We were driving home last night, somewhere on Kamehameha Highway between Kaneohe and the Hygienic Store, listening to the radio as the KHON weather muse pronounced it dry. Almost no rain anywhere, we were told. The problem was that we were in driving rain, the kind where you have to switch the windshield wipers to turbo and there still isn’t enough visibility to maintain normal driving speeds. Rivers were washing across the road in a number of places, and the large puddles indicated that the rain hadn’t started any time recently. And that rain continued through most of the next 10 miles to Kaaawa, where it also looked as if it had rained much of the afternoon.

Don’t they do a check of the weather radar before making a blanket statement like that? It was one of those moments that not to subtly erodes viewer (or, in our case, listener) confidence.

Oh, my! Speaking of public confidence, here’s a press release about a survey that found the “most trusted national TV news organization” to be…Fox News. Sound of screaming in the quiet Kaaawa morning. And more than 20 percent of the respondents said described Fox as liberal leaning. The sounds of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I was struck by the difference in tone of the dailies reporting of the Senate tour of the UH Manoa campus. The Advertiser story by Dan Nakaso portrayed bumbling UH officials unable to answer questions, provide documents, or explain why various items had not been on the priority lists submitted to the legislature in recent years.

The senators came prepared with their own list of items officially requested by UH in its supplemental budget request, which included only two athletic department projects.

The supplemental budget list did not match another list of 32 athletic department requests the senators received yesterday on the tour.

“Fingers have been pointed at the Legislature that we haven’t stepped up,” (Senator) Kim said. “But we’ve never seen requests for these projects.”

The Star-Bulletin story by Craig Gima didn’t capture the same degree of friction between senators and UH officials.

Gima did catch this quote:

Key state lawmakers who toured the flagship campus yesterday suggested something has to give.

“I think new buildings might have to take a back seat,” said Senate Vice President Donna Kim (D, Kalihi Valley-Halawa).

New buildings? What about that entire new West Oahu campus? That’s a sacred cow that needs to be considered for back seat status.

For those of you interested in Kaaawa’s Crouching Lion Inn, here’s a brief video tour.

And if you need a bit of Saturday amusement, check out Rules of Thumb.org. Here’s a sample:

CONTROLLING YOUR CAT
If you don’t want a cat to jump into your lap, don’t make eye contact with it.
Kim Murphy, columnist, Portland, Maine
(LR) Legacy Rule of Thumb from previously published collections
Current Rating: 4.6 out of 10 based on 34 reviews

And here’s another unintended political lesson noted at the State Capitol. I was waiting for Meda to pick me up late one afternoon this week which I took a second look at the door. It seems like a perfect match to what’s going on in the building all the time. In any case, as usual, click for a larger version of the photo.