Musings: Attention Grabbers

I hadn't planned to blog today, because I'm in a hurry, but while doing a quick browse of The Garden Island, two stories caught my eye.

One, of course, was the cryptic piece about Councilwoman Lani Kawahara requesting time to talk about sexual harassment in the county. Then she went on to use it as a forum to levy her own public claim that she feels she's been harassed on the Council.

The article brought to mind two questions: first, if this happened at Wednesday morning’s Council meeting, couldn’t the paper have managed to file a full report in today’s paper, rather than print a teaser that then starts the rumor mill pumping? It’s not like they had any breaking news to cover or anything.

And second, if Lani filed a police report back in JULY, why is she waiting until three weeks before the election — an election in which the alleged perp is running hard to keep his seat — to make her complaints known? Why not mention it when she announced she would not be seeking re-election? Or was she waiting until she had access to the TV camera? And how fascinating that she’s dragged Tim Bynum into it as her champion.

Update: Here's what reportedly happened. It was in July 2009 — that's right, 2009 — during heated discussions over the "open government" debate and Tim and Lani's website. Tempers were starting to flare. The Council took a recess, and Lani claimed that Council Chairman Kaipo Asing looked at her, pointed at her and ran his index finger across his throat, which she interpreted as a threat to slash her throat. She freaked out and called the cops, who came and took a report and calmed her down.

Anyway, it looks like Lani and Tim are finally getting in some public cracks at Kaipo. Or as the old saying goes, revenge is a dish best served cold…..

The other piece was on the excessive police heat at last weekend's Homegrown Music Festival.

A friend happened upon the festival while out riding his motorcycle on Saturday evening and said he was stunned, upon leaving the event a few hours later, to see six police cars there, with the cops hassling people and asking for the names of those who were entering the event. He couldn’t see any reason why they were there, as there was no violence, no traffic jam, nothing. And since it was only 9:30 p.m., he didn’t see why it would register a noise complaint.

Then the next day, when he rode his motorcycle past the event, he saw six cop cars there again.

“They were the ones blocking traffic, putting tickets on cars,” he said. “I couldn’t see any reason for the tickets. The cars were all off the road and going the right way. It just seemed pretty heavy-handed."

And apparently it was, with organizer Dove Liddle arrested for disorderly conduct because he didn’t snap to when the cops told him to turn off the sound and some 60 traffic citations issues for super petty stuff.

Maybe the real reason why the cops showed in such force and stayed there is the same reason why they swarmed the Damian Marley concert a few years back and ticket cars belonging to people attending reggae concerts at the Taro Patch in Anahola.

It’s got nothing to do with “ensuring the safety of the concert-goers, those traveling through the Moloa‘a area, and the surrounding property owners,” as Chief Perry claimed in the paper.

Let’s face it. It’s an anti-marijuana thing.