West Point Cultural Landscape Report

Volcano update: Controlled burn helps native landscape

The controlled burn, taking place in Kealakomowaena, will regenerate the growth of native pili grass and other indigenous plant species, as well as maintain a cultural landscape once occupied by families living in the Kealakomo ahupua‘a.

There were no closures because of the burn, and park visitors and normal park activities were not be impacted.

Kealakomowaena is an island of vegetation, or kīpuka, spared by recent lava flows in the middle of the Kealakomo ahupua‘a. Officials say Hawaiians thrived in this coastal lowland area, growing sweet potatoes, harvesting fish and drying salt. House sites, trails, lava rock walls and agricultural plots are found throughout Kealakomowaena. The controlled burn was conducted by an eight-person fire crew, in a manner to help maintain the traditional landscape of the area.

The national park says controlled burning is part of a comprehensive restoration plan for the coastal lowland ecosystem at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park.

Here is the latest update on the Kilauea volcano eruption, courtesy the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory , posted on August 24:

Activity Summary for past 24 hours : Inflation slowed. At the summit, the lava lake continued with drain-and-fill cycles. In the middle east rift zone, the lava level continued to rise within Pu`u `O`o crater but there was still no sign of activity from the west flank vents. Seismicity, other than the episodic tremor bursts associated with the fill-and-drain cycles, was low. Gas emissions remained elevated from summit and rift zone vents. All lava activity remained within Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park and posed no direct hazard to any developed areas.

Past 24 hours at Kilauea summit : The lava level continued to fluctuate in 15-20 minute-long fill-and-drain cycles, each fill bringing the lava level to a high point below the inner ledge (the ledge is 75 m or 250 ft below Halema`uma`u Crater floor); lava fills the vent cavity bottom from the southeast and also drains toward the same place. The most recent (preliminary) sulfur dioxide emission rate measurement was 500 tonnes/day on August 19, 2011. Small amounts of ash-sized tephra, including fresh spatter bits, continued to be wafted within the plume and deposited on nearby surfaces.

Ban on Bombay's Bar Dancers: Has 'the Cultural Landscape been ...

By Adab Nawaz,NewAgeIslam.com

Much has changed since the Maharashtra government pulled plug on the dance bars on August 15, 2005. Lights in the “sleazy spots”, the “pickup points” are dimmed even as the cultural landscape, at least in the official vocabulary, has been redeemed to its pristine purity

Follow up:

. The Bombay High Court’s judgment of April 12, 2006, lifting the ban on the dance bars didn’t mitigate the sorrow of the “sultry sirens” as the government challenged HC’s order in the Supreme Court where the matter drags on. And R R Patil, the man who had called the cavernous, dimly-lit entertainment hubs “centres of sleaze”, after his unceremonious exit in the aftermath of 26/11 attacks, is back in the saddle as state home minister.

But wait. This is not the complete picture. While the government paints a comforting picture of having cleansed the city of the “immoral” practices after banning dance bars, one woman has the temerity to call the bluff of the politico-babu nexus. Flavia Agnes doesn’t suffer the fools easily. And she is back to what she likes to do: Rekindling the fire which has lay dormant for a while. While the middle class is sanguine in its belief that the “vice of bar dancing” has been bottled, Agnes says it’s denial of a stark truth. Perhaps nobody in Mumbai has followed the case of the bar girls so closely as the feisty feminist Agnes has. She has agonized over it and is readying to mourn more the death of what she says a struggle which could have paved way for empowerment to women. Having written extensively on the issue, Agnes is bracing up to revisit her pet topic. She presented her paper titled The Politics The of Marginalised Existence: the Case of the Bar Dancer at a two-day (January 9 and 10) at seminar on gender concerns at YMCA, Central Mumbai.

“Despite the media blitzkrieg and a favourable HC ruling that the dancers have right to earn livelihood by performing in dance bars, the girls seem to have lost,” says 60-year-old Agnes, seated at the book-lined office of Majlis, the centre which provides legal aid to the harassed women. “Nobody asks the discomforting question of what happened to the 75000 dancers who were left jobless at the stroke of midnight on August 14, 2005.

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