LETTERS for January 21 issue
Upset about break-in
I came to Maui in 1983 and have lived here most of those years (and the times that I didn’t, I wanted to be back on Maui so bad I ached). My husband, Richard, and I own and operate a small service and maintenance company here in West Maui.
I just got a call from a roommate at my house I lease in the 1300 block of Hoapili Street in Lahaina by the Cannery Mall. Someone attempted to break into her room tonight!!
I have NEVER locked my doors in the years I have lived here on our beautiful Maui. My heart is breaking…
What has happened to Maui that we allow these kinds of things to go on? Who is watching after who, which is what we each are supposed to be doing if we believe in any kind of a “Supreme Being.” I thought that we here on Maui had an Automatic Neighborhood Watch.
In the last few months, we have “lost” a small white fishing boat, a bicycle, some jewelry, and now an attempted break-in? What is going on? Who is it that is violating our blessed Maui? Where has our aloha gone?
If anyone saw any of these goings on, we would so much appreciate you being a person of aloha, and mahalo for practicing the Native Hawaiian concepts of pono, aloha, aina, ohana and mana… living with a conscious decision to do the right thing in terms of self. (God is in all of us; not just a few.)
Mahalo so much for hearing my venting. This really is a hurtful thing on top of everything else.
MAXINE R. HAZEN, Lahaina
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Thoughts on fewer whale sightings
Prior to a recent short film by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in regards to (thus far) the few sightings this year of North Pacific humpback whales, I was surprised when I received a call from a friend that is in contact with NOAA and asked me for my opinion.
Due to more than four decades of observations and studies of North Pacific humpback whales from my Eskimo Sea Kayak, the film pretty much shares my opinion.
Please understand I have no college education; I am not an expert. My education has been by living with and observing the oceans, primarily from my extensive sailing ventures, and my observations of the waters surrounding the Hawaiian Archipelago from my Eskimo Sea Kayak since the early 1970s.
Perhaps some validity as to what I am about to share is a statement by Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913) that I have used several times in my self-published book. He states: “Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.”
Keep in mind the oceans are the breath of life for Planet Earth. The world’s oceans regulate the temperatures of our planet. Warmer ocean, warmer planet.
The year 2015 has been an El Nino period, creating a warmer ocean. Warmer seas equal less oxygen in the water, equals less food; less food, less life. And perhaps because of warming seas, whales are feeding longer in the nutrient-rich waters of the north.
One of the reasons for the migration of North Pacific humpback whales to the warmer waters of Hawaii is to give birth, as the young calf is not born with sufficient blubber to survive in the Arctic or Alaskan waters.
I feel that the migration of North Pacific humpback whales does not evolve around numerous sightings beginning around November/December, but I feel it’s a rotation in that if a female gives birth early in the season, she will depart earlier. If a female gives birth late in the season, she will return to the Hawaiian waters later the following season.
With warmer ocean temperatures, their migration to Hawaii could possibly change, as they would not have to travel several thousand miles, due to a warmer ocean further north. This past summer, our water temperature here in Hawaii reached 84 degrees – the warmest temperature on record since 1895 when records began.
Climate change? Yes, the planet has always gone through extreme climate changes. There are records and findings of tree fossils that once grew in the Antarctic.
Once again, I am not an expert; I am not a marine biologist. I am just sharing my thoughts. Why travel thousands of miles to a warmer ocean when you do not have to?
I hope I’m wrong; world temperatures are changing due to a warmer ocean, and not in a natural manner.
Storms are more frequent, growing in numbers and strength by more than 25 percent. It is said that 2016 could be hotter.
I recently read that the Pacific is warming from the equator north about 20 miles closer to the Hawaiian Islands each year. Hurricanes feed on a warm ocean. Keep in mind: nature has no boundaries.
RICHARD ROSHON, www.hawaiiwhalesrus.com, Lahaina
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Meat Industry-9, Consumers-0
The “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” recently released by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services mark the ninth time in a row that the meat industry has successfully suppressed scientific findings recommending reduced meat consumption. The reduction was recommended by the government-appointed Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee in a 571-page report based on review of thousands of studies.
Reduced meat consumption was first recommended in 1977 by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs in “Dietary Goals for the United States,” a precursor to the dietary guidelines. The meat industry forced the committee to destroy all copies of the report and to remove the offending recommendation from a new edition.
That wanton government sell-out to the meat industry has replayed itself with every new edition of the dietary guidelines since then. “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” shape school lunches and other government food support programs, and underlie public health campaigns to lower rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Fortunately, American consumers are not easily duped. Sales of plant-based meats, cheeses, milks and ice creams have skyrocketed, and every grocery store provides seemingly countless choices of fruits and vegetables.
LEX NAKAHARA, Honokowai
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Leaders should work to keep sugar on Maui
Sugar and pineapple have been a dominant part of the identity of Hawaii, the jewel of our nation for a long time. But all of the pineapple is gone and the sugar on Maui, the last left in Hawaii, is about to be gone.
Maui is the “Valley Isle,” with beautiful waving fields of green sugar cane. When the cane is gone, the valley of Maui will be dusty dirt fields. Instead of occasional smoke from the harvest of the cane, there will be near-constant dust and not infrequent smoke from the scrub fires (such as occur from the fallow fields in West Maui) blowing to South Maui from the heavy trade winds that whip across the waist of Maui, as can be attested by any biker that peddles across the waist into the wind.
“Other crops,” mentioned to replace the lost sugar, are not easily, rapidly, completely or assuredly obtained. The closure of the sugar industry affects not only jobs and multiple secondary issues as mentioned in our newspapers, but the tourist industry, our lifeblood. In addition, the economic strength of all of Hawaii, including Maui, is of special strategic concern with the current and probable long-lived upheaval in the Far East.
With billions of dollars that the United States gives to other countries, so much of which is excessive and unaccounted for, I suggest that our country use a relatively small amount compared to that to help our own sugar on Maui survive. This not by increasing restriction on imports which raises the cost of sugar, but by a subsidy to assist with our unique transportation costs. Right now, sugar only gets 0.8 percent of the present subsidies to agriculture anyway.
Our leaders need to find a way to keep sugar on Maui, not just let it happen.
DR. GEORGE S. LAVENSON, Lahaina
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Solutions for Maui’s overcowded jail
Nearly all the busted and convicted Maui criminals we read about daily in the Maui newspapers are REPEATERS! Some have been convicted of burglaries, theft, fraud, assault, rape, child or wife abuse, and meth and heroin up to five to 25 times! One guy who assaulted me had been arrested for crimes over 20 times, according to the responding officer. So, what are these dangers to society doing free in the streets, ready to rip off and attack more people?
The famous Maui surfer who stole my surfboard valued at over a thousand dollars in 2014 was witnessed destroying it in big surf at Honolua Bay by three friends. When confronted, he confessed he did it and promised to pay or replace it in November 2014 within three weeks. He never did, so I called the police and found out he has been in and out of the Maui jail dozens of times for a variety of crimes. What was he doing loose to steal my most valuable ever surfboard? The Lahaina Police refused to drive to the Maui County jail, where they admitted he was, and arrest him in jail again for theft!
The county officials argue there are not enough cells for most of the inmates in their jail and pack multiple criminals per cell. So, the court system lets them out so early the punishment is not effective, after they get three free meals per day, free beds and free utilities paid for by the taxpayers! The county should legally raid their bank accounts and make them pay for their lodging and meals, because we have to work for it and are not criminals!
The fines from the incompetent judges are worthless to deter crime, because they are easily paid by the money from sold theft items, credit card fraud, and selling meth, heroin and cocaine! Profits from these drugs are so huge that fines are worthless as detriments.
Instead of financing a new jail with more cells, Maui County Finance Director Riki Hokama spends taxpayer money on huge raises for the mayor, County Council members, department directors and himself – as well as an unneeded, expensive, new county office building in the Maui Mall. They already had comfortable, air-conditioned offices – better equipped and supplied than the private offices of thousands of citizens! They spend tax money on luxuries, including free perks, nice government-financed vehicles and other things working public people pay for.
In the meantime, Alcatraz was the perfect solution to over-crowded prisons for decades. It was in a bay full of currents so strong, water so cold, and sharks that no prisoner ever escaped for decades. The State of Hawaii owns six UNINHABITED islands northwest of Kauai, and one could be a Hawaii Alcatraz. Do not feed and pay for housing for the thieving spongers off society who refuse to have worked for their income, Social Security and benefits, like we decent citizens have done. I say do what the superior government of the old Kingdom of Hawaii did: exile them to an uninhabited island, like they did with Kahoolawe. The prisoners there were ordered to eat by fishing, growing their own crops and picking fruit. They had to build their own shelters from native woods. The men were sent to an island off Kihei surrounded by sharks and currents that would suck them thousands of miles out into open-ocean instead of any Hawaiian island. The female prisoners were exiled on the remote North Shore of Lanai, where they had to live off the land, too.
Liisinki and Laysan islands even have green vegetation, sandy beaches, plenty of good fishing and food diving, and plenty of rain for water catchment tanks in the same rain line as famously wet Kauai. Two local Alcatrazes!
On Oahu, the government has prepared Sand Island for their homeless and imported used, air-conditioned shipping containers to fill with bunk beds. If the homeless who commit no crimes can get this free housing, food stamps and welfare checks, why should the taxpayers pay for the criminals getting these benefits! It is typical of our local government’s Third World mentality!
In Mexico, they throw criminals like we let run loose on Maui into horrible, smelly, ancient, rotting, rat-infested cells for ten to 50 years. They eat the worst and most dangerous meals imaginable. If you combined all the Maui people convicted for heroin, crystal meth, crack cocaine and sales the last couple of decades, and united them, you would see the Maui Cartel!
Paying for our police to REPEATEDLY arrest and chase these repeat offenders who refuse rehab is a waste of tax dollars for gasoline and salaries, when the cops could better be chasing newly arrived criminals to Maui!
STEVE OMAR