Calling all former Spencecliff restaurant veterans!

Hey. this is a call to any and all Spencecliff Restaurant Employees from the past. We are having a
reunion/event and want to connect with you! If you are, or if you know of anyone who worked for one of the fabulous old Spencecliff restaurants that dotted the islands back a while ago, please connect
wih us.

email kimotikitv@yahoo.com

mahalo!

Hawaii Congressman Neil Abercrombie got a lot of attention yesterday. First there was his outspoken opposition to the new ethics reform bill, which sets up an outside committee to review ethics complaints. TPM Muckraker.com cited Neil as the “most quotable of all“.

Then there was Neil’s letter to the Vatican asking whether torture is considered a sin, along with drug use and pollution.

By coincidence, an old friend of mine, Gene Stoltzfus, sent a somewhat similar letter to President Bush this week urging the president to consider waterboarding from a Christian perspective.

Gene wrote:

My strand of Christians traces our history back to Jesus through hard times, suffering, and moments of great integrity of life and faith. Historians tell me that the practice of waterboarding can be traced to the Spanish Inquisition in the same time frame as the persecution of my faith ancestors the Anabaptists, by the Protestant Reformation and the Roman Catholic Counter Reformation. Practices like waterboarding were used to put down the Protestant Reformers, Jews, witches and other heretics.

Gene then follows the practice up through contemporary times and ends with an appeal.

So now I appeal to you in the name of God and in the name of our country that seeks to be a light to the nations to cast off the vestiges of the Spanish Inquisition. I appeal to you to bring policy out of the shadows of torture into a place where humans can make adult decisions. Could we agree to just try not being a nation that practices torture for the next 100 years, and see if such a consistent public policy brings us closer to a culture of hope on our planet.

Thank you, Gene.

Ah, according to the news Hawaiian Telcom is not the only headache facing Carlyle Group. Now one of its other affiliates, Carlyle Capital, has defaulted on billions in outstanding debt and appears headed for collapse. How that could affect Carlyle Group remains unknown.

And so it goes on this Thursday morning.