Musings: Roses and Thorns

Seems the bloom is off the rose....

Of course, the "con artist" bit is what I've been saying for years now, though Dustin Barca and his gang denounced me for “talking shit” while they rode the cash cow of false glory. Now even they have seen the light.

Well, kind of. Because Dustin still suffers under the delusion that it was a “homegrown movement” and a “revolution.” No, you guys were Center for Food Safety/Earthjustice pawns from the start.

Meanwhile, Dustin's busy shilling for OluKai shoes (click image to enlarge): 

You know he didn't write the promo copy because it contains no random capitalizations and actually makes sense. But no, money hasn't affected his morals.

So Hawaii Dairy Farms has finally submitted its final EIS for the Mahaulepu dairy, which says it will cause no environmental harm. And though Friends of Mahauelepu demanded the document, it has — as expected — summarily denounced it.

This is what happens when you cave in. The antis remain opposed and HDF has hopefully not set an unrealistic precedent by doing an EIS for an agricultural enterprise when it wasn't triggered by the law.

Of course, HDF can afford such exercises because it's bankrolled by Pierre Omidyar's deep pockets via the Ulupono Initiative.

Rabid dairy hater Ronald John, who has written numerous letters to The Garden Island attacking the Mahaulepu proposal and dairies in general, recently claimed that HDF “received a $3.1 million tax write off for the year 2014 alone.”

While I wouldn't put stock in anything John says, it might be interesting for Civil Beat to do a bit of digging into just what sort of tax breaks Omidyar enjoys by funding the utopian ag vision of Ulupono Initiative (as well as his vanity press). Seems a fitting enteprise for a website that claims to be devoted to "in-depth reporting and investigative journalism” — despite never looking critically at the social engineering plans of one of the Islands' wealthiest citizens.

But then, I can understand CB's reluctance to even nibble on, much less bite, the hand that feeds it.

I mean, it's become apparent that Civil Beat “reader rep” Brett Oppegaard is never going to do the expose on Omidyar's role on the editorial board of CB that he addressed in a July 2016 email to me:

You are concerned about CB's potential conflicts of interest. I agree, that is an important topic for me to address (at some point). I am looking into this issue for future columns. It's not that I don't want to touch it; it's a complicated subtopic (within the topic I'm addressing) that is beyond the scope of what I want to deal with in this particular column (which therefore would muddy the theme of the piece), about commenting systems and disclosures of commenters. There's always another column, for something like that. …

Yeah, sure, Brett. Not holding my breath....

While we're talking about rich people, it's interesting to see the different angles taken in reporting the news that Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg is taking quiet title action to gain ownership of some kuleana parcels within the North Shore Kauai land parcel he bought two years ago.

The Star-Advertiser noted that “forcing people to sell land that has been in their families for generations can be off-putting — especially when it’s driven by the sixth-richest person in the world.”

But The Garden Island shared the perspective of Carlos Andrade, whose family owns a share in one of those parcels. As Andrade noted, some of the heirs wouldn't otherwise be able to afford the legal action required to clear, or “quiet,” the outstanding ownership issues on their own, and thus would be precluded from selling and collecting their share of the proceeds.

No doubt the court proceedings will shed more light.

Btw, if you haven't yet seen the wall that fronts his property on Koolau Road, go check it out. It's beautiful and fits right in to the landscape.

Meanwhile, there's been a pesticide incident at Syngenta, which the Hawaii Department of Ag and EPA are investigating. Seems that on Jan. 12, the driver of a van carrying contract workers stopped to consult with the driver of another van, which resulted in him rolling down his window while a spraying operation was occurring in an adjacent field. 

A worker in the van expressed concerned about possible exposure, and sought medical attention. He was given a clean bill of health and returned to work the next day. Syngenta  contacted HDOA, which immediately launched an on-site investigation. EPA officials arrived on Jan. 16 to do their own investigation.

The two agencies have not yet released their findings. But this again underscores that the regulatory system does work, and that enforcement agencies take their roles seriously, with EPA showing up on a federal holiday, no less.