Musings: Fortified

Bits of gray traded places in the sky, like jigsaw puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit, when Koko and I went walking on the roadside path this morning. We passed the regulars, some with dogs, bikes, I-pods or all three, and exchanged the usual greetings, nods, smiles. A horse, silently communicating the command/desire “pet me,” stretched his head over the fence and then melted beneath my stroking hand and soft words. Some days we just need a hug, and today, apparently, was one of those for him.

The sun arrived, creating a column of dusky red that rose like a fiery smokestack in the east, just beyond Kalalea, and I was marveling at the way a far off rain shower was tinted pink as it floated across the sky until suddenly it wasn’t far off, but right there, and we took shelter under the roof of the Fuel Mart until the rain blew farther mauka, obliterating the mountains and leaving a rainbow in its wake.

I’m so glad I’m one of those people who naturally wakes up early and so am able to enjoy the dawn of each day. It fortifies me with a good feeling that persists even through exposure to the news — not that you could call The Garden Island’s article on a Poipu animal cruelty case that. Reporter Paul Curtis completely threw objectivity out the window in his coverage and allowed himself to become a propaganda machine for the Kauai Humane Society.

I’ve noticed this every single time the paper covers stories that obviously come from the Humane Society. The reporters let director Becky Rhoades say any kind, with nary a glimmer of any other point of view. She did the same thing last month in a piece on roosters confiscated from a chicken fight.

Now no one wants to learn of dogs starving and rotting in their kennels, but there’s also the issue of trying —heck, slandering — a person in the newspaper, especially when he’s awaiting trial. And I couldn’t help but wonder if the KHS offensive was an attempt to CYA. I mean, they reportedly found a dead dog in this guy’s kennels in March, and after seeing everything was hunky dory in April, the enforcement officer stopped following up.

Come on. People don’t go from having a dead dog in a kennel to being model pet owners in a month. Surely a tad more oversight was warranted.

Today’s article notes:

The case is a bit puzzling to Rhoades, she said, because KHS offers free food, owner educational assistance, spay and neuter services, and other services, no questions asked.

What Dr. Becky in her self-righteousness doesn’t seem to understand is that many people do not view the Humane Society as a helpful resource where they’re likely to get assistance “no questions asked” – especially if they’re hunters.

I’m wondering if folks at the federal level will start asking questions about the MARAD loan to Hawaii Superferry, now that the agency is moving to repossess the two catamarans, as I noted yesterday’s post.

As a friend observed in an email:

My bet, is that MARAD gets the boats and sells them to the military at reduced rate, that way the military got boat R&D and some really cheap ships without dipping into its military procurement budget, all engineered by Adm. Lehman. MARAD can't fund military ships building, but in fact it did. I saw this scenario spelled out WAY back. Navy couldn't get the bucks for R&D because they were spending so much on other things so they went around the system. I bet McCain could do an expose on this.

It’s all very interesting, because the agency lent the money under its Title XI program, which is intended to support U.S shipyards by reducing their dependence on military work. Yet in this case, the loan allowed an Australian company to establish itself precisely so it could get a lucrative military contract.

Andy Parx also touched on this in his blog post yesterday:

… the whole deal was a fraud.

And by fraud we don’t mean just some petty theft- we’re talking about defrauding the taxpayer out of $136.8 million.

Unfortunately, the State of Hawaii also got sucked into this scam, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, not to mention the angst, divisiveness and trauma.

Speaking of which, I highly recommend the Democracy Now! interview with Pakistani opposition figure and cricketing legend Imran Khan, who discussed the escalation of the war in Afghanistan and U.S. drone attacks.

Here is just one compelling excerpt:

To go after 5,000 Taliban, they have displaced three-and-a-half million people. To use artillery, helicopter gunships, F-16s on civilian population, they’ve caused this massive human catastrophe. And so, yes, people wanted an operation, but they didn’t want this, because this now, if anything, is going to fan militancy. How are they going to rehabilitate these people? Their crops are destroyed. These are subsistence farmers, most of them. Their fruit orchards, their animals. So what are they going to go back to? This is another problem we face now.

Yup, good thing I'm fortified because it's just another problem in a world plagued by many, including Hawaii’s drought, with The Advertiser today reporting some 76 percent of the state is experiencing such conditions. It seems Waialeale got just 1.5 inches of rain in May — compared to its average of 36 inches for that month.

As a friend noted in sending along the link:

This is what climate change is about in the islands.