Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Musings: Naughty and Naught

Sunrise at Kapaa Beach Park, women and older couples walking the path, derelicts rousing themselves from the naupaka, the boys already — or perhaps still — dealing drugs in the parking lot, a hen and her tiny brood devouring rice from a Styrofoam plate lunch carton flapping in the breeze.

As tourists slumber behind the mostly closed and curtained sliding glass doors of their oceanfront Kapaa hotel rooms, another world unfolds.

Speaking of other worlds, I've been exercising my reportorial due diligence on the westside, accepting a long-offered tour of PMRF, where I watched Capt. Bruce Hay, the base commander, deftly maneuver a pulled pork sandwich without spilling a drop of barbecue sauce on his dress whites and stood upon Nohili dune for the first time since the rocket launch protests 18 years ago. More on that later.

I also spent a long day visiting all four of the westside seed companies, where I saw Pioneer's poison container, a demonstration of Dow's sprayer, Syngenta's fields nearest Waimea Canyon Middle School and BASF's rice paddies on the Mana plain.

I left convinced that purt near everything Gary Hooser, Tim Bynum and the anti-GMO contingent have said about the companies and their operations here is complete and utter bullshit, and so egregiously incorrect as to surpass mere ignorance and move into the realm of deliberate distortion and fear-mongering lies. More on all that later.

While we're on the topic of lies, let's delve into another one. After I reported that Gary had been busted trespassing on Pioneer (G&R) land, Anonymous left this comment:

Joan I just asked Gary directly and he said you were full of it. No citation. No notice. No trespassing. Apparently he was standing next to the road or sitting in a parked car next to the road while a camera guy took pictures of the fields. Why feed the trolls Joan? It does no one any good and only further divide.

Well, I saw photos of Gary — his paunch, jowls and garish blue shirt unmistakeable — standing in Pioneer's fields, well behind the yellow gate on the old haul cane road, next to a man who has been identified as French reporter Martin Boudot. The shots were taken last Friday.

Boudot and a companion, driving a car registered to anti-GMO activist Fern Rosenstiel, had been stopped two days prior while trespassing onto Syngenta's fields.

How ironically inappropriate that Gary, chair of the County Council's public safety committee, is engaged in trespassing onto private property, and aiding and abetting a foreign journalist in trespassing.

Doesn't this rise above the offense of throwing a pencil, which resulted in Council Chair Mel Rapozo seeking sanctions against former Councilman Tim Bynum?

Coupled with Gary's other transgressions in the past six months — lobbying for his HAPA group at the Lege, his “bite me” comment to Rep. Jimmy Tokioka in open session, rudely cutting off testimony during the fireplace smoke bill, his personal letters to the Lege written on Council stationery with Council staff listed as contacts, and missing a Council meeting to fly to Basel, Switzerland to propagandize Syngenta shareholders while identifying himself as a Council member and lawmaker — surely there's cause for his Council colleagues to take some sort of disciplinary action.

Meanwhile, the anti-GMO initiative on Maui appears doomed, with U.S. District Court Judge Susan Mollway sharply questioning SHAKA attorney Michael Carroll, whose specialty is real estate and construction law, in a hearing this week on the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment.

Yet he, like the Earthjustice and Center for Food Safety attorneys who saw their anti-GMO legislation overturned on Kauai and Hawaii Island, is confident he can win on appeal, even if he loses the first round. Translate that to: keep sending money, while I milk this for all it's worth.

Civil Beat helpfully posted a link to the legal arguments that almost, but not quite, made up for Anita Hofschneider's piss poor reporting on the issue, which included an “it sucks” crybaby quote from SKAKA founder Mark Sheehan, who also happens to be a high-end Maui Realtor.

The plaintiffs argued the initiative is invalid because it's pre-empted by state and federal law, and violates multiple provisions of the Maui County Charter, thus rendering it unenforceable. The Kauai and Hawaii county laws were already overturned by a federal judge who found they were pre-empted by state law, a legal tenet that presumably will also apply in this case.

SHAKA claimed the moratorium is needed because seed companies “use the land in a more destructive way than commercial agriculture, which results in higher risks for pollution and health problems” and no laws protect Maui County from the harms. Except, of course, all those state and federal laws regulating pesticide use and other environmental issues.

The brief does acknowledge that none of its claims of harmful health effects on residents or farm workers have been “scientifically evaluated” before citing Hector Valenzuela, who is a UH crop specialist, not a physician, as saying there's “urgent need” to study these “potentially harmful” impacts.

Carroll, in arguing for Maui County's right to regulate GMOs, cites its regulation of “smoke, soot, poisonous gases, dirt, dust and debris into the open air.” Gosh, that's the very same ordinance upon which Gary modeled his own unsuccessful nuisance bill, under the guise of controlling fireplace smoke.

In the end, SHAKA's brief contended that even if the moratorium part of the measure is found to be invalid, it could be severed from the ordinance and all the rest would remain valid. Uh, sorry, but it doesn't work quite that way.

Mollway promised a decision in a week or two, at which time it will likely be made clear that all the anti-GMO legislation in Hawaii was a giant flop, save for clarifying that the state does, indeed, have pre-emptive powers, and all the associated angst and drama was for naught, save for lining the pockets of a few activists and attorneys.

Is anybody feeling a bit used?

45 comments:

Anonymous said...

But don't you realize that Judge Mollway is corrupt? I'm sorry, I didn't explain my semantics enough. Corrupt = does not rule the way I want. (Jon Rappaports' definition).

Sarcasm aside, no surprises here. Joan, what do you think the real agenda of Hooser et. al. is, given that all of the legislation they craft is not worth the paper it is printed upon?

Anonymous said...

Post the picture Joan!

Joan Conrow said...

I asked for permission to use it and it's pending the company's legal review. In the meantime, you'll just have to take my word for it, as a credible, named source, oh ye Anonymous apologist for Hooser.

Anonymous said...

What pray tell is the need for your derogatory desciption of Gary's physical attributes in order to tell your story? To feed the hate? For entertainment value? Sounds like you've lost objectivity not unlike Fern and Gary. This topic is so fucking old Joan.

Joan Conrow said...

Derogatory is in the eye of the beholder. I was merely trying to be clear that I had positively identified Gary in a photo.

Anonymous said...

All those who question your writing are "apologist for Hooser? I think not. Kauai is a small community. Many don't want to be shredded publicly by your biting words.

Anonymous said...

The one thing that I don't miss is when driving on the west side of Kauai and then coming home with my vehicle plastered with dead insects.

Is that good or is that bad? And if it can kill billions or trillions of insects then can the same thing that is being used kill me?

Anonymous said...

Yhea right. And you wonder why more people don't sign their name.

Anonymous said...


@ 10:38 -- That is not unique to the westside. It's true all over Kauai, and the mainland, too.

Anonymous said...

You get fewer insects on your windshield when the weeds on the side of the road have been mowed down. Some areas are getting tall again, though, and I got a windshield full of gnats driving on the westside this morning.

Anonymous said...

There was just a 'big' internet debate about how cars are generally more aerodynamic, which has led to the decrease in noticeable smooshed bugs in the windshield.

http://www.cartalk.com/blogs/dear-car-talk/what-happened-all-dead-bugs

Anonymous said...

this is good stuff Joan. it is clean and fun unless you have hate then one gets very defensive and use bad words. watching the cowboy and indians movie long ago there was a comment made by the indians about some people that speak with forked tongue. it was also made clear to me that politicians have that right to lie. we try be honest, only one answer every time.

Chuck Lasker said...

While Dustin Barca surmised that insecticides harm us by saying, "after all, we're just giant bugs," I would contend that no, we are not at all bugs. A little research into biology will reveal a massive difference between humans and the bugs targeted by insecticides. For example, the common Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) insecticide, in use since the 1920s works by harming the stomachs of insects. Insects have base stomachs, while we have acidic stomachs. In other words, if we ingest Bt, it's harmless because it is destroyed by the acids in our stomachs.

Humans are even further away from the anatomy of plants, so herbicides designed to kill a plant may have zero effect on humans, because we're not plants.

It's sort of like believing chocolate will kill us because it kills dogs. The differences in anatomy matter.

Anonymous said...

Does any one really think Gary gives two-corn husks on conversations about his trespassing?
Nothing will come of it. The Council takes care of their own.

Anonymous said...

You are so full of hate and bs Joan. There is no picture of Hooser standing in the fields. No picture will ever be released because none exists. It is frightening the lengths that you are going to in order to bring down Gary.

Joan Conrow said...

What I find disturbing are people like you, who project their own hate upon others — though always under cover of anonymity — and refuse to accept reality about a political demagogue. I didn't make any of this up. I don't need to. Gary's hubris and disingenuousness goes well beyond anything I might have imagined.

Anonymous said...

Joan, you are so strong. If I ever see you in public, I will personally thank you for what you do. Truth hurts and makes some people very defensive and nasty. Thank you for going out and walking the talk. MOST westside residents have no problem with the seed industry. They are part of the economic sustainability for a lot of families and businesses. People forget what we went through when the plantations shut down. Where would people get employed? How could they possibly continue to live here? Enough of this nonsense, live life as happily as you can and appreciate the fact that you were fortunate to have been born into this world. Hawaii is certainly the best and least polluted place to live, because can you imagine being born in a country of pollution and unrest? We are blessed, so why not keep the peace and live in harmony!

Anonymous said...

You must have just moved to Kauai recently and never experienced the bugs back in the 70's, 80's, 90's and before and after hurricanes Iwa and Iniki.

Anonymous said...

1:46 says, "Humans are even further away from the anatomy of plants, so herbicides designed to kill a plant may have zero effect on humans, because we're not plants." It is good you qualified this statement with the word "may". Because I immediately recall the herbicide, Agent Orange". and all of the Vietnamese people and American veterans who have died or suffered incredible pain and suffering to this very day. I say a prayer for them, and condemn the companies that promoted, sold and profited from this inhuman use of herbicidal warfare. I wonder which companies were responsible for this (not!)? Are these companies to be trusted today with all the herbicides they still produce? If they have been proven to be so untrustworthy in the recent past, why should we trust them now. Do any of these companies operate in Hawai"i?

Anonymous said...

Do the practices of the westside seed companies compliment and support traditional Hawaiian cultural practices such as aloha ʻāina and sustainable methods of caring for the land, air and water? What do kanaka maoli cultural practitioners think of these westside seed companysʻ methods of farming and caring for the land?

Anonymous said...

@ 8:40 you are asking questions that you already know the answer to.

Anonymous said...

@8:40 - could you provide more detail on those practices? Then they could be compared to current practices of all farmers.

Anonymous said...

"What do kanaka maoli cultural practitioners think of these westside seed companysʻ methods of farming and caring for the land?"

Do they even know what the companies' methods are???

Anonymous said...

June 17 @6:24, you must think that Joan Photoshopped the picture of Gary standing on Pioneer property. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Anonymous said...

Get real, development does not support Aloha Aina and all the real estate land developers trying to get rid of agriculture on this island via no cows, no corn, no nothin except tourists is not aloha aina.
How much restricted use pesticides are used at the resorts and the golf courses ? Aloha aina more like aloha more dollars. Please tell me any issue the real esnakes have ever cared about besides themselves?If they really cared about poison use, not the eventual sale and development of the land, princeville would be the topic of their angst.

Anonymous said...

Society has many types of people and businesses.
We need builders and realtors for our housing.
We need Ag, tourism, offices, stores etc to provide for our needs.
And we need Government to make all of the processes more expensive, complicated and impossible.
The government on Kauai is not for the people, the laws that Council passes are against the people. Try name one law that gave more freedom? No can. Only higher fees, more rules, complicated laws and preferential enforcement.
And now Da Hoos trespasses. Laws are for some but not others.
Bynum costs the County over a million and hits a personal 300K jackpot (gift from the Council0, Jay runs the worst Council in history is denied re-election and gets a high paying poofy job from his political allies, Gary uses his Council prestige and acts as if he was anointed by Council to act as representative of the Island, Gary Trespasses....all a bunch of BS.
Our political leaders have become a clique. Isolated from the people and are ONLY for themselves. Kauai a "government of the Council, by the Council, for the Council, shall not perish from the providing big pensions, power, income and glory to the Council."

Anonymous said...

@5:54 mark my words. We will never see any picture of Hooser standing in the fields. Cause it didn't happen. French film crew were not busted trespassing at Syngenta either. They went there to meet and interview the manager which they did. Ask SYNGENTA manager Joshua if you want confirmation.

Joan Conrow said...

6:37 -- You are terribly misinformed. I did talk with the Syngenta folks. The French film crew showed up at the front gate last Wednesda, with no appointment, and asked to do interviews. They were told to contact corporate HQ in Honolulu for permission. They didn't seek permission, but instead trespassed into one of the Syngenta fields to do filming. Syngenta called police and made a trespassing report.

But again, this just shows how you folks will flat out lie to advance your agenda and cover your tracks. Oh, and if you want to be accepted as a credible source, you should start by identifying yourself.

Anonymous said...

@6:37, no evidence of pesticide drift, poisoning or contamination from pesticide applications performed by the seed companies, but you believe and insist it happened/happens; photographic evidence available of Gary Hooser and other trespassing, and you believe and insist it did not happen. Sad.

Anonymous said...

With all the vitriol that appears so often in these comments, why on earth would anyone in their right mind want to identify themselves?

Joan Conrow said...

Oh, quit hiding behind that and man up. I identify myself every time I write a post, and yes, I get vitriol, but so what? I don't care if people post anonymously, but if they're asserting that I'm lying and they're telling the truth, it comes down to credibility. And how much credibility can an Anonymous claim?

Anonymous said...

good/good; good/bad; bad/good; bad/bad. smart/smart; smart/dumb; dumb/smart; dumb/dumb. one can go on and on. bad/bad & dumb/dumb. scary combination. they will defend their belief no matter what. if you don't like what they say they want to clobber you. they will not see it any other way but theirs because they do not know they are wrong. smart/smart will accept them as they are. keep up the great work Joan. i had to look in the dictionary what vitriol was. sulferic acid?

Joan Conrow said...

I checked in again with the Syngenta folks, and they offered this clarification of what happened with the French filmmakers. Gary was not part of this episode:

They showed up in our fields [last] Wednesday without warning. We had no idea who they were and filed a [trespassing] police report.

On Thursday afternoon they (French journalist and cameraperson) showed up at our gate asking for an interview. Josh [Uyehara] met with them and spoke briefly “off the record,” then offered to check with our mainland media relations team about an interview. He promised to get back to them on Friday. Friday afternoon, he declined the interview but emailed to them the contact information for our media relations in Washington D.C.

On Monday, the French crew showed up at our gate in Kunia on Oahu. They had not contacted our media relations people and asked again for an interview on the spot. They were referred again to our media relations people in Washington D.C.

Anonymous said...

So he wasn't busted?
Time for scold your source.
So confusing - how was there a photo if it did not happen?

Joan Conrow said...

No scolding is necessary -- it's just the anonymous trolls who have tried to create confusion.

There were two episodes -- one with Gary and the French crew at G&R/Pioneer land, where the photo was taken, and one with just the French crew, and not Gary, at Syngenta.

In both cases, folks were caught trespassing in fields and police were called and trespassing reports were made.

Anonymous said...

US Population in 1960 was 180 million.
US Population in 2014 was 317 million.

All this talk about food security and hungry people and against developing residences. It all seems futile when human populations are doubling here in the US every 40 years.

If you are 55 years old, it is about twice as crowded now as it was when you were a kid. Maybe as they figure out how to make food for all these people they can build in some GMO contraceptives.

Anonymous said...

@9:28 - If you haven't already, you should read "Inferno" by Dan Brown. It is a fictional novel, but it focuses on exactly what you just pointed out. Interesting read, and a possible glimpse into our future.

Robin Clark said...

8:32 pm- please don't perpetuate the myth that Agent Orange was somehow thought to be safe . Agent Orange was a mixture of two commercial herbicides (2,4,5-T and 2,4-D). The problem was that this mixture was contaminated by a by-product in the synthesis, namely TCDD, commonly called dioxin. Dioxin was known even in 1967 to be one of the worst of carcinogens. The dioxin contamination was pointed out to the U.S. military by Monsanto, one of the manufacturers (Dow was the other). The military thought this was even better as they were of course using Agent Orange as a weapon of war (as with Napalm, another sad story). Agent Orange was not used like a normal herbicide, but was applied in massive quantities as a defoliant to kill everything in its wake. So whilst Monsanto and Dow get the blame from the uninformed, it was the US military that was the real culprit. This was a true war crime but has nothing to do with the current discussion about herbicide use.

Anonymous said...

As even our politicians on Kauai seem to pump racism, we can predict the results.
"Suspect in Charleston church attack detained as nation again confronts race and violence"

Anonymous said...

In response to Robin Clark (8:32pm)....from Wikipedia-

"The Mayerson law firm, with Sgt. Charles E. Hartz as their principal client, filed the first U.S. Agent Orange class-action lawsuit, in Pennsylvania in 1980, for the injuries military personnel in Vietnam suffered through exposure to toxic dioxins in the defoliant.[78] Attorney Hy Mayerson co-wrote the brief that certified the Agent Orange Product Liability action as a class action, the largest ever filed as of its filing.[79] Hartz's deposition was one of the first ever taken in America, and the first for an Agent Orange trial, for the purpose of preserving testimony at trial, as it was understood that Hartz would not live to see the trial because of a brain tumor that began to develop while he was a member of Tiger Force, Special Forces, and LRRPs in Vietnam.[80][81] The firm also located and supplied critical research to the Veterans' lead expert, Dr. Ronald A. Codario, M.D., including about 100 articles from toxicology journals dating back more than a decade, as well as data about where herbicides had been sprayed, what the effects of dioxin had been on animals and humans, and every accident in factories where herbicides were produced or dioxin was a contaminant of some chemical reaction.[76]

The chemical companies involved denied that there was a link between Agent Orange and the veterans' medical problems. However, on May 7, 1984, seven chemical companies settled the class-action suit out of court just hours before jury selection was to begin. The companies agreed to pay $180 million as compensation if the veterans dropped all claims against them.[82] Slightly over 45% of the sum was ordered to be paid by Monsanto alone.[83] Many veterans who were victims of Agent Orange exposure were outraged the case had been settled instead of going to court, and felt they had been betrayed by the lawyers. "Fairness Hearings" were held in five major American cities, where veterans and their families discussed their reactions to the settlement, and condemned the actions of the lawyers and courts, demanding the case be heard before a jury of their peers. Federal Judge Julius Weinstein refused the appeals, claiming the settlement was "fair and just". By 1989, the veterans' fears were confirmed when it was decided how the money from the settlement would be paid out. A totally disabled Vietnam veteran would receive a maximum of $12,000 spread out over the course of 10 years. Furthermore, by accepting the settlement payments, disabled veterans would become ineligible for many state benefits that provided far more monetary support than the settlement, such as food stamps, public assistance, and government pensions. A widow of a Vietnam veteran who died of Agent Orange exposure would only receive $3700.[84]

In 2004, Monsanto spokesman Jill Montgomery said Monsanto should not be liable at all for injuries or deaths caused by Agent Orange, saying: "We are sympathetic with people who believe they have been injured and understand their concern to find the cause, but reliable scientific evidence indicates that Agent Orange is not the cause of serious long-term health effects."

Anonymous said...

Another race-based NS incident.
Thinks are getting bad.
Sometimes jail is necessary.
Council speaks in racist code and the top Haole politicians put on a fake local accent so they can "pass as local" - signs of an institutionalized racist culture.

Anonymous said...

June 18 at 12:11 and June 19 at 7:51 to equate the racism experienced by slaves and their descendants with the isolated incidents of frustration and anger felt and expressed by a few born and raised here is beyond ignorant. Signs of an institutionalized racist culture? When the cops start shooting unarmed whites with regularity or start pulling people over for driving while white or white kids are segregated into crappie schools then you can bitch about institutional racism.

Anonymous said...

This is a criminal issue. Nothing more.

Anonymous said...

7:51 says Council speaks in racist code and the top Haole politicians put on a fake local accent so they can "pass as local" - signs of an institutionalized racist culture.
You are so wrong, it is like adopting an accent, not racist at all. If you around people from the south, you start taking with a bit of a twang or if you are in NY, you might start talking with that east coast accent, but it is not an insult to talk local style unless you are trying to act local when you are not.In the case of the council, they are local, all but garyh.Your comments are like wanting a black person to loose his accent and sound white. Now that's a bit racist.

Anonymous said...

If you are local you must be guilty is racist.