today is July 5, 2014. yesterday was american independence day. hawaiian independence day is nov. 28. i live in kailua on oahu. every third house on the block and the blocks around the street where i live flies an american flag. i suspect it's because people need a material reminder that they are americans, hence they fly the flag. or maybe they feel like hawaii is not really america, so displaying the flag is to remind us hawaiians that america owns us. or maybe they're just feeling patriotic and want everyone to know how proud they are to be americans IN america. i hate that! hmmm...these are the folks who don't know the history of america and may not want to know. they live according to the dream of what america should be/should have been. i think i've seen maybe 5 hawaiian flags flying in the area called coconut grove. that makes me happy, except when a house has two flags flying and one of them is the hawaiian flag flying underneath the american flag. i suppose that some folks feel we need to be reminded of our subordination to the americans in our own homeland. i think kekuni would have something to say about that, lol. i'll ask him next time i see him. yesterday afternoon, because the house i live in is so close to the marine base, we got to see airplanes doing loops in the sky over the base and watch the fireworks without having to go to the beach. the kids were happy about that. i couldn't help but think back to when i was growing up in kapahulu and how my grandpa and uncles, who were so fond of fireworks, spent tons of money buying and exploding the biggest bombs they could find. i swear they spent almost their whole pay checks on bombs and fireworks that you couldn't find today unless you bought them in china. as a kid, i loved it. didn't get my hands blown up, of course, but some close calls. when i grew older and realized the amount of pollution caused by fireworks that polluted the air and firecracker papers that ended up in the ala wai canal, i began to rethink what it meant to hang on to cultural (local culture, i mean) practices that were harmful to the environment. even though my grandma (and everybody else's grandma on the street) made us sweep up the mess we made the next morning, we didn't mind. we made the mess, so we had to clean it. i stopped wanting to pop firecrackers and watching fireworks displays. none of that stuff was worth it because the harm done far outweighed the momentary pleasures of watching exploding lights. things changed for me when i became aware, because i knew we really couldn't clean it. the harm, as i said early, really did outweigh the small thrills we got as kids. when i started this blog, years ago, i started it as a rant. i wasn't sure what i was ranting about. but the years have made me wiser and i notice more and more the relationship between my experiences of life and the future i envision for the hawaiian nation. hence the change in title from 'rants' to 'on the road to (national) recovery'. we really are on the road to recover, and it's that that i want to write about. how do i know we're on the road to recovering our nation, our country, our sense of who we are as a people? well, i got a chance to sit in on some of those DOI (dept. of interior) meetings that were held throughout oahu since june 23. i attended the meeting in heeia. i watched some of the livestreaming of meetings held elsewhere. and what struck me about the testimonies that were submitted was how knowledgeable people seemed to be about our history. yes, there was ranting, raving, crying, yelling, etc. i'm used to that every big meeting should build in time for those kinds of responses. but in addition, there were some wonderful, knowledgeable testimonies from folks who had done their homework and who questioned why the hell the DOI, as opposed to the US state dept. was here in hawaii. well, we all know why. kamanaopono crabbe wrote a letter (and mahalo to his coaches, whoever they are) to john kerry asking about hawaii's status relative to the u.s. what a wonderful, gutsy thing to do. no one really expected an answer. why would the u.s. answer, anyway? but in some cases, no answer IS an answer. so the US's answer was the DOI in hawaii holding these hearings about whether or not they should chance the rules governing their operating procedures so that hawai could then be recognized as a tribe. of course! this gave hawaiians (and others) on all islands a chance to share their knowledge about hawaii's history with the u.s. and why 'tribe' was nowhere on the horizon of most hawaiians (by nationality, as well as blood), except for those who already considered themselves both american AND tribes, and who already got their piece of the american pie in the form of homesteads. loyal and true americans, for the most part, and not many of those want to upset the status quo, since they already got theirs. so, recovering our nation is also about recovering our history. and many of those who testified at the hearings talked of a recovered history. good on them. what kind of response could those DOI folks have in response to learning a history they didn't know about? do they care? probably not. they came to get us in line so that when the tribal status comes, we'll be all happy about it and not surprised! it became clear, listening to testimonies, that most people reject the idea that the turning point in our history and the potential for our independent nation relies on our being placed back on the list of non-self-governing territories through the process established by the UN following WWII. we can go back to that OTHER fork in the road in 1893 and recovery that history and the illegal taking of our nation, our country, by a bunch of traitorous shitheads, who happened to be haole, and who used the US military might to back their play. how can we forgive that? we can't. they caused harm to our queen and to our country and, at some point, we ought to even the playing field in such a way that it is both just and pono. balanace--we seek balance and rightness. as uncle tommy maunupau would have said, "he pono no."

I need taro-py

i'm departing from my ongoing road tale for this post. this one really is a rant! last night there was a meeting where michael moore's video 'capitalism, a love story' was shown, with discussion to follow, on what i thought was meant to be an exercise in building the best-case scenario for a new nation. hawaii (the nation, not the state) has the opportunity to actually create something out-of-the-box and truly life-affirming and aina/kai/wai-friendly. i made the mistake of thinking that people want to go there. and in a sense, they do, but not right now. maybe later, when some of the pressures are off, or as soon as this other thing is done, or as soon as obama is able to do something useful and not corporate-driven, or as soon as... well, you get the picture. this was the hardest thing i've ever had to do, primarily i think because i made some assumptions up front (silly me) that everyone was fed up. but even though some will admit systems failure on the part of governments and corporations in terms of the rest of us, the truth is that the system hasn't failed for many others, esp. those in control of resources. so what i had hoped would have approximated poka's idea of discussion within the 'dream state', all i heard was how to fix the abysmal mess we're all in, rather than how to create something that might work better. everybody's got their two feet in two worlds. i admit i'm there, too. i have a job that i need to keep myself in a house and food on the table. the job isn't too bad. i get to do what i want, mostly. and some people are impacted positively by what i do. but the university, like all school systems inside the 'system', is failing to meet the needs of the future, of a world that hasn't yet owned up to how ongoing use of diminishing resources robs young people not even born yet of things they need to survive (read: clean air, water, healthy food, shelter, basic stuff). the university system helps us to be what the system needs us to be (read: just another brick in the wall).

back to the meeting: the film was good, interesting, and the wrong one to launch a discussion about 'what next'. might have been better to show something that impressed on people why fixing the system wouldn't work, why it would be impossible to fix a system that is not necessarily perceived as broken. because truth is, it actually does work very well. and that's why no one is excited about planning for survival 'after' system failure. it won't fail, even as the banks go bust and the unemployment rate is up to 50% and houses are empty while people live on the streets or in parks. the system is doing what it was designed to do. no systems failure unless you're on the receiving end and have nowhere to go. i feel like a crazy person thinking about all this and wondering why no one else thinks it's important enough to address now.

one other thing i learned from last night's meeting was that people inevitably go where it's comfortable to launch resistance. no one seems able to do two things at once--resist and plan. resistance always seems to take precedence, and the planning part goes down the tube. and it makes people feel like they're doing something, so they feel better. it was depressing for me to talk about the need to get the philosophical stuff down first, and build that thing we want (whatever it's called) on top of it, knowing that everybody was giving me looks like 'what?'. how come no one notices that the needs of the individual is something that underpins societies that are selfish? societies that steal, make war, cause harm to its own members? societies built on self-interest and short-sightedness? what about the needs of the group? what about respect and caring, sharing and responsibility? what about aloha and aloha aina? if we laid that down as foundation, and built on top of it, what would we get? certainly nothing like what we have now! so the rant is because we never got there. we never had the discussion. and we may never have the dicussion, especially if activist types, which most of us were, don't want to go there. there is a certain amount of comfort and status in being at the top of the activist movement inside the system that currently exists, the one i think is in system failure. we don't know how to step outside and take a good, hard look at who we are and what we are doing.

i think i should retire. this is turning out to be far more difficult than i had imagined. and it's lonely, too. and i'm too old.

Writing from memory, now

couldn't write while we were on the road, but i get to catch up now that i'm home and all the photos have been uploaded to shutterfly. here's link below to pics from our arrival in phoenix until we took off for globe: http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/album.sfly?fid=e141a399683e2375&startIndex=0&sid=0QbtmTRu2bMmMq

we did the swapmart/flea-market trips, of course! and i ended up buying fried bread (which was ono), incense, and a couple of other small things. then we were off to globe, which was a long way off for me, but not too far for others who grew up in an area where 'far' meant really far. we passed lovely mountains, and all the tall stones looked like people to me, like they were sentinels guarding their sacred land from invaders (a bit too late, unfortunately).

also, i happened to look out the window of the hotel we stayed at in phoenix (aloft) and noticed their mass transit system. it was fabulous looking and very quiet. wish hawaii were as progressive and artsy as phoenix. even their highway walls have south-west type designs built into them; not ugly and cement-looking.

there's something about sitting in the back seat of a comfortable car while traveling 150 miles on smooth road that makes people sleepy. i include myself in that 'people' group. i kept dozing on and off, and finally woke up when we got to the first stop on the road with the turkey jerky sign. while maria and evern bought stuff, i went into the little trading post shop behind the jerky seller. tons of interesting stuff in there, but i didn't buy anything. i did look at signs, however. and took zillions of pics.

eventually we got to globe, stowed our gear at the quality inn, and ate dinner next door to the hotel. in the morning we drove over to the san carlos apache reservation to meet vern and her husband and to visit one of the families whose young daughter (12) was preparing for a 'dance', a kind of coming of age ceremony in which traditions are passed on from the older to the younger generation. they were way out on a piece of land that looked both beautiful and isolated, far from everything. the young lady dug post holes for setting up her wickiup and in the process uncovered a beautiful arrowhead (good luck!) and some other artifacts. her family had already constructed a kitchen and posts with a kind of wire fence for a wall around the compound. some of the male relatives were bringing in willow branches to weave in and out of the wires on the posts and when we left they had completed just a small portion. while we were there, a member of the tribal council came by to visit the family and to wish them good luck.

what does this have to do with anything? at 12 years old, this young girl has the benefit of being inside a system that promotes traditional practices. she'll be in a position to mentor some other young girl when she gets older. we don't have anything like it. that's very sad.

Aloha from Phoenix

i can't believe i haven't posted anything for nearly a year. my bad! but in that time, a crapload of things have happened. so i welcome myself back, as well as any readers (with nothing better to do than read this rant) interested in looking at my self-reflections. aloha from phoenix. i'm on a road trip with two other women, evern and maria, and today is the first day of what might very well be a life-changing experience, a chance for each of us to recharge our waning spiritual essence individually and as a group (read "we're all burned out from too much work and not enough ancestral and universal connection").

in the last year life has changed drastically. my husband of 18 years went on home to his kupuna, na aumakua and na akua. guess he had had enough of driving me around and being dragged along to various and sundry protests and meetings. he didn't know how to say no to me, so of oourse he became as much of a regular fixture as me at some of these rather long and boring things, so that at some point he simply refused to come in the door and hung out outside talking to old friends on the phone. anyhow, this post is as much about him as it is about me.

james died at home, sometime between breakfast and lunch. i'm reminded constantly of what a sweet thing he was. a nice guy. a loving husband. a good friend. seldom grumpy. always busy. constantly engaged in self-reflection. so this is something of a tribute to him, as much as it is a journal of reflection for me, being on a road trip, and all. in many ways i brought him with me.

sometime later, after i get home, i'll post the eulogy i wrote for him, and that i read at his celebration of life at nuuanu valley park. he passed on sept. 9, the day after fall semester began. so that sorta bombed out my semester and the truth is i'm not sure what the heck i was doing for the next few months. but friends and colleagues, ever faithful to both me and james, took over my teaching duties. to this day i have no idea what they did in my classroom. students were lovely--caring and compassionate. understanding and forgiving of my forgetting sometimes what i was doing. lucky me. and sad me.

james' celebration of life was lovely. it was a potluck in the park, complete with music and kind words, chants and other craziness. it was also a protest of sorts of all the things in the world that were screwed up. and it wss also a celebration of the life of our queen. for that i mahalo all the diehard activists who can be counted on to do their thing. on that day in the park, they did their thing and james would have been proud. and from what i heard afterward, he really was.

one of the reasons for this road trip is that i couldn't, for the life of me, stop working as long as i was home and connected to my computer. so, sans computer, i hit the road (via hawaiian airlines) with friends, thanks to my angel hanai brother, and am now writing up a journal entry after a year's absence. so with a different kind of connection, seeing as how it's not my computer and i have to schedule time on it, i write merely to log in my own experiences for future reference.

i have a new camera, but failed to bring the connector for uploading pics, so these get to be done later. at some point i'll load up the thousands of pics i'm taking and posting the link for viewing to this blog.

Kahoolawe

i meant to post some photos of the trip and of our excellent crew! it was interesting and intense living in extreme (for me) circumstances for 4 days, kinda like Lost, without being lost. good crew. good lessons about what works and what doesn't. i was particularly impressed by one of the kua there, kau`i, whose commitment to the PKO project and the need to heal not only the island, but the people as well, was...outstanding and apparent. those are good words, and applicable to her behavior and her feeling about trying to walk the path with the ancestors. what did i learn there? things are not always what they seem. trust your gut to tell you when things are not exactly in synch. hope for the best. ask the ancestors. i do. and i will.

Back from the (near) dead

It's been a while since i was here last. and since then, a zillion things have happened. i took students to kahoolawe, for one. that was a life-changing event for many of them, and certainly for myself, as well. i learned things about how the pko trips are organized. i also learned that it's not always a good idea to offer constructive criticism (another way of making "recommendations", but phrased more positively). i learned, most of all, what it means to some to 'own' a piece of history and struggle. this was a message for me, personally. so now i'm thiking about what it means to me to be a person in struggle, trying to follow the example of those who came before me, like the queen, and poka, and soli, and dallas vogeler. being in struggle is not just about social justice, but also about how to live one's life, and how to stay in the good fight while still trying to pay rent, and eat, and deal with debilitating health issues, not to mention old age. being in struggle is having to put up with stupidity from those around you, even those who say they love and support you. sometimes that love and support only go as far as people are able to align with your philosphy or your values. i imagine that's what separates the spectators from the allies. those who keep their distance appreciate that you do what you do, but it really has nothing to do with them. they have nothing to add, will never participate, think it's all interesting, but are too busy to contribute to the cause. the others, people like me, for example, try to show up, schlep stuff around, pay for supplies out of their own pocket, stay up late at night sending email testimonies to legislators who act in their own self-interest, volunteer for everything, take flack from non-believers, hold signs that generate jeers and negative responses (but not yet thrown tomatoes!). it's hard work.

i am grateful for those who do anything at all to signal support, from the smallest word of kindness for our work in the cause of independence, to sharing photos of an event; from helping us set up a performance of ka lei maile alii -- the queen's women, to being willing to loan us a flag for back drop; from individual sign holders at a 'fake state' demo, to videographers who post our actions on youtube. it's a kakou thang. we can't do it alone.

this brings me back to kahoolawe and what i learned there. i learned i needed help. that's something i've not wanted to acknowledge for a long, long time. i needed help. and our little group of 10 helped each other out. but mostly they helped me. i was reminded that i'm a bit too old to be traipsing around in the bush doing extreme camping. i had so much help, i began turning into a lazy person. i didn't do the 8 hour hike on the day before we left. instead, i sent my hookupu with a student, not thinking really about what that would mean to my student. i did other things, easy things, like making pili bundles. and carrying rocks from the beach for the floor of the hale. i took my time. i acted like the old person i am. yikes! realization had set in that i was slowing down. and then a second realization that it was okay to slow down.

life as an activist is crazy. knowing the right thing to do, trying to keep one's spiritual life in order (he pono no), remembering that there is also family waiting out there in the wings for some attention, dodging the 'slings and arrows' of critics who know everything and hate you for not doing what they want you to do, being happy in the flow when the feeling of rightness, of doing the right thing, settles over the work. it's crazy, alright. but it's also happy-making hard work, when it pans out. and if it's done right, it pans out more times than not. kahoolawe was the biggest challenge for me personally than anything else i can remember. i made new friends and new family. i think i alienated some other folks, too. the place did not benefit from my presence as much as i had hoped it would. i didn't know what to do, but when i did know, i felt constricted--i couldn't do it without proper protocols, and i didn't know what those protocols were. but ultimately, it was probably the best experience of my life. i learned that kimo mithell and george helm hang out near the plaques in the stones, and they had much to say to the folks who passed by. i learned that women need to spend some time by themselves on an island that had become too masculine and male-dominated; and men, too, need to spend time alone to talk about whatever men talk about. the women had no problem articulating their own challenges. i learned that 'interdependency' was that thing that helped us through some rough situations, in the sea and on the land. and penultimately, i learned that everybody missed me and coming home was really, really good.

Really early Monday morning

i just realized it's after midnight. still uploading 714 photos from the kauai civic club convention and from various site visits. it was a long week. james and i went up on sunday and returned late saturday night. our club performed the re-enactment on sunday, oct. 19 at the kauai hilton. we had a pretty good crowd--about 100 people, most of them from the community, as not many civic club members had arrived by sunday. keanu's presentation was longer and different. he talked a lot about how to fix the problem and stressed that what he offered was a legal, as opposed to political, resolution to the illegal overthrow and so-called annexation of hawaii to the united states. ho`ike (kauai public access tv) videotaped the event.

monday we did two things: met with and videotaped a dialogue with kaiulani edens huff, a radio commentator who hosts "songs of sovereignty" on KKCR radio on kauai. it was a fabulous discussion and she shared with us some of the issues surrounding the development at naue by brescia and how absolutely essential it was to protect the iwi. she and several others had camped next to the burials for several months, hoping to convince the owner not to build there, but to no avail. next to kaiulani's house, in the area way above kapaa high school, is a goat farm. couldn't resist hanging out with the goats for a bit, even though on the other side of the fence. i had my trusty camera, so pretty much tried to get into their faces. but they were having none of it. goats are cute except, i imagine, when they're trying to bite you.

after taking goat photos, we headed into town for lunch. i have to admit, we ate a lot. even though we had rented a house, it didn't have a stove, so we didn't eat at home much, except for some microwaved coffee and cold cereal in the mornings. still, eating in town was way cheaper than eating at the hotel. in the afternoon nani rogers took us to naue to visit the grave sites and to offer hookupu. long ride to hanalei area. naue was/is beautiful! i can see why haoles want to speculate on property there. mr. brescia owns 6 other lots in the area and has developed and is selling all of them. the site being developed now is not very large. it's also surrounded by black cloth so no one can look it. concrete pilings have been put in, one set of which covers some of the iwi. in the photo above, taken from the beach side when a mysterious hole suddenly appeared, shows poles with orange netting wrapped around. the orange net or color marks the site of a grave. this is a very sad place.

something crazy is going on here. and everywhere. i thought the sky falling would wait at least 4 more years, until 2012! omigod! it's here now.

more tomorrow!