February 13, 2005 - Sunday

Coming soon! I'll post today's entry after getting back from our sunrise walk to the beach. I blame the delay on an hour of extra sleep.

February 12, 2005 - Saturday

5:30 a.m. and the Star-Bulletin's Saturday edition is online, while the Advertiser is still on Friday.

Here's another "read it and weep" account from the New Yorker of the dismal state of American justice.

State procurement? One reader commented:

When I see the words, "State Procurement Office," all I can picture is the official office for the oldest profession."

With all the "pay to play" campaign contribution deals that have been uncovered, this confusion is understandable. Of course, the reality is that the procurement office is supposed to eliminate the insider favoritism in contract awards.

And a web search finally located one small reference to the Wahiawa Hotel in a five year old Advertiser column reminiscing about the Wahiawa of old:

You walked by the Wahiawa Hotel on your way to the Wahiawa Elementary School on Lehua Street? Or had to walk all the way to Leilehua High School.

The Los Angeles Times shines its spotlight on Hawaiian music in an article today about the new island category in the Grammy's.

And I received this informative message yesterday from musician Leon Siu:

Just came across the pictures from the "Hawaii Loa-Ku Like Kakou" event. Yes, it was January 1977.

The third from the last photo has 3 musicians, the first is identified in the caption as Owana Salazar. The woman in the middle is Haunani Ahsing who was Miss Hawaii that year (Owana was runner up).

January 1977, Iolani Palace Bandstand

They used to hang with Liko, Kawaipuna, Aunty Pilahi and me in the months leading up to the event. We used to meet on a boat in Ala Wai Harbor. Don Ho was quite involved too.

In fact, we did the recording of "All Hawaii-Stand Together" at the Polynesian Palace (where Don was performing at that time). Don was working on one of his albums and had all the equipment all ready set up. So he let us do it there. The chorus on that recording was the Kawaihao Church Choir.

Mahalo nui loa for the photo-document of the event.

Thanks, Leon. Now I'll have to go back later today and summarize this in the photo caption.

February 11, 2005 - Friday

I was sorry to read of the death of UH political scientist Werner Levi. I took at least a couple of classes from him both as an undergraduate and graduate student at UH. He made international relations both interesting and understandable. This was long ago, shortly after dinosaurs lost their place in the natural order, but at least one of Werner's quips sticks in my memory: "You think this is a free country? Just try and buy a submarine." I've never forgotten that sage bit of advice.

After getting error messages when trying to follow several different links on the State Procurement Office web site, I reported the problem. Their webmaster responded: "Actually the error message come up when the server is down. The Windows server that hosts those sites has been acting up. We are in the process of replacing the server with a new server." Ah, Windows. For us Mac folks, that's a sufficient explanation.

It seems that starting our walk just 10 minutes early on Wednesday morning had unintended. Yesterday morning we learned that a seal hauled himself (or herself) onto the sand at about this spot just minutes after we walked by. Minutes. He reportedly stopped by again in the afternoon. All that remained yesterday morning were the excited accounts from other regulars who managed to be at the right place at the right time.

Martha from Seattle asked for an update on Mr. Romeo. Well, he survived takeoff just fine, thank you. So this week we decided to start the next level integration by bringing him upstairs at least part time. So I stayed home on Tuesday to supervise the initial round. I moved his cat box along with a water dish and food dish into our bedroom, then moved cat. I put him down on the floor in the living room. He looked around, sniffed, walked down the hall, sniffed, went into the bedroom, sniffed, then went slinking under our bed and stayed there for the next five hours. After failing at various cat whisperer attempts, I just closed the door and just left him. He finally got tired of scrunching down to fit under bed level and also got hungry, so tentatively reappeared for at least long enough to clean out the bowl of food. Then back under the bed. A bit later he emerged long enough for me to pick him and deliver him back downstairs.

Romeo spent yesterday closed in our bedroom again, and again immediately crawled under the bed. There is some curiousity among the other cats, so one or another can often be found sitting outside the closed bedroom door. Once or twice there have been paw interactions under the door. But Romeo still favors the under-the-bed cave. I figure a couple more rounds of this and then we'll open the bedroom door and see what happens. It might be rough going, but he certainly hasn't seemed to be aggressive. So we'll see.

Yesterday's reference to the Wahiawa Hotel brought two responses so far. One reader said she planned on checking with her mother, and another dug into his personal history for these recollections:

I like to claim Wahiawa as my "home town," since it is where I lived the longest while growing up (elementary through high school). We moved there from Lana`i in 1949, and I was enrolled in the fourth grade at Wahiawa Elementary which was in what appeared to be old barracks type buildings on property where the current Wahiawa General Hospital is located. When I see photographs of Japanese American citizen internment camp facilities on the mainland I am reminded of those school buildings. What sparked the reminiscing was the 'phone number in the newsclip you posted this morning - 469. If memory serves, our 'phone number when we moved to Wahiawa was 735, and not long after that we were assigned a four-digit number - 5084. Funny how those little details stick - and how, now, in Wahiawa, most stuff is where something else "used to be." I have no idea where the Wahiawa Hotel was, but knowing the reach of your blog someone will likely let yo u know.

February 10, 2005 - Thursday

The Advertiser's front page headline yesterday was designed as an attention grabber: "Rail tax could cost family $900 more".

The whole story revolves around an estimate uncritically accepted from the Tax Foundation of Hawaii. The foundation claims that a "statistical" family of 4 making $82,000 a year already pays about $3,500 in excise tax that would rise by $875 if the rate were boosted to fund rail transit.

But those numbers seem questionable.

With an excise tax rate of 4 percent, that same family of four would have to spend more than $84,000 on goods and services subject to the excise tax to hit the $3,500 claimed by the Foundation (3500 divided by .0416, even using the higher "compounded" rate now applied by many merchants). That would be more than the family's entire gross income.

And there are major family expenses not subject to the excise tax, such as mortgage payments, state and federal taxes, etc., if I recall correctly. In any case, total and uncritical reliance on Tax Foundation numbers seems to be unjustified at best.

And the Advertiser's "new" policy of relying on unsolicited comments from readers certainly appears to be leading to another form of bias in coverage, with nothing done in this story to balance the anti-tax reflex.

On the other hand, I have to admit that I didn't vote for Mufi Hannemann, but I've been quite impressed with how he has handled himself since taking office. I watched with interest his appearance on the Star-Bulletin's new "Island Insights" program on PBS Hawaii (reporter Richard Borreca has done a good job as moderator and the program deserves high ratings). Hannemann in public is direct in stating his views, even those most politicians try to mumble through because they know a public reaction is likely.

And for a newly elected mayor to immediately talk tax increases and higher costs right out of the gate is a gutsy move for which I give Hannemann lots of credit. The city has been running on empty for years, allowing services, roads, and facilities to deteriorate. Mufi says he's going to reverse the decline despite the costs. He's winning my respect.

The controversy over pseudo-reporter Jeff Gannon, who was given access to White House press conferences in order to lob softballs from right field, has been heating up for a week with coverage by the Boston Globe, lots of attention in blogdom, and a public inquiry from a member of Congress. Yesterday Gannon resigned under fire.

Interestingly, in an NPR interview, (partial transcript available) Gannon mentions stories being picked up by "Hawaiian reporters", evidently a reference to Hawaii Reporter, which has featured dozens of Gannon's pieces.

I found this undated clipping among the small stack of papers and photographs left after the death in 1948 of my grandfather's friend of many years, Emil Kruss, a native of Germany who made his way to Hawaii at the end of the 19th century. Today I'm scheduled to have lunch with a grand niece of Mr. Kruss, Martina Kruss-Leibrock, who now heads the 150-year old Kruss family company, which produces scientific instruments and industrial equipment. She's on her way back to Germany with her husband after a trade show in the U.S. I'll be returning the papers left my Mr. Kruss, along with his treasured barometer, made by the company about 1860. I can show them where Emil Kruss was buried (Nuuanu's Oahu Cemetery), but I still don't know the specific location of the Wahiawa Hotel, listed in directories at the time simply as "Wahiawa". I guess there wasn't much else around back then.

February 9, 2005 - Wednesday

Rumors circulating in some Manoa circles that UH Chancellor Peter Englert is about to join the ex-UH club appear to be off base. According to the rumor mill, Englert is negotiating for a position at a university in Korea. But insiders say there's no evidence of these negotiations and that Englert is committed to UH for the long run, although his initial contract is up mid-year and a review of his job performance is underway.

The Christian Science Monitor reported Monday on continuing cases of bloggers getting bounced from their day jobs by unhappy bosses. Others picked up the issue as well. Oregon writer Curt Hopkins published a compilation of cases in December, and others have added their own updates. I contacted Curt yesterday to put my name on the list as well.

And top the morning off with a few fragments from a longer email from another reporter who's retired from the Honolulu daily news business:

This note is almost as much writing as I am doing at a time these days---I occasionally string for a wire service, and get requests to write speeches or reports from time to time, but now spoiled by not having a boss for almost two years I find it difficult to put my time in someone else's hands again.

I sure look at the papers in a different way these days. Just today I was wondering why all dead soldiers are "fallen warriors," and how a Hawaii legislative committee report can be the most important event in the entire world in the previous 24 hours.

And I used to love the idea of a Honolulu transit system, but now that I go into town less often I wonder why we windward folks are going to be asked to help pay to build a system which will serve us not at all and will increase property values for major and minor landowners otherwise stuck with a long commute from red dirt country into town.

Meanwhile, I'm off to the fantasy world of condo mediation this morning, one of the duties of agreeing to serve on a condo board. It's a long way from Kaaawa.

February 8, 2005 - Tuesday

I must have been thinking about journalism as an art, craft, trade, and industry as I wandered the web this morning.

Over in Portland, the Oregonian had to apologize to readers for a page 1 story that relied on a fabricated tale from a source. It was a compelling story told with much supporting evidence. But the paper had to admit its reporter had failed to check out details that might have exposed the larger fabrications, and editors failed to catch the omissions. Could it happen here? No doubt.

Editor & Publisher reported that the Pentagon's practice of making "inappropriate" payments to journalists to write friendly stories is being investigated. Again?

And a long New Yorker story by Nicholas Lemann explores the vice that is squeezing mainstream journalism from both left and right. I recently had a couple of occasions to test the waters in that rushing river of public scepticism fueled by a mix of fact, conjecture, paranoia, rumor, "popular" misconception, and ideological predisposition. It's out there in the broader community and both more serious and more cutting than most working reporters and editors imagine.

Then I happened across several illustrations of responses. There's the "free" news initiative, now getting another major boost with the introduction of the Washington Examiner, a free D.C. tabloid seen as a test for a much broader publisher model.

Dan Gillmor's grassroots journalism blog presents a good discussion of the potential role of mainstream newspapers in community journalism. And podcasting got a big boost via a widely distributed AP story, another reminder of the popularity of person-to-person grassroots journalism.

Lots to ponder.

February 7, 2005 - Monday

More insight on the Star-Bulletin's financial condition comes from Toronto, where Torstar Corp. reports S-B parent Black Press "continues to exceed expectations". According to the 3rd Quarter 2004 financial report posted on the Torstar corporate web site:

Associated Business

Torstar has a 19.35% equity investment in Black Press Ltd., a privately held company that publishes 95 newspapers (both dailies and weeklies) and has 13 printing plants in Western Canada, Washington State and Hawaii. Torstar also has a 30% interest in Q-ponz Inc., a coupon envelope business based in Toronto. Black Press's performance continues to exceed expectations as the business is growing well. Year to date (9 months ending Sept. 30, 2004) Torstar's share of net income associated businesses was $0.2 million compared with a loss of $0.2 million in 2003.

An accompanying table put the combined income attributed to Black Press and Q-ponz for the quarter at just $28,000, and for the 9th months at $238,000. Both are substantially ahead of the prior year, when a nine month loss of $216,000 was reported.

There is no indication of how these results were allocated between Black Press and Q-ponz.

Fourth quarter and full year results are expected to be announced on February 23.

Also noted in an October 2004 press release from Micromedia ProQuest is an agreement to distributed 62 Black Press newspapers in electronic form to libraries, schools and universities, and other markets. The agreement apparently does not include the Star-Bulletin.

Here's a scary legislative proposal introduced in Ohio by a conservative politician who has expressed concern about the political leanings of academics because, he says, ""80 percent or so of them (professors) are Democrats, liberals or Socialists or card-carrying Communists."

The bill seeks to regulate classroom presentation of "controversial" issues.

Its sponsor, Sen. Larry Mumper,

...said some professors try to indoctrinate students by stifling student opinions or through assigning required reading such as "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser; a book Mumper said was "an attack on the free market."

And this in a state that ended up in the "red" column by a very narrow margin. We're in trouble.

A reader had this comment on yesterday's link to the story of a soldier's blog:

What that guy failed to realize is that when he signed the contract for military service, he signed away all his rights under the Constitution. That's right, ALL his rights. A soldier is no longer protected by nor falls under the Constitution of the United States. The solder, upon signing, falls under the UCMJ, or Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Thus, when the soldier blogger describes the colonel as "not knowing him from a bucket of paint," he was wrong. To the colonel, he was NO DIFFERENT from a bucket of paint. On signing for military duty, you become property of the U.S. government.

To illustrate, back in 1973 or 1974 while stationed on a submarine in Pearl Harbor, a very fair-skinned friend of mine had a day off and went to the beach. He fell asleep on the beach. When he woke up, he had sunburned to a crisp, to the point where there were huge blisters all over his skin. He went to the dispensary, was cleaned up and sent back to ship. I should note that this was a sweet guy who wouldn't harm a fly and didn't have any mean or malicious intent in him. He was nonetheless court martialed for "damaging government property" and sent to the brig, fined and demoted.

I experienced this first-hand, five different times on 15 charges during my four years in the Navy. All of it was for insignificant, trivial charges that in civilian life would have meant absolutely nothing. Yet at one time, I was sentenced to three days bread and water for being three minutes late for work and for disagreeing with a guy who had one more stripe than me and who happened to be my roommate!

So the soldier blogger was deluded into thinking he had some personal rights, but he was wrong.

I'm not defending the military in this. I think it sucks that those defending our rights have none of their own. But that's the way it is.

Today started out slow and then turned into a computer nightmare. First I was late and didn't get this entry checked and uploaded before our current 6:30 a.m. walk time.

Then when I got back, I just went to save the day's changes, which sent the program I'm using, Adobe's GoLive, into its internal file checking and memory cleanup routine, which takes more time. Just as it was to wrap up its work--can you see this coming?--GoLive crashed. Boom. Attempting to simply reopen the site file got me a simple message: Site file corrupted, can't open.

Okay, open the backup file which is supposed to be made automatically. No backup can be found. And, to make it worse, I can't find a help file for dealing with a corrupted site file.

Luckily, the GoLive site file is it's index of the actual web files, which are safe and intact. So I started the site file from scratch, as if I were using GoLive for the first time on a web site created by other software. It took a while, but seems to have worked. So far, at least. My fingers are crossed.

A less demanding computer chore and one everybody needs to do from time to time is cleaning the computer screen., and I most certainly enjoy this particular technique. Unless, of course, your computer won't load the silly thing. Well, give it a try at least.

I keep being reminded of what a difference Google has made. Because of Google, I could enjoy a cat news fix this morning, including the tale of Sam, the maintenance mouser at Pink Hill Park in Blue Springs, Missouri, and the Newsday story reporting that fears of cats spreading disease are wildly overblown, or the description of Britain's first fat camp for portly cats and dogs.

You can tell that my brain is (was) in neutral early on this fine Sunday morning.

If your brain is a bit more awake, stop by the Iraq Blog Count, scroll down a couple of entries to "All I did was include more details", a soldier's recounting of the cost of doing what good journalists are trained to do, get the details. There are lots of other informative entries, but this one grabbed my attention.

It might require a free registration, but this story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution with some of those details of football recruiting reminds you what sports reporting can do, as we get very little of this variety in our local spread of news.

I notice that the Star-Bulletin demoted its Sunday editorial section, which today appeared beginning inside on page 5 of the health & science section, "Pulse". On the front page valuable real estate is taken up by a NYT column of questionable value for readers of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, a health column "Shoveling snow can trigger heart attacks." Tell me that shoveling plumeria leaves or false Kamani seeds is a health hazard and I'll stop and listen. Snow? No.