FREEING THE MUNCHKINS

I've taken some flack in the last 24 hours due to some celebratory words on the death of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.


But this "do not speak ill of the dead" business is the ultimate in hypocrisy. Are people saying that we need to observe some kind of revisionist history as soon as someone dies?

It's important to not just remember but remind people of the suffering Scalia caused and the irreversible damage to the country and even the world he has wrought.


As a matter of fact, Scalia's legacy is one of hypocrisy, his so-called "originalism" being a convenient myth to be turned on and off to justify predesignated results that supported his vision of American fascism.


Brilliant? Yes... brilliantly diabolical. He is the father of the very corporatism many of us seek to reverse this elections season. What better time to discuss that legacy than upon his death and the death of the Scalia era of constitutional abuse?


You'll get no apologies from me. I'm deliriously happy one of, if not the most murderous figures of our time is dead. People claim that every life is precious. But there's a unique irony here in welcoming the death of someone who has made so many lives so cheap.

How many women have died- or worse lived lives of poverty and misery- due to lack of abortion services?.. How many guns are on the streets killing our kids? How many state-sanctioned murders- often of people too poor to buy their way out or even of the wrong person- has he caused? How many died in Bush's wars after Scalia appointed him? Now is not the time to be silent.

In a way we're really debating the old canard regarding whether one would go back in time to "kill baby Hitler" but with the "twist" of asking whether we should be happy if someone else did.


By law, death was the only way Scalia's reign of terror was going to end. And it couldn't have come a day too soon.

Personally I'm long beyond the youthful folly of blanket pacifism in the face of powerful- for lack of a better word- evil. That doesn't indicate any less of an adherence to the principles of non-violence, just a recognition that the death of an active oppressor can be time for celebration.


Frankly, I'm still kind of apprehensive of the flying monkeys.

CORPORATE CASH? NEVER HEARD OF IT.

It may in the future be looked upon as the worst political blunder in presidential campaign history when Hillary Clinton in last night's debate tried to deny that the millions flowing to her from Wall St, Big Pharma and the like in speaking fees and SuperPac contribution might just effect her position on issues that concern her donors

Though Republicans and Democrats may disagree as to whether "it's the government" or "it's the corporations" that have run amok and essentially "wrecked the economy" ended republican democracy in America you'd be hard pressed to find one that doesn't think politicians listen to those who give them lots of money.


Calling it an "artful smear" on Bernie Sanders' part to dare to intimate she's in the pockets of those who have given her millions of dollars will no doubt have the affect of causing people of all political stripes to wonder if she's just grasping at straws looking for a response to those charges or if she's really that out of step with the thoughts on the issue- thoughts held by 99% or more of the electorate


You hear it from every "retired" member of congress- the ones who don't immediately go into the lobbyist profession- regarding how they had to spend all their time raising money for reelection and were therefore under pressure to do the bidding of their biggest contributors, even allowing lobbyist to write legislation.


All Hillary did was play right into Bernie's wheelhouse, allowing him to simply restate his populist stump speech about money in politics- a message that appeals to just about everyone and at the same time makes clear that the shaky ground upon which she is standing is giving way like a sink hole.


Time will tell. But you've gotta think that HRC has assembled the worst political advisers ever as she slides down the razor blade to the nomination of someone else... once again.

(PNN) QUESTIONS STILL ABOUND REGARDING TREATMENT OF POISONED SYNGENTA WORKERS

(PNN) Jan 25-- Syngenta spokespersons have refused to dispute accounts that say that the 10-12 Syngenta workers who were poisoned by the chlorpyrifos pesticide Lorsban last Wednesday were not just "treated and released" but were actually admitted to the hospital and that two were confined in the intensive care unit (ICU).


The claims were made in social media and in comments on a Civil Beat article, one of three articles that merely reported carefully worded public relations statements from Josh Uyehara, Syngenta station manager and Beth Tokioka, Community Outreach Manager at Syngenta.


Both Uyehara and Tokioka have refused to release any information on the injuries and/or treatment of the workers citing "HIPAA privacy rules" even though the law pertains only to information regarding individual patients, not general details of industrial accidents provided by employers, according to multiple health care sources and any reading of the HIPAA itself.


PNN has spoken to reliable sources who have spoken to eyewitnesses that said that, although, according to a statement from Tokioka that "(t)he workers were offered the opportunity for a medical evaluation if they wanted (and t)en (10) requested this and Syngenta provided transportation," an ambulance showed up to transport the workers and their services were refused, potentially exacerbating injuries by delaying medical treatment.


More importantly although both Uyehara and Tokioka stressed how some workers had their evaluation completed the same day and that three stayed overnight, none of the three media stories- in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (S-A), Honolulu Civil Beat and The Garden Island (TGI)- specifically pressed them to answer the questions regarding admission to the hospital, which would indicate serious injury, and/or admittance to the intensive case unit (ICU), which would indicate a life-threatening condition.


None of what can only be called Uyehara's "spin" on what occurred indicated how the workers- supposedly skilled and knowledgeable about safety- all wound up in the field that had been sprayed 20 hours previously instead of the required 24 hours, making it sound as if the workers sort of wandered into the field on their own.


None of the articles indicated whether they all collectively decided on their own to do so or whether higher-ups at Syngenta ordered them into the toxic field.


In the S-A Uyehara is characterized as having said that "within a few minutes of being on site, a manager informed the farmworkers that they should not have entered the area, ushered them out and offered immediate access to medical care."


Civil Beat said that the workers simply "walked onto a corn field only 20 hours after the application of chlorpyrifos" adding that "i)t’s unclear how many workers entered the field (and that) the incident is still under internal investigation."


The Kaua`i newspaper reported much of Uyehara's phone conversation with Editor Bill Buley as factual without attribution, but quoting Uyehara as saying the workers "strayed into" the field.


Buley also quoted Uyehara as saying the workers were there to "plant some identification tags" indicating that someone sent them there to do the work.


Buley further quoted Uyehara: “Unfortunately, some of the workers strayed into a field they were not scheduled to work and they were not supposed to be there. A field supervisor noticed they were there within a few minutes — perhaps 10 or 15 — and the employees were quickly told to leave the area."


Buley told a caller on Friday that he was fully unaware of the event at that point in time.


Many of the field workers are reportedly foreign, usually on three month contracts to avoid providing them with health insurance and most do not speak English. Many reports contend that most field workers have never read "the label"- which lists the laws regarding application of restricted use pesticides as well as safety information. Witnesses have seen some leave work wearing the same clothes they worked in, some greeting their children at the gates.


HIPAA privacy rules provide that the right to privacy is an individual one and restricts health care workers who treat individuals or have access to their records from releasing medical information specifically about that patient. When challenged on this by PNN Tokioka simply said, in a comment on the Civil Beat article, "My understanding of HIPAA is different from yours."


After 48 hours she still has not responded to the followup question: "Can you confirm or deny that up to 10 of the injured workers were actually admitted to the hospital and two were admitted to ICU?"


Because of the sensitivity of the information provided, PNN has chosen to protect the identities of those who provided information for this article.

IF A LOCAL KAUA`I NEWSPAPER REPORTER MISSED J-SCHOOL WOULD ANYONE NOTICE?

The butchering of the English language in our local Kaua`i newspaper aside, the actual reporting is atrocious.


An article headlined "Judge OKs suspect’s statements to KPD" in today's edition goes on and on for 518 words about how the judge rules a defendant's statements admissible, only to reveal 37 words before the end of the article that one of his statements was ruled INadmissable,


You would think that the fact that there were statements that were "thrown out"- usually indicating that the police goofed-up in providing a suspect's his or her Miranda rights- would be contained in the "lede" where the rules of the "inverted triangle" call for the most important facts to appear... at the beginning, not buried at the end of an article.


This is basic "dog bites man" vs "man bites dog" type stuff here... Guess which one is "news" and which is not. If you can't. don't worry- a job in newspaper reporting awaits you on Kaua`i.


At the risk of being called the Journalism Nazi, let me say "Back to J-School. No Pulitzer for you. Come back four years."

ESTABLISH THIS

I've had it with the theft of my beloved 1960's counter-culture terms "Establishment" and "Anti-Establishment."

I never thought I'd live to see that day when we hippie-revolutionaries' favorite term used to denigrate the whole freakin' capitalist-military-industrial-governmental machine is used by political parties and presidential candidates to attack each other as if each were Che Guevara himself?


The most "anti-establishment" Democrat is, though a self-declared "socialist," (not even a Marxist much less a Yippie) an incumbent US Senator. And on the Republican side the "anti-establishment" candidates are a billionaire mogul- a veritable embodiment of the fiscal ruling class- and another sitting senator.


What began as a perhaps tongue-in-cheek joke from the talking-head pundocracy has been flushed into the cesspool of charges and cross-charges that would-be "leaders of the free world" don't have a significant enough repugnance for the "powers that be"- in this case, power that be THEM.


Many of us continue to cringe at the way our beloved terminology is now used, not to belittle an even more abominable, ripe-for-removal-by-revolution power-structure than it was back in the day, but has become yet another political phraseological pronouncement pimped by pragmatic presidential populists.


Gag me with a lava lamp.

"WARM WISHES" FROM OUR "GOOD NEIGHBORS," MARK ZUCKERBERG.AND PRISCILLA CHAN

   The Mark Zuckerberg clan was kind enough today to post to my Facebook "Timeline" what appears to be a "Seasons Greetings" note reading:
   "It's the first day of winter, Andy! We're sending warm wishes your way today and throughout the season."
   Can't ya just feel the corporate love? I look forward to that sort of analytics-derived sincerity from, no doubt, the very bottom of Mark's and Priscilla's altruistic, silicon-based, little hearts. (The informality of the exclamation point following my name was really special touch "Mark"... if I may be so bold)..
   I'm sure Mr Z and Ms Chan will want to personally take some time-out from their busy schedule of writing checks with eye-popping numbers of extra zeros on the end buying-up a kuleana or three- all the while constructing fences that block points along the thousand-year-old "ala loa" shoreline-access-trail and posting "no trespassing" signs at Lepa`uli beach. Then they will have all the time- and privacy- they need so as to sort through all that mega-data to generate notification of these vitally informative messages of Aloha on my list of all the other "events" I didn't ask to be made aware of but will nonetheless be there for my perusal "throughout the season." .
I'm sure that wouldn't be the season of genocide. No- I guess you just meant the winter.
   Your Kaua`i Pal,
   Andy

THERE ARE NO "ACTS" BY "TERRORISTS"-, ONLY CRIMINAL OFFENSES-. a message to humans

   There are no "radicalized" people, only the abused, the disaffected, the marginalized, the oppressed... and so, often, the deluded.
  If you have strong "beliefs,"- especially those made of whole-cloth- and will fight for them, you are the one you seek to wage war upon.
  Belief is a mental illness. Knowledge is the cure. There's nothing wrong with not knowing. The scourge is only in thinking you know when you don't.
  "It" is not a "warped view" or "wrong interpretation" of others' religions, it is rather your own religious indoctrination- your very need for religion itself- that clouds your mind and heart.
  And if you have deluded yourself into thinking you are only "spiritual" and that's any different than being religious (i.e. if you "believe" in and throw around the "G-word," use abstract concepts and call them knowledge), if your very lifestyle is offensive to the rest of the world and you think it's because they are "jealous" of your exceptionalism-induced "freedoms"  and finally, if you think there must be a "better way to wage this war," YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

  A more effective war does not lead to peace. The truism "you cannot simultaneously prepare for war and work for peace" always pertains.

    What a fool believes he sees, the wise man has the power to reason away...

  Please rejoin the "peace movement. It's a time for Peace- I swear it's not too late....