Candidate Forum - Puna / Tonight

[kalakoa]

They are both unworthy to serve Puna in any official capacity

Only because the role of "court jester" has gone out of style...

[missydog1]

Carol, Tiffany is a political candidate who came there prepared to speak and was at that time prepared to give closing remarks. She did pretty well and I'm not saying she didn't. What I don't care for was how she deflected and turned things around. I know politicians do that all the time, but she's supposed to be running as a candidate who doesn't act like a typical politician.

Obviously she was rattled and taken aback when the newspaper came into her personal space.

I totally understand why she would be upset by the criticism related to her father, and I don't share Sativa's feelings about that, but just note this point was not raised by RJ at all. Tiffany sidestepped most of what was upsetting RJ. Nothing in her response acknowledges or responds to what made RJ snap like that.

This is what RJ threw at her in terms of points, and how Tiffany responded:
RJ:
you roasted me without telling me.
You created pilikia amongst the candidates with the roast, which is not pono.
You put me in your newspaper anyway when I declined to do the questionnaire.
You manipulated the way I was presented in the newspaper and I'm angry about that.

Tiffany's response:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkCE18980rY

Note that the moderator says: "I think she's calm by now" -- indicating that Tiffany has had time to regroup in his opinion. I don't know how much time, anyone?

Tiffany's points:
1) It's so hard to run for office because of attacks. Being in Fear of intimidation.

2) It is true she had a roast, and she uses humor "for therapy." She needs the therapy because it's been an "arduous journey." She's had to deal with passive aggressive behavior and terrible things said about her on the internet.

3) As an example of terrible things said on the internet, mentions she was called unethical because of her father's war service flying a bomber in Vietnam. First she is not responsible for what he did, second she is proud of his service.

4) To the charge of being a newspaper reporter, yes, she is of a working family who doesn't rely on the system. Neither does her husband. Built their businesses from the ground up.

5). Political coverage, she has put herself at arm's length from it as a candidate, and is proud of that.

6). She is honorable and looks at herself in the mirror and is pleased with herself.

7). Back to the roast, nothing said in humor was meant to hurt anyone or make them feel bad about themselves.

8). Proud of her father for his service and of her mother.

9. People say really hurtful things but she's ready for eight years of it.

Then she talks issues until moderator calls time (not long).

She manages to do several things here, rhetorically, which you can either admire as politic or not.

First she immediately capitalizes on herself as victim. RJ gave her that and she ran with it. By doing so she sidesteps the fact that RJ was very upset at Hunt for her behavior. Now forget that RJ has been driven to cracking; Tiffany is the one managing not to crack despite all the terrible things said about her.

Second she deflects the roast as innocent humor. But notice her logic here. The roast is not about the people she roasted, but is therapy. Tiffany needed some therapy because people had been hurting her. That's not a legitimate political purpose at all, because the intent isn't really to expose anything political but only to make herself feel better.

Then when she mentions the mean things, she immediately brings up her father, which is good for sympathy points. Nothing about the other criticisms that would be harder to address, nothing of what RJ complained about. I'm sorry she felt hurt about her father, but she milked that one. Had RJ ranted at her about her father there in the room, sure she should be all over it, but RJ said nothing about that. It's Tiffany who brought it up.

Re the newspaper, she doesn't respond specifically to RJ's complaints. She turns that into a way to promote her work ethic -- which is fine in a candidate, but she never addresses the point that she uses her newspaper as a bit of a tool for harassing people when she wants to.

She does say she is not responsible for whatever is in the political coverage, because she's kept it at arm's length. Well, Rene Siracusa made a comment yesterday on an error on a candidate's district, and Tiffany replies she has fixed it. So she is still using her admin powers on political articles. That is not arm's length, even though it was a small edit.

The thing that strikes me with her response is she managed to seize the opportunity to complain about being maligned as she sees it. But her own acts at her event were benign and not mean at all. That was therapy, because she had been maligned and hurt.

Then she says she is ready for eight years of abuse. She hasn't even gotten to the primary without needing to give herself therapy for comments on Punaweb. What will she do with the criticism she gets on the Council? Hold a monthly roast?

If you look at her response linked above, you see innocent, injured, mistreated Tiffany. But then watch this where she mocks the Punaweb posters (linked below to start in the right place so you don't have to listen to the bad songs and jokes). Listen to her voice. A nice person wouldn't even be able to find that voice.

This is not humor. Humor can involve mockery and ridicule, but it has to add something creative, some spin that is funny or clever. This is just her reading what people wrote in a nasty voice. You can make anything sound ridiculous when you do that. Any one of her blog posts would sound just as lame if read that way, even a good post.

All she does is ridicule and hold people up to derision, and these are not people running for office, so not fair game for her. I admit I can say some tough things to hear, but I try not to insult people. I don't and would never take someone's words and read them in a voice that was never intended by the writer.

E Trash part 1
http://youtu.be/WXAxQq1uXNE?t=15m48s

Part 2
http://youtu.be/WXAxQq1uXNE?t=1h3m30s

E Trash part 3 is on TomK's topic in Punatalk.

The part that floors me is that when people tell her the humor was hurtful, she says oh it wasn't meant to be hurtful. Not at all. So that makes it OK.

This is exactly what the person she sued told her about why he did humor about her, and why he wouldn't take it down because it amused him and he did it for himself and his friends and it was silly of her to feel hurt. She didn't appreciate or accept that when she was on the other side (and I didn't think she should.) So she sued him to make him stop.

Actually the reason she stopped speaking to me was because I pointed out to her that she was starting to behave like the person she loathed and sued, using her paper and manipulating who could comment, refusing to take down things that hurt others but pleased her. She couldn't manage to discuss it like an adult, even though we had in the past discussed how that same behavior was wrong in others. She wasn't able to face up to her behavior and still can't.

I would never have said anything publicly had she not become a candidate, but when she ran for office I didn't want to see someone like that in power, because she abuses the power she already has as a blogger and publisher.

[snorkle]

Hampton went all RJ on Tiff! I looked it up in the dictionary;

RJ, verb ; marked by crazed or frenzied behavior suggestive of sudden mental imbalance, often predated by false Roasting or inadequate press coverage —usually used in the phrase "to go RJ on someone."

[snorkle]

Kathy,
I feel ya. I think what your trying to say is;

RJ didn't choose the thug life.........
The thug life chose her.........

[]

[TomK]

"That's the old passage to Pahoa. We don't go there anymore."

Curious if anyone gets that reference.

[pahoated]

quote:

---

Originally posted by snorkle

Hampton went all RJ on Tiff! I looked it up in the dictionary;

RJ, verb ; marked by crazed or frenzied behavior suggestive of sudden mental imbalance, often predated by false Roasting or inadequate press coverage —usually used in the phrase "to go RJ on someone."

---

Good to know as warning around Black Rock, "You better watch it, I am about to go all RJ on you!".

Another secret benefit of Hidden Hawaii, free entertainment. Just go walk down the street in Pahoa, and you can see grand theater, major pathos, duels, feuds, love, jealousy, rage, narcotic bliss, clowns, jugglers, swindlers, Istari wizards.

One thing, Hunt and Hampton are in the District 5 county council race. This is the district that voted Kern in, now those voters are looking at who will be his replacement. It really doesn't matter that much what the Pahoa 300 think, which is Hunt's major voter base.

"This island Hawaii on this island Earth"

[csgray]

Tom, I know we're eccentric, but don't think Pahoa has been taken over by zombies yet.

Carol

[Anxious Messiah]

Pretty much nails it -

"Everyone's just been too polite for too long on RJ and her willingness to lie and manipulate. I think most that have interacted with her over the years knew that if given enough leash she'd out herself as totally inappropriate for public office. This is just the first taste. Woe unto those who poke this beehive. I'm not saying RJ isn't smart, i just think her motivations and inability to deal with issues in a metered, calm, rational way are paramount to her inappropriateness to represent me. Everything i've ever seen with her is focused on her skills at riling people up, but never with direction, just to get people riled up is self-righteous power mongering. She draws attention to herself, predicates her coming attacks with rhetoric of equality, community, and pono and then uses fear-based invective to rally a few people behind her. All i've seen her do is talk community while attacking and blocking anyone who is actually creating community and real change! That's hypocrisy, deception, and evil. Personally, that's exactly the sort of misleading, destructive stuff i don't want in politics and is the antithesis of community building. At least she's finally shown her true colors, broken under the weight of her own falsehoods."

It was only a matter of when, not if, the crazy train would come off the rails. So, who won the pool?

_________________________________________
Don't speak unless you can improve on the silence.

[Guest]

Pelelani quote:
"It's still 2 weeks, you haven't seen anything yet. This is only round 3 in the great Hampton vs Hunt island grudge match. Hampton has delivered a flurry of sharp blows but they only seemed to sting the much larger Hunt, who followed with body blow after body blow to the slim framed Hampton. Hampton wobbles, then recovers partially, enough to deliver a jarring upper cut to Hunt's square jaw. The punch causes Hunt to stumble backward, stunned and confused. Hampton, getting weaker, tries to rush in for a series of kidney punches. Hunt stops Hampton by holding her hand on Hampton's head, delivering a right cross squarely to Hampton's jaw. Hampton nearly goes down, recovers enough to throw up her hands and forfeit the round with a series of expletives. The next round is coming up."


Hampton and Hunt came out in round 4. And Hampton used the "eligibility clause" to deliver the knockout blow to the head of Hunt. The County Clerk counted "one, two , three...You're out!" Hunt had to be carried out of the ring by her managers Bob and Julie Jacobson while water girl Barbara Lively looked on.

[TomK]

"And Hampton used the "eligibility clause" to deliver the knockout blow to the head of Hunt."

After watching that video I think RJ was closer to physically whacking Hunt on the head with a paper copy of the BIC than any eligibility clause. What a mess District 5 is in.