Dr Hayes, We Bask in the Afterglow, Joan Conrow realizes J.C actually IS Jesus Christ, Farmers Daughter admits she can't farm...PART ONE

All of Joan Conrows Blogposts you missed, but didn't want to go on her site to read. Also, all of the comments too. We will just state, at the beginning that Dr. Hayes ROCKED the house. We also had fun, poking fun at the obvious industry plants in the audience. Some were so obvious it was hilarious. The one couple some of our staff noticed, looked like if they even touched anyone there, they would have to0 remove their skin surgically. We thought it was funny watching them, when Dr Hayes got a standing ovation after his talk, as the wife, or we are assuming she was playing the wifely role, perhaps got up and limply pretended to clap, while three of our staff members observed her making a silly face at her husband, or the one playing the role of her husband, while he chuckled, and then they quickly sat down. They were so cute, and totally dressed the part too. Their lilly white skin, and nervous demeanor around local people showed that they certainly weren't part of our island, that's for sure.

SEE MUCH MORE ABOUT THIS MEETING IN PART 2

They were so obvious that several people noted it almost immediately. There were more, more towards the front of the stage, and Dr. Hayes good naturedly pointed them out. We clapped for them. It was hilarious how these goons thought we wouldn't recognize them. It was almost as funny, as the exaggerated "Hippies", that "infiltrated" the 2491 marathon meetings were. Again, people we had never seen before, and way overly doing the tie die and headband scarf routine, and also way overdoing the "cosmic peace and aloha" tripped out voice too. It was pretty hilarious and we can remember people looking at each other and mouthing to each other "Plant", and nodding. it was the same way at last nights event. We knew who to watch. Funny thing is, when you are dealing with the big seed companies, they love khaki. Seriously khaki truly wins the day with them. perhaps they think it makes them look more "scientific", or they are just "scientific observers", on some wild trek to the deepest darkest jungles of the African continent, where strange creatures, and scary natives await them, to boil them in pots and headhunt them.

yeah, that's gotta be it. We got some huge chuckles just observing them, observing others, and looking totally out of place. Their eyes kinda looked like that cold dead fish look. You know, like the eyes of the salmon, whose genes are injected into their tomatoes they grow. Wait, kids guess whats coming next? Since they figured all of those organic loving, trust fund hippies wanna eat kale, the industry has just cloned its first hybrid of kale and brussels sprout. yeap we kid you not. we will be blogging about that too later on this week.


But first, lets take a look at Joan Conrows slobberings, we mean, chicken scratch, um writing, yeah that's it writing!  This is part one, check out part 2, for the afterglow

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Musings: Fact and Fancy

So now that we actually, finally, have some real data on pesticide prevalence in Hawaii — data that show “None of these levels present a risk to human health or the environment,” according to Department of Health toxicologist Fenix Grange — will any of the hysteria diminish?

Don't count on it. There's power and money to be found in fear-mongering, so you can be assured it will continue unabated, especially in an election year, when several candidates have nothing to offer voters but a shared affinity for red shirts and fist-waving.

Though downplayed by The Garden Island (which posted a wrong link to the study), Civil Beat's coverage tells the real story:

The study, which analyzed water from 24 streams, found that the areas with the greatest number of pesticides were not near large farms but rather in urban Oahu.

Streams in urban Oahu had the highest number of pesticides present, including one site where 20 types were detected. In total, the study found 41 pesticide compounds.

The study also analyzed seven sites for the presence of glyphosate, an herbicide that is more commonly known by its trade name, Roundup. The state doesn't generally test for glyphosate because of the high cost, but members of the Environmental Council advocated for more testing last fall.

Three of the seven sites had glyphosate, but at extremely low levels — the highest concentration was 60,000 times lower than the lowest benchmark available.

Marjorie Ziegler, a member of the Environmental Council [and director of Conservation Council for Hawaii], said that the main takeaway for her were the higher levels in urban areas, rather than near large farms growing genetically engineered crops.

"The myth in my head says that GMO is increasing all those pesticides but maybe that isn't the case," Ziegler said, using the popular term for genetically modified organisms.

Which is exactly what some of us have been saying all along. If Councilman Gary Hooser really was concerned about pesticides, he would have introduced a bill that also dealt with urban uses, as some of us had requested. Instead, he focused narrowly on the five major ag operators — a move that ensured national publicity for him, and funding support from mainland groups like Center for Food Safety, but placed the bill in legal jeopardy because it's discriminatory.

Meanwhile, those in the anti-GMO movement, like the new OEQC director Jessica Wooley, responded to the study not with relief, but a new mantra: “This is a great first step.”

Except as Fenix told The Garden Island, there is no planned second step, cause they no more money for follow-up studies. Seems the Lege dumped a proposal that would have increased funding and allowed for additional work.

So we don't have the money to keep monitoring for pesticides, even though it's supposedly a grave concern on this island, but we do have money to fight the legal battle to defend that crappy law. And Council Chair Jay Furfaro managed to find $12,000 for bee pollen studies solely to paint himself as eco-friendly, never mind all those years he ran Princeville Corp. with its gnarly poison closet.

And somehow our legislators scrounged up serious dough to fund the many pork barrel projects in their districts that will help them curry favor with voters.

The most curious of these was $270,000 for the Hawaii Island Land Trust to “conduct a long-range development plan for the former Coco Palms site.”

Why is that plan continuing when the Council endorsed the rebuild of Coco Palms and just today it was announced that Hyatt will manage the iconic 363-room resort?

Why are we still putting public money into that property, especially when there are other pressing needs? Like, say, environmental pesticide sampling, or public health studies that might put some minds at ease.

But from the get-go, folks have never clamored for studies, tests or even more money for state enforcement. So it's not surprising that none has been allocated, and we're right back in that place of don't look, don't know.

Because maybe all the players have something to gain by keeping facts out of what is now solely an emotional and political issue.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Musings: Dinosaurs

When I was a little girl my mother used to play Neil Diamond records, and one song that has remained stuck in my head all these years is "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show.”

It came to mind when I received an email about anti-GMO crusader Jeffrey Smith's Hawaii tour later this week, which comes on the heels of a similar circuit taken by anti-atrazine researcher Tyrone Hayes, who is speaking tomorrow night on Kauai.

On the poster, Smith is described as “one of the most saught [sic] after, internationally recognized voices of GMO Truth.” One of his Maui talks is pitched as “an event of truth and facts,” while the other is described as “A Day of GMO Truth.” Curiously, no such claim is made for his Kauai appearance, which is listed simply as a “GMO community talk.”

And I thought, how can you possibly pretend you are serving up truth when you are presenting just one point of view? Which is when I was again reminded of how the anti-GMO movement has assumed all the self-righteous, one-way, one-truth fervor of the evangelicals — replete with swooning. I'll never forget the 2491 testimony of the lady who said she ate a GMO papaya “and fainted dead away.”

So it is clear now that in Hawaii, we will not be able to have a reasonable public discussion on this issue. We will not be able to publicly debate different sets of facts, varying versions of the truth. 

In the current socio-political milieu, you're either a true believer, or a heretic, with absolutely no middle ground allowed.

Meanwhile, real life continues in its many, often contradictory, shades of gray. Parking for Hayes' UH-Hilo talk was disrupted due to construction of a chemical storage building on campus. Dow, denounced as a demonic defiler, made the pesticide Vikane that was used this past week to treat a Singapore ant infestation on the Hokulea.

Billionaire Pierre Omidyar is blasted for bankrolling a dairy on Kauai, a project deemed unsustainable because the cows won't eat organic feed and the milk will be shipped to Oahu for processing. Billionaire Larry Ellis is lauded for using Lanai's scarce water to grow organic veggies that will be shipped to China and Japan.

Always, we are grouping into good-bad, right-wrong, us-them.

Which brings me to a blog post well-written by Luke Evslin, who has one of the more interesting minds on this island, largely because he actually uses it to think, instead of parrot or echo or regurgitate or deny. He wrote:

Since we can witness and measure an obvious environmental decline, then it only makes sense that the culprit is the way we currently run society.  That's our enemy.

There's only one problem; that's us. We embody the status-quo everytime we get into our car.  Everytime we ingest food that comes from a grocery store.  Everytime we put on a t-shirt.  Everytime we cast a vote for either a democrat or a republican.  But what else can we do?

We all can see it.  We all complain about it.  We all want to do something about it.  But that's as far as we can go.  We've failed at even approaching a solution because we are the problem.  We can't look to the Civil Rights movement and sit at a lunch counter in Birmingham or look to the Indian Nationalist movement and go on a hunger strike in a British prison.  The two most successful social movements of the last century had tangible enemies.  And non-violent resistance worked because of that.  As we perpetuate the greatest environmental crime (climate change) in history, we are our own enemy.  And there's nothing that we can do to divest ourselves.

So, back to my struggling question of last week, what now? How do we envision a different future? How do we change the system?

I certainly don't have all the answers, or maybe even any, but I think one place to start is to stop taking refuge in the “me good, you bad" bang-and blame duality mindset. All of us are the problem, and all of us can play a role in the solution.

Luke writes, correctly and coherently:

Our failure isn't caused by incessant growth or a reliance on technology. We are failing because capitalism can not adequately value the environment. There is an intrinsic worth to nature which can not be quantified.

Luisa Kolker, a shamanic healer I interviewed yesterday, added another piece:

We need to find ways to re-attune with our own inner wilderness.We've lost the empathic connection with ourselves, and with the Earth. Until we are in good relationship with ourselves, we will defile and violate nature.

Meanwhile, as astrologer Stephanie Azaria points out, there is a powerful metaphor currently at work as scientists uncover the ancient remains of the largest known animal to walk on Earth, a creature that was 65 feet high — equal to a seven-story building — and 130 feet long:

We all know what a dinosaur is, in esoteric talk. For those of you who don’t know, a dinosaur is a consciousness that is infused with the old, outdated way of being. The dictionary describes it this way: a person or thing that is outdated or has become obsolete because of failure to adapt to changing circumstances.

Dinosaurs, like the ruined remnants of fallen civilizations, remind us anew that we aren't too big to fail.

The choice is ours: work together to figure out how we can adapt ourselves and our civilization to fit the natural ecological constraints of this planet, or continue to pursue the dinosaur mindset of separation and polarization, cloaked in the false belief that some one of has a lock on “The Truth.”

Monday, May 19, 2014

Musings: New Beginnings

The chill of early dawn woke me with a shiver, sent me out into a night moving toward day, Venus rising like a smoldering ember in the haze, fog swirling in the pastures beneath the brilliant white light of a fatter-than-half moon, mowed grass sticking wetly to rubber slippered feet as the dogs and I walked east, toward that new beginning.

It's so exciting to see Hokulea and Hikianalia beginning their three-year, 47,000-mile, open-ocean, around-the-world journey, which you can follow on the Polynesian Voyaging Society's website. Few sights are more thrilling than Hokulea at sea, its sails bold red against blue sky and sea.

I once had the honor of spending the night aboard the Hokulea at Nawiliwili, cocooned in a tiny bunk where many had slept before me, lulled by the gentle rocking, awed by the bravery of those who set sail centuries ago, and those who venture out today.

Back on terra firma, Kauai Police Chief Darryl Perry is seeking a brave new beginning, filing papers to run for the County County. The Chief, of course, is no stranger to politics, having already tasted its bitter medicine during his seven years at the helm of KPD — a position that isn't supposed to be politicized, but on Kauai, invariably is.

But if the Chief is elected, which seems quite likely, given his general popularity, he'll be able to engage his longtime political foe — the soon-to-be-re-elected Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr., — on more equal footing. As it is, under the ruling handed down by former Councilman and now Circuit Court Judge Randal Valenciano, the mayor has authority over the chief — a decision still under appeal.

You may recall that issue went to court after the mayor, in a heavy-handed move, suspended the chief without pay for seven days in 2012, citing insubordination. Perry was then placed on paid leave, along with Assistant Chiefs Roy Asher and Ale Quibilan, pending an investigation of a complaint by Officer Darla Abbatiello-Higa.

At the time, Deputy Chief Mike Contrades was in training off-island, so Assistant Chief Mark Begley was put in charge, assisted by his captain, Hank Barriga.

And then, in classic Kauai fashion, things really fell apart. While the department was essentially leaderless, Officer Chris Calio shot and killed Richard “Dickie” Louis, who was unarmed and standing on his rooftop, while a team of some 50 to 60 cops were trying to arrest him. This resulted in Louis' family filing a wrongful death suit against the county.

When the Police Commission ordered the Chief back to work, Begley refused to give him his gun, badge and other gear, reportedly under orders from the county attorney's office. Begley, facing an administrative review for insubordination, took a paid medical leave, along with Barriga. The two haven't worked for some 18 months now.

Meanwhile, Begley, Barriga and Abbatiello-Higa filed complaints, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently found cause that all three had experienced illegal retaliation by KPD.

The dispute is now in its reconciliation phase, with the county, the EEOC and the complainants' attorneys trying to determine what sort of financial settlement should be given to the victims and whether any additional action should be taken against KPD.

If no settlement is reached, EEOC could refer the case to the feds, which is the only entity eligible to sue for a Title 7 violation.

In this situation, like so many others on Kauai, we see a rather insignificant event that could have — and should have — been resolved through mediation mushroom into a big, expensive, destructive, demoralizing mess that ain't over yet.

And why? Politics.

So heck, since he's embroiled already the Chief may as well ditch KPD and sit on the Council. Compared to some of the other candidates — both incumbents and hopefuls — we can at least be assured that he a) understands county government; b) knows the budget process; c) has a record of solid public service; d) isn't prone to long-winded, grandstanding speeches; e) isn't in either the pro- or anti-GMO camp; f) isn't driven by an inflated ego; g) isn't in anybody's pocket; h) does his homework; i) has a high level of intelligence; j) understands the island; and k) knows what's really going down in this community.

Speaking of going down, I just can't see Councilman Tim Bynum winning another term. Heck, he barely squeaked in last time, when he had a bit of sympathy going for him because he was being picked on by then-Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri, who lost her own bid for re-election.

Of course, it's not Tim's fault that Shay was vindictive, or the county blew $750,000 fighting his civil rights lawsuit, only to see its insurance company quickly settle for $290,000. But with voters facing higher fees and taxes and a grim economic picture, his re-election may prove a hard sell.

I think a lot of folks are looking for some fresh faces on the County Council, some new beginnings at the Historic County Building. And for the first time that I can remember, I don't think any of the Council incumbents are a shoo-in, save for Mel Rapozo and Ross Kagawa, which should make for an interesting — and possibly bloody — election season.

There's a lot more, kids, but we need to put it on the next post in part 2. So, chew on this a while, While we shoot over to Moani...pronouncedd Moan, as in I'm moaning because I cannot farm, Joni The Tokyo Rose. of Maui. ANd we don' tmean of the Roselani brand either. We mean of the "Oh I am so clever watch me write a fake sincere blogpost about how I tried to farm, er no wait yarden some veggies, and I just simply couldn't do it without chemicals, I just don't know what happened!". Yeah, that one. The one who is a farmer, but really its her dad thats the farmer. in part 2 you will see the incredible smoking gun we revealed. and it has nothing to do with the fact that Joani's fathers best friend died of chemical poisoning in hawaii in the 60's, and that s because according to Joni she loves the chems now, because they are jsut way so much mnore scientific and safe then the ones that killed her fathers friend. yeap. See the ORIGINAL blogposts about this TRUE FACT. *Joani didn't write it, but she sure did comment on it. The original post was rwritten by the mans son.  THIS IS A TRUE STORY! Read about it in part 2