Palmyra atoll, in 2000

I was watching the Clint Eastwood Iwo Jima film when I decided to look up where dad served during World War II, a tiny island that he referred to as something like  hell in a poem he dug out of his scrapbook and gave me some years ago (another story I won’t go into).

Found some interesting links, using the Google, and now I know why he generally does not speak highly of his time there.  You would think being stationed on a tropical island would be great, but one story talks about how the beaches are beautiful but useless because they are a breeding ground for sharks, and this story notes how remote the island is, even in modern times, not only because of location, but because its airport runway is coral and can only be used by certain types of planes:

http://military.rightpundits.com/2008/04/23/researchers-stranded-on-palmyra-island/

Apparently, a lot of the WW2 era buildings are still there and being used — it’s considered a “research outpost”, so being stationed there was kind of like being on Deep Space Nine back in 1943 or early 1944, which is when I think Dad first arrived (underage because he lied in order to volunteer for duty).  Imagine if you spent your high-school junior year in someplace that remote.  The whole island looks to be about as big as the Logan Square neighborhood in Chicago (literally), and I seem to remember dad saying that the Japanese were staked out on one side of the island and the U.S. on the other.  It is 6 feet above sea level at its highest point, although the trees get up to 15 feet at some points.

Another bit of interesting trivia at:
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/04/local_couples_stranded_on_paci.html

“Palmyra is, technically, an atoll, not an island, Martin said,
explaining that an atoll is a ring-shaped coral reef or a string of
closely spaced small coral islands. Generally, an atoll is what remains after the center of a volcanic island sinks, producing an interior lagoon. Palmyra has 56 islets, he said, and its highest point is 6 feet above sea level.
The journey to Palmyra was one of several the Nature Conservancy offers regularly to donors, board members and companies that support the private organization’s preservation work, Martin said.
The conservancy owns Palmyra, which no humans have inhabited except for sailors during World War II, Timmons said. Because it’s on the equator, he said, Palmyra is an ideal spot for studying global warming and the El Nino phenomenon.”

Seems like that would be a pretty cool trip to make, almost worth making the donation to the Nature Conservancy just to see where Dad served.  It’s 1,000 miles southwest of Honolulu, and would definitely be the farthest south I’ve ever been, despite trips to the southernmost points of Mexico (which is already sometimes unbearably hot).

Also found this:
http://www.janesoceania.com/palmyra_images/index.htm

I wondered if Dad knew any of these guys, there were only about 5000 guys who were stationed there during the whole war, and probably not nearly that

Marines on Palmyra, WWII

many at one time.   Not enough ground to stand ’em all on!

Also a brief history of the island, which apparently was “owned” by a family, who let the U.S. use it during the war, and then filed suit and got it back only after a Supreme Court ruling:

http://www.janeresture.com/palmyra/

It’s also surrounded by one of the few remaining pristine coral reefs in the world, due to its remote location, and has long had a reputation for being haunted or the location of strange paranormal activity.  Many planes have crashed there, and pirate ships wrecked there (not a surprise, due to the topology of the area and the fact that it is at the meeting point for the west and south jet streams, making it difficult to judge wind conditions).

You can only visit there with the approval of the Nature Conservancy, which now owns the island.  There apparently is a recent initiative to make this a protected national park akin to the Grand Canyon.

Quite an interesting diversion, meant to be a moment’s map check which turned into a little more than that, giving a little more life to the many war stories I’ve heard my dad tell over the years about his time there — stories which actually got better over the years, and which helped me as a writer learn how to tell stories in an engaging way.

I’ll have to ask him about some of this next time we talk, Palmyra always had a sort of mystical aura about it, the far-away place where Dad did his war duty, but now it has even more mysticism, now that I know it’s a legendarily obscure and isolated base — even by today’s always-connected standards — with a reputation to rival that of the Bermuda Triangle.

Just wanted to note for you two big fuck-ups that actually have me wondering WTF? On Sunday, the Obama political org (“Organizing for America”) sent out an email with a form to “schedule an appointment” with your congressperson to discuss health care. My girlfriend dutifully filled it out to go talk at 3PM on Monday (since our rep, Gutierrez, only has hours from 9 to 5 in the district — sheesh). She actually took time off from work to do this, because we both think that at this point the Dems need a spine injection so we don’t end up with some watered-down bill that is worse than useless. I went along since I run my own consulting business and have a flexible schedule.

When we arrived, the Congressman’s office had no idea what we were talking about, and said we had to fill out a form on a clipboard as a constituent request. We told them we had ALREADY filled out a form online to schedule an appointment, and they said, “oh, that. Someone else came in, too, and showed it to us. We have nothing to do with that.” They also said that “unless 25 to 30 people” request a meeting, the congressman doesn’t meet with constituents.

Now, Gutierrez is the least of our worries, he’s on board for a public option (although I’m not sure if he’s on board with the progressive caucus to refuse to vote for a bill without one); however, it was very annoying that the Obama political arm wasted our time with this deceptive “campaign” that was NOT coordinated with reps. It is even more upsetting in light of what happened next.

Organizing for America sent out an email “inviting” both of us (each at our own email addresses) to participate in a teleconference about health care Tuesday night with David Axelrod, and when you register you fill out a little form with your question for Axelrod. (Mine? Why hasn’t Obama drawn a line in the sand and said he won’t sign any bill that doesn’t include a public option?) They sent an email saying to be ready 15 minutes before the call, that you’d receive a call with instructions on how to get into the conference. Then, they sent a second “reminder” email Tuesday afternoon to remind us to be waiting for the call.

We waited. And waited. I got no call at all, and emailed them to let them know at the address for “problems” which they cited in the email. 10 minutes later, still no call so I sent another email, and got an auto-response indicating that they can’t reply to all requests.

My girlfriend got a call, which quickly rattled off a number to call in case you get disconnected, then in less than a minute she WAS disconnected and hadn’t had a pen to write down the number.

So, TWO DAYS IN A ROW our time was wasted by Obama’s political organization — and we were staunch supporters, traveled out of town to register voters last summer and everything.

I think I now have a clue as to why they are having trouble not only getting a bill passed but controlling elements of the Democratic caucus. The coordination is not very good, and it’s very, very, annoying for working people to set aside time to try to help and then get essentially shafted by poor planning.

So, basically, no more. They can win or lose this battle on their own, but I’m not spending any more of MY time trying to help, since it appears that they are more willing to bend over backwards to “compromise” with people who are never going to support health care than they are willing to simply coordinate well enough to not waste their supporters’ time.

Bah. It is beginning to seem that the “brilliant” political organizing attributed to the Obama campaign was simply riding the crest of a wave, about as “brilliant” as the Wall Streeters who managed to make millions in a market bubble.

I heard about it in USA Today, they said it’s the latest thing, along with “e-lancing” and something called “MySpace”.  Apparently people use “blogs” to write “diaries” on the “intenet”.  It appears that people write about all sorts of things that are important to them, so I guess I will be writing mostly about myself, if I get this right.

I don’t know how long or idea-based these things are supposed to be, but “bloggers” apparently were a “big influence” on the elections somehow.  Maybe I can influence elections, I need a job, maybe I can get elected alderman or something like that.   Well, that’s about all I have right now, but I’m really impressed with the ‘instant communication’ of the internet.  Apparently I already have some ‘comments’ posted by TexasOnlinePoker and ViagraForSale.   Feel free to join in the discussion, glad to know that I have avid readers, even if they don’t appear to be commenting on my “blog”.  That’s the beauty of the internet, the ‘free market’ of ideas, buzzing around like horseflies circling my pile of “blogs’.