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.