Musings: Systemic Poisoning

Golden shafts shooting from the sea announce the imminent arrival of the sun, a pumpkin-colored sphere that rises half obscured, gilding the clouds electric orange. Wind ruffles the heliotrope trees, birds dive for fish and this fish plunges in, rewarded with an infusion of joy.

The "mana marchers" yesterday were rewarded with a good turnout and the presence of Mayor Bernard Carvalho, appropriately dressed in purple, though I've got a hunch he's a blue shirt guy at heart. It's great that he showed up to see the growing number of folks dismayed about  pesticide use on lands stretching from Lihue to Mana.

The striking absence of the three Councilmembers needed to get Bill 2491 out of committee — Nadine Nakamura, Mel Rapozo and Ross Kagawa — does not bode well for the bill's success today.

Meanwhile, another sort of poisoning, a systemic poisoning continues.....

I walked into a room yesterday where a group of women were discussing the delays associated with obtaining a building permit. You have to get in good with the guys in the building department, says one. Like how? asks the one who is waiting for approvals. Give them stuff, says another. Money? asks the one. That would work, says another. They like food, volunteers another. Do I just buy something and go over there and put it on the counter? asks the one. Or do I give it to someone special? Our builder did it, because he knows all those guys, a woman explains. He just dropped off lunches one day and right after that we got our permit.

I opened a copy of The Week and read a blurb about a new survey by Yahoo that found the most common terms searched by the 18-to-35-year-old crowd are how to twerk, how to boil an egg, what is molly, what is hummus and what is a synonym.

A friend told me she was in the store when a young woman approached her, distraught, asking for suggestions on what she should take to counteract the radiation, by which she presumably meant that which is being released by Fukushima. I share your despair, my friend said, and suggested seaweed. “And then I got home and looked at my seaweed and it's all from Japan,” my friend lamented.

Checked the news and thought, how can the United States be ready to attack Syria for using chemical weapons when we supplied Iraq with chemical weapons to use on Iran, dumped Agent Orange on Cambodia and Vietnam, dosing our own troops in the process, and used bullets and bombs filled with  depleted uranium in Bosnia and Iraq, again dosing our own troops, and leaving the land contaminated with low-level radiation?

A woman sent me an email, told me she has a legally permitted vacation rental, pays all her taxes, jumps through the hoops, and it pisses her off that other people are operating TVRs totally illegally, and with impunity, even after I exposed it all in my blog. What is the next step? she asked.

I have absolutely no idea, but I replied to her email: I do understand your frustration and disappointment. It is also mine, except mine is compounded by being aware of the corruption and incompetence as it extends into every aspect of county government, not just the TVRs.

I sit on my porch and breathe deeply, watch the clouds drape the green peaks of Makaleha and eat eggs laid by my neighbor's chickens, a gift given in exchange for my gift of overripe papayas for her goat and horse, and dried papaya for her. 

It may not be an antidote, but I feel better.