Please say, “Happy Anniversary!”

Thank you.

We started celebrating yesterday afternoon, anniversary eve, with our regular stop at Antique Alley (where we got so involved in conversation that I failed to take any pictures), a visit to my parents, a run through Safeway, and then home to feed cats and slow down.

Here’s photo evidence of our first glass of champagne last evening, and our wedding day back before just about everything. We don’t yet have an itinerary for today, but we’ll see what happens. The State of Hawaii has declared it a holiday (well, not really–the date happens to coincide with Hawaii’s Statehood Day).

We keep saying that “next year” we should have a party, but then next year is here and, well, here we are again at home with the cats and still enjoying it all.

So now we have a Circuit Court ruling that rejected the City Clerk’s interpretation of the city charter provision on the handling of initiative petitions. Lots of interest. But the unanimous news judgment seems to be that the substance and reasoning of the court decision are too “inside baseball” to report. I’ve been reading through news reports and none clarify whether the decision was oral only or whether there is a written decision as well. None have cited the judge’s legal reasoning or noted its absence, leaving me wondering what went on. None presented even the briefest summary of the legal positions of the two sides that were presented to the court, and we know there was lots of paper. And none of the news web sites that I’ve check made the legal briefs available to readers.

Most stories reported Judge Sakamoto’s key sound bite:

“The voice of the people should not be suffocated by the erroneous readings of the law by its own government,” Sakamoto said.

The lack of explanation of the legal reasoning and viewpoints leaves the news consumer with only cynical impressions, judging from comments left on various stories. We know the decision went against the city but don’t know why. Political imagination fills in the rest, I’m afraid.

With so many resources thrown at court reporting these days, it’s disappointing to see how superficial the result can be on a case of major interest such as this one.

The Star-Bulletin reports this morning that Gannett is cutting 1,000 jobs across the country. I first saw this news a couple of days ago on the Gannett Blog. According to these reports, the cuts include about 600 layoffs, meaning that Honolulu’s 54 cuts would be 9% of the total layoffs of the whole Gannett chain.

Here’s Ms. Wally in a classic pose, calling attention to the nearly empty food dishes.

For more Friday felines, just click on the photo.

Thanks for stopping by.