haven't written anything in a week! can't believe it! too many things going on and i'm overdue on everything. sunday was a good day. had lunch with three of my kids, my grandson, his girlfriend, my son's girlfriend, and my son in law. it was enjoyable and we pigged out. my grandson, koa, is the same age as my son, akoni. koa flashed his tattoos at everyone, and i was happy to see the hawaiian flag on his hand. i thought it was kinda cool. after lunch james, akoni, and i went over to the house in kahaluu to cut the grass and haul away assorted trash for ruth. we'll be living downstairs--moving out of here at the end of the month.
monday i started unpacking more boxes. so much stuff! i read george kahumoku's book "a hawaiian life". that was pretty fascinating, the stories he tells about his dying and being revived when he was six weeks old. reminded me of john kaimikaua's story about his experiences in molokai when he was a child, and watching the revival, hours later, of a young girl who had died in her sleep. there were all kinds of kahuna practicing their arts in those days, and bringing someone back from the dead apparently wasn't unheard of, and we're not talking about ancient history, here. so if this is still happening during our lifetime, and maybe our parents' lifetime, then it wasn't so long ago. it might still be happening now. i hope so.
today was the first day of summer session I. i have two classes, 3 hours each, back to back. that was grueling! on the other hand, both classes are relatively small and went really well--six students in one and 10 in the other. we did a lot of talking. nobody dozed off. during the second part of the first class, i took the students for a walk to iolani palace. the hawaiian kingdom government folks are still there, although we didn't stop to visit, as they looked like they were having a meeting. this was my ahupuaa resource management class, so we went to look at the ahu and to give them a sense of what the makai side of the honolulu ahupuaa looked like. in a couple of weeks we'll be going to upper nuuanu, to kaniakapupu and to the pali to look at ahupuaa from the top (or almost top) down.
last saturday james and i went to the democratic party pre-convention meeting at kalakaua intermediate school. i chaired the national/international affairs committee meeting. that was hectic! we had 43 resos to plow through. took us about an hour to get through the first three! there was a reso submitted in support of giving lt. ehren watada an honorable discharge. there were a number of former military personnel at the meeting and all of them were adamant that he be denied an honorable discharge because he didn't follow orders, he signed a contract, he made an agreement, etc. i was kinda shocked--not sure why. but it seemed to me that no one wanted to look at the larger picture, at the justification for/reason behind people committing inhumane acts on other people. it came down to an issue of legality. made me very sad. but i had to remind myself, of course, that watada wasn't protesting war in general, just that particular war, the one in iraq. he was okay with war elsewhere. he wasn't advocating peace.
for my ahupuaa class i'm showing them an inspiring video on youtube, on the TED site. go look. http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=william+mcdonough&hl=en&sitesearch= i'm beginning to use youtube as a regular resource--so many current things going on in the world that students can relate to. today in my cultural anth class we watched a five minute clip on youtube about some jazz artists jamming with pygmies in the congo. talk about a meeting of cultures! i find the whole idea of relationship building through music and art as something that transcends politics. there's a tremendous amount of joy generated by people who love music, who play music, who dance, eat, sleep, walk music. the video "playing for change" documents street musicians, some extremely talented and professionals in their own right, who play on the streets for the love of playing and interacting with audiences, strangers, who are captured by the sound of their music. each one says the same thing--if you want to make money, this is not the way to go because you won't make much. but if you love people, and you love the way they receive your music (your gift), then this is the life for you. but you'll be poor unless you have a regular job, too. i showed the short clip in the beginning. we had a discussion (fairly long and drawn out), then at the second half i showed the video, which i thought was a good illustration about how class, race, age, and gender become irrelevant in the sharing of music, something that transcends all of the above. it was a good day.
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