The expectation has long been that pulsar winds (with extension to ste
llar winds is some cases) are energetically dominated by their magneti
c fields. Coroniti has recently argued that reconnection could transfe
r energy from magnetic reversals in the wind into particle energy. Thi
s process could have observational consequences in binary systems such
as PSR 1957 + 20 because the wind properties could change before inte
racting with the companion. We show here that the reconnection process
is simply inductive heating, which allows it to be calculated without
appeal to existing phenomenology surrounding reconnection. Surprising
ly, we find that the resultant wind will not necessarily shock, becaus
e it is not super-Alfvenic, but rather may simply decelerate smoothly
to match nebular boundary conditions. Moreover, the two oppositely mag
netized hemispheres are not causally disconnected, and the flow should
then relax meridionally which should lead to formation of an equatori
al neutral sheet. Such a neutral sheet will not dissipate the field in
ductively (unlike the sheets perpendicular to the flow), but may indee
d be unstable to reconnection. A rather simple picture for magnetizati
on of the wind emerges in which plasma is ''frozen'' into the large-am
plitude electromagnetic waves generated by the orthogonal magnetic dip
ole component of a rotating magnetic (neutron) star. As the plasma is
convected away, it also pulls with it the aligned dipole magnetic fiel
d lines beyond the wind zone (''light cylinder''). At large distances
from the star, the wave component is dissipated, leaving behind the wo
und-up field lines of the aligned component. It will be important to e
xplore the torques exerted by these two components to eventually under
stand why pulsar magnetic fields do not seem to asymptotically achieve
either alignment parallel or orthogonal to the spin axis.