Backward  Day Day 31 of 2010 334 days left in this year

And these men volunteered for this duty during the year when most – more than 100,000 – Japanese Americans are stripped of their rights, property and dignity, and interned in California concentration camps.Though no exact number of casualties are known for this team, it is estimated that about 1,000 are killed or wounded during the war.

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by Raphael O’Suna

Since I was born with a strong moral sense, and my mother always made me aware of the lives of others, the world has never made sense to me. I should probably say that the actions of men never made sense to me.

But even that doesn’t express my experience of this world. Even children have lost their soundness and innocence. I remember fighting classmates who bothered the only black child in our class. This was in the first grade, and Alice Matthews was as sweet as she could be. I did not understand the cruelty, the mob psychology and the transformations that came over people.

As I grew and developed, my sense of truth, justice and virtue repeatedly endangered my own position and, at times, my life.

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World Law Day Day 30 of 2010 335 days left in this year

TODAY: Sierra Club Maui Group conducts its annual meeting from 11am to 3 pm at Kaunoa Senior Center in Paia. Speical Guests & Potluck Lunch  – FREE. More >

January 30th, 1875: The “Sugar Rush” – Hawaii’s answer to California’s Gold Rush – is officially launched with a reciprocity treaty between the Kingdom of Hawaii and the United States. The treaty allows for duty-free sugar to be imported into the US, giving Hawaii a huge advantage over sugar imports from other countries, all of which is heavily taxed.

Henry Spreckels and the team of Alexander and Baldwin begin their epic battles here on Maui, buying land and raising cane as fast as possible. Over the next 30years, the companies import thousands of workers from Korea, the Philipines and other South Pacific islands, to meet the demand for labor. A&B finally wins, of course, and what remains of the Spreckel’s sugar industry is sold to A&B during the first part of the 20th century.

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Free Thinkers Day Day 29 of 2010 336 days left in this year

WEDNESDAY: The Catcher in the Rye author J.D. Salinger died Wednesday at his home in Cornish, N.H., where he had lived in seclusion for more than 50 years.  More >

“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.” – J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

January 29th, 1960: Visitors and residents on the Hana side of Maui report that at night they can see an orange glow from the southern tip of the Big Island. No surprise there:  in perhaps the largest eruption recorded in modern Hawaiian times, Kilauea now has seven fountains of lava gushing up to five hundred feet high. The molten rock falls to earth and forms two wide and fast moving rivers that quickly make their way to the ocean.

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National Kazoo Day Day 28 of 2010 338 days left in this year

January 28th, 1974: OPEC rears its ugly head in 1973, and by 1974 the flow of oil shrinks to a trickle here on Maui. Several fights break out at pumps statewise, and the state legislature passes new gas rationing rules.If you have a quarter tank of gas in your car — you can’t buy any fuel. You can buy gas on odd days if your plate ends in an odd number, and even days if your place ends in even numbers.

Gas is no longer sold on weekends — period. Not one to take an attack on their gas-guzzling freedoms lightly, Americans fight back with two Gulf wars to protect their access to oil — even at outrageously high prices. One bumper sticker seems to sum up the ignorant attitude Americans have on the subject: “What is their sand doing over our oil?”

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THIS SATURDAY 11am. It is potluck but if you don’t have a dish, don’t let that stop you — come anyway!

Sierra Club Maui Group will hold its annual meeting Saturday, January 30 from 11am to 3 pm at Kaunoa Senior Center. The event is free and features annual Sierra Club Awards, a panel discussion on “Sharing the Water,” special guests and a picnic lunch.

Featured panelists include award winning tropical agriculture agronomist Dr. Paul Hepperly, Maui County District Health Officer Dr. Lorrin Pang and traditional farmer, researcher and educator Hokuao Pellegrino. The panel discussion will begin at noon and be followed by questions and answers.

“Sharing the Water” will be the theme of the Sierra Club’s 2010 panel discussion. “Our Constitution recognizes that water is important to traditional Hawaiian agriculture and gathering practices, public water supplies and agriculture,” stated Maui Sierra Club Chair, Lance Holter.

“The big question we have to answer is the best way we can all share our water resources.” Panelists have been chosen for their expertise in sustainable agriculture, public health and traditional cultural use of water.

2010 Award recipients include:

• Dick Mayer, Retired MCC professor
• Jonathan Starr, Past Maui Planning Commission chair
• Lei’ohu Ryder, Hawaiian cultural educator and performer

For more information email webmaster@MauiSierraClub.org or go to www.MauiSierraClub.org

By Raphael O’Suna

Maui is currently in the midst of a great disinformation campaign. When you hear someone on the radio speak of “haze,” they are actually speaking about poison gas and toxic metals blowing across our island from the Big Island.

These plumes are harmful to our health. When you hear that “there is no indication that these substances and gases pose a long-term threat to our health,” you know you are listening to the dissemination of disinformation.

Those coughs, sore throats, sinus infections, headaches and spells of fatigue that thousands of us experience, when the Vog sweeps across our island, suggest an entirely different scenario.

This situation is very similar to one that occurred in England a little over 200 years ago. The intermediate effect of these toxic plumes was the death of thousands of islanders from respiratory and cardiac dysfunction.

Volcano ‘drove up UK death toll’
By Paul Rincon – BBC News Online science staff

Volcanic eruptions in Iceland probably caused an unusual rise in deaths in England during the summer of 1783. UK experts suggest a cloud of volcanic gases and particles sweeping south from the Laki Craters event of that year may have killed more than 10,000 people.

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Int’l Holocaust Remembrance Day Day 27 of 2010 338 days left in this year

TODAY:  It’s all about Jobs. Steve Jobs is scheduled to announce Apple’s much anticipated “iPad Touch” in San Francisco. More >
Employment &  jobs will be the focus of President Obama’s first State of the Union address scheduled in DC. More >

January 27, 1942: The military governor of the territory of Hawaii issues a strong warning to merchants on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island — stop price gouging. Just seven weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the shipping lanes were struggling to maintain a sense of normalcy while dealing with new rules and regulations surrounding the importation of goods, as well as the commandeering of ships for war purposes. As a result, the flow of goods to Maui and the rest of Hawaii slowed, forcing pressure on prices to rise.

The governor was having none of it, and issued a price list for potatoes, onions, rice, bananas, fish and cheese, thus making Hawaii the first part of the United States to impose a rationing and pricing system during World War II.

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