Taxpayers on wrong end
of political trade offs
The County Council wants to build its first church. It has already formed a religion called “The Host Culture.” Now it has an opportunity to buy some land from an ex-council staffer, James Weatherford, PhD. The council wants to use the open space fund to buy Weatherford’s 13-acre property in Naalehu. This will be its new church yard. Then it will use the council’s annual relief fund to operate the “Church of the Host Culture” and get votes.
This proves that we still have publicly funded elections. However, our tax money is only available to incumbents. Council members will use that money to hire their friends to put on pagan festivals. In turn, the friends will buy tickets for their council member’s campaign fundraisers. Since voters will get free goodies at the “Church of Host Culture” and free goodies at the campaign fundraising events, they will re-elect the incumbents. The whole process will start over again next year in another council district.
The second “Church of the Host Culture” could be built in Kona. Kona council members have a long history of putting the host culture above our American culture. A friend of the government in Kona could get the next big check from the mayor. It’s easy. Even a PhD can do it.
Jerry Warren
Naalehu
Put more focus on
radiation hazard
Anyone on the Pacific coast should be required to monitor for Fukushima radiation, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. While it is indeed a large ocean, the problem is that currents direct what is entrained and depending upon the velocity, are capable of carrying materials for very long distances before being diluted.
As a result of the explosions at Fukushima, large floating objects like boats, telephone poles, house parts and other floating debris are in the current and are also radioactive. On the west coast of North America, echinoderms (sea stars, urchins, etc.) are melting, something they have never done before, which has marine biologists very concerned.
Radiation has also been found in kelp forests. Polar bears and marine mammals have been found with distinctive signs of radiation sickness and all federal regulators have done is raise the acceptable levels of radiation we can consume, the exact opposite of what they do elsewhere.
The food chain has to be affected by now, but to what degree, we do not know.
The Japanese media blackout continues and what does get out of Japan is often tied to political elections. Radiation leakage has been going on for over four years and the situation has not improved. For reasons never explained, Senate Bill SB3049 (2014), radiation monitoring legislation, was killed in the State House, but on whose orders? One can only guess.
Dave Kisor
Pahoa
