"Happy Hare, Rockin' The Boats Part 1"

How often have you been able to freeze-frame an example of Washington skullduggery, and proclaim to your viewers or listeners, “There! You See? This is what I’ve been talking about.” .

In 2000, I was doing a Saturday and Sunday mid-day show on Pop Standards KPOP in San Diego just playing the vanilla early and mid 50’s songs that Clear Channel mistook for a music list, when I looked up from my board, and saw gazing in at me through the large show window,. a radiantly smiling John McCain.

It took me several moments to focus in on what I was seeing. Not a large poster of McCain, but McCain himself. I could tell because I waved, and he waved back.

How often have you told yourself, “There are no coincidences?.” Probably like me, not a lot. But, this is a sure fire example of predestination.

I have come to believe that it was not a coincidence that McCain happened to be standing on the other side of the window when I had just returned from a cruise to Alaska and returned, not to San Diego. We sailed past San Diego and landed in Ensenada. Ay Caramba!

There, I disembarked with a ship load of fellow passengers, mostly elderly, and watched many of them pay a Mexican worker $20.00 per bag to schlep their luggage a couple of hundred feet to the bus.

That was the beginning of this Mexican stand-off. I boarded the bus with 39 other stoics, and took the two hour trip back to San Diego which included a half hour border check, all because of an archaic congressional act, the Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886.


THE PASSENGER VESSEL SERVICES ACT OF 1886
(Separate from The Jones Act)

This Act allows only ships either built in the U.S or sailing under a U.S. Flag to carry passengers between two U.S. ports. If a foreign vessel, which is most of them, stops in Seattle, or San Francisco or L.A., it can’t stop in San Diego without first visiting a foreign port.

I resume this story by plugging in a piece I wrote years ago about McCain’s studio visit and the carnage we left behind.

Here beginneth this twisted tale.

When Senator John McCain visited my San Diego Happy Hare Radio Show in mid-2000, he talked knowledgeably with me about music and specifically his favorite singer, Jimmy Buffet.

Then, just off the ship, I abruptly changed the subject and described to him the hardships endured by travelers who cannot end their cruises here, instead landing in Ensenada and running the gauntlet back to San Diego.

He was already nodding his head as I spoke. He knew about the unwieldy Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886 and its evils.

Expressing his personal concern for the travelers, he vowed to return to Washington and do something about this as Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.

True to his word, he returned to Washington and introduced a bill, SR 1556, designed to revoke the PVSA of 1886. Then he left the senate to run for the presidency.

In his absence, lobbyists for the cruise companies, ship builders and the AMO (American Maritime Officers’ Union) morphed this simple bill repealing The PVSA of 1886 into one requiring foreign cruise lines to build two ships in the U.S., staff their ships with American crews, and re-flag the ships to the U.S. before being allowed to end cruises in domestic ports.

The mere presence of an impending bill, updated to S 127, inspired Senators Trent Lott (R Miss) and Daniel Inouye (R Haw) to team up to enrich their respective constituencies.

It was Senator Lott, then majority leader of the senate, who injected the ship building amendment into S 127 mandating that foreign cruise lines build two ships in this country before being allowed to end their cruises in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco or any other U.S. ports consecutively.

Next, Senator Daniel Inouye (R Hawaii) signed onto the repeal of PVSA of 1886 after consulting with Sam Zell, chairman of American Classic Voyages – ACV - in Hawaii. Result: Inouye would be allowed to vote for retiring the PVSA of 1886 in return for a thirty-year monopoly of the ACV inter-island cruises.

Trent Lott agreed to help Inouye score the monopoly in return for American Classic Voyage’s building two liners at Pascagoula, Mississippi, Lott’s home state.

There was another obstacle. American Classic Voyages did not have the 440 million dollars that it takes to build each ship domestically, 150 million dollars more than building each ship overseas at that time.

Being a good sport, Trent Lott agreed to intercede in Inouye’s behalf, securing a low interest loan from the Maritime Administration for American Classic Voyages. Now, ACV was set to build the two ships in Pascagoula.

Then, Senator Lott got Bushwhacked. President Bush announced his intent to roll the Maritime Administration into another agency, and that he was going cancel all government-subsidized low interest loans.

News of the president’s intent to abolish loan subsidies sank American Classic Voyages. They declared bankruptcy, leaving the two unfinished cruise liners high and dry in the Pascagoula shipyard.

Senator Inouye spent almost a year finding a purchaser for the unfinished cruise liners. Norwegian Cruise Lines finally bought them.

Ironically, NCL did not finish construction of the liners at the Pascagoula shipyard, deserting Lott and sending them instead to a cheaper foreign shipyard.

Inouye then deserted McCain, and brought about the repeal of the PVSA of 1886, but….only in Hawaii, by wrapping it into an important appropriations bill.

McCain railed against him on the floor of the Senate, for his betrayal, to no avail.

It doesn’t end here. If you are a cruise traveler, you cannot take a simple trip up and down any U.S. coast, stopping at consecutive American ports. There are twenty U.S. ports affected.

It all started in the mid 1800’s when Canadian ferries began crossing the Great Lakes, then staying on this side and carrying passengers up and down the American side of the Lakes.

This resulted in Congress’ passing an act, the Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886. which made them return to Canada after each trip to this side.

This Act has since been used against us, forcing travelers to end their cruises in a foreign port after one stop in the U.S. It ended up turning around, and biting us in the… assk any cruise traveler.

Since then, no senator or representative has shown the fortitude to re-introduce the repeal. I asked Congressman Darryl Issa if he would take up the gauntlet. He smiled wanly and said, “If John McCain can’t do it, neither can I.”

Based on history, cruise companies will not comply with the American demands, nor spend the extra 150 million dollars to build a liner in this country, instead of overseas.

Truth is: hundreds of millions of dollars worth of domestic jobs and income streams are being lost by the 20 domestic ports because of this myopic Act, and America’s Finest Generation is being run through the wringer.

Perhaps, their powerful lobbies should liberate their captive federal lawmakers to do the right thing by their own constituents, the people who voted for them. Think of the good will they would generate.

I empathize with the Maritime Officers, Union, the seamen’s unions and the ship builders, but their decades-old strategy of holding American travelers hostage hasn’t worked.

However, things worked out for me. I got to play radio at Pop Standard KPOP after years of successful retirement. No amount of successful retirement takes the place of an occasional gig.

Even non-traveling listeners were taken with my quixotic efforts, tilting against those huge Washington windmills.

It was a tight music show -14 songs and 12 spots an hour - combined with fighting for a cause that fascinated the listeners, including thousands of local travelers because they knew I was bent on making their trips easier, and, because repeal of the PVSA of 1886 would generate millions of extra dollars and thousand of jobs for San Diego and, coincidentally, bring the same benefits to those 19 other ports.

I pumped the median 65+ KPOP numbers from almost nothing up to #1 45+ and #3 35+ for that entire year 2001, despite my spirited campaigning for the repeal of the PVSA of 1886..Arbitron, Four quarter average, Year 2001. The show ranked #1 Time Spent Listening.

I did this against stations that, during the M-F week, were creaming KPOP: KJQY, Country Music KSON, Soft Rock KYXY, Smooth Jazz KIFM and News/Talk KOGO.

Mike Glickenhaus, the enlightened leader of CCU at that time, threw a protective mantle over me while I was trashing the format.

Why tell you this? Not to give you a dull history lesson, but because, here is proof that music radio can bring about sweeping social change while producing big numbers, nothing an iPod can do.

The Port of San Diego declared Happy Hare Harbor Day in 2005.

I have gone on to other things, but one thing keeps pecking at my cerebrum.

The years have passed with no further movement toward the repeal of the PVSA of 1886.

If John McCain is elected, I will make it my business to go to Washington and say to him, “Mr. President, It’s time to start rockin’ the boats.”

I’ve been too self-serving in this piece. Here are helpful household hints.

1. if you're choking on an ice cube, simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat. Presto! The blockage will instantly remove itself.

2. Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold the vegetables while you chop.

3. A mouse trap placed on top of your alarm clock will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

4. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives. Then, you'll be afraid to cough.

5. You only need two tools in life; WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.

“One good thing came out of this; the Arrow Shirt.”….General George Custer

Next week: An Update……..

Man the Lifeboats! They’re at it again.

Happy Hare Rockin’ the Boats # 2