Reach for stars
Reach for stars
Early Hawaiians were world leaders in astro-navigation. These great explorers ventured out into the ocean thousands of miles from land on stunning voyages of exploration.
Now, these same great peoples have the opportunity to expand their knowledge of the stars and explore not just thousands of miles, but millions — no, billions — of light-years into the ocean of space.
This opportunity is the continuation of Hawaiian culture — knowing the stars and exploring where no one has gone before.
Madam Pele built the largest mountain on the planet Earth, in an ideal location to continue exploration. Any mother would want her children to stand upon her shoulders and reach for the stars.
Brian Ingalls
Keaau
Go to Chile
Thirty Meter Telescope is not about culture versus science. It’s about culture versus concrete. And it’s about paying for a pass to pour that concrete on one of the planet’s most revered landscapes. Do we want this precedent?
What if TMT starts building, then the courts rule against it? Does it have enough money to take its concrete back down?
University of Hawaii should advocate for more telescopes — UH’s mission is increasing knowledge. But someone else should advocate and care for Mauna Kea. UH has a massive conflict of interest and lacks expertise in caring for natural resources.
Could Mauna Kea become a national park, and later be given to a restored nation of Hawaii? Or could the Department of Land and Natural Resources care for the mountain, using observatory fees?
The protectors of Mauna Kea are making history — for what they are doing and how. What they are doing is causing power and money to stop and listen. How they are doing this is through aloha, striving to create deep and lasting change by connecting everything and everyone.
TMT can accomplish most of its goals in Chile. It should move there — and thus, to the right side of history.
Cory (Martha) Harden
Hilo
The norm?
The Hilo Bayfront and adjoining neighborhoods are prey to vandals.
Tagging with graffiti is an out-of-control epidemic, and meth, alcohol and heavy tobacco smoking among the young population is way, way, way up. The common greeting I hear in Kalakaua and Mooheau parks is: “Got a cigarette?”
Local males are particularly abusive and deliberately rude and vulgar, with displays of spitting, cursing and self-groping when they approach a white person. Chain-smoking welfare moms with infants with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder appears to be the local norm.
Eliot Greenleaf
Hilo