Musings: Shock, Shlock and Outrage

I never check news on Sunday, so when I glanced at Facebook yesterday afternoon, and saw first one post — “We have to teach our children to love, rather than hate” — and then a second — “I hardly slept, the TV was on all night” — I knew without knowing: another mass shooting.

They're becoming almost common place, even as they break new records. Each time, we express shock, outrage, say enough is enough, call for changes. And then life resumes, business as usual. Lock and load.

I don't know what Trump means, “Make America great again.” Shoots, we already excel at gun violence.

My nephew, a naturalized New Zealand citizen, characterized the race between Trump and Hillary thusly: 

Ho hum... Now in November the US can choose between the knife and the gun...

He has a point, though I'd be more likely to characterize Trump as a loose cannon.

And while I am glad that we don't have two men running for President, it is kinda hard to get excited about anyone seeking the nation's highest office, when you consider the job requirements:

Yet the election grinds on, lurching between shlock and outrage.

Gosh, you think there's a pattern here?

Meanwhile, Sunday's SHAKA shindig snared, as predicted, a meager turnout of aina warriors and wannabees in Honolulu yesterday. Can't imagine they burned through either 500 pounds of cooked kalo or 500 red tee shirts, unless they shared with the homeless .Which would be a good thing.

But Kauai Councilman Gary Hooser doesn't mind if the flock is few, so long as he gets to bleat:

Oh, and in response to the dreamer who hopefully opined that the Joint Fact Finding report on Kauai ag pesticides would finally, at long last, limit the litany of lies — sadly, that ain't happening. 

Why, just the other day Gary's HAPA group posted a video, in anticipation of Wednesday's hearing on the appeal of the three Hawaii GMO/pesticide bills. It's an older video, filled with discredited claims about the biotech seed industry: birth defect rate 10x the national average; 18 tons of pesticides used annual; pesticide experimentation; one of the most toxic landscapes in American agriculture; school kids collapsing, etc., ad nauseum.

Yet Hooser and HAPA still share it with no corrections or caveats, as if it were legit.

But then, facts just get in the way of an emotion-based campaign that elicits responses such as this, from someone, somewhere, in the U.S. of A:

‪Charles Reading

Why oh why would Hawaii need GMOs or Pesticides? Ever.... Stay strong Hawaii...‬

Yes, why oh why would a tropical landscape loaded with invasive weeds and insect pests ever need GMOs or pesticides? Hana hoe! (And please, before you fire off a correction, it's an intentional play on words.)

Still, Gary's not the only one out there fibbing:

How is that Ashley, director of the Center for Food Safety, feels even remotely qualified to be telling “Hawaii's Story?” 

Even to someone like Teri Tico, whose falsehoods I've documented twice on this blog, and that was only on one topic — pro bono representation of the county in its appeal of Bill 2491 — without even trying.

Teri would actually be a lot more qualified to do a film, say, documenting the explosion of oceanfront vacation rentals in North Shore Kauai, seeing as how her four-lot subdivision at Naue spawned three TVRs and her own luxe house.

But then, that hits just a wee bit close to home. Much better to point a finger at the westside, way over yonder. Divert attention from what's going down on in your own hood.

Returning to shlock and outrage:

Oh. My. God. Imagine. Chemical companies and Hawaii “aina warrior” nonprofits sharing the same astro-turfing strategy!

What's the world coming to?

Whatever it may be, these two SHAKA founders — now scammin' to give comrade committees control of private ag land through taxpayer-funded condemnation proceedings — hope to have the last laugh:

Joe Marshalla, left, and Bruce Douglas