Scenes of Things to Come

Itinerary for Nassau

Yeehaw! I have finally finalized plans for my 3 night getaway to Nassau.

I will be leaving Toronto on Friday, March 19th, staying at the Sheraton for 3 nights and 4 glorious sun-filled days. The last time I was in the Bahamas was two years ago, in Freeport.

Day 1 - Friday
Arrival and then to the beach for the afternoon.
Dinner at Thai Lotus: "If you want great value, fantastic service, excellent food in a nice quiet, beautiful atmosphere, this is the place for you." (Source: TripAdvisor.com).
Evening: Explore the hotel next door, watch movie in room, sleep early.

Day 2 - Saturday
Buffet Breakfast at hotel.
Day at the beach!
Lunch: Arawak Cay: "Take a cab to "Fish Fry." It is actually called Arawak Cay, but the locals call it Fish Fry. When you get there you will find several shack-looking restaurants. At this point you might want to leave, but don't. My recommendation is a place called "Oh Andros." Many locals say it's the best in Fish Fry, and I must tell you, I had some of the tastiest, freshest seafood I have ever had."
Afternoon: Go into town and check out the straw market and breath the air at some of the pricier stores. Visit art gallery touted as having good Bahamian art.
Evening: Nap at the hotel
Night: Fish Fry on the beach, Casino

Day 3 - Sunday.
Buffet Breakfast at hotel
Morning: Walk through downtown Nassau
Afternoon: Scuba Diving
Dinner: Sushi
Night: Dancing


Day 4 - Monday
Buffet Breakfast
Beach...beach...beach
3 p.m. - Catch flight back to Toronto.

What Am I Reading?

I am currently some 300 pages into Richard Evans' wonderfully written tome on Nazi Germany during the war years -- 1939-1945.

The book (The Third Reich at War) is a beautifully written, meticulously documented (through letters, official documents and diaries of soldiers, victims and leaders)and touches on many different aspects of Germany's war polity.

And when I say, tome, I mean tome. The book is some seven hundred pages long and was well worth the wait time from the local library.

I have read auto-biographies by Elie Wiesel (Night) and Primo Levi's, Survival in Auschwitz and still, Evans' book brings home terribly the obscene depravity of the mass killings carried out by the Nazi's of Poles, Jews, Gypsies and other so called "sub-human" races. One of the most interesting things Evans has done is to bring to my attention the fact that the Nazi's were very careful not to directly order the mass extermination of, as they said, "jewry." Legalist bureacrats that they were, they were aware, even while denying it to be true, that there was something so very wrong in killing civilians en masse based on their ethnicity. And that history would judge their behaviours harshly. In the end, the 'final solution' was an accumulation of speeches vilifying the Jews and others, documents pushing leaders and soldiers to squeeze more work from the forced labourers, a need to keep the area behind the front line clear of partisans, a hierarchy of needs due to food shortages, years of indoctrination and propaganda starting in the pre-war years, which finally gave permission for people to be able to hammer, shoot, kick, hang, starve, over-work and gas the supposed enemies of the Nazi state.

The Man in the Potomac

Today, I thought of a man, whose name was unknown at the time that he became famous, who repeatedly handed over a life line thrown from a helicopter to his fellow survivors in the wintery waters of the Potomac River in Washington D.C. He was the only passenger, as we later learned, to have drowning declared as his cause of death.

I went looking for him today. His name was Arland Dean Williams Jr.

A Wikipedia article quotes the Washington Post's description of what happened after the crash of the passenger plane on January 13, 1982 and is worth quoting at length:

He was about 50 years old, one of half a dozen survivors clinging to twisted wreckage bobbing in the icy Potomac when the first helicopter arrived. To the copter's two-man Park Police crew he seemed the most alert. Life vests were dropped, then a flotation ball. The man passed them to the others. On two occasions, the crew recalled last night, he handed away a life line from the hovering machine that could have dragged him to safety. The helicopter crew - who rescued five people, the only persons who survived from the jetliner - lifted a woman to the riverbank, then dragged three more persons across the ice to safety. Then the life line saved a woman who was trying to swim away from the sinking wreckage, and the helicopter pilot, Donald W. Usher, returned to the scene, but the man was gone.

On January 25, 1982, Roger Rosenblatt, wrote a touching essay for Time Magazinehttp://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925257-1,00.html on Arland Williams' extraordinary heroism.

Overjoyed

Over time, I've been building my castle of love
Just for two, though you never knew you were my reason
I've gone much too far for you now to say
That I've got to throw my castle away

Over dreams, I have picked out a perfect come true
Though you never knew it was of you I've been dreaming
The sandman has come from too far away
For you to say come back some other day

And though you don't believe that they do
They do come true
For did my dreams
Come true when I looked at you
And maybe too, if you would believe
You too might be
Overjoyed, over loved, over me

Over hearts, I have painfully turned every stone
Just to find, I had found what I've searched to discover
I've come much too far for me now to find
The love that I've sought can never be mine

And though you don't believe that they do
They do come true
For did my dreams
Come true when I looked at you
And maybe too, if you would believe
You too might be
Overjoyed, over loved, over me

And though the odds say improbable
What do they know
For in romance
All true love needs is a chance
And maybe with a chance you will find
You too like I
Overjoyed, over loved, over you, over you

Tarah At Five

When going through the car wash, she calls the pre-soak rinse the "free-soap." This fact is endlessly irritating to her brother.

She is lactose intolerant and lately, obsessed with farts, farting, smelly farts and all things poop (tee hee). She asks, "Mom, can you fart anywhere in this world?" A discussion then ensues about the etiquette of passing gas. About how her pregnant teacher needs to leave the room when a student farts otherwise she will throw up.

Later, we discussed the situation in the Ukraine and other such stuff.

Bo

The last speaker of an ancient language in India's Andaman Islands has died at the age of about 85, a leading linguist has told the BBC.

When Boa Sr sang in her own language, the result was gently hypnotic. "The earth is shaking as the tree falls, with a great thud," she sang, on a recording captured by linguists.

But the grey-haired, 85-year-old woman will not be heard again. And neither will her native tongue – Bo – aside from the recordings that have already been made. Campaigners revealed yesterday that the recent death of Boa Sr on India's remote Andaman Islands marked the end of the Bo tribe and the loss of a language.