Wright Brothers Day 351 of 2007 14 days left in this year

HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY —
“Life is placed where it can take only a brief flight.”

December 17th - 23rd: Saturnalia

Today thru December 30th:
Maui Film Festival’s First Light Screenings

December 17th , 1944: The U.S. Government decides that the approximately 120,000 Americans of  Japanese descent are really not a grave threat to the government, or freedom, and releases them — most never get back their lands, property, goods or good names. Strangely most of the Japanese in Hawaii are not affected.

Executive Order 9066 from President F.D. Roosevelt, ordered that that any local military  commander could exclude any person from sensitive locations, and authorized the internment. In  1944, shortly before they were released, the U.S.Supreme Court ruled that the lockup was  constitutional. Nonetheless, President Ronald Reagan officially apologized to the internees in  1988, and in 1990 the U.S.Government began to pay reparations to surviving internees. Many  refused, saying the amount was too small, and no price could be put on their freedoms.

On this same date three years earlier, rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel was relieved of his duty  as commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, just ten days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Kimmel took the fall like a good soldier, but declared that FDR knew of the attack all along.