Rain, wind, thunder and lightning. It’s a pretty good storm. The question for us, as always in such weather, is whether Kamehameha Highway will remain open. “Highway” is a bit misleading, as it’s a two-lane, flood-prone road that provides our only access to the rest of the island.

I’ve laid eyes on eight of the cats. Mr. Silverman slipped in just a few minutes before 6 a.m., wet but not soaked. Annie still missing. I hope she’s not outside in the weather, but fear she could be. Of course, she could also be under our bed, or in the closet, or one of several other sleeping spots.

I was saddened last night to learn of the death of Liz Donovan, who retired after three decades working as a news researcher. I never met Liz, but her blogs ranked at the top of my regular “must check” list. Several times I found myself emailing her to thank her for turning up useful resources.

The last post on her Behind the News blog was on November 29, and she had updated her Infomaniac site on the 27th. Neither contained any hint of her serious health issues. She was a pro to the end.

Here’s the notice that went out to her former newsroom at the Miami Herald:

Liz Donovan, longtime news researcher at The Miami Herald and a good friend to many in our newsroom, died at a hospital in Gainesville, Ga. Liz had been battling lung cancer.

Liz worked with Woodward and Bernstein on the Watergate story (she is thanked in the book credits) at the Washington Post before joining The Herald in 1981. Here, she assisted hundreds of reporters on projects ranging from routine to nvestigative, before retiring in 2004 to Murphy, N.C.

She was a pioneer in database reporting and research, and her
Infomaniac Blog was one the first of its kind. On it, she explains the name:

The “Infomaniac” title comes from a 1994 article about a new kind of news researcher by John Ullman in The Database Files newsletter. They named me Infomaniac of the Year that year.

We don’t have more details yet, but will share them when we do.

Rick and Anders

Rick Hirsch
Multimedia Editor
The Miami Herald
www.MiamiHerald.com

I never met her but I’m going to miss her greatly. Maybe it’s because she also shared photographs and had a great sense of place. Don’t miss her list of favorite blogs.

I was just trying to read the Star-Bulletin’s story about rising Hawaii foreclosures, but can’t do it. That awful pop-up ad covers the top part of the story and there seems to be no way to get rid of it. That whole intrusive approach has made me less likely to check Starbulletin.com these days, although Larry Geller will scold me again for failing to install software to defeat the pop-ups.

And I wasn’t surprised to read the Advertiser story today by Greg Wiles reporting layoffs by local car dealers. House Clerk Pat Mau-Shimizu said earlier this week that a number of people applying for temporary jobs during the upcoming legislative session had been laid off by car dealerships and real estate offices. She also said a job ad placed on CareerBuilder had brought hundreds of applications within a few days, an unprecedented response, with many resumes citing jobs lost due to layoffs.

Speaking of the legislature, I’m surprised at how quickly and quietly Speaker Calvin Say’s suggestion that legislators decline their scheduled pay raise was dropped.

Say made his suggestion while speaking to the Kokua Council, where he was heard by Advertiser writer Derrick DePledge, and he later repeated the comment during a pre-election interview with the Star-Bulletin’s Richard Borreca.

“I personally feel it is unwise to consider accepting the pay raise. If I am speaker next year, I would present it to the majority caucus,” Say said during an interview in his state Capitol office yesterday.

Say said he would consider asking Democrats to consider forgoing the pay raise for two years. “It will just become a lightning rod for the entire community,” Say said.

Legislators are set to get a raise that would bring their salaries from $35,900 to $48,708 at the start of 2009.

The increase is part of a recommendation from a state salary commission that has already put in place pay raises for the governor, her Cabinet and state judges.

The idea hasn’t publicly resurfaced, so I presume that the Speaker did indeed present his idea to the Democratic caucus and that it was rejected.