Musings: Backassward

That big bright moon slid behind the mountains, leaving Venus to announce a surreal sunrise of purple and orange, valleys steaming with mist, shama thrush warbling, pig smells distracting Koko and Paele, and as we returned from our walk, I saw the kids heading for the school bus: ears plugged, heads down, thumbs working phones, and I thought, this could be the first generation in human history raised with many of its senses purposely stunted, shut off.

And it did not seem to me to be a good thing, or evolutionarily wise, not when we need more than ever to be looking up and out at the big picture, actually seeing, smelling and hearing the real, living world that we are creating and destroying.

It brought to mind a quote from cultural expert Ramsay Taum, delivered at a climate change conference and reported in Henry Curtis' “ililanimedia” blog post yesterday:

In our medical systems we were looking at dead things. We take live things and kill them and cut them up to understand them and think we now understand them when there are alive. So we develop all of our methodologies, our responses, based on what we see after they're dead rather than alive, so maybe we need to shift the way we research.

We approach so much of life ass backward.

Like instead of fielding a candidate to try and beat Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr., the ever-vengeful and deep-pocketed Mike Sheehan keeps pushing the state Attorney General to bust the big guy for taking the fifth during the “fuel gate” inquiries. Even though the AG clearly doesn't want to touch it, and already bounced it back to Police Chief Darryl Perry and Prosecutor Justin Kollar, both of whom declined to pursue it, saying it was a civil matter.

But Mike and his attorney, Richard Wilson, are still beating on the AG's door, this time asking the office to “make and file a certificate that Mr. Carvalho, fka [formerly known as] Mayor Carvalho, refused to testify two years ago in connection with a fuel audit.” The certificate is then supposed to be sent to the finance director, who is appointed by the mayor, apparently to make him stop paying the mayor's salary.

We already had a federal judge scold Kauai for its petty political feuds in Councilman Tim Bynum's lawsuit against the county – another action that Wilson was involved in. Will the AG issue a similar smack down over this obvious political vendetta? Aside from the questionable premise, there's the timing. This happened two years ago, and they're only now making a stink, when the mayor's up for re-election?

It's like a repeat of former Councilwoman Lani Kawahara's tearful and very public election-year allegations that former Council Chair Kaipo Asing supposedly had threatened her a year earlier — an incident that the police initially determined to be unfounded and that she herself chose not to pursue. It was all bullshit, a stunt contrived by Lani and Tim to exact revenge on Kaipo, but it worked, and his years of public service ended in ignoble defeat.

I don't think the same thing will happen to Bernard, but it makes an ugly process even uglier and discourages people from participating in politics at a time when we desperately need some new thinking.

I'll leave with you a joke for this Lenten time of year:

An Irishman goes into the confessional box after years of being away from the Church. 

Inside he finds a fully equipped bar with Guinness on tap. On one wall there's a row of decanters with fine Irish whiskey and Waterford crystal glasses. On the other wall is a dazzling array of the finest cigars and chocolates.

Then the priest comes in. 

"Father, forgive me, for it's been a very long time since I've been to confession, but I must first admit that the confessional box is much more inviting than it used to be."

"Get out, you moron," the priest replies. "You're on my side."