Gone fishing ... and folking
By David Shapiro
I'm taking a few days off for the ritualized observance of the passage of another year. It's daunting that I'm now the same age my dad was when he had the stroke that ultimately did him in.
I'll console myself with the annual recitation of my favorite line by my favorite bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins:
I ain't afraid of dying, it's just that you have to stay dead so long
I'll also tip a few in the memory of the too many friends who didn't make it this far.
Fortunately, I'll be saved from sinking totally into morbid depression by a back-to-the-60s concert some old local folkies are putting on Sunday in the beachfront sanctuary at Calvary by the Sea in Aina Haina.
The program, "Love is but a Song we Sing," starts with a picnic at 5 p.m. with the concert headlined by Jon Osorio, Leon & Malia, Peter Apo and friends starting at 6:30.
This is some primo talent and tickets are a steal at $10 for individuals and $25 for families. For more information, call 735-8641 or go here.
***
Finally, I pass along a link to a story a reader sent me about "Prejudice in Paradise" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's a rehash of old news for local readers, but an interesting window on how outsiders perceive us.
I won't offer any commentary except that the paper seems reasonably measured and decently reported. I'd be interested in the thoughts of others who would care to share.
Volcanic Ash
September 1st, 2009 at 5:49 am
Aloha Dave,
Happy Birthday! Have a great day and a wonderful year ahead of you.
September 1st, 2009 at 7:24 am
I read 'Prejudice in Paradise' and was surprised at the one sided tone of the SPLC article. The SPLC is a well known and admirable civil rights organization which has taken stands against hate crimes and disciminatory practices for decades.
The article would make the unknowing observer feel that Hawaii teems with prejudice. I have felt prejudice as a white, but after reading the history of the illegal overthrow, illegal designation as a territory and subsequent illegal statehood, I understand those feelings. It is one thing to discriminate against someone for their color, and quite another to steal someone's homeland - I have felt similar local feelings in Puerto Rico.
The article makes out Ms. Trask as being an instigator for violence, when she is just mirroring the feelings of some native Hawaiians - she is not calling for physical retribution as the article seems to insinuate. The article also mentions Sam Slom as a victim in his Statehood Day celebration. In my opinion, it is Senator Slom who is the racist.
More empathy to the plight of the kanaka maoli would have been appropriate in the SPLC article.
September 1st, 2009 at 10:25 am
Happy Birthday Mr. Shapiro. I think we are the same age, like your taste in music and enjoy your humor and writings, although your opinion may irk me every now and then. Have a great day and stay away from Ms. Trask.
September 1st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Happy Birthday to you! Hauoli Makahiki Hou! Interesting article and I wish it wasn't true. Both sides of my family have been here since before 1840 and never were Americans but I am a haole but I am Hawaiian- oh gads. It hurts me to read and remember the incidents reported by the SPLC.(Glad they didn't mention the hate crime at Hookena Beach on Hawaii- a few years ago. The police, according to the local paper, were going to let it go, but a family member of one of the victims prosecuted and eventually the lolos were indicted and I hope they are in jail.) Do these hate crimes/racial violence not happen elsewhere in the US?
I don't understand the anger. Sometimes I believe that Americans fell all over themselves to say they were sorry and that gave fuel to the more entitlement fervor.What happened in 1893 (I think) was not of our doing. That was over 100 years ago and we can't go backwards and we have said we wish it didn't happen, but it's done. I believe Haunani Trask was just born an angry woman, despite being lovely to look at. She would have had the same hue and cry if she was of another race.
Too bad.And we are (or should be) collectively sorry for any human/animal that is ever hurt.
Thanks always for your refreshing writing. with aloha....
September 1st, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Dave,
Happy birthday.
The article was good. Lived in Hawai'i over 20 years, would probably still be there but for medical ussues that my wife had. In my view, the characterization of Kay Trask is, if anything, understated. If she stood for sovereignty that would be one thing, but she has gone way beyond that. Years ago -- when she was at her most outrageous -- Charlie Memminger did a pretty good pice on her. Wish I had saved that.
But, she is what she is. People forget that despite all that is wonderful about Hawai'i and its culture it was a very primitive society. Of course, the US was not clean in the whole thing either.
September 1st, 2009 at 9:47 pm
One thing that bugged me a little about the SPLC piece was that it made it seem that native Hawaiians are at the center of racial tension here and we all know it's far more complex than that and that the tensions extend to all ethnic groups. Just read Cayetano's book if you don't believe that. Some of the most ardent Hawaiian nationalists I know also happen to be some of the least prejudiced people I know.
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:56 am
I found an article one sided and overstated based on my personal experience over the past 20 years.
The claims made by so called Native Hawaiian movement about the "Stealing of the land" and "overthrow" are mostly untrue and the violence by Hawaiians should stand by itself as a phenomenon inspired not only by the Trask sisters or Osorios of this world but by the entire Democrat party that continuously generates racial tensions in order to win elections. (Please see Obama, Barak).
In college, faced with ridiculous oppression claims by the affirmative action imbeciles, I have discover that there was an industry comprised of Liberal Democrat academics,media and Hollywood fanning the discontent and violence by the DNC constituencies.
When factually challenged and proven to be wrong, one of the teachers told me that "The oppression is defined in terms of oppressed and not oppressors", i.e. there is no need for any objective basis to claim "oppression".
The mentioning of Puerto Rico by one of the posters was very telling: Puerto Ricans is another "oppressed" group whipped out into racial and anti American frenzy by the DNC. Pres. Clinton not only released PR terrorists from jails he did it against their expressed wishes to remain there. Puerto Ricans claim to be oppressed and therefore we had to, had to, appoint a PR woman to the Supreme Court recently.
I could go on... However it is important to know that on at least two occasions the citizens of PR were given a chance in the form of a free Referendum to choose between being: 1. An independent Nation 2. A territory of the US 3. A state. In all cases, the majorities continued to support the status quo ante - i.e. to live as the "oppressed" under the thumbs of the Yanquee imperialist dog occupiers!
I suspect the results here would be similar. The violence and the prejudice are the result of a deliberate effort by the Democrat party to cultivate racial tensions and support the most radical elements in the Native Hawaiian community by granting tenures in the UH (as an example) to the criminally violent Trasks and Osorios of this world and promoting racist and antisemitic agenda to advance their ugly political dominance of this islands.
September 2nd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy"
Fire Star Antares
Must we struggle without sound
Days full of forgetfulness, nights spent restless
Only the glow of the enduring would be reassuring
The crickets chip throughout the night
A plane soars from sightless heights
Yet here I remain, awake and full of wonder
The truth of limitless love
Gives the right and responsibility
To man who endures through imagination
Where he exists in timelessness
Where he toils selflessly
Where he awaits the asterisms
That would sooth his echoing mind
The stars are always too few
The city, she sings in her sleep
So I crawl into bed without a peep
Hush
Clouds in Manoa
Gently caressing the ground
Have I become one?
For I am about to drown
Here, immersed in rain
Where the valley meets the sky
September 3rd, 2009 at 9:26 am
May you catch many fish and not too many of your folks.
Aloha,
Keahi
September 3rd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Happy birthday, young'un. Many more.
The Trask sisters are just a couple of unhappy haoles. (One or more drops of that magic haole blood, ya know.)
The SPLC article was sadly true. I hope to live long enough that we put away all the manini junk that divides us and find we are one race, one people, one small bunch of noisy brothers and sisters on a tiny blue planet in a really, really big universe.
Sigh. Maybe one day.
September 4th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Happy Birthday and many happy more!
Thanks for the reference of the SPLC piece. You share a piece that is clear regarding the cultural level of accepted violence in Hawaii. The culture is that of the people of Hawaii, not just Hawaiians. It is shameful to say, "Oh, it's okay, go ahead and lash out at this people or that people."
Come on people now, smile on your brother... gonna love one another right now."