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February 8, 2003 - Saturday
A reader had this comment on yesterday's Star-Bulletin front page:
I'm a fan of the Star-Bulletin, but am I the only one that found today's front page funny?
There are three similar top stories today (among others):
1. National terror alert level goes up.
2. Hawaii terror alert level does not.
3. Airport evacuated.
The front page of the issue delivered to my office screams, "Terror alert level raised." Which is true... on the national level. The contrast caused in Hawaii by Lingle's announcement is more noteworthy, I think, but isn't mentioned in the terror alert article, only in the secondary airport piece. Further, though, said headline is superimposed on a picture taken at the airport evacuation, but that event isn't connected to the terror alert level at all.
Just shows how confusing the whole security scene is. The boogeyman quotient is quite high, and hard to separate from real terrorism worries.
Erika Engle's column on Thursday noted the buyout by entertainment & tourism wiz Roy Tokujo of the company that puts on next weekend's Family Fitness Expo and several other annual shows. Next weekend's extravaganza is linked with Carole Kai Charities' Great Aloha Run.
I've always wondered why Carole Kai is given so much mileage for this event. An online check of the charity group's federal tax return (found at www.guidestar.org) shows that in the most recent year where records are available (the tax year ending June 30, 2001), Carole Kai Charities gave $192,534 to a group of 75 nonprofit organizations. That's not an insignificant amount, although most of it (64 percent) went to just seven recipients, with most of the other groups receiving just a few hundred dollars each.
But to raise that money, they spent $524,644 on fundraising and other expenses. When you add it up, only 25 percent of funds that passed through their accounts made it to charity at all. And that amount included $61,167 in investment income and a $30,000 contribution from an unspecified individual, meaning that they could have gotten nearly half-way to their charitable total without putting all that time, money, and energy into the Great Aloha race and associated events. And Carol Kai Charities continued to keep $1 million in a restricted bank account to underwrite its future activities.
That doesn't strike me as a very efficient way to put money where it's needed most, but I suppose that's par for the course in this world of big time corporate charity.
| Here's another around of recent cats encounters, this time with at least a few of the other cats besides Duke and Toby. It's just that they're so much more active these days, and in the exploratory mode, that it seems they're everywhere. The older cats, well, to be honest, they're most often asleep. Anyway, click on Lindsey or the "cats cats cats" banner for this update. |
Mr. Lindsey
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February 7, 2003 - Friday
Bravo to Hawaii Public Radio for airing Counterspin, the show produced by the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). We've been running into it on Wednesday evenings at 6:30 p.m., although it may air at other times as well. What a pleasure it is. The program we heard this week included a long excellent interview with Dan Ellsberg. When I checked this morning, it was available online in Real Audio format.
Speaking of FAIR, they maintain a list of recent media criticism from various published sources that's worth checking out from time to time.
According to a profile in the San Francisco Chronicle, right-wing talk show host Michael Savage is a product of our own University of Hawaii.
The Chronicle also had a long piece in the bankruptcy of the former island icon, Dillingham.
February 6, 2003 - Thursday
Maureen Dowd's column in the New York Times yesterday tells another depressing tale. It's bad enough that the U.S. is trying to bully the UN into accepting or supporting a war of aggression, but now they're censoring art and history to make it more possible. Seems they threw a blue shroud over the reproduction of Picasso's famous antiwar painting, "Guernica," and further concealed it behind a couple of UN flags.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps announced yesterday that two additional public sessions will be held on the issue of media ownership. They are being scheduled at the University of Washington in early March, and at Duke University later that same month. Copps said he was inviting his fellow commissioners to attend.
That drew a quick response from FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who announced that he would be attending only the single previously scheduled hearing in Richmond, Virginia. "I commend others for their interest in attending additional forums," Powell said in a press release. A backhanded way of saying that he has no interest in do so.
One comment came in from a reader in reaction to the Wal-Mart mention yesterday:
It's nice that Jim Becker takes an interest in what 's being done to the Pearl City community. So few people do. I live in that area and the traffic congestion where Moanalua Home Road becomes Acacia—crossing Waimano Home Road—is unbelievable at just about any hour of the day. When that WalMart goes in—well, I don 't even want to think about it. The roads in that area are getting in worse shape all the time, of course. I worked for the City during a good portion of Frank Fasi 's first era and if he and his minions had pulled even a small fraction of the stuff the current administration does he would have been just plain crucified by the local papers.
Good point.
Former Star-Bulletin webmaster extraordinaire Blaine Fergerstrom announced yesterday that he is going to start a small personalized web-hosting service. It's in large part a way to justify (to his wife) installation of a speedy T1 Internet feed of his very own.
Says Blaine: "If you are paying to host a small Web site someplace, can I ask you to please consider moving it to my server (and giving me the money!) instead?... I'll at minimum match the current cost you're paying and to sweeten the pot, I'll give you wide latitude with the number of megabytes you use on my server space."
For more info, contact Blaine directly (zztype@alohatown.com).
February 5, 2003 - Wednesday
Catherine Toth's story in Monday's Honolulu Advertiser on the Wal-Mart deal to purchase 20 acres from the city for a new store in Pearl City is drawing high praise from former S-B writer Jim Becker, a leader in the citizens group opposing the anti-union retailers plans for the Keeaumoku Street area. Becker's comments are stuffed with facts and provocative observations, so I'm reprinting them in full. Definitely a worthy read.
Seattle Weekly has a good piece on the JOA between the two big papers in that city.
The Poynter Institute's web site has an interesting gallery displaying how the shuttle disaster was handled in the front pages of news online editions. It's also a quick summary of online news web design generally. Also most interesting.
Thanks to another retired S-B editor for this bit of sage advice:
You are a leading critic of the Honolulu media. Your non-buying of the Advertiser will diminish your role. I understand your reluctance to add to Gannett finances and your irritation with the Advertiser business office, but I hope you will reconsider your decision to drop the Advertiser.
February 4, 2003 - Tuesday
Is Gov. Lingle's administration already showing internal fractures? It seems that Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona has already been telling acquaintances that he could run against Lingle in 2006. With that ambition in the background, it probably won't be long before the internal political conflicts in Lingle's team become apparent to the rest of us.
By the way, have you checked out the Lingle version of the Governor's official web site? It's making heavy use of quotes from local news stories (for example, check this page describing her "senior advisors"), and has a campaign look, with her campaign themes appearing as part of the background format.
We stopped to pick up my parents yesterday evening to go out to dinner, and were puzzled by a four foot piece of 4x4 or 6x6 wood, perhaps an old fence post, left on the front lawn beside the driveway. Then we heard the story. It seems the Advertiser delivery person has been regularly driving his or her car right onto the front lawn, wearing a path in the grass from the driveway right up to the front steps. The big piece of wood was intended to block their access and save the lawn.
| Sunday brought news reports of a Saturday night accident in Kaaawa in which a truck was first involved in an unspecified hit and run near Kaaawa School, then crashed and overturned in front of the Crouching Lion. |
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During our walk yesterday morning, we tried to find more info on the hit and run, but came up empty after asking several people. Then, on the way home, we approached the home of Debbie & Nick, who live with George and Lucy, two of our favorite morning dogs. We could see Nick out in front, pointing and gesturing while talking to a neighbor.
It turns out that his car was the hit and run victim. It was parked in their driveway along Kamehameha Highway, and the truck left the road and hit his car, leaving a big bash in its side and moving it more than a foot. At least as Nick tells the story, Debbie heard the crash, jumped the wall at the side of the house, ran to the front, and tried hanging on to the truck as the driver backed away from the accident scene and drove off. Luckily, she let go, but put a hex on the driver as he sped from the scene. Sure enough, he didn't get a mile before crashing and ending up on the rocks.
In our quiet little area, this counts as real excitement.
February 3, 2003 - Monday
Several readers reacted to yesterday's criticism of the Star-Bulletin web site's failure to even note Saturday's shuttle disaster for more than 12 hours.
What, are these people on crack?? When I found out about the shuttle I went to CNN.com for info, not starbulletin.com. Why the hell should a local paper's site be depended upon for news coverage of that magnitude? Geez, if that's all people have to complain about maybe they should go get a life. Anyway, SB.com does a kick-ass job for only having one, or at the max, two people doing the whole damn thing at any given time.
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hate to disagree with so many of your readers but my opinion on this one is shared by many in our newsroom - which is, yeah, we should have something on the shuttle sooner than we did, but the bottom line is that 99.9% of all people arent gonna go to our website (or the tizer's) for big national or international news. why? because AP or nytimes, cnn or cbs or drudge or any number of bigger worldwide news sites are gonna have more stuff than we could possibly compete with. When something big happens in the world, I doubt very many people hit local media sites, even if we did have it quick.
In case you missed it, both papers reported that the director of the Office of Information Practices received a termination letter on Friday at about 11 a.m. The letter, signed by Lt. Gov. Aiona, gave Moya Gray two weeks notice, but ordered that she immediately turn over most duties to another staff member pending the appointment of a new director.
Here's a new low for the Bush-Ashcroft team. The New York Times reports that the Justice Department is now investigating a Texas biology professor for refusing to pen a letter of recommendation for a student who rejects the basics of evolution. So now I guess that belief in the separation of church and state is probable cause for federal action.
| On the cat front, Duke and Toby have become quite a duo.
Toby is now allowed out of the house under supervision, and it's typically Mr. Duke who provides it. They're together an awful lot, both at play and at rest, like in this photo taken a few nights ago.
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Duke & Toby
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February 2, 2003 - Sunday
All eyes were on the space shuttle disaster yesterday. The Honolulu Advertiser benefited from its position in the Gannett chain and very quickly had Gannett's complete coverage available via the Advertiser's web site. Over at the Star-Bulletin's online edition, though it was a different story. There was still no mention of the shuttle at 4 p.m., a full twelve hours after the space craft disintegrated. The absence was glaring under the circumstances, but was consistent with the S-B management's decision to keep the web site focused wholly on local news, and not to provide live updates.
I started getting emails comments mid-morning. Here are a few:
There is no way to compare the Web page coverage of the shuttle incident of the Advertiser and the Star Bulletin because as of 9:30 a.m. - a full 5.5 hours after the event the Star Bulletin has nothing at all posted. Sad.
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Pretty embarrassing to the Star-Bulletin that it has no late-breaking updates as of 12:43 p.m. about the Columbia tragedy on its website while the Advertiser site is covered with stories and photos.
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Remarkable - nothing on the Star Bull Web site as of 4 pm - 12 hours after the shuttle break up
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Starbulletin.com runs only local news. If the shuttle debris had fallen here, they'd have covered it to death.
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I saw the link over the top of the S-B homepage, and the first sentence cracks me up: Hawaii awoke to news of tragedy today, as word of disaster aboard the space shuttle Columbia crept across the Pacific.
CREPT?
This is 2003. News doesn't creep across the Pacific. Maybe it crept to the S-B newsroom and that's why it took so long to post one story on the website.
I wouldn't know how to alibi this if I was in charge of the S-B. Talk about being blown out of the water by your competitor. I just don't understand how they could have allowed themselves to get beaten this badly.
And I just got a revised update of S-B headlines in email and there's not a single reference to Columbia. If Black doesn't see a problem with this then he's more out of touch with the business than I ever thought.
Meanwhile, journalism web sites quickly offered assistance in to those reporting the events. Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) provided links to their relevant resources. The Journalist's Toolbox offered up useful links to background information. And the Poynter Institute offered another set of links. There are some extraordinary sources listed here.
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