For Real This TIme

(image credit: mercyships.org)

Above is the second new (real!) photo from Mercy Ships. The occasion? The AFM has passed her sea trials! (Read story) It's been a long haul, and it ain't over yet, but this is a big milestone. A big one, as opposed to the "hooray, the port side lightbulbs are all installed! Now we're almost ready!" sort of milestone. It's really getting closer. Congratulations to you Africa Mercy crew - and thanks for your long, LONG, faithful hard work.

It's finally coming true.

See the little lighthouse in the above photo? It looked the same, five long years ago:

(South Shields, England/Feb 2002/Canon S110)

My DTS used to walk out on that beach and say, Someday the Africa Mercy will sail out past this light under her own power.

You see that smoke coming from the funnel stack in the top picture? I love it. That's real.

One more sea-trials photo from Mercy Ships:

(credit: mercyships.org)

If you haven't been a personal part of this nine-year saga in some way, i don't know if you can truly feel the visceral joy in those people waving from the top of the bridge.

But there's always time, you know.

:)

Mercy Ships News Flash

(image credit: www.mercyships.org)

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK (March 30) --

For the first time in its thirty-year history, Mercy Ships International has announced the rollout of an Africa Mercy photograph that has not been poorly Photoshopped.

The global charity's website developers rushed this week to purge the site of previously released images of the latest Mercy Ship. Other teams were working furiously to ensure that future brochure printings would prominently feature the new photo.

A Communications Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the event as "breathtaking" in its significance for the agency's PR efforts. "It's huge," said the official. "I mean, finally - no more questions like 'Why is it sailing backwards?'. Thank you, God."

The official pointed out that several Photoshopped versions of one previous image - the agency's only photo of the ship afloat and unmoored - had failed to remove obvious signs of a stern wake from the bow. "It was supposed to look like it was sailing forward under this pretty sunset, but you could still tell it was actually being towed backwards across a river. It was pretty bad."

Rank-and-file Mercy Ships personnel had also long expressed embarrassment in private at giving tours to visitors who expressed surprise at seeing a rusty black ship in a brown river, while several PR photos clearly depicted a gleaming white ship hovering motionless in a sparkling azure sea.

Other discrepancies were also apparent. Some could actually be seen to change from image to image as real-life work progressed (or did not progress). A square bow overhang disappeared completely several years ago, then reappeared in modified form as it became clear the shipyard's blueprints called for it to stay. "Yeah," added one former deckhand, "plus, some people kept asking me why the big trapezoidally shaped Times New Roman web address wasn't printed on the side like it was in one of the pictures. I never knew what to say to that."

It was uncertain whether the new photo would completely supersede earlier images in the agency's PR materials, but the communications official indicated that it might not, at least not yet. "They've just got too much invested in those old Photoshops to let go so soon. They'll be around."

Two of the most widely disseminated images of the Africa Mercy can be seen below. Mercy Ships officials were unavailable late Friday for comment.

(all images credit: mercyships.org)

Weekends

So i was feeling sorry for myself recently.

I do this from time to time. This time, i was wondering how long we'd be stuck in this city where we still don't know anyone well enough to make it feel like home. I was missing life with Mercy Ships, as i often do - especially missing the mix of cultures in the crew. Mainly, even more than usual, i was missing my friends.

And as so often happens, when i'm missing things, i got mad, and i started using descriptors such as "redneck" and "thug" in the same sentence as the name of our city. This also happens occasionally. But that was before the last month or two.

It was before i met the Haitian pastor who's devoting his life to feeding street orphans as hungry and homeless as he'd been. It was before i played beach volleyball with the cello student from New York and the flight instructor and physician assistant who plan (as do so many people we've met here) to serve the poor in a foreign country. It was before i got my latest fix of the wonderful welcome i find every week in my cell group.

It was before we flew in a Cessna 172 to attend the birthday party of a two-year-old we'd never met, to a grass strip marked by old tires, from a twelve-thousand foot alternate runway for the space shuttle that's marked by blazing streams of lights so bright you can see them from twenty miles away in the night.

It was before we ate crab cakes with the Tobagonian track star turned occupational therapist who did her valiant best to diagram for us, on a restaurant napkin, the ecstatic intricacies of the game of cricket.

I wasn't getting it, but the jet mechanic and the world-traveling professional Hawaiian hula dancer sitting across from me seemed to understand.

I guess the bright spots are there if you look.

Mildly Interesting Photos Of The Week

"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."

--Goethe

"When words fail, use lots of pickshurs."

--unknown

(25 Feb 2007/Hawai'i Volcanoes NP, HI/Casio EX-Z750)

(27 Feb 2007/Kailua-Kona, HI/Caiso EX-Z750)

(28 Feb 2007/Waipi'o Valley, HI/Casio EX-Z750)

These Things Just Write Themselves

Some articles just get better and better with every sentence.

The following shall be considered a test of your sense of humor. News item from The Week, March 9, 2007:

At least 11 people were killed this week at an annual kite-flying festival in eastern Pakistan.

National authorities banned kite flying in 2005 after metal or glass-coated strings used by competitors to cut rival kites' strings also cut the throats of at least nine people.

Punjab state authorities this year defied Islamabad to allow the two-day festival to proceed, amid heightened security.

Two of the deaths, both of children, were attributed to reinforced kite strings. The other victims were hit by celebratory gunfire or electrocuted while untangling kites from overhead power lines.

Muslim religious parties oppose the festival, saying it springs from an ancient Hindu rite.

I only wish i could write like that.

Mildly Interesting Photos Of The Week

(both: 03 Feb 2007/DeLeon Springs, FL/Casio EX-Z750)

Mildly Interesting Photo Of The Week

(05 March 2007/Jax, FL/Casio EX-Z750)

Yeah, i know. Another flower.

Sue me. It's spring, and i'm starting to feel human again. I'll post the monster truck rally next week. In the meantime, you can handle one little photo of a flower.

Just be glad i haven't posted the one of Katie's toenails falling off from hiking across all the lava.* Of which she is justly proud, i should add.

Because i could, you know.

*(available upon request)**

**(the photo, not the toenails)

Justice

Headline: 'Saudi Kidnap, Rape Victim Faces Lashing'

Pertinent facts: This nineteen-year-old woman was kidnapped by seven knife-wielding men and gang-raped fourteen times. For this crime she has been sentenced to receive ninety lashes with a whip.

Under Islamic law, this makes sense.

How far have we already come down the road of appeasement when traditional liberals won't speak up even for her?

And traditional conservatives, long among the Saudis' best buddies, have no less share in the shame.

Sure, atrocities and injustice are nothing new. If anything, right now they're actually as scarce as they've ever been, if world history is taken as a whole. But i fear we are sliding into a new age of darkness when, in the face of such aggressively expansionist brutalism, even the most fervent former champions of tolerance and justice for all are now choosing, one by one, to sit silent.

I'm sorry; what happened to women's rights? Certainly Christian women beaten and tortured for their faith in other countries have long been ignored by feminist leaders. Still, one would think at least Muslim women - an oppressed minority if ever there were one - would merit some sort of feeble objection from the Enlightened West when such appalling abuse of their humanity is occasionally made public.

But not anymore.

This nineteen-year-old Saudi girl couldn't tell anyone about her horrifying ordeal. She knew what would happen if she did. Instead, she tried to kill herself. She didn't succeed. So now she waits, her personal hell still raging, for her sentence to be carried out.

Remember that old Derek Webb song about his friend's suicide? Here it has new poignancy, and the irony is crushing. I can't keep it out of my mind.

what crimes have you committed
demanding such penance
that couldn't wait for five more minutes
and a cry for help?
and this room is so peaceful
and this room is so quiet
and i hate the silence

Profanity Monday / Non-Travelzoo Temptation Of The Week

Since i was so derelict last week (in several senses of the word) while camping on the big island of Hawaii, here's a twofer to start this week off right. Count your blessings.

Category: Limited but unbelievably cheap last-minute airfares
Agency name: Airtech.com
Motto: "If you can beat these prices, start your own damn airline."

Get clickin'.