Monthly Archives: December 2008

Saturday…Inouye running, Akaka in the news, home delivery could be cut, and Queen’s Surf as it looked in 1947

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Hawaii Senator Dan Inouye has made it clear that he is running for reelection in 2010, according to a report by CQ Politics.

In a written statement, Inouye told CQ:

Make no mistake, I am a candidate for re-election in 2010. I am calling upon my friends and supporters to once again stand with me,” Inouye said in a statement provided to CQ Politics. “I am taking nothing for granted in what I expect for be an exciting and vigorous campaign. I am looking forward to it.

“…for be an exciting and vigorous campaign”? The statement has been quoted in several published accounts. A typo or a bit of pidgin creeping in? Don’t know.

CQ called Gov. Linda Lingle as the only candidate on the horizon who could pose a challenge to Inouye, but notes “she has given no indication yet of her plans for that year.”

And CQ also put Sen. Dan Akaka in the spotlight this week for challenging the Veterans Affairs Department for failing to follow a provision in a law passed in 1996. The department’s inaction resulted in the department seeking repayment of pension and disability benefits paid to a surviving spouse during the month of their spouse’s death.

Akaka became aware of the problem last month when contacted by Ruby Maile Sasaoka, a Hawaii resident whose veteran husband died in 2007.

After using her husband’s final benefit check for funeral expenses, the Treasury department took an equal amount of money directly from her bank account without her knowledge. As a result, she unwittingly bounced checks and now faces credit issues.

Will newspapers survive if home delivery of a print edition isn’t available?

Gannett’s Detroit Free Press and its joint operating agreement partner, the Detroit News, are reportedly “leaning towards” cutting home deliveries to three days a week, AP reports, citing a Wall Street Journal story.

A final decision is pending, but the WSJ reports:

But the leading scenario set to be unveiled Tuesday calls for the Free Press, the 20th largest U.S. newspaper by weekday circulation, and the News to end home delivery on all but the most lucrative days — Thursday, Friday and Sunday. On the other days, the company would sell single copies of abbreviated print editions at newsstands and direct readers to the papers’ expanded digital editions.

I’m not sure whether the Journal story is restricted to subscribers only, but here’s the link to try.

The plans were first disclosed by the Gannett Blog, which beat Gannett to its own story.

Gannett’s Honolulu Advertiser already offers 3-day home delivery (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) as an option for $1.60 per week, half the price of full 7-day delivery.

Queen's SurfAnd here’s a treat for this Saturday–a glimpse of the old Queen’s Surf in 1947.

It starts with a portion of a letter from my father to Mr. Otto Schatz dated September 9, 1947, which describes the Queen’s Surf.

The Queen’s Surf as I have mentioned before is the most luxuriest (sic) and enjoyable commercial location on the island of Hawaii (sic) at the present time. They have the beautiful cocktail lounge overlooking the dance pavilion and the beautiful expanse of the Pacific as well as the cocktail lounge on themain floor.

The letter also describes several photos. I was able to locate some but not all of them. It’s hard to look at these without a bit of nostalgia.

Just click on this photo for more.

Friday….Fat cat flying, folo on the pay raise, friends targeted in online scam, don’t drop your hard drive

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It wasn’t my fault!

I got up this morning to find this site, and my hosting service, unavailable.I don’t know what the problem is or when service will be restored. Hopefully it won’t be long, but who knows!

[Update at 5:50 a.m.: The blog itself is now loading, but isn’t allowing me to update it or check email. Coming soon, I hope.]

Following my comments here yesterday, I’ve heard that the issue of legislative pay raises hasn’t actually been raised directly in the House Majority Caucus yet. Apparently some concerns had been directed privately to the speaker by House members who felt his public comments put all members on the spot and should have been discussed internally before being offered publicly.

I see that Senators Akaka and Inouye were both among the Democrats voting in favor of the auto industry loan package, which died last night in the Senate.

Last night, an email came in that appeared to be from an old friend, Gene Stoltzfus, one of the founders of Christian Peacemaker Teams. It appeared to come from his email address and had a plausible message.

How are you doing today? I am sorry i didn’t inform you about my traveling
to Africa for a program called “Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education, the program is taking place in three major countries in Africa which is NIGER , South Africa and Ghana . It as been a very
sad and bad moment for me, the present condition that i found myself is very hard for me to explain.

I am really stranded in Ghana because I forgot my little bag in the Taxi where my money, passport, documents and other valuable things were kept on my way to the Hotel am staying, I am facing a hard time here because i have no money on me.

Of course, it then went on to ask for a quick loan.

Luckily, Gene is, among other things, someone who writes, and it was clear that this wasn’t really from Gene. The giveaway was the request to use an alternate email address “because gmail service is very bad here in Africa.”

Despite that, it was one of the more sophisticated con attempts I’ve had come my way. It appears they were able to access Gene’s gmail account and send these messages out to his friends. When I reached him at home in the middle of Canada, Gene said Google had closed his gmail account and his blogspot blog.

“Got to go rebuild the house,” he said.

I guess its appropriate that the week also saw a new report with recommendations on cyber-security.

I’ve never dropped my cell phone into the toilet. But last night I picked up my laptop to move it and forgot that I had a little Western Digital “Passport” USB drive plugged it with about 125 GB of photos. When the little drive hit the floor, I realized what I had done. That sound was not good.

I picked it up. The plastic case wasn’t broken. There was a brief delay when I plugged it back, but then the status light started flashing and data began flowing. It still worked!

That’s a tough little drive. Lucky me.

[text]Finally, who said fat cats can’t fly? This Feline Friday leads off with Ms. Wally caught in mid-air on her way to the kitchen counter. So just click on the photo for more of cat energy to end the week.

Thusday…Flooding in Kaaawa

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FloodingI went out a little after 8 a.m. to see what’s happening on our end of Kaaawa.

Makaua Stream is very high and likely to threaten more areas along its banks. The flood control project there was scheduled to be getting underway “any day now”. Too late.

The area behind the post office is flooded again, and recent new construction has added to the flow of mud into other properties and into the streets.

And a river is again flowing down from the upper road, Maumauluukaa. Quite a sight.

Oh, did I mention the waterfalls?

Thursday…The storm, Aloha to a news pro, layoffs, and the legislative pay raise

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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.