Developer making a mess of Hui Road H

(The following letter was sent to county officials.)

Without permits or permission, Developer Brown continues to make a ridiculous mess of the right of way along Hui Road H. What is the plan the county is employing to prevent this muck from running down the decaying road to Napili Bay during heavy rains?

Are you planning to pave this area with public funds instead of requiring the developer to submit engineering plans, SMA assessment applications, and obtain the required permits through due process and public hearings? Where are the required parking spaces for the 24 guests the Developer is seeking for Vacation Rental revenue?

In the alterative, can the residents act in the same manner as the developer and remove these leaky pipes and pointless plantings, and employ the proper measures to protect the Bay from erosion? Please stop ignoring our respectful inquiries and demands for responsible county government.

CHRIS SALEM, Napili

Fireworks pollute the ocean

Every year, I wonder and complain about fireworks being launched off a barge in the harbor, but it falls on deaf ears.

WHY do we all profess to be concerned about polluting the ocean, but continue to pretend like the debris and chemicals from fireworks don’t do any harm to the waters or sea life?

There are other options — I’ve seen some amazing drone shows and projections on a dark sky. As my granddaughter said, “Fireworks are SO nineties.”

If we really want to celebrate our country, celebrate our oceans, too.

PENNY MULLEN WEIGEL, West Maui

Act can help repair the Supreme Court

Supreme Court decisions impact every facet of American life. Unfortunately, those decisions don’t reflect the will of the people. Mitch McConnell’s right-wing majority court gutted voting rights, opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate money in our elections, struck down gun safety laws, overturned student debt relief for millions of Americans, and limited the government’s ability to protect our air and water.

Since they overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion has been effectively banned (with extremely limited exceptions) in 14 states. Nearly one in three Americans have lost access to abortion care.

This can’t go on. We need to move away from these types of extremely partisan rulings and restore the legitimacy of the court by passing the Judiciary Act to expand and rebalance the bench.

Congress has changed the size of the Supreme Court seven times already in our nation’s history — and they must do it again to ensure that the justices protect our freedoms, not advance their own radical political agendas.

It’s time for Congress to pass the Judiciary Act.

ARUM RANISAVLJEVIC, Wailuku

The most influential musician you have never heard of

When you think of Americans whose music has made a lasting difference, you might think of Scott Joplin, Woody Guthrie, Maybelle Carter, Harry Belafonte… or Roger Payne.

Who? I came across Payne in a June obituary reporting that he’d died at age 88.

Yes, I occasionally scan the obits — not out of morbid curiosity, but because these little death notices encompass our people’s history, reconnecting us to common lives that had some small or surprisingly large impact.

Payne’s impact is still reverberating around the globe, even though few know his name.

A biologist who studied moths, in the 1960s, he chanced upon a technical military recording of undersea sounds that incidentally included a cacophony of baying, shrieking, mooing, squealing and caterwauling.

They were the voices of humpback whales.

What others had considered noise “blew my mind,” Payne said, describing them as a musical chorus of “exuberant, uninterrupted rivers of sound.”

His life’s work shifted from moths to whales and finally to the interdependence of all species.

At the time, whales were treated by industry and governments as dull, lumbering nuisances.

But Payne’s musical instincts came into play, sensing that the “singing” of these magnificent mammals might reach the primordial soul of humans.

So he collected their rhythmic, haunting melodies into a momentous 1970 recording titled “Songs of the Humpback Whale.”

It became a huge best-seller, altered public perception and spawned a global “Save the Whales” campaign — one of the most successful conservation movements ever.

Without writing or performing a single musical note, this scientist produced a truly powerful serenade from nature that continues to make a difference.

To connect with Roger Payne’s work and help extend his deep understanding that all of us beings are related, contact the global advocacy group he founded, Ocean Alliance, at whale.org.

JIM HIGHTOWER, OtherWords.org