We just managed to get our walk in yesterday morning despite rain much of the way. Luckily, the heavy stuff didn’t fall until just a bit after we got home. When it rains, I carry one of my small cameras, in this case the new Canon G9. It stays in the case under the umbrella, somethings in a plastic bag if there’s gusty wind along with rain. Getting the camera out and ready with one hand while holding the umbrella in place with the other is an acquired skill, but there are rewards. Despite dire weather forecasts, it isn’t raining yet this a.m., although it’s still too dark now (6 a.m.) to see how it looks outside. Hilo floods aside, could today end up being a better morning? We’ll see.
Speaking of photos, I’m now rebuilding my Adobe Lightroom photo database. Apparently it was corruption of this data that caused Lightroom to crash on me, not anything wrong with the program itself. Turns out that although I’ve been religiously backing up the photo files themselves, I have not been regularly backing up the database used to keep track of them. That was my problem. So I’ve lost some prior work, but hope to restore Lightroom’s functionality within a couple of hours. According to the count when I started this rebuilding process, I took just under 8,000 photos during the second half of 2007 after shifting over to Lightroom. That’s just another bit of useless information.
Interested in seeing which candidate your neighbor’s are backing? Just enter your city or address here for a list of contributions of people living nearby. It’s bound to be interesting.
On a calm Sunday morning, I can admit that not all of my friends and acquaintances appreciated my interpretation of Gov. Lingle’s political style, expressed here earlier in the week and in my current Honolulu Weekly column, although more than the usual number stopped me to comment on it. Here’s a less favorable view from someone whose opinions I take seriously, agree or not.
Imagine the plight of those poor Democrats in the Legislature. Imagine their plight, “boxed in” as you put it by Linda Lingle on one side and Lenny Klompus on the other. What long arms those two must have.
Let’s face it, in this naysayer community if the Governor had tried to vett the Turtle Bay idea with all and sundry, the community, the landowner, the Legislature, the media it would have been shot down, drawn and quartered months ago. I don’t have any idea whether it is a good idea or bad one, but for sure the only way the Governor had to try to get it discussed was to use her bully pulpit, or one near universally listened to and reported speech of the year, to get it out for people to talk and, one hopes, think about.
But as Dave pointed out, just about everyone is talking about it BEFORE thinking about it. Very few seemed prepared to judge it on its merits, to evaluate the obstacles in terms of whether they can be overcome or whether they can be used to stop things dead in their tracks. And the argument that, well, we need to do something and it might be a good idea but she went about announcing it in the wrong way, without checking with all the naysayers first, that argument is a very lame one.
So please, Ian, let’s not cry too hard for the poor boxed in democratic legislators with only the arrow of absolute, veto proof majorities in both houses in their quivers. I am sure they would never “box in” or otherwise hamstring a generally popular, reasonably moderate Republican governor. Never call special sessions to override her vetoes. Never shoot down her appointees on questionable grounds. Oh, wait, they would do all that and more to deny her success, as you expect in a small d democratic system where there is a division of powers and different responsibilities and strengths in each branch.
As Dave suggested, can we think for a minute about the Turtle Bay idea on its merits? And do any of those poor boxed in Democrats have a better idea to save the North Shore, right now? By the way, I have not seen the Honolulu Weekly piece yet, but I hope you mentioned that you are at present in the employ of one of those poor, boxed in, majority party legislators. I hope.
I’m not going to try to unpack all of that before a few cups of coffee. Better to just set it on the stove to simmer.
arrogance and reasons for usury all the way from the white house down to the local level-I think it’s called preemptive reasoning
One can imagine other ways the idea could have been broached. Lingle might have said that she would like to meet with the community and maybe the developers and find a way that the site could be preserved, including the possibility of state purchase. Or something like that.
What was omitted was any sense that others are involved or might be. That policized the idea and raised doubts (when the initial shock wore off).
I also don’t know whether the proposal is a good one or not. Collectively, North Shore residents and others could either make it a good idea or find another.
To me, the problem doesn’t appear to be a naysayer community. It’s something around a governor who isn’t really popular, when you get down to it, and who strives for political advantage at the expense of anything else.
Look at her record of vetos, of withheld funds for pedestrian safety (on political grounds), holding funds for senior services, refusal to negotiate with drug companies for lower prescription drug prices (which would doom her Republican future), and so forth. On the other side is support for corporate interests. In other words, look at her record. Consider this proposal in context.
Whether this is a good idea or a political one still needs to be sorted out. It might be perceived with suspicion not by “naysayers” but by the increasingly wary public.
IMHO.
It’s not just the community that was left out, I just noticed today’s S-B page 1 headline:
Turtle Bay has heard nothing of deal
Gov. Lingle proposed buying the resort in her State of the State talk
After publicly pledging nearly two weeks ago that the state would attempt to buy Oahu’s Turtle Bay Resort, Gov. Linda Lingle has yet to discuss the proposal with the owners of the North Shore property.
Larry’s right. The SB story makes it clear that all this was done without ever even talking to Turtle Bay. If it mattered so much to her, why didn’t she initiate some behind-the-scenes discussion with the owners before her address to see if this idea had any kind of legs at all? Now, Russell Pang is left scrambling to say that the administration is still trying to get a working group together. Maybe they should start with the landowners.