by Raphael O’Suna

Many things are very deep, unfathomable, intricate, contingent, confusing, labyrinthine. They do not reward concentrated thought.

Infinity and eternity are concepts of this nature. The “Origins of Origins,” is another. The nature of the human mind is very mysterious. As is the nature of consciousness or soul. Can one determine what the lowering of a woman’s eyes means? What is light? Reincarnation is another maze of questions.

Only a few men can productively contemplate the great mysteries, without harm coming to them. Even fewer can enter into them and doing so become mysteries to others.

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Nat’l Roast Pork  Day Day 67 of 2010 298 days left in this year

March 7th, 1848: King Kamehameha III signs the Great Mahele, (with the help of foreign advisers) dividing lands that had formerly been held in common and administered by chiefs and their konohiki (overseers). The Mahele allocated 23% of land in the Islands to the king (called crown lands); 40% comprised konohiki lands to be divided among 245 chiefs; and 37% was declared government lands, to be awarded to commoners who worked the land as active tenants. The Mahele was followed in 1850 by the Kuleana Act, which established fee simple ownership of land. Because native Hawaiians had no concept of land ownership, what was an attempt on the part of the monarchy to distribute property among the Hawaiian people, actually resulted in Americans and Europeans finally achieving their goal of acquiring Hawaiian real estate. The land rush continues to this day ….

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Dentists’  Day Day 66 of 2009 299 days left in this year

— Kumakaia: Traitor
PIDGIN WORD OF THE DAY— Lo:

YESTERDAY: Michale Moore Offers to Replace President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. “I will come to D.C. and clean up the mess that’s been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp.” More >

March 6th, 2009: Kipahulu – A new gateway to Haleakala National Park’s Kipahulu area is created with the donation of 34 acres near Oheo Gulch by The Nature Conservancy. More >

March 6th, 2007: The Maui News reports that Maui legislator Joe Souki, 8th representational district of Hawaii,  says he will kill the Superferry EIS bill now in the State House. This is the same bill supported by the mayor, the majority of Mauians and most of the environmental groups in Hawaii. Souki does kill the bill, which begins a flurry of lawsuits and protests, and sham hearings by traveling house representatives, who spend hours listening to Mauians at Baldwin High School denounce the Ferry, and then turn around and vote for it anyway. The backroom money that must have flowed …

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Mother-in-Law Day Day 65 of 2010 300 days left in this year

March 5th, 2010: Bank lobbyists are killing Financial Reform Bills, assuring obscene profits for them and another financial meltdown for the rest of us. “While health care reform still holds the political spotlight, efforts to clean up Wall Street are withering on the vine. Here’s how. ” More >

March 5th, 1933: This was the last day for nearly a week that you could go to a bank on Maui and cash a check, or get change, or ask for a loan, or even – a not uncommon practice all those years ago – change your dollars into gold. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that all banks be closed for four workdays as he restructured the banking laws, and in one big hurry: he had been sworn in as president just yesterday. The changes allowed quick legislation which insured all deposits through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. FDR went on radio and calmly told citizens that their money was safe, they could believe in themselves and their government, and the government would insure their money. He was so successful that, when the banks reopened the following week, deposits outnumbered withdrawals in most major cities for the first time in nearly a year.

Today, the U.S. banking system is in peril. The dollar continues to fall in value overseas, making goods manufactured outside the U.S. (which account for nearly 80% of what citizens now buy in their country) more expensive. Rising prices have created the recession now taking place.

The U.S. has long been off the “gold standard.” Richard Nixon made that change in the early 1970s. And this year the FDIC will have its hands full. In any given year, the U.S. experiences an average of 4 bank failures. The federal government is prepared to handle twice that many, as a precaution. Several Wall Street firms have quietly been moving their capital and currency investments to the Eurodollar during the past two years.

The reason? In the next 18 to 24 months between 100 and 200 U.S. Banks will fail. There is no federal plan in place to deal with such astronomical amounts of lost money.  The only thing the government could do is print more money, making what is already floating out here even more worthless.

The great social philosopher Bette Davis is appropriate to quote here, in conclusion: “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” – Maui Curmudgeon, March 5, 2008

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Do Something Day Day 64 of 2010 301 days left in this year

March 4, 2008: Maui County officials are shown to be criminally negligent in their failure to purchase West Maui watershed. A Wailuku Water Co. official says it has a watershed buyer ready. The private  company’s offer would cut out the county, which was offered the entire 13,000-acre watershed but has not followed up with any proposal to purchase. Read more …

March 4, 1977: The Honolulu newspapers report that two protesters on the island of Kaho’olawe are finally arrested, their names lost in anonymity.  Why the authorities waited for 35 days to arrest them is not explained. Why they were there is old news.

On these pages we have told some of the story of the bombing of the island, its use as a target range, and the now ongoing efforts to clean the land and shoreline of unexploded ordinance. Many Hawaiians hope that Kaho’olawe will be the first island given wholly back to Hawaiians, and that they may re-establish their country once again.

But the road to new statehood will be long and not without detractors, including many Hawaiians themselves. As one Hawaiian in Kahului recently told me, “I like dental care, and a pension and a democracy. I’m not interested in having royalty or ali’i.” Read the rest…

Japanese Girls Day Day 63 of 2010 302 days left in this year

TODAY: President Barack Obama lays out his plan to finally pass health care/insurance reform by Easter.

March 3, 1958: A little more than a year before Hawaii becomes a state, Henry Kaiser takes the first step to putting his long-talked-about medical insurance plan into operation in the Hawaiian Islands. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. files papers with the Hawaiian Territorial Treasurer’s Office as a foreign corporation to do business on Oahu and Maui, Hawaii’s two most populous islands. At the time, the Kaiser plan, named after its founder Henry Kaiser,  serves half a million people on the West Coast. Today, Kaiser is the largest (in terms of people served) medical health care plan serving Hawaii residents. Hawaii law requires employers to provide health insurance for all employees working more  than 20 hours a week.

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Old Stuff Day Day 62 of 2010 303 days left in this year

MARCH 2nd: Here at the Good ol’ Maui Almanac, we’re used to finding it difficult to locate a piece of history which either took place on Maui or directly impacted Maui – every day. Once in a while, we get a date where a few interesting things happened:

1911: All poi in Hawaii is ordered destroyed by the territorial government, as officials believe some poi contains cholera. The ban is throughout the islands. Evidence is sketchy, but it appears that until the next crop arrives, thousands of people lose weight.
1966: The satellite ESSA 2 becomes the first to take a picture of Hawaii and its weather. Sadly, no improvements are made to weather predictions in the next 42 years.
1967: Back in the day – before (shockingly to this writer) the majority of Americans were born — the airlines were severely regulated by the federal government.  Desperate for tourism (ahem), the state of Hawaii sues the federal government and airlines demanding a set air fare to the islands, and the state wins. The two airlines serving the state – United and Pan Am – agree to set the round trip airfare from the west coast at $200. Using the Consumer Price Index to compare the dollar values, $200 in 1967 is worth $1, 207.19 today. People still come. Sigh.
1989: Exxon Houston runs aground in Hawaii, spilling 117,000 gallons of oil.
1999: The Pioneer Mill in Lahaina announces it will cease operations in 2010: In 2010, nobody misses it.

HISTORICAL EVENTS ON THIS DAY — March 2nd

• 1498: Vasco da Gama’s fleet visits Mozambique Island
• 1642: The first convict Labor Law in America is enacted by the colony of Virginia
• 1776: Americans begin shelling British troops in Boston
• 1799: Congress standardizes U.S. weights & measures
• 1807: U.S. slave importation is forbidden (takes effect on January 1st, 1808)
• 1819: Arkansas becomes a territory
• 1836: Texas declares independence from Mexico
• 1853: Washington becomes a territory
• 1861: The Dakotas become a U.S. territory
• 1867: Congress abolishes peonage in New Mexico
• 1899: President McKinley signs the bill creating Mount Rainier National
• 1958: Dr. V E Fuchs finishes the first crossing of the Antarctic continent by
• 1962: Wilt Chamberlin scores 100 points in one basketball game
• 1970: American Airlines’ Boeing 747 makes its first flight
• 2000: Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet leaves Britain for his homeland, hours after he is ruled mentally unfit to stand trial on charges of human rights abuses
• 2001: The United Nations tries unsuccessfully to persuade Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban to reverse its decision to destroy a pair of giant, ancient statues of Buddha and other Buddhist relics that the regime considered idolatrous
• 2004:A series of coordinated blasts in Iraq killed 181 people at shrines in Karbala and Baghdad as thousands of Shiite Muslim pilgrims gathered for a religious festival.
• 2008:Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin’s hand-picked successor, scored a crushing victory in Russia’s presidential election.

BORN ON THIS DAY — March 2nd

• 1793: Sam Houston, president of Texas
• 1862: John Jay Chapman, U.S. advocate/poet/writer
• 1904: Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), author
• 1917: Desi Arnaz, Santiago Cuba, singer/actor
• 1931: Mikhail S Gorbachev, Soviet secretary-general
• 1931: Tom Wolfe, journalist/author
• 1942: John Irving, novelist
• 1944: Lou Reed, (Louis Firbank), rock vocalist/guitarist
• 1949: Eddie Money, (Mahoney) singer/guitarist
• 1950: Karen Carpenter, vocalist/drummer
• 1950: Matthew Laurance, actor
• 1950: Mitchell Laurance, actor
• 1955: Dale Bosworth, TV host
• 1955: Jay Osmond,  singer
• 1959: Andrew Farriss, rocker
• 1962: Jon Bon Jovi,  singer/songwriter
• 1968: Daniel Craig, actor
• 1979: Chris Martin, rock singer
• 1985: Reggie Bush, football player
• 1985: Robert Ile, actor

DIED ON THIS DAY — March 2nd

• 855: Lothair, King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor (b. 795)
• 1791: John Wesley, English founder of Methodism (b. 1703)
• 1855: Nicholas I of Russia, Emperor of Russia (b. 1796)
• 1930: D. H. Lawrence, English writer (b. 1885)
• 939: Howard Carter, British archaeologist (b. 1874)
• 1982: Philip K. Dick, American author (b. 1928)
• 1987: Randolph Scott, American actor and director (b. 1898)
• 1992: Sandy Dennis, American actress (b. 1937)
• 1999: Dusty Springfield, English singer (b. 1939)
• 2004: Mercedes McCambridge, American actress (b. 1916)
• 2004: Marge Schott, American baseball team owner (b. 1928)
• 2005: Martin Denny, American musician (b. 1911)

Peanut Butter Day Day 61 of 2010 304 days left in this year

YESTERDAY: U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D) resigned to run for governor of Hawaii.

March 1st, 1917: H.A.Baldwin and “F.F.” (nope we don’t know who the heck this could be. If you do, let us know) buy the island of Lanai for $588,000, or using the CPI to calculate, $9.2 million in 2008 dollars. We think they got a deal.They wanted Lanai to grow cattle. It didn’t really work out, and by 1920 they began to grow pineapple. That didn’t work out either, as pineapple isn’t grown there today. Now they want to grow resorts. Let’s hope it’s a trifecta.

March 1, 1879: The Library of Hawaii is founded. The Friends of the Library of Hawaii was founded in a building on Fort Street by Honolulu’s business leaders, merchants,and Hawaiian royalty as the Honolulu Library and Reading Room. Members of the original organization included King Kalakaua, Queen Kapiolani, Queen Emma, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, Sanford B. Dole and James Campbell. Read the rest…