Musings: Crazy, Wonderful

Lying in bed, waiting for it to get bright enough to walk, I slide the arrow that allows me to unlock and enter that blessed/cursed world of the smart phone, checking out today's edition of The Garden Island until I can't stand it anymore and have to get up and out and into the real world.

Mahina, full, plump, round and white, crowned by Jupiter, is peeking, peeping, through a mound of yellow-infused black clouds piled atop Makaleha, a glorious sight that causes me to say aloud, “Oh, my God!” — not OMG! — and the dogs and I set out excitedly, walking along a wet road in dim light, roosters crowing, crickets chirping, birds rustling themselves into sleepy song, bees already up and buzzing, though it is cool and damp and dark, because they labor longer and harder than even the Chinese factory workers who made my i-Phone, for no money, no glory, no praise, just the collective sake of the colony.

As I walk, immersed in all this splendor, I think of how Hoku Swartman really did hit the nail on the head when he pointed out the hypocrisy of so many in that “sea of white faces” who opposed Omidyar's resort plans, seeing as how they were the ones who built the big houses that now line Hanalei Bay and the highway all the way to Haena, driving up property values, driving out the locals, driving on the beach, adding their silt and shit to the mix that is now killing the coral and smothering the reefs.

But somehow he comes to the conclusion that the way to solve all those woes is through yet another big development — one that sure as hell won't bring back the locals or the fish, though it will make his wife, the developer's rep, a pile of money.

I shift mental gears to the statements made by defeated — heck, let's be honest here, disgraced — Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, who has cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and we ain't done yet, vowing to spend her last three days in office — not that she even comes into the office, so she'll get her boy Jake Delaplane to do it — waging her vendetta against Janine Rapozo and the mayor just to prove she's not waging a vendetta. Huh?

I shake my head and think, how fricking oblivious and hypocritical can you get, accusing another politician of  “abuse of power” and “creating a hostile work environment by engaging in retaliatory actions” when you yourself are the queen of EEOC complaints and being sued for retaliation, abuse of power?

Reflecting upon Shay's inanity — OK, insanity — actually causes me to laugh out loud, which briefly gets the attention of the dogs, who quickly return to the business of sniffing out pig trails in the wet grass.

Then I flash on the Pacific chorus frog that jumped out of a Christmas tree, one of thousands of dead trees shipped to the Islands each year, bringing with them slugs and brown recluse spiders and other assorted pests that help to make Hawaii the invasive species — and thus endangered species — capital of the world, and in the process, destroying what's truly unique about this place so that the people who live here can "celebrate" like everybody else in America.

And though my mind is reeling from the human craziness, as I pass the reservoir, where a Koloa takes flight into a sky that is streaked with the first silver rays of dawn, Bruddah Iz slips into my head and sings, “What a wonderful world.”