CHOKE ON IT

CHOKE ON IT: If those who treat terminal illnesses with humor really want to get some belly laughs, they might do well to bring in tapes of the last two Kaua`i County Council sessions.

No, this time it wasn't the council itself that provided the guffaws but some of the Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) industry lobbyists and their poor, confused sycophants who traipsed up to testify.

One of our favorite bit of professed balderdash is that we don't need labeling because "no one has gotten sick from GMOs," which would be a neat trick since it might just make it difficult to know of something made you sick if you didn't know you were eating it.

Actually there have been very few studies of heath effects- zero independently conducted ones that we can find- with the oft quoted numbers of studies of GMOs being primarily on the growing of them and far less than 10% on any health effects.

But perhaps the most side-splitting of all absurdities is from those who tried to intimidate the council into rejecting support for a measure to ask the state legislature to initiate labeling of GMO products, as we mentioned a week or so back.

You could see the actual fear on Kauai and Hawai`i state Farm Bureau stalwart Jerry Ornellas's face as he described the scenario that he had been convinced was the future under a Hawai`i law requiring labeling. He described how soon, farmers would be sitting around, first presumably with test tubes and centrifuges to determine if their food contained GMOs and then whipping out the stickers and laundry marking pen and writing out their own labels.

People such as Scott MacFarlaine of the Chamber of Commerce and others had convinced poor "Farmer Jerry" that it would be up to him and perhaps retailers to do this, turning the issue into not one of health but one of "get the government off the backs of small business."

Even though recently states like California have started petition efforts to get their legislature to pass labeling laws and others have begun to consider introducing such legislation, the local produce defilers are apparently going to rely on a divide and conquer strategy that presumes the internet was never invented.

The council didn’t help much with this with every one of them questioning whether the state could really do this in the first place. Doesn't the FDA have jurisdiction and haven't they banned states and local jurisdictions from passing labeling laws?

Well the bad news used to be yes. Until this past July, the FDA has said they were solely responsible for any move toward labeling and when the chief lobbyist from Monsanto was appointed head of the FDA it didn't look good.

But the recent good news is that, according to Consumers International, the world federation of consumer groups,

In a striking reversal of their previous position, on Tuesday, during the annual Codex (Alimentarius) summit in Geneva, the US delegation dropped its opposition to the GM labeling guidance document, allowing it to move forward and become an official Codex text.

The new Codex agreement means that any country wishing to adopt GM food labeling will no longer face the threat of a legal challenge from the World Trade Organization (WTO). This is because national measures based on Codex guidance or standards cannot be challenged as a barrier to trade.

What that means in the US is that, as a signatory of the Codex and member of the World Trade Organization, the federal FDA can no longer ban labeling.

The article cites examples like Peru where

recent introduction of GM food labeling faced the threat of a legal challenge from the WTO. This new Codex agreement now means that this threat has gone and the consumer right to be informed has been secured.

...and in Africa where

Samuel Ochieng, President Emeritus of Consumers International and CEO of the Consumer Information Network of Kenya said:

"While the agreement falls short of the consumer movement's long-held demand for endorsement of mandatory GM food labeling, this is still a significant milestone for consumer rights. We congratulate Codex on agreeing on this guidance, which has been sought by consumers and regulators in African countries for nearly twenty years. This guidance is extremely good news for the worlds' consumers who want to know what is in the foods on their plates". (sic)

Now we don't expect all the conspiracy nutcases- who have tried to turn the Codex Alimentarius into a satanic field manual instead of an international standard for safety and efficacy of drugs and things like vitamins- to give up. You'll recognize them by their "don't take away our vitamins" mantra having been duped into not realizing that their little movement is funded and directed by the evil "Big Pharma" itself so they don't have to test their now unregulated vitamins and supplements.

But this does "solve" the mystery of what exactly happened this summer to allow the states to pass their own legislation regarding GMO labeling.

As to the Hawai`i effort, even though apparently the Kaua`i County Council will join Maui in their support for a state-wide labeling bill, since the measure is part of the Hawai`i State Association of Counties' (HSAC) legislative package, all county councils must sign off on it and, if the Honolulu committee vote is any indication, it's not going to pass there.

That means that the Hawai`i GMO labeling movement will most likely be moving on to the next phase- finding support in the legislature.

The first thing is to find two legislators- one in the house and one in the senate- to introduce the bills. And then the fun begins.

It is never too early to start soliciting support for the measure among legislators. The earlier the support the more likely the bill will get a kind ear from the leadership of the two bodies and get referrals to committees that have supportive chairs and, conversely, not get referred to those committees that have chairs who are close to the industry.

For those on Kaua`i who might have the attention of our four legislators- Senator Ron Kouchi, Representatives Derek Kawaikami, Jimmy Tokioka or Dee Morikawa- it can't hurt to try to pin them down on their public positions on GMO labeling now.

The council will be taking a final vote on Wednesday and the stronger the showing of support the more likely it is to get noticed by state legislators... in an election year. If people can't sit around all day and wait for it to come up on the agenda the council now allows people to speak right at 9 a.m. on any agenda topic. And written testimony can be submitted via email at counciltestimony@kauai.gov .

The Codex Alimentarius Commission decision means nothing if those who have thrown up their hands in frustrated despair for the past decade or so don't act, whether here in Hawai`i or in other states.

We'll miss the non-sequiturs and ridiculously convoluted scare tactics of the GMO industry but we'll always have Marx Brothers movies.

GATHER YE TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS WHILE YE MAY

GATHER YE TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS WHILE YE MAY: Though we haven't viewed it yet, reports are that the Kaua`i County Council got quite the last minute earful at yesterday's meeting on a recommendation for a state legislative bill that would require labeling of foods containing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO).

The Maui council-generated measure was a part of the Hawai`i State Association of Counties (HSAC) legislative package that all four counties must approve for the recommendations to be sent to the 2012 legislature for consideration and, although the package has been on the council's agenda for more than a month, it was the first discussion of the proposal.

Previously the council had concentrated only on their own recommendation for a bill to close loopholes in the solar hot water mandate for new construction which had undergone changes before being sent, along with the rest of the package, to the full council from committee a week ago, seemingly destined for final disposition yesterday.

But a last minute barrage of emails and Facebook postings by GMO-Free Kaua`i turned out the anti-GMO troops and, according to a Facebook posting by GMO-Free 's Jeri Di Pietro, the council re-referred the package back to committee to be debated next Wednesday.

But while the measure is still alive on Kaua`i, according to Big Mike Levine of Civil Beat, it may face the ax on O`ahu where the Honolulu City Council removed the measure from the package in committee on Tuesday and sent it to the full council without the bill that would require GMO products to say so on thhe labels.

The good news though is that Honolulu didn't reject it because they didn't agree with the bill but because, according to Levine, even though "Safety, Economic Development and Government Affairs Committee Chair Tulsi Gabbard said it's a matter of people knowing what they're feeding their families," she "eventually recommended that the GMO measure be removed, saying it's an important issue that needs a full airing that can't happen now under the tight timeline for the legislative package."

But even though the bill may not get the recommendation of HSAC this year, it's important that the precautionary principle be stressed next week to the council which needs an education on the issue to counter the various farm bureaus' silly contention that because "no one has gotten sick or died" (failing to add "yet") from GMOs, they're perfectly safe and therefore, for some reason, people shouldn't be told what's in their food.

According to Wikipedia, the Precautionary Principle states that "if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action."

Of course the various individual island farm bureaus are populated by Pioneer and Sygenta sycophants who never seem to be able to answer the question of how people would know they were getting sick or otherwise suffering harm from GMO products if they don't know they're eating them.

If you care about the issue, either write the council at counciltestimony@kauai.gov or better still, show up next Wednesday at 9 a.m. and tell them in person.

It may be an uphill fight with big campaign cash and yelps of "jobs, jobs, jobs for the westside" from the industry, but now that the FDA has apparently permitted individual jurisdictions to pass their own labeling laws, the fight has to begin somewhere and with its corn seed folks spreading their Frankenfood pollen all over Waimea, Kaua`i is as good a place as any to start.

DEMON SEED

DEMON SEED: Apparently it's the crime that will not speak its name.

When the first word in the headline- "Decapitation"- caught our eye Wednesday we almost kept scanning the Honolulu paper for less bloody fare- until, that is, we read "of papaya trees unnerves Hawaii isle farmers."

According to the article, someone took a machete to 10 acres on the Big Island. The same thing occurred at this time last summer to 17 acres there and another farm three months before that.

But the article ended without any speculation by anyone as to a motive for the "crime," saying

(Police) said while farmers talk and speculate, they have no clues about who is committing the vandalism or why it is happening.

"There's no rhyme or reason for these thoughtless acts."

The TV news stories weren't much help either but the next day the Honolulu newspaper made clear what their theory was in an editorial that squarely pointed a finger, saying:

In all incidents, the papaya trees were genetically modified. William Julian, brother of the Kapoho farmer, speculated that the destruction was the work of people who oppose genetically modified crops or the use of chemicals to control weeds and pests...

Julian's speculation is not far-fetched. His brother, Laureto Julian, who has grown papayas since 1967, said he had harvested his first patch of genetically engineered, or GE, "Rainbow" and "Sun Up" papayas just three days before what he called "a gang of up to five people" whacked away at his trees.

The editorial predictably went on to condemn the "organized vandalism" saying:

Police need to step up their investigation of this criminality and, along with the public, recognize that this goes beyond mere property damage and is becoming a form of agricultural terrorism.

But even though it's hard to root for seeing anyone's rice bowl get broken it's apparent that the paper's editorial board has it's economic blinders pointed in the wrong direction because from our vantage point the "agricultural terrorists" are not the decapitators but the "decapitees".

Though the creators of "genetically modified organisms" (GMO)- or Frankenfoods as many depict them- claim the scientific high ground, real scientists, especially those without any economic interest, recognize the violation of the first rule of science- the precautionary principle. It says that anything being released into the wild- especially for human consumption- should be considered unsafe until proven safe rather than the other way around.

It's certainly the way the Food and Drug Administration treats new drugs. But for some reason- most likely the massive amounts of cash poured into lobbying efforts and politicians' campaign coffers- testing of GMO foods have been done subject to the use of this kind of Carrollian logic.

But safety issues aside- and make no mistake many are emerging such as colony collapse in bees which has increasingly been thought to be associated with the widespread use of GMO cereal seeds- the violation of the right of people to choose what they put in their pieholes has many hopping mad... mad enough to take matters into their own hands.

The not just lack of but actual suppression of information makes any attempt to simply refuse to buy or eat GMO products impossible. Not only are GMO foods not required to have labels informing consumers but it is actually illegal to say a product contains no GMOs. Not only that but federal law actually forbids states and local jurisdictions from enacting such informational legislation on their own.

Those who try to grow organic or even just non-GMO papayas- the latter of which, by the way, are the only ones accepted in the biggest foreign papaya market, Japan- are fed up having their crops infected by the pollen that drifts on the wind from near-by GMO fields making their harvests useless for them and their customers.

In some cases GMO seed distributors on the mainland such as Monsanto have gone so far as to actually sue those whose crops were infected by their seeds. And to add insult to injury they forbid anyone to grow their GMO brands from the seeds of their own harvests, including those whose "legacy crops" have been infected.

So far the courts- in the US at least- have bizarrely upheld Monsanto's and other GMO seed creators' and distributors' own "agricultural terrorism," although some small victories have led to ambiguity as to what will happen next in the appellate courts.

Is it really terrorism to engage in protecting your non-GMO papayas by taking matters into your own hands and physically preventing the flowering and pollen drift of the GMO brands?

Who are the real criminals- the ones who are protecting their own health, safety and livelihood where the courts have failed to protect them or those who could care less about health and safety of others as long as they get paid?

It may be "illegal" to destroy someone else's property but it certainly is at worst a form of civil disobedience, at best self-defense, to eradicate the source of the scourge of GMO crops.

DARE I SAY IT?

DARE I SAY IT?: The stereotypical mad scientist of science fiction from Dr. Frankenstein to Dr’s No and Strangelove has always been an almost comic-bookish aberration.

Perhaps that’s why, no matter how much real scientists try to invoke the precautionary principle, the more insanely oriented researchers blithely make decisions that carry the seeds (pun intended) of calamity.

Today’s announcement that the

(t)he state Department of Agriculture is expected to release an environmental assessment today... seeking approval to release a Brazilian scale insect into Hawaii forests to control the spread of the popular but environmentally needy strawberry guava tree


casts Art Medeiros, a research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, in the insane “don’t confuse me with the facts” researcher who seemingly has never heard of species mutating.

In the case of the Brazilian scale, although presently it infects only the admittedly invasive strawberry guava, the plant is in the same family as the `ohia lehua an endemic and significant part of local forests.

Of course should the introduction of the scale actually make the guava scarce it doesn’t take a genius to envision a slight evolutionary genetic change that would enable it to decimate the `ohia.

It all pales in comparison with the unknowns of generically modified organisms (GMOs) being cranked out to allow companies like Monsanto to control our food supply- assuming they don’t eventually wipe it out.

But there is hope.

This week the first GMO case reached the Supreme Court and while the court didn’t rule specifically on the dangers of widespread GMO crops it did note that they- as a Center for Food Safety news release (thanks to Joan Conrow for the pointer) says-

recognized that the threat of transgenic contamination is harmful and onerous to organic and conventional farmers and that the injury allows them to challenge future biotech crop commercializations in court.

What’s interesting in reading the whole opinion is that it seems almost a given that irreparable harm can come from GMOs with statements throughout the opinion seeming to indicate that there is no doubt about it with nary a challenge to the contention.

It’s hard to put our hopes on a supreme court whose concept of justice is warped by corporate subservience but it may just be that they can recognize junk science when they see it.

MADNESS TO THE METHODS

MADNESS TO THE METHODS: A small notice in today’s local paper announced what may seem to malihini to be about a ho-hum blessing of the new papaya disinfection plant on Kaua`i.

But in simply rewriting a county press release the paper’s editor allows more questions to be raised than answered for many kama`aina who remember the history of the papaya “industry” and the issues of disinfection.

The press release conveniently fails to answer the big question- exactly how will the papaya’s be disinfected?

There was a time in the 70’s when papaya was “the future of ‘diversified’ agriculture” on Kaua`i. The export market seemed so unlimited that farmers were actually tearing out fields of bananas in Kilauea to plant papaya.

All it would take was a disinfection facility,

That led to one of the biggest political protest battles in Hawaiian history- the fight against “irradiation facilities”- exposing them to nuclear material- and the efforts of the state backed by University of Hawai`i and some large farms to construct the facilities.

Long story short, the people won their fight against irradiation, especially on the Big Island, buy only after it became academic because the people of Japan said they wouldn’t eat them. Eventually the movement went nationwide where people refused to buy irradiated foods when they were labeled as such.

That led to a “hot water disinfection” method which never worked and destroyed the papayas. Eventually these “hot water dip” facilities that had been built- including one on Kaua`i- went defunct and ours was actually demolished.

So naturally this peaked our interest- what kind of disinfection process was to be used in the new plant?

We called Bill Spitz, who was listed in the article as Agricultural Specialist with the county’s Office of Economic Development and he told us that the plant would use a “hot air” process which would heat the fruit to 117 degrees with a big fan and a little bit of water.

Wow, we thought- a new method and one that could have saved everyone from a lot of pilikila over the past 20 years if we had it then.

But guess what? Spitz told us that this method not new and indeed was developed at UH more than 20 years ago.

Of course at the time many irradiation opponents claimed there were other safer methods of fighting bugs and disease and that the state was being sold a bill of goods by the burgeoning irradiation industry.

Even though the label was an innocuous looking symbol that told you nothing if you didn’t already know what it was, people learned fast enough, and rejected such fruits and vegetables.

Gee it’s great they learned their lesson and haven’t tried to use any unproven potentially harmful methodologies developed in UH labs to “save” the papaya and other produce industries.... not.

What they have learned is to fight like hell against current efforts to require labeling of genetically modified products, including of course papayas.

Overseas in Japan and across Europe they do require labeling and many governments have banned the importation of GM produce entirely- meaning now that we have a way to disinfect them no one will accept our GM papayas.

There are many ways other than genetic modification to control plant diseases and insect vulnerabilities, as sustainability experts will tell you. Maybe in 20 years state policy makers and UH researchers will listen.
Currently though the facility isn’t the only thing that’s full of hot air.

DIGGIN’ UP THE DIRT

DIGGIN’ UP THE DIRT: Public Broadcasting likes to tell us they “do what the commercial networks won’t”. And in Hawai`i they do, on the surface, with regularly scheduled local “public affairs” programming three nights a week where the local broadcast networks average about, well zero.

It’s questionable how topically relevant two of those programs are, like the local sports talk of “Leahey and Leahey” and Leslie Wilcox’s amazing ability to turn interviews with the most politically fascinating individuals in the state into fluff pieces in her “Long Story Short”.

But Dan Boylan’s “Island Insights” usually cooks up at least a promise of a wide ranging, panel discussion of the burning issue of the day.

That promise would be fulfilled if the panel actually pitted those who took diametrically opposed positions. But instead all too often the producer rounds up the usual suspects who represent the state’s corporate controlled oligarchy.

Never was that more so than last light’s installment on the “future of agriculture in Hawai`i”.

Promos promised discussion of “sustainability” and land issues and the political will to make diversified agriculture more than the empty campaign promise of aspiring pols.

But instead three of the four represented large corporate industrial money-driven farms and the fourth, Aussie transplant Gary Maunakea-Fort from the Big Island, an inarticulate organic farmer and opponent of what he called “industrial farms” who serves high end restaurants on Kona side with arugula on 4 acres there, although he is trying to expand to 16 acres.

The three corporate farmers included Adolph Helm of Moloka`i who represented the “Hawai`i Crop Improvement Association” and heads up the GMO-corn seed operation there, the Chair of the Hawai`i Board of Agriculture Sandra Lee Kunimoto and Richard Ha whose 600 acres Hamakua Farms plants 600 chemically-fertilized acres of whatever makes him the most money.

The sustainably discussion was a joke. Apparently none had any idea of what the movement toward sustainability was all about.

Ha was straightforward in re-defining sustainability as being economically based repeatedly saying whatever makes money is what is sustainable. Worse was Helm who not just agreed with Ha’s economic model but who claimed that “everyone has a different idea of what sustainability means” and went on to say how GMO corn seed is our best hope for sustaining agriculture”

Kunimoto seemed equally as clueless claiming that “best management practices” are the key.

The GMO discussion was equally obtuse with the three industrial farmers providing the tired old lies of “strict government oversight” and “higher yields” along with the “fully tested” and “strictly regulated”. The only real discussion was about how to deal with the “cultural” objections to GMO taro with the understanding among themselves that science” was on their side.

The fact that GMO products have never been fully tested and that science has been thrown under the bus with the precautionary principle—the main guiding standard in real science- getting the shortest of shrifts. Products are assumed safe with little scrutiny and voluntary compliance and self regulation providing for non-compliance- as violations and resulting fines across the county have shown- being the norm under the “deregulation” regimes of the last few decades.

When a viewer asked about labeling issue all they could do is repeat the “strict government regulation means it’s as safe an any other product” dodge.

Forth was not even asked to answer the question.

But if discussion on those two subjects were dismally one-sided the one on land use was doubly perverse.

The cost of land was never mentioned as a deterrent to farming even though any young aspiring farmer will tell you that that’s impediment number one. Even when the pressure to develop ag land came up the fact that, in order to farm one must invest more in land than one could ever possibly recover in order to start, never came up.

As a matter of fact they lauded the new “identification of important ag lands” study as the key to the future of agriculture, although none ventured a guess as to how reclassifying tons of ag land as urban and residential would help drive down ag land prices.

In an age when we are increasingly looking for ways to “grow” energy with solar wind and biomass “farming” to call any ag land at all “unimportant” is absolute insanity. Identifying land for development just squeezes that energy production onto more arable land, driving prices up not just for the land but the resulting food and energy even further.

That’s because every successful farmer in Hawai`i, for one reason or another, whether through inheritance subsidized lease or through some other circumstance, has not had to factor in land cost into the viability of their farm.

While some mentioned county regulation none recognized the state’s role in allowing “ag condominiums” over which the counties have zero control. That is what has driven prices sky high as ag land becomes “gentleman farms”.

None, including Forth, talked of sustainable small family farms. So of course the problems of hiring “agricultural workers” was the answer when Boylan asked why “young people don’t want to farm”.

That seems to be the mantra of corporate farmers almost all of whom started being land ag rich so never had to factor that cost into their profit equation. They simply seek to hire people to do the seasonal work at low wages rather than taking in partners or forming co-ops.

The fact is that there are hoards of young people who would love to become farmers- Forth says he hires them “for a few years” just so they can have the experience and had 75 applicants for 24 positions last year. But the cost of land is prohibitive because no crop and no amount of work can produce enough to sustain those who do the work and also pay off the exorbitant cost of obtaining land with prices that have been driven by making ag land in small de facto residential lots for rich mainland folks

The real solution to sustainable ag is multi pronged but not very complicated. It starts with bring down the cost by restricting use. Counties can easily remove density from ag land and open land and the state can just as easily eliminate agricultural condominiums making land useless for anything but agriculture.

The more of that “strictly ag use” land there is the lower the price will be. Every rezoning and ag subdivision drives prices higher still. Those need to stop entirely.

Once that is in place the business plan of the young farmer becomes easy to construct and one that, with hard work and knowledge, would make a career in farming a possibility.

The corporate model relies on “workers” and “jobs” that nobody wants- do you want to work for minimum wage (or less as farm workers may be paid)?

The fact that no one wants to do hard work for peanuts doesn’t mean young people don’t want to farm or do hard work at all. They just don’t want to farm for low wages for someone who somehow acquired land at a way-below-market-cost that they didn’t have to factor into their business plan.

The problem is that lip service to ag is all we get from short sighted pols who still think of sustainability in terms of an economically-driven industrial model of operation.

With people like Kunimoto overseeing and cheerleading factory farmers like Ha and “GMO is our future” Monsanto henchmen like Helm no one is holding their breath that our elected officials will remove the corporate yoke from farming by reforming our land use polices.

But we may never even get that far. When the “unimportant ag lands” study is done and most of the ag land is developed there may not be anything to reform.

IT MUST BE BURIED HERE SOMEWHERE

IT MUST BE BURIED HERE SOMEWHERE: It’s “read um and weep time” as the legislature finished it’s dirty work Friday.

The list of bills that passed is kind of like the most disgusting Sundae in the world with a bunch of turds on the bottom where the ice cream should be, topped with a layer of fluff instead of whipped cream and, if we’re lucky by some miracle of oversight, an eatable cherry or two on top.

The sauce? No butterscotch, no chocolate no nothing where it should. Those are the missing (due to) inaction bills- the ones that showed promise, almost made it but were killed by paid-to-play conference committees with the hope you won’t notice because there’s no list of them anywhere except in the hearts of those who wanted to see them passed.

The bigger debacles have gotten plenty of press but one we haven’t heard much of that awaits the governor’s signature is the bill that would have banned research on generically modified Hawaiian taro.

Yup- it’s dead. For a lot of the newbie activists that got involved in the anti-GM movement it’s sooo cute to see the expression on their faces the first time they open the empty box and see up-close how corruptly idiotic our Hawai`i legislative system is.

To watch them, as the session went along, go from supporting an outright ban on GM products, to a ban on all research, to a ban on taro research, to a ban on only research on the Hawaiian varieties of taro, was priceless for us grizzled vets.

But then seeing them get all excited that the watered down bill passed both houses only to see their hopes dashed at the last minute is outright hilarious.

We only wish that is had passed only to be vetoed and then left for dead with no override vote permitted by the house and/or senate leadership.

For that kind of mirth we have to wait for action on the list of some of the bills that actually sit on the governor’s desk.

We’ll go over a few today that either effect Kaua`i or that we’ve followed during the session or are otherwise particularly worthy of note

We’ll start with an absurd little ditty- HB267 HD2 SD1, Relating To The Motor Vehicle Rental Industry. This is the bill introduced to allow rental cars on the Superferry. Even though the ferry sunk, the bill still floated... all aboard for the SS Futility. Guess they were busy doing this and things like determining which is the official state butterfly that they “ran out of time” on the civil unions bill.

HB640 HD1 SD2 CD1 “Relating To Environmental Impact Statements” may be the worst bill passed this year. It takes away the protections that trigger an environmental assessment when developments abut or empty onto things like state and federally funded roads and other public facilities- such as when a hotel that empties onto a busy highway. And forget about taking into account where the cars will go once they hit that road. that’s doubly prohibited.

While developers love this one, smart growth and environmental protection activists are crushed by the law that “(e)xempts from the purview of chapter 343, HRS, the environmental review law, primary actions that require a ministerial permit, that involve secondary actions limited to infrastructure development within public right-of-ways.”

Though the greedy bosses and other union-busters at Wal-Mart and Home Depot may not think so, one of the few good bills that passed is the one known as the “card check law”. It enables unions to organize when a majority of the workers sign up rather than require elections that are subject to management manipulation intimidation tactics. HB952 HD1 SD2 CD1 is a statewide version of the law that is currently being considered by the US Congress but until then at least Hawai`i has a card check system.

The county lifeguard liability shield law for which the counties fought for many years was about to expire but is extended, although just for another four years, under HB1040 HD1 SD2 CD1. It seems absurd that we’ll have to fight for this- and pay a lobbyist- again in four years but we’re probably lucky to have gotten it renewed.

We hear nothing but bad things about the guy that slips that white “el cheapo dentistry” ad sheet in the local paper every other weekend so it’s good to hear about SB113 HD1 CD1 Relating To Dentists which “(a)uthorizes the board of dental examiners to sanction licensees for false or misleading advertising”.

And finally for today, although a slew of great bills in the cannabis/hemp package were swept into the gutter- including the one transferring control of medical cannabis from the Department of Public Safety to the Department of Health where it belongs and is in every other state- we did get a SB1058 SD2 HD2 CD1 Relating To Controlled Substances.

At least it “(e)stablishes a task force to examine issues relating to medical cannabis patients and current medical cannabis laws (and) (e)stablishes a task force to examine the effects of salvia divinorum”.

THEY’LL EAT ANYTHING

THEY’LL EAT ANYTHING: The outrage that is genetically modified organism (GMO) foods is surpassed only by added insults to the injuries perpetrated by Monsanto and other GMO purveyors.

And Kaua`i is the center of the “end of food” universe where the dastardly seeds of the bastardly owned and operated Pioneer and Sygenta are grown

The lack of scientifically verified safety by “federal regulators”- a term that’s all but a joke after 8 years of dismantling- is undebatable. There is none.

Rather they ask others to prove GMO’s are harmful- while rejecting the scientific evidence and ecology-based science that shows the harm- in a direct and absurd assault on the scientific precautionary principle that guides real scientists- as opposed to the pseudo-scientist shills hired by the GMO companies before they go one to work for the US Food and Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture

We’re not just fed foods that have not been proven safe but are forbidden as consumers from finding out we’re eating the stuff by alowing GMO labling.

Even the premise of the industry is horrendous- the destruction of genetic diversity within a crop species alone is reason enough to forbid the ubiquitous spread of a single genetic strains.

But perhaps worse than the potential and real scientifically-based horrors of Frankenfood is the way Monsanto has invaded organic and even just non-GMO-crop-growing farms by not just intentionally destroying the genetic sanctity of their crops but then suing the farmers and taking away their farms after they have invaded them by spewing pollen from neighbors growing GMO crops.

Anyone who has read the papers, magazines and seen the TV reports and documentaries has been outraged by Monsanto’s actions in harassing farmers who want to use the traditional method of saving seeds from their harvest for the next year’s planting.

Monsanto’s agents have been shown stealing some of the crop, analyzing its DNA and claiming the farmers are growing Monsanto’s product after Monsanto conspired to spew their poisonous product on the sustainable, traditional-methodology farms.

When combined with the fact that Monsanto will not allow their GMO products to be replanted, causing farmers to have to buy all their seeds every year, this provides not just a recipe for disaster when the introduction of genetic diversity is eliminated, but insures that, if humans are to “feed the world” as GMO industry giants laughably claim is their goal, they will make money off every bite of food eaten by not just people but the domesticated animals we eat too.

Here on Kaua`i it’s almost impossible to grow corn on the Westside. We spoke to some people yesterday at the stop-GMO booth at the Kaua`i Farm Fair and found out for instance that Grove Farm will not lease ag land to anyone growing non-GMO corn, with a specific ban being part of every lease. Same goes for state controlled land and other ag land owners, especially on he Westside where the GMO seed corn is grown.

But a ray of hope is on the horizon.

The California legislature has passed a model bill that, if signed by the governor, will insure that Monsanto’s attempt to control our food future will, if not end, at least be controlled.

Bill number: AB 541, according to its Legislative Counsel's Digest says

Existing law provides that everyone is generally responsible, not only for the result of his or her willful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person, except so far as the latter has, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself or herself.

This bill would provide a protocol for obtaining and testing a crop sample to determine whether a contract has been breached or a patent on a genetically engineered plant has been infringed by a farmer who is planting, managing, or harvesting a crop, as specified. The bill would provide for agreed or court-ordered sampling, with provisions relating to notice to the parties of sampling and results, protective orders against intentional destruction or damage to crops, and fees for sampling by or under agreement with the Secretary of Food and Agriculture. The bill would provide that a farmer is not liable based on the presence or possession of a patented genetically engineered plant when the farmer did not knowingly buy or otherwise knowingly acquire the genetically engineered plant, acted in good faith and without knowledge of the genetically engineered nature of the plant, and when the genetically engineered plant is detected at a de minimis level, as specified. This bill would limit the applicability of its liability provision, as specified.

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature, as specified, in enacting this act.

That the Hawai`i state legislature could legally pass this bill is certain. It also appears that there is no state law forbidding the institution of this on a county level.

But just ask the local candidates what they would think about a ban on all GMO crops on Kaua`i and you’ll have to search long and hard to find anyone willing to even limit them.

The drumbeat of jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs for the Westside has never been a discriminating one.

The Navy’s missile range that makes us a nuclear target is the biggest Westside employer. The GMO corn seed growing operations- done here only because it would, by GMO proponents own claims, be too ecologically dangerous to do it near major population or farming communities on the mainland- makes sustainable agriculture a joke for the island,.especially on the unproductive-ag-land-rich Westside..

Yet those employed there think that because it puts a roof over their families’ heads and food on their families’ tables it doesn’t matter how horrendous their products are

We’ve asked before how bad it has to be for people to wake up. We’ve asked- not as facetiously as some may assume- whether if these people lived in Germany in the 1940’s they would cling to the jobs at the concentration camps because the economic benefit was too great.

But passing this law here on Kaua`i it isn’t going to happen if we keep electing people whose campaigns are funded by the seed companies and their supporters whose voodoo economic models are way too kow-towing to the wider business community.

Ask this year’s candidates about this bill and the Eco-Roundtable’s proposed ban on all growing of GMO products on the island. Their answers will certainly be indicative of whether they put the public interest over the special and private interests.