| wwww.ericluck.net Eric Luck, the website world HQ for self promotion on the www |
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| How is it there are car theft rings on an island the size of Maui? Where exactly do you re-sell the cars or the parts from the cars? If you are a car thief here, it looks to me like there is a good chance that you or your thieving associates end up stealing your cousin’s or your aunt’s vehicle at some point. Why isn’t that a problem for them? Did you know there are more than just a few bank robberies here? Where you gonna go with the money? Why don’t bank robbers and car thieves here believe they will be caught? Drugs could explain it. I don’t know much about illegal drugs, just blood pressure reducers and acid blockers. I am your www, Hawaiian and mainland expert on those. Okay, let’s get back to the entertaining parts. I am going to retype below, with headlines, verbatim, a couple of letters to the Editor of the Maui News, printed on Thursday, November 3, 2005 and Friday, November 4, 2005. I only do so because I cannot find a link to them on the evil www. By the way, how effective are computers when I can re-type these letters faster than I can find them on the www? Stupid internet. When I read the headlines of these letters, there is no doubt in my mind that an editor at the paper wrote those parts, but you judge for yourself. They are typed word for word including all misspellings and errant punctuation. There is a sweetness to their illogical anger and meandering that you just gotta hear. Maui Needs Positive Action to Counteract Problems Maui is on a course of social destruction. Drug use is one problem, crime is another. Drug use is not a crime. Drugs add to crime. We see our crimes in The Maui News, incidents such as a maniac raping 80-year-old ladies. OK, find him and then what? Drug dealers deal out of their rentals, and when the landlord wants them out, the landlord runs into provisions in the law that prohibits getting the criminal out of the house. Then what? Lacking manners – or morals – is another problem. Many times I’ve run into young teens, and young adults cussing out some poor aunty who is trying to make a minimum wage running a cash register at a convenience store. Auwe! Those kids need chili pepper water dumped down their throats! And when your 13-year-old daughter dresses like a Waikiki street hooker, don’t be surprised if the pervert down the street with his beat-up van picks her up and does something you don’t want to happen. Most people believe in God and Jesus. Well, maybe if some of you turn your lives to something more positive – I don’t care what – at least your world and your home would be more conducive to living in harmony with everyone else. Good luck, Maui, I hope you aren’t a crime victim, or worse yet, have to go to a sensitivity training course on what not to say to the newcomers. Ron in Lahaina There has got to be more to this story. Maui News should send a reporter to every sensitivity training class in existence until we flush out Ron & get the lowdown on why he has to attend. They should check with me on this stuff. Television advertisements a clue to nation’s decline For anyone wondering about where America is heading, I have some insight after being on this trip for almost 70 years. When television first came of age, the advertisements were aobut dog food, laundry detergent and a good Timex watch. Now, the TV ads are all about depression, hemorrhoid creams and a drug for just about everything. This is one ride we just can’t get off of so I guess I’ll enjoy the downhill slide America is on and pop a Zanex or two. Jim in, Kihei I did NOT make these up and I would party with Ron or Jim, baby. Writing such letters is part of the fantastic culture here. The Hawaiians are passionate and engaged people. Right or wrong, they are fun. I promise we could find similar stuff in Texas and Colorado, but right now, we are here. It is good. I also will mention in passing that pictures such as what I took on Halloween are of events that your high school age kids could tell you about in your own neighborhood, wherever you are right now. The nearly naked teens may not be as tan as those here, but they dress and act and partake the same. I think I was pretty nice. |
| May 6, 2008 More Letters from Maui Some may remember that one of my favorite things is to read the Letters to the Editor in the Maui News. There is never a shortage of extremely hot opinions and often those opinions have very little to do with...er...uh...much of anything that any of the rest of us are thinking about. There is where the fun is. You need to think about some of this stuff. You need to. When you read some of these, you might think that I have edited or left something out. Nope. I would not dream of it. They speak for themselves without any help from me. May 4, 2008: Fill Moat with man-eating fish I agree with the person in Maui Community Correctional Center (Letters, May 1) about having a moat filled with alligators is just wrong. It should be filled with small man-eating fish which are cheaper to feed. Alligators eat too much. It is really too bad the writer is in prison for a year because he chose to commit a crime and got caught. It is too bad that he has to be in a cell with two other inmates for 20 hours a day. It could be worse. He could be made to do hard labor on a chain gang to pay for his room and board instead of just getting to kick back and relax and talk story with his cellmates. The writer says he should be treated better because he is human. I wonder if he was really worried about how the person or persons he committed the crime against feel or were affected. I think not, or else he would not have done the crime. He is in prison to be punished, not to be rewarded for his deed. Perhaps the next time he will think twice about wanting to go back to jail. He might even think about getting a job and working for a living. Donald Estes Kihei May 4, 2008: Government keeping Hawaiians afloat April 30, some Native Hawaiians - if there is such a thing since people have been immigrating there since the first Polynesians in 800 A.D. - commandeered the Iolani Palace of their former King Kalakaua and Queen Lili'uokalani in Honolulu, protesting the U.S. annexation of the islands. What type of administration duties abilities could these people possibly employ to run a government and how could they exist, especially if Mainland U.S. eliminated the stipends which many of these people depend upon to keep them afloat? The problem is, these people will never see this letter and will continue to think the world is still simple, like when discovered by Capt. James Cook in 1778. Ray Pezzoli Jr. Kihei ...and another thing...you kids stay in school. Aloha REPRISE from November 5, 2005 NEW, IMPROVED & NICER My brother says I am too contrary. Bunny jumped on the bandwagon and yelled her endorsement of that fairy tale in my only good ear. After initial resistance (my normal approach to everything), I told Bunny that I would try to be nicer to everyone. I think she bought it. It is so very hard. Without question, part of the price I pay for being a ‘some-nonsense’ kind of guy is the total lack of credibility I retain at the very moment that I might mean real business. I really did write a mystery/suspense story that is going to be published into a novel. There are parts of the book that I hope make you laugh, but it is not quite like this ridiculous journalized pile of hooey. I am being nicer. Can you tell yet? I read the New York Times. I also read the Maui News. Neither is the bastion of sophistication that one of them pretends to be. Both are pure entertainment, especially the Letters to the Editor. These two splashes, er, cannonball splashes of liberalism can either make you rise up with pride, sink straight to the bottom in a fit of agony or hold your side from laughing so hard...or at least giggle like a six-year-old girl. If you can, choose that last one. Maui politics are pretty much as you might expect from any resort and tourist based economy. The spectrum of political ideology from one extreme to the other is way, way wider than the general USA population and heavily weighted to the left. Very heavily weighted. Sumo wrestler weighted. Humpback on dry land weighted. Let me add here that all you conservative-leaners should wipe that silly, smug smirk off your face. I am able to find enormous entertainment value in the extremes in both directions. Do not, even for a minute, think you are immune from me making fun of you. As a matter of fact, count on it. That ditto-head comedian, Rush Limbaugh, wishes he could entertain as much as these crazy-ass triple-liberal Hawaiians. Yeah, I know I told Bunny I’d try to be nicer, but watch it. Back to Maui. It is strange that there is such an ‘Us vs. Them’ attitude anywhere here. If you point out to Hawaiian natives that without the tourists, it would truly be a grass hut economy, many would respond, “Good. That’s what we had before you took it from us and we want it back”. Such a response can generate a higher tension level than what many seek for vacation fun. Sensible Hawaiians smile and pretend their bruddah didn’t say a thing. Meanwhile, there are politicians in Hawaii with their wheels shooting off all over the place. Many Hawaiian leaders are careening into the ditch everywhere you look. This week alone I have read in the Maui News about established, career Hawaiian politicians involved in possible bribery, a conviction on theft of campaign funds, one groping conviction on an airplane to the mainland and a conviction on some bad check passing. Each of these cases involved a different Hawaiian politician. That is just this week. From the outside looking in, it looks like a leadership vacuum. (Interpretation: It sucks.) I read that the police force on the Big Island of Hawaii is short by seventy-five officers and they are unable to hire people. I will paraphrase for brevity, but the problem appears to be that many Hawaiians are related to so many of their extended families that they refuse to arrest each other or be involved in any way with the reporting of other family members involved in illicit activities. Hey, I watch the TV show ‘First 48’ on the great A&E. This is not a problem peculiar to Hawaii. Most of those shows are from Detroit, Miami, Dallas and Phoenix. All investigators have issues when they seek help from the community on a case. Maybe this is too big a leap, but is it any wonder the Iraqis are struggling to police themselves? We got the same troubles. You just don’t hear about it because we aren’t spending a billion dollars a week on it over here. Besides that, if the stupid press doesn’t make it a story, it isn’t a story. |
| May 18, 2008 Beachy Bunny and I were discussing the many differences between men and women. We agreed on a few things, such as... What women think of when anyone says "beach": What men think of when anyone says "beach": or when anyone says tractor or lacrosse or Dr. Pepper or NASDAQ or fence or shovel or crocodile or baseball or lunch or umbrella or sandwedge or fax or lemon or coconut or teflon or pliers...or Tuesday... |
