Tag Archives: snap-up culture

Dribs and Drabs

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving, Travel

August 15, 2023- Back when I was working as a grocery bagger and cart gatherer, in the awkward days of high school, the man who was probably the best boss I have had, to this day, had a by-phrase: “Use your squash!” I had him banging his head on the wall more than once, but after a fashion, that advice stuck, and it has been applied in a variety of situations.

I read of several ongoing events and processes today, and this being a quiet day in the neighbourhood, devote this post to the scattershot responses to two very different ongoing concerns.

The careful search for victims of the Maui fires, especially in Lahaina, continues, with the death toll at 99 and 1300 people counted missing. As this goes on, reports are surfacing that there are efforts being made to snap-up property in the fire zone. This should, at the very least, be shot down by the current property owners. It would be best if the Hawai’i Legislature, or Congress, passes legislation that installs an indefinite moratorium on any such transactions. Snap-up culture, in general, is tawdry and disgusting. In cases like this one, involving what may well become hallowed ground, it is far, far out of line.

The other aspect of the tragedy, the behaviour of tourists, bears mentioning. In 2014, when I was in Europe, I had to learn from mistakes and file the lessons under “Do not repeat”. Later that year, in Honolulu, it came to mind that Hawaiian people have said, repeatedly, that they are getting tired of pushy, inconsiderate people from the mainland-and elsewhere. It was a brief visit to Honolulu, but my manners were intact.

It seems that some visitors, whether out of boredom, convention or sheer ego, have disrespected the people of Maui, in recent days. Perhaps they can reach back to times when they have been in mourning. That is what is going on in Maui, and across the island chain. When one visits a place, even if spending a tidy sum, there is nothing that says basic decency should be cast aside.

Finally, the debate over whether the 19 people who were indicted for interfering with the Georgia vote count, in the 2020 election, is finding those opposed to the indictments are missing one thing: Nineteen people, not just one, are up on charges. That takes extra time, so yes, it is correct for the DA to file the charges now-for what is likely a trial that won’t happen until early 2025. The comparison to the Federal charges against 3 people, in one set, and one person, in the other set, is a matter of apples and oranges. I also remind one and all that no one is seeking a star chamber proceeding. Each person charged has the right to a fair trial-innocent until proven guilty-in a court of law, not a scrum of public opinion.

Decency-it’s what’s on the menu of personal behaviour. Use your squash!

Contraction and Expansion

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Historical, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

June 22, 2021, Lake Havasu City- In the Spring of 2000, a group of senior citizens, residents of a small enclave on the south side of Salome, AZ, converged on a meeting of the La Paz County Board of Supervisors. They wanted to see an ordinance enacted, which would curb the behaviour of the town’s younger residents. Among these seniors was a former resident of San Francisco, whose complaint was with young people who were raising livestock, within town limits. He began, and ended, with “Back in San Francisco, this would never be allowed!” The chair of the Board of Supervisors, in rural La Paz County, cut the man off, merely thanking him for his perspective. The seniors with more universal concerns, about partying and noise, got a fuller hearing.

I am in this city of retirees and service providers to visit for a bit with some friends who have felt isolated for quite some time-and not just because of COVID19. Lake Havasu is at least an hour, in any direction, from any city of comparable, or larger, size: Bullhead City lies an hour to the north; Kingman, the same, to the northeast; Various California retirement havens are an hour away, to the west, and Parker, the seat of La Paz County, is about an hour to the south.

Into the isolation of the Colorado River Valley, in western Arizona, are coming sizable numbers of those leaving California. As is the case elsewhere, people with cash in hand are buying up houses, and vacant lots, “by the boatload”, as it were. Snap-up culture, a peculiarly American phenomenon, sparked initially by fear and loathing of one’s lot-and sustained, later on, by arrogance and greed, is generating a sizable migration out of the Golden State (as well as New York and Chicago)-sometimes pulling the rug out from under people of more modest means, who have come within an inch of securing a home. When this happens here in the U.S., it fosters some grumbling and temporary ill will towards the migrants. When it happens in other countries, the migrants, or second-home purchasers may face reactions from locals that are far less genteel.

I see this from two sides: Mankind has always been on the move. Large populations initially moved north, east and probably west from Africa, very early on. Millennia later, there began several large migrations, in all directions, from the Altai, the Gobi and the steppes of what is now, Kazakhstan, sending Avars, Huns, Mongols, Turks to Europe and southwest Asia; many of who are now known as Indigenous Americans headed, out of the same region, to North America, and thence to its southern neighbour. Northwestward, to the European Arctic region, went those now known as the Sami-formerly the Lapps. What US President James Knox Polk called “Manifest Destiny” has been in our genetic memory for a good long time.

On the other hand, with few exceptions since the original peopling of this planet, there have always been “locals” there to either greet the newcomers, or to resist them. Which is which depends largely on the need, or lack thereof, for new blood to revitalize a community AND on the attitudes of the newcomers. People who charge into a new setting, buy up the property, propagate the worst of what they claim to have left behind, and push the locals around, should not be surprised at the glares and sidelong glances they get from their new neighbours, as these mutter among themselves. Those who, on the other hand, settle gently into their adopted community, with a humble posture of learning, will over time be adopted as bona fide residents. There are plenty of both sorts, among the current groups of migrants, as there have been in such groups, throughout history.

I wish the better angels of their natures to be in the vanguard.