Musings: Not the Information Age

I participated in my usual sunrise service today, out walking with Koko, admiring the creation, allowing myself to get present in it. It was cloudy, but there was enough space along the horizon for the sun to glow through and set everything shimmering.

Stopped briefly to check the headlines on my neighbor’s newspaper and saw that the incumbents were re-elected to the board of the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative.

I never did receive a ballot, although I regularly receive my utility bill, so I can’t help but wonder how many others were left out of the voting loop. That’s the problem with a vote by mail system.

Noticed in The Advertiser that Oahu continues to make life miserable for its already miserable homeless, this time by taking their dogs.

The cops — really, don’t they have anything better to do on high-crime Oahu? — say they’re just enforcing a law against keeping dogs in city parks. But not all city parks, it seems, just those along the Waianae Coast.

HPD's Maj. Michael Moses said the dog sweeps are part of a stepped-up effort to enforce rules governing city parks along the Wai'anae Coast, such as park closure hours, no-drinking laws and parking lot restrictions.

Moses cites concerns — undocumented, at least in the article – voiced by unnamed folks in the rapidly gentrifying community.

"We're responding to community concerns about the increasing dog population in our parks," said Moses. "There is the issue of loose dogs, and some people have been attacked. Some say they've been bitten. And, of course, others are concerned about the health aspects — dog feces, and fleas and all that stuff."

Yes, all that stuff, like the inconvenient homeless who keep the dogs.

It’s just another way to harass the homeless and get them into the legal loop. Even if they go down and spend money they don’t have to buy into the avid chip racket at the Humane Society, the cops can still cite them for having the dogs in the parks, which means a trip to court, a fine that they can’t pay, etc.

Meanwhile, the bigger issue of why so many local folks are homeless continues to get shoved under the rug. Didn’t it break anybody else’s heart to see the old Hawaiian Aunty and Uncle in their tent on the front page of the paper?

What happened to respect for our kupuna and the ohana? Guess there’s no place for those old-fashioned values in the new glitz of big money Hawaii.

I’m headed off-island today for a quick work trip, so I won’t have a post tomorrow. But to counter all the bad news doom/gloom stuff that is just waiting to jump out at your from cyber space, TV and newspapers, I wanted to leave you with this poem from David Whyte:

This is not the age of information.

This is NOT 
the age of information.
Forget the news,
 and the radio,
 and the blurred screen.
This is the time
 of loaves 
and fishes.
People are hungry,
 and one good word is bread 
for a thousand.

Spread joy whenever you can, and love.