Remove ImagesCoconut Wireless
November 26, 2009
Last week, I humbly asked tourism officials to stop flogging the aloha spirit as though it were a magic visitor-attracting switch that can be flipped at will. But they're not the only ones tossing the phrase around. In a November 16 press release about the Countywide Plan, Councilman Sol Kaho'ohalahala included "emphasize the importance of the Aloha Spirit" as the last in a series of bullet points (most of the others were related to specific stuff like building codes and renewable energy). To reiterate: I'm not against the aloha spirit; I think it's a (potentially) cool concept. The problem is it's too vague, or, more accurately, has been flagrantly misused. Here's what I mean: Do a Google search for "aloha spirit" and see what comes up. One of the first hits I got was a sweet little acrostic poem credited to Auntie Pilahi Paki: "Akahai, meaning kindness to be expressed with tenderness/Lokahai, meaning unity, to be expressed with harmony/Olu'olu, meaning agreeable, to be expressed with pleasantness/Ha'aha'a, meaning humility, to be expressed with modesty/Ahonui, meaning patience, to be expressed with perseverance." Right under that? Info about the "Spirit of Aloha dinner show" at the Walt Disney World resort. I'm willing to believe the County was referring to the poem in its press release. But I'm pretty certain the Disney version is more what the Visitors Bureau has in mind….
LOCAL
Want to know where the Furlough Friday saga stands now that Gov. Lingle has proposed dipping into the "rainy day" fund? (A move Lingle defended by saying "it's raining on the kids now," though perhaps a different liquid would be more apropos.) Take it away state Board of Education Chair Garrett Toguchi, quoted in a November 21 AP dispatch: "We have a pre-agreement agreement." In the same report, Senate President Colleen Hanabusa claims she's had multiple teachers tell her they didn't know the deal they voted on would cut instructional days, which could mean several things, all of them bad. Honestly, assigning blame here is so easy there's really no sport in it. Meanwhile, another Friday approaches…. Add humiliation to the list of tactics being used on Oahu to prevent drunk driving. Starting this week, the Honolulu Police Department announced it will post the pictures and names of people cited for DUI on its Web site www.honolulupd.org before they've been convicted of anything. One attorney, quoted in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, compared the electronic "wall of shame" to The Scarlet Letter. (Manini difference: 17th century extramarital affairs didn't typically cause fatal car accidents.) One thing's for sure: with vocal anti-drunk driving groups squaring off against equally vocal privacy and due process advocates—and a dash of voyeuristic schadenfreude thrown in for good measure—this'll be a story worth following…. I am not, I should preemptively emphasize, anti-Christmas. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve the sharp smell of a freshly cut spruce placed next to a crackling fire (back when I was young enough to ignore a blatant fire hazard when I saw one). But. We're living in a time when sacrifice is no longer a noble act—it's a necessity. With that in mind, how about revaluating the resource-sucking practice of putting more than 100,000 trees in refrigerated boats and shipping them across the Pacific, so they can be placed in people's living rooms for a few weeks and then discarded. (The first of four evergreen-bearing Matson vessels is set to arrive this weekend.) Add the fact that the trees—which come from Oregon and Washington—are notoriously good hiding places for invasive species and that Hawaii's ag inspectors are overtaxed as it is, plus the fact that we are literally surrounded by beautiful flora on which ornaments and popcorn strands can easily be hung, and, well, sorry—the Grinch got this one right. (For an alternative, check out the Makawao-based Permaculture Group www.permaculturegroup.com which sells live, potted native plants and trees.)...
NOT LOCAL
This week's story, "Earth: Too Big to Fail?" (pg. 7) lays out four key steps the writers—David Lillard and Glenn Scherer of Blue Ridge Press—say must be taken to curb climate change. One of them is "institute a global Marshall Plan," a reference to the rebuilding of post-World War II Europe. Now, Lillard and Scherer argue, we have to "bail out the developing world." But some take things a step further, and use a different, more loaded word: "reparations." A November 11 Rolling Stone article titled "Climate Rage" outlines the argument: The developed nations (most notably the United States) created the crisis, while the rest of the world is facing the worst consequences. Now, we're telling them they can't pollute like we did (and continue to do). According to reparation proponents, vague assurances and strings-attached aid aren't enough. Addressing the U.N. in June, Angelica Navarro, a negotiator from Bolivia, put it plainly: "Millions of people…are suffering from the effects of a problem to which they did not contribute….We cannot and will not give up our rightful claim to a fair share of atmospheric space on the promise that, at some future stage, technology will be provided to us." Sometimes real leadership means admitting you broke something—and doing what it takes to fix it.