More Letters | 4-3-15

Get kids back into their schools

I noticed in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald story Thursday, the “schools” that relocated children plan to keep their current arrangements for the rest of the school year.

Now, in addition to the little kids from Pahoa and Keonepoko being kept in little pods in Keaau, taking field trips to the bathroom and hanging out with high schoolers for another three months, because of pre-emptive forced evacuation, some other information has been imparted, which you should consider now rather than making everyone suffer through the end of the school year because you can.

It was just brought to my attention that since the mayor reinstated Section 8 housing in lower Puna, lots of folks have moved back, and their kids, which should be going to Keonepoko, have to go to Pahoa School, and now there are so many little kids in Pahoa School, the older elementary kids are now in classrooms on the high school side, not with their elementary school friends, and exposed to the problems inherent in our high schools.

Why doesn’t those in charge at the Department of Education just take a few days or over the weekend, and open up Keonepoko, and let the kids all go back where they belong? Why is it making them, their parents and the teachers, stay unnecessarily? The lava has not really been a threat for awhile now. Could it be the DOE spent way too much money in its panic, and now the kids and parents and teachers have to suffer until the DOE decides it is time? If it is not this, why is the DOE keeping the children where they are for many more months, and tell the students, teachers, parents and caring community members in writing and in the newspaper, so everyone can know the real reason and try to come to grips with this new “dire emergency” method of dealing with Pele our government is testing out in lower Puna.

Sara Steiner

Pahoa

It’s time to wise up about geothermal

It is said that ignorance is bliss, but it all depends upon to whom the ignorance is blissful.

Geothermal energy is often touted as green, but without understanding the differences between how this energy is extracted, those who believe all geothermal energy is green are blissfully ignorant.

When most people think of geothermal energy, they immediately think of the dry type, where steam is extracted from the surface, with no drilling required. That is unfortunately not the type of energy extraction that industry employs here in Hawaii, known as wet, because steam must be induced by forcing cold water on hot rock at depth and especially dodgy in fragile fracture zones. This is the type that hardly qualifies as green, but because of ignorance on the part of the public and all levels of government, the wet type is billed as green and industry manages to acquire billions of dollars to support operations that do not make anywhere near the profit acquired in government grants and other giveaways.

Then there are the events that bring out the protest by residents that industry attributes to NIMBY. There have been significant events where hydrogen sulfide and metal gases from depth have been released into the community, which made a number of individuals quite sick. It has been determined by those who have studied the situation in depth that Puna has been designated a sacrificial district for industry and to facilitate the entry of the geothermal industry all over the state, that industry in concert with the state Legislature wrote and passed Act 97, legislation that could very well be considered an antipersonnel weapon.

If they mention the use of enhanced geothermal, rest assured, it only means geothermal fracking.

Dave Kisor

Pahoa

Assault was illegal, photographing collecting wasn’t

This letter is in response to the letter by Richard Saunders concerning the recent underwater assault on Rene Umberger by fish collector Jay Lovell. I would like to point out a few things that Mr. Saunders seems to misunderstand.

First, the assailant’s fish collecting was not under attack, everyone knows he was acting within the law during his collecting activities. What this case focused on was the assault. At a distance of 25 feet or a little more, Ms. Umberger was lawfully videotaping the fish collectors.

Secondly, they were in a public place where photography is legal. She did not approach Mr. Lovell.

Thirdly, at that great distance, Mr. Lovell charged toward Ms. Umberger, closing the distance in about four seconds, removing her air supply at a depth of 40 to 50 feet underwater, a potentially deadly assault. He made the move, not her.

This case is not about crazy lawmakers or political parties. It is about one person behaving well within the law and another person being recorded by more than one camera clearly breaking the law — assault is illegal, photography isn’t.

David Kearnes

Kailua-Kona

Religion and national park shouldn’t mix

The somewhat convoluted content of the letter submitted by Edward H. Shulman on March 20 questioning the notion that there are constitutional grounds for excluding religious proselytizing from government facilities like Hawaii Volcanoes National Park confuses me a bit. This is partly because it includes content which seems to define what lies at the heart of the reasons any such activity should be excluded:

“…in the hands of government what might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce. A state-created orthodoxy puts at grave risk that freedom of belief and conscience which are the sole assurance that religious faith is real, not imposed. (Id. at p. 592.) If citizens are subjected to state-sponsored religious exercises then the state has disavowed its own duty to guard and respect that sphere of inviolable conscience and belief which is the mark of a free people.”

The quoted passage states that “what might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce.” I’m not sure I could better express the reason that U.S. legislation strictly limits government-sponsored religion, and prohibits government institutions from cultivating religious associations. We are a diverse “free” people, and the introduction of unique religious content, especially such involving “indoctrination,” proselytizing or evangelism to the facilities, institutions and activities of government sets the stage for processes that can end in oppression, exclusion and abuse of anyone who does not share or subscribe to such beliefs.

The details of the park activity in question such as: whether the message was amplified; endorsed or not by the national park; who was or was not encouraged to engage with individuals manning the kiosk etc., don’t alter its inherent denominational and proselytizing nature. Violating federal law quietly and politely without amplification doesn’t make such violations legal, or welcome to everyone who visits the park.

History and theology hold that there was a religious government in ancient Egypt, and that Moses and his people labored under the yoke of its polytheistic rule and domination. After his disagreement with Pharoah, who considered himself to be a deity and believed in his own divine right to rule as he saw fit, Moses might have had some things to say about the perils of religious government and policies that could conceivably permit government rule based on denominational precepts and law. Those who don’t accept that the Constitution’s language clearly calls for the strict separation of church and state might instead want to rely on common sense and an interest in simple self-preservation to inspire their support for maintaining a secular government that can’t easily exclude them from the ranks of the chosen.

Michael Helms

Volcano