Musings: Red Herrings

Some 1,000 Hawaii classrooms will start the school year without “quality teachers,” including 600 for which there are no teachers at all, according to HPR's "The Conversation."

“Ten thousand kids will not have a teacher,” HSTA President Corey Rosenlee said. “They're using subs that don't have the background. We have pretend schools right now.”

He gave an example of how a substitute who could not speak the language was hired to teach a Spanish class.

The state is having a hard time attracting qualified instructors because Island teachers are the worst paid in the nation, when salaries are adjusted for cost of living, Rosenlee said. Hawaii is also last in the country in spending on school maintenance.

So why do the anti-GMO activists — Center for Food Safety, Councilman Gary Hooser, Hawaii SEED, HAPA, Earthjustice — keep making like seed company pesticides are the biggest threat facing Hawaii school kids?

Especially when none of the school evacuations between 2006-14 were caused by the seed companies, according to an analysis by the state Department of Agriculture.

Among those still touting the false claim of harm is the Waimea Canyon Middle School's Maluhia Group, which left this comment on the Garden Island article on the Kauai election results:

4,000+ people marched in the "Mana March," and an employee of a company suing the County of Kauai for the right to poison your children and land gets more votes than Gary Hooser? Stop posing and make the time you spent marching in the rain mean something by voting in the Primary.

First, that 4,000+ figure is double even the most generous estimate. But even if it was accurate, and every marcher voted for Hooser, it wouldn't be enough to get him re-elected. And how many of those marching were even Kauai residents, much less registered voters?

We know that people like Jen Ruggles — now running for Hawaii County Council — were brought in as paid political operatives to swell the ranks. Even now when I look at who is “liking” Hooser's Facebook posts, I recognize few of the names.

What's more, even though the Merck Fund gave Maluhia-WCMS $10,000 “to document health effects in Hawaii related to pesticide exposure," the group has been unable to find one shred of evidence to bolster its claims. Nor has anyone else. Yet the activists keep making those false charges because they want to destroy the seed companies

Following his dismal showing in Saturday's primary, Hooser finally showed face Monday with a social media plea for more money, more help. If he really wants to win, he should be asking, "Why do so many find me so repellant? How can I change myself, and my message, to appeal to more of the people I'm supposed to be representing?"

But that ain't gonna happen. And no doubt some of his well-heeled North Shore supporters will continue to pour dough into the black hole of Hooser, while ignoring more worthy causes.

I notice that Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice — despite their professed devotion to both the keiki and the aina — have also remained mum on the issue of feral cats. Civil Beat today finally took up an issue oft-covered in this blog, reporting that toxoplasmosis in cat poop is killing endangered monk seals, spinner dolphins and other critters. 

The parasite also infects human, especially kids who play in the dirt, and it can cause both physical and mental illness, including insanity.

Of course, EJ isn't interested because there's no government entity to sue — yet. And CFS knows there's no fundraising dough to be raised in a call to kill kittens.

Still, EJ and CFS do have something in common with the Hawaii Humane Society, which has declared that any cat culling is a total “non-starter” for them.

And that's a complete unwillingness to compromise, to approach an issue with a sincere desire to find the best way forward for all. 

So long as these groups refuse to budge from their extreme, entrenched positions, the polarization and political paralysis will continue. Which is why we might want to reconsider giving them a place at the table.

When Civil Beat reporters are too lazy to dig up news, they fawn over one another, which is how they came to produce the podcast “Hawaii’s News Business Takes It’s [sic] Licks From The Reader Rep.”

In it, CB “reader rep” and UH communications professor Brett Oppegaard revealed his biggest story ever was handed to him, and resulted in someone threatening to punch him in the face. I can see that. Especially after his hit piece on me.

Oppegaard then gushed:

I think Civil Beat is really a beacon of great journalism in this community and I am continually impressed with what is produced here and also the mission seems to be untainted by, obviously, advertising concerns or corporate special interests or any of the other things that tend to plague for-profit publications and journalism organizations.

Uh, except for the social-engineering, philanthropic elephant in the newsroom, as identified by my former editor at the Honolulu Weekly, Ragnar Carlson:

Everyone knows where Joan Conrow is coming from. It's right there in her work. Yet you are willing to denounce her as untrustworthy while the billionaire technocrat who signs your paycheck HAS A DESK IN YOUR NEWSROOM. Dude. What do the kids say?

Which is why the podcast would have been more aptly titled “Civil Beat shill too busy lapping at the Omidyar trough to give his own pub any licks.”