March 12, 2005 - Saturday

I started the morning with a good story from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner about Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, close friend and ally of Hawaii's Dan Inouye. Although focused on Stevens and the issue of drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, it reflects on the general mood in Congress, changing politics, and the loss of civility among senators.

Stevens talk of retirement has important implications for Hawaii, since both Inouye and Stevens rely on their strong ties to maneuver through stormy Senate politics. It's also a reminder that Inouye's eventual retirement will likely leave Hawaii without access to all those pork barrel projects that have provided support for the islands' economy.

And then on to a cat tale with a Hawaii connection, another story of a cat getting "lost" during a move to the mainland.

Why am I not surprised that CompUSA has been whacked by the Federal Trade Commission for its past handling of product rebates? The CompUSA store downtown is always busy, but at the same time computer users love to share horror stories about shopping there.

Gannett has been cleared to proceed with its purchase of a chain of weekly newspapers in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, according to stories earlier this week. Diversity continues to decline.

The Star-Bulletin reports today on a law suit against the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and others over the adequacy of warnings of the recent Indian Ocean waves. That's only three weeks after published reports of the suit were noted here (see the last item in my Feb. 16 entry).

And so it goes on a wet Saturday morning.

March 11, 2005 - Friday

From an Atlanta reader: "60 degrees?! Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo! Try 28."

But I bet her house isn't 60 degrees with wind blustering through single walls, windows with glass louvers that don't shut completely, and no way to crank up the heat.

On the other hand, I know that we can still walk on the beach in shorts at dawn, and it will get back to75 degrees or so by mid-morning. So I'll quit whining about weather, despite the thunderstorms forecast for tonight and tomorrow.

So what's going on over at the city? I was able to find Mayor Hannemann's budget proposals online a week ago on the mayor's web page, but now the documents have gone walkabout. And the page that is supposed to provide access to bills and resolutions being considered by the City Council stops with 2004 and apparently contains no information since December. Is public information being considered part of the "nice to have" instead of "need to have"? That would be a plunge back in time to the bad old days. And just in time for Sunshine Week and Freedom of Information Day next week.

From the Seattle Times, a less than generous description of much of our state:

Now Waikiki has morphed into wall-to-wall high-rises, dwarfing the Royal Hawaiian. Maui's Kaanapali hotel strip has traffic jams to rival Seattle's. And all around Hawaii, they've paved paradise and put up big-box stores — one of the world's biggest Wal-Marts opened in Honolulu in October.

In the end, enough of the "real Hawaii" could be found to keep this travel writer positive. But this kind of description can't be good news for Waikiki, long seen as the engine of the industry.

A Knight Ridder story last month flagged a trend worth noting--the disappearance of the traditional "secretary".

The number of secretaries, administrative assistants, receptionists and clerks has fallen by one-third over roughly the past two decades, from 3.9 million in 1983 to 2.6 million in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

And those who are left are too busy training staff members, researching presentations and serving on committees to spend their days typing and filing.

We've all seen it or experienced it, but it's good to see someone make the point directly.

Thanks to "On the Media" for its interview with Charles Lewis, the founder and retiring director of the Center for Public Integrity.

Things on the cat front are almost back to normal. Romeo's become part of the nightly roundup without incident. Bilateral relations seem to have sorted themselves out. Wally and Silverman are the last holdouts. Ms. Wally goes into an elaborate growling routine whenever Romeo gets within 8-10 feet. The good news is that Romeo cringes at her display of bravado and moves away. Silverman just tries to slip in, eat, and run away without being seen, but this is better than when Cybelle's kittens somehow made him disappear for several months.

Mr. Romeo, with Leo watching (on the chair) watching from a safe distance.

March 10, 2005 - Thursday

Last weekend, when forecasters predicted heavy rain for several days, all was calm and dry.

Yesterday, when broadcast meteorologists were talking about occasional showers, it was socked in with rain and clouds all along the windward side. It was a wet night and continues to be a wet and blustery morning. And did I mention cold? It appears to be around 60 degrees (F) as I write. Brrrr.

Still more indications of a significant conflict between Hawaii's general tourism marketing and convention marketing, this time from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where members of the Jefferson County Quorum Court were forced into an open public discussion of sending delegates to the Honolulu meeting of the National Association of Counties.

One member, who announced he would not attend the meeting, is quoted:

"I've expressed my displeasure with the National Association of Counties about the location because it has caused problems not only here, but nationwide," he said.

The Wall Street Journal reports today on the ouster of Royal Hawaiian Band leader Aaron Mahi, playing it primarily in the context of Native Hawaiians vs. Non-Hawaiians, with Mahi portrayed as the last Hawaiian member of the band.

The WSJ also reports that 60 percent of employers surveyed by the American Management Association monitor employees e-mail, and only two states require that employees be notified. It would be interesting to know whether the percentage of newsrooms with active snooping is this high.

If you don't yet make use of tools like Google's news search, it is a habit to be cultivated. For example, enter "sunshine law" and get a broad overview of current issues relating to openness in government around the country. It's an invaluable shortcut to a national perspective on such issues.

I'm continuing to have instability problems with the program I rely on for this site (Adobe's GoLive). This might mean I'll be forced to shell out for the current version, although I'm only one version behind. I was hoping to avoid that investment since all this results in -$0- offsetting income, but further stalling may not be possible. It's news fit for a wet and gloomy morning.

The GoLive spell checker flagged "Hawaii's" as questionable and returned the alternative "Hee-haws". Is there a message there?

March 9, 2005 - Wednesday

The Los Angeles Times had a story yesterday about people living on or near Big Island lava flows, "The lure of life on lava." An interesting piece.

And from the San Francisco Chronicle, another tale of Hawaii.

Here's a recent report "live" from a Newspaper Guild picket line in Ohio

This is not new, but newly noted and sad nonetheless. News clips from Aspen, Colorado, report that Stefan Schutter, son of once flamboyant Honolulu attorney David Schutter, is currently mid-way through a 10-year sentence for his part in a 1999 crime spree involving a dozen high school friends.

"...Prison is a hard place to grow up," Stefan wrote in a statement to the Aspen Times Weekly for a 2003 follow-up on the group.

More on the Hon Chew Hee dueling foundations.

The artist left his personal collection to the Hon Chew Hee Estate Foundation to be used to fund scholarships. The Estate Foundation is a tax exempt 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS and their financial information is available to the public on Guidestar.com.

The Hon Chew Hee Art Foundation is registered in Hawaii as a nonprofit organization but is not recognized as tax exempt by the IRS.  There appears to be no financial information available about whether and how it performs its stated nonprofit corporate purposes or whether the directors and officers are compensated.

A reader who has had personal experience with both the Star-Bulletin and Advertiser had this reaction to the report of modest growth in circulation at the S-B.

I’m still skeptical about the SB’s circulation being paid. It may be larger, but I continue to receive a free subscription, no bill ever, no phone calls asking for money any more. Surely I can’t be alone. They do provide better service, though, which is ironic since I never pay a bill – and consequently cannot give the delivery person a gratuity for their superior service.

This note from the Honolulu Community-Media Council:

Reminder to RSVP for the Honolulu Community Media Council’s annual Freedom of Information Day celebration to be held on Wednesday, March 16 at the East-West Center, Imin Conference Center Garden Level.

11:30 am registration, 12:00 lunch; Cost: $17 sponsor group members, $22 general public. $3 campus parking. RSVP required no later than Monday, March 14, at 748-0880 or hc-mc@verizon.net

Keynote speaker Bill Dedman, Pulitzer-awarded Boston Globe journalist, national recognized trainer in computer-assisted investigative research. Sponsored by Honolulu Community Media Council, East-West Center, Society of Professional Journalists, SPJ UH Chapter, UH Journalism Program and Ka Leo.

If you have already RSVP’d thank you and we look forward to seeing you on March 16.

And a milestone of sorts: Mr. Romeo spent the night inside with us last night. Well, with us and, more importantly, seven other cats. It's the first time they've all been confined together in relatively close quarters. Routines were definitely disrupted. Romeo quickly staked out a position in the middle of our bed and didn't move from there all night except to extort a few sleepy pets from the people. Leo and Toby, who have regular nightly positions on the bed, slept elsewhere. Ms. Kili, the most regular of the bed cats, didn't slip into her regular position until the early morning hours. But all in all, it appears the integration of this former stray into the household can be declared a success.

March 8, 2005 - Tuesday

Rumor from the Star-Bulletin is that folks in the management offices are excited by a modest circulation gain over the past year, with paid circulation now said to be in the neighborhood of 65,000. That's only half of the Advertiser's claimed circulation but, if true, the S-B's situation has stabilized or possibly even reversed more than a decade of steady declines.

I should have known there were deeper reasons that I was drawn to Sunday's Star-Bulletin story by Rob Perez about the estate of artist Hon Chew Hee. I've discovered two personal links to the tale. Both reflecting that "small world" syndrome that so often strikes unexpectedly.

click for larger view

First, it turns out that I was one of the beneficiaries of the bulk sale of hundreds of Hee's paintings to New York collector David Liu, who then resold many via eBay. A dive into one of our crowded closets yielded a letter-size mailing envelope with two Hee watercolors that I purchased on eBay for under $20 in 2001. The paintings are pleasant but not high quality, and are in the "frame these someday" category.

We do have several other watercolors by Hon Chew Hee that we've purchased locally from what appear to be different stages of his career. Three are in the background of this photo, hanging top to bottom in the second column from the right as you look at the picture. All were modestly priced.

But my other tie to the story is more interesting. Back in 1995, another Hon Chew Hee-related foundation was caught up in my investigation of Nora and Gene Lum, former staff members and campaign volunteers for then-City Council member Leigh-Wai Doo who later became key players and the first to be convicted in the Democratic fundraising scandal of the Clinton years.

I'll claim credit to being the first reporter to link the Lums to the Clinton fundraising effort.

One chapter of the Lums' story involved an Oklahoma natural gas company they controlled, Dynamic Energy Resources. As I backgrounded the Lums and the company, there turned out to be several ties with the Honolulu-based Hon Chew Hee Art Foundation, which had apparently been established within weeks of the artists death in mid-1993.

Carolyn Hee served as a director of the foundation, along with two others who were also directors and shareholders in the Lums' Dynamic Energy Resources: California teacher and Iolani grad Larry Wong, and a well-known Honolulu figure, the late Ted Kimura.

Wong and Kimura were later found to have been among a number of "straw donors" used by the Lums to channel illegal campaign contributions to several federal candidates, including Sen. Ted Kennedy. Larry Wong was granted immunity in 1998 in order to obtain his testimony before a Congressional committee. Both Nora and Gene Lum pleaded guilty to conspiracy, a federal felony, for their role in these violations of federal campaign law.

The Hon Chew Hee Art Foundation, in which Caroline Hee, Kimura, and Wong were directors, is separate and distinct from the Hon Chew Hee Estate Foundation which was the focus of Sunday's Star-Bulletin story. The relationship between the two remains unclear.

Final note: Looking back at Sunday's story, I noticed that the headline misspelled Hee's name as "Lee". Ouch.

March 7, 2005 - Monday

Why are headlines important? A reader spotted a prime example in yesterday's Sunday Star-Bulletin:

The Sunday Star-Bulletin and New York Times played the same N.Y. Times story on Page One in the right-hand column (the most important in a newspaper), but you would not recognize that from the headlines.

The New York Times said:

C.I.A. EMPOWERED
TO SEND SUSPECTS
ABROAD TO JAIL

The Star-Bulletin said:

Export of
suspects
for torture
rebutted

Same story, but completely different cues to readers. Spin?

Last night, I found myself watching "Office Space", a grade B comedy featuring the alienating aspects of corporate life and miserable bosses. What was jarring was sponsorship by Career Builder, a partnership of Gannett, Knight Ridder, and Tribune Company. And how do you spell "co-opt"?

Saturday's comment about the Star-Bulletin's lack of a news archive and handling of Rod McPhee's obituary brought this historical aside from a knowledgeable newsroom insider:

Actually, unbeknownst to the lovely Gannett folks, a couple of staffers sitting in the corner of the Star-Bulletin newsroom had built a "parallel" archive system starting in the middle-90s.

While all stories got filed in the "official" Gannett system, there was another system in operation. It ran on an old, dusty, discarded computer sitting under a staffer's desk. I'm sure most thought it was a footrest for the SB staffer! The machine sat dormant most of the time, but late at night would awaken, vacuum up all the day's stories into a database, then shut down again.

The end result is that the SB folks have a complete electronic archive going back to the mid-90s. (Uh, maybe I shouldn't have said that!) :)

I think the problem with the McPhee obit missing the Broken Trust II connection was that the current writers and editors were not involved in the Broken Trust series and issue.

The people that advocated the Broken Trust series are all but gone from the SB newsroom. The ones mainly involved were John Flanagan, David Shapiro, Carl Zimmerman, Diane Chang and Mary Poole. (Mary did layout of the pages. I believe Kevin Hand or Bryant Fukutomi illustrated the cracked Kamehameha logo for BT-I.)

Of the original editorial participants, only Poole is left, but she was likely not consulted for the obit. And Fukutomi still works as an illustrator, but had little story involvement.

Rick Daysog worked on many of the Bishop Estate stories after Broken Trust broke, but his involvement in that subject has tailed off recently. Seems he's been assigned to other things now.

Rosemarie Bernardo, who wrote the McPhee obit, came on as an intern in the waning days of the "old SB" had no chance to develop a history of the Broken Trust case and the players.

And now you know.

Two stories about blogging caught my eye. AP reports on the trend towards companies firing employee bloggers. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Yahoo sees blogging as an economic opportunity.

Over the weekend I managed to successfully disassemble my main home computer and move everything down the hallway into a bedroom now converted into office #2 (Meda's got #1). The computer is a nearly 5 year-old but somewhat upgraded Powermac which still runs pretty well.

In the process I found several cords and cables that apparently had been adding to the clutter but not attached to anything for years. I also found evidence of past cat blessings, furballs around the edges, cd's to install long obsolete software, disks that can only be read by drives that don't exist any more, and various other goodies. All indications that this general clean-up was long overdue.

I was also surprised to notice that it's been a while since I updated the photo gallery featuring our Kaaawa morning dogs. So I was able to justify wasting some time that should have been spent on the cleaning in order to wade through a month of photos and select the shareable few! So just click on J.R.'s handsome picture for more.

J.R.

March 6, 2005 - Sunday

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