What wonderful news–Maui’s W.S. Merwin is to be named poet laureate today by the Library of Congress.
We met William and his wife, Paula, not long after they moved to Maui. Attentive to what was going on in his new home at the time, he was doing research for an article about the protest landing on Kahoolawe that had taken place in January 1976. It and subsequent protests were very much in the news over the next couple of years. William sought me out for an interview as a participant in that first landing. We hit it off, and it led to an ongoing friendship. I couldn’t be happier about this latest, well-deserved honor.
For those interested, I ran across this lengthy 2005 interview with William from The Paris Review that is well worth reading.
And pick up a copy of the latest Honolulu Weekly for a description of what’s happened to the men and women who used to deliver Honolulu’s competing daily newspapers and now bring the Star-Advertiser to homes and street corners, in Alia Wong’s piece, “Killing the messengers?”
You might also want to jump back to Weekly editor Ragnar Carlson’s explanation of his paper’s new schedule, based on the move of its printing to Maui. It’s long on observations about the impact of David Black’s new newspaper monopoly.
Another bit of timely reading–a recent profile of Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann from Mormon Times, in which Hannemann describes basing his political style on his Mormon faith.
In this period of history where the constitutional separation of church and state is being undermined, I’m not comforted by this:
“I can tell you that every decision I make, I pray about,” said Hannemann, who’s often asked how he reached various conclusions.
He also said he often tells his staff to pray about decisions.
“I made it clear from day-one that this will be a prayerful administration. This administration will always seek guidance of the Lord.”
In any case, it’s another bit of interesting reading.
Finally, if you haven’t been following the fallout of Rolling Stone’s story that took out General Stanley McChrystal, you might want to check out these stories from The New Yorker and from Rolling Stone.
Now I’m off for an uncharacteristically early (for me) 7 a.m. morning presentation to the Rotary Club of Metropolitan Honolulu. I wouldn’t have agreed to this except for the persistent pleas of a friend who refused to take “no” for the final answer. So off I go to catch The Bus.
When I started reading your excerpt from the article about Mufi’s faith, I thought you were gonna make fun of the guy for praying over his decisions. I got no problem with religious people praying for guidance.
But he TELLS his staff to pray? He proclaims “This administration will always seek guidance of the Lord.”???
Here is Mufi’s dictatorial nature fully exposed. He has a right, even a responsibility to draw inspiration from his faith. He does NOT have the right to impose his faith upon his employees or to hire people based upon a common religious tradition.
He is Mayor, head of the administration. He is NOT identical to the administration. He cannot impose his religious beliefs upon City employees.
Here is the imperial arrogance of a Louis XIV: “L’État, c’est moi.”
A few months ago, a friend of mine who teaches at UH was at the Blaisdell Center for some worthwhile community service event. Mufi was there, as per his habit, trying to turn the event into a photo op. My friend walked by and in a normal voice, chanted “Neil, Neil, Neil.” Mufi got outraged, demanding he leave the building or be arrested.
Sorry, you can’t treat a UH professor like that and expect him to meekly crumble. He told Mufi it was a public building and if Mufi wanted to arrest him, bring it on. Mufi told my friend “This is MY town and I will make your life miserable.” My friend laughed.
The same Mufi who thinks it is OK to tell HIS employees to pray has no problem telling them they have to campaign for him. He has no sense of the proper boundaries between his political career, his private religious beliefs and his power to order people around.
This is the same arrogant SOB who undermined the functioning of the Democratic State Convention by scheduling a free party to compete with the committee meetings on the Friday night.
Everything revolves around Mufi and his ambitions.
He has got to be stopped.
(I expect you will hear from his minions today).
This is a little too reminiscent of Gary Okino basing his official actions on the Bible, Duke Aiona wanting to make this a Christian state, etc. As I’ve said in this blog before, read Jon Krakauer’s “Under the Banner of Heaven” and you will never vote for a professed Mormon to hold public office. And, when voting on ballot propositions, consider the church’s machinations o0n same sex marriage here in 1998 and on Prop 8 in California in 2008. Frightening, very frightening, indeed.
Some see a religious person, I see a thug.
here is more appropriate guidance for Mufi’s staff — and it is codified in the HRS
§ 5-7.5 “Aloha Spirit”. (a) “Aloha Spirit” is the coordination of mind and heart within each person. It brings each person to the self. Each person must think and emote good feelings to others. In the contemplation and presence of the life force, “Aloha”, the following unuhi laul? loa may be used:
“Akahai”, meaning kindness to be expressed with tenderness;
“L?kahi”, meaning unity, to be expressed with harmony;
“?Olu?olu” meaning agreeable, to be expressed with pleasantness;
“Ha?aha?a”, meaning humility, to be expressed with modesty;
“Ahonui”, meaning patience, to be expressed with perseverance.
These are traits of character that express the charm, warmth and sincerity of Hawaii’s people. It was the working philosophy of native Hawaiians and was presented as a gift to the people of Hawai?i. ”Aloha” is more than a word of greeting or farewell or a salutation. ”Aloha” means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation in return. “Aloha” is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence. ”Aloha” means to hear what is not said, to see what cannot be seen and to know the unknowable.
(b) In exercising their power on behalf of the people and in fulfillment of their responsibilities, obligations and service to the people, the legislature, governor, lieutenant governor, executive officers of each department, the chief justice, associate justices, and judges of the appellate, circuit, and district courts may contemplate and reside with the life force and give consideration to the “Aloha Spirit”. [L 1986, c 202, § 1]
The link to the W.S. Merwin interview does not work, however if you use the link below, you will will find an excerpt from the interview and can download the entire interview as a pdf file.
http://www.theparisreview.com/viewinterview.php/prmMID/2692
Hmmmm…the link seems to be working fine from my computer and my iPhone. Not sure where the problem might be….
Yes, sure enough, the link you gave us is fine. Each time I clicked on the link, Firefox downloaded the pdf file to my computer, but it did not open the file in a browser window, so I continued to click and wound up with seven copies of the interview on my computer. (When I clicked on the link using Safari, however, the interview opened in a browser window.)
In any case, I appreciate having the link, and I’m looking forward to reading the interview.
Pacific Business News has a recent story on advertising and mentions that the Star Advertiser is raising it’s rates 40 to 60 percent this month. I’m not bashing the paper, it is a private company and can do what ever they want as long as it is legal, just pointing out how they do business.
We saw this coming. Once you have a monopoly, greed runs rampant. What is more at stake is the news.
This quote from the Mufi article worries me more: “My supervisor [in DC] was astonished that I didn’t take a drink…and then he told me something that I’ll never forget: ‘Young man, before you leave, you’ll have taken your first drink.’ I’m proud to tell you that was said to me in 1981. Prior to then, I never had alcohol…and I haven’t to this day.”
Mufi may have been raised Mormon, but I suspect the only altar he truly prays to nowadays is built around a mirror.
His public relations deputy – Sandra Sagisi Moser —has also written accolades about the mayor in The Church News, the official Mormon newsmagazine. She is paid to promote him in his church circle at our taxpayers’ dole?
Recall Mufi interview/panel response from years ago when he was first running for dogcatcher or something… Asked about women’s reproductive choice, he stumbled and said something to the effect of “I’ll have to check with the church’s position on that.” Would love to find the original article/citation. Made note to never vote for him for anything.
Don’t suppose it was in the never to be seen again archives of the Advertiser? Can it be that businesses can by papers of record and just trash the archives? Should that have been a public resource condition of approval of the sale? Any recourse? Auwe…
Greatly enjoyed the link to the Merwin interview.
Keith Rollman should make another one of his famous fake websites where the staff prays together every morning to their god Mufi?
Funny how their campaign had to admit to Keith’s extra-curricular activities to the staradvertiser today. I guess the qualifications to be “senior IT advisor” include hiding behind anonymous smear websites all day. Ironic when Keith is always huffing all day about people posting anonymously. Look up “reaction-formation” Keith “BobW808″ Rollman.
That’s what happens when the lady protests too much. Rollman wants to call out people who don’t want to deal with bullies who are vindictive, known to abuse their power, and think it’s OK because it’s “their town”.
Still waiting for Keith’s apology now that even his boss is hanging him out to dry as the scapegoat.
Cracks me up……So many anti Mufi trolls, or is it jus one or two dialing in under various names? MAYBE bitches about Rollman hiding behind anonymous web sites and then makes his post…you guessed it, ANONYMOUSLY. I think you should consider Ian making everyone sign their name if they are going to disparage someone.
And then “Troll City” compounds by posting his critique…yes, anonymously.
Oh, and there is a difference when a campaign advisor parked in a well-compensated city job (at our expense) uses his anonymity to churn out a pro-Mufi web site. That’s concealing more than one’s identity. That’s concealing a trail of relationships.
The story about Blaisdell strikes me as shibai, for the simple reason that Mufi is too smart to get into a argument like that in public. But since it was in public, I’m sure you have a list of witnesses who aw the conversation right?
And Ian, unless you can show that Rollman was doing his site on city time and/or with City resources, you don’t have a valid point. No more then Mufi can tell his staff to not drink when they are on his own time could he tell them to not blog on their own time.
So why the hostility and suspicion about a person’s faith influencing their public actions (even if it’s never been very apparent in the case of Honolulu’s mayor)? Barack Obama points to Matthew 25 (treatment of the least of our community) as a moral guidepost (whether you read it as Obama does as a collective rather than a personal and individual obligation to be compassionate). Mufi will not be the last politician to suggest to a religious audience (especially one comprised of his particular faith) that he actually practices what is preached, or at least tries to apply those teachings. Democrats like to point out devout Roman Catholic Jack Burns allowing the Hawaii abortion bill to become law as an act of courage and the proper way to compartmentalize your personal faith from public actions. I am sure a lot of the legislators who profess to be Christians used the same logic in voting for Civil Unions even in light of the traditional Biblical injunction against same sex acts. But frankly I don’t think people who live their faith serious among Democrats (and I include those who read the Bible without more nuance and rationality than our fundamentalist brothers and sisters) will be impressed with Mufi’s words about living his religion– actions speak louder than words and folks have the impression that Harvard/Beltway/East Coast Elite arrogance shapes Mufi’s decision making and leadership style more than the Book of Mormon and the Bible, or even Teddy Roosevelt’s African saying “speak softly and carry a big stick.”
WHAT I MEANT TO TYPE:
“But frankly I don’t think people who live their faith serious among Democrats (and I include those who read the Bible WITH more nuance and rationality than our fundamentalist brothers and sisters) will be impressed with Mufi’s words about living his religion– actions speak louder than words and folks have the impression that Harvard/Beltway/East Coast Elite arrogance shapes Mufi’s decision making and leadership style more than the Book of Mormon and the Bible, or even Teddy Roosevelt’s African saying “speak softly and carry a big stick.””
Nikki,
Not sure who you are criticizing. If you read my post at the top, you will see I recognize the right of people to turn to prayer and their religious beliefs for guidance. Where it crosses the line is when they TELL their staff to pray, as reported in the Mormon Times. And when they say the ADMINISTRATION will be a “prayerful administration.” and “This ADMINISTRATION will always seek guidance of the Lord.”
NO! The “administration” is composed of city employees, with the top ones serving at the pleasure of the Mayor. Just as an employer or supervisor should not use their position to gain “consensual” sex from a subordinate, neither should a boss put pressure an employee to engage in the boss’s religious practices or beliefs.
If Mufi derives certain values from his religious beliefs, for example humility, honesty or charity, it is OK for him to urge City employees to follow those values, provided he does not say they should follow them BECAUSE Jesus wants them to.
But Mufi appears to equate his administration with himself and treat city employees as an extension of his will rather than employees of the public.
Individual religious beliefs? Fine, if they make you a better leader, go for it. Imposing religious policies or practices on public employees? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
You shouldn’t need to use much “nuance” to understand the distinction.
Well Mufi was out in force for the 4th of July – and all those City employees marched…..I am sure that they are not worrying about the church affiliation, nor the admonishment to pray. As far as the Mufi outburst to the Professor, it’s too typical to be a lie….and this town is too replete with ears and eyes for such outbursts from our Mayors – and “we” all put up with Frank until he wanted to be Governor. So – my suggestion is that Mufi will be Mufi – and we won’t see him in the Governor’s puka because at the end of the day, that behavior is OK for a Mayor, but it doesn’t cut it for a Governor.