First things first. Where in the world were we? Frances got it right. We were in Baltimore and happened to run right into the Preakness Parade. Actually, we were heading downtown to walk around the Inner Harbor area and ended up being something like the third car blocked at the corner as the parade arrived and crossed in front of us. The give away clue was the Wyland mural with former Mayor Kurt Schmoke’s name.

We drove down to Baltimore from Meda’s conference just outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. One thing we can report. Honolulu’s freeways are in much worse condition than the freeways in either Pennsylvania or Maryland, and there they have much more in the way of extreme weather. It was a little embarrassing to retrieve our car at Honolulu Airport and get on to the freeway, where the road conditions are terrible and probably dangerous for drivers at freeway speeds.

Freeways maintenance is another issue for the Department of Transportation, I guess.

I didn’t see it reported in any of the media coverage, but it seems that the UH Manoa graduation ended with an unveiling of sorts featuring, well, naked guy.

Here’s one email report of the event:

Did you hear that during graduation this weekend a male went up on stage, got his diploma, removed his robes and was totally naked and then proceeded calmly down the isle holding his diploma over his head. It was standing room only this year and the place was packed. No one did anything and when he got to the end of line he did a little naked dance in front of a female security officer. Indecent exposure is sexual assault in the 4th degree in Hawaii (a misdemeanor). I think nudity is great at the right time/place but I not sure this was appropriate.

Not all are willing to write this off as a college prank and are calling for consequences.

It really is not enough to say we didn’t like it, cause probably everyone would agree with that. We should say such behavior offends the status of women and men at UH, and therefore we want the student to have some serious consequence for his behavior.

I would think about a “justice” ethic and therefore would suggest something along these ideas:
1) public apology through Honolulu Advertiser, Star Bulletin and Ka Leo
2) withhold diploma until he makes such a statement
3) public/community service for UH before he gets his diploma

I’m sure the University would balk at some of these consequences as the student has in fact (I hope!) met all requirements for his degree. But he should be threatened to be charged with indecent exposure if he doesn’t do something to make amends for his behavior.

This in from Ragnar Carlson, former Honolulu journalist and son of communications guy Doug Carlson.

Still up in SF myself…just got laid off from the Chronicle, where it
sounds like I was in the first group of what will be many, many
layoffs this year. Very sad stuff. Bronstein doesn’t seem to have any
idea how to respond to the web, and explicitly said so in the last
all-staff meeting I attended.

He adds: “Mostly freelancing and stuff these days. ” I hope his “and stuff” is lots of fun.

And from tech guy extraordinaire Ryan Ozawa:

LOVE THE NEW BLOG. It’s beautiful. It makes my WordPress loving,
RSS-feed obsessed geek heart flutter!

Just wanted to ping you, albeit a bit late, about a speaking
engagement by Dean Kamen, the Segway guy, who’s in town. He’s been
speaking here and there, of course, but this presentation will be at
Oceanit, and somewhat cozier than a UH lecture.

I’ll be attending and streaming his talk live over the web at my new
“lifecasting” site (think Justin.TV, but not as cool and NOT 24/7):
http://www.hawaiigeek.tv

I’m certain recordings will be available for those who miss it!