Musings: Bluster and Bling

The pale light of a cloud-streaked shrinking moon illuminated a damp world filled with melodically warbling birds when the dogs and I went walking this morning. And even though the dawn arrived, it hasn't gotten much brighter or lighter, hinting at a repeat of yesterday's blustery rain.

Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho is on the front page of The Garden Island today, asking the voters to let her do a repeat performance as she blusters about her record by spouting a lot of meaningless statistics that the reporter reports without question.

Which is why readers are left trying to decipher this kind of gobbledygook:

Iseri-Carvalho said youth crime on Kauai increased 142 percent in her first year, from increased crime and also from picking up on a backlog of unprosecuted cases. Juvenile crime is down 7 percent from last year.

You don't affect the rate of crime simply by picking up cases that weren't previously prosecuted.

I was especially amused by Shay's claim that she wants to protect Native Hawaiian interests when her office has been rabid about going after Dayne Gonsalves' Kingdom of Atooi badge — to the point of appealing Judge Kathleen Watanabe's order to return it.

What I found really interesting was Shay's claim that some of her deputies had been dismissed for abusing their power. So then she shouldn't be surprised if she's dismissed her for abusing hers...

Mostly, I was intrigued by the story's very convenient timing, coming on the heels of her office suffering a major embarrassment in being dismissed from the Tim Bynum zoning case. Wonder how she wrangled that, especially when the paper has yet to report on another prosecutorial embarrassment: the judge suppressing all the evidence in the suspected cocaine smuggling ring involving employees of Young Brothers and The Gas Co. because the cops lied to get a search warrant.

On the issue of timing, retired Army colonel and international peace activist Ann Wright will be speaking at the Kapaa Library conference room from 6:30 to 9 tonight. The topic: the military madness in the world today, of which there is no shortage. It will be followed by a Q&A session.

And today is the day the Koloa Camp folks are supposed to get out, though they are going to fight the eviction notice from Greed Farm in court. That may buy them a little time, though it's doubtful they'll be able to forestall it completely. 

But while so many people and businesses seem to be motivated solely by greed, I'm happy to report that not everyone everywhere is blindsided by bling. Residents of a remote Swiss village recently voted to reject a Canadian company's proposal to prospect for an estimated $1.2 billion worth of gold ore in the surrounding mountains, even though they would've gotten a share of the proceeds.

Of course the usual claims were made: economic revitalization, jobs for the kids who are leaving, extra business for the shops. Oh, and the mine would have just “a small footprint.”

But as The Telegraph reports:

Many people feared that the valley, with its crystal-clear streams, coniferous forests and timber barns, would have been irrevocably scarred by the mine, from which around five million ton of rock would have been dug.

"The money would have been nice," said 17-year-old Nicole Venzin, sitting on a bench on Curaglia's main street as elderly women entered the tiny supermarket with shopping bags. "But what sort of future would we have if we ruined the environment?"

We're lookin' at it right now....