Upcoming travels

Yes, it's been a while. Last Sunday I had a big birthday barbecue on Key Biscayne with Krishna and another friend. We set up under a small stand of palm trees on the beach in Crandon Park, placed a portable table and a hibachi grill in the sand, put some Smokey Robinson on the jukebox, mixed some mango juice and rum, and stayed there for seven hours. I think I like it here, suddenly.

But Monday marks a descent into banana rats and iguanas, as I travel down to Gitmo to witness legal limbo and eat Jamaican food at the Jerk House. The original plan was the four-day media tour, where the public affairs office shows you the former Camp X-ray and the kitchens where prisoners' halal meals are prepared (the ones that aren't being force-fed.) At the suggestion of another reporter, I asked if I could stay over the weekend and attend the military commissions the following week (the "pre-trial hearings" for a couple of the 10 prisoners -- out of some 490 -- that are actually being charged with something.)

They agreed to let me stay, although I'm told I'll be alone on the Leeward side for the weekend. I'll be there ten days total. We fly down in a charter plane with no bathroom that one lawyer described as "a minivan with wings." It's a three hour flight because they take the long way around Cuba and back north. For reasons I can't quite explain, I'm a little frightened.

In addition, I worry that there is no real news to break on the subject.

For anyone who cares, I'll be in Little Rock in early June.