Honolulu Lite
When I die, I want to come back as Haunani-Kay Trask. What a sweet gig she has. Ahh ... Living the
life of Haunani-KayA lot of people have been upset by her recent comments that the United States was responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That's dumb. How can you get mad at someone for saying exactly what you knew they would say?
I can hear the chorus now: "Yeah, but saying our country had it coming, that the murder of 6,000 innocent people was simply payback time for a history of oppression, imperialism, genocide and American terrorism is unpatriotic, cruel, insensitive to the people who were killed and their families! Trask is a university professor, paid by our tax dollars, spreading vile anti-American poison to our children! She's not a nice person!"
They don't get it. Saying stupid things that get people riled up is Trask's job. More than that, it's her position in life. She's professionally oppressed. And like I said, it's a sweet gig to have. Because, for one thing, it doesn't require any training. Life is a cakewalk when you don't have to make any decisions. Haunani-Kay simply has to stake out the most radical, anti-American position on any issue. There's no thinking involved. She doesn't have to be concerned with balance. She doesn't have to worry about whether people will like her or not. That's the cool thing about being her, the people you want to like you, like you, and the people you want to hate you, hate you.
Everyone else has to seek approval from their family, friends and work mates. Not Haunani-Kay. She doesn't even have to worry about pissing off her boss, the president of the University of Hawaii, and, I suppose, all of us who pay her salary, because she has tenure. She can't be fired.
Haunani-Kay is one of those people I refer to as a "lame duck human." She has absolutely no accountability to anyone. In a country that cherishes free speech, Haunani-Kay can graze happily at the far, far end of the pasture of good taste and responsibility.
It's a great life if you can get it. I mean, it's such a drag to try to be reasonable, to try to see both sides of an argument, to seek basic truths.
Unfortunately, there can be only one tenured, professionally oppressed, lame duck human per state, and Haunani-Kay is ours. And she's damn good at it. I've been dying to hear what she'd say about the terrorist attacks on America, and I wasn't disappointed. In fact, I would have been floored if she had said a kind word about the Americans who died, suggested that while we were wrong to be in Vietnam, a country that didn't attack us, this clearly is a case where our country was unjustly assaulted. But I didn't have to worry. It is impossible for such words to fall from Haunani-Kay's lips.
Which is why you shouldn't get mad at her. She's not a person, she's a position, a manifesto set in concrete. If Haunani-Kay was not spewing bilge from the far fringe, another lame duck human would be. Any reaction is pointless.
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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