May 06, 2008

Support local agriculture

What is the connection between taro farmers in Wailua, the price of rice, water, and you and me?

Yesterday Reuters News Service reported that “Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Sam’s Club will be limiting sales of rice due to recent supply and demand trends.” This news came as rice prices surged worldwide in part on worries about supply shortages.  Costco, as well, has reported it has seen increased demand for items like rice and flour, as customers, worried about global food shortages and rising prices, stock up.”

Food costs, as we all know, have soared here. They have soared worldwide, spurred by increased demand in emerging markets like China and India; by competition with biofuels and high oil prices and market speculation, sparking food riots around the world.

SO folks, it’s not rocket science to recognize that we must support local, sustainable agriculture here on Maui, that racing to Costco is not the answer. So when taro farmers aren’t getting enough stream water to grow healthy taro right here in our back yard, because that water is instead being used to grow sugar; when prime agricultural land is devoted to one mono-crop grown for export, or being removed from ag zoning to build more houses, we are not just shooting ourselves in the foot, we are shooting ourselves in the head.

Bodhi Be
Haiku, Maui



Yamashita out, Starr in?

Upcountry Representative Yamashita acts like he did us a favor by introducing his toothless resolution which does nothing to save Akaku public access TV from the corporations that want it  muzzled.

In fact, Representative Yamashita, Chair, refused to allow his committee to hold hearings on the bill introduced by Maui Senators Baker, Tsutsui and English. This was the bill which would have protected Akaku and clarified the procurement process so that Akaku would not become just another Big Media mouthpiece.

Representative Yamashita killed our public access TV protection bill. Why he would do this when his constituency was solidly in favor of protecting Akaku is a mystery that may only be answered when we see who has been contributing to his campaign.

With his vote in favor of the Superferry Bailout Bill and his killing of the bill to protect Akaku, it is clear that Representative Yamashita is out of touch with his district.

Let’s vote in Summer Starr (www.ElectSummer.com). She’s young but she’s smart and understands the issues. This time when Yamashita waves to us from Hana Highway, let’s wave bye-bye to him.

Karen Chun
Pa‘ia, Maui



Senate blocking progress in the Bureau of Conveyances

The Bureau of Conveyances spent last year working with staff, union and industry planning to put the Bureau online. The Bureau has signed a contract with the same vendor who placed the departments of Tax, Commerce, and Labor online. I informed the House and Senate back in July that we intended to put the Bureau on-line.

The Bureau receives 900 to 2,000 documents each day – at about 10 pages each. Our staff must scan 10,000 pages a day, plus enter data for every document. Allowing people to e-mail documents to the Bureau eliminates the scanning and data entry, is easier for all Hawaii residents, and saves paper. This simple step will reduce the current four-month recording process to less than one week. 

Senators Russell Kokubun and Jill Tokuda are blocking the necessary legislation and together are stopping progress in the Bureau.

Ironically, the Senate recognizes the benefits of electronic documents, as they themselves moved to a paperless system. In December 2007 the Senate President said she hoped taking the Senate on-line would “set an example for the rest of the state.”

Call your Senator and ask her/him to pass the House version of HB 2302 and allow the Bureau of Conveyances to go online this year.

Laura H. Thielen
Chairperson  Department of Land and Natural Resources



Aloha, not war

The Stryker Brigade will be calling Hawai‘i home. It’s ironic that since the U.S. claimed Hawai‘i, these islands once adored worldwide for aloha spirit have been used and abused by the military for war. How different could our world be if, instead of a training ground for fighting, Hawai‘i could be a training ground for aloha? Where people come to learn conflict transformation techniques. Where former adversaries – corporate and environmental leaders – come together to find common ground and build a consensus on environmental protection and economic development. Where facilitators, mediators and community-based organizers could come to learn how to solve political conflicts based on a common-ground multi-stakeholder approach, where all parties with a stake in the outcome are invited to a professionally facilitated dialogue to find win-win-win solutions. A triple win means that both sides in a conflict, and the larger community, benefit from the outcome.

There is a grain of truth on each side of any conflict. Healing, reconciliation and forgiveness are qualities we need to learn, more than how to fire a missile. The impact of globalization is generating many problems... economic, environmental and ethnic. These problems are  too complex and interconnected to be solved on an adversarial basis.
“You can’t solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created the problem.” Hawaii should not be turning out soldiers learning better ways to kill; we need peaceful warriors willing to shift from an adversarial stance toward a cooperative, problem solving one.

It’s about participants generating a new “highest common denominator” and identifying something together that can be aspired to and worked towards. For example: “Revitalizing the health of the Honolua.”

When those who really care about an issue come together and bring the best thinking from their various perspectives, there is the potential for new options to be generated – options that neither side might have thought of on its own.

Aloha ‘aina.

Tamara Paltin
Kahana, Maui



Big Island bans smoking in outdoor public places

I am so proud of the Big Island and the initiative and bravery of the Hawaii County Council to ban smoking at public outdoor places, including county beaches and parks, golf courses, rodeo arenas, civic centers, etc. This is the type of leadership Hawaii needs right now. Smoking is a dangerous ugly habit and our children, as well as the rest of the non-smoking public, should not have to be exposed to the litter and second-hand smoke imposed by smokers. While not everyone throws their butts on the ground, there are a significant number of smokers who do, as any person who walks through any parking lot can see. This is a fair solution to the public problem of litter created by smokers. Another way to deal with the problem could be to test butts for DNA and start imposing the $500 litter fine, or not sell new packs to people unless they turn in their old butts. These might seem a bit extreme, but then again so is the problem of cigarette butt litter; it’s a cancer on our beautiful islands just like the cigarettes cause in smokers’ bodies.

Ka‘aka Malone
Wailuku, Maui


Property taxes should include trash collection

I was saddened to read in the April 27, 2008 Maui News that the County will close 1,100 delinquent trash accounts beginning May 10. Where are these people going to dump their trash? This is going to be catastrophic for our beautiful island of Maui! The entire island of Oahu, the City of Los Angeles, and many other cities and counties across America pay for trash collection 100 percent by property taxes. We should too! Property taxes are tax deductible, too!

How much of the $144 per year current trash fee goes for paying the special accounting department in the Environmental Management Department to open the mail and post the checks to a special computer program which is then handed to the drivers so they know whose trash to pick up and whose not to pick up? The Finance Department already receipts in all property taxes, and so this is duplication and wasteful. On Oahu, every household has a trash barrel which gets picked up, and every property tax payer gets a tax deduction on their federal income tax return. On Oahu the property tax even includes hauling away abandoned cars. And Oahu is a lot cleaner than Maui!!

Bob Babson
Kihei, Maui



Actions speak louder than words

I’d like to start off by sending mahalos to Bruce Douglas for coordinating another fun Earth Day event at Baldwin Beach.
While there were a lot of people getting their environmental messages out there to the people, I found one performer, “Elijah,” espousing the kind of irrational mindset that continues to divert from practical and realistic environmental sustainability movements. At the end of his performance he said to the audience, “We don’t need to save the whales, we just need to praise the whales.” It’s hard to know where to begin addressing the misguidedness of that statement, but I’ll just start by saying that praise will not save whales or other ocean inhabitants from continued threats such as military sonar testing, pollution and global warming.

I also witnessed Elijah brushing off a friend who was gathering signatures on a petition that will bring practical change to problems facing Maui by saying “I just have too many things going on to look at that.” I understand you’re just passing through Maui on your Whale Trail Tour, but the point of Earth Day is to actually do something that will help the earth. You might have started by listening to someone right in front of you who was offering you a chance to do something as simple as providing a signature that could cause real change, starting right here in Maui County.

In addition, Elijah offers this on his web-site:  “Will we continue on the same old path of his-story that makes excuses for hurting the Earth, and celebrates the misuse of power, or will we finally awaken as stewards of our Mother planet, and become present with the uprising, unifying force of Love that has created us all? It is because of this choice that lays before us, as well as the prayers that have been sent out for countless generations, that we have arrived. We have been birthed out of a collective call for divine guidance. And now WE ARE HERE, as elder beings in the form of youth, as your children, as your own inner knowing, and we have come to ask you a question: Are you ready for guidance? Are you ready to be divine?”

I think Elijah’s words embody a misguided philosophy I have encountered a lot on Maui. Offers of guidance to become divine (like God) is not going to get us anywhere to further environmental causes that will save our planet. This kind of language, while seemingly positive and unifying, is just offering religious ideology, which has been proven historically to be divisive and destructive. Only aggressive activism and social revolution will bring about the political and economic changes that might repair the extensive damage done to our reeling planetary ecosystem.

For those on the same wavelength as Elijah who want to save something, praise such religious zealotry if you will, but let’s keep it separate from social and political issues and start acting for positive change within the bounds of reality we all share. It might all be an illusion, but it’s the only illusion we have.

Geoff Moore
Huelo, Maui