• World Food Day • Big bang started it all World Food Day As we continue our journey into the Millennium, Kaua’i, along with so many parts of the world, is facing the challenge of hunger and agricultural sustainability. The
• World Food Day
• Big bang started it all
World Food Day
As we continue our journey into the Millennium, Kaua’i, along with so many parts of the world, is facing the challenge of hunger and agricultural sustainability. The World Food Day and TeleFood theme for 2005, “Agri-culture and intercultural dialogue,” stresses that dialogue between the cultures is a prerequisite for building a foundation against hunger and envi-ronmental degradation.
“World Food Day,” celebrated worldwide on Oct. 16, 2005, commemorates the anniversary of The Food and Agriculture Organization, founded on Oct. 16, 1945. World Food Day has now become an annual celebration and has been observed in 150 countries over the last two decades. Its purpose is to raise awareness about the plight of the world’s hungry people and mobilize resources to help them.
Here on Kaua’i, we have an opportunity to join with the world community in fostering a deepening awareness of how we can meet such challenges as: growing economically while reducing poverty; protecting and improving the lives of the marginalized and vulnerable citizens of our island; and enhanced support of agriculture and our rural environment.
People from all walks of life are invited to participate in the agricultural gardening of our island. By tending the earth, we, as humankind, can create an environment that is both sustainable and mutually beneficial both for us and our descendants as we strive not just to survive but to prosper throughout the Millennium. Utilizing the tools we already have, we can reduce hunger, while creating an upward cycle leading to an island, and world, populated with healthy people who have the energy needed to resolve the problems that have plagued and imprisoned (wo)mankind for so long.
Thus, this event serves to bind the matrix of harnessing the pure energy of humanity in dedicated service to the agricultural/planetary sustainability of all of us on the Garden Island as we recognize our kinship with the global community.
For more information, and if you would like to contribute your time and vision, please call Hillary Moser at, 635-8018.
- Richard Moll (Diamond)
Kapa’a
Big bang started it all
When people around the world accept the fact that evolution is a fact, and the big bang is the real beginning of the universe, we may see something resembling peace in this world.
Most encyclopedias now explain evolution as a fact. The National Geographic Society and IBM, with their Genographic project, have shown conclusively that our species began in Africa.
Astronomers, and others, have shown that the hydrogen from the big bang was the beginning of a chemical process that resulted in the formation of all the elements of the periodic table. Mathematicians and others in the physical sciences, have shown that the laws of physics are just as Einstein and Newton proclaimed.
When these truths finally are accepted by most people; most will have to give up their belief, or faith, in the supernatural God of the Torah, Bible, Koran, and most other religious documents that proclaim a supernatural God. Hopefully, many of the disagreements on religious dogma, such as: homosexuality, abortion, preserving life beyond one’s wishes, and others, will be accepted as personal choices, not to be made by others.
- Larry J. Kluth
Mesa, Ariz
Judge misses intent of open records law
Before 1989, people had to sue their government to force it to release a record that should be public. Fortunately, that year the Legislature amended the Hawai’i open records law to allow the public to appeal a records denial to a state agency — the Office of Information Practices.
If OIP upheld a denial, the requestor could still appeal to circuit court. But, as HRS section 92F-15.5(b) states, if OIP’s “decision is to disclose, the Office of Information Practices shall notify the person and the agency, and the agency shall make the record available.”
Sounds straightforward and clear. But a senior judge on Kaua’i thinks otherwise.
Earlier this year, the Kaua’i County Council refused to release executive session minutes requested by Kaua’i residents and a journalist. On appeal, OIP reviewed the minutes and ruled that the records must be made public.
Instead of providing the minutes, the Council challenged the ruling by filing a lawsuit in June. Although the Council’s right to file the lawsuit was questioned, two months later Kaua’i Judge George Masuoka ruled that an agency is allowed to appeal an OIP ruling to a court.
We must respectfully disagree, because the legislative intent of the law could not have been clearer. Three legislative committees reviewed the bill and stated their intent in committee reports, all of which contained the following identical language.
“Your Committee wishes to emphasize that while a person has a right to bring a civil action to circuit court to appeal a denial of access to a government record, a government agency dissatisfied with an administrative ruling by the OIP does not have the right to bring an action in circuit court to contest the OIP ruling.”
We believe the open records law and the intent of its drafters has been misunderstood. We hope an appeal to the highest court isn’t necessary to fulfill the policy intent of Hawai’i’s open records law. Documents on this issue are online at www.newhawaii.org.
- Beverly Ann Keever, Chair
Right to Know Committee
- Sue Irvine, President
League of Women Voters of Hawai’i
- Stirling Morita, FOI Comm. Ch.
Hawai’i Chapter, Society of Professional Journalists
- Chris Loos, President
Big Island Press Club
- Beth-Ann Kozlovich, Chair
Honolulu Community-Media Council
- Robin Loomis, President
Hawai’i Pro-Democracy Initiative
- Peter M. Bower, President
Citizen Voice
- Carol Bain, President
League of Women Voters of Kauai County
Case closed
There has been considerable speculation as to whether or not Harriet Miers is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. The answer is no, due to lack of acumen or good judgment. Proof? She referred to George W. Bush as the most brilliant person she has ever known. Case closed.
