Save our food
Save our food
Regarding the County Council food bank contribution: The rising prices of food, fuel and electricity are putting a tight squeeze on the average budget and making an impossible existence for those on a low income. Preparing for this problem is responsible government. Yet, this effort does not take into consideration the food shortage that is occurring from the ongoing eradication of our wild food resources.
No comments were made by the County Council, nor has any research been done on what amount Big Island families depend upon wild meat and fruit to supplement their food budget. The eradication of “non-native” species goes full steam ahead. Many kamaaina have been dependent upon hunting and foraging for generations. Successful hunters of pig, goat, sheep and deer share meat with multitudes of families and friends.
Historically, hunters have been an informal community food support system. Wild fruit, like the strawberry guava, have also enhanced the local diet. They, too, are being destroyed by a variety of bio-control. Our food resources from the sea are under threat as well, and the trans-location of monk seals from the northwest to our Hawaiian Islands will turn all of our coasts into “endangered species habitat.” This will deprive local fishermen of their opportunities, and the monk seals will consume fish, lobster and octopus in and out of season.
When escalating costs and the loss of wild resources collide, people will have to suffer the humiliation of food bank lines — for a drop in the bucket.
K.M. Pogline
Keaau
Here’s the difference
In his column published on Saturday, March 10, Jonathan Gurwitz defends Rush Limbaugh’s potty-mouthed, leering attack on a young woman, Sandra Fluke, who tried to testify before Congress about the need to fund contraception for women.
Ms. Fluke spoke in her capacity as a private citizen exercising her right to testify in behalf of her beliefs. Mr. Gurwitz says that Mr. Limbaugh’s liberal counterparts, in the persons of Bill Maher and Ed Schultz, have said worse about Sarah Palin and neocon pundit Laura Ingraham. That is absolutely true. Both men have said demeaning things about these women and called them names not fit to print.
However, in his analogy blaming the left for being as vicious as Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Gurwitz fails to mention (or perhaps does not realize) that Ms. Palin and Ms. Ingraham are public figures and that Ms. Fluke is a private citizen. That is not a distinction without a difference. Mr. Gurwitz fails to recognize that difference and ignores the reason millions of female private citizens are railing against Mr. Limbaugh.
The difference is that Ms. Fluke, in exercising her rights as a private citizen, became a media “cause celebre” because of Mr. Limbaugh’s disgusting remarks, whereas Ms. Palin and Ms. Ingraham knowingly put themselves out there as public figures.
In today’s 24-hour polarized news cycle, that, unfortunately, comes with all manner of name calling as a given. Let’s not forget that distinction or that difference. Our public discourse has become uncivil enough.
Francine Pearson
Hilo