Thursday, February 20, 2014

Musings: Washed Up

At the beach, in addition to a big red ball rising from a silver sea, I spotted what appears to be tsunami debris: the door to a mini-fridge and a piece of wood with finished ends and distinctive notching.
It seems quite a bit of debris from the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami is now washing up locally, as documented in part on this website.

I was talking to a reporter friend on the mainland who covers nuclear issues, and he said radiation from the Fukushima nuke plant meltdown is not being diluted in the Pacific, as is commonly claimed. Radiation follows clearly defined currents, with boundaries defined by salinity and temperature, he said. One of those currents goes north, and the other east to the Hawaiian Islands, then on to the West Coast of the U.S.

Meanwhile, he said, the radiation initially released into the atmosphere has already traveled around the earth 28.8 times in the 1,078 days since disaster struck. And more radiation continues to be released into the atmosphere and ocean as super hot material from the damaged reactors hits the permanent water table and causes steam explosions, he said.

Well, after hearing rumors for decades that the FBI was on island for this or that, it appears they finally came. And despite all the sketchy stuff going down here, what they honed in on was gambling, searching Brad Chiba's house and allegedly removing a computer and some paper documents.

Though Brad has not been charged or arrested, he resigned from the police commission, but not his job as manager of the Intake Service Center at KCCC. Hmmm, I wonder what he knows about the allegations against jail warden Neal Wagatsuma.

Speaking of allegations, I learned that a citizen did indeed file a police report regarding Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. pleading the fifth during an auditor's probe into his use of the county's fuel card. As I reported earlier, the state Attorney General's office had curiously suggested such an approach, even though the statute in question does not have a criminal conduct nexus.

Anyway, I checked in with Prosecutor Justin Kollar, who had this comment:

"After discussing the matter with the Police Chief, we agree that this is a civil matter and not a law enforcement issue. We are focused on addressing the crime issues facing our community, including violent crime, drugs, thefts, and domestic violence."


Now, it seems, the ball is literally in the court of Michael Sheehan and his attorney, Richard Wilson, who have advanced the election year allegations. How much is Mike willing to spend to mess with the mayor?

Meanwhile, cops are investigating the case of a Maui guy who went off on some folks at a beach park, doing a rant about white people and how they messed up Hawaii. They recorded it on their phone and posted it on youtube. I watched it and thought it was very sad, feeling especially sorry for the young woman who eventually led the snap case away. Cause you know it ain't the first time he's gone off on somebody.

And then I thought, this is the kind of video Huffington Post Hawaii should post on its website instead of its usual glowing gibberish urging mainlanders to move to the Islands ASAP and no worries, you'll fit right in and it's all aloha toward haoles. It's not, and tensions will only mount as the locals get squeezed even more.

10 comments:

Auntie Maria said...

Maui ranter is front page on the Hawai`i edition of HuffPost today.

Anonymous said...

Why do we even have an Attorney General. He refused to opine on the shall/may fiasco, the legality of Bill 2491, and the STATE statute prohibiting elected and appointed officials from refusing to answer questions. The latter two issues were DIRECTLY related to STATE laws. Total dereliction of duties. He needs to go, along with the Governor.

Anonymous said...

Hate breeds hate. The Maui ranter has no knowledge of what he speaks.



While I am sympathetic to the Hawaiian plight of the late 1800s and early 1900s it is long gone. What he does not realize is that if it was not America, it would have been Japan, Australia, Russia or some other country who would have taken over Hawaii.

Hawaii was doomed when it was discovered by Cook. Sad but true. Hawaii was and still is susceptible to outside influences.

The old Hawaii is not ever coming back and the truth is that this ranter was never part of the old Hawaii. He is not even part of the new Hawaii.

Just bred to resent the past. He will never amount to anything, due to the hatred he has in his heart against Haoles of today which took no part in any overthrow.

Adapt or die. It is a harsh reality, and life is not fair.

Anonymous said...

The Maui ranter may have been having a bad day. Using "white people" instead of the usual "f'in haoles" is politically correct.
Joan, You are correct, about a downturn in local/haole relations. The know it all haoles, are giving all of the regular dumb sh*t haoles, a bad name.
2:38 There are many successful and powerful locals who resent typical haole attitudes.

Anonymous said...

I am sympathetic to the Hawaiian "plight" too, and always have been because my country of origin has had similar issues.

Its not the "white people" that have caused all the problems, its the (local) politicians, and big corporations from the early beginning that have sold these islands with the help of the military.

Getting mad at a tourist on the beach or a white kid surfing in "local" territory will accomplish nothing to change anything anytime soon. These local kids need to be educated on what really happened...not found in school test books.


Perhaps, violent protests like the ones in Ukraine might help stir things up for change, but as long their is change for pockets of politicians, its futile.

Dr Shibai

Anonymous said...

Radiation......can't see it, smell it or taste it. Politicians will wait until more blood cancers and leukemias come to the surface...like in their personal life.

The "wait and see if its toxic" attitude of our bureaucrats ....see how many people die in the next 10 years..is the prevailing philosophy in the USA. Maybe then....we can do something?

Zero Seven

Anonymous said...

It isn't the job of the AG to referee our petty political disputes.

Anonymous said...

Joan - I'm not sure about that piece of wood in that 2nd pic. I've seen pieces of wood look like that from long before Fukushima. It's probably a piece of an impeding tree branch trimmed off to open up beach access, then trimmed off again as the tree further eroded into the sand. Notice the unfinished cut at the right end. Just a thought.

Anonymous said...

It's not so much race but power. I you were in China or the Philipines prior to WWII it would be Japs. Which is a very bad analogy except that there was a similar incredible amount of death in post contact Hawaii.

In this case though it is what happens when someone tells someone else that there conduct does not meet the standards of the speaker. My friend called it "breathing the high air". Then filming the reaction and making like the respondent is wrong. Which in itself requires reaction. Both things combined made for an intense and passionate response.

I'd say the kid didn't start it he just finished it. Given our history the kid will probably get in trouble and get punished for it and the one that started it gets to feel self righteous.

Joan Conrow said...

Well-said, 11:30 a.m., especially this: "It's not so much race but power."