Musings: Kooky

Ever get the feeling the Islands have gotten kinda kooky?

Over on the Big Island, telescope technician Tony Sylvester posted this Facebook account of a frightening incident that occurred yesterday morning at the Very Long Baseline Array, just below the Mauna Kea summit:

Attacked and assaulted today just because we work at one of the telescopes on Mauna Kea. The suspect gained entry by ramming our gates then used his vehicle to ram our outer steel doors multiple times and proceed to beat on our inner doors so much that we had to barricade the doors with desks and chairs till the police arrived.

The suspect was so full of hate as he peered through the crack between the doors. What a horrible and terrifying experience. Tomorrow is a special event held at the Mauna Kea visitors center to celebrate the one year anniversary of the TMT protest. It is so sad to see what Hawaii has become.

Here is the vehicle used to break down our doors. Lucky, we were able to get out of the way before getting crushed by this action. We were terrorized for one and a half hours before help arrived. The suspect destroyed our communications box so we were trapped and lost contact with the police dispatch. Our vehicles were also damaged by the suspect."

James Coleman — a haole guy from Kona — was arrested on suspicion of criminal property damage. He may also face charges of burglary and terroristic threatening, according to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

Meanwhile, it's nothing but “love and collaboration” over on Maui, where they're plotting the seizure of the HC&S sugar cane land.

“This is something we're doing out of love, not out of anger,” said Bruce Douglas, co-founder of SHAKA, the group that pushed the Maui anti-GMO moratorium that got thrown out of court. 

Now he's peddling an initiative that would condemn the sugar lands so they could be turned into “regenerative agriculture,” instead of gentleman's estates. You know, like the ones sold by SHAKA co-founder and Realtor Mark Sheehan.

Lorin Pang, the anti-GMO activist who moonlights as the Maui state health officer, admitted the idea came about because the antis ran out of ammo when their enduring enemy, HC&S, announced its closure:

“Now we're a little bit stuck, yeah. We can't say, stop those bad things. They say, we did.”

So instead of just being against everything, they had to find something they could be for. 

Their solution: Condemn A&B's sugar cane land, using money from general revenue bonds, so it can be turned over to all the wanna-bee farmers who are currently being denied, according to Douglas, their constitutional right to “agriculturally suitable lands.”

“It's for the public good,” Pang said. “It's not for profit.”

Meanwhile, Douglas was promising “full employment” for the island with this profit-less venture, which no doubt will be embraced by all the altruistic farmers who want to toil in the fields solely for the love of the aina and their fellow human beings.

And that was just the tip of the bullshit iceberg. Among Douglas' other wrong claims: Maui is the only county that elects Council members at large (hello, what about Kauai?); HC&S brought in and burned coal so its sugar ships didn't have to return empty from the mainland (uh, those ships came back empty 80% of the time); Maui sea turtle tumors are caused by “pesticides and nutrients from chemical fertilizers” (last I heard, sewage injection wells were to blame; Correx: there is no documented cause ); “Oahu has already developed all their prime ag land (well, except for the acreage that's growing more food than anywhere in the state); the Important Ag Land designation can be “changed with the stroke of a pen” (no, a two-thirds vote is required.)

Then there was that big whopper, where Douglas lied to HPR on Monday and claimed they weren't targeting the HC&S land, which he said is "dead and lifeless" — though somehow growing cane — and will require several years of remediation. No word on who is going to pay for that.

I'm sure there were more fibs, but I have to admit I kind of zoned out while listening when I Googled Bruce Douglas and learned he's a big chem trail activist, which may be how he and Pang got together.

My ears pricked, though, when I heard Pang say the Maui activists are different than A&B because “we're transparent.”

Oh, so that explains the email thread I saw on the activists' political strategy to end A&B's Maui water rights, where Sandra Ann Kauionalani Pratt says:

“We don't want to tell the community too much or we will confuse them.”

Yes, God forbid people should actually start thinking for themselves. And if they ask any questions, borrow a move from the awesomely transparent anti-GMO movement and attack, ostracize and silence them immediately.