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J.C. Shinpaw HCR 1 13ox 5216 Keaau, Hawaii 96749 m November 10 1998 e J ,F ~ s Ethnobotanical Committee r Malamalama School ~ ` ~ f Hawaiian Paradise Park ~ ~ - Keaau, Hawaii 96749 " Dear Sirs and Ma'ams, -.r Thank you very much for allowing me to attend your recent meeting. Having received the invi- tation to attend in the manner I did allowed me to at least have a naive hope that I was indeed welcome to share input in deciding what to do with the area. I'm very sorry I was so mistaken. I guess I am a little confused now. As I understood it, (when I found the ladies floundering through the jungle, obliviously on their way to a hidden crack area where one could have fallen to her death or at least injury), I was invited to attend your meeting since I had an expertise in the area and a desire to preserve and protect it as I thought you also did. The area in question is indeed beautiful, even sacred, and when you mentioned an ethnobotanical garden I guess my writer's imagination envisioned a Preserve, a place to protect the history, the plantlife and the various species of wildlife which make their homes in that habitat. I was terribly, sadly mistaken. I did not realize that what you actually had in mind was to pave paradise to put up a parking lot so that you could not only have a groovy place to meditate, but also put your star of glory (a "Malamalama Merit Badge" if you will), on the effort for your own political/career purposes. I have seen this scenario before. I refuse to participate in it happening again. And I think it is a crying shame that the first thing you, as an entire committee of "concerned preservationists" want to do with a place where owls, hawks, pigs and other creatures make their homes is to cut it down, stomp it down, pave it down, and invite in the crowds (and trash, and noise, and crime). And for you to put some kind of "meditative, cosmic" label on it is a sham. You were obviously angry at being told that your plan is both financially naive and socially antagonistic, I also want you all to know how awfully rude I think you behaved. As teachers in a school I at least expected you to allow me to complete speaking and not, since I was an invited guest, treat me with the high-handed, holier-than-thou, hotheaded attitude I was shown. If one lives in a bubble of delusion and a porcupine happens along and pops the bubble, do you get mad at the porcupine for having quills? Or are you grateful to the porcupine for taking away the bubble of delusion and setting you on solid ground? Frankly, I think if you want to spend precious moments of your life sitting in a committee room feeling self-important while you listen to yourself chirp like a chicken in the hen yard because you want to fuck the aina in the ass, that's up to you. That's precisely what you sounded like to me, and that's what you're going to sound like to other property owners, too.. And that's why you all got lost out there: you are so damn busy listening to yourselves and feeding your egos that you didn't listen to the land, the trees, the ocean (which you can hear from here if you are quiet enough), or the wind blowiag the trees or the quiet