 Let me see how I can sort of define her. She is somebody who has been active in advancing the cause of the native Hawaiians in many ways. And I met her in 1999. Yeah, it's a long time ago, but I remember, and she remembers better than I do. I know you again. Nice to see you. Thank you, Jay. So I wanted to catch up with you. Thank you, Jay. So I wanted to catch up with you. We had a show on Pohakaloa just a couple weeks ago for the Chamber of Commerce, military in Hawaii. And that was interesting because you were there. That's why it was interesting. It was interesting because you had a voice there in the determination of the identity and future of Pohakaloa. But you have a voice in other things too. And I wanted to discuss all those other things you're doing and being involved in and participating in. And I think to me, I was telling you before the show that it's a matter of Hawaii finding its identity and to find your identity. Like the country has to find its identity too, actually. In order to find your identity, you have to get together. You actually have to talk to each other. You can't make brick walls in the middle of that because you never find your identity that way. And so it certainly has changed. I'm just one moment more. I remember I had a visit from a friend of a friend. His name was Johnny Apple. He was the chief correspondent of the New York Times. And he said he'd like to meet me. So, okay, we met. And he said, you know, all your high school buddies are going to know about this meeting. I said, what? He said, because I'm going to write it up. So be prepared for a full page on our discussion here. I never thought that would happen, but it was true. All my high school buddies were writing to me. And the point is we talked about Hawaii. We talked about, you know, how it was at least in that, in that phase of time, which is in the 80s, I think, and how it had changed and how, you know, the social integration and all those wonderful social things. And people talk about Hawaii. They're really talking about social integration. They're talking about people getting along, truly getting along, never feeling, you know, there's a difference in the races. And yet we have contention now. And I wouldn't even call it cultural contention, and maybe economic contention. And we have to get by that. We have to come together on that. And we haven't done it yet. And this is playing out in various political and development issues. And that's what I wanted to talk to you about today. Where are we on this, this, this, this assimilation, this, this, this integration, this getting together, collaborating on major points of the identity of the state? Where are we? Well, I think, I think it's all in framing, right? I mean, assimilation is a bad word in some places. Integration is a bad word in some places. You know, I got into this from working with Senator Akaka. And, you know, he always talked about rainbows. He always sang though where we live, there's rainbow songs. And he used the analogy of many of us coming from different backgrounds and different races and being, Hawaii being a place where we could be proud of that, we could share our food, we could share our language, we could share our customs. And it only made the rainbow that much brighter, but we were still a part of the rainbow, right? It wasn't a melting pot where you kind of dilute everything. It was celebrating the diversity, understanding that diversity, identifying the differences in the lines, understanding where that was and still being able to be one unit, right? And so I think a lot, I think it, you know, where are we, it depends on how you look at it, right? And I think that we're conditioning, we're influenced to how many places on the continent or across the globe tend to categorize things, right? You're either this or you're that kind of like the zero analysis. And in Hawaii, we've always been more of a yes and and what's more, right? Because this is Hawaii. So I think while there are situations where we do fall subject to the zero-sum type game and we can start to depict and label ourselves that way, I do think because of our unique culture, because of our unique history and because of the spirit of aloha and our ability to celebrate our diversity while seeing how we can all still be a part of one thing together is like the special sauce that we have. Yeah. And it sounds like tolerance and understanding at least acceptance anyway of the other person's point of view, including cultural point of views. So I want to play a word game with you, I'm going to give you a word. You give me your reaction in the context of what we've been discussing, all right? Okay. Ready? Pohaka Loa. Mana of land. I mean, what that comes out to is connection and whether you're in the military and you celebrate the experience of teaching you how to do what you do to stay alive and protect our country or whether you're a cultural practitioner going to celebrate the lines and the poo and the mana and the experience there or whether you're a conservationist, you know, dealing with endangered species, it's the connection to the Aina. And they can coexist. Yes. They are. You're involved. Okay, next one. TMT. You like this one? I think, I think it's opportunity, right? I mean, to me, TMT was the tip of the sphere that just came out of. I think the pandemic is showing the cracks in many of the system. That's the project that highlighted a number of things that people aren't thrilled about in the, in the systems we live in, in the way we manage lands in the, in the way permits are created, right? And, and there's an opportunity for us to really dive in and take a look at that and, and see how do we do any of it better? Yeah, how would, but how would you, how would you do this? Because it's Lord knows we spent a lot of time on this. But how, how would you, how would you do that going forward? How would you make TMT less divisive? How would you, how would you play it out? Because what, you know, what happened just to compress the thing is they went through the whole process. They, they did everything they thought they was supposed to do. And it wasn't enough. And people also on the other side of things, they went through the whole process and they did everything they thought they were supposed to do in the process, but it wasn't enough. In other words, now you alluded to this, the process failed. No, nobody really got to where they wanted to go with this process. So how do we fix that going forward? The answer is I'm not sure. I mean, it takes dialogue. Right. It takes a clarity on the purpose of the dialogue. Like if, if we got together and we said, let's talk about the process as opposed to the outcome. Right. Instead of talking about, should the telescope be built? You know, maybe we should be talking about what are the underlying issues? Right. What are, what are those things? And, and, um, and I don't, again, I don't know what the answer is, but there has to be dialogue. We can't keep just labeling each other and wearing our T-shirts. We have to kind of come together and, and, and adjust things. Yeah. And I guess that goes back to the question of tolerating the other guy's point of view. Um, and trying to understand what it's, what it is for him. Um, that's all good negotiation, but it's a, it's a special brand, isn't it? Uh, I think you're, you're talking about the same thing I am in terms of the special brand of, um, of negotiation of appreciating. It's how we, we, the state of Hawaii got to be what it is today because people on the plantations, they were all thrown together. And, um, now if you, if you look at the state to me, to me, that's a very significant piece about why everybody gets along and appreciates the other guy's culture. And we have to do that. That's a special sauce, uh, except we're not realizing it in some ways. Let me go to the next. Okay. Ready? Next one. Um, geothermal energy, PGV. I think geothermal energy is a lot bigger than PGV. Right. Again, it's, it's understanding technology, understanding culture, understanding place, history, and inclusion, and how you identify what is the challenge. Right. That we're looking at clean energy, reliable at, you know, at a, at a, at a rate that's accessible to everyone. And how do you, how do you do it? Right. What is the way that you can do it that respects the Aina, that respects culture that, that allows for the level of inclusivity that benefits everyone. Yeah, one of the things is my next word is going to be wind, but I'll give you a sort of a preliminary on wind. What, what's interesting about wind is that sometimes it takes so long to get the permit that the people who went along with the notion of wind in a given area. In fact, the development of that area is at point A by the, by the time the permit is ripe, mature, if you will. Those people are not there anymore. It's their children who are there and their children do not feel the same way about it because, you know, we evolved the state evolves, the cultural evolve, the people evolve. And so you have this kind of interesting dichotomy between those who felt it was okay and those now who don't feel okay. And part of that is the length of time it takes to get the permit anyway. And part of that is this inevitable change. You know, it's all about change. So my next word, which refers to NIMBY, among other things, and cultural sensibilities is the word wind, wind energy. So what's your reaction to that one? Well, I, I, you have to know I'm very biased towards being un-proponent of wind energy, given my background in working to build Kahiava, Kahukuin, and the first Kahukuin. Yeah, first win. Yeah. And working with first win. I think wind is amazing, like geothermal, but wind is an amazing technology and opportunity. And we have significant advances, advancements happening, but it's all about how you do it. And the requirements are there and they take a long time because we have to take a strong look, a deep look at everything. And it needs to happen that way, right? You need to look at the cultural impacts. You need to look at the environmental impacts. You need to also look at what are we, are there tradeoffs? Are there win-wins? It's not always a tradeoff, right? Sometimes it's a win-win. And I think segueing into the fact that we're going to have to look at the economic discussions, we're looking at 100% renewable energy by 20, clean renewable energy by 2045. We're looking at being carbon negative by 2045. What does that mean, right? And what are we going to do to do it side by side? When you had, when you had referred to negotiation, Jay, as an attorney, I see negotiation as somebody on this side and somebody on this side, right? But as a facilitator of difficult conversations, right? I try as much as possible to establish the common bonds while still agreeing to disagree on what we feel very strongly, but trying to figure out how do we get to be on the same side of something, being able to see the same vision moving forward, right? And so I think that's what it'll take, you know, and it'll take a lot of courage and it will take a lot of honesty and we're going to have to harden our shells a little bit, you know, we're going to have to take some insults. We're going to be able to have to handle the truth without, or people's different versions of the truth without taking offense, right? But back to wind. I think, you know, wind, whether it's terrestrial or floating offshore is a phenomenal opportunity, but it's the answer right now, right? When you look at utilizing the indigenous perspective, seven generations back and seven generations forward, our lifetime is like this much. And a wind project and what we're talking about is even smaller. It's this much, right? So we're addressing climate change. What are the technologies available to us right now? And how do we build projects that benefit all of us right now? Right? And understand that it's a finite period of time. And how do we create the conditions that allow for putting it all back the way it can be so that there's the least amount of negative impact possible? I think that's the key. Yeah. Okay. Let me, let me take a sort of an intermission and try to recap a little bit what I'm getting. Okay. Number one is it's a concern about the Aina. It's a concern about holding on to the relationship, the special relationship between the Hawaiian people, but everybody, everybody really environmentalists from one side to the other with the land. Okay. That's really important. It's a signature point of the identity of the state. Very important. And the other thing I want to just focus on for a second is facilitator. And you're totally right. First idea is to find out what the common ground is. We should not be arguing about the common ground. So you carve out, you know, and you're a lawyer too, you know, you know the benefit of doing that. And all of a sudden you're reducing the risk of contention by finding out what we all agree on. But question is facilitator, very important role. And I understand what you're doing. And I think I understand why, but I'd like to hear what your thought is about the necessity of a facilitator. Seems to me that what you do is really important as a facilitator, but what is a facilitator and how does it work for you in an issue or, you know, a discussion that might be controversial. So to me, a facilitator is someone who helps, who assists the participants in the discussion to set the rules and agreements of how they want to interact. Right. You know, you want to come together. You know, you want to talk. Okay. There's uncertainty because there may not be enough trust amongst the different participants in a discussion. So the facilitator figures out how do we create that trust? How do we build those relationships? And then how do we all agree on what it is that we're doing? Right. So as an example, we can all agree, we're going to paint a wall blue, right? But until I show up with my can of paint and you show up with your can of paint, I don't realize that when I say blue, I mean Navy blue. And when you say blue, you mean Royal blue, right? So the facilitator helps the discussion and helps to clarify and helps people to ask discussions. The facilitator also knows when to stay the hello out of the way and let the discussion move forward, right? So, you know, in facilitating, you're helping, you're not leading, you're not dragging, you're not pushing, you're just helping, right? And you're helping to create that space. And so in a lot of the work that I'm called to do, I mean, I wear a lot of different hats. But a lot of the times it's, it's in helping to bring people together to establish a relationship and explore perspectives in ways that feel safe, in ways that people know they're not going to get attacked, right? For saying something. And so to me, that's what facilitation is about. Okay, two things. One is I take it from what you say that one of the really important things about facilitation, as it would be an arbitration or mediation or in the more legal sphere is to make it civil. It's got to be civil. There's no name calling permitted here. You got to get rid of that at the door. And there's no intransigence or at least you try to avoid intransigence on any particular issue, whether it's motivated by culture or economics or whatever, or personal bias in some way. The other thing is, you know, what is the forum for a facilitator? I mean, people are not necessarily going to, you know, meet at the coffee shop by random. You have to find a way to bring them into the venue. And of course that has changed in the time of COVID, we know. But what is the venue and how do you create the, whatever it is, the, the, the draw, the magnetism, the, the reason to get them into the venue where you can facilitate and they can have a conversation. I think it's always situation specific. Right. During the pandemic, we've been doing a lot of discussions online. And we've been using many different platforms and abilities to break people out and to break out rooms, to use jam boards, to do simultaneous things as much as possible. In pre pandemic times, you know, we, we would get together in rooms, but in every single case there's a certain amount of preparation that happens. You don't just do an announcement and call everybody in. You have to talk to the participants, right? You have to find out, you know, what their perception of what they're coming into is, and again, clarity is key. You know, I, I, I just did a, did a facilitation where I got absolutely hammered and nailed because I wasn't clear enough. Right. And I had to come back to the group and, and really be vulnerable and share, like, and apologize. Like, sorry, I didn't prep the way I was supposed to have prepped and I wasted all of your time. And please give me another chance. Let's do this again. Right. And so it takes that level of authenticity, but again, the point of it really is to create the spaces where people feel comfortable to be able to hear other sides that they're not as knowledgeable about. And it's more than tolerance. It's, it's learning, right? It's, it's, it's hearing, it's being curious. It's coming down the ladder of inference and saying, well, how come? And even, you know, with your rules in terms of, you know, people have to be civil and, and there's no intransigence, you know, if there is, then it's, then it's asking why. What's causing that, right? Because I intrinsically believe everybody's a good person. You may act like I'm not so good person. So that requires me to ask you, Hey, what's going on? Why are you like this? What, what's, what's happening? What, you know, and just to keep asking why. Oh, I can really relate to that. You know, it's kind of the notion it's. I, I, I'm thinking of Ron Moon, former chief justice when he, when he was a trial judge. He was a master at settling cases. He settled everything. And he would have you in one side at a time, just like a good arbitrator would have you in or a mediator. And he would test your case. He would say, well, what's your position? And then he would ask you questions about that and see if you could answer, you know, and sort of look at your own case a little bit. And then he would say, well, the other side is never going to agree to that. You know, what do you say to them? When they come up with some objection and so forth. I mean, it was a dialogue of one side with him, then the other side with him, and then he puts you together and effectively we were, you know, you would be all prepared. All three of you would be prepared for the discussion to follow. And I, I, I take your point about being prepared for this. But you know, the other thing is that sometimes an arbitration or mediation, if that a substantial percentage of time, it doesn't work. And I, you know, I make the comparison again. Does it always work with you? No. Not always. I mean, you know, but it depends on what's what your definition of success is. If I can help people to better appreciate differences in perspectives. And that's success and moving forward. Right. If I rarely facilitate for people to, you know, I tend to facilitate the kinds of things where we're co-creating and we don't know what the outcome is going to be. We're just going to have to figure it out together. Right. I, I rarely will facilitate because I want a building to be built or, you know, or being paid to do something like that, even, even in project development in my project, you know, even with respect to that, I'm trying to develop the best project. Right. So I'm co-creating with the stakeholders. What does this mean? And if the company can't do it, then maybe sometimes I have to leave the company and that's happened before. Right. So it, it, I think it, again, it comes to the, it's not a transactional thing. I understand. And that's where it differs. That's where it differs from negotiation or settlement from litigation. Yeah. I understand completely. Let me go back to some key words and, and just sort of throw them at you. Super fairy. Super fairy. Key words. And I'm, you know, and the key, the key word is. Sometimes. You have protests. Demonstrations. And it may not, it may not be. It may not be. It may not be. It may not be. It may not be. It may not be. Demonstrations. And it may not, it may not be really faithful. To anybody in particular, because it has a, it has a life of its own. Once a protest starts going. It's hard to say after a while, who, who exactly is behind this? Who is benefiting by this? Why is there such animosity about this? And to me, I have never figured out super fairy. I've never figured that out because it's the little ones who would have benefited by it. And yet the little people were the ones who protested against it. And at the end of the day, I, it, it, it wasn't the whales. That's just not, that's an alternative reality thing. It wasn't the berries on the boots. That was an alternative reality thing. It was just, in my view, protest for protest at the end of the day, everyone on all sides of the table lost. But what's, what's your thought about that? Does that fit in your wheelhouse on Phillip facilitation? You think it could have been facilitated? If the, I think it, I think it, let me answer it differently. I think it reflected. What we've seen progressively in things in terms of a feeling of inclusion and exclusion. Right. And when people don't feel included in a process. And I'm not saying, you know, whether it's a permitting process or a thought process or a, or, you know, when, when they feel like there's a divide of not being listened to. Right. And I'm not saying you always have to go to the most minority opinion. Right. But when, when, when there's a feeling of lack of inclusion that causes an emotional reaction. Right. And when people start identifying, going back to identity of, of, of, of a feeling of being excluded, they want to take action to adjust that dynamic. Right. There's a wrong. Yeah. I mean, I'm reminded though, and I want to throw this in the mix with you. And this is not dissimilar from all the crazy things that are happening on the mainland, you know, political thing, not, not dissimilar. You know, you know, there was so much discussion at the time of super ferry that there were actors behind the screen. Large commercial entities, such as tug and barge companies, such as airlines and rental cars, who would have been, you know, who have lost some edge in the market if super ferry had continued. And you don't know exactly what they did. You just know they might have done this and they had the ability to do it. And they had the ability thus to change the way people thought. So it required, it required critical thinking. And so the facilitator, in my view, would, would, would sit there with both sides and say, tell me your concern. Let's examine what you think and why you think it and what data you're getting and see how real it is and, and then try to come find common ground based on that. I guess sometimes it's not as simple as a cultural issue or even an inclusion issue. Sometimes there are other players behind the scenes. They're affecting public opinion. Oh, agreed. Definitely. In my experiences at the federal level, that was, that was always in play. Right. And again, in no way shape, let me stand, you know, let me make clear in no way am I saying that facilitation is the answer to everything. I'm saying that in, in order to bridge gaps. And in order to assist with understanding differences in perspectives, right. There's a need for discussion about difficult conversations in terms of being able to move forward in a status quo. Now, when you have outside actors, you know, when you're addressing things, there also has to be an ability to call that out. Right. And to, to be able to address that. And that's why it's important for people to be on both sides. You know, coming together, looking at a situation, because at the end of the day, if the commonality is how did we make this a better place? And you're able to address the economic interests of the bigger players or not, right? It's where do they fit in? Yeah, how do we make this a better place? What is a better place? I mean, some people on one side of the spectrum would say is, oh, I want all kinds of development. I want to have a, you know, robust economy. And I suppose there's, there's a certain attractiveness to that right now because our economy is in the tank. And how are we going to, how are we going to get, get another economy, whether it be the same economy or a different economy? I suppose we're at kind of a turning point about, about that whole question. You know, what, what is a better place now? Do you want to just go back to the way it was? Or do you want a place that's, that realizes our best values? Because not all our best values were frankly realized before. What are your thoughts about that? What is the better place? I think, I think we have a significant opportunity, given, given, notwithstanding the tragedies of the pandemic, but I do think we have a significant opportunity of moving forward. Because the pandemic helped to outline a lot of what people had been saying was, was, were issues of concern with respect to our economy, with respect to the trajectory we were on, right? And then you add things like global climate change. And what does that actually mean? And then if you juxtapose that with indigenous perspectives, you know, in, in, in the indigenous perspective many times, the human is the youngest sibling out of the entire universe of all the animate and inanimate objects, right? So if you think family wise, as your youngest sibling, screwing everything up for everybody, like how do you reset that? How do you rebalance that, right? And it comes down to, I think, perspective, I think for Hawaii, food systems, locally solvent markets are, you know, for a long time we've been talking about our reliance on importation, whether it's for food or for energy, right? Those are basic needs. And there's a strong history of the people who lived in these islands for many years with similar levels of population who were able to manage the biosystems such that there was an abundance of food and clean water. And so how do we utilize that science and technology and that, that ancestral knowledge but innovate and apply a contemporary application of that to be able to move forward? I think there's a lot of discussion about that right now. And, and I think there's a lot of really exciting opportunities coming up. I totally agree. And, you know, it actually seems like an easy point that we know about agriculture. We know about the Aina. We know, we know how to grow things and make them thrive. And yet we go, we get lazy and we take it from the mainland like cargo cult. We can't do that. We shouldn't do that. We're an island state. We have to be, you know, self-reliant. In my view, that's really important in what you're saying. But let me, let me go to one thing and it's the last part of our discussion because we're going to be out of time. Although I think we could go on for a long time on this. So, so now we, you know, right now there's criticism of a Biden because people, some people feel that his, you know, appointees do not accurately proportionately reflect the diversity of the country. You know, he's got some who do not. He's got a lot who don't. They don't reflect the diversity of the country. And so, you know, you could apply the same test to Hawaii. And we have a lot of diversity for sure. And we have diversity in government. But my question to you is, do we have enough diversity in government? Do we have enough native Hawaiians who are sitting as judges, who are holding high office? Kaikaheli is a very interesting phenomenon. You know, we, we should deal with what goes on in Washington. But, you know, query shouldn't native Hawaiians be holding more seats in the ledge? Shouldn't native Hawaiians be sitting on more courts? Shouldn't native Hawaiians be more involved in government as appointed officials? Have we met, have we met an appropriate standard on that? And wouldn't it help to have more? I think it would always help to have more. And again, it goes to perspectives and it goes to qualifications, right? I think there's a lot of focus on, on building understanding of what it takes to be OED leaders, of civic leaders. There's, there's a lot more understanding of history and culture and perspectives, whether or not you're native Hawaiian or not, right? And, and I think the more qualified people we have, the better leaders we have, the more courageous leaders we have, the better off Hawai'i will be. In terms of your question, should, should there be more of an indigenous perspective? Absolutely, right? Should there be, should, can we get to a place where people don't see that as threatening? I sure hope so, right? Can we get to a place where people can begin to discuss how do we innovate and how do we, you know, look back to move forward and celebrate our diversity like the rainbow, right? That's, that's going to take courage, that's going to take leadership, right? And so in that case, I think, you know, it's important to start working with the youth and the good news is there are a lot of super good youth programs that are really focused on that now and I'm excited for what the next generation will bring us. At the same time, we have to deal with that right now. They're, they're, they're qualified people, but absolutely, should we always increase perspectives? I think so. Yeah, we had a, we had a show a few days ago with a woman, a local woman who went to the mainland, you know, and she did well in school but decided to come back. It wasn't important to her to stick around on the mainland to make a lot of money. She wanted to come back and run a nonprofit, really smart and trained and she's very successful at her nonprofit and I was so impressed and I said to her, you know, you're not alone in this, you must have some other friends, you know, who have gone to the mainland, didn't done well in school, come back, dedicated to trying to make this a better place and she said, yeah, I have many friends like that and they're all coming back. We are in a time, a transitional time so do you agree with that? My last question, do you agree with that? No, are we in a transitional time where we have people like that who recognize the issues and the possibilities and who are actively trying to make it happen? Absolutely. We are totally in a transitional time and as someone who went to the mainland and came back, you don't have to go to the mainland. I mean, it gives you, it gives you perspective, but there are a lot of people way smarter than me who stayed here and who are, who have made this place so much better that allowed me to have the opportunities when I came back to be able to work with them, to be able to learn from them and now to join them in what is really happening in terms of transition. So it's an exciting, you know, it is a very exciting time right now and I would fully agree that we have a lot of people, you know, focused on how do, you know, how do we make this, how do we make Hawaii thrive? And yeah, we have a variety, thrive better. That's like the color of blue, right? We have to dive down and really be clear about what do we mean? How do we measure that and how do we work together on the same side of the table? Yes, absolutely. Oh gosh, I have so enjoyed this conversation and I wonder whether you have, I like to know if you have enjoyed this conversation and whether there's anything that troubles you about it or anything you feel we have missed knowing. Thank you, Jay. I really have enjoyed it. When I didn't know what to expect and I've truly enjoyed the questions. Thank you, thank you very much. And, you know, and I would say that a lot of what I do is really based on what Kumu have taught me and I was super lucky to work with incredible people. I come from a great family, a very large family, a very realistic people. You know, my grandma had a saying, you know, don't get too big for your britches, you know, and I was a very early rotten kid, you know, and so we always remember that at the same time I was able to work with Senator Akaka who always said, no matter what your environment, it is our duty to demonstrate aloha and I have to say that was one of the hardest things I've ever done, you know, working in the United States Senate, nobody even understands what aloha means and to be able to have to demonstrate it repeatedly was a challenge, but it was a great opportunity and have been able to bring it home and work in it, work with it with all of the youth that I am fortunate to work with. It lives in you, Noe, and I hope we can, you know, circle back and have further discussions about all these things. Thank you, Jay. Aloha.