By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Harry Weinberg, who was a fierce businessman in life and is now, after his death, a generous benefactor to numerous charitable organizations, is famously quoted as advising people to buy land instead of cars. Don't put your money in steel, he said. Metal only rusts. Buy land. They're not making more of the stuff.

As incongruous as it seems to quote Harry Weinberg in a piece about aloha 'aina, about love of the land, the multimillionaire land owner understood an essential point that seems to be lost to the U.S. military: There is a finite amount of land in Hawai'i. What is here is precious. Irreplaceable. Once a parcel is used past the point of being useful, it is the ultimate poho to board it up, fence it off and go looking for more land to shoot up.

(Oh, OK, if you want to argue that indeed new land is being made all the time by Kilauea volcano, go right ahead. But that's a thin argument as far as land use over the next several millennia is concerned.)

Everyone agrees that land in Hawai'i is worth a lot.

We read stories of land values and the median price of homes going up, up, up.

On Maui, the developed land is exceeding the water supply, but that doesn't seem to stop or slow the upzoning and building.

On Kaua'i, what used to be pasture and forest and shore land has become million-dollar mansions. The open lands that were loved by local families are now fenced off, gated playgrounds for the very wealthy.

On O'ahu, homes are being built with strips of grass the length and width of a queen-size bed, and these tiny plots are called a "yard."

And the Marines decide they can't train on 187 acres of land in Waikane valley, because it's been all trained-out already by both the Army and Marines. It's not safe, because of all the unexploded ordnance. So they want to find someplace else that is safe. And shoot that place up.

That's just one example. The present climate is so similar to that after World War II, when the military felt justified in taking Kaho'olawe. The list of targets this time around includes Polihale on Kaua'i, areas in central O'ahu and more land near Pohakuloa on the island of Hawai'i. Plans for the Stryker Brigade call for a lot of land.

But they're not making more of the stuff.

And what is here, the land in Hawai'i, is more valuable than money. It is as valuable as life because it has life, it gives life, it supports life.

It doesn't matter if the Army paid a million or a billion dollars to purchase the Waikane land in condemnation. The land is a living thing. It's like putting a price on a human life.

Our state motto should be more than something we make kids memorize in the fifth grade. It should be more than the words on the government seal.

Ua mau ke ea o ka 'aina i ka pono.

The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.

What could be righteous, honorable and free from guilt or wrong about ruining Hawaiian land and walking away from the mess, only to look for a new place to destroy?

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.