boat

went to look at a pretty good 29′ sailboat tonight at the emeryville marina. she’s ready to sail, the current owner had just gotten back from a quick cruise over to angel island and back. she needed some work, the rigging needed to be attended to, and the mast stays need to be pulled out and recaulked. don’t know whether they need to be reglassed. some of the wood below deck was showing signs of woodrot, but it didn’t look to the eye to be that extensive. (although there was a spot on the floor that would need to be patched somehow). all in all, a pretty sweet boat, and not that expensive. (to buy…they’re all a nightmare to maintain). probably need to be hauled out and anti-fouled. hmmmm. the seller gets back into town on the 21st, and i guess if we haven’t found another boat, and if he hasn’t found another buyer, then we’ll fully lowball the guy and get some late summer sailing in. the surf style show is going up at the gallery, a lot of surf boards and some art of questionable importance being hung. there also seems to be something of an atmosphere of commercialism that is permeating the air around there for this show, maybe it’s just a sense that i am incorrectly getting. but the surf boards look pretty cool in the windows on second street, especially with the potted palms behind them, and, well it all just seems to fit into an overall sense of sea and summer.

this is a pretty cool little photo gallery that i saw while looking at the latest “bombshell” revelation from the white house, that bush used discredited intelligence in his state of the union address to bolster his case for war on iraq. well, basically what is happening is the democrats have decided that it is now a “safe” political issue to call into question the war. ummmm, well now that it’s “over”. shit everybody in the world knew that the intelligence being cited was bullshit, but if you brought up that fact in this country, you were accused of treasonous behavior. well, actually, not a word of it was spoken in the mainstream media. but now that the deed is done, and there is no realistic exit strategy, (actually it appears there is no exit strategy, because we’re settling into a long-term occupation over there), the democrats feel safe in using the war as some political weapon. it will be interesting to see how this one is spun.

christ i noticed that one of the first things that l. paul bremer is doing over there is setting up a central bank, independent of whatever government the iraqis may finally end up with, and that the new u.s. foreign policy is aimed at rogue nations where terrorists can, among other things, easily launder money. geez, have you noticed lately that the nations the u.s. considers “rogue” are the ones that are the most independent from the emerging world economy. i wonder if globalization factors into any of these conflicts we’re having around the world.

i’m guessing that in a globalized economy, it’s something of a moral imperative to have a boat to get from place to place to “sink” dollars into the emerging local economies of the world. become a yacht ambassador, spreading the message of “freedom” (free enterprise). hmmmm. the s.s. marx/engels. alright, i’ll shut up.