Musings: All About PR

It was really disturbing to see that Planned Parenthood Hawaii is a supporter of Gary Hooser's HAPA Kuleana Academy:

While I've always backed PP because of the low-cost birth control and health services it provides, it's hard to see how the Kuleana Academy fits its mission statement. 

Is Planned Parenthood Hawaii truly so awash in funds that it can afford to give money to HAPA? Are its donors apprised that their contributions are diverted to causes they may not support?

Speaking of donations, Greenpeace — the world's biggest anti-GMO fear-feaster — has released its 2015-16 annual report. As the Risk-Monger noted, 35 percent of every Euro collected goes to fundraising, and nearly all of the money is spent on salaries, media, communications and public relations:

I did not see anything on conservation programmes or actual help to the environment - reminder: Greenpeace is a lobbying organisation, and not an environmental NGO.

The same can be said of Hawaii Center for Food Safety, which despite its name does nothing to actually advance food safety — the group has said nothing about the Hepatitis A outbreak in the Islands — nor the local food production it rhapsodizes about.

But it's happy to spend dough feting the ignorance-peddling Food Babe:

Curious, that someone who thinks nothing of needlessly frightening people or disseminating misinformation to pad her own pockets should be talking about ethics. But then, the anti-GMO movement is notoriously lacking in self-awareness.

The anti-dairy commentary today by Virginia Beck offers a perfect example of those who believe they are being open-minded, even as they approach an issue with tremendous bias. Though she makes like she's trying to present both sides, her view of the Mahaulepu dairy is tainted by her own misperceptions, starting with her assumption that Ulupono “sees simply resources that can be used for profit.”

Actually, Ulupono is subsidizing the dairy as a pilot project in sustainability. It's not envisioned as a money-maker.

Like many of the misinformed, Beck seems to think the dairy is proposed for “pristine” land near the beach. Wrong. The acreage in question was cultivated in sugar for more than a century, then used as a dairy and is currently in cattle pastures that adjoin land leased by the seed companies.

Beck also worries about the dairy's water use, apparently unaware it is proposed for acreage designated as Important Ag Land largely because it has access to water. Waita reservoir is intended to be used for ag, not residential.

Beck then proposes her “thinking outside of the box” alternative:

One solution would be to plant large swathes of albizia, nitrogen fixing trees, where they could trap nitrogen runoff, and at the same time improve the microclimate for reduced water evaporation.

Uh, albizia is an invasive species that presents a severe threat to Kauai's watersheds. As the state and private landowners struggle to eradicate this pest, the last thing we want to do is plant more of it. 

Please, get back in the box until you know what you're talking about.

And that goes for The Garden Island's reporter, Jessica Else, who badly botched the story on Jimmy Pflueger, mixing up the landslide at Pilaa with the Kaloko dam break. It's worrisome to think that her many erroneous articles are creating a false record of news events on Kauai.

Although maybe I shouldn't blame Jessica. Cops and courts reporter Michelle Iracheta, the best reporter to land at TGI in a long time, recently penned a blog post about her stories being badly re-written, using such terms as “censored” and “god forbid I run anything negative against the pros office. #JustSaying”

I can't imagine how hard it must be for young reporters to have TGI Editor Bill Buley as their misguided mentor, playing God with their stories and demoralizing them in the process. As the Star-Advertiser considers staff cuts, he should be at the top of the list.

Interesting, to see how the anti-GMO groups start to scream when the shoe is on the other foot. In this case, it's farmers seeking legal fees from an activist group and organic company that intevened in the lawsuit that ultimately rejected an Oregon county's GMO ban on the same pre-emption grounds that overturned all three of the Hawaii anti-GMO initiatives.

The farmers are seeking $29,205 in legal fees from the interventors for “unnecessarily complicating the litigation.” Attorneys for the intervenors are objecting to what they characterize as fees billed for “unreasonably long hours at higher-than-normal rates.”

Ya mean, like the $600 per hour that Earthjustice and Center for Food Safety charge the taxpayers when they do anti-GMO litigation?

I wonder if the seed companies will seek similar fees from Surfrider, Earthjustice, Center for Food Safety and the others who have intervened in the Hawaii litigation.

One can only hope, because it seems like they've got money to burn.

In other anti-GMO madness, General Mills is pandering to activists, even as the company fails to take any substantive action. Specifically, the company announced that the original Cheerios will be GMO-free — a tiny concession since the oat-based cereal uses minimal GM ingredients. But its other Cheerio products, which use significant amounts of GM products, will remain status quo.

As the Motley Fool noted:

General Mills is making a statement, but only one that it can currently back without suffering any major financial impact.

In fact, most of the cereals produced by General Mills as well as most cereals produced by competitors Kellogg and Post Holdings actually contain a significantly greater percentage of GMOs than Cheerios ever did.

But hey, consumers have the right to know — that it's all about PR.