• Don’t let disputes marinate • KIUC’s smoke and mirrors • Rewards of good health •Alexander Dam Don’t let disputes marinate Kaua‘i is a savory stew that is home to Hawaiians, Filipinos, Portugese, Japanese, Caucasions and others. This rich diversity
• Don’t let disputes marinate
• KIUC’s smoke and mirrors
• Rewards of good health
•Alexander Dam
Don’t let disputes marinate
Kaua‘i is a savory stew that is home to Hawaiians, Filipinos, Portugese, Japanese, Caucasions and others. This rich diversity is one of Kaua‘i’s most attractive features. However, such diversity serves to create barriers of misunderstanding.
For example, animals are an ever-present fact of life on Kaua‘i, probably because there are so many more of them than of us (humans). How we manage these pets, service and feral animals says alot about the culture from which we came.
Sabong is a national sport in the Phillippines. Sabong is known as cock-fighting in the U.S. and is illegal in most states, including Hawai‘i. So, imagine the dissonance this creates in the minds of those that grew up in the Philippines and now live on Kaua‘i.
Other examples of blood-sports include bull fighting and bird shooting. Simply stated, different cultures view, treat and employ animals in different ways.
So, conflict arises between parties because of different cultural experiences. What is acceptable in one culture may be offensive in another.
All disputes begin with misunderstanding.
There’s the rub and here’s the solution: mediate. Mediation is a private conversation people with a dispute. A neutral (mediator) moderates the conversation in such a way as to expose each party’s position and interest and encourages each party to negotiate an equitable and just outcome.
Mediate disputes with neighbors. Begin a collaborative dialogue that can lead to a compromise of conditions. Don’t let disputes marinate.
Patrick Stack, Lihu‘e
KIUC’s smoke and mirrors
Free chili, a bag of rice and a nice big party held again to help deceive the residents of Kaua‘i. Slick brochures and parties can not hide the fact that the residents of Kaua‘i are paying the highest rate for electricity in the United States.
The deception that our co-op board continues to use is the price of a barrel of oil and this calculation is completely hidden from the people. Now that oil is going down, they have to increase our base rates to keep the deception going.
I am a single senior resident on fixed income and my electric bill is still averaging over $200 per month. Exactly what has our co-op board done in the past six years to look for alternative ways to generate electricity? The answer is in the results — nothing.
Wake up, Kaua‘i. Get some professionals on the board and stop electing the “good old boys” who have no knowledge of how to run an electric company. I laughed at their statement of 99.99 percent reliability. My electric has tripped off three times in the past month.
Giving free food for 300 people seems to be their answer of how to placate the people. The price to live on Kaua‘i is going higher again.
Robert A. Nesti, Princeville
Rewards of good health
We have witnessed for the last couple of months how so many wedges have been driven between the people of our nation that is having a profound effect on dividing our nation, the latest being health care. Who would have thought that this issue would have so much public outcry? I didn’t.
Do you think we have some control on this matter at a personal level on a daily basis? The answer is yes. Think of what we ingest into our bodies daily, that may be our starting point. You and I have the agency to choose what we consume as far as our daily diet is concerned.
We can work towards optimum health and thus partake of the rich bounties of this life or we can choose to follow the way of the world and consume the designer diets and trendy substances that leads us to misery.
I’m no dietitian or medical physician but I found that by adhering to a health code that is part of my religious belief, I was able to regain my once failing health thus giving me a more prosperous and meaningful life. You can achieve the same also.
Let us be proactive and take back what we yielded to the government. As a nation of intelligent people, we can find all the necessary information on being healthy and fit. As parents we can help our children understand the importance of good health and its rewards.
Healthy diet, exercise, rest … still applies today.
Myron Lindsey, Koloa
Alexander Dam
One of my more persistent childhood memories is of my dad telling and retelling his pals about Alexander Dam and the day it collapsed. He was the soil technician working for the dam engineer. (“The Alexander Dam break,” Island History, Aug. 28)
Several years ago in San Diego I accidentally met a lady who said her husband’s family, by the name of Cox, was from Kaua‘i, and that she thought her father-in-law had been working on a dam there.
Later I asked my mother if she remembered who that engineer was. She thought it might have been a Joel Cox. Then I asked the San Diego Coxes if their father was the ill-fated Joel. He was.
Subsequently we got together several times to talk story. Kaua‘i is a small place, with very wide connections.
Dave Au, San Diego
