• Just waving won’t cut it Just waving won’t cut it An open letter to our candidates: Nowadays, around election time, we frequently see many of you on the roadside, accompanied by pretty girls and mature adults, holding signs that display
• Just waving won’t cut it
Just waving won’t cut it
An open letter to our candidates:
Nowadays, around election time, we frequently see many of you on the roadside, accompanied by pretty girls and mature adults, holding signs that display only your names. You are smiling and waving to the vehicles passing by. Obviously you are expecting a friendly honk or perhaps a friendly waving back, and later in the voting booths a “Yes” on the ballot by your names. This time it is not about distracting the drivers, which is a fact, but instead about something more important.
We also see your names on hundreds of signs all over the island, in orange, green, blue, red and many more. Yes, they are obliterating the view and making the roadside outright ugly. There also seems to be a system in the way you place them. You seem to be favoring the poorer neighborhoods or abandoned lots, and the areas where the average workers live. We hardly ever see your signs on the lawns of the multimillion-dollar homes. Maybe you didn’t have the courage to ask for permission, or it was denied, because the signs would be defacing the manicured, well-maintained lawns, or perhaps the owners have already made their choices and you know it. Since the signs carry only your names and your “color code” would you tell us why the average citizen should choose orange over green or blue over red? Or you think that your name is already an accomplishment and that will suffice?
Let’s go one step further. When you travel from Lihu‘e to the Westside or elsewhere you must have passed the flying trash on the roadside each and every time. Or you didn’t notice? That’s even worse.
When you pass through Koloa, doesn’t that huge black dust screen in the middle of the town bother you? Or you think that it esthetically enhances the quaintness of Koloa Town? It has been there for more than two years and nobody is doing anything about it or even behind it. Did you know that the lush green weeds of our ‘aina look better than those ugly canvas pieces?
When you drive to Hanapepe on Kaumuali‘i Highway did you notice the “Littering is unlawful $1,000 fine” sign in the outlook area at the Hanapepe Ditch? Did you also notice that for years it has been the most littered area on the roadside, exactly at that sign? How many citations were issued for littering there during the past years? And hundreds of visitors pull over to enjoy the view every day. What a spoiled scene!
When you go to the food stores and you want to buy seafood, do you notice that almost all seafood is from foreign shores: shrimp from Peru, Vietnam, Mexico; fish from the Philippines, Taiwan, etc. Hardly any local fish or seafood on this island surrounded by the bountiful ocean. But not only seafood, there is also scallion from Mexico, mangoes from Costa Rica, cantaloupes from Nicaragua or Honduras. All those things that can be grown here!
When was the last time you publicly voiced you outrage and asked the chambers of commerce to organize local production? We have the manpower, we have the land, the ocean and we have the weather! And when was the last time you ordered or requested the printing of the slogan “Buy local products!” on the fancy visitors’ brochures? And you know what? If you and your waving crew on the roadside displayed signs with the “Buy local products!” phrase on it, you would get 10 times more hunks.
People remember most of the things that you say and also what you avoid to say, things that you do and avoid to do. When you condone the federally induced fear-mongering by welcoming full-body X-rays at Lihu‘e airport that were installed to “protect” the outside world from the Kaua‘i originating travelers and not the other way around, you are sending a message. Yes, a sad one. When you are approving a mile-long barbed wire-topped fence on the island under the false pretext of presumed vandalism at a firing range in the Kekaha area, you are doing a great disservice to Kaua‘i and show disrespect to its people.
Did it ever occur to you that setting a good example has the most persuasive power? Instead of wasting valuable time waving on the roadside with 20 some people how about getting some work gloves and start cleaning up a dirty section of the highway? A big banner with the message “The Carvalho team is cleaning up Kaua‘i. Join us!” would give you the leading edge in the campaign. It would also prove your ability to persuade others to participate in something that the entire community would benefit from. I wonder if those pretty faces on your support team would hold the trash bags too. Or perhaps another team could break down the ugly dust screen in Koloa under a banner “The Hooser team is making Koloa beautiful again. Join us!”
Would it be to your disadvantage? No. Absolutely not. But this would work not just for these two candidates and not only for the suggested projects. There is plenty to do on Kaua‘i to make it nicer and better — you just need the eye to notice it and the courage to do something about it. And we have so many candidates for it! If you put the man-hours invested in sign-waving into real action, you will make the difference, and the entire community will benefit from it, plus the message will spread on the island like wildfire and maybe even beyond our shores.
Oh, yes, you voice your vision on public meetings; usually dressed up in fancy words, but what you do in life will tip the balance on the scale. Deeds are heavier than words and just words and waving won’t cut it.
János Keoni Samu of Kalaheo with the signatures of 121 Kaua‘i kanaka
