Recent photos: Vieques (Puerto Rico) 1978 • Malaekahana 1959 •
Historic Kualoa sugar mill • Kaaawa in November •

February 10, 2007 - Saturday [ permalink ]

An Advertiser "breaking news" headline caught my attention a couple of days ago: "Naked man hit by car on highway near Leftovers"

A 47-year-old man has been taken to The Queen's Medical Center after he collided with a vehicle on Kamehameha Highway near Leftovers surf break, Emergency Medical Service spokesman Bryan Cheplic said.

Police said the man, who was naked, was running on the highway before the collision. The driver stopped and checked on the man, police said.

Somehow my brain says naked men are not reasonably described as colliding with moving vehicles. As the headline says, they are "hit" by moving vehicles. I just can't get into calling this naked man-car interaction a collision. Perhaps that's just my own quirk.

Yesterday's entry concerning Hawaiian Dairy Farms LLC and its request for $37 million in state special purpose revenue bonds brought several replies from sleuthing readers.

From Cathy in Honolulu:

I ran into the same zero when searching the DCCA biz registration yesterday; I was so amazed that I confirmed it with Mark Recktenwald, DCCA Director. I called Marcus Oshiro's office to inquire- but no one had an answer; The dairy industry is dying here. Note HB1221. The cost of feed and transport make up 50-70% of expenses--and those items are increasing with fuel and ethanol prices - the local farmers are asking for a manini $6.6 million over 2 years for the 5 remaining dairies and 9 egg farms in the state just to help with feed costs.

Erika tracked the company's Internet registration and came up with this:

Whois info for, hawaiiandairyfarmsllc.com:

Registrant:
Perfect Privacy LLC
303 Peachtree Center Ave
Atlanta, GA 30303
US

Perfect Privacy is a service that allows you to mask your identity when registering a web site. A Google search for perfect privacy llc turns up a number of instances of suspicious or fraudulent web sites registered via the company. You've got to wonder why a dairy outfit with a very large bond request is trying to hide information about itself.

Blaine added this tidbit indicating the web site was only recently registered:

Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
Record last updated on 17-Nov-2006.
Record expires on 17-Nov-2007.
Record created on 17-Nov-2006.

Then Brenda in Austin noted an April 2006 Hawaii Reporter article about the dairy venture signed R. Binversie, executive director. According to Binversie:

Hawaiian Dairy Farms is presently working with Governor’s office as well the Dept of Agriculture, University of Hawaii and several other government and private organizations.

Then she turned up an funny article in the Lakeland College Mirror (a Wisconsin paper), which refers to Randy Binversie as a "local cheese-loving speedskater".

Later in the same story:

"...Binversie's is one of the cheesiest families in Wisconsin. His wife had the once-in-a-lifetime prime opportunity of being "Alice in Dairyland" a few years back. Alice in Dairyland is the cheesy name for a public relations spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture. Binversie's brother, Michael, has one of the larger dairy herds in Manitowoc County."

That led me to Kevin Binversie's blog, Lakeshore Laments., also from the Manitowok, Wisconsin area. Related? Probably. Any clues about Hawaiian Dairy Farms? Not that I spotted in a quick look.

No Binversie shows up in local court records, or in any documents indexed in the Bureau of Conveyances. I haven't checked federal court records yet.

So that's as far as we've gotten on this chilly Saturday in Kaaawa.

By the way, Silverman's responding well to the antibiotics, which seem to have his injury under control.

February 9, 2007 - Friday [ permalink ]

One of the places I always look for items of interest is bills authorizing specific companies to issue special purpose revenue bonds. There's a bill up for a hearing tomorrow (HB 1778) to authorize up to $37 million to an outfit called Hawaiian Dairy Farms LLC to finance "the purchase of land and cattle and the construction of facilities and infrastructure, irrigation systems, and waste removal systems using an anaerobic digester".

The question: "Who are these guys?"

I tried checking the business registration system at the Department of Commerce & Consumer Affairs. The answer: "No businesses found matching 'hawaiian dairy farms'".

The company also has a web site, but it is sort of a conceptual presentation of why this dairy would be a good idea. There's no concrete business plan, no existing facilities, no identification of the principals in the deal. And we're seriously considering letting them snag $37 million of the state's bond allocation? Hmmmm. Maybe there's a whole lot more information somewhere that explains why this deserves major support, but it's not apparent from here.

Okay, I'm going to quibble with Dave Shapiro again. Every week his blog culls out nuggets of news to dress up with one-liners of witty commentary. Fair enough. Here's one of today's items:

Members of the Board of Education say they deserve salaries beyond the $100 per diem and travel expenses they get for each meeting. Golly, how much more nothing could they possibly do to earn the extra pay?

On the one hand, Dave bemoans the lack of citizen involvement and the woes of democracy without participation. On the other hand, he lets loose with cynical salvos like this that really distort the facts to put down those who step up to the plate and devote their time, energy, and reputations to doing the things we all know need to get done.

You may disagree with the actions of the board of education, but it's misleading to give people the impression that they do nothing. It's easy to get a bit of a sense of their job by looking at their meeting schedule or reading through some of the meeting minutes.

How can we ever hope to restore any semblence of democracy if opinion leaders like Dave constantly ridicule or belittle the hard work of others? Dave's approach is cute, but, in my view, debilitating.

Feline Friday, and Mr. Silverman's in his downstairs spa recovering from yet another injury to that same shoulder. He's been to the vet twice for what appeared to be a sprain, but showed up a couple of days ago with a new injury that's swollen up like a ping pong ball. Poor guy. And he really hates that antibiotic.

So it goes on this Friday.

February 8, 2007 - Thursday [ permalink ]

Printing woes at MidWeek delayed Wednesday's issue of Honolulu Weekly, which still wasn't out on the racks by mid-afternoon. And for those who missed it, here's my extended reaction to Lingle's State of the State speech as it appeared in last week's issue.

Media junkies might want to check out MediaBistro.com, a daily compilation of news about the media. One of today's stories appears in slate and asks the question, "Can photographers be Plagiarists?" Hit that link and then run the slideshow. It's similar to the question raised in a federal lawsuit by photographer Kim Taylor Reece who went to court to block marketing of a stained glass image which he says copies one of Reece's iconic photographs.

An alert reader called my attention to quite an extraordinary story in the Maui News this week by Harry Eager, which describes how former state transportation director Rod Haraga was stripped of his statutory authority while deputy directors in charge of the airports and harbors were made to report directly to Bob Awana in the governor's office. According to the story, this situation continued for over a year before Haraga finally resigned.

I've been told of a similar situation in the Office of Youth Services, which administers the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility, whose authority over HYCF was reportedly stripped by the governor's office. Although the circumstances of former director Sharon Agnew's resignation were not reported, a very similar loss of administrative authority apparently played a key role. She took the public heat for conditions at the facility but was blocked from taking action. The situation is hinted at in a reader's comment posted on Dave Shapiro's Volcanic Ash blog earlier this month:

During this administration Sharon Agnew, the ED for OYS, has long taken the bulk of the heat for the vast administrative problems surrounding HYCF. Some of it was fair, most of it wasn't. I imagine it is very difficult to manage a problem when your higher-ups arent willing to acknowledge and grant you the authority to effectively deal with one of the root causes of the problems.

It makes you wonder whether these problems faced by the Lingle administration have been worsened by secret takeovers of the responsible departments by the governor's political staff.

February 7, 2007 - Wednesday [ permalink ]

This is the lead sentence from an editorial this morning in the Advertiser: "What part of "conflict of interest" does state Rep. Rida Cabanilla not understand?"

My pet peeve with reporting on this kind of issue is that it takes a somewhat complicated statute with specific legal provisions and mushes it up into a somewhat vague concept of conflict of interest without ever giving the reader a sense of the elements of the law.

The issue in this case involves a bill which would have amended state law regarding the location of nursing homes and, in the process, indirectly aided a campaign backer of the representative.

The truth is that technically, Rep. Cabanilla, under our law, does not have a conflict because certain conflict provisions do not apply to legislators.

Hawaii's ethics law is found in Chapter 84 Hawaii Revised Statutes, and the conflict of interest provision is down in Section 84-14.

Here's the summary set out in the first few lines of that section:

Conflicts of interests.  (a)  No employee shall take any official action directly affecting:
     (1)  A business or other undertaking in which he has a substantial financial interest; or
     (2)  A private undertaking in which he is engaged as legal counsel, advisor, consultant, representative, or other agency capacity.

First thing to note is that this provision applies to employees and not to legislators, a weakness in the statute to be sure.

But if this standard were applied to Rep. Cabanilla, she would be in trouble because, at least according to the Advertiser's account, she has appeared on behalf of her friend's business at the Waipahu Neighborhood Board and, potentially, elsewhere.

If, however, she was making a regular appearance at the neighborhood board and fielded a question about the nursing home but did not actually appear as a representative of the business, then the conflict allegations might not have been fair. In representing her friend in an "agency capacity", she would have created a "substantial financial interest" in the plan and created a conflict, at least if that standard is applied to legislators.

Two additional provisions of the conflict section do apply to legislators as well as employees:

(c)  No legislator or employee shall assist any person or business or act in a representative capacity before any state or county agency for a contingent compensation in any transaction involving the State.

(d)  No legislator or employee shall assist any person or business or act in a representative capacity for a fee or other compensation to secure passage of a bill or to obtain a contract, claim, or other transaction or proposal in which he has participated or will participate as a legislator or employee, nor shall he assist any person or business or act in a representative capacity for a fee or other compensation on such bill, contract, claim, or other transaction or proposal before the legislature or agency of which he is an employee or legislator.

So legislators and employees can't accept contingent payments for pushing a bill or other matter through a state or county agency, and can't accept payment for pushing a bill or other claim forward if he or she will participate in decision making or if it comes before their agency, in this case the legislature.

A separate section of the ethics law (84-13)deals with "fair treatment" and prohibits giving anyone special treatment.

Fair treatment.  No legislator or employee shall use or attempt to use the legislator's or employee's official position to secure or grant unwarranted privileges, exemptions, advantages, contracts, or treatment, for oneself or others...

But this section explicitly provides: "Nothing herein shall be construed to prohibit a legislator from introducing bills and resolutions, serving on committees or from making statements or taking action in the exercise of the legislator's legislative functions."

And the fact that the bill would have impacted nursing homes generally as a class, rather than aiding a single business, would lessen or remove the chance that this would violate the "fair treatment" provisions.

To appreciate the process the Ethics Commission goes through to assess potential ethics violations, just read through a few of the commission's prior opinions, which are available online at their web site.

You've got to love Bandit, and there's a lot more to love every time we see him as he continues to grow. This picture doesn't really convey the fact that he's getting to be a big dog. He looks like some kind of terrier-airedale-BIG DOG mix and he's got a lot of energy and interest in the dog biscuits I'm always carrying.

Click for more dogs

February 6, 2007 - Tuesday [ permalink ]

The latest issue of the IRE Journal (publication of Investigative Reporters & Editors) has a very suggestive story describing how KNBC television in Los Angeles has effectively used the Internet to boost the visibility of an investigative report on Jiffy Lube.

According to reporter Joel Grover: "When the investigation fi rst aired, it was viewed by 578,000 people in the Los Angeles area. Since then, about fi ve million people across the country have viewed our investigation on the Internet."

The Internet is a great venue for investigative reporters to showcase their work. It allows them to present their investigations in far greater detail than on the airwaves.

“A Web site is the place for an investigative story to really shine,” Buck said. “A Web site isn’t going to tell a reporter to keep their story to three minutes. We’ll give you as much time and space to tell your story as you need.”

Further, most stations’ sites will allow a longer Web version of the story with elements and information that couldn’t be included on air.

Here's an extreme example from the Rocky Mountain News, a 33-part series expanded on the web to include "22 videos, 33 slide shows and scores of supporting documents."

By comparison, Hawaii news outlets are generally behind the times in the use of the web to extend their underlying coverage.

Along the same lines, here's an interesting blog entry looking at the web sites of early presidential candidates. It observes:

Perhaps I shouldn't have been, but I was surprised that none of the Republicans are so far using any social media (except for a couple of feeds), but the Democrats are making quite a use of it.

There is also a great use made (well, by the Democrats) of shared media sites, like Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn and so on.

Finally, here's a view of a recent winter morning in Kaaawa. This is the way I like my winters. Cool but warming quickly. Click for a larger version.

February 5, 2007 - Monday [ permalink ]

Doug White (www.poinography.com) in the second part of an entry yesterday noted reverberations from the disclosure that Senator Will Espero is now employed by a major homebuilder with a massive project in his district. You may recall reading that tidbit here first, where it was noted on January 14.

I ran into the web site, Covert History, while checking out an entry from last week concerning Lee Harvey Oswald's links to the CIA.

And here's another great peek into history with a web site of excerpts from various presidential tapes done by a program at the University of Virginia. A lot of time can be spent browsing this site.

While you're at it, check out the News Index at Journalism.org, which assesses the topics covered in both talk shows and news coverage each week. It's a useful overview of what is, and isn't, grabbing attention.

I took my camera along for super sunday, which we spent up the street with friends. We also encouraged Toby to join us for the party, which he did. In fact, he was the hit of the party except when he discovered the smoked salmon hidden among the platters of goodies in front of the television. Then he was "Toby, NO". From my perspective, the photos were as good as the football, which was great.

Toby & Ms. Sarah

February 4, 2007 - Sunday [ permalink ]

Too cold! It's about 56 degrees in our living room this morning, and the wind chill must bring it down a few more degrees. I don't have appropriate clothing. I do have a warm cat in my lap, but that leaves the rest of me feeling close to freezing.

The Star-Bulletin reports today on Senate Bill 1977 which would authorize purchase of a state-owned plane. Hey, Steve Jobs got his employer to buy him a $90 million corporate jet. Of course, for $1.9 million you can only afford a twin-engine Cessna, according to the SB. No jets at that price.

The bill was introduced in the Senate by Senate President Colleen Hanabusa by request, but the S-B was unable to find where it originated. House vice-speaker Jon Riki Karamatsu claims credit for introducing the House version, HB336. I wonder what he has to say about its origin.

What are other people curious about? Check The Memory Hole for logs of freedom of information requests directed to various federal agencies.

If you happened to see Professor Jim Horton featured on the PBS News Hour back on January 25, you might not have known that the professor of American studies and history at George Washington University and historian emeritus at the National Museum of American History is teaching at the University of Hawaii this semester along with his wife, Professor Lois Horton.

They also began their graduate education at UH back...well, let's not get into the "when" of that. Enough that they studied at UH before heading to the mainland and academic stardom.

And you still have time to attend their lecture, "Passages to Freedom: Slavery, Resistance, and America's Great Contradiction", scheduled for Tuesday evening (Feb. 6), 6-8 p.m., in the Supreme Court conference room, second floor of Ali`iolani Hale (that's behind the Kamehameha statue downtown).

Finally, here's an audio file of a reader complaint to the San Francisco Chronicle which comes highly recommended by a friend at the Star-Bulletin. And, yes, it is funny, especially to folks used to fielding complaints from the public. [Oops. My first try screwed up that link, but it should be working now.]

February 3, 2007 - Saturday [ permalink ]

As I reported earlier in Honolulu Weekly, labor leader and lobbyist John Radcliffe submitted a letter of resignation in December announcing his intent to step down from his position as associate executive director of the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, the UH faculty union.

Now, after an occasionally stormy board meeting in January, UHPA directors have accepted Radcliffe's resignation and, in a confidential executive session, approved a deal to hire him back as a lobbyist and consultant. However, the State Ethics Commission web site does not yet indicate that Radcliffe has been authorized to lobby on behalf of the union, and UHPA is not yet listed among his 10 lobbying clients, which do include Corrections Corporation of America, Hawaii Superferry Inc., and tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds.

This retirement and consultant deal is not mentioned in the union's publicly circulated Board Notes, which containly only this oblique reference:

Directors met in executive session from 8:38 until 9:25 a.m. to consider a settlement proposal by Attorney T. Anthony Gill on a personnel matter.  Directors confirmed the motion to approve the personnel action discussed during executive session.

However, UHPA reports in detail on a motion to censure board member Jerry Comcowich, who was initially elected to the UHPA board as representive of faculty in the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology and now fills a "Manoa at large" seat. The motion, which passed by a 16-3 vote with one abstention, cites "his use of the UHPA name on his listserv" and his refusal to return certain unspecified "confidential documents" distributed at the meeting, which Comcowich said all concerend Radcliffe's retirement and "contained false and misleading statements about me and the issues I have been pursuing on behalf of the membership." Comcowich asserted a right to retain two of the documents "if for no other reason than to address and refute the errors of fact, false allegations, misrepresentations and innuendoes contained therein."

Meanwhile, UHPA is unhappy about the way executive salaries are negotiated in secret without any public disclosure until they have already been approved. According to the report of the UHPA board's January meeting:

Executive Director J. N. Musto gave public testimony at the January Board of Regents’ (BOR) meeting regarding changes to executive/managerial salaries that are considered in executive session.  He informed the Regents that the public needs to know what changes are being proposed so that proper testimony may be made.  He was informed that executive/managerial salary information is not for public disclosure until they have been approved.  Executive Director Musto informed the Directors that UHPA would propose modifications to HRS Chapter 92 that would require prior disclosure before executive and managerial salaries for new hires, or special increases, are approved by the BOR during this legislative session. 

I couldn't find the bill in a quick search this morning, so if anyone has a bill number on this please let me know.

February 2, 2007 - Friday [ permalink ]

I received the purrfect email last night for this Feline Friday morning:

I was going to comment on the sad loss of your Powerbook, and the obviously misguided attempts of people to convert you to a canine houser - despite the clear knowledge that your household has well over 100 lbs of feline defenders - who obviously drove off the desperadoes before they were able to loot your home of more than a Powerbook ...

Now that is clear thinking, is it not?

In a more serious vein, he had another observation:

However, then I read the new Honolulu Weekly, where Fred Hemmings (sorry - SENATOR Fred Hemmings) rebuts your article about Gov. Lingle's tax cuts, with pithy arguments about economics, backed up by the alleged agreement with his 'Henningnomics' of "Nobel Prize-winning economist Arthur Laffer".

The problem with this is that, like his economics, it's a Hemmings fabrication - a fiction ...

Art Laffer (whom I knew in school some years ago) IS NOT a Nobel Prize winner .... maybe Senator (not Economist) Hemmings thinks Art should have, but the committee awarding the Economics Prize has not yet seen fit to follow the Senator's beliefs.

It's no wonder Hawaii Republicans are a disappearing presence in the Legislature, if this is the quality of thought they offer!

Tho it does echo the way the WH runs the country ...'If I believe it, then it must be so.'
Sad ...
Sad for us all ...

Thanks. Now I don't have to respond to the senator, who I've known of forever and personally for twenty years, some of that as an ally on a key set of issues. I appreciate Hemmings and his willingness to hammer on an issue even when out there alone, even if we don't agree on a whole lot of specifics.

And while you can't find my bit from this week's Honolulu Weekly in the online edition (until next Wednesday), you can read Larry Geller's reaction to it over at Disappeared News, although you'll know I'm blushing when you read it.

This in from Washington as reported by TV industry newsletter TV Business Confidential:

INOUYE WILL INTRODUCE BILL TO ELIMINATE ‘SUNSHINE’ RULE. The so-called “Sunshine” rule was designed to prevent back-room deals from being made without public scrutiny and prohibits more than two FCC Commissioners meeting outside of their public meetings. In testimony Thursday before the Senate Commerce Committee, FCC Commissioners made a case for repealing that rule. In his remarks, Commissioner Michael Copps pointed out, “Every other institution encourages discussion among its members -- whether it’s Congress, the courts, or the College of Cardinals. You know, if it’s good enough for Holy Mother Church, of which I am a member, it ought to be good enough for the FCC.” Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) agreed, and said he plans to introduce a bill to eliminate the rule.

Of course, Copps is considered one of the very good guys on the FCC, a friend of those who oppose continued concentration of media power in a few corporate hands.

I had the week's "small world" experience yesterday when I received an email from the mother of a Kaaawa resident asking about a broken link to some photos on this site. I noted her email signature...Assistant Director, Public Relations, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas. I immediately grabbed my phone to call and let her know that as we spoke, Meda was there on the Sam Houston campus delivering the Beto Lecture in Criminal Justice, part of an ongoing series of special lectures by prominent academics in the criminal justice field.

Finally, here's Mr. Toby caught in the act once again making his now patented dismount from his spot on top of our neighbors' wall. Somehow he glues himself to the vertical surface and just runs to the bottom while gravity does its thing. All aggree it's fun to watch.