July 8, 2006 - Saturday

Former Advertiser reporter Peter Rosegg, now a spokesperson for Hawaiian Electric, added this comment yesterday:

Chuck Frankel's comment reminds me of a Buck Buchwach story I love to tell. Back in the day the shortage of Pacific Islanders (including Hawaiians) on the news staff was a concern. A young man of such partial background was hired (maybe just as an intern). Unlike on television, readers could not see his face and his by-line did not reveal his ethnicity. Bucky called him into his office for a chat. He went in (not his real name, obviously) as Adam N. Smith and came out, for by-line purposes, A. Nanakuli Smith.

But seriously, with so many opportunities for the best and brightest of any race or origin, it takes an unusual person to want to work in buggy whip industries like newspapers. That's why Mainland papers complain of not having enough blacks, Latinos or whatever despite their efforts at diversity. There are still far better opportunities for the best of them elsewhere. Even television, I suspect, does not have the employment allure it once did for many.

Hawaii Public Radio's Chad Blair reported on Senator Dan Akaka's official campaign kick-off this week, where Akaka described himself as a teacher who educates while characterizing his primary opponent, Rep. Ed Case, as a lawyer who "talks".

Sound familiar? The theme echoes my modest suggestion to the Akaka camp last month.

Speaking of Akaka v. Case, one prominent national political blog, while acknowledging that Akaka is not unbeatable, described Case this week as "kind of like a bizarro Ned Lamont" with a "mediocre-to-disappointing record, ranking as 164th in the Democratic caucus on progressive issues."

Meanwhile, State Senator Gary Hooser's campaign for the 2nd Congressional seat was trying to find some traction with a query to Daily Kos, but ran into some critical comments. And a web site called Global Nation ("celebrating the Filipino spirit worldwide") calls Ron Menor "our best hope for the U.S. Congress."

July 7, 2006 - Friday

Last night's triple homicide at Round Top represents the most dangerous and serious type of crime, random stranger-to-stranger violence. The Star-Bulletin story this morning uses two other recent shootings as context, but the other incidents were very different in terms of public safety. One of thoses cases was an incident of domestic violence while the other was a dispute between street pimps. Although they involved shootings that resulted in death, they were very different from last night's crime. Not every murder is a cause for public alarm, but this latest incident should be ringing those bells.

Before OHA's board of trustees pulled the plug on a possible bid for KGMB, retired newsman Chuck Frankel shared this reaction:

I have not reached a decision on whether it is desirable for OHA to pursue the purchase of KGMB-TV, but these thoughts occurred to me.

There is little presence of Hawaiians in the Honolulu media; this appears more so in the daily newspapers than on TV. I thought the Advertiser's special sections on its 150th anniversary last Sunday were excellent, but I silently lamented the absence of any Hawaiian names among its writers. (I acknowledge that some haole names -- Ian Lind somehow comes to mind -- or Asian names may front some Hawaiian blood.) Gannett and the Advertiser boast of their diversity, but where are the Hawaiians on the news staff locally?

When I started on the Star-Bulletin in 1960, I was fortunate enough to share the house of reporter George Nuuanu West. He gave me some inkling to Hawaiian culture, cooking and history. I wish more Hawaiians were working for Honolulu newspapers.

Perhaps -- just perhaps -- OHA's ownership of KGMB could lead to more Hawaiians working on TV and newspapers.

But local ownership has caused a meltdown at the Santa Barbara News-Press, where five editors resigned yesterday. According to a story in today's Los Angeles Times, one "was escorted from the newspaper's headquarters before noon as several staff members cried and others hurled obscenities at the new publisher, Travis K. Armstrong, the latest in a series of people to run the paper under controversial owner Wendy McCaw."

It makes you appreciate David Black's relatively hands-off approach to the Star-Bulletin, despite his solicitation of local investors.

What's better than a glass of limeade from a corner stand on a hot summer afternoon? Well, learning that the girls launched this project after seeing a television commercial about St. Judes Children's Hospital and deciding they wanted to contribute something. How good is that?

click for larger photo

July 6, 2006 - Thursday

I'm a bit late today and may not get this posted before heading out for our early walk. Patience is a virtue.

Those who recall the dispute over the future of Marmion Street back in the early 1990's might be interested in this photo of the Alexander & Baldwin condominium now rising on the site. This is taken from the corner of Emily Street just behind the Honolulu Advertiser. Click on the photo for a larger view.

The big media news today, covered by both the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin, is that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is considering a bid to purchase KGMB-TV.

Bob Jones sent over this long comment:

The Star-Bulletin last night (Wednesday) asked me to comment on the OHA proposal to try and buy KGMB-TV. Not knowing what will see print, may I make some points this morning (Thursday) as a former principal anchor and news director of Channel 9.

I'd love to see more local ownership of Hawaii media. You get good and bad with that. Local owners have local friends who want to either see or not see certain things publicized. When George Chaplin of The Advertiser was a Honolulu Symphony trustee, he ORDERED city editor Sandy Zalburg to put a certain symphony store on Page 1 above the fold. I was on the City Desk that night and heard it. But Chaplin also was much more deeply involved in this community than the Gannett Corporation or any of the subsequent editors of that paper.

So, local ownership is my preference. The bad and the good of that.

Not local GOVERNMENT ownership. OHA is a state government entity. OHA admits in its own voting memo on seeking to purchase that it has a problem communicating its aspirations and ownership of KGMB would help. So would purchase of the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and New York Times likely change the communications efforts of the Bush Administration.

A government agency owning a major media outlet should send an electric shock out in our community. I cannot imagine the bipartisan FCC ever approving transfer of the Emmis's Communications license to OHA.

But mainly I'm distressed that OHA would even float such nonsense.

The trustees have over the years shown themselves to have what I can only call in print "stability problems", and this is over the top.

I have to note that the way the story emerged is another measure of how news is being covered. OHA's proposed action wasn't reported on and probably wasn't known until it appeared on the agenda for this week's meetings. The Hawaiian beat (if anyone has one) just isn't covered well if reporters aren't able to get ahead of the public meetings where matters like this are finally discussed.

These things don't just appear, they grow out of discussions and debates within an agency like OHA. The fact that there's apparently no one in a position to regularly work sources in order to stay ahead of stories like this is unfortunate.

July 5, 2006 - Wednesday

Another great tidbit from a reader came my way on Monday:

Don't you just love these little nuggets I find on the Internet? I know the nerd in you loves it!

Anyway, here is my latest discovery: SkyscraperPage.com

Here, you can see diagrams and info on the world's largest cities, such as Dallas or Hong Kong (or Honolulu).

And you can see some different renditions of a building, by different artists. There are 29 different drawings for the Empire State Building, for example.

I did find that it's possible to waste a lot of time browsing the tall buildings of the world.

The Star-Bulletin offers a good story today by Nina Wu on the "slew of apartments" being converted to condominiums. It's a good story on an important issue of the day. But the story never makes the obvious tie to one of the current overriding local issues. It fails to note the very direct impact of conversions on the already very tight rental market. The loss of so many apartments will necessarily squeeze the rental pool even tighter, push rents even higher and potentially add to the ranks of the homeless. It's a result of the condominium conversion process that should have been acknowledged in Wu's otherwise good reporting.

Buried in a Washington Post story this morning is my favorite quote of the day:

"I think the inherent nature of the Internet brings out the inner complainer in us," said Joe Ridout, a spokesman for Consumer Action, an advocacy group in San Francisco.

I'm afraid that's all too true generally, although in this instance the context is the use of the Internet to give consumers more power in their ongoing relationship with consumer product corporations.

And here's an interesting little story from the Daily Yomiuri Online about questions raised by a $30 million bank transfer that benefited a Hawaii company, Nomura Financial Ltd.

Finally, Mr. Romeo appreciates all the good thoughts and messages sent his way. He has been remarkably cooperative in the antibiotic administration process, saving me an awful lot of stress. Only one capsule has been lost so far, the rest successfully popped down. The swelling in that gland is not yet completely gone, although substantially reduced. Now we have to get a $chedule for his dental work.

July 4, 2006 - Tuesday

I hope all of you have a safe 4th of July.

The Dallas Morning News reported yesterday that as much as chances for recovering the $12 million that disappeared from retirement accounts managed by Plan Compliance Group last year are "slim", and a lawyer for the company's founder expects his client to be charged in the apparent theft shortly. Hawaii's Dept. of Education and University of Hawaii may have been the biggest losers, with a combined total of more than $2.6 million.

A reader noted the mention of the Edison Alliance in yesterday's Star-Bulletin story about school restructuring.

I remember Chris Whittle (founder and CEO of Edison), he was the guru of advertising to children in the classroom with Channel One.......now it's a bragging point.

She also notes Whittle's personal and political ties to the Bush administration.

Whittle's Channel One has spawned more than its fair share of controversy, and has an impressive array of critics. According to a statement several years ago by the Iowa City Community School District:

A prestigious and somewhat intimidating number of educators' professional associations and other child advocate professionals are on record opposing Channel One. Examples include the National Council of Teachers of English, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Other organizations opposing Channel One include the American Federation of Teachers, National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Association of State Boards of Education, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, National Education Association, and National PTA.

Last year, the Dept. of Education approved a "personal services contract" with Whittle's Edison Alliance worth $3,918,320 for school "restructuring". Two other companies got smaller contracts, National Center on Education and the Economy ($2,018,188) and ETS Pulliam ($2,005,540).

Writes the reader: "Somehow I don't feel that the politics of Edison Aliance has been discussed in Hawaii....and now we are sending them $400,000 per school. Yet another gift for Bush's friends during the Lingle years.... All wrapped up with a bow, and no context."

When we got home one morning earlier, the girls across the street had left their bikes out in front of the house. Somehow the arrangement seemed full of summer's promise. And while I was snapping a few photos, along came Buster, one of their dogs, looking for a handout. He got the dog biscuit, I got the photo.

And so it is on this 4th of July.

July 3, 2006 - Monday

Weekend news junkies might have experienced a few brief moments of whiplash.

Headlines:

Advertiser: Big Island dams get favorable report

Star-Bulletin: 3 Big Island dams found unsafe

And then there was KITV:
Seven Big Island dams have 'high hazard' potential

Bob Jones had a suggestion for administering Romeo's antibiotic: "Our cat vet says it's perfectly okay to undo the capsule and empty the contents into the cat's wet food. It's not delay-timing medicine. Much easier than trying to poke the capsule down a reluctant cat's throat."

I agree that it would theoretically be a lot easier, but none of our cats has ever cooperated by eating the adulterated food. They've got some sixth sense that warns them about such human tactics. Here's what we would get: Cat approaches the dish, sniffs, takes a step back, sniffs again, then turns around and goes through the motions of kicking up dirt to cover the food. I'm afraid it's just me, Romeo, and that capsule, mano-a-mano.

Bob also reacted to my comments about the Star-Bulletin's recent Iraq editorial:

Great admirer of the Lind blog but think you went berserk by claiming the Star-Bulletin has gone right wing by supporting no-withdrawal-date for US in Iraq.

Hate the war? Okay. Bad engagement? Okay. But once you screw it up, fix it.

Please let me publicly and with my name attached do an analysis (quickly.)

Bush blew it. Had he not we might have had 17 military bases in a new Iraq and been able to enforce a road-map for Palestine and Israel. It was a gamble. If Bushies had won, even the Linds might have been cheering.

Bushies did not win.

But most of us in the latest Hawaii Poll (howcum the S-B ain't a player?) -- for better or worse -- seem to NOT be ready to pull out.

so I think you are wrong to say the Star-Bulletin was going right wing by reflecting a no-pullout attitude. You should say the paper won't pay the money for big polls. Why not and how much is it damaged by the Advertiser's Hawaii Poll?.

So many issues, so little time.

I'll take perhaps the central one here--the results of the latest Hawaii poll which, if headlines tell the story, found that 58% of respondents said our trooops should stay in Iraq.

It's an interesting finding, but also a classic lesson in the importance of how a question is asked. In this case, the question was clearly flawed. I would say those who vetted the survey questions either failed to insist on a neutral question or wanted the results skewed in a certain direction.

The question was asked this way: "Do you think the United States should stay until a stable democracy is in place?" or, alternately, "withdraw troops from Iraq immediately."

The bias, intended or not, becomes clear when you play around with alternative phrasings. There are lots of possibilities:

"Do you think the U.S. should stay in Iraq indefinitely despite the growing cost in dollars and lives?"

"Do you think the U.S. should continue to our military occupation of Iraq indefinitely?"

"Do you think the U.S. should continue to follow the Bush administration's policy in Iraq despite repeated failures to achieve promised results?"

And so on. I'm just trying to illustrate that the question used in this poll could have been predicted to elicit different answers than a number of other possible formulations.

I would also bicker with the suggestion implicit in the question that the U.S. presence is contributing to "a stable democracy" which, at best, is a hotly debatable proposition.

Do I also need to point out that the forced option in the poll question, a preference for an "immediate" troop pullout, isn't really the most viable alternative. What if the choice was between "staying indefinitely" versus "setting a timetable for withdrawing our troops"? Would the results have been different?

And, one should also note, even with the bad question, fully one-third said they preferred an immediate troop withdrawal Perhaps that's the real news in this story.

July 2, 2006 - Sunday

Poor Mr. Romeo. On Thursday night, I felt a swelling under his chin, or on the side of his neck. So off we went to see the vet yesterday. This was not the way Romeo hoped to spend his afternoon.

Romeo visits the vet

After a thorough exam, including a needle into the swollen area, Romeo's teeth got the blame. It seems there are several teeth that have to go, and a bit of gum infection that caused his saliva gland to swell. So now he's on a heavy duty antibiotic (clindamycin, my first time getting a capsule down a cat's throat) for a few days before returning for dental work.