• A primer on aloha and history • Credit where credit is due • Dogs ‘take’ more shearwaters than lights A primer on aloha and history “Aloha ‘aina” means “the love of your country or the land that is closest
• A primer on aloha and history •
Credit where credit is due • Dogs ‘take’
more shearwaters than lights
A primer on aloha and history
“Aloha ‘aina” means “the love of your country or the land that is closest to your heart.” Regardless how Mr. Barry Dittler, in his letter (Sept. 25), “Hawai‘i part of America, for better or worse,” objects to the opinion of two letter-writers: Pepe Trask and Dominic Acain, they did what we expect from all Hawaiians: to show the love for their ‘aina.
It is not helpful to distort historical facts. Referring to 1795 and claiming that over 2,000 warriors were driven over the Pali in the Battle of Nu‘uanu is a needless exaggeration, because there were only some 400 O‘ahu warriors who jumped off or were pushed over the edge of the Nu‘uanu Pali. But the simple fact of mentioning it is provocative, considering that the Americans slaughtered millions of Native American Indians, killed over 100,000 Iraqi civilians in the current Iraq war, and murdered around 200,000 civilians when dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And the prediction of what the Japanese would have done to Hawai‘i is a futile attempt to justify the theft of the Hawaiian Islands. Is Guam better off now with American occupation than with Japanese?
The plebiscite when the residents of Hawai‘i were asked about the admission of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States took place on June 27, 1959 (not in 1950!), only with three questions on the ballot, conveniently omitting the most-important one mandated by the charter of the United Nations for annexation-type plebiscites, namely whether the voters wanted to restore their country’s independence.
The Social Security and Medicare argument is also misleading, because these benefits are based on a contract between you and the government in power. You contribute to Social Security with your paycheck deductions, the government uses the money, and when you retire you get it back in monthly installments. And Hawaiians also contributed. The money for the roads and clean water is being generated here with the beauty of the land and the hard work of the Hawaiians.
Don’t be so sure that those Hawaiians are American citizens just because American citizenship was forced upon them when Hawai‘i became part of the American empire. There is a growing number of Hawaiians who renounce their American citizenship.
It is true that neither “Dominic Acain” nor “Pepe Trask” sound Hawaiian, but do “Obama,” “Roosevelt” or “Eisenhower” sound American to you? Perhaps you should also read the archival records about the time when missionaries came from America to convert the Hawaiians, and told them that they would have to adopt European or American names. Yes, some resisted, but then the inventive missionaries used the means of gentle persuasion, by hanging them by their feet on a tree, until they consented.
We respect Americans who love their country, but please allow us Hawaiians to love our ‘aina, especially because Hawai‘i is not America, and it never will be — and get over it!
János Keoni Samu, Kalaheo
Credit where credit is due
In May Deputy County Attorney Mona Clark advised the Board of Ethics that County Code Section 3-1.7(d) absolutely prohibits the kinds of outside employment referenced in requests for advisory opinions involving four members of the Planning Department.
At its meeting on September 17 the board reviewed a written opinion from Attorney Clark repeating and expanding the advice she gave in May and concluding: “It is the County Attorney’s opinion that an employee cannot create a work product for a private employer which the employee would reasonably expect the employer to submit to the Planning Department without a violation of K.C.C. 3-1.7 occurring.”
The board acted accordingly and continued to set an example for other agencies by releasing the privileged opinion, which is available from the Office of Boards and Commissions.
I wish I could say that the quality of the May-to-September process leading to the board’s decision matched the quality of the decision itself and the principled advice it was based on. However, the process left a trail of unanswered questions.
In light of the charter requirement that a request for advisory opinion must be answered within 30 days, I think the most obvious question is, why did it take so long for the board to answer this request, especially when its answer was based on the same advice it received on day one?
A short letter like this cannot do justice to the question. Suffice to say that it leads to numerous other questions pertaining to policies (and lack of policies), procedures and communication (or lack of communication) involving the mayor’s office and planning, personnel, and County Attorney offices as well as the Board of Ethics.
I do not question the motives or integrity of county employees. I do say that there is plenty of room for improving governmental processes. One way to improve the processes is for agencies and citizens to extend mutual respect to and expect mutual accountability from each other.
Horace Stoessel, Kapa‘a
Dogs ‘take’ more shearwaters than lights
It seems like the dogs are “taking” more shearwaters than the Friday-night football lights ever did. Is the county responsible for the dogs as well as the lights, subject to more twenty-thousand-dollar fines? Perhaps we should ban all dogs, or maybe limit their “take” to chickens?
Steve Hansen, Kekaha
