Windsurfing in the Persian Gulf
POURQUOI JOHN KERRY EST DANGEREUX POUR L'AMÉRIQUE
- by Mia T, 9.24.04
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"I mean, I was in Safwan. I went there when the signing of the armistice took place at the end of the war."
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John Kerry
The O'Reilly Factor, 2001
ohn Kerry's odd phrasing, above, suggests he was more likely windsurfing in the Persian Gulf than witnessing the signing of the Gulf-War cease fire. (Kerry's prior relevant vote, as well as his tawdry dilettantish tendencies, would tend to support this view.)
Similarly, Kerry's statements about the Iraq War hint at cognitive and ethical, if not corporeal, absence; they tell us more about John Kerry than simply what his Iraq-War politics may be.
WINDSUCKER
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- Anyway the wind blows is fine with me
Anyway the wind blows, it don't matter to me -
--Frank Zappa
- Anyway the wind blows is fine with me
Windsurfing, like war, transcends the particular in its revelations about John Kerry. Although windsurfing is delicious metaphor--witness the recent Bush-Cheney ad--windsurfing in its most literal, technical sense is what best exposes Kerry for what he is--a wussy, opportunistic fraud.
RIGGED
Kerry's gear is the dead giveaway.
Kerry sails on what boardheads call "light air,"--one just cannot escape the metaphors here-- i.e., a gigantic sail estimated at 11 square meters, and a humongous board providing redundant flotation.
According to expert windsurfer, Paul Kotik:
- No hard-core windsurfer would be caught dead on a rig like that. If you need a sail that big and a board the size of the Titanic, then guess what ? It isn't windy enough to go sailing! Real sailors head out when high winds call for sails in the 5 square meter size, or smaller, and boards so small (and therefore fast and maneuverable) that they won't even float the sailor unless they are moving along at a decent clip. They are big skis, not small boats. Kerry's wussy rig is what you use when you must be seen to be windsurfing. Sailing a rig like that is to real windsurfing what skippering a supertanker is to riding a jetski... The hardcore windsurfer's credo is "Just say 'no" to six-point-oh", meaning that if you need a sail in a size bigger than 5.0 square meters, there ain't no point.
A windsurfer friend of mine, Rod, adds this observation, "Long boards typically have something called a centerboard or a daggerboard which acts as a fulcrum for turning large boards like [Kerry's]. Daggerboards are for total weenies."
Visible in Kerry's Nantucket windsurfing photo-op video is what appears to be evidence of a daggerboard--the knob on top of the board that controls dagger position.
Rod continues, "Up-hauling is another weenie windsurf situation. If the wind is so light that you stand on top of the board and pull the mast up out of the water to begin sailing, there is very little wind. Water starting is... what keeps most people out of the experienced ranks... It is the only way to start in high wind/deep water conditions."
Conversely, according to Rod, some wind is required in a water start. "In a water start, you are not standing on anything, just floating in deep water. You 'fly' the sail, controlling it just inches above the your head and the water, moving your feet onto the board; the sailor pops the sail up filling it with wind, which pulls you up onto the board in one maneuver and propels the board forward."
Kerry's gigantic sail suggests a deliberate wind-avoidance strategy and, hence, an up-hauling, not water-starting, boarding technique scenario. Indeed, given Kerry's reflexive avoidance of high wind/deep water conditions over the years, weenie up-hauling is the only credible scenario.
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- COPYRIGHT MIA T 2004, 2006
