MY FRIENDS Denise and Freya took me to a concert of Hawai'ian music at the Palace Theater on May Day. They had both been to other events -- including a lei-making contest -- at the Palace earlier in the day. This was the maiden voyage of what is to be an annual May Day event for Hilo.

 photos from www.hilopalace.com


THE CONCERT that evening featured Melveen Leed. Denise, who spent her childhood here, said that Melveen's music had been popular when she (Denise) was growing up; that Melveen had been one of Denise's mother's favorite singers, in fact.

Deja Vu

THE FIRST SET of the concert was done by George Kuo, Martin Pahinui, and Aaron Mahi. Their names meant nothing to me -- and yet, when I saw them, I could have sworn I had seen them somewhere before! They came onstage and George introduced them...(and I was thinking, "Where have I seen these guys before?")...and then he said how much he enjoyed being back in Hilo, and that he hadn't been here in 5 years!

So...where COULD I have seen him? Apparently not in Hilo. He said that he and Martin and Aaron were appearing, usually, Sunday nights at Moana Terrace at the Waikiki Marriott (on O'ahu). Well, I certainly hadn't been there -- and yet I could swear I had seen all 3 of them before!

George had a double-necked guitar -- 12 strings on top, 6 strings on the bottom -- and he would sometimes switch back and forth within a single song! He and Martin played their guitars in the characteristic, Hawai'ian, slack-key style, and Aaron played bass. They also sang. The music was very beautiful. We were sitting in the front row, and the stage was decorated with big sprays of fresh greenery and flowers -- and the whole atmosphere was very homey.

DURING INTERMISSION, Freya introduced me to a couple friends of hers, who were sitting just across the aisle from us: Arial and Bruce -- and again I had the immediate feeling that I had met them before! They showed no sign of recognizing me, so I didn't mention it -- but the feeling was unshakable (and Bruce wore a black patch over one eye; just the kind of thing that would stick in one's memory)!

It wasn't just a feeling that I had met them somewhere before, either: I remembered meeting them both right there, in that very spot in the Palace Theater! I even remembered Arial's words!! Freya introduced us, and then Arial said, "Arial -- like a car antenna, or the name of a Sprite."

Actually, this has been happening since my first days in Hilo, over 2 years ago. I've met a lot of people here who seemed already known to me; it's one of the things that made me feel sure Hilo was the place for me. I should be used to it by now, but I'm not, it still surprises me every time. I wonder how it happens -- do I meet these people in my dreams, and then not remember the dreams, and then, when I meet them in the flesh, I do remember...?

MELVEEN JOINED the trio for the second set -- and I had no memory of meeting her before. She talked about growing up on Moloka'i, and about her musical mentors Sonny Chillingworth and Gabby Pahinui (Martin's father). And the music was excellent. Live music is almost always a transportive experience for me -- and so it was on this day.

At the end, we all stood and clapped and were given an encore; and then we all held hands and sang "May Day is Lei Day in Hawai'i"....

"May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii
Garlands of flowers everywhere
All of the colors in the rainbow
Maidens with blossoms in their hair

"Flowers that mean we should be happy
Throwing aside a load of care
Oh, May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii
May Day is happy days out there"

(Lyrics & Music by Leonard Hawk)

IT WAS A WONDERFUL evening for me -- and the second time in 10 days I had been out at night. I almost never leave my burrow after sundown. I don't like the idea of bicycling at night. Also, I'm just not much of a socializer; my typical evening is spent working at the computer or listening to the radio.

Just 9 days before, I had gone (with Freya) to an evening of art at the old Hilo Iron Works. It's a neat old building that looks to have arisen in the 1930s. Nowadays, an upstairs area has been made into a space for art. The show we saw there was a collaboration initiated by Michael Ash (the photographer who took the pictures for my ebook An Exploration of Usui Reiki and Beyond).

Michael had put together an hour-long slide show, dozens of remarkable photos from his time in India, Nepal, Tibet, and other exotic places, and had gotten 3 musicians to improvise soft music to it, and a dancer to improvise dance sequences, and a vocalist to improvise vocals -- and the whole thing fit together quite beautifully! It was also a nice opportunity to talk with Michael a bit, to see his wife, Mio (who appeared in my Reiki photos), and their daughter, Kisa; also to see other friends, Tim and Kerry, for the first time in a long while.

Then, the next week, I had my first visitor from the mainland -- my friend Nancy from Arizona. She had a great time: saw other friends in 2 different places on the island, spent some time on the beach and in the water, went to a Luau, took a helicopter tour, drove all the way around the island, and even got sunburned (in the shade, even!). I was sorry that the timing didn't work out for her to see either the Michael Ash presentation or the May Day concert...but we had a good time nonetheless.

TWO OF THE 7 Universal Principles of Macrobiotics are: "What has a front also has a back" and "The bigger the front, the bigger the back." This latter principle is also commonly stated (by people outside the Macrobiotics community) as: "The brighter the light, the darker the shadow."

Here in Hawai'i, we have very bright sunlight -- and the darkness of the shadows is inevitably, likewise, extreme. Anyone who is here long enough to see past the tourist luaus and hula shows will observe some of the shadowy aspects, too. It's not "politicly correct" to acknowledge the shadows; but here I am, unable to sleep at 3:00 a.m. because of thinking about the shadows, and I'm going to acknowledge them. So, be warned: If you prefer to remain "politicly correct," you have no business reading the rest of this article!

Background:

(excerpted from http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/kamschool.html)

Kamehameha Schools, formerly known as Bishop Estate, has assets somewhere between $6-15 Billion, and is the largest private landowner in Hawai'i. Theoretically, its sole reason for existence is to operate forever a small network of private schools under the Will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a 19th Century descendant of Kamehameha the Great. The trustees of this tax-exempt charitable trust have successfully maintained a race-based admissions policy that requires all students to have at least one drop of Hawaiian native blood [emphasis mine; I can't imagine how tough it must be to discern one drop of Hawai'ian blood in an ocean of non-Hawai'ian blood -- or what kind of special microscope that must require!]. ... In 2002 school officials announced that one white boy with no native ancestry had been admitted to the Maui campus after there were not enough qualified ethnic Hawaiians to fill every opening. A major uproar among parents and thousands of alumni [emphasis mine] produced a pledge from the trustees to modify admissions procedures to zealously defend the race-based policy. In 2003 two lawsuits were filed seeking to force the admission of two well-qualified white applicants. One of those applicants had been accidentally admitted and then had his admission rescinded at the last minute when it was discovered that his mother had been adopted into an ethnic Hawaiian family but did not herself have native blood. The judge ordered that student to be admitted temporarily pending the outcome of the lawsuit; and then Kamehameha settled that lawsuit by agreeing to let the boy attend the school for all 6 years remaining through graduation. The other case, involving a child whose name is being kept secret, was not settled. U.S. District Court Judge Alan Kay ruled on November 17, 2003 in favor of Kamehameha and dismissed the lawsuit. An appeal was filed in the 9th Circuit Court in January 2004, with oral arguments on November 4, 2004.

AND:
(from http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/kamschool2005.html)

From January through July of 2005 there was no significant news on this topic. Kamehameha zealously maintained its admissions policy, "adjusting" its admissions standards and doing outreach to the ethnic Hawaiian community to make sure there would be enough eligible ethnic Hawaiian applicants to fill all available slots and to make sure the applications were carefully scrutinized for proof of native ancestry. Everyone was nervously awaiting the decision of the appeals court, not knowing how long that would take.

On August 2, 2005 the decision finally came down. By a 2-1 vote, the panel of judges ruled that the racially exclusionary policy is contrary to law, and sent the case back to the Honolulu District Court where Judge Kay must consult both sides to decide how to implement that ruling.

NOW, as I write this (August 13, 2005), there has once again been great uproar and wailing in the ethnic community -- even a "prayer vigil"! -- this time, over the Circuit Court's latest ruling. The Court has been petitioned to reconsider its decision, and the Court has refused.

The Emperor's New Clothes

With so many "naked emperors" running around the politicly-correct American landscape, garbed only in transparent euphemisms, I'm HAPPY to know there's at least one official institution brave enough to call a spade a spade!

Just as "Hawai'ian Sovereignty" and "Affirmative Action" are often merely euphemistic camouflage for naked racism, Kamehameha Schools have attempted to hide their policy under the cloak of "Racial Preference" -- and the Court has refused to go along with the ruse. The Court has been honest enough to announce that a policy of total exclusion for everyone lacking a certain kind of blood goes way beyond "preference." The Court has now declared that the student in question must be allowed to attend the school.

Stupid Question: Why-oh-why would anyone desire to attend such a school??? At this point, I can't imagine him getting a very warm reception (and I would like to nominate this for Understatement Of The Year).

And Those Pesky "Adjustments"....

The idea of Kamehameha Schools "adjusting" their admissions standards, to make sure the desired people qualify, leads us directly to this next item, also currently in the news (from the Honolulu Advertiser, as reprinted on hawaii.com):

BOE may lower bar to pass No Child tests

After another round of disappointing test scores at the middle and high school level, Board of Education members are calling for a re-evaluation of the state's academic standards.

Hawai'i's academic standards are among the highest in the nation and until now the school system has defended its high expectations, even as more and more schools faced sanctions under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Last night, however, board member Karen Knudsen said Hawai'i's math test, in particular, is demoralizing to students.

"It just doesn't make sense to me. Why are we doing this to our kids?" she said during a BOE meeting on Maui. "I like academic rigor. But this is cruel, in my opinion."

Schools superintendent Pat Hamamoto said the standards will be revisited this year and will likely be refined to "realistic" levels.

Hmmm.... Sounds a lot like "The end justifies the means"....

Later in the same article, State Department of Education spokesman Greg Knudsen (Sho am a lotta Knudsens hereabouts!) is quoted as saying: "It's not an effort to redefine proficiency or dumb down the curriculum...." -- and, in the spirit of Orwellian DoubleSpeak, we can all be assured, that is indeed EXACTLY what it is.... The article's title captures it perfectly: it's a matter of "lowering the bar." "Here, kid, let us make this test easy enough for you to pass! Because, if you don't pass, you'll be so DEMORALIZED, your whole life will be ruined (not to mention, the school will get less government money!). And we certainly can't require that you actually LEARN something; that would put too much pressure on the teachers! So, let us 'adjust' the test...."

WHAT WERE THOSE PRINCIPLES, AGAIN, TEACHER?
"What has a front also has a back."
"The bigger the front, the bigger the back."
And there's also one that says: "What has a beginning also has an end."

So, one of these days -- maybe not soon, but someday -- we'll come to the end of deluding ourselves. We'll feel okay about just telling the truth.

Here's a vision much more pleasing to me than scenarios of racial exclusivity and "lowering the bar" (from http://www.sacredwhitebuffalo.org/legend/legend.html):

I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again. In that day, there will be those among the Lakota who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things and the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom. I salute the light within your eyes where the whole Universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am [at] that place within me, we shall be one.
--- Chief Crazy Horse, Oglala Sioux (This statement was taken from Crazy Horse as he sat smoking the Sacred Pipe with Sitting Bull for the last time, four days before he was assassinated.)

IT USED TO BE, as Mark Twain so famously said, that everyone complained about the weather, but no one did anything about it. Nowadays, there's ample evidence that various (and nefarious?) people are into big-time Weather Modification (what a nice euphemism for things like steering and intensifying hurricanes!). In fact, some people claim there's ample evidence of such monkey-business going as far back as the 1960s (when the Soviets publicly announced such capabilities). Now, even Uncle Sam has come out of the closet, with an official, Congressional bill...."to establish the Weather Modification Operations and Research Board, and for other purposes" (and WHAT other purposes, I wonder!).

Really, of course, all of us have been modifying the weather all along -- by our industrial/technological lifestyles....and, as many have pointed out, by our thoughts and feelings.

Anyway, whatever the mix of causes, there's no denying the strangeness of the weather nowadays, all over the world. A friend in Connecticut writes, "We just had the warmest January ever here....many days 60 and above!" -- while, here on the island of Hawai'i, January and February (so far) have been very strangely C-O-L-D. My standard uniform -- shorts, T-shirt, and bare feet -- has become long pants, T-shirt plus silk jacket, and socks -- plus a 2nd jacket and/or a folded bedsheet covering the legs, much of the time when seated!

Even with all that, I've been feeling remarkably chilly. When sitting or standing, I keep my feet on a foam cushion, otherwise the tile floor sucks every bit of warmth out of my body in a couple minutes! The only time I'm really warm, lately, is my few hours in bed, snuggled under a quilted comforter -- and still fully dressed, including (usually) the jacket!

This is my 3rd winter here, and very noticeably different than the past 2. We've had snow on Mauna Kea before, but this year the air in Hilo feels like it's coming directly off that snow! Even when we have sunshine and blue sky lately, the air has a sharp coldness that reminds me very much of boyhood springtimes in Colorado, 40 years ago! The wind makes it colder yet, of course -- and we've had lots of wind.

WELL...I RECKON, if I'm at the point of writing about the weather, I must not have much worth saying. I chose to mention it, though, because it really does feel to me that something major has changed; that this may well be the start of radical climate changes, which many people have been predicting for some time.

There's also a shift occurring in my energy. When I started these Aloha Pages, during my first days in Hawai'i, I was in full-exploration mode, exploring the new environment. The Aloha Pages were a natural way to catalog those explorations. Now, though, my focus has turned more inward -- to things not specific to Hawai'i -- and so these pages no longer seem the appropriate place for my current blogging.

For those of you just now discovering the Aloha Pages: there's plenty of reading in the archives; click on the "...story to date..." link in the left-hand column, or click anywhere on the page and choose from the "Previous" menu that pops up (unless you've disabled your browser's JavaScript capabilities, in which case you'll have to navigate from the "sitemap" links, near the top and bottom of the page).

For those of you who've read everything here -- and for the new folks as well -- I've started a new blog, called BEYOND. The intent is to go beyond the geographic constraints of these Aloha Pages, and beyond the structures and methodologies of the rest of the site (Reiki, Johrei, Macrobiotics)....to bring about a more-spontaneous, unfettered -- and interactive -- free-flowing stream of consciousness, generally aimed at the kinds of questions humanity has been trying to answer forever: things like, "What is Life?" and "Where did we come from, what are we doing here?" and, of course, "Who dressed us this way? Are we having a good time?" : ^ )....

This may be the last Aloha Page for a considerable while. In any case, I hope you'll all go BEYOND with me....

Pule ho'omaika'i ----
(A prayer of thanks to all of you)

THE FIRST TRANSLATION I HAD of aloha was from a Native American friend who had lived in Hawai'i for a while. Her translation of aloha was "Breath of God". Then, after moving to Hawai'i myself and meeting Serge King, I learned his translation of aloha: "The joyful sharing of the breath of life, in the present moment".

Now I have yet another translation of aloha, which adds even a further dimension. Not long ago I was invited to a house-blessing ceremony. The house-blessing was a ceremony for connecting with the ancestral spirits of the place, asking for their blessings. It was conducted by a native Hawai'ian, Kalei'iliahi -- and, after the ceremony itself, she told us another meaning of aloha, and a traditional ritual relating to it.

Alo, she said, can be translated as "face" -- either the face of a person, or the face of the universe. And ha, as we knew already, means "breath". So, aloha means literally "face-breath" -- and the ritual she showed us consisted of 2 people coming together, grasping each other by the shoulders, touching their foreheads and noses together, and breathing as one (inhaling together, exhaling together). The ritual is called Honi*

This very oneness is, of course, the essence of a marriage -- and Kalei said that a specialized form of this ritual is part of a traditional Hawai'ian marriage ceremony. In the marriage ceremony, she said, honi is performed by the husband and wife, and the breathing is done in a specific pattern -- which just happens to be the same pattern taught in Yoga, as pranayama, the same pattern I learned initially from a book called The Law of the Rhythmic Breath (which said this pattern of breathing was the original, natural way that human beings had breathed all the time). I've described this breathing in detail, previously, here (except for doing it while joining faces with a partner)....

Very interesting, how real knowledge always pops up again and again, in various cultures and various time periods, connecting us all....

* It seems this was unknown even to the compilers of my Hawai'ian dictionary, which has only this as the definition of Honi: "To kiss; a kiss; formerly, to touch noses on the side in greeting."

THE FOLLOWING POEM was created by  from the powerful words of Rebecca Hardcastle, emailed during her recent visit to Hawaii following a major life change:

Hilo girl: paradise paradox

Paradise found
Soft and beautiful, quiet, lush, laid back, like living outdoors
Cut flowers, fresh-picked fruit

Walk this morning to two beaches
Feel like I'm getting my sea legs
Thank the triumvirate for my release
A good feeling
I'm in slow speed
I walk on the beach
I sleep in a soft rain

I'm open
I'm the trick of words writing themselves
My body would love to stay here
I'm open

The women are full of wisdom
Pele energies bring you to the islands
When it's time to go she spits you out
I guess I am beckoned
It feels right, salving my being

Putting out the fire energies of Phoenix
I sit in the ocean or hear the rain and tell myself that it's over
The fire is out, the struggle is over
I am moving on
A good, safe feeling

So I surround myself with quiet and nature, reading and writing

A swim with dolphins
A place of refuge
Will the two frequencies ever converge?
Hold the co-existence of two opposing forces
As long as you need to hold the tension

Once they were----, now they are----
Stay, go, each holds perfection. One is you. One is not
Happiness and peace

The aroma of coffee permeates beautiful wood floors
Island breezes come in from the ocean
Something shifts

Warm volcanic tide pools
We float on our backs and soak all afternoon
Just a crab bite now and then interferes with paradise

I want to come home, and I don't want to leave
What a lovely paradox
I'm a Hilo girl

copyright © 2006

I RARELY HAVE "FAVORITES" -- but September has always been my favorite month. It always seems especially precious -- the very last days of summer-like warmth and, here in Hilo, maybe the last of the blue skies for a long, rainy time. There's something very melancholy about September to me, something that seems connected with ancient memories, and brings feelings of nostalgia and longing....

This September, after spending the whole summer on the mainland, I've been enjoying the days in Hilo more than ever. The slightest excuse for a bike ride gets me outside; and, if I can't think of an excuse, I just go anyway! I can hardly make myself be indoors now -- even with all the doors and windows open. I've been needing, so greatly, the sun, the blue-sky-and-white-clouds, the bird-songs and frog-songs, the wild exuberance of happily-growing jungle -- the whole, radiant, loving, life-giving embrace of Mother Nature!

Meanwhile, that most "invasive species" of all (Homo sapiens, you and I) continues its relentless manipulations of the natural environment -- always trying to "stack the deck" in its own favor, to acquire maximum comfort for itself. And maximum comfort usually seems to require maximum money. And there are always those among us who want maximum comfort and money for themselves, at the expense of everyone else.

There's a particular governmental scheme known as "Green Harvest" -- aimed at confiscating marijuana crops -- part of America's "War on Drugs". On the very surface, it doesn't sound like too bad an idea (if we ignore the fact that making war on anything never accomplishes much except to exacerbate the original problem, that is). BUT ... when we start looking at the chain of events generated by this "green harvest" ... we see, undoubtably, a case in which the remedy is proving to be much worse than the disease.

CYNTHIA LINET is a Hilo attorney and a Teen Court judge, who recently sent the following letter to the Hawaii County Council in Hilo. She paints a disturbingly accurate picture of the real effects of the Green Harvest program, and raises questions -- which definitely need to be answered -- about the true motive behind it.

Her letter has been subsequently published in the Hawai'i Island Journal. Considering the enormity of the effects of the Green Harvest program, I strongly urge readers of this page to write letters, expressing their feelings on the subject, either to the Island Journal or to the Hawaii County Council. Postal addresses and email links appear below Cynthia's letter, which follows now:

Cynthia Linet, Esq.
Attorney at Law
815A Kalanikoa Street
Hilo, Hawaii 96720-5003
(808) 961-5144

August 21, 2006

Hawaii County Council
25 Aupuni Street
Hilo, Hawaii 96720

Re: Methamphetamine Eradication Act

Dear Council members;

I am writing you in favor of the methamphetamine eradication act and the stopping of green harvest in this county.

By now you should be thoroughly aware of the fact that green harvest has been the main cause of the rapid rise in methamphetamines, the huge growth in special needs students in our schools, the higher costs of health care due to drug infestation, the rise in crime, the loss of jobs, the slowing of our economy, and all the peripheral problems resulting from the problems just mentioned.

Oh for the days before green harvest, when a reputable marijuana grower could grow a crop that would help him feed his family, buy his land, build his house and in general participate economically in his community.

Until green harvest, our economy was a thriving one, all the marijuana money, and you know as well as I do, it was substantial, stayed in the community and all businesses profited. People who did not drink or use heavy drugs could rely on a steady and relatively inexpensive source of marijuana to relieve their stress or just make them happier, that didn't rot their livers, ruin their lungs, mess up their minds and bodies or cause them to commit violent crimes.

Then came green harvest. Growers stopped growing. People who could no longer get marijuana resorted to heavier drugs like ice and crack. I'm not telling you anything new here. These drugs as you now know have been the scourge of the county and the country as well.

Child Protective Services cases are up drastically since green harvest, fueled in large part by the rapid growth of crack and ice addicted parents. As one social worker candidly told me one day "Give me the good old days when the issue was marijuana. At least we knew that the refrigerator was full."

Our schools have been overwhelmed with special needs children, the result of being born addicted to these hard drugs. That never happened with marijuana.

Our healthcare system has been overwhelmed as well with addicts and the results of the mayhem they cause while on these debilitating drugs. That never happened when people were able to smoke a little marijuana. Marijuana users do not burden the healthcare system, they don't get emphysema or sclerosis of the liver. In fact I know of no chronic or degenerative diseases that marijuana smokers are prone to.

Don't misunderstand me, I am a teen court judge and when it comes to marijuana use for young people I am adamantly opposed and I am very vocal about it. I believe that marijuana use for young people is down right dangerous because it can rob them of their youth and all the learning that must be done, stunting their emotional and intellectual growth as well.

So what's the deal? Why is marijuana considered the scourge and more efforts are expended to wipe it out rather than ice and crack? Well, it's a money thing. Marijuana growers are easy targets and the law allows the confiscation of their possessions, not to mention the thousands of pounds of the plant that the police manage to harvest each year. Don't you think it odd that the plants are "harvested" the police' word, not mine, right at the height of their potency. That the buds are separated from the stems, weighed and given a street value and then.... Well the video the police prepared that told me this information failed to show us the final process. What exactly happens to the buds after that? We as a community, do not for one minute believe that all that high quality product is burned or mixed with trash.

So now you know. You've known all along really but have not been courageous enough to speak out for the protection of your community. Stop the invasive and mercenary practice of robbing the people of their plant and take that money and use it to eradicate the true problems here, ice and crack.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
, Esq.

Please do let the County Council and/or the Island Journal know your feelings on this matter:

Hawaii County Council
25 Aupuni Street
Hilo, HI 96720

Phone, fax, and email info for the Council is here.

Letters to the Editor
Hawai'i Island Journal
P.O. Box 227
Captain Cook HI 96704

Or email the editor, at

HERE I SIT, serenaded every night by the beautiful sounds of little coquí frogs, singing to attract their mates. I so much enjoy their concert, I no longer even listen to the radio; I put it away 3 months ago!

And yet, there's a massive campaign, all over the island, to eradicate the frogs. People have been getting increasingly hysterical about them for a couple years. These little tiny creatures are the targets of a huge and growing war. The government of Hawai'i, awhile back, even asked the federal government for $9 million to aid in extinguishing them (and, to my surprise and great delight, the feds said No!).

There was at least one organization paying people $14 an hour to tramp through the jungles at night, in the rain, with flashlights, finding and killing coquíes one-by-one (about as successful as a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey!). Other people go out and spray whole areas of terrain with lime, or boric acid, or chlorine bleach, or who-knows-what-else.... [ since writing this, I've encountered information about a massive experiment using concentrated caffeine to kill coquíes! ]

The massacre of the coquíes is really no different than our deliberate extinction of hundreds of Native American tribes, or the attempted extinctions of Jews or Gypsies, or the "ethnic cleansing" in the Balkans or among tribes in Africa. We have this nasty habit of killing anyone or anything we don't happen to like.

What's not to like about coquí frogs? Well ... "They're so NOISY!" And ... "They eat too many insects!" (I never thought I would hear people complain about a reduction in the insect population; but, when it serves their purposes....) They say the coquíes are threatening our "native" bird populations, by eating their food supply. But I wonder, is there really any evidence of this? I've not heard of bird species going extinct in Puerto Rico because of the coquíes; in Puerto Rico, people LOVE the little guys! And besides, the coquíes themselves have become food for some bird species. Here's a beautiful and enlightening article about coquíes in Puerto Rico, where, despite the people's love for them, they are also endangered (by human destruction of habitat and food supply), and 2 species are already extinct! (Here's more, from the editor of that article:)

The people who are now so concerned about our birds -- are they also concerned about whomever is being extinguished by the pollution from their own automobiles, or from our whole, societal way of living? No, not really; they just don't like the coquíes, and they will use any excuse to justify killing them. They're not above warping the facts a bit, either, in order to bolster their hysteria. Some people are now spreading the "fact" that a female coquí produces 50 eggs every 2-1/2 weeks. I decided to check that out, and found that it's been observed only in laboratory conditions. In the wild, it's a very different story: "In its native Puerto Rico, the female coqui frog usually lays a cluster or clutch of 34-75 eggs four to six times a year...." (from www.ctahr.hawaii.edu).

Hmmm.... "Four to six times a year" doesn't sound so scary, does it? So we use the laboratory statistic, and the magic words "invasive species", to galvanize the populace to wage war on the coquíes!

Another fear, supposedly, is that they will invade our homes! I've been told, specifically, that they will get in among the coils at the back of my refrigerator, from where it will be impossible to dislodge them! This makes absolutely no sense to me. Why would a frog choose to live in such a totally unnatural place as that? How many insects are they going to be able to ambush there? Seems to me, they're going to get mighty hungry! And, it seems to me, the indoor environment is just not moist enough for them; these guys love water, they love the rain! I found one of them in my bathroom one night -- he had apparently blundered in through an air vent in the wall -- and I was trying to grab him and put him back outside, but he eluded me. Alas, I found his desiccated corpse the next morning, being carried off by a squadron of ants....

I keep telling people, "Someday you're going to regret this -- just the way we've come to regret almost every human attempt at outsmarting Mother Nature!" Chemical fertilizers, industrial agriculture, genetically-modified crops, pharmaceutical drugs -- all these things look so good to us at first ... and then, eventually, we discover that the real, long-term cost of them is very much greater than the temporary "benefits".

Despite all the rhetoric, the only thing people seem genuinely upset about, from the coquíes, is their noise. I find this really baffling because, to me, it's not noise, it's beautiful, soothing music! I don't hear people complain about the noise of cicadas, or the noise of crickets -- and yet, to me, the serenade of the coquíes is very cricket-like, and less noisy than the armies of cicadas I've heard many times. And I would infinitely rather hear the "noise" of coquíes than that of motorcycles and trucks and cars, and the sirens of ambulances!

At the bottom of all this, of course, lies MONEY. People are afraid that tourists and/or home-buyers will be repulsed by the presence of these little frogs. It seems to me, that's reaching pretty far for something to fear! Isn't the fear of terrorists and global warming and the IRS (oops, that would go under "terrorists") enough for us anymore? It seems to me, tourists would find the serenade of coquíes enchanting; and, if home-buyers don't like it, then they should live somewhere else. Would they move to Alaska and complain about the snow? Anyway, this may give us a clue as to who is really behind the anti-coquí campaign; could it be mainly those in the real estate and tourism industries?

And the irony is, the more we attack the frogs, the more threatened they feel, the more they WILL increase their reproductive rate! Why don't people just relax about them? Why don't we let Mother Nature handle the situation? She's been balancing ecosystems for as long as anyone knows.

Here's an excellent site for much more information on the frog war, and how we may be able to stop it: www.hawaiiancoqui.org.

SEVERAL PEOPLE have asked me to take some pictures around here, and to make them available. And, a long time ago, Sharon, a friend in California, generously sent me a digital camera ... and I was never able to get any software working properly with it. Then she sent me another digital camera ... and I got the software working, but the pictures I took with the camera didn't look any good; only the ones taken near sunup and sundown were even recognizable, the rest of the time the Hawai'ian sunlight (even when clouded) seemed overwhelming to the camera! So I forgot all about taking pictures, for a long time.

Then, last fall, my mother sent me a "disposable" camera -- and requested that I take some pictures before disposing of it : ^ ). So I did; and had them developed and put on a CD; and now, at last, I have some photos I can share with you. Please bear in mind, they were taken with a "disposable" camera -- which means "fixed-focus", which means that NOTHING is actually in-focus -- and they were taken by a guy who became deliberately unphotographical DECADES ago....

SO, with those disclaimers ... here comes Uncle Donnie's Picture Show.... Please click on the individual frames, to enlarge photos in a new window:

To be continued....

__________________________________
pages 51-60

For a menu of other pages, left-click anywhere on this page
(except a link or an image)
or use the sitemap

---

Webmaster: Don Beckett
copyright © 2002 - 2007 Don Beckett

May I design or host a site for you?