Sunday (low key) rant

taking off from saturday's low key events... imiola's celebration of life at the opelu project in waianae was good. most of the activist-types sat on one table. i guess it's always time to hook up again with folks in struggle whom you haven't seen for a while. james greeted kalani ohelo as "maurice", which dated their relationship to "before" the movement. everybody's gettin' old. most of the folks i recognized were long time activists in the movement, certainly long before i came along. i remember when i met soli back in 1992 and first listened to him speak at a hui na`auao meeting. i was blown away by what he said at the time--it all made sense to me. at the gathering yesterday, he pretty much reiterated what he said back then: we should never forget that for those who seek social justice, it's important to know who the enemy really is. it's not about race or ethnicity (although that may play into it), but rather who calls the shots, who has the power to call the shots. so developing a strategy (i'm using my own words here, but i think i got the gist of it) is about identifying who the players are in the struggle and realizing that the big players are the same in all the struggles. money, power, the ability to manipulate someone else's life, these things feed into (and are part of) a system that oppresses us all. what to do about it? soli says use political analysis to determine what the action should be. okay! i'm good. i may not agree with every little thing, but i won't counter what he says, as he is correct. let's not ever think that all hawaiians are in the same boat. some actually call the shots, or think they do, so those hawaiians-by-blood participate in the oppression of other hawaiians. soli's talk was a lead in to how he knew imiola. imiola helped introduce political analysis into the discussion of activists at the time. he did his part. the question for us today might be 'what is our part?'. i had to go home and sleep on it, which i did. this morning i woke up thinking about what it's like to feel oppressed (in several areas of my life, actually) and what i can do about it. i also thought about the lesson for me to learn in trying to deal effectively with the issue. i'm afraid to look, for fear i might actually see something. yikes! i don't want to be the oppressor!

i stuck in a photo of soli and kekuni, and kekuni, jade young (imiola's sister), marsha joyner, and claire shimabukuro, just to give folks a sense of who all was there at imiola's life celebration. it was a really nice day, but hot as hell.

today i'm packing up more stuff (i have too much stuff, hence no light footprint for me). while i was outside in the garage, i saw a beautiful green gecko catch a roach. it was a huge roach, and that whole encounter caught my eye. so of course i had to run in to get my camera and see if i could get a good, clear shot without getting too close and frightening the gecko. i've posted this shot, too. i think i'm turning into a crazy person driven only by my own spur-of-the-moment desires. get that photo! yesterday, while i was walking around taking pix i thought about how intrusive i might have seemed. but after a short moment of reflection, i decided i didn't really care what anybody thought. i feel like (for the most part, except for some shots of ducks and lizards) i'm serving the movement and capturing a sense of what it is/was like to be an activist type in service to the movement, to humanity, to life in general. what would the world be like without activists? activists are the ones who advocate for 'fixing'--wages, job safety, cultural rights, human rights, environmental rights, animal rights, cultural practices, truth in labeling, healthy everything, pono everything. the system itself is not interested in fixing things as, for those who (again) call the shots, everything works just fine.

ginny metaxas, my friend from connecticutt, left yesterday. james and i didn't even have time to say goodbye to her. we ran from meeting to meeting until we were exhausted, then finally went home. i think i have to re-think my life. even though all the meetings seemed essential, what if i didn't go? would anybody notice? probably not. except when i take photos. then they'd notice they didn't get any. so i'm useful because i archive the movement and aspects related to it. that's a good thought to end with on a hot and still day in kahaluu. i added a photo of what this area looks like from makai side, at the bus stop on kamehameha highway.

Saturday's (low key) rant

it's been a while! my email program was corrupted yesterday and i sent out a zillion emails (the same one) to several different people who didn't appreciate it. oh well... i think my computer is, along with several other entities in my life, beginning to "give up the ghost". i use such terminology as remnant of my church-y days, when james was still ministering (for real!) and i was in the congregation. them days is long gone, i tell ya. now i try not to wince when i hear some hallelujah/praise the lord benedictions floating down from heaven to land on me (ancestors forbid!). i try to remember that, as a matter of fact, our queen was a christian and, obviously, found some solace in the christian religion, even as the missionaries and their chillun did their best to swindle her (and, as a result, us) out of a nation and all that came with it (again, i say, "us"). what comes around goes around, we hope. let us hope we stay intact (we're already in the constant ducking mode!) when the u.s. collapses from the sheer weight of trying to control everything in the world.

today is imiola's memorial services at mt. kaala. doubt if james can hike up to the site, so we'll go instead to the boat harbor at waianae for the service there and scattering of ashes. i actually have some photos of imiola from a zillion activities in the past, none of which are accessible to me at this moment. but i will post later. we miss him. he was an all-around good guy. but one of the things he regularly did was videotape any number of activities from different sovereignty events. i think those tapes will likely end up in our sovereignty archive, when and if we get a place to put all the stuff saved over the years. as i recall, imiola came to my house in palolo, several years ago, with boxes of files, papers, and other memorabilia about stuff that happened in waianae, including all poka's published materials and (i swear) everything that johan galtung ever wrote in his life! and because of his travels all across the pacific, his time spent in guam, and all the other places he visited or lived, he saved stuff about those areas and passed on to me. imagine having to store and then move all that stuff (plus my own stuff) everytime i moved house!

anyhow, the moving house again stuff is another story. in preparation for moving from our rental on waihee road, i decided to put all this stuff in storage. i rented a pretty large storage area in kaneohe and, after 8 trips in the van, managed to fill it about 3/4 full. and there's more! in some ways i feel sad about leaving this house. it's a nice place and the view out the window (where my desk is) is pretty good--a big field with chickens running around. we live downstairs, which is cooler than the upstairs unit. i have refrained from feeding the chickens, as i did in palolo, because last time we ended up with 30 chickens who came for breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday. pretty noisy! the kids from palolo housing would come up the walkway into our backyard to catch chickens. roosters tend to crow all day and all night, and i didn't want to encourage them to crow next to my window. so...no feeding, even though the little chicks are cute! they will all end up on someone's dinner plate, sooner or later.

yesterday i went to visit my daughter in kailua. on the way to the market, we saw a momma duck and a line of chicks crossing the street. i couldn't whip out my camera fast enough to catch them until after they were in somebody's driveway, but i thought i'd post. not sure this happens anywhere else on oahu, but in kailua it's a regular sight!

thursday was last day of school for summer session I at HPU--a happy/sad day for all of us, i think. the students were fabulous for both my classes, which were rather small--six in one and 13 in the other. everybody got a chance to know everyone else and i got to know them all. we spent a considerable amount of time outside of class, during field trips, to get to know each other, so that was really nice. i've also posted photos of the last day for both classes. my intro anth course final project for students was titled "my culture/my life". i think i'll use that as final project theme for all the intro classes, hereafter. the presentations were both funny and charming, and we spent a great deal of time laughing and eating. interestingly (but not surprising!), almost everyone brought food to share, so it turned into a party--a celebration of culture and life, and end of semester. one of my students is from mongolia, and his presentation focused on music, particularly an instrument called "morin khuur", or horsehead fiddle. he showed a little clip from youtube so we could hear what it sounded like. it was the most interesting thing! and another student, because of his zeal, prepared a slide show with around 80 slides--for a 10 minute presentation! i urged him to cut to the chase, so he went from slide 5 to the last two in about 5 minutes. but all of it was totally enjoyable. hearing so much laughter on the last day of class was good for my soul. i'm writing this part for all the teachers who may be reading. i know they can relate.

poka, mel, and i have been working on the 'hawaiian roundtable' series. so far, the response has been good. we did our first meeting at the oha boardroom, with oha staff and 4 trustees present. around 40 people attended. we had advertised via email notice and on poka's radio program. that was supposed to have been a planning meeting, basically asking those present if they felt that a dialogue that helped us all to develop a way of speaking with one another (i'm beginning to sound like poka, now), instead of at each other would be useful in building bridges among ourselves. poka uses pukui's method of hooponopono in his own work, and felt it could be used in the service of the movement. our second session was at jarrett middle school cafeteria. there were 39 people in attendance, no trustees, and a couple of oha staff. the third meeting is scheduled for july 4, friday, 4 pm, again at jarrett school. more people may attend, as both poka and i were on oha's radio program with brickwood and kimo kahoano last tuesday advertising the next meeting. i'm pretty sure folks got the invite, so hopefully we'll expand our reach. in the meantime, we heard from maui folks that pekelo listened to the radio program and really liked the idea, so is now starting a roundtable of his own on maui. it's all good, considering we're all going to be riding on our own dime.

in the meantime, bumpy's moving forward on calling for a hawaiian concon, one more way of gathering people together to talk, but way more focused. i'm looking forward to participating in that one, which is open to everyone, regardless of ethnicity. manu kaiama and i both interviewed him and steve tayama for our olelo programs, and these are up and running now on olelo.net, so can be viewed via computer. there's something in the air. it's all good.

a bunch of us are leaving in early august for s.f. to do the play, "ka lei maile alii--the queen's women". we got a little bit of money to cover travel costs (mahalo to people's fund). it may not be much, but it's what we (our civic club) has to offer the movement--educational outreach on hawaiian history. keanu's coming with us to provide context for the play and, hopefully, bring everyone up to date on what else is going on with him.

okay, i'm off to waianae boat harbor. i'll take lots of photos and post some on the next rant.

June Rant #1

i can't believe i haven't posted anything for so long. so much for commitment to write stuff down. i think i've been in constant mourning for friends and colleagues who keep dying on me. it's too sad. on the one hand i feel like crying all the time. on the other, i have to remind myself that death is part of life. so my friend imiola (carl young) passed away on saturday, june 14. his sister, jade, called to tell me while i was on a field trip with students at kahana fishpond. it was such a beautiful day and students worked hard cutting back hau trees and clearing brush. her call made me cry. i think i'm still mourning my friend nalani's death, and my nephew, Lono's death. and kumu lake. and john kaimikaua, and did, who wrote the play, and...and... our other friend gloria passed away a couple of weeks ago. james called to say hello and found out she was in hospice. when he called her at hospice, she said she was about to take a bath and would call him back later, but there was no later. yesterday, her husband, maluhia, called just to "talk story". james later related to me that in all the years that he has known maluhia, he has never called just to "talk story", so james suspects that maluhia is putting his affairs in order, contacting old friends, and saying goodbye in various ways. i hate the idea of death (i mean other people's death) because it's so final. but i don't hate the idea of my own death, as i look forward to (hopefully) a new adventure. i think others will be sad, however--certainly my kids.

today i finished up a report i contracted to write for a friend for the board of water supply's well in haiku. it took forever to write and i had to keep shortening it because there was so much to include. i read numerous docs about the omega station at haiku and its connection to the military's development of new technology during WWII. even though the omega station officially closed down in 1992, the infrastructure laid down in that valley is still there. the haiku stairs was built to allow maintenance men access to the tower at the top of the mountain in haiku, and the stairs later became a popular hiking spot for island residents. when H-3 was built, hiking was cut off. the 'friends of haiku stairs' was formed to urge access be resumed. the state had to insert some protections into the freeway while it was being constructed to neutralize the impact of the signals coming out of the ground to those who traveled on H-3. maybe that's the best reason not to travel on H-3. even though the omega station is officially shut down, i get the sense that the underground complex still exists and is still beaming short pulses to various places in the u.s. and globally. reminds me of a doomsday science fiction movie. there's a web of antennae all around the world, and the omega station at haiku covers the whole pacific like fingers! mahealani cypher ma, from koolaupoko hawaiian civic club and the koolau foundation have requested use of the abandoned omega station building as a museum to house information and artifacts from the koolaupoko moku. maybe not a good idea, if crap is still being broadcast on ultra low frequency from that area. yes! scifi! maybe the aliens from roswell were transferred to the site via (black) helicopter!

i'm obviously losing it. grief rules my life at this moment in time, despite the beauty of nature at kahana and elsewhere.

Monday, Memorial Day (the set aside)

it's not really memorial day, but i suppose it will do, as it gives me a day off to move house. what a hectic week! no time to blog. friday evening went to visit imiola at his house in kapahulu. he's looking thin and has bruise marks all up and down his arms where nurses have been poking him relentlessly. imiola said 'no more', so he decided to go home. stella made a pot of curry stew. we brought dessert. then poha arrived to hook up his computer on the chair near the bed. so he can read and send email more easily (one does not give up one's virtual life!). then evern arrived. we all ate together around the bed in a very tiny room with not enough chairs. but it felt homey and family-like. i think imiola ate a tiny piece of custard pie while the rest of us chowed down on stew and poi and stew and rice. i could have cried, but waited until we got into the car. and even though i had my trusty camera, i did not take a photo of him or of anyone else.

i don't remember when i met imiola, but i think it was around 1992. imiola is carl young, a great friend and supporter of poka and of all social justice issues. i worked for hui naauao, back then, as oahu island coordinator. i set up educational workshops in schools, homes, and for public events. poka was present for many of these, as was imiola. imiola was a substitute teacher for many years, and is a student/admirer of johan galtung, a peace activist who taught for a while at u.h. manoa. most of the papers i have from imiola are of galtung's writings. back then, in the early 1990s, i remember having numerous talk story dialogues at iolani palace grounds. one time, in particular, it was pouring rain. we had a tent and everybody, including galtung, tried to jam under the tent. it leaked. we were wet. but no one left. the discussion was so important to have that we simply couldn't let the opportunity to talk pass because of the rain. i mention this because 16 years later, we're still trying to have the same kind of dialogue--one of peace, justice, aloha, malama aina, malama i ke kahi i ke kahi. i can't believe it's such hard work.

on thursday next week, june 5, we'll be doing a similar kind of dialogue, trying to move away from the strictly political/legal/analytical kinds of educational gatherings we've had in the past, toward a talk story format that allows us to be honest in expressing how we feel about hawaiian sovereignty in this hectic and sometimes scary world. i sent out the invite the other day--and wouldn't you know i'd get the damn info wrong! so i re-sent. already got several responses, positive ones, from those who want to attend. maybe there are others tired of the never-ending barrage of "my way is the only way" rhetoric. we've been spoiled by the push for self-determination (at any level)--we actually do want to choose, and any process that comes down already made has obviously made the choice for us. where's the self-determination in that? sometimes it's so crystal-clear to me that nothing can be 'created' for someone else, not if you want that someone else to take kuleana for it. we need to create for ourselves so we live and die by our own actions, good or bad. part of growing up, of evolution for the whole human race.

yesterday i took my students to palehua. we were hosted by shad kane, who shared a ton of info with the students. there's stuff up there, and a few people mentioned they felt the presence of something/someone in the area. one of the students didn't want to walk around in the pa, even though it should be okay, as permission was requested to enter. since nobody dropped dead, it should be safe and we could take that as a "come on in" sign. anyhow, his hair kept standing on end, so he walked in and out quickly. on the way home in the bus, one of my other students shared his own native american genealogy. his great grandma, and grandma practiced shamanic rituals. we talked about ritual and blood. then he showed me his hand and a cut that was drying up. he had been watching from a little distance as shad took students around and noticed a stone over which a number of dragonflies were flying in a circle, which he though was odd. then a bunch of butterflies came (white ones, brown ones, and golden ones) and flew around in a circle over the same stone. so finally he figured there must be something special about that stone and went over to take a look. he put his hands on the stone to feel it. then he walked away. but he noticed a moment later that he had blood on his hands, which is when he noticed the cut. he didn't feel it and couldn't remember where he cut himself. so he went back to the rock and saw that his blood was on it, so he obviously cut himself there. i asked him how he felt about that. he said he felt really, really good, as if leaving his blood there, on the stone, was an appropriate thing to do. i was happy he was happy, as i'm not sure of the significance of that act in his culture. but i was intrigued about its significance in hawaiian culture. we'll see...

Sunday at Makua

despite the oppressively hot weather, it was a fabulous day at makua today. around 13 students and friends showed up for today's access. we were all cooking in the heat. but the students seemed to really enjoy the walk around and history of that aina. the army guys weren't too happy to be there and took it out on us. pretty rude bunch, i have to say. nevertheless, it went well. leandra was super good with protocol. fred did a great job of sharing history and story telling. i think the younger archaeologist, alton (?), was the most hospitable of the bunch and shared a bit of history about the army's strategic plan for makua. he gave me a brochure to share with my students, and i saw a photo of a petroglyph that i hadn't seen before. it's in a different area/valley that we haven't had access to--yet. curtis, trevor, and jean emptied the mud out of the drying up spring. the kalo growing there the last time i was up had died. trevor removed his shoes to work in the mud and got yelled at because not wearing shoes was against the rules. and fred got yelled at because he found (and picked up) a spent shell from an M-15. that's also a no-no. oh well. it was a really good crew, however, and i'm glad we had a chance to experience the power struggle that goes on there between community and military and between rules and culture. obviously the military personnel are not interested in having a relationship with any of us, hence the rude treatment. it just makes me want to go more often and try to give them a hard time whenever we can. the option is to kowtow, and aint none of us going that route.

on the way home to kaneohe i noticed hundreds of tents stretching from makua to beyond kahe point. it's amazing! i had read in the paper that the state would be cracking down on the homeless living out on the leeward coast. that's pretty sad. where else could they go? how can it be against the law to be poor?

not much has changed in the last 18 years or so. the poor get poorer. the super rich don't give a rip. the middle class--where is the middle class? i used to think i was the middle class, but i feel much, much poorer and living on the edge all the time. having an education and an 'average' income guarantees nothing.

Tuesday - First Day of Summer School

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.

Oops!

forgot to add the photo links, for those who might want to see them:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?UV=766378406907_779286534605&mode=fromsite&collid=25023499905.491186534605.1209967674069&conn_speed=1

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?UV=766378406907_779286534605&mode=fromsite&collid=25023499905.231489634605.1209967756473&conn_speed=1