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2006-02-17 - 7:15 p.m.

This morning I learned that there definitely are some disadvantages to being naked in my apartment, as is my wont. (I�m not always naked, most times I�m wearing something like boxer shorts, but if your boxer shorts are like mine, they aren�t the most reliable form of lower body covering�I keep swearing that someday I�m going to dig out my sewing machine, yes, I have one, and know how to use it, too, and sew completely shut the flap in the front of all of them, but here I digress.) Thanks to Presidents� Day and the generous schedule of our school, today is the first day of a four-day weekend. I had gotten up relatively early because I want today to be a rip-roaring clean-up day, the kind where you break everything down so that you can dust and vacuum in, around, behind, and in every other preposition you can find; I think with this �inside the head� infection that I have been suffering from for several months, it must be that I am living inside a toxic waste dump. Well, you know, the freeway is extremely close to here and almost daily a thin layer of black soot builds up on the window ledges. Despite all the catalytic converters and other smog-diminishing devices that we have to have on our cars here in California, the exhaust particulates that nevertheless spew out the back end of our cars are enough to choke a chimney sweep.

The best way for me to get started is to jump out of bed and head immediately for the kitchen, where I can get a pot of coffee brewing, some eggs poaching, and some toast crisping. While I was in there, I washed up some dishes that were left over from yesterday and with the water running, I could only just barely hear a faint knocking at my apartment door. Nobody ever knocks on this door, as the only person I even know in this entire building is the manager, and she phones or leaves a written notice with a lot of warning before she ever comes in. No one from the outside can even get in the building without being accompanied by a tenant (there is no way to buzz somebody in, for example), so if they are coming to see me, I have to let them in downstairs.

So in a way, I was a little bit scared, as unusual confrontations can be sometimes frightening, so I shouted out from where I stood in the kitchen, �Who is it?� Whoever it was didn�t answer, but now with the water off, I could hear that they had now opened the door and were coming in. Ordinarily, I would have simply strode over to the door and confront them personally, but aware that I was completely naked, I felt effectively trapped inside the kitchen where I could only continue to shout to the intruder.

He, as it was a he, finally responded with what was possibly a measure of embarrassment, and I could tell from his accent and insecure English that this was the building�s African maintenance man. He explained that he was delivering me two packages. While I was happy to have the packages, I was annoyed at the thought that maybe he wanted me to sign for them or something, so I said, �Well, can�t you just put them down?� I still stood hidden in the kitchen, but could hear that he did put them down, then slammed the door shut, and ended with a great metallic to-do about locking the deadbolts again.

Okay, well, now it all made sense to me. While any other day of the week you HAVE to get your packages from the manager, on FRIDAYS, she will have the maintenance man deliver them to your apartment, because on weekends the manager heads out to Palm Springs to stay with her boyfriend and doesn�t want to have to hang around in the office until her regular closing time just to give out some packages. Personally, I love coming home after work or after going out on a Friday to find a package just inside my door, and today IS Friday (although I didn�t know that these deliveries were made so early in the morning). Since Friday is normally a working day, this is nothing but a convenience for me. However, having the guy just come into the apartment while I am here, and naked to boot, is a different story. But, fortunately, a rare event.

After he left, I got to thinking about what the problem would have been about me simply walking out to talk to him; am I that modest? Did I have a problem with him seeing me naked? Well, not so much, any more, at least, not nowadays the way everybody has been acting about how I look, including the sexy blond in heavy traffic paralleling me in her BMW sports car convertible the other night, who staringly watched me walk down the street and then winked at me as I smiled at her. I think the problem was more a social up-bringing that drums into you that such a thing would be offensive. I kind of laughed at the thought of my naked body being an offensive weapon��one glance and they collapse, overcome by shock and awe� (well, maybe not the �awe�)�after all, the sight is clearly not going to be as pretty as someone walking into Jeff�s bedroom while he is working on the computer! (For his part, Jeff is prepared for such a barging-in; he sits on a towel or blanket that he can quickly wrap over himself. But, as I said, nobody ever comes in here and I am usually as private as inside my own coffin.) What also jokingly comes to mind was a gay porn comic I remember from the mid-70s, in which there was a gay super-hero who, when confronted by a criminal or an enemy, would simply pull down his tights (super hero = tights) and the enemy would helplessly drop to his knees. Well, that�s the world of gay porn, not real life, and that was THEN, not NOW.

The packages he brought me were great�a gorgeous, alluring-photo-filled travel book to the Seychelles that I had ordered from Amazon.com, and a pair of Bostonian brown-leather cap-toe dress shoes.

Color-wise, I am much more of a blue, grey, white, and black kind of a dresser, but since I have moved back down into smaller-sized clothes that I haven�t worn in nearly a decade, I have re-entered a beige, tan, brown, olive territory in my wardrobe and realized that I no longer had any decent-looking brown leather dress shoes, and while I was at it, figured I needed a brown-leather-banded watch to go along with the requisite brown leather belt (that I DID have). Both items, the watch and the shoes, I tried to find at the nearest Macy�s department store, but the beautiful silver-rectangled, brown-faced, Arabic-numerals watch with the crocodile-imprint leather band that I had found on the Macy�s website did not exist in the store (but, instead, they must have had over a hundred-thousand OTHER watches, none of which did I like as well), and all the shoes they had were awful, bizarre square-toed shoes that have to be just about the ugliest men�s fashion of this present era, not something I wanted like this, so instead, I ordered both items on-line and got them at a hefty discount over the in-store prices. Ah, on-line shopping, I really love it!

P.S. You can probably tell from my two new clothing items that these aren�t outrageously expensive by today�s standards, but with taste and careful shopping, a person can avoid spending tons of money on clothes. It all comes from the same place anyway (China, etc.).

Now, if I had a LITTLE more money, I would have loved to have gotten shoes from here, whose shoes radiate such quality and beauty that you can practically hear the heralds trumpeting on the page, but these cost three to four times the money I spent on my pretty-nearly-the-same Bostonians. The difference, I believe, is that the Alden shoes are hand-made in New England, whereas the Bostonians are machine-made in China�big difference (politically, socio-economically, and in many other significant ways), but hell, as a reward for managing to lose ALL my weight, I�ll probably go all the way to the top and really treat myself by going here! Will I ever actually DO that, which I suppose is a dream that rests along-side the one of owning my own yacht and executive jet (and island in the South Pacfic)? I don�t know�but something like custom-made shoes from John Lobb, while costing three, four, five thousand dollars for a pair of shoes, IS actually doable, should one have the desire. After all, this is not something that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars�or millions.

I have actually been inside the John Lobb store in London, whereas I have not paid a visit to any yacht broker or toured the Grumann plant. It was a trip, if describing a place where they speak in hushed tones and it is all perfectly proper can be described as a �trip�. They have tables covered with �hides� from which you can select the actual leather you want converted into your shoes. They will custom-make hand-carved lasts of your feet, which they forevermore will keep on file in their storage racks, so that next time you require another pair of $4,000 shoes, you can simply ring them up and place your order, no need to make another trip to London (although if you have this kind of money to spend on shoes, you may as well treat yourself to London again, too!). I first heard of this place when I read that President Lyndon Johnson had his shoes made there. They are �boot� makers, but presumably, that�s not where Johnson also happened to get his �cowboy� boots made�but maybe so.

I had gone there with the semi-serious intention of actually getting shoes made there. Well, I really didn�t know exactly how much they cost, and finding out DID inhibit me, but not entirely. What really made me feel way out of my league was all those choices of leather hides. Too many choices and my brain shuts down. Somebody who really KNOWS would have been able to make an intelligent choice, but I wouldn�t have been able to even pretend--plus I am sure that their salesmen can smell imposters from blocks away. Not that they would have acted at all snobbish or nasty�on the contrary, I could have perfectly well have admitted to them that I knew nothing about any of it, and that I didn�t even have much money at all, but that I REALLY wanted to have a pair of their glorious shoes, could they please guide me? They would have been so thoroughly kind and would have taken me in hand and took me on a fascinating journey into the world of the best shoes on the face of the earth and I would have become a devoted customer for the rest of my life.

You want to know what I mean about this kind of service, two wonderful scenes from two great movies come to mind. Check out Breakfast at Tiffany�s, the scene where Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard go into Tiffany�s and he wants to buy her a souvenir, but he has so little money that they end up getting engraved there a ring that he got out of a Cracker Jack box. Another scene to check out is in Joe vs. the Volcano in which Tom Hanks goes into an elegant store in Manhattan to buy some luggage. The kind and expert way that those salesmen treated them in these movies truly IS how they treat you in the great stores of the world. I learned that when I was fifteen years old and had taken the train to San Francisco and went to Gumps on Union Square to buy my mother some Steuben Glass as a Christmas present. A kid, grandly ushered into the Steuben Glass room on the rarified third floor of this legendary shop, and they treated me like I was the Crown Prince of the United Kingdoms. I ended up buying the cheapest useful item they had there, a $35.00 beer mug (I think there was an ashtray that was cheaper), a LOT of money for a fifteen-year-old in 1963 when a Cadillac cost about $4,000, so I then gave it to BOTH my mother and my father, and they loved it and my father made a special display shelf for it with an embedded light in the base and it was their special showpiece in the bar. My mother loved it for the beauty of the glass, and my father loved it for being a beer mug, and he would drink out of it whenever it was a special occasion in which he drank beer.

I�ve learned the lesson of great service (and therefore also know how to GIVE it), but I haven�t yet learned the lesson of how buying top-drawer items is cost-effective. A pair of shoes from John Lobb can last you your whole life. Peter Mayle of the �Provence� books fame, wrote a book about this kind of luxury spending, and while the spending habits of the rich and famous make interesting reading, many readers do miss the point and see nothing in this but rampant materialism, and they may be right, but I don�t think so. Going into DEBT to spend money like this is a huge and devastating mistake, but fitting it into a broader-view budget just might be wise.

While I did end up walking out of John Lobb with the thought of �not now, but maybe someday� (the fact that I would have to wait nine months for said shoes was the final deal-breaker for me), I HAVE had custom-made shoes (to select just one example of this kind of purchasing), from a much-less heralded company, Russell Moccasin Company in Wisconsin (and from this misleading name, do not assume that what you are getting is Indian footwear), but which I recommend without reservation. I had a pair of casual sporty oxfords made by them in 1986, and they are still the best shoes I own. They fit ME perfectly, and people who see me in them seem to notice that I walk and stand better than usual. These kinds of things DO make a difference. Shoes from Russell are more in the couple of hundred dollars category. They do take time to get, but if you are patient and can wait, they are worth it. I�m glad to have this company brought to mind again�I think I�m due to have another pair of shoes made by them. Finding their website in order to make a link here, I also decided to order their latest catalogue�.

Seeing those hunting pictures of their website�and I am not a hunter�reminds me of the situation with Vice President Cheney. Am I the only one in America who feels sorry for Cheney (and certainly for his friend)? Yes, maybe he�s a monster, there�s certainly enough news (from the liberal sources, anyway) to make you think so, but that doesn�t mean that all bets are off as far as humane reaction goes, does it? This WAS an accident, right? I know this is just too delicious of an occurrence for all the Cheney-haters, the hunter-haters, and the gun-haters, all of whom are taking full advantage of this horrible accident to put forth their own agenda, whatever it is, but the fact still remains, I think, that a human being accidentally shot his friend in the face with bird-shot and this is a horrible situation regardless of whether you care about the person or hate him. I think it is never okay to celebrate the pain of your adversaries. If Cheney is to be vilified, impeached, charged with a crime, or held civilly liable for tortious conduct, I think that should be kept within the factual realm of actual transgressions, crimes, and negligence, not applied to an unfortunate accident.

There always seems to be too much peeking into the private life of Cheney to suit me (even if he IS in favor of spying on the American public). We always seem to be hearing about the results of his latest EKG or what kind of a sigmoidoscope he had or whether he had a beer at lunch or not (he had a beer�SO?) and despite his position as an elected public servant, I don�t think we deserve to hear about what is going on inside his colon nor is he required to bear his emotional soul to the public. Let the man grieve and suffer in peace, just like we would want to if we were in his place (and let�s be thankful we are not). I�m sorry if I am just too �Republican� in this kind of an opinion (and I�ve heard all the arguments against it), but if we want our elected officials to respect us (and we DO), then we�ve got to pay them the same kind of courtesy. Compassion is a good cloak for all of us to wear. Let him who has never had any kind of accident of any kind throw the first stone at Cheney; otherwise, put up and shut up and hope that his friend comes out of this without too much further suffering. And yes, I spank myself for wishing that he had gone hunting with Anton Scalia instead of with this friend!

Guns. I do not have one currently, mine (that I kept for myself from my uncle�s pistol collection when I administered his estate) was stolen when my house was burglarized many years ago. I kind of, loosely, have a plan to buy one, but it�s been made into such a hassle and it�s not high on my list of tasks to accomplish. I am an NRA-trained marksman and actually pretty good at it, but I have absolutely no desire to shoot somebody or any thing. I think I probably DO need one as protection, but I hope to never have to use it. I was much more adamant about getting one after the police were confiscating them from law-abiding citizens in New Orleans, and after San Francisco passed a law forcing residents to give theirs up. I can see why the police wouldn�t want citizens to have guns. However, the wrong people are going to get them anyway, and there are several reasons, then, for good people to have them. Also, when I read that the United Nations is serious about disarming the citizens of their member states, I get livid. I�m REALLY not sure what the United Nations is doing for US, so I�m more and more wanting them to keep out of our affairs. Maybe the value of the U.N. has reached its course, even though nations are having to be much more global than ever before.

I�ve said several times before that the traditional political positions just don�t mean anything any more�Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Liberal�I make my own decisions, by myself, and do not fit into any of these categories. If Hillary Clinton ran for President, I would not vote for her, but if Laura Bush were (however, she�s not), I would vote for HER. Isn�t that weird? Of course, it�s all too premature to talk about any of that, anyway. There are certainly some candidates that I would want Hillary Clinton over, I guess, but boy, I do NOT want her for President. Is it too much to ask for a candidate that I actually LIKE? I don�t think we�ve had one for quite a long time. Maybe that whole thing is now as irrelevant as the United Nations is. I�ve been reading about how well the Swiss system of direct Democracy in small, localized cantons works, better than our own representative system which has by now completely given over to corruption. The average salary in Switzerland is the highest in the world, $180,000 a year, versus the U.S.�s $80,000. I don�t guess THEY�VE outsourced everything to India and China. And in Switzerland, their money has the buying power of almost twice ours. International studies have concluded that the two best cities in the world in which to live are Geneva and Zurich (and the U.S. has no cities on the list until number 25, where Honolulu and San Francisco are tied). However, one can�t simply move to Switzerland if they want to; the small country has tight controls over who can live there and who can�t.

I�ve been very interested for a while in global economy�who has what resources, who exports what to whom, who really has assets and wealth. The future economy of the U.S. has seriously been questioned due to the country�s ever-increasing debt (apparently the largest debtor nation in the history of the world), our diminishing production, and our extremely high consumerism versus very low savings rate. It was worrisome to see the picture clearly when I toured by boat the Port of Los Angeles, which the tour guide described as the world�s busiest port because we no longer make anything and have to import it all. He took us by the Maersk Sealand port facility (Maersk, a Danish company, is the largest shipping company in the world) where four huge brand-new Chinese-made gantry cranes had been installed. He told us that the port was buying several more of these, because we were getting ready to accept the huge new class of container ships that are too large for the Panama Canal (they are wider than the canal is), and were also too large for the regular-sized gantry cranes which could not horizontally reach across to unload the entire width of the new ships� cargo. I love the ingenuity of ship containers, which stack up like blocks on the ships, and then can be taken off and placed onto railroad cars or truck axles for taking by land across the country, which many of the containers which arrive in L.A. will be, because it is cheaper and more efficient, now, to ship everything from Asia into L.A. via larger-than-the-canal container ships and distribute it all by land than it is to use smaller ships through the Panama Canal or transport the larger ships around the bottom of South America into Gulf of Mexico or Eastern Seaboard ports.

The new gantry cranes are made by the Shanghai Zhen Hua Port Machinery Company (ZHPM) and they arrive already assembled on special Chinese transport ships made for this purpose. That�s almost like transporting across the ocean complete office buildings�which I guess is next, if the U.S. will need any more office buildings.

While this tour of the port was quite fascinating, it was also, as I said, telling a sad story. Here we have the busiest port in the world, and yet none of the ships are American (we only have one decrepit line that goes back and forth between Hawaii and the continental U.S.), the port container facilities are Danish, Chinese, and Korean, and the machinery for unloading the ships is made in China (the older cranes were made in Abu Dhabi by Noel, a German company), so who�s making all the money off this deal but OTHER countries, and all the Americans are doing is SPENDING the money on imported goods. One may view this as a sign of our wealth, but it looks to me more like cleaning out our bank accounts and maxing out our credit line.

In America, with a war in Iraq and another potential one in Iran, it�s probably pretty easy to think of Middle Eastern countries as impoverished, backward, and endangered. However, I think I have already written about Dubai, the economically booming �Hong Kong of the Middle East� (completely unfettered free trade zone, tax haven, etc.) that is also making a solid bid for the tourist trade with its awesome new resorts, such as the word�s only seven-star hotel (the one that is shaped like a huge sail) and other gorgeous resorts, and their plan to construct a completely underwater hotel. They�re also pretty amazing with residential properties, such as the world�s tallest building and these beautiful developments such as �The Palm� and �The World�. They don�t seem to be hanging around in the present, but looking toward a glorious future. Of course, they have all that incredible oil wealth. But hey, isn�t that coming to an end? Peak Oil, and all that.

Apparently not. Or, at least not based on my beliefs and the things I have read.

The key behind the theory of �Peak Oil� is that the stuff is made of compressed organic matter such as dead dinosaurs, and due to the greed of the west (and, presumably, SUV drivers), this is a scarce commodity that is running out and soon enough, we will all have to learn how to live like we did back in the stone age.

Russian scientists say that they have disproven the biotic theory of petroleum origin, that oil is continually created deep in the earth, and there are some oil fields that were thought to have been nearing the end of their useful life (in other words, sucked dry), but that suddenly it was discovered that they had filled up again. There were several oil wells in Russia where this happened, but not only that, some companies have discovered this happening in some of their oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico, which made me think that these assets were going to be infinitely productive and therefore extremely valuable. I obtained a list of oil companies that owned some of these Gulf of Mexico oil wells and compared them in order to make a decision as to which ones to buy stock in. My three winners were Chevron, Valerio (whose stock split soon after I bought it), and Petrobras, a Brazilian oil company. All three companies had single-digit price/earning ratios, which meant that they were incredibly cheap. The only reason I could think that they were so cheap despite their record earnings was that investors believed in the Peak Oil theory and considered these stocks to be buggy whips.

Well�one of them, Petrobras, went out and discovered so much oil off the coast of Brazil that it is expected that Brazil is now soon to become completely self-sufficient in oil (also making themselves a global expert in such off-shore oil exploration), which means that they don�t have to import it from anybody, but can, instead, become a net oil exporter. And not only that, but Brazil didn�t sit around and mope about alternative forms of energy, either, but developed the world�s largest capacity of bio-energy in the form of ethanol which they make from sugar cane. They are also the world�s largest exporter of this fuel alternative. I think Brazil�s got it together, energy-wise (and unless I am mistaken, I think they�ve got hydro-electric generation sewn up for themselves, too). They�ve been making deals with China right and left.

If you ask me, �Peak Oil� is a ruse attempting to make oil into a perceived rare commodity like diamonds, and likewise artificially inflated in price. (All anybody needs to do is read L. Frank Baum�s Oz books to understand that traditionally diamonds weren�t any more rare or valuable than rubies or sapphires�that the capital city, and, apparently, the capital gemstone, was the emerald.) However, just as the Canadian diamond industry serves as a foil against DeBeers, so will discoveries like Brazil�s fly in the face of Peak Oil. Oh, and by the way, this new oil was found in deeper, older layers of rock that PREDATED the entire existence of dinosaurs. Two birds killed with one pre-Jurassic stone.

With all this awesome development and production going on around the world, I�ve been wondering where I should go for my vacation this summer. Should I just go to someplace wonderful and beautiful, or should I, instead, explore economically booming regions for some investment ideas (plus the wonder of it all). Or maybe both. And if so, where? China? Dubai? Brazil?

Well, so far, it all just requires further investigation and learning. I don�t have a clear picture of it all, yet.

For a while, Dubai was my clear favorite, but I worried about the fact of it being so small and having so few other assets. It really is, after all, just one city and as near as I can determine, their one and only tangible asset is their oil wealth, which is probably concentrated in the hands of a few oil sheiks (with legendary spending profligacy). Other than that, they�re really just sand. Tourism is based on the weather, mostly, and their awesome resorts, but that�s too much �Las Vegasing� of it to make me feel secure about its economics. Although the tourism industry is one of the world�s largest in aggregate, I still feel that it is a fickle market and the kind of solid wealth that I would be looking for is something a little more basic than shoppers and people lying in the sun�in other words, it has to apply to real life, not just the fantasy of a temporary escape.

Still, it does seem fascinating and definitely worth a visit, so I am still attempting to learn more about it.

Last week I did run into something disturbing about Dubai, and that was its use (up until the most immediate present time) of boy slave camel jockeys. Despite all their fabulous wealth, United Arab Emirate sheiks have not lost their obsession with camel racing. And the way it works is that in order to win these races, they require the smallest and lightest jockeys possible. Their answer, three, four, five-year old boys who are also nearly starved to death in order to keep them even lighter. These boys are either purchased for something like $500 from impoverished mothers in Bangladesh, Pakistan, or India, or merely kidnapped outright and transported from their homeland to the alien Middle East. Camel racing is very dangerous anyway (one fall and the boy is likely to be trampled to death or to have his stomach ripped open by the thundering hooves), but the boys are also badly abused in their training, beaten with camel whips or in other ways mistreated, and, while actually being slaves, are also treated like slaves, kept penned up in imprisoning compounds out in the desert, where they just sleep on the ground like animals, that is, when they aren�t doing as much other work as possible. Such boys, unless rescued by charity workers, don�t live much past their very young jockey ages.

This whole thing is illegal according to written law, but that doesn�t mean that it doesn�t go on anyway, as the camel racing sheiks are also the rulers of the emirates.

However, I also did learn of a balancing influence, the development of robot camel jockeys. It is stuff like this that makes the Middle East a fascinating compendium of backwardness and amazing advancement.

Since Dubai, in particular, but also some of the other Emirates, is looking to be a financial center in the cross-roads between Asia and Europe, they have to appeal to western sensibilities and using children as slaves works against that. So, instead, there is a company that has developed a robot jockey that costs $5,500, an easy investment for a camel racer. These robot jockeys sit on the back of the camel and can be guided by remote control somewhat like a child�s toy car or truck. It�s all kind of surreal, really, and reminds me of the desert pod race in the Star Wars movie The Phantom Menace in which the little boy Anakin Skywalker raced and there was a combination of high technology machinery and a panoply of alien animal and humanoid species. Lucas was a visionary--I guess this is the kind of world we are coming to more and more.

While any kind of slavery is detestable, it still exists in the world and anyone of us who buys Asian-made clothing, for example (that's all of us whether we like it or not), or shops at Wal-Mart, is contributing to the slave economy. While we ought to stop it if we can, it would be na�ve to be unaware of its global presence--I have even read of reports of domestic workers who are slaves in Los Angeles. I am also pretty sure (based on what I have read), that members of the crew on cruise ships either are slaves, or the next nearest thing. And it�s not only cruise ships, but virtually ANY ship, which means that we who live in the largest importing nation in the world contribute the most to it.

While the abuse of children has to stop and it looks like progress is being made at least in this one area, in a way, I kind of hate to see the boy camel jockeys go�I just wish they weren�t slaves, I wish they weren�t abused, I wish they weren�t stolen from their mothers, and I wish their work wasn�t so dangerous. Beyond all those impossibities, they, themselves, are very cute and I imagine (or hope) that they enjoy a powerful thrill of accomplishment, particularly when they win the races. Children are not adverse to working at least for a very little bit each day, and certainly children enjoy riding horses; this is something that COULD conceivably be very fun if it was something that they really wanted to do and they weren�t being hurt by it. I also wish they could enjoy earnings for the work and a reward for winning the races, but it�s the camel owner who wins all the glory and the racing trainer gets a small bonus, but the boy jockey gets nothing. Too bad it�s an all or nothing proposition��slaves� vs �no camel jockeying at all�.

One unexpected thing that researching this has done for me is make me fall in love with camels! I don�t think I have ever seen them so clearly before. A documentary video that I watched was upset with the contrast that while the children were mistreated (coming from a place where life was very cheap), the camels (who cost millions of dollars in some cases) are extremely pampered. Well, like any mammal (human or animal), being pampered is enjoyable and the higher orders of animals are able to express that. Oh how those racing camels love being soaked in cooling swimming pools or receiving affectionate attention from their owners and trainers! They looked so cute and appealing with their sweet, expressive faces and their long eyelashes (�all the better to protect my eyes from desert sands, my dear�), and as I watched them being worked out on special camel treadmills, I could see how gracefully they would place their wide feet that were at the end of long, skinny legs, or when they would run, how they would extend their super-long necks far forward, almost like swans. They really are super creations of immense appeal, made for survival in an extremely harsh environment and therefore came out very beautiful like any physical body that is powerful, efficient, and at home in its world. Rather than being a defective horse that resulted from the work of the much-maligned committee (�ask a committee to design a horse and they would come up with a camel"), this is an admirable creature that also holds up on a pedestal the potential success of creation by committee!

I decided I wanted to frame and hang in my office some photos of camels if I could find any good ones on the Internet (which I did), and the more I looked at them, the more I liked them. I especially enjoyed seeing the exotic beauty of the long camel caravans treading across the desert, or photos of them centered in the image of an immense setting sun, and in all of them, they are graceful and patient, and the image of each one with that distinctive curved neck, humped body, and long, skinny legs reminds me of religiously-themed Christmas cards ("O Little Town of Bethlehem") or Nativity scenes, so that I now consider a camel a much-deserving creature to be there (brought in by the gift-bearing Wise Men, of course) to observe the Christ Child, or to say that Mohammed was a camel driver was to lavish on Mohammed a secret praise. I think the camel is a neighbor to holiness in a way we hadn�t understood before, much in the way that any beast of burden is, such as St. Francis of Assisi�s donkey, to whom St. Francis lavished sincere thanks for his loyal service while St. Francis was on his death bed, or our very own bodies that carry us so faithfully before we fly back into pure spirit.

So yes, someday (soon?) I want to travel to the Middle East where I can see camels in their own environment.

Regarding the travel book to the Seychelles that arrived today�there is no practical economic or investment reason to go to the Seychelles (as far as I know), but all my life, I would see a picture of Fiji, or Tahiti, or a Caribbean island, and I would think there couldn�t be any place more beautiful, and then I'd see a picture of the Seychelles and they would blow away all other paradise islands. I�ve BEEN to Fiji, I�ve BEEN to Tahiti, I�ve BEEN to the Caribbean, but I have never been to the Seychelles. Is THAT where I will go this summer? I do not know. I only know that their siren does call.

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