• Get real, or get out • No dupes • All the world’s a stage … Nawiliwili too • Make it sacred ground • Consultant Asing Get real, or get out If I had a better sense of humor I’d
• Get real, or get out
• No dupes
• All the world’s a stage … Nawiliwili too
• Make it sacred ground
• Consultant Asing
Get real, or get out
If I had a better sense of humor I’d probably find it comical when I read letters from people like the recent one from Siri Shabad and John Tyler of Kapa‘a (“What Superferry reveals about Kaua‘i,” Letters, Sept. 15).
The authors, like so many other writers, disparage businesses as “feeding their needs, or worse yet, have an investment-taking mind-set, without honestly giving back.”
Other writers love to use the word “greedy.” What hypocrisy. Firstly, how do you know they’re not giving back to the community? Do you know the lives of every business owner in the island and know that they give nothing back to the community like making cash donations to churches and charities or working evenings or weekends with nonprofits to help the underprivileged or needy?
It just amazes me how you “know” this. Are you psychic? What malarkey. Why don’t you do a survey of the non-profits on Kaua‘i and see who volunteers their time or makes sizable donations? Then come back and announce your results with some integrity.
Now let’s look at your life. OK, so you don’t own a business that you’ve created from nothing providing products or services to those (like you) who need or want them. But you work for someone who did. That really means that you offer your body, your labor in exchange for cash. What is that called? So you must be “greedy” as well because you sell yourself for money. That’s what that salary is in your logical universe. Now come on … is that any different from someone who started a successful business and gave you that job? The logic you folks follow is beyond me. Either everyone is “greedy” and that’s a good thing, or everyone is just trying to make an “honest” living. It’s called capitalism. But then, maybe you lean towards communism where as long as you show up, you get paid … and often get paid even if you don’t show up. Worked real good in the USSR.
I’ve found that this sort of thinking is rampant these days as more and more of the “hippie types” move here from wherever it is they come from. I don’t often see local-type names in the letters making such claims. Another bunch of hypocrites are the people who’ve flocked here in the past two decades, settled in and now don’t want anyone else to come here and ruin “their” little paradise. Can’t you see how it’s you who came here, in your numbers, changing things just as much anything else? Using up, as you said, “…our collective Neighbor Island resources….” It’s your bodies that are using up what little affordable housing there is for the local folks struggling to survive on their home island. It’s you who are jamming the roads right along with the tourists who have been coming here long before you decided to bless Kaua‘i with your gracious presence, superior knowledge and activism. Get real. Do something to really make things better here and leave.
Jason Manawai
Kekaha
No dupes
As one who has actively participated in the movement to demand an EIS for the Superferry before it can sail, I take issue with the implication that the young people taking up this struggle have been “recruited.” Even more offensive is the accusation that they have been recruited by Matson, Hawaiian Airlines or rental car companies. The young people I see flooding into this movement were born and raised on Kaua‘i and are acting out of a deep love and concern for the future of the island and its people. These are smart, passionate young leaders who should be honored and respected for their committment to a just society, not insulted by being called dupes or pawns.
Katy Rose
Hanalei
All the world’s a stage … Nawiliwili too
In response to M. McMillin’s questions (“Once here, what then?” Letters, Sept. 15), I am assuming that the taxicabs will stage outside Reynolds Recycling and the Kaua‘i Food Bank to pickup passengers off the Hawai‘i Superferry just as they do on cruise ship days. The rent-a-car companies will bring down their shuttle vans and bring passengers who desire to rent a car back to their lots, just like on cruise ship days.
If it isn’t a cruise ship day, I’m sure the Aloha Center at Nawiliwili will figure out some way to have friends and family picking people up from the Hawaii Superferry, pay them to park in their lot; to show their “aloha spirit.”
Seeing how Kaua‘i is vying to take away the first place “most overcrowded, most overbuilt, most overtrafficked desirable tourist destination” title from Oahu, Maui, and Kailua-Kona, it will all get worked out. Trust me (wink, wink) …
Francine M. Grace
Kalaheo
Make it sacred ground
Sen. Gary Hooser had an excellent idea as to what to do with the Coco Palms Property.
Turn it over to Hawaiian Affairs to make a Sacred Grounds Park and make the Sacred Parts inaccessible to people.
Whether you fence these parts off, or make some other boundary like a stone wall surrounding where people should not walk into.
This would be a great way to preserve a part of Kaua‘i, and teach people something about the history of Kaua‘i.
Let’s stop turning Kaua‘i into a Disneyland/playground for the wealthy.
There are plenty of places on the Mainland for the wealthy to have second/third homes.
Let’s preserve Kaua‘i, and show each other and our ancestors that we are not shallow, and only care about ourselves, and only care about what we can use up and destroy today.
Dennis Chaquette
Kapaa
Consultant Asing
This is in reference to the article “Asing: wall work not needed,” in The Garden Island on Sept. 14. County Council chair Mr. Bill ‘Kaipo’ Asing wonders whether the expenditure was necessary and is the need for the work real?
Two doctors of engineering representing Oceanit testified, at our cost of $6,500, regarding the sea-wall fronting Pono Kai Condominiums. After listening to the engineers explaining the need for action on the county’s part to save the beach, Mr. Asing says, “Is (the need for the work) real? I don’t know, and I question that.”
In the future, why don’t we just consult Mr. Asing on these matters. He seems to know more than two men with doctorates in engineering, and he is already on “our” payroll.
This is just one more example of the arrogance of some of our County Council members.
Kris Van Dahm
Kapa‘a
