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Very good! Best wishes to Puna News...
Assume the best and ask questions.
Punaweb moderator
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Nice cartoon, Lack! You are multi-talented! Can't wait to try some of your huli-huli chicken.
Speaking of chicken, I see that Puna News (the online newspaper at your link) deemed it important to reprint in its entirety Governor Lingle's remarks on her veto of the Civil Unions bill. This was a cowardly wielding of the veto pen. It was both chicken, and huli-huli, topsy-turvy and confused.
Governor Lingle's veto message, to which the Puna News devotes two entire pages, is neither news nor a message that Puna needs to hear again.
Lingle says that whether or not Hawaii should permit civil unions should be decided by voters, and not by "one person sitting in an office". This reveals an ironic and fundamental misunderstanding of how a representative democracy, such as Hawaii's, works. In a representative democracy, representatives do not act as mere proxies for citizens and do not always vote according to their wishes. We do not have a direct democracy, such as American Idol where we merely text "yes" or "no". And thank heavens for that. If we did, blacks might still be sitting at the back of the bus, blacks might not be able to marry caucasians and the military might not be integrated. Each of these decision points (if you will), was reached at a time when Americans (or the state at issue) were opposed to extending these rights.
In 1966 or so, Mildred Loving (black) and her husband (white) were ripped out of their marital bed by Virginia cops because they had had the audacity to marry in the District of Columbia --an act which was illegal in Virginia at the time. They were prosecuted and convicted. The trial judge said that God intended the races to be separate and that is why he put them on different continents. It would have remained illegal if we had a direct democracy. We didn't and we don't. The Supreme Court found that it was unconsitutional to prevent interracial marriage. This decision was against the popular will of Virginia at the time.
Ironically, Lingle arrogated to herself the right to decide the issue while pretending not to decide the issue but instead deferring to the voters. The voters, governor, elected the legislature which in turn passed the bill. That's what a representative democracy is all about. We do not have an American Idol vote on every matter before the legislature, and god forbid that we ever do.
Puna News' reprint of this cowardly poison pen message by Lingle in its inaugural issue suggests to me that it does not intend to serve all of the community. It also exhibits misplaced priorities and a fundamental misunderstanding of what constitutes news.
I, for one, hope for something better in the future.
Very much enjoyed the cartoon though.
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Can't say I've ever read PunaNews and with a 8.3MB PDF file to download I don't think I ever will. My dialup is still smarting.
They sure are restricting their readership. Why not a normal web page?
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For those of you on a faster connection than dialup, can you download Puna News? I've tried a few times and have given up. I can download pdf files from elsewhere but can't from this site, I just end up with a blank page.
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Well, it eventually downloaded only for me to see the astrology article. That's the last time I'll be reading Puna News.
YMMV.
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An 8MB .pdf? Really? In 2010?
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