•Just wishful thinking? •Phantom flyover •Pidgin unites us Just wishful thinking? What if all that taxpayers’ money being used today is perceived to be an “investment” in the future? What it we’re “paying it forward” to provide for better transportation
•Just wishful thinking?
•Phantom flyover
•Pidgin unites us
Just wishful thinking?
What if all that taxpayers’ money being used today is perceived to be an “investment” in the future?
What it we’re “paying it forward” to provide for better transportation systems, better health care, better plumbing, better schools?
What it we’re finally spending some money right here at home through the stimulus programs on projects and programs that have too long been neglected or ignored?
What if we begin to recycle, reuse, and remediate more effectively? What if we really grow most of our own food instead of importing what we eat? What if we become less dependent on credit cards?
What if we all started walking more to become healthier? What if we make “malama ‘aina” a “way of life” to be a resident or a visitor here in Hawai‘i?
Are these things so impossible? To attain any of these “wishful thinking, polly-anna concepts” to the max might be interesting, to say the least!
Jose Bulatao Jr., Kekaha
Phantom flyover
There is something truly frightening about the jet that rattled my house for over two minutes just before midnight on May 26.
It is not the extremely low altitude that is alarming but the fact that our police department, the FAA and our own military, whose base on the Westside which is known to have some of the most advanced missile tracking technology in the world would have us believe that no such event took place.
We have equipment on our Westside that can pinpoint a missile launch halfway around the world and stop it, yet we are supposed to believe no one knows what was flown so low it shook my house and more importantly by whom.
Now some may not see why this is a big deal. The reason it concerns me is in this dangerous post 9-11 world I like to think that we are protected. I am not saying that the jet was a threat but imagine if it was.
I also find it extremely hard to believe that our defenses are so weak that our own military cannot even detect potential threats only 20 miles from its base. This doesn’t make me feel comfortable when North Korea is testing nukes and missiles, Iran is flexing its military muscles by sending warships into international waters and we can’t even detect an un-identified plane flying just miles from one of the most advanced military defense posts in the entire world extremely vital to our national security.
Daniel O’Flaherty, ‘Oma‘o
Pidgin unites us
The spoken pidgin English in Hawai‘i pidgin (or Hawai‘i creole) originated as a form of communication used between English-speaking people and non-English-speaking immigrants in Hawai‘i beginning some 150 years ago.
It supplanted the original pidgin native Hawaiians used on the plantations and elsewhere in Hawai‘i.
It has been influenced by many languages, including Portuguese, Hawaiian and Cantonese.
As people of other language backgrounds were brought in to work on the plantations, such as Japanese, Filipinos and Koreans, pidgin acquired words from these languages.
Even today, pidgin retains some influences from these languages.
For example, the word “stay” in pidgin has the same meaning as the Portuguese verb “ficar,” meaning “to stay” when referring to a temporary state or location.
Sometimes the structure of the language is like that of Portuguese grammar. For instance, “You like one knife?”
The reason why the word “one” is used instead of “a” is because the word “um” in Portuguese has two meanings: “um” translates to “one” and “a” in English.
The phrase “no can” (“no pode”) is Portuguese grammar, as well. In Portuguese, the phrase “Vocno pode fazer isso!” comes out in pidgin as “You no can do dat!”
Pidgin words derived from Cantonese are also seen in other parts of America. For example, “Haa?” is also used by Chinese Americans outside of Hawai‘i. The meaning is “Excuse me?” or “What did you say?”
Another word in pidgin that was derived from the Chinese which is also seen in America is “lie dat”, which means “like that” but in Hawai‘i it is pronounced “li’ dat”
“Bumbai bachi” = “That could be bad luck.” (“Bachi” is Japanese for bad luck)
In the 19th and 20th centuries, pidgin started to be used outside the plantation between ethnic groups. Public school children learned pidgin from their classmates, and eventually it became the primary language of most people in Hawai‘i, replacing the original languages.
Dennis Chaquette, Kapa‘a
