Musings: Possessed

In the high desert, summer dawn is typically a calm, cool, clear affair. Grateful for long pants, sweatshirt zipped up against a low-50s chill, I walk and watch the first rays form a halo behind a blue-black ring of mountains, hulking on the horizon. Slowly, the light shafts lengthen, the sky brightens, the slopes turn green-blue and the sun peeks over a softly-rounded summit. 

In a flash, it will rise and fully possess the day.

I was reading a New Yorker article the other day about the bloody, costly mistake that was the American intervention in Iraq. But I wasn't struck by Dexter Filkins' account of the latest violence, or even his premise that it's deja vu all over again, so much as his description of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki:

His long face conveyed, as it almost always does, a look of utter joylessness. Having spent much of his life hunted by assassins, Maliki gives the impression of a man who learned long ago to ruthlessly suppress his feelings. “He never smiles, he never says thank you, and I've never seen him say, 'I'm sorry,'” a longtime associate of Maliki's told me.

And I thought, what could possibly possess a person to seek out such a life? Who but a psychopath would choose to live in such an emotionally stunted way?

Then I flashed on all the people like Maliki — and his would-be assassins — strung out all over the world, in positions of power great and small, deeply wounded individuals possessed with a need to control, exert their will upon others, indifferent to the misery they mete out.

How does the world change, can the world change, with such an entrenched dynamic in place?

Being away from the Islands has allowed me to view our populace and politicians — some of them similarly possessed — in a slightly different context. For example, the huhu over Kauai Councilman Tim Bynum's petulant pencil-pitching appeared particularly petty when compared to, say, the Espanola, New Mexico, city councillor who was arrested for allegedly pistol-whipping a man and firing gunshots at his car.

And even the most rabid of the “lil fistees” look pretty dang wimpy in comparison to the pistol-packing populace allowed to roam the “roundhouse,” as New Mexico's capitol building is known.

Still, I've been struck by some stunning similarities. Like how the City of Santa Fe passed a half-assed vacation rental law that it doesn't enforce, either, so there's an estimated 700 units operating illegally.

Like how Councilman Gary Hooser, Kauai Rising, and Babes Against Biotech are using the exact same rhetoric — mobilizing democracy, opposing tyranny, grassroots opposition, empowered constituents, the rights of citizens to protect themselves — as the fanatical folks fighting any form of gun control in New Mexico. 

Or to paraphrase Shakespeare: that which we call extremism by any other name would smell as stink.

I see that extremism rear its ugly head daily in letters to the editor, and The Garden Island's  comment section. Most recently, there was outrage over Dow donating corn to the food banks.

Not outrage over the fact that North Shore residents, the wealthiest on the island and the most vocal in their opposition to GMOs and pesticides, gave the absolute least in a recent food drive.

And not a speck of outrage over how many hungry people there are on Kauai — a whopping 20 percent of the population. Yeah, that many. One in five. Most of them keiki and kupuna.

Nope. Just outrage over a company that has been repeatedly pressed to grow food for local consumption growing food for super-specific local consumption: its own employees, with the excess going to the food banks.

Which brings me back to Tim and his pencil. He threw it in a hissy fit because the Council wouldn't quickly pass his anti-ag bill, which seeks to levy higher property taxes on ag land used for seed crops and experimentation. Tim pressed for rapid passage — before the election — saying it's urgently needed to defend “real farms” and make chem companies pay their share.

Of course, we all know by now that Tim himself got around paying his fair share of property taxes by signing a farm dwelling agreement that falsely claimed he was engaging in ag on his CPR lot. And he seriously undermined “real farming” by pushing the bill that allowed vacation rentals on ag land.

So it's hard to buy the sudden urgency, much less Tim as an effective poster boy of this particular cause. 

Still, we'll have another chance on Wednesday to see whether fair and equitable property taxes are indeed a concern for Tim and the Council — when it's the mayor poised to squeeze some political juice. The administration has introduced two bills, which are on the Council's Wednesday agenda.

One, proposed draft bill 2548, corrects a process that has resulted in the majority of timeshares being assessed lower than condominiums.

The other, proposed draft bill 2549, establishes a new property tax class of “residential investor” that would apply to residential properties valued over $1 million that do not have a homeowner exemption. County finance director Steve Hunt articulates the rationale in a memo to the Council:

This new tax class recognizes that high-valued residential properties tend to be more speculative in nature, are not typically offered as affordable housing, and often serve as second homes or investment properties.

Seems reasonable to me.

Finally, imagine my surprise when I noticed, on that very same Council agenda, a request to spend $30,000 in special counsel fees to represent defeated prosecutor Shaylene Iseri, her former first deputy Jake Delaplane and the county in yet another lawsuit stemming from her reign of darkness at the OPA.

And as so often happens, serendipity brought my post brought full circle.