Danger in the park
On night of Dec. 21, thousands of people flocked to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to witness the start of Kilauea’s latest eruption, including myself.
Heavy traffic congestion was expected. What I didn’t expect was the many hundreds of maskless tourists cramming themselves in, shoulder to shoulder, amongst masked residents. There were a few Japanese tourists, and they all wore masks. If this wasn’t a superspreader event, I don’t know what is.
Mainland U.S. visitors to our islands seem to forget that despite Pele’s fireworks, we are still in the middle of a pandemic. Island folks have worked so hard and sacrificed so much to keep our case counts and deaths low, and to see something like what I witnessed at HVNP is disheartening.
Now that there is active lava once again, the National Park Service has a kuleana to keep our population safe from COVID-19 by having people in the evening monitoring trails and overlooks to enforce the statewide mask mandate.
J.M. Buck
Volcano
Get off my lawn (a poem)
Death numbers clicking off like miles on an odometer.
Pressure building up like a storm does to a barometer.
Temperatures rising caused by a fever on a thermometer.
The unknown virus expands its secret attack on us.
The idiots in power continue to prove they don’t deserve our trust.
A madman grasping for power like someone falling from a tree.
His outrageous efforts to violate those who want to be free,
from the disgusting web of lies and deceit that surrounds his rhetoric.
And so-called leaders sit in silence and acquiesce to his evil efforts
to undermine the principles of democracy and institute his demagoguery.
Where have you gone, those who claim to defend democracy?
Why do you sit silent when the voice for freedom needs to be heard?
Is it because you desire power over decency?
Are you becoming his agent for herd immunity from prosecution?
Pardon you, pardon me, everything has a price, and this man has proven his soul is for sale.
It is long past time to remove that sign on the White House front lawn.
America and its freedoms are not for sale!
Get off your brainwashed ass and fill up the moving van that our country cannot wait to see, driving away from Pennsylvania Avenue!
Vince Keelan
Honokaa
