Musings: Moving On

This morning started off lovely, with good energy, until my neighbor’s dogs — two of the same ones that killed my cat last April 4, plus another one he’s since adopted from the shelter — attacked Paele.

It wasn’t pretty, seeing little Paele on the ground, belly up, and those three big dogs mugging him. My neighbor was uselessly issuing verbal commands when I started hitting Kahu — one of the dogs I’d seen with my cat in his mouth — with my umbrella. That caused him to let up long enough for Paele to escape and my neighbor to gain some semblance of control over his pack.

But did my neighbor offer an apology, express concern for Paele, or Koko, who had run off in the affray and was cowering nearby in terror?

Nope, he blamed Paele for “hassling” his dogs. Never mind that both Paele and Koko were leashed, and his dogs were not, and each of his three dogs are a good five to six times the weight of Paele, and I’d warned him that one of his dogs was growling and two of the dogs are proven animal killers.

How do you deal with people like that? Other than report them to the Humane Society, which is what I will do and should have done a year ago, despite the promises they would make sure to keep their dogs controlled, and haven't, which resulted in another neighborhood dog being killed last November and my neighbor having to put down the perperator.

Paele seems to be OK, but I’m still agitated and trembling. And I’m afraid the relationship with my neighbor, which had just begun to thaw, has frozen solid again as I look in earnest for a new place to live. So if anybody has a line on a rental that accepts pets, please email me at eastsidegrrrl at yahoo.com.

Speaking of moving on, Derek Kawakami is resigning from the County Council today and heading off to Honolulu to serve out the rest of Rep. Mina Morita’s term.

I wish him well.

And I really wish the process to choose Mina’s replacement was done in a more fair and open manner. Although District 14 Democratic Party Chair Susan Wilson makes like she’s an expert on the rules and claims that a bogus process that allowed Foster Ducker to interview candidates while seeking the nomination himself is “democracy in action,” there’s a little more to it than that.

It’s true that the Democratic constitution and rules don't give much guidance on situations involving conflicts of interest. However, if an issue is not directly addressed by the party rules, then those same rules and Constitution stipulate that Roberts Rules of Order shall prevail.

And as the relevant section of Roberts states:

It is a general rule that no one can vote on a question in which he has a direct personal or pecuniary interest. Yet this does not prevent a member from voting for himself for any office or other position, as voting for a delegate or for a member of a committee.

A sense of delicacy usually prevents a member from exercising this right of voting in matters affecting himself except where his vote might affect the result.

It seems that Foster lacks not only a moral compass, but a sense of delicacy.