The actual title of this newly proposed city ordinance is “Relating To The Regulation of Sidewalks – http://www4.honolulu.gov/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-104820/5df-47bx.pdf But the intent is clearly: How do we pass a law that keeps poor homeless people from getting in our way?
What the Regulation of Sidewalks law is really saying to the poor and homeless is simply “Get out of my way or I will call a cop who will fine you $50 unless of course you can prove you are mentally ill in which case you are exempt”.
How Catch-22 bizarre is that? We fine some hapless poor homeless person $50 for blocking a sidewalk and then exempt them if they can prove mental illness.
While perhaps well intended, this proposal is as ludicrous, mean-spirited and Orwellian as the “ban the shopping carts in the parks” law that precedes it.
How far will we go to insure that we don’t have to even look at the homeless in our community who exist in a world most of us can not even imagine?
We have already proven our willingness to take away their shopping carts and everything they own in the entire world, to make sure they stay out of our parks. Now we want to make sure they stay out of our doorways and sidewalks. What’s next, another ordinance for alleyways, shopping centers, and parking lots?
Why don’t we just draft an ordinance that bans poor people from being within 20 feet of a non-poor person? We can call it the Get Out Of My Way or better yet the GOOMFW ordinance. That should do it. As we non-poor people move about the city, then the lowest of the low can just GOOMFW when we approach. Like the parting of the Red Sea, this new ordinance would insure that the genteel among us can stroll unimpeded through-out the city without having to step around some lump of unwashed humanity crouched under cardboard in a doorway or on the side walk.
We can do better than this. This is Hawaii, land of aloha. Remember?
Before we go any further down the path of banning the poor and the homeless from our parks and our sidewalks, we need to make sure they have someplace to go – someplace legal, safe and preferably dry.
We need “Housing First”. We need safe zones where the homeless can safely congregate. We need increased mental health services, job training and more, much more affordable housing. And most of all, we need to remember that the homeless are part of our extended ohana and an incontrovertible reflection of who we are as a community.
Recent poll numbers published by the DailyKos show the Abercrombie/Aiona race in a virtual dead heat. http://www.dailykos.com/polling/2010/10/2/HI-1/11/5ZR4S
How is it possible that a guy like Duke Aiona can even be considered a credible Gubernatorial candidate?
He has absolutely no meaningful experience in government or the private sector.
As lieutenant governor he has totally squandered the past 8 years – accomplishing nothing of any significance whatsoever. Zilch. Kaimu. Nada. Zero. Walang anuman. ‘Ole.
His main claim to fame is being appointed to a judgeship which he then quit, claiming the pay was too low.
Plus, Duke Aiona is a right wing religious zealot. He believes that everyone who does not agree with his particular theology is going to hell. At the present count that would be over 5 billion of us.
Which is why of course that Duke and his friends would like to save us.
You see, Duke is the “righteous one”. Duke has been chosen by God to save Hawaii from burning in hell. Visit the churches hosting the Duke signs out front and they will tell you this. They will tell you that God has sent them a sign, and that Duke has been chosen by God to lead us all down the path to righteousness.
So how can it be possible that 48% of Hawaii residents are ready to elect him as Hawaii’s next Governor? Are people so shallow, so busy and so uninformed that they will vote for him just because he’s young, he’s Hawaiian and he’s pretty? Is it the religious dogma and tea party frenzy of the “new right” that drive his numbers? Has our democracy become so broken and so driven by money, marketing and media that substance matters not at all?
It is on days like this that I wonder. I wonder about the wisdom of our forefathers. I wonder if perhaps our system is broken and in need of radical perhaps revolutionary change. I wonder why more people are not as outraged as I but rather seem content to muck about their lives, accepting and believing that none of this matters anyway.
But then I come to my senses and with some relief realize that this poll does not include the neighbor islands nor rural Oahu, and is only of residents of the First Congressional District – This is the same district that gives us other right wing conservatives like State Senator Sam Slom, Representative Gene Ward…and the same district that has elected and re-elected Congressman Neil Abercrombie for the past 20 years. Go figure.
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