smallkidtime

The recent disaster on Kauai, where an old earthen dam failed and several people lost their lives is beginning to bring the workings of the local state government in Hawaii under some scrutiny.
A recent article in the Honolulu Advertiser, Problems impede Isles' preparations for disasters, makes some good comments and analysis.

But to me, there is an elephant in the room. The problem finally comes back to MONEY. If we want a government that is truly preemptive—one that is active in preparing for future disasters and is actively monitoring public lands and also the actions of private landowners, searching for and preventing foreseeable disasters from occurring—then it all comes back to costs. To do these things it costs money. Of course it also takes other things: intelligent and trained people to foresee the possible problems before they happen; a bureaucratic system with the procedures to properly allocate funds and resources to take care of any problems that are discovered; and finally a willing and wise political leadership to create and support such a system and which at the same time does not allow exceptions to be made for the more wealthy landowners. (There is a possible new development of the story here. Was the dam weakened by illegal grading work done by Mr. Pflueger in the 1990's? His apparent disrespect and lack of concern for the property and safety of others has been made public before.)

And here's where I think a Republican leadership is unable to fulfill these needs. The unimaginative political philosophy of the Republican Party is addicted to the mantra of "Lower the Taxes! Lower the Taxes! Tax Rebates!" But a political climate that is overwhelmed with this almost single-minded and short-sighted mentality cannot create a truly preemptive government.

The weakness of the dam on Kauai was not completely unknown to the state authorities. But the department in charge of dam safety was woefully lacking in funds and manpower, to the extent that they might never have inspected the dam. Very little, if anything was ever done to ensure the safety of these dams, because the Lingle administration, true to the Republican simple-mindset, has always focused itself on lowering taxes, and in order to do this they remove or prevent proper funding to all "non-essential" (in their opinion) government agencies. The Republican political philosophy is more than willing to forego wise administration and avoid making preemptive (and costly) actions of long-term, life-saving benefit to the people of Hawaii, for the sake of making short-term political points with its constituency. They will cut or cripple government services, dangerously hampering the effectiveness of that government, even to the point that people's lives are at risk, just so short-term political gains can be made by the lowering of taxes!

This general trend of irresponsibility can also be seen in many other areas, such as in the way the Republicans deal with the education of our children. Even though the state of Hawaii has a surplus of funds coming in, the Lingle administration still allows the public school system, which obviously needs financial help, to suffer for a lack of funds, even as all the state Republicans chant in unison their mantra of "Lower the Taxes! Lower the Taxes! Tax Rebates!"

Wired has an article, Rising Tide of Ocean Plagues, describing some of the indications that the oceans are not well. Scientists are not completely certain, but they think many pollutants, from 'anti-stain' compounds and fertilizer runoff to cat feces entering the ocean water, are making many marine lifeforms fatally sick.
This shouldn't be shocking news to anyone paying attention. But some more information to mull over as we watch the Earth's ecology slowly fall apart before our eyes, almost in the span of a single human lifetime.

Hawai'i is the only state in the US that has in place restrictions on the pricing of gasoline. The law that does this is commonly refered to in the state media as the 'Gas Cap'. Predictably, there is a lot of controversy and criticism of it. What follows is an overview of how it started out.

The way the gas cap works: First of all, some people might not be familiar with the gas cap. The law is designed to place an upper limitation (the 'cap') every week on the wholesale price of gasoline, with no restrictions on retail mark-ups. This means that differences can still be seen by the consumer from retail station to retail station. The gas cap is determined by taking an average of prices, on a weekly schedule, in several mainland markets and then adding on an allowance to compensate for the costs of shipping, distribution and marking gasoline in Hawai'i. The cap varies from island to island because the costs of shipping, distribution, etc are different on each island. The details of the law are actually extremely fair and are designed to "provide oil companies with acceptable profit margins".

So why did they make this law in the first place? The most interesting aspect to this history is that the law exists as a direct consequence of an earlier investigation by the Hawaii state government which resulted in a notorious, three-year (at least) legal battle. I don't think it is often discussed or recognized, but if this lawsuit had not been brought against the oil companies in the late 1990's there would not be a 'Gas Cap' in Hawaii today.

In 1998 the state brought a $2 billion lawsuit against Hawai'i oil companies (divisions of Chevron, Shell, Texaco, Unocal and Tosco), accusing them of creating and maintaining artificially high gasoline prices in Hawai'i by employing a complex scheme of "product exchange" agreements among themselves while at the same time forcing their competitors to pay higher rates for the same gasoline, and doing this as early as 1987. BHP Hawai'i and Tesoro were also included in the original suit, but in 1999 were dismissed from the case as part of a $15 million settlement.

After the oil company attorneys had resolutely fought to keep their companies' records out of the state's hands, in April 2002 (and interestingly, just before the case was to go to trial,) the final resolution of the case, consisting of a $20 million settlement, was approved by U.S. District Court Judge Samuel King.

The original suit was worth $2 billion: a heck of a lot of money. But what did the state end-up with from the 2002 settlement? After attorney fees and whatnot: approx. $23 million. (The separate settlement of $15 million in 1999 is not usually counted.) So the people of Hawai'i, in whose name and interest the suit was originally made, ended-up with a compensation of about 1 percent of the original amount!

Well, excuse me for being so blunt: but that's just a pile of unadulterated chickensh#t! I am not alone in my sentiments, for similar reactions to the settlement were not uncommon. The state of Hawai'i basically had the oil companies 'by the balls' so-to-speak. What happened? Did our public officials whimp-out of their responsibility to the citizens of Hawai'i and bow to the interests and power of corporate big-money?

Maybe. I'll try to not be overly cynical or unduly suspicious. (But sometimes the circumstances warrant it, and, heck: usually I just can't help myself!) Oil company supporters usually contend that the state's case simply did not have any (or enough) supporting evidence that there was a 'conspiracy'. But if the oil companies were not guilty of consipracy, then why did they settle? If they were not guilty then they had every reason to fight to the finish and exonerate themselves. And yet they didn't. Let's consider how it certainly appears that the timing of the settlement occurred in order to prevent the case from going to trial. Why did the oil companies, if they were not guilty of conspiracy, still fight hard to keep their records and data hidden from the state and from being revealed in a public trial? The simple, oft-used explanation was they wanted to prevent the competition (each other) from seeing it. There is reason to believe this is not the real reason. The market in Hawai'i is extremely small, static and therefore predictable, and any data disclosures by the so-called 'competitors' to each other probably would not have revealed anything surprising to each other or to anyone in the industry, for that matter. In addition, the disclosures would have been reciprocal and they all would have been evenly and equally 'exposed' to each other. So I doubt very much that this was a primary concern, or even a concern at all.

What else could have been happening? Probably, the only concern of these corporations was the possible adverse consequences of a disclosure to the public of a shocking amount of profit-taking being made at the expense of the citizens of Hawai'i . There is much evidence that an oligopoly exists in the oil market in Hawaii. The limited number of oil companies operating in the state means they effectively have no real pressures and therefore enjoy complete control of the market, and therefore can raise and lower gasoline prices in Hawaii at their whim. They could (and apparently did) raise gasoline prices at each and every opportunity. For example: Is there a hurricane in Florida? This would raise prices in Hawaii; Is there rising demand on the West Coast? This would raise prices in Hawaii; Some refinery problems in Texas? This would raise prices in Hawaii; Big distribution problems in the Midwest? This would raise prices in Hawai'i... And yet, after whatever 'fuel crisis' taking place elsewhere had subsided, the Hawai'i oil companies would drag their heels, and take their schweet 'ole time lowering prices in Hawaii, even as fuel prices were quickly dropping everywhere else, (sometimes both nationwide and world-wide). The Hawai'i oil companies had no oversight, no responsibility, no accountability, to anyone but themselves! And Gus, that kind of situation provides the perfect temptation for abuse.
Now was it legal? Heck-if-I-know; I ain't no lawyer. Was it a 'conspiracy'? No. It was simply abusive overcharging and gouging. But if clear and irrefutable evidence of it were to be made publicly known then the oil companies would have had a disaster on their hands.

A disclosure of such behavior, if evidence for it was to be found in the companies' data, would likely have created a catastrophic public-relations nightmare for these companies. Bad enough if the damage remained limited to the state of Hawaii, since laws to limit the oil companies' pricing freedom would be passed for sure and 'paradise' would have been lost for these corporations. But another concern was to prevent this from conflating out-of-control and resulting in embarrassing national media attention with possible nationwide consumer and then political repurcussions — all of them negative. Certainly, the oil corporations did not want anything like this to happen. Of course I have no idea if the data would have revealed this, or that this accounts for how the oil companies behaved when fighting the suit, but it seems a very straightforward, logical, and even a rather likely explanation.

So. How does this play any part in the creation of the present Gas cap law as we know it? Well, there was quite a bit of local outrage spawned by the whimpy settlement in 2002, and there was an inevitable political response to the outrage. A legislative ruckus kicked the lawmakers into gear and those who were most vocal in their criticism of the settlement threatened an investigation of it, (hey... have we seen anything from that? Haw-haw...) and at the same time, there was lively talk about enacting legislation to cap gasoline prices in the state. [see here].

And there you have it: the beginning rumblings of the political momentum (and cajones) that would lead eventually to the gas cap law.

[Has the Gas Cap worked? ...that's a discussion for another post]

Widespread ignorance hides the Pontifex Maximus Gaius Julius Caesar
He was not just a leader of armies and a masterful politician. Caesar was, contrary to the popular perceptions of him today, the champion of the common man. It was his political adversaries who were notoriously feared for their violence, ruthlessness, power-grabbing and greed. Yet there is another aspect of Gaius Julius Caesar even more unexpected and contradictory of modern perceptions of him: Julius Caesar had enormous religious power and authority. Indeed, they were so great they endured long after his death, and the religious impact of his life and deeds was so far-reaching that we might not be capable of appreciating the full extent.

Not only was he declared a god even before he was killed, (not so common a thing, even in the ancient world), but his most important political power was based upon his being Pontifex Maximus: the highest priest of Rome. This means Julius Caesar had a religious prominence of the highest magnitude—and this was established before any his—now—far more famous military achievements. And so how odd that this is never explicitly described or even mentioned in modern books, stories or movies about him. The vast, overwhelming majority of us know absolutely nothing of Julius Caesar's religious position at all! It is precisely this near universal ignorance about a rather important 'tidbit' of fundamental information about Gaius Julius Caesar that goes a long way in explaining why it seems so difficult to think that the myths and stories of Jesus Christ have their ultimate origin in this famous Roman.

As we become more knowledgable we begin to understand that a connection between Julius Caesar and the very beginnings of the greatest religion to emerge from the Roman empire is not so farfetched an idea after all!

Clementia
The political policy of Julius Caesar during the civil war was based upon clementia, a "clemency" extended to his political opponents. So in other words: Gaius Julius Caesar demonstrated a forgiveness of his enemies, (that does sound familiar, doesn't it?) Furthermore, this policy had a deeply religious significance because it was, indeed, the policy of the Pontifex Maximus.

We know that his clementia was astonishing to his fellow Romans because it was a radical departure from the norms of his time and place. It was radical and revolutionary, and it's inherent goodness must have had a long-lasting legacy upon religion and politics for the entire Mediterranean world.

Just think of how his speeches to his troops before each battle would have had religious significance to the men who listened, for his words were words of their High Priest. The long, bloody and spectacular civil war and its outcome—of indisputably great political importance—would have also had immense ramifications of a religious nature as well. Everything Julius Caesar said and did must have had a religious significance for the people of Rome and the infant empire: his official pronouncements; his political policies; his friendships and political alliances; his family events; simply everything from his most causal of comments to his battlefield maneuvers—even his most intimate relationships.

Too many facts are consistently overlooked or systematically ignored in nearly all studies of Julius Caesar. We readily assume we know this man, but we are mistaken. We assume the historical books and novels give us a complete or at least an undistorted portrayal. We assume wrongly.

The common understanding of this greatest of Romans is woefully inadequate and based upon only a small selected portion of the facts available. It appears we are only beginning to rediscover and understand Julius Caesar's true place in history and religion.

Jesus was Caesar:
The Julian Origin of Christianity

by Francesco Carotta
Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Aspekt B V Uitgeverij (January 1, 2005)
ISBN: 9059113969





Not impossible.
Is there a link between Julius Caesar and Jesus Christ? Could one be the basis of the other? It may sound impossible, but it's not!

Yes, from what we have been told, they are very different. We know Caesar as the quintessential ambitious Roman who waged war and defeated foes like Vercingetorix in Gaul, or Caesar's former friend, son-in-law and fellow Roman Pompey the Great. Caesar traveled extensively and led conquering armies from the Nile in Egypt to the Thames of Britannica. He is associated with pomp, pageantry and military prowess like no other person before or since. How different is the story of Jesus Christ! Here we have a figure of religious focus exclusively, and a mysterious lack of any mention by the historians of his time. His career was brief and his travels limited to wandering within a small area of Palestine. Far from being a man of war, he is known to us most for preaching love, peace, and forgiveness. So any suggestion of a link between these two men sounds absurd to us, or even impossible. This is reaction is common to us all. But everything will begin to change if we have the courage to look more closely.

In Jesus was Caesar, the author Francesco Carotta looks more closely than anyone else ever thought to, and he provides an astonishing amount of evidence that a link is not only possible, but very likely. The truth turns out to be, like the old saying goes: stranger than fiction.

How could this be: How could such simple facts become so drastically confused?
The reasons are many and complex, and we will never know all the details. But we can say for certain that political expediency began the process. The Roman world was in chaos after Caesar's death in 44BC. A Roman civil war erupted, this one even more bloody and ruthless than the previous. A long period of underground struggle ensued between two sometimes allied, but always competing factions for control of the empire: Octavian in the West claimed control as the adopted son of Julius Caesar, while Mark Antony was in the East supporting the claim of Caesar's biological son by Cleopatra. These two men out of necessity created competing versions of the extremely popular and ubiquitous cult of the deified Julius Caesar, Divus Iulius. The political division of the empire into two spheres of influence (Octavian in Rome, and Antony in Alexandria) was reflected in two conflicting religious worldviews, and this created the great fissure upon which was built the great theological division of earliest Christianity—the one between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. When Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra, he consolidated his control over the east by persecuting all forms of the Divus Iulius cult that had been created and promoted by Antony and Cleopatra. This is probably the source of the traditional stories of early Christianity persecutions, and also the long-lasting propensity of the Church to hunt-down and destroy ideas considered it considers 'heretical'.

The cult was localized, or adapted to the varying conditions of many locales all across the empire, and one of these areas was Palestine. Under the long reign of King Herod the Palestinian localized version of the cult was subjected to various alterations, and they had added weight and carrying power because Herod was an adopted son of Caesar himself, and was considered to be a Julian family member. Even further, he had at his disposal Roman veteran soldiers who had been planted there in colonies, and their descendants inherited the prestige of their fathers, and their misconceptions of history and the cult probably lived on and had a great effect.

But the most drastic alterations occurred during to the time of Vespasian and his Jewish quasi-historian named Josephus was primarily responsible. This Emperor (Vespasian) had a unique concern: he needed to legitimate his claim to the throne because he had no claim of blood descent from the Iulian family. One solution was to take advantage of prophecies in the east that foretold that arrival of a new ruler of the world who would come from Palestine. With the creative assistance of Josephus, Vespasian sought to prove that he was this prophesied ruler. And with this as the goal, the cult of Divus Iulius and its traditions would undergo massive emergency plastic surgery. The historical accounts of Julius Caesar were re-interpreted to reflect an eastern origin.

In Jesus was Caesar, the author actually uncovers many other possible sources of confusion that would have led to the grand scale of the misunderstanding. Surely a mistake of this grand a scale needed many misunderstandings as well as a widespread ignorance in the populace, and also political reasons for the powerful to either permit all of it to fester, or even actively assist the spread.

Now, if this is really true, then why has no one discovered it until now?
When thinking of the average person the answer is easy: Because the vast majority takes for granted that they already know who Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar were, when in fact they know very few pertinent facts about either one, and what little they do 'know' is inaccurate, incomplete, or outright balderdash. And as for the case of the well-educated, nearly all of them are completely ignorant of the most essential facts about Gaius Julius Caesar. How few know that Gaius Julius Caesar was the Pontifex Maximus of Rome, and that his successful political career hinged upon his being the High Priest of Rome. How little discussion or thought is made of the implication that being the Pontifex Maximus, Gaius Julius Caesar would have been leading armies who considered him to be their religious leader first and foremost. As Pontifex Maximus Caesar's every move, word, and gesture would have carried a religious meaning to his soldiers. How little attention is given to the absolute certainty that in the eyes of the populace of Rome, monumental religious consequences must occur because of the murder of Gaius Julius Caesar: he was the High Priest of their city; He was the High Priest who had conquered the entire world; who had conquered in the name of saving them from certain slavery to an exploitive Roman nobility; and who had in fact been already recognized as a god while still living!

The author's (Francesco Carotta's) website: http://carotta.de/

Modern life in Hawaii has far more depth and complexity than the casual visitor or even the new transplant might realize. The rather shallow, tourism-oriented perception of Hawaii is practically inescapable. It's easy to understand why: one simply needs to recall that many millions of advertising dollars have been spent over many decades to promote Hawaii as a premier tourist destination, so it is inevitable that nearly everyone is influenced to some extent.

In addition, think of all the many old movies and television episodes that portray Hawaii in romanticized or overly simplistic ways. Many a visitor's mind is infected to some degree. Some are filled to the brim with images and emotions and perceptions that really have very little connection with reality.

Yes, Hawaii is a beautiful tropical paradise. There are many beautiful and friendly people. There are fabulous hotels and resorts and world-class beaches. But Hawaii is a living community of people, and a rather complicated community at that. Hawaii has a history that is not always so beautiful or innocent, and some historical events are still open wounds that stir resentment and anger, and these details of history are seldom made known to the casual visitor.

Anyone who moves to Hawaii and begins to live here will encounter a Hawaii that goes beyond the glamorous veneer of the "romantic tropical paradise". Hawaii is not perfect. But what place on earth is? And so what? — imperfection is not necessarily a bad thing.

Perhaps we all would be better off (and even happier) if we had a little more tolerance for imperfection and accepted the inherent imperfection of the people and world around us. Because if we thought hard enough we might realize that any human conception of perfection will be fundamentally flawed anyway.

Perhaps the real beauty and aloha, the real "beauty" of Hawaii is found when and where we least expect it. As it is said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." What that means is we can see beauty only if some of that beauty is in us already.

FP!

My place of residence has been Honolulu, Hawaii for the past fifteen years, after moving here in 1990 from the mainland USA. I am originally from Pennsylvania and I spent many years in Illinois. Since moving to Honolulu, I have gotten married and become a father. Being a husband and a father are the most wonderful things I have experienced in my life. I doubt that I will include many details of that, here. (Who knows, maybe I will...) Family life and details should stay more private, I guess. And a blog is such a public presentation.

So. One part of my life that I will share in this very public way is my great love of Hawaii. Another is my passion for knowing the truth about early Christian history, which I strongly believe turns out to be far more Roman than historians ever realized.