Friday, September 2, 2016

Musings: Yakkity-Yak

With yet another hurricane bearing down on Hawaii, and a Presidential campaign getting more bizarre by the minute, who ya gonna call?

So if you're an anti-ag activist who popped a champagne cork at the demise of HC&S because you've been claiming that cane smoke is killing you, where do go on vacation?

Well, if you're failed Maui state Senate candidate Terez Amato Lyndsey, the answer is Burning Man, of course.

Yeah, you fly thousands of miles — while decrying oil pipelines and “the greed that surrounds the oil industry” — so you can drive to a totally unsustainable encampment despoiling the pristine desert, walk around naked, fill up another's state's landfill, get high and burn all kine toxic shit.

All while wearing gas masks — “the desert gets very dusty” — and “exhibiting radical self reliance. We purchased the wrong batteries for our air mattress and shower pool pump. Joe [Ritter] is rigging D batteries in paralell & series to equal 4.5 volts.”
While there, you discover links to the equally deluded hypocrites back home:


Chelsea, we found your people.#DemBird and #RepubBird ;-) #BurningMan
Chelsea Lyons Kent‪ After I get rich I'm going to put that in my humongous yard when I have parties. I need to Pin this immediately. ♡‬

Gosh, even anti-corporate, revolution-touting, bird-flipping Bernie-supporting progressives like Chelsea wanna get rich and buy that big house and yard. Oh, yeah. Bring it.

Meanwhile, with 40 million facing drought-related hunger in Africa, 8,000 greenies flew to Honolulu to attend the International Union for the Conservation of Nature conference and get serious about sustainability and climate change. Or at least, sigh a lot about it.

All together now. SIGH........

Among the attendees experiencing cognitive dissonance is Hawaii Gov. David Ige, who is seeking to protect Hawaii's coral reefs from global warming-induced bleaching because “they are a driver of our local and tourism economy, generating more than $360 million each year.” 

Yet no mention of the carbon-spewing jets that transport the tourists, nor of their reef-tromping, sunscreen-slathering behavior once they get here.

Ige also proclaimed:

“We need to provide food security through the protection of lands and water and support for our local farmers, and that’s why I’m committed to doubling Hawaii’s food production by 2020.”

Sounds great. But how, exactly?

Is he planning to send all the red-shirt-wearing, bird-flipping, anti-GMO/true food activists to work camps, where they will be required to actually produce the totally organic, pure, indigenous, sustainable food they know is possible, if only that horrid pesticide-spraying, GMO-growing industrial ag would get the hell out of their way?

Require every tourist to spend a day or two of vacation in food production, in order to offset the groceries they buy at Costco as soon as they land?

Engage the consulting services of yardeners like Felicia Cowden, who not so long ago were holding up Venezuela as a model of ag that Hawaii should follow? Before things went all to hell:

"There is no food. There is no paper. There is no medicine. We are dying," Maria Alvarez told CNN en EspaƱol. "Please, help Venezuela. This has to end."

Douglas Vincent, UH professor and former chair of the Dept. of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, had this idea:

Here's how I'd do it. Facilitate Ag lands to stay in Ag, so no more land grabs for housing. Double the funding for Farmer training programs, like GoFarm, to include funding for low cost or low interest loans to start farms. Encourage land owners to lease of existing farm lands so new farmers can have access to lands. Tax breaks for land owners to lease Ag lands to new farmers, as long as the new farmers can demonstrate being trained at new farmer training programs. Fill all vacant Ag related faculty positions in CTAHR, especially cooperative extension positions. Fill other Ag related vacant faculty positions in community colleges, UHWO, UHH. Advance vo-Ag training in high schools.

Damn. That's way too sensible. It's never gonna fly. Mo bettah to ask political scientist Ashley Lukens, director of Hawaii Center for Food Safety, what she thinks of the governor's plan (because he actually does have one).

Except she's at Burning Man, too! Seems that's where all the too-hip, hair-flipping, millennial activists go to refresh themselves after a tiring year of sanctimoniously scaring people half to death with utter nonesense.

Meanwhile, her kooky counterparts at Moms Against Monsanto are busy collecting testimonials for the totally bogus Monsanto Tribinual. Stuff like:

Heidi Hall
We have cured our asthma, allergies, food allergies/sensitivities, reoccurring croup, acid reflux, chronic fatigue syndrome and insomnia by removing toxicity and by going organic. We don’t want your poison in our food, our lands or our water.

Del Vega Esperanza commented 1 hour ago
I was once at a party of a freind of a freind who worked for Monsanto and my freind told me to not drink the punch as the host had spiked it with roundup and he wanted to see how many glasses of punch it would take before people started feeling the toxic effects. And it worked after three or four glasses everyone started staggering around and talking gibberish and some even passed out on the floor. I left before I witnessed anything too scary but those Monsanto scientists think they can just do what they like and get away with it. This was my awakening and I’ve never trusted science since, this is why this trial is so important so that people like me can see those evil scientists behind bars where they deserve. And I don’t mean the type of bars where they serve drinks!!!!

Oops. I think they've been infiltrated...

Of course, everyone is entitled to their beliefs. Just ask the Liberal Redneck:

44 comments:

Anonymous said...

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153973047993736&set=a.22821683735.35429.717118735&type=3&theater

apparently also open about swinging

Anonymous said...

Good one!
Can't understand why Burning Man is popular....looks like hell to me.
Is it to go somewhere to pretend like you're free from the rules of civilization?
And it's not cheap; most of the tickets are only $390, but they go up to $1200, not including the $80 charge to bring in your car.

http://djmag.com/news/watch-burning-man-2016-live-stream

Regarding the Governor's commitment to double Hawaii's food production by 2020. Even with all the government assistance possible, which is currently not much, who is going to go into farming if Hawaii just cannot outcompete on price with mainland and foreign farms?

Noticing in the news today that Uzbekistan's ruler, Islam Karimov, has died, I was thinking maybe Hawaii can use his methods as our agricultural model. It's one of the top five cotton producing countries in the world. This is done by forcing its citizens to do the picking for little-to-no remuneration (about six cents per kg harvested). As many as five million Uzbek citizens — or 16 percent of the population, including children — are/were forced to pick cotton.

Citizens spend a month or more away from home — however long it takes to satisfy the government’s quota, sleeping on cots in local schools or in barracks set up in the fields.

Quotas are enforced with beatings and public humiliation, of the type that led to the suicide of one farmer in 2014. Harvest days are long, between nine and sixteen hours with no weekends, holidays, or other days off.

One way to double our production.

Anonymous said...

So unless one is pro cheaper food at any cost, including the health of families exposed to the pesticides and herbicides, one is 'Anti-ag' ?

Joan Conrow said...

No. One is anti-AG if one is working against farmers --/especially if one is not farming.

Anonymous said...

No Joan, that's called caring for the health and safety of their family

Joan Conrow said...

Call it what you will, the results are the same: anti-AG.

Anonymous said...

No it's called anti poison. AG doesn't mean you have to use poison and chemicals.

Joan Conrow said...

No, AG doesn't mean you have to use "poison and chemicals." But if you're opposing or trying to shut down a farmer who does want to practice AG that way, then you're anti-AG. And intolerant, too, as well as likely misinformed.

Anonymous said...

One day we will be the healthiest people on earth without food. Pollution is everywhere. Remember E.T., he ate the GMO laced Skittles and almost passed out...lol

Anonymous said...

Actually 1:51 PM, Ag DOES mean you have to use poison and chemicals.

1. Biologically speaking, any substance, if given in large enough amounts, is poisonous and can cause death.

2. Everything is a chemical because everything is made of matter. Your body is made of chemicals. So is your pet, your desk, the grass, water, the air, salt, your phone, and your lunch.

Anything that has mass and occupies space is matter. Basically anything you can taste, smell, or hold consists of matter and is therefore a chemical.

So yes, plants and food are made of chemicals and they can't be grown without chemicals.

Anonymous said...

Dealing with these self righteous ignorant people who frame arguments in a specious way as 1:32 and !:51 do is a tremendous drain on the conversation. It's best just to let them vent and expose the shallowness of their arguments without bothering to go to the pointless trouble of engaging them.

Anonymous said...

Big Ag will continue to produce more food with less water and herbicide.
The Big Farm will produce more for less.
Ag on Kauai? Sure after you pay big bucks to DOW or spend half a lifetime and mind-boggling frustration dealing with DLNR on getting water from the stream that borders your property...or God Forbid, try to bring an abandoned hanawai ditch back to life.
There are some hardy souls who can fight the Apparatchiks, insurance companies, produce markets, weather, heat, uncertainty, dust and Fistees. But unless you have a million bucks for an Ag estate, a few hipsters to tend it, and an independent income....you will find the Costco lettuce at half the price and half the hassle tastes just as good. Costco is Organic ya know.
Cost effective Ag is dead on Kauai from Wailua River to Haena. The Taro guys can do it with a good lease and lots of skill....maybe a couple of others. But Ag is dead. It is but a rich man's yarden and a thing for Horseshit Politcos like Ige to yammer about...but Ige, the State, the County, EPA, Hooser's Fistees, DOW, DLNR are all against you.
Water and land. And Ige's DLNR continues to take the reservoirs away on the eastside.
Big land can lease some parcels and at least they are more fair with their water...but the State/County are the dearth to many an Ag dream.
JoAnn Yukimura's dream child, the Kilauea 75 acres will cost more to bring up to arable land than the entire production of fruties and veggies over the next twenny years. Pay close to millions for a few thousand Rambutan/Kale heads? Catch a bus and got to Wallmart it is more cost effective.
Great Gawd Almighty- and JoAnn's 75 acre Kilauea leases haven't even been divvied up yet. Then the real tension will begin. T'is a shame that most of the originators of this EASY Ag park are dead or geriatric.
This should have been in production 30 years ago...but gee whiz! Ag is so easy that all of them JoAnn's many friends couldn't get a shovel in.....but many of them sure have those Big Ol' Ag estates at Secret Beach, Wailapa, Kalihiwai, Aliomanu and Moloaa...
Ag is great when you're one of Joann's many rich friends.
The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.

She could just pack up and leave, but she does not visualize what's beyond ahead.....Nuria Ano

Turn on, tune in, drop out- T Leary

Anonymous said...

Wow you must of graduated from Cornell 6 week program too

Anonymous said...

You have very marginal writing skills, 5:58. Try harder to get your verbs right when you criticise another.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Joan for responding to my 1:03 question just trying to understand this new anti-ag term. I consider myself pro-ag because I like to eat food farmers produce. However I'm not a supporter of all farming methods.

Per Wikipedia - Agriculture:

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life.

Then in the 2nd paragraph:
Modern agronomy, plant breeding, agrochemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers, and technological developments have in many cases sharply increased yields from cultivation, but at the same time have caused widespread ecological damage and negative human health effects.

Being a parent raising 2 small children that really weighs on me.

Anonymous said...

Well YOU (5:58 PM) certainly didn't graduate from Cornell....or any other credible university.

Really, "you must of"?

Anonymous said...

didnt know there was a 75 acre ag park in kilauea.....by where ?? and whats going on there ?? do they have a community for tools and machinery, water and soil ammendments ? storage sheds and processing facilities ?

Anonymous said...

I am extremly outraged that 2:51 said that E.T. ate GMO skittles. They were clearly Reese's pieces you red shirt buffoon!

Anonymous said...

7:49 JoAnn's Ag park is mauka of the Seacliff entry @ Kilauea.
On a positive note, this ag park may be the only thing JoAnn has done in her 30 years of getting a County paycheck.
http://www.malamakauai.org/mk/kilauea-ag-park-complex/

Anonymous said...

If they turned this 75 acres into 30 to 40 home-sites they could gather pertneer $25,000,000 bucks. Or low-cost them for local housing......Them bucks could buy up some real Ag land with some water or at least throw some folks into homes.
Oh by the way, the link doesn;t say that there ain;t no nuff water to grow stuff. They only need miles of ditch, pipe or miracles to get that clear liquid...A brainless project that is no more than a dream within a mirage wrapped up in a nightmare.
This is Ag, Kauai government style, a lexicon of complication.
Another endless money pit compliments of JoAnn. Ms Yukimura no yakkity-yak about this embarrassment, but it is her creation....tho' she tries to diminish the anguish this project's history embodies..it will live forever as a cost to the county.
Vote JoAnn.

Anonymous said...

1:03 n 1:32. Same shit different day. AGAIN! August 18th blog, titled Sorry State. Let's continue the conversation.

Same pesticide / chemical fear bull shit!

Took you 15 days to re-surface.

I hope you don't wash your dishes with soap. Or dry your dishes with a cloth from your washing machine with laundry soap. All chemicals.

Go live in a plastic bubble to protect your kids (wait, that's chemical laced shit).

Wait what's the blog topic!

Shit! We really need you as a farmer. You can teach / show all of us the ONLY way to live all of our lives.

You bull shit person! Chemicals n pesticides are all over your house. If not, then call Ms. Joan and show her your none hypocritical life style. Starting from the car you drive your kids all over the place.

Long weekend! Enjoy!

Anonymous said...

5:58 PM is an example of competence shaming. Far too prevalent.

4:30 PM Bracing disquisition. Where have you been hanging out?

Anonymous said...

Not necessarily related to the article you just posted but I remember seeing this guy called Bryant Paul on the Civil Beat comment section. Whenever the expansion of the papahanaumokuakea reserve he always said that the longliner fishermen were using slave labor to fish. He said they were using people from other islands who have been kidnapped and forced to fish for the fishing company. He never provided any sources for these claims but I'm just wondering how true this is?

Anonymous said...

Douglas Vincent's proposal sounds very interesting. I'm surprised it has never been considered yet.

Anonymous said...


this was a good post Joan, And after all the "burning man wannabe's" hopefully all wake up in the morning with just a mere hangover---and not too much big chemical mind benders.

Tell you what---the rootypooty wannabe hippies at "burning man" have done exactly what the "real stinky " hippies were trying to get away from. Then they trurned into a "FOR- PROFIT"!

And my dumb ass feels stupid for not monopolizing them! I guess my problem is that I have to live with ahhhh myself. And my heart and soul keeps getting in the way of "fishing in a barrel"---.

I wonder how many wannabes from the islands actually have a real job and paid for their own ticket to burning man?

Actually, I couldn't Handle that truth----never mind.....

Anonymous said...

It has been accomplished. With Ige promising more food production, every Tom, Dick and Harriet will get a state lease, build a shack on it, say they're farmers and have the state of hawaii fund their operation. All you pro gmo people. You might as well stand in line too.

To get your piece if the pie.
Good luck all!

Anonymous said...

Fuck the anti's, fuck the feral cats...GO Dairy!

Anonymous said...

The Kilauea Ag park was a great idea UNTIL the county gave it to Malama Kauai and the Waipa friend Yoshi. Both of them like to get money a lot, farming well not as much. They have made the AG park land ridiculous, grow what you want, you get a box of produce at the end of the week. Sounds like a cooperative, not each farmer gets a plot to raise what he wants and sell and eat it all, no it is a collective. They do the harvesting and sharing. Oh of course they have high salaries, not from producing food, God knows where the money is from, but I'll guess it is from the funds the county somehow gave them. Bogus bullshit 1,000 dollar a bunch kale, i mean who can justify that. While it started out a great idea, the sharks got into it, now its a money grubber. Damn the council messed that one up good. and i guess they never heard of catchment, or if they had water, they would need another excuse for the lameness.

Anonymous said...

Well, I for one certainly wouldn't mind seeing Terez Amato Lyndsey naked. But that's about all I want from her.

Now here's some art at Burning Man. Whimsical, silly, amazing, art:

https://youtu.be/v87Q2tunZiY

Anonymous said...

The history of the Kilauea AG park does go back some 30+ years. It is a story worth telling; of a good idea, gone ridiculous, despite of, and contrary to good advice from people who actually did understand agriculture. It is a classic study of "leaders" who do not appreciate and understand the history and complexities of farming in Hawaii and KAUAI, and do not have respect for the knowledge and wisdom of bona fide farmers.

While Ms. Yukimura has been involved in it throughout its tortured history, in all fairness, she is not exclusively to blame for the travesty.

Interesting that Kauai has perhaps more rose-colored eyeglasses per capita (or one would think) than anywhere (on this planet, as those wearers, would say).

Anonymous said...

Oahu tried an ag park for farmer wannabees. It turned out like this:

http://www.kitv.com/story/31963707/zoning-building-violations-at-heart-of-kunia-loa-ridge-farm-lot-controversy

Yukimura's will be the same.

Anonymous said...

Not interested in seeing TAmato naked and I just don't get the whole Burn scene. As far as the link about amazing "art" from 9:03 AM, this comment just about says it for me:

Rick James
There are people starving around the world and you're trying to get people to donate over $200,000 to move an old fucking plane to the middle of the desert so some drug induced idiots can have a rave on it?! Unfucking real? How do u sleep at night? Do you really think that is $200,000 well spent?! I'm sure starving children in Guatemala would totally agree!

Anonymous said...

Uhh..how is flying to Hawaii for an environmental conference worse than you flying to India or New Mexico to explore your interests?

Anonymous said...

Lots of people here judging the Burn who've never been. Must be fun constructing stereotype strawmen so you can stoke your smug self-superiority.

Not defending Lukens or any of the other yahoos, personally can't stand them, but there's a lot more to it than the youtube videos and propaganda shows.

Joan Conrow said...

2:38 It's not "worse," it's ironic because the conference is billed as sustainable and focuse on climate change.

Anonymous said...

If people are going to meet in person to discuss something, they'll have to arrive by plane if that discussion is in Hawaii, or by plane, car, train if outside Hawaii. And if they don't meet in person, they will have to use devices (phones, computers) which have a carbon footprint. It may be ironic to do so, but it's also inevitable, and irony in this case is not enough of a reason to not hold a discussion.

Anonymous said...

Phones and computers have a MUCH smaller carbon footprint than 8000 people flying somewhere. If you're trying to be sustainable that would have been the smart choice.

Anonymous said...

Hawaii is one of the best places to have a conference. The NFL Pro-Bowlers also liked playing in Hawaii for a nice "vacation". Sun, surf, "Waikiki" beach. Hawaii gets to utilize the Convention Center. Hawaii vendors showcased their wares and food. A lot of the people enjoyed the "Poke" bowls. Hawaii is the "hub" of the Pacific. If you drew lines from Hawaii to the hometowns of the participants oh and if you used a different colored pen for each line you'd get more than a rainbow. I would go to Switzerland.

Anonymous said...

1:59 - your computer consists of hundreds of parts from materials mined and transported (think planes, ships and trains) to and from from approximately thirty different countries, where sub-assembly often occurs before it moves on to the next stage of assembly, transportation, sale, repair, service, etc. Then, when you're done with it, its shipped back overseas via a 50,000 ton ship that burns about 100 tons of fuel per day, usually to a computer-waste dump site somewhere in the third world, often china, where it gets to pollute a poor community with the many toxins found in your computer. A small carbon footprint - are you sure?

Anonymous said...

I know computers don't have a small carbon footprint. I said it was a smaller than flying people around the world.

Anonymous said...

Joan why do you hate art? Burning Man is one of the premiere art installations in the world attracting 70,000 people. Is it the nudity which has been part of art since people drew on cave walls. Loosen up!

Joan Conrow said...

10:30 -- Why are you such an extremist? It doesn't actually follow that I hate art or nudity simply because I criticized Burning Man. So yes, loosen up and quit making assumptions about beliefs based on your own narrow perceptions!

Anonymous said...

@10:30 am

Burning man is all about freedom of expression. Some may agree and some may disagree with people's expressions and individuality. Some people like jazz some don't. Every person is entitled and have the right to like or dislike whatever turns them on. But you are proposing that because you think it's cool everyone else needs to bow to your liking. Sorry but that's not how it works.

Anonymous said...

7:28 "Every person is entitled and have the right to like or dislike whatever turns them on." If this were true why are hundreds of thousands locked up for drug offenses?"