Musings: One Little Hiccup

Koko and I went out in the night to look for meteors, and although the clouds weren’t cooperating, I didn’t mind because it was still an opportunity to marvel at bright and winking Jupiter and the amount of light produced by stars, even when they’re blanketed.

Waking again, hours later, to the glow of orange on the horizon, we went out walking in the finest misty rain, a chill wind blowing from the east, the mountains buried in mounds of white fleece.

“This is some very strange weather we’re having,” said Farmer Jerry, when we encountered him along the road. “It’s like the seasons have been flipped. I guess this is the change, although when you look at it, the climate has actually been changing for the last 20,000 years.”

We talked about global implications of climate change: the fires in Russia, calling out the army to avert water riots in Manilla, the prospect of farming on the steppes of Alaska.

“When you consider that 90 percent of the species that ever existed on Earth have gone extinct, it doesn’t really look good for us,” he said with a laugh. “Just one little hiccup and we’ll be gone.”

“Thanks for putting things in perspective for me,” I said, and we parted ways and I walked on, past horses nuzzling one another in a pasture while sheets of rain blew across Haupu, back to my house, where yellow light was streaming through the thicket of trees, causing the raindrops on their leaves to glint and sparkle while all the birds were singing.

Thus fortified, I merged onto the information highway, where I was struck by a comment in an article about the Council voting to ease the affordable housing condition placed on A&B for its massive Kukuiula project:

Councilman Derek Kawakami said the developers, besides meeting housing requirements, have given a lot to the community, including a 20-acre community park, the development of another park at Kukui‘ula Bay, plus several beach accesses and other concessions.

Yes, and in return they got the privilege of turning agricultural land into an extremely lucrative luxury resort project that will radically transform the southside — unless the economy remains stalled. The kinds of concessions required of developers on this island are manini compared to what is extracted elsewhere in the nation and still they whine and try to weasel out.

And the Council goes along, allowing A&B to sell the homes on the open market if no buyers are found after a 14-month sales period.

Meanwhile, it’s interesting to see how another Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is responding to the same-sex union issue. While our guv won’t even sign off on civil unions, Arnold and the California AG Jerry Brown have filed legal motions asking for same-sex marriages to resume immediately in the wake of a judge’s ruling that the ban on them was unconstitutional.

In the more creepy crap headed for your dinner table department, they’re now using the cells of dead animals to clone cattle with desirable characteristics for breeding stock.

According to its [Whole Foods] global vice-president, Margaret Wittenberg, although meat and milk from cloned animals has been allowed to go on sale in the US, most Americans have never heard of it.

"A lot of customers in the United States are oblivious of it," she said.

"You don't hear about it in the media. And when you do tell people about it they look at you and say 'you're kidding! They're not doing that are they? Why would they?'"

What else do you suppose you don’t know about the food in the grocery store? Just another good reason to eat organic and buy local.