Dear Glinda

[JimHAPuna]

Hey glinda,

I must admit I don't really care what your gender is, what I really appreciate about you is your excellent knowledge about the volcano activity and what has been happening. Not that I've understood it all but it has drastically increased what I do understand.

Though you have had some struggle with PBM I even found that helpful. Until you became exhausted by the effort I guess. Still, to have you correct his mis-assumptions was an education for me as he is better informed than me or at least able to make some smart sounding guesses, even if not totally correct.

The recent disagreement between you and 1V1 is a little bit harder to accept. I understand your position and I think that you are correct. There is a liability to independence that any child of an independent aging parent will be familiar with. So yes, 1V1 has brought this on himself in a way. Just as my being in a zone 3 is risky too. Maybe not as risky as a zone 2 downhill from a zone 1 rift but still risky. If Pele eats my land and (soon) house then my bad but I will still want to cash in and rebuild. Human nature.

However, laying into him at this time, when he has been doing so much to first stay in his home (remember the air cleaner posts?) and now salvage hopefully the whole thing wth some luck, is cruel. I don't think that this was your intention, I think you just got carried away making your point and forgot that he has way too much skin in the game to have a "truth" like that laid on him without reacting negatively.

I write this because I believe that you share valuable information and you were the first person I read who thought something like this was imminent. I find your comments about the caldera near Volcano spewing ash terrifying and deeply interesting. I would ask you to continue posting and educating. Such a valuable service. Please honey your words with aloha again, we all have probably had enough hard truth.

Mahalo nui loa

p.s. Do you have a gender pronoun preference?

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

When every one of us purchased our properties in Puna District we did so with a long list of preferences, considerations, and compromises. What we could afford was probably near the top of the page for most of us, and for many it was Puna or nothing.

There are a lot of things we should have known before we moved here. For example, if you drive on Highway 130 every day you should know that particular road has four or five of the most dangerous intersections in the state. But did you? Before you moved here? I didn’t. For those of us who live closer to Keaau and drive regularly to Pahoa, that’s a much more important factor in our daily lives than the volcano - - this week anyway.

If you became involved in a serious accident, your car totaled, you or your passengers seriously injured, should you have known it would happen one day? After all, there are statistics to prove it. Just like we all know a volcano could erupt here... at some point. Then, after a volcano does erupt, or you’re laid up from a car accident is it at all helpful for someone to point out with i’o sharp eyes and 20/20 hindsight what’s painfully obvious? Are statistics about lava zones or the number of car wrecks per intersection helpful in any way, after the fact, for the people who’ve experienced the loss?

[alaskyn66]

Isn't it human nature..( God bless us dumb apes).. to assume that nothing bad will happen to us...

[terracore]

One could even hurt themselves shaving near Kalapana:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D--L5pa8PK0

[Punatic007]

Placing blame during a natural catastrophe is unacceptable.

[DTisme]

sidenote: terracore - did you mean to say that was filmed near Kalapana? Looks like it's near Malibu: http://www.movie-locations.com/movies/p/...s-1968.php (<<cool site btw - go to films or places and see alpha lists - no search capability)

Do beards really make you look smarter? Eh.

[glinda]

quote:

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Originally posted by JimHAPuna

Hey glinda...

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Hey!

Gender? Nah, I just appreciate Papa Baum and the wonderful world in which my namesake is blessed to be a part.

I too must admit a bit of a shock of how what I started as a generalization became otherwise. I certainly never meant to offend and if I have I am sorry.

I have also been imposed upon by government's intrusion and mismanagement of situations I was involved in. But, conversely, I have a lot of respect for HVO and believe in their sincerity and the process by which they come to their conclusions. I also worked directly with Harry Kim in the days of Kalapana and understand at least some of the forces at play and admire the way he has woven through them all then, and now. And, as ironyak has pointed out, I believe we’d all be a lot less happy with the policies imposed if it weren’t for his first hand knowledge and compassion. Not that I agree with all of their policies but rather I try and understand the forces that cause their implementation. Alls to say I hope I can empathize with all the sides of the issues 1V1 has experienced, though I suspect my detractors will be quick to point out my utter failure at doing so.

As I suspect you realize, this is a much greater societal issue. One that I still believe now is the right time to discuss. It’s been 28 years since Kalapana was destroyed and our land use policies haven't budged. We have not once revisited this issue. There has never been a community wide discussion of our policies, land has been bought and sold and there has been a population boom right here in the middle of a place that we all know should never have been.

Had the government not foisted HPIA on us things would be a lot different. But they did and here we are. Are we really not to discuss the results of our failed policies out of some respect for those effected by them? I think not. I think now is the perfect time to point out how those policies are effecting people. Now, while the images are raw, real. Seriously, how much is the actual cost of this one? Puna doesn't get the roads it needs but the state demands that insurance companies underwrite policies on properties they had already deemed to be too high a risk. Do we really, collectively, agree to this? To a way of government where we don't have a plan to face our potential disasters but we have policies that create them? Keep in mind, an eruption out back somewhere is an act of god, an awe inspiring thing of beauty. It is only when it is in someone’s yard that it is a disaster. Government created this disaster.

And what is HPIA really, if not a tax levied on every homeowner in Hawaii through higher premiums on their policies? Premiums inflated to offset the cost of the insurer's participation in HPIA. All so that we can create a false sense of security, so that folks can fall in love with and invest their heart and soul in a place that is destine, flat out guaranteed, to be overrun by lava. Is that really what the people of Hawaii, not just the people of the effected areas but all of Hawaii, want? Is it not prudent to take this opportunity to spur on a discussion of these facts?

And I get it. My sense of place is as great as the next persons. I love the land I call mine, and will hold on to it in the face of all sorts of adversity. And yes some people gravitate to the fringes and that's all fine and good. But man, at some point, somewhere, there's got to be a line, and, imo, our government crossed over it when they allowed subdivisions to be built on the rift zone. And, they continued to do so with HPIA. If it all was left alone, if the folks that fell in love with Leilani had that love tested through not being able to get financing and insurance, through a socially conscious bombardment of the fact that LZ1 was destine to be overrun, through the fact that there was limited resources in Pahoa because it is too dangerous to allow for commercial development there, because it is inappropriate to build and maintain public schools there, because the services we have willy nilly been encouraging be developed there don’t exist. Then hey, if you want to be there, cool. Though dude, when the lava flows it’s your kuleana, right? But no, instead it’s as if Leilani, and the entire Pahoa area, is as kosher as any other community. Which we all know it is not.

I could go on, obviously, but it’s enough to say I do get worked up about this issue but will be eternally sorry if I allowed any of my emotions to be directed at individuals who are effected by the current situation.

But to be clear, I would rather a viewing area, several of them, and everyone having a great time viewing, being in, hearing, smelling, feeling, truly grokking, this incredible act of creation. Visiting God’s country, Pele’s domain, whatever you want to call it. Feeling, really feeling in their souls how incredible this all is. After 35 years of Puu Oo being all those things to so many people now it’s a disaster. A man made, government perpetuated, disaster.

[pbmaise]

Saturday I spent my day on the same fabulous beach that hosted the Prince of Monaco who arrived at Cagayancillo aboard the yacht Arch Angel.

I was able to enjoy this same experience with my crew aboard my humble sailboat because the beach was open to the public. At most, less than 20 tourists per year visit this island.

Behind this stunning beach in the Sulu Sea sits one privileged owner's vacation home. He bought the land 15 years ago for a mere $1,000.

While we were on the beach two funnel clouds appeared in the clouds and we watched as it grew into a full water spout.

The survival of that home, was merely a matter of chance. Yet the beach itself still afforded to me the opportunity to live like a Prince for the day and enjoy something 99.9% of the population wish they could do.

Puna too is the exact place that so many of us found a nearly ideal paradise to enjoy if only for a rarified short while.

We in general are very fortunate people who are not condemned to live our lives packed into big cities.

I use reasoning to gauge many risks in my life. I now essentially own a home at even far greater risk than before. One mistake and I could be wrecked upon a remote atoll.

Like other homeowners who elect to live in "safer" areas there are many other boat owners who never leave the comfortable sight of land. These boat owners often dream of going to the places I dare to visit.

Glinda is a very interesting case.

On the one hand Glinda has bought into the experience and shares a risk factor living on the summit of an active volcano.

But on the other hand seems keen on condemning everyone else for making the same election.

On the beach of Cagayancillo Saturday the cousin of my partner asked if a water spout could hit the town. I found the question odd given the fact Cagayancillo is just a tiny island in a big sea. An island further subject to the rath of a typhoon. Everything, for these residents is a matter of chance.

The oddest interaction between Glinda and I is in the thread "Is Volcano Safe?". Despite pointing out technical papers that show the summit likely exploded big time owing to surface water, I.E. Caldera lake, Glinda seemed keen on insisting that the whole summit area is in grave danger. I on the other hand am claiming without a summit water lake any massive explosion at the summit is nearly impossible.

I say nearly. Not absolutely.

Overall Glinda reminds me of the comic character who repeats over and over

"We'll never make it."

Well as captain of my own boat I say we not only will, that we have indeed done so in the past. Further, we would never live like a Prince of Monaco unless we dare to go to the same places his money can take him.

Perhaps we won't arrive on the same yacht, but at least we get to go to this same beach.

Breakfast this morning is fish tortang.

I sail this afternoon.


Former Puna Beach Resident
Now sailing in SE Asia
HOT BuOYS Sailing

[1voyager1]

Hi glinda,
Thanks for your heartfelt post.

My reaction was a response that I learned at a very early age.
If I feel that I'm being bullied, I attack, like a snake coming up a stick it's poked with. I don't run or ignore.
It has worked well for me through the years because bullies are cowards.
That is not an accusation, merely an explanation of why my response was what it was.

As far as I'm concerned, our disagreement is over, better yet never happened.
Many would like to have your input again.

[Kenney]

Wow, that went full circle. Good.
I sure love all of you.
Wishing all Hawaiian Islanders a peaceful, restful, hopeful Sunday.