Kokua Line
Kokua Line
Question: At 2616 Pali Highway, an American flag is flown 24 hours a day. Do they have a permit to display the flag all day and night? I thought the colors had to be taken down in the evening. No permit needed to
fly flag at nightAnswer: The flag, as well as the flag of Taiwan, flies from the front gate of the former Walker Estate, where the latest owner plans to develop a "Forshang Garden & Village," said to be "well known in international Chinese Chess communities."
More on that later.
According to the Americanism Manual distributed by The American Legion, the "universal custom" is to display the flag only from sunrise to sunset on buildings and on stationary flagstaffs in the open.
"However, when a patriotic effect is desired, the Flag may be displayed 24 hours a day if properly illuminated during the hours of darkness," the manual says.
No permit is needed.
A photo sensor sends an electronic signal to turn on column lights under the flag when the sun goes down, said David Tseng, general manager of Holy-Eye LLC, the Hawaii business arm of Forshang World Foundation and Forshang Buddhism World Center.
The former is a non-profit foundation involved in international operations and activities, while the latter serves to preach Forshang Buddhism to the world, Tseng said.
Holy-Eye, whose officers are based in Taipei, purchased the Walker Estate last year for its planned "Forshang Garden & Village." In September 1998 and last August, the annual "Forshang Cup" Chinese Chess World Championship was held there.
Tseng wrote to Kokua Line to explain the concept of Forshang. At night, he said, "We can see the Moon, stars, neighbor planets, galaxies and deep space. The light traveled over billions of years in the dark space and brought the information to us" to "make us understand the past of the universal (sic) and history of our solar systems. We pay great respect to those astronomers and scientists hard working at the dark evening in the past thousand years. ... "
Just as a photo sensor sends an electronic signal to turn on the "light bubbles" under the flag, so, too, "the electron effects inside the light bubble illuminated human eyes," Tseng said. "The same electron effect also illuminated our minds."
After the electron was discovered in 1898, he said, humans learned how "to manipulate its curious properties. Today, we cannot live without it," Tseng said, pointing to e-commerce and Web sites, cellular phones, TV, banking, etc.
"What a wonderful world we are in," he said. "The 'God' created the world by using electron! One electron called hydrogen, 8 electrons called oxygen, 14 electrons called silicon, 79 electrons called gold, 92 electrons called uranium, and on and on."
With space and time united, "the sun up and down and turning will not effect the connection we have with all other beings. We just learned that we are all connected with each other by electron under the light speed."
For more about Forshang, check the web site www. forshang.org/ninthseale.htm.
Auwe
On Sunday, Dec. 5, I saw a whole bunch of motorcycle riders, 100 or more, running red lights and holding up cross traffic. Who the h--- are they and what right do they have to do this? -- No Name(Street Bikers United had a city permit that day for their annual Toys for Tots motorcade.)
Need help with problems? Call Kokua Line at 525-8686,
fax 525-6711, or write to P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802.
Email to kokualine@starbulletin.com