Cocos nucifera: the Giving Tree

By Jon Letman

Let’s face it, some trees just give a little more.

Surely, if there is one tree that embodies the best in a plant—strength, resilience, beauty, nutrition, flavor and utility—it is Cocos nucifera, the coconut palm.

“To Polynesians, coconuts are life,” says naturalist Angela K. Kepler. “For people who want to maintain spiritual ties with the ancient ones, using the varied products of coconut palms goes a long way toward tapping into old-time survival skills.”

From frond, husk and fiber to meat, water and shell, this aptly named “tree of life” provides a veritable shopping list of important staples far exceeding the usual food, shelter, tools and medicine.

Coconuts are used to appease the gods, launch ships, reduce stress, aid in digestion, make music and even halt hiccups.

As huge, buoyant seeds, coconuts spread on their own (though never as far as Hawai`i) and colonized much of the tropics in prehistory, obscuring their true origins, though most agree coconuts first grew somewhere between the Indian Ocean and Melanesia.

Polynesian legends speak of a male eel-god named Tuna who longs to be with a beautiful woman named Sina. The story varies, but always ends the same: Tuna is killed and as he lies dying he asks Sina to plant his head in the ground, promising that from it will grow a tree that provides for all. Thus, the first coconut palm sprouted.


On south India’s Malabar Coast, the state of Kerala reveals its most prolific tree in its name—Kera (meaning coconut palm) and alam (land). Coconuts are considered auspicious across India and regularly used in Ayurvedic medicine, at temples, wedding ceremonies, the launching of a ship or the first take in a film shoot.

What Hawaiians call niu would have been easy to transport by canoe, but relatively small numbers (and only two varieties) suggest that the coconut palm may not have been introduced until later migrations.

Although coconuts did not play as central a role in Hawaiian culture as on other Pacific islands, it is nonetheless easy to imagine that, upon arrival, one of the first terrestrial acts of settlers may have been to place coconuts on the ground, where they would germinate and produce a sprout that would develop into fronds and eventually a tree.

Coconut palms mature within their first decade and some varieties, at their peak, can bear thousands of nuts. Coconut palms can grow for 100 years or longer, like those towering palms at the historical Kapu-āiwa royal grove west of Kaunakakai on Moloka`i.

One of the best places in Hawai`i to enjoy a landscape of coconut palms is Kaua`i’s east side—the Coconut Coast from the Wailua River and neglected ruins of the Coco Palms Resort to Waipouli, site of the Coconut Market Place, up through Kapa`a Beach Park where the 13th Annual Kaua`i Coconut Festival will be held Oct. 3 and 4.

Another is Maui’s Kahanu Garden just before Hāna. On the sprawling grounds of Kahanu, in the shadow of the behemoth Pi`ilanihale heiau, is the Mary Wishard Memorial Coconut Grove.

Writing in 1978, Leslie Wishard explained that the collection he started in 1930 on the Kohala Coast of the Big Island had over 300 imported coconuts palms from around the tropics. From the Wishard collection, 27 varieties grouped into dwarf, medium and tall were planted at Kahanu. These included the Fijian Niumagimagi, the flat-bottomed Calabash, the diminutive Pugai, the Papua, the Trinidad and a variety called Cow’s Udder for its resemblance to
a bovine teat.

Kahanu Garden Director Kamaui Aiona points to the diversity in nut size, shape and color as one of the interesting aspects of the collection.

“The Fiji Love Nut is very small, about the size of a fist, and used in love sorcery or as a container for love concoctions,” Aiona says.

Kahanu Garden, Maui

Kahanu’s Wishard collection took on greater significance after the import of whole coconuts to Hawai`i was banned in a failed attempt to keep out disease and damaging plant pests.

Perhaps no one in Hawai`i knows more about the threat coconut palms face than Maui resident Philippe Visintainer, founder of Hawai`i Coconut Protectors. For more than a decade Visintainer has been battling Phytophthora katsurae, better known as coconut heart rot disease, which was first documented on Kaua`i in 1971.

Coconut heart rot is a fungal disease that causes new fronds to dry and wilt until eventually all leaves die and only the trunk remains. Visintainer says the disease runs in cycles and is currently in an actively destructive period with the north shores of Kaua`i and Maui and Puna on the Big Island especially hard hit.

Since 1998, Visintainer has been treating palms with a system that injects a phosphorus solution into the trunk. This fertilizes the palm and, as a systemic treatment, works its way into the palm heart, creating an inhospitable environment for the fungus. He says his success rate is close to 100 percent, but adds that funding is a major challenge.

Visintainer collaborates with the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community headquartered in Jakarta and remains optimistic that his program may eventually reduce the disease to a manageable level and that he may one day start a coconut palm plantation using remaining sugar cane irrigation infrastructure.

Pointing to a three-decade gap when very few coconut palms were planted following what he describes as a misleading campaign against coconut oil by other edible oil–producing industries, Visintainer believes people are rediscovering the environmental and health benefits of virgin coconut oil.

On Kaua`i, others also see the untapped potential of coconuts for food and fuel.

Paramcharya Palaniswami of Kaua`i’s Hindu monastery in Wailua says the monks have planted some 800 coconut palms on monastery grounds with plans to add several hundred more next year. They use the coconuts as a daily food and are exploring how best to use the oil for lighting.

Palaniswami says the meat itself can be burned as fuel for indoor sacred fire ceremonies and that it burns clean, producing virtually no soot or ash.

Adam Asquith, managing partner of Kaua`i Farm Fuel, a biodiesel company in Hanapēpē, also recognizes coconut oil as an underused local resource with great energy-producing potential. Asquith’s company already makes biodiesel fuel from used cooking oil and he says coconut oil holds real potential as renewable fuel source when global petroleum prices make it economically feasible or a practical necessity.

Asquith envisions growing coconuts for oil on small plots and unused tracts of land, noting that there are already plenty of unused coconuts in Hawai`i which, rather than going to green waste, could be cold pressed (as opposed to steam extracted) for oil. Coconut oil will ignite under pressure just as petroleum diesel fuel. New coconut-based fuels are already being tested or used in places like Pohnpei, the Marshall Islands, Vanuatu and Samoa, either as virgin coconut oil (VCO) or mixed with diesel fuel as a substitute for cooking and lighting fuel.

“When I think of a transition from petroleum to renewable natural oil sources in Hawai`i, I think of coconut and kukui,” Asquith says. “It already exists as feral oil, just waiting to be harvested when the economic climate is right.”

“As a biologist, I see almost no distinction between food and fuel—it’s basically the same thing. Whether it’s burned in the body, a fireplace or a diesel engine, you are creating combustion by burning hydrocarbons.”

“You could throw a cabbage in an oven and generate heat, but it’s not efficient,” Asquith says. “A coconut is much better.”

from Edible Hawaiian Islands magazine, Fall 2009 issue

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Dick Cheney and Barack Obama - polar opposites, right?

Who could be more different than the steely, surly torture-authorizing former V.P. and that cool, sophisticated shining embodiment of hope and change Barack Obama? If you were among the 74% or so who loathed Dick Cheney, than you may have been quite pleased to see Barack Obama become president.

Perhaps a more challenging recent political figure to pigeon hole is someone like George W. Bush's first Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Yet if we read the words of these three men with regards to nuclear weapons, especially the acquisition of these by some countries (but not others), the question changes to not "who could be more different," but "why are they so similar?"

Read the following three quotes - one from each of the above men - and see if you can match the words with the speaker.

"If the governments of Iran and North Korea choose to ignore international standards, if they put the pursuits of nuclear weapons ahead of regional stability and the security and opportunity of their own people, if they are oblivious to the dangers of escalating nuclear arms races in both East Asia and the Middle East, then they must be held accountable."

"The pursuit of weapons of mass destruction only invites isolation and carries with it great costs. Leaders who abandon the pursuit of those weapons will find an open path to far better relations with governments around the world."

"We want to engage our friends with respect to North Korea: these criminal activities that [it] participates in, as well as the large army it maintains at the expense of taking care of its people, and its proliferation of missiles and other technologies that can be used to develop weapons of mass destruction."

How did you do? (*answer at the bottom of this post) Was it obvious? Perhaps not.

All three speak out against certain countries (Iran, North Korea) pursuing nuclear weapons or maintaining a large military or weapons arsenal, painting such endeavors as tantamount to being "oblivious to the dangers of escalating nuclear arms," coming at the "expense of taking care of its people" and bringing with it "isolation" and diminished relations with governments around the world.

But who is the U.S. to lecture Iran, North Korea or any other country about the perils of nuclear weapons or maintaining a large military?

How can any one of these men or any other American politician stand before any world body or any television audience and wag their finger at other nations as the United States continues to maintain and protect its own massive nuclear and "conventional" weapons stockpiles?

In a country where we can't even offer our own citizens public health insurance or ensure that public libraries and schools will remain open for our own children, yet we can dump Trillions of dollars into maintaining over 700 military bases in foreign countries around the world, pay tens of millions per day to occupy and fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and still keep our nuclear weapons ready to fire in an instant, who would take what any of these men say for anything other than glaring hypocrisy?

And now we have the nuclear armed Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown talking about sanctions and "lines in the sand" with regard to Iran's nuclear ambitions. Well, unfortunately, these men have no legs on which to stand.

So while we ponder the words of Obama, Cheney and Powell, really, with regards to America's own hypocrisy and its own WMD stockpiles, nothing has changed.


*First quote was Obama addressing the U.N. General Assembly on September 23, 2009. The second quote was former Vice President Dick Cheney in a speech before the Italian parliament and the third was then-Secretary of State Colin Powell in an appearance on Meet the Press.

Wrong again, stupid!

Okay, so admittedly we Americans may not be the most, uh...worldly people in the world. We trail behind other industrialized nations in our knowledge of foreign cultures and languages, civics, basic geography, math, and science. In a February 2009 Gallup poll, only 4 in 10 adults surveyed said they believed in the theory of evolution. In the 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of Geographic Literacy, only 37% of young Americans could find Iraq on a map. In a Zogby poll, only 42% of Americans surveyed could name the three branches of the federal government.

But Americans scored high in a 2008 poll that ranked "Bible literacy" and we continue to be the hands-down leader in global arms sales ($37.8 billion in 2008 versus #2 ranks Italy at a mere $3.7 billion). So never mind the popularity of the FOX television program Are you smarter than a 5th grader? -- of course we are! We just put our intellectual efforts into reading the Bible and building weapons systems instead of learning trigonometry and French.

Despite this, Bill Maher, appearing on CNN this summer, accused America of being a "stupid country." Regardless of what you think of that assessment, I can't help but wonder if the White House and the Pentagon don't agree with Bill -- that we are stupid -- really stupid. After all, look at the how they talk to us.

Here we are eight years to the week that the U.S. Congress voted to authorize launching a war in Afghanistan -- the so-called "Operation Enduring Freedom" -- and to date, the only thing enduring is misery in Afghanistan, and though we don't hear about it much any more, Iraq.

Just days ago Gen. Stanley McChrystal said, "I do not see indications of a large al-Qaida presence in Afghanistan now." Our man in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, is struggling to hang on to his narrow lead in election results amidst widespread fraud allegations, and the civilian population of that country is increasingly churning in violence as more foreign (especially American) troops flood the country and with them bring more civilian deaths and instability. Going back several years, a number of diplomats and high-ranking military personnel from both the U.S. and the U.K. have suggested NATO and the U.S. are fighting a losing battle and that includes Gen. McChrystal in recent weeks.

If you have even the slightest notion that, while waging a war in Afghanistan may be difficult and unpleasant, it could still be "winnable," or if you think, as Obama says, fighting a war in Pakistan and Afghanistan "could not be more just," then take five minutes and read this article in the Guardian newspaper. It is an account of villagers in Afghanistan's Kunduz province who had to collect the bodies (or body parts) of their family members (or anyone's family members) after a NATO airstrike killed scores, perhaps as many as 90, two weeks ago. If you still think a US-NATO war in Afghanistan is necessary or to the benefit of Afghans (or even us), read the above story and ask yourself what is the true cost of war and if you have any human compassion whatsoever.

Yet here we are, nine months into Obama's season of "HOPE" and "CHANGE" and what do we get? Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen coming before Congress with his hand out asking for more. More money, more soldiers, more weapons...more, more, more.


As if 68,000 American soldiers weren't enough, Americans are going to be asked to stomach a request for up to 45,000 more troops and god knows how many dollars.

This means, of course, we will be asked for more time, more commitment, more (human) sacrifice and more war.

Congress, deliberately playing its role as the limp-wristed enabler, is ready to bend over and suck Mullen's toes, dropping a spare $10 billion in change on the floor for the military to scoop up. Blood-spattered Sen. Lindsey Graham [R-SC], living up to his state's proud reputation for honorable politicians, and always ready to throw his money behind the losing dog, warned with faux severity, "this is your last chance."

Sure it is. Until Christmas.

Democrats are making a few mild grumblings -- Pelosi, Murtha, Levin and Feingold are thinking about November 2010 and what they will tell their voters when just plain folks and the seasonal "anti-war movement" gurgles a few irritated burps about too many troop deaths.

But fret not Freedom-Loving Americans! Congress will certainly fork over the money and troops even if it means accelerating the "withdrawal" from Iraq, luring more foreigners to sign up with the promise of citizenship, dropping enlistment standards further, carrying out more stop-loss orders, lengthening ordinary deployments, or hiring more private contracting firms like Blackwater (renamed Xe) or the security contractors who are being investigated for taking time out from guarding the U.S. Embassy in Kabul for some late night shenanigans.

So tell me, how stupid are we -- flat on our backs, eyes closed, iPod buds firmly stuffed in our ears, thumbs rapidly punching out tweets about what a dick Kanye West is or pondering who really killed Michael Jackson as our government waves a blank check for war without end in our faces and we barely blink.

Under-educated, under-informed, disinterested and just too damn busy, lazy or indifferent; we can barely muster a voice to oppose what is surely a bad, wrong and doomed effort to exert more military control over another far-flung land.

We've done this before in Vietnam, in Iraq, and for eight years already, in Afghanistan. Yet the military brass is telling us (again), "now we've got the right plan and the right man for the job, this time things will be different."

What could be more wrong, or more stupid?

Something still stinks...

Everyone seems to get it except for the people that can actually make the changes that need to be made.

Yesterday when the head of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal said, "The situation in Afghanistan is serious, but success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort," it is hard not to blurt out, "You fucking liar!"

Of course, one could respond, "You delusional twit!" and perhaps that is more appropriate. Maybe McChrystal isn't really lying so much as he just doesn't have a clue. He's so deep in the game that he is completely polluted with military fantasies that he just can't think or see straight.

But what about Obama? What is his excuse? Isn't Barack Obama Mr. Brilliant - the Change we can believe in? Where is the change in sending 14,000 more "trigger-pullers" (read: blood-spillers, future PTSD sufferers) to bolster the already 65,000+ U.S. troops in Afghanistan?

Day by day, BHO's war policy is looking more and more like our old friend GWB's. And like Bush, Obama is proving to be a "uniter, not a divider."

Just look at the unity his misguided Afghanistan policy has engendered, bringing together such diverse voices as two polar opposites -- staid, conservative columnist George Will on one end, and on the other, independent Nir Rosen. Today they both came to a similar conclusion in their respective forums: the U.S.. should get out of Afghanistan.

As George Will wrote in a column in the Washington Post today, "Genius, said de Gaulle...sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. Genius is not required to recognize that in Afghanistan, when means now, before more American valor... is squandered."

Nir Rosen, coming from a very different background and political philosophy basically arrives at the same, or a similar conclusion : it is time to get out of Afghanistan, or rather, the time has long since passed and staying longer will only bring more needles bloodshed on all sides.

Today on Democracy Now! Rosen said, "In terms of the actual [U.S.] goal, they’ve said that it’s preventing al-Qaeda from using Afghanistan as a base. How do you get there? They haven’t yet managed to explain that. In fact, al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was destroyed following September 11, and they’re based on the internet, they’re based all over the world. They’re based—it’s an ideology."

The callous disregard for human life and utterly squandered resources is not only criminal, it is immoral and just plain stupid. Like watching a caged animal try to break through the same barrier again and again, seemingly never realizing that it is just repeatedly making the same mistake, we must endure the foolish, criminal behavior of the United States government and military as they try in vain to convince us or themselves or someone, that they really are doing the right thing.

In fact, the opposite is true. McChrystal, Sec. Gates, Obama and the rest are no better than the last bunch we just got rid of. After all, a shit sandwich in a pretty new wrapper with the words "100% Natural! Organic!" is really still just a shit sandwich.

Different face, same war

Ex-pres. Bush weighs in on Afghanistan

A familiar voice...

“There will be more difficult days ahead. The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight, and we won’t defeat it overnight. This will not be quick nor easy. But we must never forget, this is not a war of choice, this is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people."
- former U.S. President George W. Bush

The only thing misleading about the above quote is that those words were not spoken by George W. Bush, rather by our current president Barack Obama.

...In a pretty new package.

Shocking? Hardly.

Change we can believe in? Hardly?

Speaking at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Phoenix on Monday, Obama used the very same tired old rhetoric and flat out lies that "the left" criticized Bush endlessly for during his two terms. But here we are, six months into the Golden Age of Obama and no one says a damn thing - not so much as a tweet against the war. Not only is ending the wars off the table of American debate, it isn't even in the damn room.

War? What war?

Now that the shock of Michael Jackson's death has started to sink in, Americans have moved on to being wigged out about Obama's "socialist-Islamo-African" take over of "our rights" (the Right to be a loud-mouth jerk, the Right to carry around dangerous loaded weapons in public, the Right to be ignorant). No one, it seems, is paying attention to the Obama administration's scantily clad repackaging of the same old Bush foreign policies which are, I suppose, the same old Clinton foreign policies which are, I suppose...

So when the same old dummies from 2007 (Sen. McCain, Sen. Graham, Sen. Lieberman) don flak jackets and call a "news conference" at Kabul airport to call for an increase in troops, suggesting it could lead to "significantly more success," we just have to recall the jubilant cries from the 2008 Obama campaign:

YES, WE CAN!
(occupy foreign countries, execute endless wars,
and still have a nice day at the mall)

Well, no one should be surprised since really Obama is just fulfilling his campaign promises he and Joe Biden made in Denver during the Democratic National Convention last August.

As 84,000 flag-waving liberals panted and hooted, then-candidate Obama said:

"As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.

I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts."

So here we are-- promise kept: The Iraq war is still being "ended responsibly" (2,400 more U.S. troops headed to Iraq last week and waves of explosions sweep Baghdad as I write this) and Obama is "finishing the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban" as the highest U.S. troop numbers to date file into that country and violence swells.

You want more troops John McCain? You got it! And all that from our "ultra-left wing radical liberal" President Obama!

Change you can believe in? Sounds like MOTSOW (More of the same old wars) to me.

That's Empire you can depend on!

And even though the ugly, hateful images floating around with Obama portrayed as "the Joker" or Adolf Hitler are indicative of the latent racism and fear-mongering that is erupting like an infected zit on the forehead of American society, there is another image out there, while ugly, is hard to argue against. That picture shows a ghoulish skull-headed creature with a suit jacket and an oversized stars and strips lapel pin worn by the monster who, in the upper image, is removing a George W. Bush mask. Below, the same frightening monster is pulling on a Barack Obama mask over its skull and, on both monsters, the word "IMPERIALISM"

An image as ugly as the policies it represents...

Watching the "new" foreign policy take shape (or unravel as the case may be), it is hard to argue the ghoulish image is nothing, if not spot on.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
For a keen look at how the left wing and the right wing of the American war bird flap in tandem while the American public goes stumbling along blindly, have a look at War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death based on Norman Solomon book.

You can watch the film here for free.

Troubling Revelations

"A foreigner is someone who speaks more than one language which can cause someone to be sympathetic to an alien expression, a gateway for UFOs and alien invasions. Polyglots are a threat to the American Dream which should be dreamt in English by a person with a valid birth certificate. It is this proud ignorance that makes the birther movement the only likely candidate for a "Dobbie" (award, named for CNN's Lou Dobbs)." - Andrei Cordescu, NPR 8-6-09

Barack Obama's "Hawaiian" birth certificate

If you are reading this post, than there is a very good chance that you, like me, are concerned that our country has been hijacked from the inside by a FOREIGNER. This is not just alarming, it is downright terrifying. Downright.

Increasingly, foreigners are everywhere, from our convenient stores and our Wal-marts to our churches, gun shops, hospitals, schools, and even government buildings. As CNN's Lou Dobbs has pointed out, our borders are porous and woefully inadequate at keeping the foreigners out of this Great Land.

Recently, more and more Americans are waking up to the fact that were it not for America and the efforts of our brave men and women in uniform, the whole world would be engulfed in a sea of foreign-ness. Imagine a world in which no one spoke English, used the Dollar, read the Bible or protect our right to bear arms!

Now, imagine what will happen if we don't insist on getting to the bottom of Barack Obama's so-called "birth certificate." Chaos and pandemonium can only be days away.

Having said that, I am also wrestling with a couple of disturbing discoveries. More and more, I am beginning to harbor deep suspicions that Queen of the Birthers, and respected attorney/dentist/pundit/freedom defender Orly Taitz may herself be of foreign origin. I'm not quite sure why, but I can't help but wonder...

More troubling, however, is this authentic document that was recently uncovered on the Internets which seems to indicate, possibly even prove, that Lou Dobbs himself was born in Kenya to an unwed, underage girl from Texas and a Saudi-born muzzein at a mosque in Kenya. This document shows clearly that Dobbs was born in an African mosque stairwell to a foreigner, and so he too must be foreign. Troubling, I know...

Lou Dobbs himself appears to have been born in the stairwell of
an African mosque to a Saudi father.

Worse still are the revelations I uncovered in revisiting my own son's birth. Although I was there in the delivery room on that Saturday in October 2004 when my son was delivered from his mother's womb, and although I watched the nurses clean my newborn son and let me cut the umbilical cord, I have good reason to suspect he too may be a foreigner.

"Fooled at birth?" documents can be forged, doctors can be bribed...
how can I be sure my "Hawaiian-born" son is not a foreigner?

Shocking, I know, but when I dug out his "birth certificate," I found that it looked identical to the one the Obama regime insists is American. Both Obama and my son have a foreign-born parent and both claim to have been born in the United States yet neither can produce anything more convincing than an "official document" issued by the State of Hawaii which has been stamped, dated, certified and signed.

Until now I had no reason to suspect my own son might too be foreign, but the evidence continues to mount. This week I also found a Japanese passport with my son's own photo and name clearly displayed on the first inside page. My son frequently uses non-English words like "asobu," "oshikko" and "choudai" - clearly a sign of foreign-ness. Although just going into kindergarden, he can point out Senegal, Pakistan and China on a world map and knows that Russia has bears and Australia has kangaroos. Clearly, something is amiss.

What's left for me to believe other than my own son, claiming to have been born in America, while flaunting a Hawaiian "Certificate of Live Birth," is nothing but a foreigner, and a deceptive one at that.

He, like Obama, is tainted with non-American blood, and perhaps both of them are conspiring to tear this nation apart at this very moment.

These are indeed troubling revelations.

For what it's worth

The news cycle has become so fast that when events occur, stories are reported, analyzed, debated and then dropped for the next one before the public has the time (or makes the time) to fully absorb the issues they are continuously bombarded with or consider them in greater context.

Whether a major political event (post-election demonstrations in Iran), a dramatic accident (Air France crash off Brazil), a titillating scandal (South Carolina Governor Sanford’s Argentinean rendevous), a global health crisis (H1N1 flu), or the American media’s favorite event, a celebrity death (Farrah, Michael, Walter), it seems each story has about six to ten days to be seriously milked and then, no matter how juicy, it’s cast aside in favor of the next BREAKING NEWS. (Wars, it should be noted, don’t merit much attention other than as a kind of low-grade static hum that never ends but one which news consumers just get used to ignoring).

One story that got huge play last week which already seems to be “dying down,” having hit the critical ten day mark, is the well-publicized arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gate Jr. at his own home. Cambridge police were responding to a call from a passerby who saw Gates and a friend forcing open a stuck door (of Gates’ own home). When police arrived, Gates was inside his house on the phone with the university reporting the door as in need of repair. The police reported Gates was very agitated and upset when the police demanded his I.D.

According to the police, Gates was shouting accusations of racial bias, but he did produce two piece of identification to prove he was indeed in his own home. Gates says that when he asked the arresting officer for his name and badge number, the officer – Sgt. James Crowley – refused to comply. Gates was eventually lured out of his house and onto the front porch where he was arrested for disorderly conduct and taken into custody.

There's something happening here,

what it is ain't exactly clear

The whole incident has been thoroughly reported and debated, but what I think is safe to say is that most Americans in a similar situation as Prof. Gates might be a little cranky with the police after providing two forms of I.D. and proving they were indeed in their own home. Even if Gates was in fact disorderly, why was it necessary for the police to lure him out of his front door where he could legally be arrested and hauled off? Why didn’t the police, having satisfied their duties and determined that Gates was not a burglar, just leave him to rant and rave (if that is what he was indeed doing) inside his own home. How disorderly can a 58-year-old Harvard professor armed only with a walking stick alone in his own home be? Was it really necessary to arrest him?

You step out of line,

the man come and take you away

Whether Gates was black, white, purple or green, one has to wonder, at what point is a law abiding citizen fair game for the police to arrest in his own home? One could easily ask if perhaps both Gates and the police wanted the other one to “bring it on” so they could prove their own points. Only those at Gates’ house at that time can know for sure.

Later in the week, the story gained new, bigger legs when President Obama, usually very eloquent and careful with his words, carelessly used the blunt criticism “acted stupidly” in referring to the Cambridge Police arrest of Gates. This characterization by Obama was sure to backfire and probably he or the people around him very quickly realized that his comments had the potential to do real damage and could come back to bite him in a number of ways.

There's battle lines being drawn,

nobody's right if everybody's wrong

By Friday Obama expressed regret over how he added heat, but not light to the Gates affair and admitted that he could have “calibrated his words differently.” Obama announced that he was considering inviting both Officer Crowley and Professor Gates to the White House for a beer (and presumably some high profile photos of everyone smiling and shaking hands).

By Saturday Gates had publicly said he was ready to move on and, aside from the smiling beer-on-the-lawn moment to come, this story may have run its course or will at least fade into the background as next week’s crises and disasters unfold.

But before we move on to whatever tragedies and scandals next week may offer, it is worth pausing to consider the current atmosphere of racial tensions, particularly black-white relations, in the U.S. today.

There are a number of disturbing examples of many white Americans ongoing fear and distrust of black Americans, not the least of which is the unbelievable story (get ready all you folks reading this outside the United States…) of continuing efforts to demonstrate Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen.

From early in the last presidential campaign, and still today, Obama has been portrayed as everything from a Muslim to a socialist, a communist, a radical liberal, and a non-U.S. citizen. Such wild claims are easy to laugh off as a hollow scare tactic intended to motivate and excite the uneducated, but the story is being given plenty of attention by CNN commentator, the self-proclaimed “tough, relentless, independent” Lou Dobbs.

Paranoia strikes deep,

into your life it will creep,

it starts when you're always afraid

Incredibly, Dobbs continues to pursue the “story,” now more than six months into Obama’s term. Dobbs says he believes Obama is indeed a U.S. citizen but that he thinks Obama should present his birth certificate just to dispel rumors. Never mind Obama’s Certification of Live Birth document can be seen online here, Dobbs and others just want to make sure.

Last week Jon Stewart examined CNN and Dobbs' dogged pursuit of the question of Obama's birthplace and, as nobody but Stewart could, brilliantly revealed Obama as having fooled the world with the "Kenyan Prince Birth Announcement Scam."

On June 30 Delaware Republican Congressman Mike Castle was confronted at a town hall meeting by an angry woman toting an American flag who wanted to know why Rep. Castle and other law makers were “ignoring the question of Obama’s birth certificate.” When Castle said that the president is an American citizen, he was booed.

More frightening though, was later in the meeting when the aforementioned crackpot commandeered the meeting and insisted that all in attendance immediately stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance and Congressman Castle, apparently afraid of looking un-American, joined in with the recitation.

If you haven't read Naomi Wolf's The End of America,check it out. You can see how we barely need any type of fascism imposed on us - many Americans are mentally already there and primed to follow in the steps of the "good Germans" of the 1930s, having deep faith in their Christian God, a deep-rooted fear of both internal and external "enemies," and being unfettered by a comprehensive understanding of people and events beyond their own church yard, gun shop and big box stores.

How else can one explain this irrational fear of America being infiltrated at the very top by a foreign-born black Muslim?

As utterly comedic as all this sounds, it comes against an American cultural and social backdrop in which:

- Political pundit Pat Buchanan recently appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show talking about how America was built “by white folks.” See Maddow’s brilliant refutation of his “facts” here.

- Fox News network host Brian Kimeade spoke about how Americans “keep marrying other species and other ethnics (sic).”

A thousand people in the street,

singing songs and carrying signs

mostly say, hooray for our side

- Demonstrators in Paris, Texas protested the dismissal of charges against two white men arrested in the dragging death of 24-year-old Brandon McClelland, an African American man. Last September McClelland died after being dragged 70-feet beneath a truck. The charges were dismissed due to “lack of evidence,” prompting members of a Black Panther’s group and white supremacists to demonstrate outside the court room with respective protesters shouting “black power!” and “white power!”

- In early July, a group of mostly black young day camp children were denied entry and had their pre-paid fees returned from The Valley Club, a suburban swim club in Philadelphia. The club’s president said quote: “There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion…and the atmosphere of the club.”

I could go on and on, but you get the point.

The message I take away from this assemblage of stories and statements from America in the summer of 2009 is this: racism in America, far from being stamped out or even driven into retreat, is alive and well.

If you have the time and interest, Chris Hedges presents a truly frightening profile of white Americans who are well-armed and ready to fight to “take back their country.” The 25-minute documentary shows what fear, frustration, military training, liberal gun laws, and a weak education system can produce – it is pretty terrifying stuff.

It’s not enough to fear the Russians, the Chinese, the Cubans, the North Koreans, the Venezuelans, the leftists, the socialists, the communists, the French, the Arabs, the Muslims, the Indians, non-English speakers, Mexicans and other Latinos, many white Americans have a need to fear other Americans, especially if they have African roots.

From Los Angeles to Philadelphia and Paris, Texas to Cambridge, Massachusetts, all the way to the doors of the White House, it doesn’t matter if you are the King of Pop, a distinguished professor, a 10-year-old day camper or the President of the United States, if you are black, it seems you are still held in suspicion, still seen as having to bear the burden of proof that you are who you say you are, that this really is your home and really is your country.

Next week, and beyond, as the news cycle spits out ever-new stories and dramas, it's in everyone’s interest to give the above matters serious thought. What will it take to move beyond these issues of race, and how can we learn from what’s going down?

*Thanks to Buffalo Springfield for the timeless lyrics.