Posted on 10/10/2007 11:17:54 AM PDT by Lorianne
LIHUE, HAWAII -- The woman in the sun hat wants to crack someone in the jaw. It's been a bad day. Actually, for Kaiulani Huff, it's been a bad few decades.
She has watched as her home, the island of Kauai, changed from a wild garden of secret places to -- in her eyes -- an overcrowded amusement park for rich people.
"Welcome to Disneyland," she says one day while driving around the island. "See the natives. Watch us dance the hula. Clog up our roads. Buy up all the good land. And please, help yourselves to our beaches!"
Development on Kauai has been so unrelenting that Huff's sentiment has become widespread among longtime residents, although until recently it was a quiet simmering.
In late August, with the arrival of the Hawaii Superferry, the first inter-island car-carrying ferry, the simmering boiled over. Islanders, in the face of Coast Guard gunboats, formed a floating blockade at the harbor entrance and, after a three-hour standoff, forced the $85-million ferry to turn back to Honolulu. The protest had turned into a citizen uprising.
The crowd represented a motley army of beach bums and businessmen, lawyers and ex-cops, dopers and doctors, and at least one college instructor -- many of whom discovered for the first time that they shared the same concerns. How many tourists and resorts and subdivisions can a little island take?
"The population is saying, 'Enough already,' " says Dennis Chun, 57, who with his surfboard had helped lead the human flotilla.
At the forefront of that protest was Huff, her face covered in war paint, like her Polynesian ancestors going into battle. Unlike her ancestors, she wore a bamboo sun hat.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I am in full sympathy with the lady!
"Our beaches"? Someone can't go to "your" beach?
Well, if I can speak for all Alaskans - PLEASE come and visit, spend yur money (and then go home).
We could use the cash.
Since we are forbiden by the FedGov and the Greenies (via the FedGov courts) to do anything remotly related to development, we might as well pick up some extra tourist ucs.
He is right, there doesn't seem to be too many native Hawaiian people in the pictures.
Look at it this way, the ferry brings them and takes them back. If folks find it easy to come visit, they may decide they DON'T want the expense of living there, and there may not be as big an explosion of construction of homes.
I'm not.
She's a socialist loser of the worst description.
Too bad federal laws prohibit Kauai natives from buying the land on their own. < /sarcasm level 11>
I’m guessing that most of the people arriving on Kauai are there legally.
She’s awful!
Why? If she wants to control the development of land there, she can buy that land and keep it undeveloped. Unless she owns the land, it's not really up to her, nor should it be.
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Word.
Her island is extremely sparsely populated.
About 100 people per square mile.
My county is more like 1000 per square mile.
Here’s the problem. Once upon a time I could get off after work, launch my little boat, go scoop up a nice batch of fresh oysters, make a few throws of my net and grab some fine shrimp, or mullet, pull my crab traps, and score some great blue crabs. Can’t do that, anymore. The water is full of jetskis, flabby New York refugees, and plastic bags. The beaches are backed up with concrete condos, no more rolling dunes. The beaches are locked down at dark, no more all night fishing, with family and friends and a campfire.
It is all about lifestyle, and values, vs money. I know we need money, but it isn’t everything.
The only lifestyle now visible isn’t much different than, at best, Coney Island, and, at worst, Fire Island, and heading downhill, fast.
I'm up for touring Alaska. Couldn't live there (no IT industry), but would love to come hunt and trek up there.
I'm up for touring Alaska. Couldn't live there (no IT industry), but would love to come hunt and trek up there.
If I want cold though, me and my wife will move back to her homeland.
Kaiulani Huff looks like a Kanaka to me.
She wants to frolic in a natural wonderland of open spaces forever. So does everyone.
Too bad. If people want to sell their land to richer folks who then want to build, that's their prerogative.
Hawaii's full of selfish people who want the whole thing to themselves without paying anything.
If they had wanted the island to remain as it was, they should have bought the land up and sat on it.
Easy to see why they are inhibiting Alaska development,
wouldn’t want the place to fill up like New York now would we?
Why? I mean it’s so large ya could put in two maybe three Mall of the Americas and still have room for a McDonalds.
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