Re: ATM - Bad News for Hawaii Telescopes

[Dominic-Luc Webb molmed <Dominic.Luc-Webb@molmed.ki.se>]

On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Richard Schwartz wrote:

> Sunday's Los Angeles Times had a front page piece on the Hawaii
> telescopes.   It seems that the telescopes are offending the sacred
> goddesses of the Hawaiian people.

I am sure it is their polite way of saying that the
telescopes (or any un-natural structure) on top of
these mountains destroy the natural beauty of their
precious mountains. I am also sure that people who place
higher values on natural splendors of their local parks
than astronomy must find these large observatories
very imposing. They really do not need to invoke
the Gods to make their case, but I suppose in a legal
dispute its better than saying "the things are unsightly
and I want to kick someone's ??? in court".

It may be of general interest to note this problem
crops up in many cultures. Where I live, near Uppsala
Sweden, some excellent vistas I thought should be
excellent for a telescope turned out to be too good
to be true. In many cases these sites were protected
Viking historical sites. To those not interested in
Vikings, its a nuisance to see the government
protecting (litterally) a couple of small stones
on the ground that (might) denote a small burial
or worship site. On the flip side, some such
sites were recently shown to be ancient
observatories. By preventing us from putting
up observatories, our governments sometimes
preserves (inadvertantly of course) the hard
labors of ATMs who came long before us.

So Richard, your new task will be to pile up
some rocks neatly on some convenient peak.

Cheers,


Dominic

North 59 37' 30"
East  17 48' 10"

Currently in Boston, MA, USA