Musings: Getting Away With It

Waialeale was totally blotted out with yellow clouds and mist crawled down Makaleha when Koko and I went walking this morning. Above us, a patch of rainbow appeared in a blue and white sky, and the shiny pavement served as a reminder of the previous night’s rain.

We ran into my neighbor Andy, walking two dogs, and he asked me: “So, do things feel any different?”

I knew he was talking about the world since Obama was elected President, and I answered without hesitation, “Yes, they do.” Several people told me they felt like a psychic burden had been lifted, as if a dark, ominous cloud had suddenly blown away and the sun was out again. Perhaps what they were describing was the return of hope.

I was reading “How they see us” in The Week last night, and it seems that Europe is feeling it, too:

America has been “resurrected,” said Reymer Klüver in Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung. “The election of Barack Obama was an act of liberation, indeed, of cleansing, for America.”

This is not just a breakthrough on race, said Vittorio Zucconi in Italy’s La Repubblica. It is also the triumph of the intellectual. American voters finally stood up and declared that “they were tired of being treated like a bunch of idiots content to be governed by a drinking buddy who makes them feel less stupid.” The next inhabitant of the Oval Office will be someone who is not “just like me” but, when it comes to the ability to lead and govern, is “better than me.”

It’s a good thing Obama is so exceptional, said Spain’s El Pais in an editorial. All over the globe, “Bush has left an enormous legacy of bitterness, and unenviable challenges await” the next president.

Fortunately, Obama is moving quickly to meet those challenges, and a group of advisers already has compiled a list of about 200 of Bush’s more odious and onerous administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone, according to The Washington Post.

I know I’m not the only one wondering if Obama and Congress will finally investigate some of the illegal actions of the Bush Administration, especially violations of the Geneva Convention. As several people have told me, that’s not being partisan, that’s pursuing justice. The thought of Bush and his cronies being able to get away with their dirty deeds leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of many.

Speaking of getting away with it, I wonder if Bush will pardon Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who was convicted of corruption, but re-elected, anyway. A pardon would allow him to avoid expulsion from the Senate.

And while we’re on the subject of getting away with it, I’m still wondering just how it is that field archaeologists were able to make a unilateral decision to cap the Naue burials. In a comment on Thursday’s post, the project’s lead archeologist, Mike Dega, defended the action, saying:

They made the correct call, methodologically, in terms of protecting the burials within their natural context without being fully encased, enclosed, incarcerated, etc.

The only "screw up" was in not immediately informing the SHPD [State Historic Preservtion Division] that we had put in one side, and not four sides, as outlined in the BTP. We made the field call to further protect the burials. The field crew did an exceptional job in protecting those remains within their natural context.

That may be. But what is the point of having the Burial Council and the state archaeologist approve a Burial Treatment Plan (BTP) if archeologists can make their own call out in the field?

They’re obviously not supposed to do that, because they got scolded. So that leaves me still wondering why they didn’t immediately inform the SHPD of their action, or ask first. These guys are all professionals, and they had to be aware of the controversy surrounding this particular project.

Did they not check with Nancy McMahon because to do so would have delayed the foundation and prevented Joe Brescia from starting work on his house before a court hearing on an injunction to stop him?

It seems that grave desecration isn't an issue only in Hawaii. Disappeared News' Larry Geller sent me a link to this story, which reports on the outcry over a decision by Israel's Supreme Court to allow the destruction of part of an ancient Muslim cemetery in West Jerusalem.

But they aren't going to disturb the bones merely for a fancy beach front vacation rental. No, it seems they have something much more meaningful planned: a new Jewish "Museum of Tolerance."

Do you 'spose they'll get away with it?