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After departing Mangareva, everyone aboard Aranui 5 – from passengers to crew – must submit to the voyage’s second obligatory covid test, no exceptions. The first swab for the swabbies, of course, had been taken a day before shoving off from Papeete, and now another one to make sure outsiders don’t carry the dreaded plague to the 40-plus inhabitants of way out-of-the-way Pitcairn Island is also required. Testing positive back at Papeete meant being barred from boarding Aranui 5 for the voyage. While if one passed the test but later flunked it before reaching Pitcairn doesn’t quite mean the infected shipmate has to walk the plank, it does oblige the afflicted to remain solitarily sequestered in his/her cabin until testing negative.

When the newsstand of Giuseppe Trani was swept away by disastrous flooding that devastated the southern Italian town of Casamicciola at the end of November, the 70-year-old man lost everything. Not for long, though, as the townsfolk, who were also affected by the flooding and landslides experienced throughout the whole region, raised the funds needed to help Trani rebuild his kiosk.

Moreover, when a five-year-old Moroccan boy, Rayan Oram, fell into a well in the impoverished northern Chefchaouen province, tens of millions followed the story with trepidation throughout Africa, the Middle East and, eventually, around the world. The fact that the story had a sorrowful ending may have distracted some of us from the realisation that little Rayan had unwittingly united us in hope and prayer, despite our seemingly insurmountable differences.

American football has always been a blood sport.

It needs to change or die.

Tackle must end.  Flags must come.

And they will.

Why?  Because human lives are at stake…and with them, a trillion-dollar industry.

A century ago, football players were maimed and died in droves.  The college game was a cross between rugby, mixed martial arts and all-out trench warfare.

Merciless scrums brought on bloody body piles in which players did their very best to gouge and permanently harm their opponents.  Often they succeeded.

Where helmets were worn, they were virtually useless leather gloves, perhaps functional in keeping cracked skulls from falling apart during a game, but that was about it.  The death toll for a given year of the college game was substantial and undeniable.  Long-term post-season repercussions were undiscussed, unstudied…and permanent.

It’s full steam ahead aboard Aranui 5 to the raison d’etre of this far-flung voyage through French Polynesia’s remotest isles and atolls as we near way off the beaten track Pitcairn. The legacy of and lore surrounding this isolated spot at the end of the Earth has made it one of the most romanticized and fabled islands in history, dramatized, if not celebrated, by bestselling authors and Hollywood blockbusters. Here’s the bare bones outline of what has made little Pitcairn loom large for decades in the zeitgeist as the ultimate getaway and isle of escape, the polar opposite of Alcatraz, that infamous icon of the island as prison.

On December 23, 1787, His Majesty’s Armed Vessel Bounty departed from Spithead, England for Tahiti. The maritime mission’s purpose was to secure breadfruit, which grows in abundance at Polynesia, then sail to Britain’s Caribbean colonies, deposit the starchy staple foodstuff there, and return to England.

After visiting flat atolls of the Tuamotus and then a day out at sea, the appearance on the horizon of the Gambier group, with its high islands, emerges as a sharp vertical contract to the previous days’ horizontal vistas. This remote chain of mostly volcanic isles, located 1,000 miles southeast of Tahiti, is one of French Polynesia’s five archipelagoes that comprise a sprawling watery realm the size of Western Europe, and I’ve never been here before.

Even before the new Israeli government was officially sworn in on December 29, angry reactions began emerging, not only among Palestinians and other Middle Eastern governments, but also among Israel’s historic allies in the West. 

 As early as November 2, top US officials conveyed to Axios that the Joe Biden Administration is “unlikely to engage with Jewish supremacist politician, Itamar Ben-Gvir”. 

Another critical year for Palestine has folded. While 2022 has wrought much of the same in terms of Israeli military occupation and increasing violence, it also introduced new variables to the Palestinian struggle - nationally, regionally and internationally. 

 Palestine, the War and the Arabs

 The Russia-Ukraine war starting in February pressured many political entities, including Palestinians, to take sides or, at least, to declare a position. Though the Palestinian Authority (PA) and various Palestinian political parties insisted on their neutrality, Russia’s deviation from the US-led political paradigm in the Middle East opened up new margins for Palestinians to explore. 

Two years ago, Morocco and Israel signed the US-brokered “Joint Declaration”, thus officially recognizing Israel and instating diplomatic ties. Though other Arab countries had already done the same, the Moroccan official recognition of Apartheid Israel was particularly devastating for Palestinians.

Years ago, a close Moroccan friend told me that the ‘first time’ he was arrested was during a solidarity protest for Palestine in Rabat which took place many years ago.

The reference to the ‘first time’ indicated that he was arrested again, though mostly for other political activities, suggesting that Palestine, in many ways, has become a local struggle for many Moroccans.

The American mainstream media appears to have removed it's head from the sand. Joe Scarborough, Joy Reid and Tucker Carlson have arisen from the flames, as well as other breakthroughs described below.

Our voyage to Pitcairn Island continues as Aranui 5 sets sail from Anaa for Amanu, another one of the far-flung 80 atolls spread out across the world’s largest archipelago, the Tuamotus, a vast expanse of mostly water that is roughly the size of Western Europe. Amanu’s flat coral islets form an Oceanic oval that stretches over a turquoise lagoon for about 20 miles, and the 413-foot cargo/cruiser anchors outside of the atoll. From Aranui’s hatchway passengers descend into a barge that, in a succession of trips, swiftly, safely carries us over tranquil water, past surf pounding in the distance through a pass to Hikitake Village. As we ride to another adventure, once again I rise and mimic John Wayne in a cowboy movie: “Let’s paddle up and move ’em out, Polynesians!”