No posts for almost a month? Such is life on the high seas.

 

I am in Male, in the Maldives right now, sitting at a little internet cafe/juice bar with Lionel Richie playing, and a bunch of Japanese tourists chattering behind me.

 

The Maldives sits 4 degrees north of the equator, just to the west of the southern tip of the Indian peninsula. It is a gorgeous atoll, and supposedly the diving around here is great. But the waters off Male, the main city, are dirty - dozens of dead fish and three-mile long diesel spills dirty.

Link...

 

I'm not in Hartford right now, so it feels a bit disingenuous to write about Mayor Eddie Perez. Yet I have internet access here in the insta-city of Port Ghalib, Egypt, and I am reading the news, even on my few-and-far-between days off (Al Quayser was just not that interesting).

 

And before we leave for a 10-day delivery to Salalah, Oman, I want to contribute a few thoughts and links about from afar about the recent goings-on in CT's Capital city.

 

Eddie must go. I have been saying it for years, and I suppose now with his recent coronation, we have only to wait for Lear to fall.

 

I was somewhat distraught by the Mayor's re-election, but I understand that at $93 a vote (according to Bill Curry's calculations), you get what you pay for. I wasn't around for the campaign, but I can imagine the schlock that Perez was selling.

 

It's not that democracy failed here, and I refuse to give up on the one person, one vote form of government based on its failure to oust the idiot in chief in Hartford.

Link to what John Jay has to say...

 

If Gabriel Ruiz was going to high school this year, and not five years ago, the following inspirational tale would not be possible.

 

That’s because Echoes from the Streets youth newspaper, the vehicle for Gabe’s growth, is being put on "hiatus" by Our Piece of the Pie, a Hartford anti-poverty agency, according to former Echoes youth business manager Doug Hardy.

 

In the efforts of full disclosure, I started Echoes, and Doug is a friend and colleague of more than a decade.

 

But let’s get back to Gabe, because his story is what Echoes is about.

Link...

 

The Suez Canal should be called the Baksheesh Canal.

 

Almost every Egyptian we dealt with – from the crew on the pilot boat that led us into Port Said at the north end of the Canal to the customs' agents on the dock to the line handlers who we had to accommodate on our ship – wanted baksheesh.

 

Webster says "baksheesh" is a tip or gratuity in Egypt and India. I'd call it a bribe, usually in the form of Marlboro Reds, whisky, or cash (hard currency like Euros or dollars works best). But baksheesh can also be t-shirts, hats, or even something so mundane as Windex spray bottles.

The average cop in Egypt makes 500 Egyptian pounds a month. At 5.5 pounds to a dollar, that's less than $100 per month. That means the normal Egyptian makes far less.

 

The good ship Maverick II left Malta with at least 20 cartons of cigarettes. We had been forewarned. But after four days at sea between Malta and Egypt, we weren't prepared for how quickly the baksheesh calls would come.

 

I suppose we should expect that a $5.5 million luxury yacht has money written all over it, and in a poor country like Egypt, they see you coming miles away, literally.

Link...

 

We needed a few days in Port Said to fix an engine part, fuel the boat, and wait our turn in the canal queue. Everyone had their hand out.

 

The bunker boat which filled our diesel tanks had a large crew, and they wanted cigarettes and cash. Since they had to wash their hands before they could come on board our ship to examine the jerry-rigged hose, I gave them a spray bottle of soap from the deck locker.

 

While I was on board the bunker boat examining the quantity of diesel (or gasoil as they call it), the crew served me tea in the galley. I almost didn't drink it because the rest of the boat was so filthy.

 

I was on board at prayer time, and in the port, we could hear the muezzin call. One of the boat crew members knelt down, facing east praying to mecca. Others smoked cigarettes and went about their business.

 

Some six hours later, after we finished fueling, and the government agent had tried to cheat us out of some 3,000 liters of diesel, the captain of the bunker boat wouldn't give me back my spray bottle.

 

"Souvenir," he said. This, of course, after we gave them several hundred Egyptian pounds, a half a dozen cartons of cigarettes, plus sodas, Tootsie Pops and Twizzlers. I had no choice.

 

Baksheesh is a way of life.

Link...

 

Don't get me wrong - I love Malta. But I never expected to spend almost a month here. The rest of the Maverick crew is as thrilled as I am to be departing Malta today.

 

On the leg of the trip from Sardinia, the fresh water pump on our starboard engine started leaking. As soon as we arrived in Manoel Island Marina (which has really inconsistent internet - arrghh), we stripped the pump off the engine and gave it to mechanics.

 

They had to order parts from Germany. It took forever. The worst part is that the pump should've been rebuilt before we left Florida. It wasn't. At some point, we have to rip off the same pump from the port engine and rebuild it, but not now.

 

Egypt looms. It will take four days - 1,000 miles at about 10 miles an hour - to go from Malta to Port Said, Egypt. We will fuel up in Port Said and then head through the Suez Canal, then go to a half-built marina, Port Ghalib, in southern Egypt.

 

I'm not sure when we will have internet access that's even as good as this crap here in Malta. So, I am posting a bunch of stories that will run here before they hit print in the Hartford News. But I won't be updating this site for a few weeks, at the earliest.

 

So enjoy. And I'll be back when we have legit internet access again, which may not be until Salallah, Oman.

 

Cliff Thornton, Green Party candidate for Connecticut Governor in 2006, has just received word from the nation's leading drug policy reform organization, the Drug Policy Alliance, that he has won a prestigious honor.

 

In the effort of full disclosure, I ran Cliff's campaign for governor. But no matter. I'm proud as hell of Cliff and he deserves a free trip to New Orleans for the DPA conference December 8.

 

Cliff, a tireless spirit in the fight to legalize, medicalize and decriminalize, will receive the Robert C. Randall Award for Achievement in the Field of Citizen Action from the Drug Policy Alliance.

"This award honors citizens who make democracy work in the difficult area of drug law and policy reform," according to a letter Cliff received from DPA head Ethan Nadelmann.

Link...

 

Thousands of pedestrians crowd Republic Street, the main avenue in central Valletta to shop, to meander, to gawk, to soak in the history. Among the cobblestones and the tourist traps, nestled next to a bank stands a sign over a door, in red lettering on a white field, that reads "Malta Labor Party – Restaurant & Bar – Tourists Welcome."

 

Alex, the mate on board Maverick II who replaced Tim and his broken leg, always wants genuine experiences with real people in the places we visit. He came back one night after a few pops and talked about Charley, a rotund Maltese man holding court at the second-floor Malta Labour Party bar.

 

Charley bought us all drinks, Alex said. Walking around the boat, Alex kept saying, "Heeey buddy," imitating Charley's deep voice and second-language slang. Alex's ad was too much, so I had to meet him. On our first night off, Alex showed me the scene.

 

From Gzira, where the boat is docked, we took the 62 bus to Valletta, strolled down Republic Street, walked up the stairs and found a dozen man hanging around a spacious 1,000 square foot restaurant and bar.

 

Most of the tables were empty. On the televisions hanging in the corners of the room, commercials pantomimed the sales pitch, because Hank Williams "Okie from Muskogee" dominated the bar.

 

On another wall sat stately photos of the leaders of the Malta Labour Party. Who would've thought it – a political party owning a bar and serving drinks?

Link...

 

Fat Charley, the man we came to see, sat at a table across from the bar. On either side of Charley sat two skinny Maltese women with long brown hair, maybe in their early 20s. The one sporting a blue body-hugging Adidas sweatsuit featured black teeth.

 

The other wore jeans and a leather jacket, and she had a few teeth remaining. While Charley regaled us with stories of his trips to 12 different states – Louisiana, California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Chicago, and a bunch of others he couldn't remember, the girls sat quietly playing with their cell phones.

 

"They don't speak English," Charley said, then he said something to the girls in Maltese.

 

He must have ordered us a round, because the black-toothed woman in the blue sweat suit served Alex and I another pair of Cisks, the local Maltese beer. After she returned with an appetizer: the Maltese bruschetta that features butter beans, red peppers, onions and capers, she sat down with a Pepsi.

 

As we sopped up the olive oil with the fresh bread, Charley announced, "They're hookers."

Link...