Musings: Slimmest of Leads

It was one of those rare election nights when I didn't get that sick feeling in my stomach when I checked out the results.

Instead, it was go Tulsi — yes, she whopped the Muff. And Ed Case was rightly trounced by Mazie Hirono, who should be able to beat Linda Lingle, even if the Koch brothers are throwing piles of cash into her campaign. 

Then I quickly scrolled down to the Kauai prosecutor race and whew, Justin Kollar was ahead of incumbent Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho at the first printout, and he stayed that way, though he ended the night with just the slimmest of leads: 

        Justin: 7,081 (45.4%) 

        Shay: 6,969 (44.7%) 

Crucially, there were 1,549 blanks, or nearly 10% of the total. This is the swing vote the candidates must cultivate, while also encouraging better turnout at the general election in November.

Right up through today people were asking me, do you think Justin can make it? Nobody was really sure. Now we know the answer is yes. So while the race is still way too close for Justin to claim, I think his strong showing tonight will work to boost his following. Plus Shay still has to navigate another three months until the general, and I know of at least three pending revelations that could damage her campaign.

Looks like this one is going to be a cliff-hanger. 

The Council race was no surprise at the top of the pack, but down at the bottom, it's gonna be every vote counts, with Dickie, Tim, Gary and KipuKai scrambling for the last two seats. Quite frankly, I thought Gary would have a stronger showing. One friend said Kauai voters don't take kindly to elected officials who don't finish their term, a reference to Gary's resignation from the Senate to run for Lieutenant Governor. But another friend observed that Gary hasn't really campaigned, either. Newcomer Ross Kagawa, on the other hand, has waltzed in with ease. 

Still, there's time to shake things up a little before the general. 

NAKAMURA, Nadine K. 9,388 8.6%
FURFARO, Jay 8,366 7.7%
YUKIMURA, JoAnn A. 8,355 7.6%
RAPOZO, Mel 8,264 7.6%
KAGAWA, Ross K. 7,799 7.1%
KUALI'I, KipuKai L.P. 7,165 6.6%
HOOSER, Gary L. 7,063 6.5%
BYNUM, Tim 7,013 6.4%
CHANG, Dickie (Walaau) 6,634 6.1%

As for our legislative contingent, Rep.Derek Kawakami can take comfort in knowing he got the smallest percentage of blank votes, 21%. Sen. Ron Kouchi got the most — 29.8%. 

Musings: Quirks

Though it was too cloudy to see the whole scene today, the planets are doing a nice pre-dawn line-up, with a waning moon cuddling close to Jupiter on Saturday morning, before moving on down the line to Venus on Monday. These are also the peak mornings for checking out the Perseid meteor shower. Might be worth getting out of bed early to make your wish on a “falling star.”

We'll know soon enough whose political star is rising or falling. So until then, let's talk about quirky stuff, like the really trippy cloud action lately. Just lie down on the grass for a few minutes and take a look.

Or check out the new Homeland Security video on how to “survive an active shooter event.” Yup, seems the land of the Second Amendment has gotten so out of control that the feds are now educating the average office worker on how to act when the shooter comes calling. Note: the answers are run, hide, fight, which apparently does not include pulling out your concealed weapon and shooting back.

Sample narrative: “The authorities are working hard to protect you and to protect public places. But sometimes, bad people do bad things. You need to be prepared for the worst.” Sample stereotype: Woman gets hysterical and men protect the group.

Then there's the “counter drug coordinator of the National Guard,” which I think is supposed to reference someone fighting drug use, as opposed to coordinating drugs on the counter, who is hosting an event aimed at "working toward an alcohol and drug free state of Hawaii." Wow. Now the “war on drugs” folks are trying to get rid of legalized alcohol, too. Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile. But apparently they missed the irony in staging it at an Oahu Zippy's — a chain that serves alcohol at some of its outlets.

The Big Pharma legal guys, meanwhile, spent 19 times more promoting their products than on actual basic research. As a result, their revenues climbed more than $200 billion between 1995 and 2010. And they, unlike cannabis minister Roger Cannabis, whose bid for bail was denied once again, are running free and laughing all the way to the bank.

In environmental news, the National Marine Fisheries Service is ignoring the plight of the Hawaii false killer whale, even as its own new studies show the population can sustain just nine fisheries deaths each year, but longliners are killing an average of 13. I think that's what's known as being on a trajectory toward extinction while the feds look the other way.

Oh, and I noticed a Facebook picture posted by a Kapaa man who requires a wheelchair. It was taken beneath a sign on a section of the Path that prohibits wheelchairs. Wow. So we're spending millions per mile on the Path, and it's not even fully ADA accessible?

Meanwhile, a woman in China affixed a scantily clad blow up doll to a tree in hopes of slowing traffic. Here, we just endlessly tear up the roads and have the politicians hold sign.

And finally, as our exploration of Mars continues.....

Musings: Critter Control

Out early, walking with the dogs beneath a clear, white half-moon, the buzz of bees louder, in some areas, than cricket song, a hot pink smudge laying low in the east, and above that, snakeskin clouds that started out white, and then turned gray, before shifting into soft apricot. As the sun rose, Makaleha's summit became a golden crown, the mountain itself appearing as primordial and ethereal as someplace in Middle Earth.

Most of us know that Kauai is a special place, and not just because of its distinctive light and landscape. So I was intrigued to find, on a British website about genetically modified foods that has a neutral to pro-GMO tone, an article that states:

With Hawaii having an abundance of biodiversity, it would seem like one of the last places anyone would want to grow controversial genetically modified (GM) crops. Despite the concerns and debate around GM food production in Hawaii, it is actually the number one industry here.

And that got me wondering, given the overwhelming support the state and counties have shown for those lucrative GM seed crops, what role might the Islands play in the newly emerging field of genetically engineered insects? 

I recently read a long article in The New Yorker, abstracted here, about one such effort under way to combat dengue fever, a disease now present in Hawaii:

Now a British biotechnology company called Oxitec has developed a method to modify the genetic structure of the male Aedes mosquito, essentially transforming it into a mutant capable of destroying its own species.

The company has applied to the FDA for permission to release the insects in Key West, Fla., but ran into public resistance. The "terminator" bugs have already been released in open air field trials in the Caymen Islands, Malaysian and a Brazilian jungle.

The scientists who developed these transgenic mosquitoes say they're safe, and will reduce the use of pesticides, some of which are no longer effective on the creatures. As one researcher told The New Yorker reporter: "The objections so rarely have anything to do with the science or the safety of the research. It is an opposition driven by fear.”

But given what we've seen with GMO crops, fears, it's totally legit to have some fears about this technology, or at least, some reservations.  For example, the chemical companies that developed these products long dismissed concerns about cross-contamination and the creation of superweeds resistant to herbicides, both of which have come to pass. We've also seen the transgenic papaya lose effectiveness against the ringspot virus it was created to resist, a problem that also seems to be occurring with Monsanto's Bt corn and the corn root worm. In short, these transgenic creations are not a cure all, or even a long-term fix.

With so many questions still unanswered about GMO crops, it's a little worrisome to think we are now moving this technology into insects. Besides the mosquito trials, the U.S is currently testing a transgenic cotton bollworm, and more creations are to come. Since Kauai was previously the site of a failed sterile fruit fly study, it's not too far-fetched to think transgenic insects might also be tested here.

As an article in the peer reviewed PloS Journal notes:

The release of GM insects into the environment poses two broad risk issues. There are potential environmental risks associated with the introduction of large numbers of any selected mass-reared population, in many cases of an alien species, that can interact with both the wild population of that species and other, non-target organisms, including humans.

There are also specific risks related to the GM technologies introduced into the process, which may also interact with the broader environment through particular expressed traits, such as metabolic products, or through fitness differences compared to untransformed insects.

There is not yet any widely accepted specific guidance for GM insect releases.

Just something to pay attention to, since I can pretty much guarantee our elected officials are not.

Speaking of which, Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho has once again ignored my request for public documents, requiring me to ask the Office of Information Practices to order her to comply. It's getting so tedious, seeing how this is the third time our "pono" prosecutor has flagrantly violated the public records law.

Specifically, I am seeking:

Records of all expenditures for accessories identified explicitly or implicitly with OPA's POHAKU diversion program, including, but not limited to, orange and black T-shirts, orange and black shopping bags, orange and black hand-held fans, pens, baggies of Hawaiian salt and bracelets, as well as OPA POHAKU booth fees for the County Farm Fair in August 2011.

In an opinion that supposedly "cleared" Shay and POHAKU, Special Counsel Gary Slovin claims, “No public funds were expended” on the program. So who did buy all this promotional paraphernalia?

Musings: Heart Rending

I've been seeing a lot of heart-shaped clouds lately, and not the ones you kinda have to visually fudge, but full-on well-formed hearts, floating in the sky. And that's a good thing, because the world always needs more love, especially with election season in full swing.

We also need a better approach to road repairs on this island, what with traffic on the east side all jam up for two days in a row as they work on both Kaumualii and Kapule highways and Wailua Bridge. Last evening I was getting texts from a friend who was either stopped, or moving 2.5 mph, all the way from Kapaa to Lihue. It's bad for tourism, you know. Cause “The Descendants” never depicted traffic backed up from Lihue to Kealia — or from Hanalei Bridge to Waioli Stream, for that matter. Seriously, WTF are they thinking?

And WTF is The Garden Island thinking, rehashing the POHAKU story they totally muddled the first time around? Oh, I see, it's another chance to stroke Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, with “gag me” language like this:

If the end result will be that POHAKU can continue running, then consider that the program needs assistance for equipment, food and volunteer worksite coordinators, not as task masters, but responsible organization representatives.

Actually, I think I've figured out why TGI has bent over backwards to suck up to Shay. Two years ago, she went after them with both barrels blazing over an article that Paul Curtis wrote. And excuse the mixed metaphors, but they've had their tail between their legs ever since. Sad.

It was also a little sad to hear Solette Perry — the police chief's wife — featured in an attack radio ad for Shay. Solette has never forgiven Justin Kollar for not preventing the chief from being suspended, and that has turned her into a Shay loyalist. I can totally understand where she's coming from. Hell hath no fury like a woman whose husband has been scorned. 

But aside from creating awkwardness for the Chief — who yesterday told me he still has not officially endorsed anyone, and was only photographed smiling with Ale Quibilan, Roy Asher and Shay at her recent fundraiser because “my wife asked me to go and I support my wife” — Solette's “I'm for Shay because I despise Justin” stance raises some sticky political questions.

Like, do we have to hate Justin, just because we like the Chief? Can't you dislike the mayor and the county attorney, yet still see good reason to vote against Shay? Can you continue to like KipuKai Kualii and Mel Rapozo, even though they've backed Shay? Do you have to like Tim Bynum just because Shay screwed him with that prosecutorial vendetta? Should you reject or embrace Dickie Chang and Nadine Nakamura because they essentially remained silent on Shay? Does Jay Furfaro get extra points because he was able to keep Shay and JoAnn Yukimura from scratching each other's eyes out?

It's all so muddled. 

Still, I did have to laugh a little, thinking what might happen if Justin decided to turn the tables on Shay and employ the same negative campaign tactics. He could marshal a sizable army of detractors among her former staff — heck, just among those who have successfully settled EEOC claims against her.

And I had to laugh a lot when I heard Solette say that Shay helps “people wronged by those who are corrupt with power. Shay will fight for what is right. Shay will fight for what is pono.”

OK, if you say so. I'll just totally ignore all the evidence to the contrary, starting with rice cooker gate and continuing on through those EEOC settlements.

Speaking of which, one of those who got money from the county because Shay treated her so shitty is Erin Wilson, the single mom who moved here all the way from Colorado to work as a victim witness coordinator, only to be fired a couple of months into the job because there supposedly wasn't enough work. Yeah, and lil Miss Pono timed it so Erin's last day of work was the day before Thanksgiving, the same day OPA had a big staff party and Shay sent out an email telling everyone how "blessed" she felt to have them working there. What a sensitive gal. No wonder cold-hearted Koloa Camp evictor Mike Tresler supports her.

Now Shay is back before the Council today, asking for permission to apply for both federal and state funds to — you guessed it — beef up the victim witness program. You know, the same one that just nine months ago supposedly did not have enough work to keep Erin busy.

Oh, and she wants to get money for a “keiki POHAKU,” too.

Curious, how she's timed this to get on TV right before the election, even though one would presume she would have already applied for the dough, seeing as how the funding periods start Aug. 1 and Aug. 15, respectively.

But then, that's politics. And as a friend reminded me the other day, there's a lot more going on the world than the prosecutor's race. 

Which is definitely true. So how about if I intersperse posts about Shay with posts about the end of the world?

Those who would rather check out completely might prefer this entertaining video. Which got me thinking, when people start to boycott a restaurant because it serves animals raised in disgustingly dirty and horribly inhumane factory farms, well, then the human race might be showing some sign of evolving. But we're obviously not there yet.

Musings: Brain Dead

“Our poll's better than your poll” is the message that Civil Beat is trying to convey in a story that has Tulsi Gabbard trouncing Mufi Hannemann in the 2^nd Congressional District race.

The Civil Beat poll shows Tulsi with a 20-point lead over Mufi, or 49 to 29 percent. But a recent Hawaii Poll, conducted by Civil Beat competitors Hawaii News Now and the Honolulu Star Advertiser, gives Mufi a 43 percent to 33 percent lead over Tulsi.

Civil Beat defends its results with this rationale:

Civil Beat uses interactive voice response technology, also known as touch-tone polling or, critics say, "robo-polling." The Star-Advertiser uses live telephone interviews. Though there are downsides to touch-tone polling, Civil Beat believes talking to a live person can be intimidating and could drive some voters to say they support the better-known Hannemann even if they really don't.

Nice try, but I have a very hard time believing people would be more responsive to a computerized poll than one taken by a real live human.

Then there's the issue of who gets called. So far as I've been able to determine, the calls are made to landlines. And as a recent National Health Interview Survey found:

More than 3 of every 10 American homes (31.6%) had only wireless telephones (also known as cellular telephones, cell phones, or mobile phones) during the first half of 2011.

And as Huffington Post reported:

Over the years, [senior CDC scientist Stephen] Blumberg has found that lower-income people are more likely than higher-earning Americans to have only wireless phones. Younger people and renters are also quicker to shed traditional landlines.

So surveys conducted by calling landlines are not going to accurately represent the voter demographic. The bigger question is, do political polls have any real value? If the S-A and CB can come up with such different results, doesn't it seem to indicate it's all rather meaningless? Are people so brain dead that they need to be told how others are voting so they can determine how to cast their own ballot?

Something else caught my eye today, a headline that speaks to the very different world we live in. Used to be that factory workers had to worry about getting crushed by equipment or losing a limb on an assembly line. Now, they're facing another threat: chronic exposure to an artificial butter flavoring ingredient.

It seems the ingredient, known as diacetyl, has already been linked to respiratory and other health problems among workers at microwave popcorn and food-flavoring plants. Now a new study shows it may worsen the harmful effects of a protein in the brain linked to Alzheimer's disease.

But no worries, folks, you just go right ahead and keep on eating that crap. If the TV doesn't destroy your brain, the popcorn will.

Finally, here in America, another weekend, another mass murder by semi-automatic weapons, this time by a white supremacist killer who used to be a member of the Army's psychological operations division. Great. It brings to mind that line in the old Frankie Goes to Hollywood song, "Two Tribes:"

Are we living in a land where sex and horror are the new gods? 

Musings: Smoking and Spraying

At first I wasn't sure how long our walk would last this morning, since a light rain was already falling and might possibly get heavier, which it did, but the dogs and I pushed on, anyway, as silver-white beams shot out from a hole in the tawny clouds and a rainbow began to appear, soon forming a perfectly wide and vivid arch before us, one end firmly anchored in a blur of iridescent color on the face of Makaleha, the other wavering in front of the Giant.

A friend called the other day, stuck in traffic in the never-ending roadwork between Kukui Grove and Puhi, ranting a bit and wondering if the massive concrete highway was intended to double as an emergency runway, before observing, “I don't know how these guys pronounce their company name but I just want to say Kiewit already. Enough.”

I must say, when I drove through there Friday evening, along a span so wide that some pedestrians would be hard-pressed to cross the street in the time allotted by just one traffic signal, I thought, with a shudder, is this ugly, impersonal, urban monstrosity the future of our little island?

“It's all to benefit PMRF,” another friend said. “We will have whatever roads they think they need to keep doing whatever toxic, dangerous shit it is they do out there.”

And that got me thinking of how Councilman Dickie Chang is pushing a bill to ban smoking in county parks, supposedly to protect people's health, when meanwhile, the county continues to spray herbicides at the parks and alongside roads. As I reported for Honolulu Weekly back in 2009, county ADA coordinator Christina Pilkington, who has since been inexplicably relieved of her job, met a lot of resistance, but was finally able to convince the county to stop spraying at some East Kauai parks. But just the other day I saw a county worker ready to Roundup Kapahi Park, which is heavily used by very young children.

The Council is pushing the no-smoking bill at the behest of the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawaii, and I thought, so how come you guys aren't also listening to the coalition that is pushing for a GMO-Free Kauai? How come the Department of Health, which is throwing money at the Path and the anti-tobacco coalition, doesn't give the anti-GMO guys any money? Because GMOs are inextricably linked to pesticide use, and we know that pesticides are harmful to human and environmental health.

As Dr. Basko reported on his Pets, People and Paradise radio show yesterday, a new study by Dr. Charles Benbrook of the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University found that herbicide-resistant crops have resulted in a dramatic increase in herbicide use. In the first 16 years that these Roundup Ready-type crops were on the market, farmers used an estimated 527 million pounds more herbicide than they otherwise would have.

Meanwhile, the heavy poison use has caused some 22 species of weeds to develop resistance to the glyphosate in Roundup. So now the chemical companies that are cultivating lands from Lihue to Mana want to up the ante with the next generation of crops resistant to such super nasty concoctions as 2,4-D, dicamba, and paraquat.

Since Kauai is used for both experimentation and seed cultivation, they'll be seeing just how big a dose the crops can withstand, which means more pesticides leaching into our soil, water and ocean, floating on the breeze.

So I kinda had a WTF? moment when I read that Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura supports the non-smoking bill because “One of the visions for Kaua‘i is a place for health and healing.”

Guess it's a lot easier to bully smokers than confront the multinational chemical companies that have assumed control of the island's agriculture, with the full support of the county and major landowners like Grove Farm, Gay & Robinson and Kamehameha Schools-Bishop Estate.

Meanwhile, the Kekaha Hawaiian Homestead Association has expressed concerns about the state's plan to ship soil contaminated with dioxin and arsenic years from Kilauea to their back yard. Aside from the social injustice issues, rapidly accelerating coastal erosion is a serious concern, seeing as how the Kekaha landfill is right on the ocean.

I was a little concerned when I read the July 31 opinion issued by Special Counsel Gary Slovin, in which he gave this description of his duties:

Special Council was retained, effective June 25, 2012, to analyze and assess the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the P.O.H.A.K.U. diversionary program that was established during the year 2011 by the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney.

I didn't recall the County Council giving any such direction when it authorized spending up to $15,000 on Special Council to represent the OPA. So I checked, and here is what is stated in Slovin's contract with the County:

Scope of Services. Special Counsel shall provide all such professional legal services as may be necessary to represent the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney limited to civil matters related to the POHAKU program.

So him issuing “a decision” that prompts a press release from Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho claiming “P.O.H.A.K.U. Cleared: Declared Legal and Valuable” seems to be just a bit of a stretch.

Since the county has not yet made any payments to Slovin, perhaps he could bill Shay's re-election campaign, instead, since that seems to the primary beneficiary of his work. 

And finally, the best "laugh out loud" experience I had all week was seeing a guy driving a pick up truck on Kuhio Highway, with a big dog sitting in the passenger seat, gazing at him with adoration and steadily licking his face. 

Musings: More Tragic Deception

Not content to misrepresent the facts once, Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho has now put out a second press release in which she claims County Attorney Al Castillo is discrediting the opinion of her Special Counsel. 

Actually, Al didn't discredit it at all. He just made it clear that it's one attorney's opinion. If anything, he was discrediting Shay.

And if Shay wasn't trying to madly spin the opinion with her first press release, why didn't she release the document then? Oh, because then we could've seen for ourselves that she was lying. First rule of being in a hole: quit digging.

Musings: Tragically Deceptive

Well, The Garden Island did it again, dutifully serving up the self-serving shibai of Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho.

I'm taking about today's lead article, which repeats the essentially meaningless claim in Shay's press release that POHAKU was “cleared this week of wrongdoing by special outside counsel.” What it doesn't mention is that County Attorney Al Castillo took the unprecedented step of issuing a press release rebutting Shay's claims — precisely because they are so bogus.

For starters, the article claims the County Attorney's office hired special counsel Gary Slovin to investigate POHAKU. That is so wrong that TGI should print a correction. Slovin was hired to represent OPA after Shay refused to answer County Council questions about the program unless she was given her own attorney. Slovin's assessment of the situation is the equivalent of a defense attorney saying, “My client is innocent.”

TGI waits until the very last paragraph — perhaps because that's where it appeared in Al's press release — to report Al's comment:

“It is noteworthy that, although the Prosecuting Attorney asserts in the release that her office has been ‘cleared’ in this matter, that decision is ultimately up to the agencies that are investigating P.O.H.A.K.U.”

Agencies like the state Attorney General and county Board of Ethics. Btw, check out the agenda for BOE's special meeting next week. Wanna bet Shay and/or first deputy Jake Delaplane are not complying with the BOE investigator's subpoena?

The article does not offer any response to Slovin's opinion until the ninth paragraph, by which time many readers would have already moved on. Even TGI's subhead downplays the conflict: “But county attorney, finance director still say procurement process poses problem”

What Al's press release actually says is:

The County Attorney, the Finance Director and the Assistant Chief Procurement Officer disagree with his [Slovin's] assessment that procurement law does not apply to P.O.H.A.K.U. and that procurement laws were not violated. In fact, an internal procurement investigation that was conducted by the Department of Finance – which is standard operating procedure when a violation is suspected or alleged – found that procurement laws were violated in the implementation of the P.O.H.A.K.U. This finding was transmitted to the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney, along with recommendations on how to avoid such violations in the future.

OK, so we've got the Finance Director, who is “recognized in Hawai‘i Revised Statutes as the authority on procurement matters,” saying OPA violated state procurement laws. Are we to believe him, or Shay's attorney?

The article also repeats Shay's false contention that a County Attorney's opinion “effectively halted diversion programs including Drug Court, Teen Court and POHAKU.” As those of us who have followed the issue know, and as Al's press release makes clear:

“she [Shay] was repeatedly informed by the Administration that only P.O.H.A.K.U. was in question. She was advised that all other diversionary programs could, and, in fact, should continue, and if procurement was necessary, proper procedures should be followed.

The article then regurgitates this statement by Shay, while failing to note that she alone inflicted this “damage” by her reactionary decision to stop all diversionary programs:

“Too many have been hurt by losing the opportunity to participate in these helpful programs, but the damage stops today,” Iseri-Carvalho said. “Effective immediately, we will re-launch our referrals to these programs that promote justice, unity and healing throughout the community.”

And let's just not think about the poor defendants who got totally screwed in the meantime because of Shay's political gamesmanship.

Al's press release then goes on to point out how Shay's press release left out “important contextual and qualifying information provided by the Special Counsel.” For example:

“While it is true, as stated in the Prosecuting Attorney’s release, that Special Counsel found no evidence that the First Deputy made personal gain from his position as agent for SJP, the release does not fully quote Slovin on this matter. Slovin’s full comment was: ‘Special Counsel found no evidence that the First Deputy made any personal gain from this position. However, serving in that position creates an appearance of impropriety even if none existed. Therefore, if the program should be resumed, no one in the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office should occupy such a position.’

In other words, Shay cherry-picked and misrepresented info to make herself and Jake look good. Such integrous behavior on the part of a prosecutor.

While we're on the topic of integrous behavior, nowhere in the article does the reporter — and I use the term loosely — reveal that nearly all of his information was lifted verbatim from press releases issued by the respective parties. Come on, man, that's Journalism 101.

TGI's abysmal coverage of Shay and the OPA has moved beyond sad and into the realm of tragically deceptive. 

What's deceptively tragic is that taxpayers plunked down $10,000 — correction, Council approved up to $15,000 — to hire Slovin so that Shay could use him to try and sweep this controversy under the rug before the primary election. 

But as some of us already know, OPA is sitting on way more dirt than POHAKU. And as it starts to sift out, not even Shay will have a big enough broom to clear it all away.

Finally, since we're talking about crappy reporting by TGI, I'll take this opportunity to clarify details in a TGI article that I referenced in commenting on a drug conviction overturned by the Intermediate Court of Appeals. The ICA actually found that Circuit Court Judge Randal Valenciano acted properly during the trial, but the jury rendered a flawed decision.

Musings: No Haters

The full moon was up but going down, and all the stars and planets were out, though faint in the light-washed sky, when the dogs and I headed out for a walk on the mountain trail that brought such gifts as cloud tendrils draped around jagged green peaks, blood red lehua blossoms and on our return, a curtain of light beams shooting into the sea from a bank of orange-red clouds that held the sun.

I went because there's something about going mauka, into the native vegetation, away from the sounds of cars and people, that is more restorative than anything I know. And I went because I was reminded of its recharge powers yesterday by a friend — a hot-headed local boy from Hanalei — who had sought such solace after an encounter with tourists on the North Shore.

Seems he'd been driving along the road up there, when a car passed, heading in the opposite direction, and he felt some hard objects, which he determined to be candy, pelting his face and bare chest through the open window of his car. 

“It was coming at like mock speed, so I knew it had to be aimed. Get a lot of sassy people in Hanalei, tourists and newbees, it's hard to tell the difference. I was livid. So I threw my car in reverse and caught up with them at the bridge. And I'm telling them that kinda shit don't fly, they could've put somebody's eye out. Then I hear this hee hee coming from some kids in the back seat and I'm like, wrong guy, you don't hee hee toward me, and the dad says, I told you not to be throwing things out of the window. So right there, he admitted it, and I was just so pissed off I reached in and slapped him upside the head.”

“What? You can't go around hitting people.”

“I didn't use my fist. It was an open hand.”

“Still. You can't be doing that kinda stuff. What did the guy do?”

“Nothing. Because he knew he was wrong. I thought it was just. It felt really good to dispense some roadside discipline. You hear all the old timers saying, what happened to our sleepy little Hanalei? And I tell them, our town stay overrun with these sassy motherfuckers, and they're like, yeah, get way too many haoles nowadays and I'm like, don't you think that's a little racist? I don't know. This place is getting nuts. Hanalei is so fucked up, the entire North Shore is gone. We need to take a good hard look at what this progress we say we can't stop is really all about. I'm like a bomb ready to go off.”

“It sounds like you already did.”

“Yeah. Well, I'm not the only one.”

“I don't imagine you are.”

“So I'm all nuts, but then I go up mauka, way up mauka, where the oopu live, and I saw them swimming in their pools and I felt good again. You gotta go back to those places that remind you, yeah, this is what's real. It's not the tourists. It's not the guys taking down the mountain for a fucking road. It's this.”

It brought to mind the conversation I'd had with Kaiulani (Edens) Mahuka the night before, when she talked about how William Aila, a Native Hawaiian who is head of DLNR, told her the state had only recognized four lineal descendants in Wailua and she wasn't one of them, so she didn't have a say about what happened to iwi in the district.

“When you have the original people in the country, it only makes sense they should govern their own shit, but it doesn't make sense to say some don't have enough blood quantum. It's apartheid. It is saying I have more rights than you because I have more blood quantum than you. This is exactly what Nelson Mandela spent his entire life fighting, but because it's so colonized here, we're used to it. It's absolutely evil. It's not Hawaiian.

“I always imagined my enemies were the officials of government, when under apartheid, my own kind are working harder than anything to obliterate our past," she said. "William Aila, that Pua [Aiu] chick at SHPD, they're working 70 to 80 hours a week for the state. They're working harder to destroy our iwi, our antiquities, than I am to save them. When I realized that, I didn't even want to leave my yard. I think I understand why so many people are on anti-depressants."

She sighed. “No matter what, we're always going to be dealing with a corrupt government, but how do we help our people prosper, anyway? And how do we not hate?”

It's a good question, one that needs an answer as tensions mount and tempers fray in the face of rapid, seemingly unalterable changes, to this island, to the planet. Good people, caring people, people like my friend and Kaiulani, don't want to hate, don't want to be going off on anybody, don't want to be existing in a perpetual state of unease. Yet how, really, do you live comfortably in a society that is antithetical to your values, that seems hellbent on following the wrong path? How do you move easily within a system that requires land, water, communities, indigenous cultures, to be destroyed, defiled, degraded in order to keep running?

I think Kaiulani has the answer, though it's one that many will find hard to hear, and even harder to heed: “What if we all just supported the truth?"

Musings: Dirty Dirt

August — already. It's a month that opens and closes on a full moon, giving us a once in a blue moon chance to do something really extraordinary. Or not.

So the state Department of Health has figured out what to do with the arsenic- and dioxin-contaminated soil that was found up at Kilauea two years ago. It plans to ship the dirty dirt — some 500 to 600 cubic yards — over to the landfill at Kekaha.

Does anyone else see the irony in dumping soil made toxic by plantation pesticides over on the westside, where the GMO seed companies with their heavy chem use are currently engaged in the modern day version of soil poisoning? We don't learn, do we? I mean, this shit don't die. It just lingers for decades.

But no worries, because even though five to six truckloads of contaminated dirt per day will be transported across the island, DOH assures us that, “All construction, transport and soil activities will employ dust suppression techniques to minimize dust emissions and limit nuisance dust concerns. Although full dust control is anticipated, small amounts of fugitive dust that may drift away from the site during excavation will not pose a significant health risk.” Oh, and they're gonna train the landfill guys, too.

Work is supposed to start on Aug. 6 and will continue, Monday through Saturday, for three weeks. Sounds like a good time to avoid Kilauea. Unless, of course, you happen to live there. But hey, guys, just look at it as a warm up for the construction noise and dust you'll get when work begins on that new shopping center on Kilauea Lighthouse Road you don't really want or need.

All Kaiulani (Edens) Mahuka wants and needs is a little justice, but she's given up hopes of finding that in the western legal system. I had a chat with her yesterday afternoon, and we talked about her recent sentencing for attempting to keep iwi kupuna from being dug up during construction of bathrooms at Kaumualii Park in Wailua. Mostly, she had a lot of questions.

For example, her attorney, Charley Foster, recently resigned from her case to take a job with the Office of Prosecuting Attorney — writing appeals, and press releases (so I guess we know who was behind that mean-spirited ear-licking attorney release).

“He just filed my appeal, and now he does appeals for the prosecutor,” Kaiulani said. “What does that mean? How long was he in negotiations with the OPA for the job? Was it during my trial? My sentencing? When he was working on my appeal?”

Kaiulani also noted that Judge Trudy Senda had told her the state would pay the higher cost of providing her with a criminal defense attorney, as opposed to a regular old public defender, because she wanted a sovereignty defense, “but sovereignty was the first thing they threw out.”

“I don't think my attorney had any intention of getting me off,” she said.

I must say, I did wonder when I saw Charley was representing Kaiu, as I can recall some of the antipathy he expressed on his Planet Kauai blog against the folks protesting the iwi desecretion at Naue. But when I did a quick search of his blog, I found surprisingly few references to her. Perhaps they've been purged.

However, I did find this 2008 post that expressed his views on the sovereignty movement:

To wish for a higher level of sovereignty than what the (unlikely to pass) Akaka Bill offers is definitly a predicament. It is politically unrealistic in Hawaii and politically impossible in the other 49 United States..... Ignoring (read outside/above) the law is another losing strategy. 

Like Tiananmen Square protests in China, a certain time came and went for the Hawaiian Soverignty [sic] Movement in the early 90's . There was a renaissance and recovery in Hawaiian music, culture, and language. There was the "Apology Resolution." Momentum rose and fell. Those revolutionary good times are distant history. The movement has disintegrated into marginalized groups of 20 trying to take over the Palace in different and separate ways; into piggybacking causes like Superferry protests; into 30 people present at Naue; into the same 20 people meeting at the end of Hanalei pier year after year; into lip service from non Hawaiians who don't feel personally threatened; into a few belligerent Tutus on Kauai; and into something that is simply annoying.

And amusingly, when I looked at Charley's Facebook page, I noticed that under “activities and interests” he had listed “Justin Kollar for Kauai Prosecutor.” Um, does that mean he won't be holding sign for his boss, Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho?

Wait — he already did. Such a handy trait for an attorney, the ability to switch sides when somebody pays you.

Kaiulani similarly wondered what it meant when Shay asked her to hold sign after prosecuting her on the obstruction of government operations charge. “Does this mean she wants to re-establish her friendship with me? I'm just very puzzled by it.”

And according to Kaiulani, Shay got a restraining order against a woman who engaged in a “heated debate” with the prosecutor during one of the recent public safety meetings held around the island. Apparently the woman yelled at Shay, “You're evil.” Gee, too bad the newspaper didn't cover that one.

Anyway, attorney Mark Zenger has been appointed to represent Kaiulani during her appeal, a prospect she does not find heartening “because he dropped the ball on me when I was arrested at Papaa Bay. The charges were dismissed, but I never heard anything from him.”

“I feel like a duck that's going round and round at a carnival and they keep shooting at me,” she said.

Musings: No Surprise

It's summertime, which means hunting for yellow lilikoi as if they were Easter eggs amid the fallen branches and monstera vines, drying thick slices of papaya because I've got more fresh than I can handle, watching the bees in their frantic, yet orderly, quest to bring in the nectar.

And since it's an election year, it means political fundraisers, forums and fliers. Though the tendency is to toss the literature unread in the recycling bin, you can sometimes glean information about where their pointed little heads are really at. Take Mufi Hanneman's most recent flyer, for example.

First thing that struck me was, where are the haoles? The big Muff's got photos of nine people endorsing him and only one looks possibly like a haole. So I immediately think, OK, he's decided to pander to the local vote, which tells me he doesn't give a shit about a big chunk of the state's population. Just the kind of guy I want to have as my representative in Congress.

I look at some of those faces supporting him — Phil Tacbian, the biggest dud on KIUC; Mike Tresler, the guy who coldly evicted folks at Koloa Camp on behalf of Grove Farm, Sen. Ron Kouchi, nuff said. Further solid proof that he's not my candidate. Then I see that former Mayor Maryanne Kusaka is co-chair of his statewide campaign. This is the woman who actually said to me, in front of my former husband and his parents, all local Japanese, “I didn't know you had local connections. I'll have to be nicer to you.” 

Oh, and let's not forget the way she pulled off the county inspector who was trying to crack down on Jimmy Pflueger's illegal grading at Kaloko.

When you've got someone like Maryanne chairing your campaign, it speaks volumes about your values — or lack thereof.

Let's face it: Mufi is a good old boy to da max.

So yeah, Tulsi Gabbard is gonna get my vote. Some people don't like her because of her dad, Mike Gabbard, and his homophobia, but I'm not gonna hold that against her. I certainly didn't share my father's political views, and besides, Tulsi has come out strongly in favor of equal rights for all. I didn't know much about Tulsi until I heard her on KKCR, where she said she had become strongly anti-war after serving two combat deployments in the National Guard and wants to immediately end the war in Afghanistan.

Plus she's an environmentalist, and we need more women in Congress. I know some people like Esther Kiaaina, but she ain't gonna win, so you gotta face reality and recognize that a vote for her is essentially a vote for Mufi.

In other matters, I noticed that attorney Dan Hempey got the Intermediate Court of Appeals to overturn a drug possession conviction that Judge Randal Valenciano presided over. Way to go, Dan. Looks like the 95% conviction rate that Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho hypes — and I'll be looking at some of those bogus crime stats in an upcoming post — just took another hit. Kinda makes you wonder how many more convictions could be overturned if attorneys had the time and compassion to follow through.

What blew my mind, though, was the guy supposedly had .009 grams of methamphetamine, yet Randal sentenced him to five years in prison for third degree promotion of a dangerous drug. Do you know what a teeny tiny amount that is?

So the state is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars — actually, probably millions — to convict and incarcerate people for possessing essentially crumbs, yet virtually nothing on rehab. As a friend noted the other day, if the Mayor can seize Mike Sheehan's boatyard, surely he can find a location for an adolescent drug treatment center on this island.

Madness. Fricking madness.

And finally, it seems that Kauai tourism isn't the only business that's booming. Yeah, the U.S. is looking at a 70 percent increase in weapons sales to foreign nations this year. Some $50 billion have already been sold this year. When you consider the kind of carnage we're supporting around the world, the Aurora massacre is small potatoes — and no surprise.