It's
hard to know which is more nuts — that firefighters had to rescue
121 people from Hanakapiai, or that there were 121 people in
Hanakapiai on a marginal weather day in the off-season.
So
does this mean we typically have 1,000 people tromping through that
supposed “wilderness valley” on a sunny day in summer, carving
their initials in the bamboo along the way?
We
already know that some 20,000 permitted hikers go past Hanakapiai to
camp in Kalalau every year, with thousands more in there illegally
and an untold number taking day hikes. Is it any wonder that most
locals now avoid the trail like the plague?
I
was thinking of how the state spent all that money to blast rocks off
the pali that might fall on visitors in Kalalau Valley. But then it
allows the hordes to descend on Kee and Hanakapiai, even in crummy
weather, so they have to be airlifted out — with the county picking
up the tab for Air 1 rescue.
Now
that's really nuts.
The
Star-Advertiser linked to a video clip of Rich Greenberg, the guy who
tried to cross a river he knew had risen dangerously high with his
two adolescent kids and a 3-year-old on his back, only to watch the
12-year-old get swept downstream:
“It
is only through an act of God and their heroic actions that our
family was saved,” he said.
Yeah,
and think of the risk to the rescue team, making all those trips in
and out of the valley in that tiny little helicopter, just so some
folks can claim “an epic adventure.” And with 20 percent more
tourists expected in coming years, we can expect even people putting
themselves in harm's way in our over-used and under-maintained parks.
Speaking
of more nuts, Kauai Rising has launched a petition drive, trying to
get a charter amendment on the ballot that will establish an
administrator of public health to protect us from "the hazards of GMO
agriculture, testing and toxins".
The
proposal is rife with fantastical, undocumented statements that will
never stand up in court, even if by a miracle it gets on the ballot and then passed by the
voters. Why do folks waste time and energy on foolishness
instead of engaging in actions that could actually result in
positive, meaningful resolution to the myriad problems on this
island?
And
finally, equally nutty is the latest letter to the editor from Glenn
Mickens, who refuses to believe anything bad about Auditor Ernie
Pasion, despite clear evidence to the contrary. I'm not sure why TGI
keeps printing his silliness.
But if they persist, they could at least balance it out by covering the mess that
is the auditor's office. Heck, I've already
done all the research and reporting for them. It's really not fair to let the paper's readers labor under the impression that Glenn might be telling the truth.
Posts
17 comments:
Like the movies.....
"Dumb and Dumber"
"City Slickers seek Jurassic Park"
These parents and people have no clue about mother nature, just what's on the visitor channel?
These parents should be cited for child endangerment and pay a fine to help defray the costs of the rescue.
Dr Shibai
I hear Gary Hooser is behind that charter amendment, but he's keeping it on the down low.
Seems kind of odd to go for a charter amendment before the lawsuit has been resolved. They know the seed companies will to challenge it. Or is he just trying to drum up political support by keeping the issue alive and the red shirts scared?
Kauai Rising? Total kooks.
HVB and HTA who market Kaua'i to get all these tourists to come here, should be held accountable for all the impacts the hordes have on our resources, natural and otherwise. The goal of more and more every year is not sustainable. Our island, roads and aloha have been stretched to the limit. What are we up to now, 7 million a year? 20% more of that? We're screwed.
We have an obligation to protect our visitors. Aside from the moral ethos to help others, Tourism puts rice in many bowls.
I am sure many of the anti-tourist nutjobs, have made mistakes on their own travels.
Kauai is a beautiful place and to resent others who just want to have a good experience is selfish. We could try to get some of the "saved" to pay for their helicopter ride,tho.
I realize that many of the anti-growth/tourism folks are wealthy or on welfare, but the fact is, Tourism is the cleanest big buck business there is.
Even the big hypocrites on Council rely on tourism for their taxes.
On another note, every human being on Kauai has the exact same rights, we be equal. This goes especially, to all you self proclaimed Kama'aina, (I got here yesterday, so I am better than you and you shouldn't be here), high noses.
Many of us were here before the tourist largesse changed how we made money. 10 hour days, hot sun, dust, maybe a little Jack Wada TV, Crown Royal and a couple of cans of Vienna Sausage.....Gim'me the easy jobs of today.
Some bucks are spent to protect tourists, but ginourmous bucks will be spent on the GMO lawsuit. Gosh, oh dear, That Big Boy Timmy Bynum sho' do know how to git money fer his own self and spend even more on his own desires.
"Kauai is a beautiful place and to resent others who just want to have a good experience is selfish."
The damage that tourism does to a land and its culture isn't the result of a few people "who just want to have a good experience." It's not tourists, it's tourism -- a voracious, extractive industry that establishes itself like a monoculture and eventually chokes the economic life from all other revenue streams.
On the ski slopes of Colorado or the north shore of Kauai, tourism dismisses, disfigures and ultimately devours the very aspects of land and culture that attracted it in the first place.
Read Devil's Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West by Hal K. Rothman. It's a comprehensive and sobering study of the longterm effects of tourism in the Western U.S. -- and a mirror of tourism on Kauai.
Anyone besides me starting to get the feeling that Gary Hooser is creating this county health administrator charter amendment as a high-paying exit strategy since the voter support for bill 2491 is clearly not the same as the vocal minority that pushed it through? Looks like the fix is in for a Ernie Pasion version 2.0 job posting. Of course if you listen to Gary at budget, it's all about cutting costs and not raising taxes and fees. I bet he supports the county health position(s), however.
3:59 Rothman has some points. Personal wealth and the luxury of travel has impacted tourist destinations. The economic benefits vs. the mono society will always be a question. The implication that the long term effects of tourism are Armageddon is a joke. People and societies evolve. If the religious tourists of Plymouth Rock had not arrived, the greatest, most generous, freedom giving nation, the USA wouldn't be.
Fluffy armchair historians criticize prosperity, but this prosperity has given you the time and luxury to whine and complain. Great glistening udders of Koloa, Batman- why is it that the gobblers of other peoples creativity and labor have so much disdain?
And finally, equally nutty is the latest letter to the editor from Glenn Mickens, who refuses to believe anything bad about Auditor Ernie Pasion,
The trio of Mickens and Taylor and Rosa and their need to testify on EVERY item that comes before the County Council, is why I now DVR those sessions...and hit "fast forward" when any them take the mic, so I don't have to listen to their blatherings.
What they say doesn't change. Shaylene has a 99 percent conviction rate and Ernie is a great auditor. So what if one used 1000 gallons of gas and a county car to go bar hopping and the other ignored it.
We are all tourists on this planet. If you weren't born here and complain about tourists you are pathetic. and by your own convictions you should shut the F up, and get on the next plane and go back where you came from.
No, we aren't all tourists on this planet, and when you start yapping about people going back where they came from, better go all the way back to the Marquesans and Tahitians because that's when the destruction started.
"...when you start yapping about people going back where they came from, better go all the way back to the Marquesans and Tahitians because that's when the destruction started."
Comparing the impacts (locally and globally) of the modern tourism industry to those of indigenous Polynesian migrations is, to put it politely, woefully uninformed.
"We are all tourists on this planet. If you weren't born here and complain about tourists you are pathetic. and by your own convictions you should shut the F up, and get on the next plane and go back where you came from."
Yet another view that ignores the reality of what the tourism industry is and does, and denies to tourists themselves the multiple options they have to speak out about the excesses and evils of it.
Ken and Glen are full of b.s. They can't handle the truth.
How can a councilman vote on a case involving his girlfriend?
We are all allowed friends, male and female.
And a council member should not vote on a case involving his boyfriend or his girlfriend.
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