better clued into that fact, will the GOP face pushback against entitlement cuts from their own base?
Entitlements aren't the only area where Republicans aren't doing a good job of serving the narrow financial interests of their base. As I have noted often, the U.S. tax system disprortionately raises revenue from affluent people in coastal blue states and keeps taxes low on Americans of more modest means in the red states. You'd think heartland Republicans would be okay with this arrangement; instead they have relentlessly fought proposals that would shift even more of the tax burden to residents of Manhattan and Malibu.
Likewise, one big feature of the reviled Affordable Care Act is that the law taxes rich people—which just started happening this month with the Medicare payroll surtax—and subsidizes health insurance for low-income people. The states I mentioned above, with high concentrations of poor rural residents, will benefit from this arrangement. Connecticut will not.
So amid all the talk of the GOP's grim long-term prospects, let's add another liability to the list: Congressional Republicans aren't attuned to one of the most basic responsibilities of elected leaders—putting more money in the pockets of their constituents and getting somebody else's constituents to pick up the tab.
By: David Callahan, The American Prospect, February 4, 2013
February 5, 2013 Posted by raemd95 | GOP, Politics | Conservatives, Government Benefits, John McCain, Red States, Republicans, Social Security, Taxes, White Voters | Leave a comment
"The NRA's Tone-Deaf Rhetoric": Powerful But Not Omnipotent, The NRA Is Seriously Overplaying Its Hand
The moment that most deserves to be remembered from Sunday's thrilling Super Bowl came before the game, when Jennifer Hudson joined students from Sandy Hook Elementary School in singing "America the Beautiful." It was a heart-rending elegy for the fallen — and a stirring call to action.
The brave students, in khakis and white polo shirts, survived the unspeakable massacre in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 of their schoolmates dead, riddled with bullets from an assault rifle fired by a madman. Hudson, the acclaimed recording artist and Oscar-winning actress, lost her mother, brother and nephew to Chicago's endemic gun violence in 2008 when a troubled relative went on a murderous rampage; she had to identify all three bodies at the morgue.
The performance brought tears to the eyes of some of the players — and, surely, many television viewers. It was a reminder that life goes on but also that we must not lose sight of unfinished business: reducing the awful toll that barely regulated, insufficiently monitored commerce in powerful weapons takes on innocent victims, day after day after day.
Despite the best efforts of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and like-minded groups to make sure this business remains unfinished, reducing gun violence remains stubbornly high on the nation's agenda.
This is partly due to the ravings of Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president and spokesman, who almost single-handedly, or single-mouthedly, is making the pro-gun argument sound even crazier and more irresponsible than it is. And that's saying something.
This weekend, LaPierre treated viewers of "Fox News Sunday" to some of his lunacy. Anchor Chris Wallace gave him the opportunity to disavow the NRA's shameful ad accusing President Obama of hypocrisy for supporting gun control while his own family is protected by armed Secret Service agents. LaPierre stuck to his guns, such as they were.
The president's daughters "face a threat that most children do not face," Wallace pointed out.
"Tell that to people in Newtown," LaPierre replied. He was about to continue in this vein before Wallace interrupted: "Do you really think the president's children are the same kind of target as every school child in America? That's ridiculous and you know it, sir."
LaPierre then went into an absurdist rant about how "all the elites and all the powerful and privileged, the titans of industry," have armed security and — in LaPierre's fantasy — send their children to schools that are veritable bunkers. Wallace noted that he sent his children to the same school the Obama daughters attend, and there were no armed guards on campus.
"The idea of an elite class," Wallace said, "it's just nonsense, sir."
When Obama unveiled his far-reaching proposals on gun violence, it appeared initially that the NRA was willing to compromise. NRA President David Keene seemed to indicate that the organization would accept universal background checks for gun purchases while strongly opposing proposed bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. But LaPierre declared Sunday that that the NRA will resist any new legislation.
In Senate hearings last week, LaPierre portrayed life in the United States as one long horror movie. "What people all over the country fear today is being abandoned by their government," he said. "If a tornado hits, if a hurricane hits, if a riot occurs, that they're going to be out there alone, and the only way they're going to protect themselves, in the cold, in the dark, when they're vulnerable, is with a firearm."
He left out the zombies.
With so many members of Congress already bought and paid for, it's understandable that the NRA would feel a measure of confidence. But I believe the pro-gun lobby is seriously overplaying its hand, and that the wind has shifted.
Former representative Gabrielle Giffords also testified at last week's hearings; she spoke only briefly, because it is still difficult for her to form words after being shot in the head two years ago. The gunman was wielding a semiautomatic pistol with a 33-round magazine. No one can convince her that if we lived in the world the NRA would like to see — in which everyone is armed to the teeth with military-style guns and ammo — we would be safer. Nor can anyone convince the children of Newtown. Or Jennifer Hudson's family.
The NRA is powerful but not omnipotent. Polls show that Americans favor sensible gun control; if Obama and other proponents of sanity keep the issue alive, we can achieve it. From sea to shining sea.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, February 5, 2013
February 5, 2013 Posted by raemd95 | Gun Violence | Background Checks, Chris Wallace, David Keene, Gun Control, Gun Lobby, Mass Shootings, National Rifle Association, Sandy Hook, Wayne LaPierre | Leave a comment


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»Topic»rory-mcilroy
rory mcilroy News
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Pop Life Circus
March 30, 2015 by islandkings
"Pop life, Everybody needs a thrill
Pop life We all got a space 2 fill
Pop life Everybody can't be on top
But life it ain't real funky Unless it's got that pop" ~ Prince, Pop Life song lyrics
"Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy gets the Catholic Church. America gets Hollywood." ~ Erica Jong
And Okinawa gets PoP Circus' "World Circus Festival", a performance under the Big Top with lends an air of mystique and excitement for kids of all ages. Established in 1996, PoP Circus – the "Pursuit of Pleasure" – consists of over 30 performers making up various acts, and is eagerly received in Okinawa as an innovative and extravagant performance.
While PoP Circus is marketed as a spectacular to amaze and thrill, it will appear initially as nothing more than a low-scale, poor quality knockoff of the much more well-known and praise-worthy Cirque du Soleil. It occurs in, however, a much smaller venue, one that creates an intimacy between spectator and performer under the not easily missed illuminated purple Big Top. While it may lack the powerful live music, overdone intrigue and gaudy costumes, there is at least no obscure French storyline to try and decipher….
Some of the starring attractions include a pair of romantic aerial ballet dancers who circle the audience while performing acrobatics suspended by flowing ribbon anchored to Big Top's overhead. Two Chinese Acrobats perform an incredibly breathtaking feat of balance, strength and contortion in a display of stamina and grace that is hard to beat and which rivals any of the type I've ever seen.
Really, the Confederate Battleflag?!?
Of course a circus wouldn't be a circus without a spastic collection of bungling clowns. While the festival's are billed as comically entertaining, I still find clowns – the whole idea – creepy at best. Kids, however, seems to always approve through their joyous laughter and smiling faces. And the Japanese, as innocent as they are, expressed loud approval to the clowning around.
No, Clown, you can't have my cotton candy….
Yes there is a dog show starring lots of dogs large and small, and while it may be somewhat predictable, it's fast pace of tricks one after another make it a surety as a crowd-pleaser. A young flying trapeze troop from Australia, the Flying Aces, performs almost 40 feet overhead, and a group of Russians pretending to be Celtic (go figure) perform on a set of swings that we never had on the playground as kid!.
Making a prolonged stop in Okinawa every two or three years, they are now performing at Onoyama Park in Naha City. But don't wait too much longer; they are only here through the 6th of April! The World Circus Festival is running its 2-hour show daily except Wednesdays, with weekday shows at 1320 and 1900, Saturday shows at 1030, 1320, and 1900, while Sunday shows are at 1030, 1320, and 1600. The Circus tent is located at the eastern corner of Onoyama park in Naha (). Beware there is very limited parking available at the park and surrounding vicinity, but a convenient monorail stop is located adjacent to the park.
Lots of Yummy Goodies!
Advance tickets for adults are ¥2,500 (¥2,800 at the gate), while tickets for kids age three through junior high school are ¥1,200 (¥1,500 at the gate). Special Boxes for up to 4 are available for extra fees of ¥5,000 and ¥4,000, depending on exactly how close to the stage you want to be seated. Reserved bleacher seats with center views are an additional ¥800, the option we elected since the cheap seats' views are pretty badly blocked by various Big Top support structures. The official website is www.pop-circus.co.jp/ and offers minimal information in English. If you want a sneak-peak of the performances, check out their Facebook page (in Japanese).
Posted in Okinawa Living.	Tagged adventure, Asia, asian, big top, circus, entertainment, fun, greatest show, greatest show on earth, japan, Japanese, live, live performance, Okinawa, Okinawan, performance, show, World Circus Festival
Live and Let Die: The Yaru and Tabira in Okinawa
December 26, 2014 by islandkings
"Long after the bomb falls and you and your good deeds are gone, cockroaches will still be here, prowling the streets like armored cars." ~Tama Janowitz
No. No, there is no "cute" roach. EVER.
Live and let live. One of the many messages the holiday should convey. Both which always remind me of a most welcomed houseguest we hosted back on Okinawa in 1999.
She ended up staying for the next 20 months. She didn't take up a lot of room, was seldom if ever seen, and didn't cost us a dime to keep around. I'm not even sure "it" was a female; I respected her privacy too much to really check, and my guess is based only on "her" reclusive Goth-like teenager behavior….
Who we welcomed into our home back then was the more beneficial of two perennial icons and adversaries of Okinawa. Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not talking about the mongoose-snake pairing famous in the Ryukyus. What I'm talking about is the yaru. And she became our home's guardian from the rather disgusting creature in the pairing, the tabira. Unfortunately she couldn't protect me from the Land of Misfit Toys I found myself shipwrecked upon….
I bet Ace feels the same way about roaches. I mean with their fangs and all….
The tabira is a much nicer-sounding name for something most of us detest – the large almost indestructible cockroach that seems so ubiquitous at tropical and sub-tropical latitudes all across the globe. I grew up sharing South Florida with these creatures, some approaching the size of Rodan, and who can fly every bit as well. Hell, Godzilla would even have issues warring with these underworld sleuths. Urban legend within my own family states that one can never, ever make eye-contact with a roach: they sense fear and will leverage that advantage by flying directly into your face! Personally, as a hardened veteran of decades of war with these invaders, I conclude that there is not much that can be done to defeat and declare victory over such a robust warrior. Only a pyrrhic win is in the realm of possibility.
Our savior, guardian and protector!
Humans have a hard time with roaches.
Far more agreeable of this classic pairing is the yaru, Japanese for what we in the west are familiar with as the gecko ("wall lizard"). Like most Japanese characters, it's an idea more than just a simple word, which best translates as "protector" or "guardian of the home." This moniker is easily sourced to this particular lizard's inherent ability to do what we humans can't: organically control and even defeat roach infestations at every turn.
Our 5 bedroom, two-story home back in 1999. A veritable roach-ryokan if you will….
Our immediate neighborhood.
Back in 1999 we lived in a very large house, which actually had a yard complete with brushes and shrubs. The surrounding neighborhoods were dotted with sugarcane fields, they themselves riddled with roaches. Which, sooner or later, found their way into our home. Contractual pest control is not something the Okinawans do, and as Americans we are largely left to defend ourselves out on the local economy. While our cat Tora did kill and finally eat a roach or two, it was only when she found one, and then only after about 68 minutes of torturous play. That is if the insect didn't escape during a lapse in the cat's attention…. For an interesting tale of how we named our Okinawan-adopted cat, see Tora Tora Tora!
Our Cat Tora, while a killer of shrews, thought roaches to playthings.
Okinawa is hot, humid, and often wet, and still in many places covered with dense foliage that you might expect from a subtropical island located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Still being quite rural in places and without extensive use of pesticides or other more formalized pest control measures, there is a high probably of personal interaction with all sorts of creatures, great and small. The gecko foremost among them.
Moving into our office/computer room. Our four-legged assassin live in the far corner above the room's AC….
So one night came the call from the direction and vicinity of our computer room office. That distinctive chirp that announces a gecko's presence. At first we didn't know what it was, and unless one is used to sharing their abode with a reptile or two, it can be quite disconcerting. I tracked our guest's presence down to one corner of the office, but since her call was so random and short-lived, nailing down the location of her home became an entertaining game of sorts. The kids and I would run to the office door and screech to a stop, me motioning for them to stay quiet and enter the room with stealth in order not to spook our little friend. And then we would tip-toe into the room, looking here and there, motioning to each other in precise coordination using military-like signals.
Which would you rather have: the lizard or that other really creepy thing!
This four-legged friend is unique in appearance with almost transparent skin, and usually announces its presence not visually, but using its very distinctive call, a song usually heard in the evenings, intermittently throughout the night. And what many Americans might consider an uninvited guest, the Japanese welcome into their homes. Okinawans – a very superstitious people – believe that Gecko brings good fortune when found in their homes, so geckos here are not killed or removed from the home, but are left in residence, both as living good luck charms and the guards against insects which they are. From a pragmatic standpoint, this creature – cute to some – really does protect the home from a whole plethora of undesirables, devouring life forms like mosquitos, flies and cockroaches.
I prefer to think of Okinawan Yaru more like this….
Unfortunately, like most other aspects of life, there is no free lunch. Well, there is for the gecko, but of course there is a price to pay. All living things excrete, and the yaru is no exception. Thus, small amounts of processed bug may be found around the home, looking like those chocolate sprinkles so popular on cupcakes. These we found often, mostly located below the room's AC unit, on window sills, and in corners of other rooms in our home. I made this too a detective game to play with the kids, using these finds to track our vigilante's movements through the home.
Our gecko's home was never officially located, or at least I made sure "we" never found her. While I knew exactly where she was living – atop and/or in our room's air conditioner unit, I wanted the mystery to remain for the kids. I had no intention of ruining our good thing; since the gecko's arrival, our roach problem had…ceased to exist. But this also highlights a related source of well-known trouble in Okinawa regarding the yaru: air conditioners. In fact, one of the leading causes of AC trouble here is this little innocuous lizard. Air conditioners are nice and warm inside, and offer an inviting place for the lady yarus to nest and start a family (lay eggs). Problem is that often times this results in an electrical short, resulting in not just costly repairs, but the untimely demise of a valued protector. To counter, it's very easy to find a special attachment for ACs called "Gecko guards" in the home-improvement stores here on Okinawa. In an ironic twist sometimes we have to guard against the guard.
The nocturnal hunter-killer aspects of the gecko are often confused with a similarly named Japanese aircraft from WWII: The Nakajima J1N1 Gekko (or Gekkou). Developed to meet the Japanese navy's requirements for a long-range escort fighter, the J1N1 instead entered service as a reconnaissance platform instead. The need to counter the largely unopposed American night bombing raids of 1943 in the Southwest Pacific led to its conversion into a night fighter, a role served so well by the carbon-based version. Starting In May 1943, the J1N1-S meet with success by downing two B-17 Flying Fortresses, and was quickly nicknamed the "Gekko" (or "Gekkou"), meaning "moonlight" or "moonbeam." Like most other elements of Japanese aviation in 1945, Gekkos were further modified as kamikaze suicide platforms, something its reptile namesake would never consider.
Live and let live after all.
I mean, except for those terrible tabira….
Posted in Far Eastern Folklore, Mother Nature, Mother Nature, Okinawa Living.	Tagged adventure, cockroaches, gecko, geckos, insect, insects, japan, life, live, living with nature, lizards, nature, Okinawa, roach, roaches
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Hulaween is just over two weeks away! In case you're not excited enough already, or in case you're on the fence about going, here's a few things a group of vets are most excited about in 2015, with a look back at the past two years.
C'mon…..outside of Horning's Hideout, where else is there an absolutely amazing lake in the middle of the festival grounds?
What new item will amaze this year? What Spirit Lake Stage set will blow minds?
Yes, they're part of #1. But they need a mention of their own. They're sparkly and swingy and so much fun and everybody waits and takes turns just like elementary school and ends up with happy smiles. If you haven't experienced them at ~2am, they're reason enough to attend Hulaween!
The first two years, Halloween was the first full night of the festival. This year, the calendar was nice enough to have it fall on Saturday. Two days (because everyone knows you need to arrive Thursday!) to settle in, decorate your campsite, finish your costume(s), and get freaky before really letting loose on Saturday.
Quite simply one of the very top festival grounds in the country and most definitely the absolute best place for this festival. The trees and the Spanish moss dangling from them add to the spooky ambiance. The camping is topnotch, with fires allowed for the chilly nights that might happen even in Florida, and there are endless nooks and crannies to explore. And the decorated campsites that spring up all over it are a show in and of themselves.
Umm….have you looked at it? There's something for everyone all day, every day.
Because 3 full shows aren't enough for this festival. The middle set on Halloween night is an extravaganza not to be missed. The first two years were full of amazing covers, guest musicians, and visual displays and you KNOW they've got something great planned for this year.
This band is absolutely on-fire as of late. You need to arrive on Thursday – not just because you don't want to miss a day of fun, but you absolutely do not want to miss this band. If you're not familiar, get yourself to Archive and check out the Brooklyn Bowl run from Oct 2-4.
Because there's a freakin' ferris wheel on the concert field. 'Nuff said.