Musings: Startling

Returned late yesterday to the Islands, startled by the soft air, the greenness and, as I moved with the masses through the Honolulu and Lihue airports, the perceptible hostility toward haoles — despite, or perhaps because of, the relentless marketing of aloha.

Then this morning, as I returned from a sunrise swim, following a truck with the bumper sticker “nocomekauai” that turned into the Kapaa High parking lot, the lyrics came to me: "Teach your children well…."

The first person I saw in the Honolulu airport was attorney Harold Bronstein, who told me he was in town to represent Mina Morita at today's Board of Land and Natural Resources hearing on the enforcement action — aka political hit — against her Hanalei Valley vacation rental.

It brought to mind a comment left on the blog post I'd written about the questionable timing of this targeted enforcement, and the role of Hanalei boatyard owner Mike Sheehan:

Lance making stink about the pedestrian easement through the Omidyar project last year made him and Mina 8.5 billion enemies.


As you may recall, I published several reports in June 2012 about Lance Laney — Mina's husband — being blocked from using a designated public access through billionaire Pierre Omidyar's proposed Hanalei Ridge development. The subsequent publicity resulted in a re-opening of the long closed access.

Update: Henry Curtis, who writes the Ililani Media blog, gives a report from the BLNR meeting and surprise, surprise, guess who showed up to testify against Mina: Terry Lilley, Sheehan's paid pal. Issue has been continued for 45 days.

Meanwhile, word has it that KCCC warden Neal Wagatsuma is finally being investigated — I initially incorrectly said suspended — following February's filing of two federal lawsuits alleging he subjected female inmates to psychological violence, sexual abuse and sexual humiliation in front of male prisoners, and that public safety officials engaged in retribution against a whistleblower who exposed it.

Let's hope this means the film “Irreversible” — described by the late critic Roger Ebert as “a movie so violent and cruel that most people will find it unwatchable” — will never again be screened in that (or any) jail.

Wagatsuma's accusers maintain his homespun approach to “therapy” included requiring mixed groups of male and female inmates to watch a movie that includes brutally appalling footage. As Ebert wrote in a 2003 review:

The camera looks on unflinchingly as a woman is raped and beaten for several long, unrelenting minutes, and as a man has his face pounded in with a fire extinguisher, in an attack that continues until after he is apparently dead. As I said twice and will repeat again, most people will not want to see the film at all. It is so violent, it shows such cruelty, that it is a test most people will not want to endure.

Unless, of course, it's required by a kinky kook in exchange for the granting of special privileges....

Sorting through my inbox, I found a news release about the creation of a Kauai Chapter of the Young Democrats of Hawaii for folks under age 36. Its leadership — and I use the term loosely — is influenced heavily by the anti-GMO (and, interestingly, pro-tourism) crowd, including communications director Aria Juliet Castillo, who in real life flacks for the Hyatt; treasurer Aaron Rosenstiel, who is married to Fern, leader of the Mana March; secretary Leeona Thompson, a guest service agent at the Kauai Sheraton and “sunny first mate” in boyfriend Dylan Hooser's sunrise shell biz; Makoto Lane, a KCC photojournalism student and anti-GMO Facebooker; and Dylan, who was elected chair.

The release quotes Dylan as saying:

"Exploring economically sustainable solutions [like sunrise shell jewelry, perhaps?] to the challenges facing our island is integral to the decision making process.”

It goes on to state that Dylan is running for the 15^th state House District — against fellow Dem Jimmy Tokioka and rabid Republican Steven Yoder — though he has not yet pulled papers.

Dylan appears to have the same tendency to overreach politically as his dad, Gary, who crashed and burned in his ambitious bids for Congress, and Lieutenant Governor. But hey, why shouldn't a guy who has never held any public office and scavenges sunrise shells for a living have a shot at the state house? This is America, after all. Land of equal opportunity and political expertise via cell division.

Besides, Dylan's already shown us he's got the smarmy politician's slippery grasp of the truth, as evidenced by his anonymous crybaby comments on this blog, frequent letters to the editor and an anti-biotech commentary published on Civil Beat. In it, Dylan sounds like a chip off the old block, echoing Daddy's “shame” terminology along with the undocumented, and even discredited, claims about “unusually high levels of birth defects and certain cancers.”

Dylan goes on to write:

The chemical company executives hired the homeless and down-and-out to hold their places in line while myself and other supporters slept outside in the rain for the same privilege of getting our voices heard.

Uh, sorry, but a friend and I already exposed that supposed homeless place-sitter who saw the light and testified in favor of Bill 2491 as a fraud in an hoax perpetrated by the "red shirts."

Dylan then reveals that he has no sense of irony (or grasp of reality) with the statement:

These companies spent tens of thousands of dollars and threatened, cajoled and lied in their attempts to beat our community down but we won.

Mmm, we ain't won nothin' yet, except the chance to spend millions fighting the world's largest chemical companies in court.

But the real kicker was this:

Attorneys Margery Bronster and Paul Alston representing the largest chemical companies in the world, have decided to sue the people of my community to protect their right to spray poisons next to schools, hospitals and homes.

Really, Dylan? You think that's the crux of the issue?  Did you miss all the other stuff about federal pre-emption, an unconstitutional taking, discrimination? Are you truly that clueless, one of those guys who never read the bill or the complaint? Or are you just going for the politician's simplistic soundbite?

Tokioka is a total dud and good old boy lackey who should be replaced. Still, I can't see as how the poor folks in the 15th District will be getting a better deal with Dylan should he manage to pull off a major miracle and get himself elected.

The overall effect for Kauai, meanwhile, would be yet another powerless rookie getting munched by the big boys in the Lege, who would enjoy nothing more than ostracizing the offspring of a politician who has accumulated a long and powerful list of enemies.