I rousted myself early this morning to do a rough selection of photos from yesterday’s Taro Festival at the State Capitol. The event is described in an entry by Thelma Dreyer on the Hawaii House Blog.

These are my quick picks from a large number of photps, gathered together in a relatively rough catalog. Enjoy.

We’re going walking now to watch the dawn, and I’ll try to be back with additional thoughts a bit later.

[Okay, it’s later.]

We got to the corner of our street to find a beautiful peacock and two hens grazing along the side of the road. They eventually followed us to our end of the street and wandered through our yard. I confess to throwing down a handful of cat food, which they devoured in short order.

While poi was being pounded downstairs yesterday, House and Senate members were jockeying over HB 444, the bill to expand the rights granted to civil unions.

Derrick DePledge links to a fascinating story from the Salt Lake Tribune in an entry on The Notebook blog.

DePledge reports this morning that Sen. Brian Taniguchi, who chairs the Senate Judiciary and Government Operations Committee, is on the verge of withdrawing his support for pulling the vote out of committee and directly to the floor. Taniguchi had previously been assuring Democratic Party insiders of his intent back the effort.

But the key seems to be the shifting position of Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, who has been swiftly backpedaling from her early tacit support of the civil unions measure and now reportedly has been twisting arms behind the scenes to keep it off the floor.

Could we be seeing one of the first volleys in the 2010 elections?

Congressman Neil Abercrombie submitted testimony in support of HB444 earlier in the session. Hanabusa, who is at least considering a run against Abecrombie in the Democratic primary next year, could be trying to differentiate herself from Neil and take political advantage of the furor that this bill has stirred up on the religious and homophobic right. Leaving Taniguchi to take the public flack for allowing the measure to die while she lines things up behind the scenes, she may be trying to preserve her somewhat liberal image while cozying up to more conservative voters.

Some Democrats are also upset that, in the process, Hanabusa has empowered both conservative community groups and the most conservative members of the Senate.

Other Senators are grasping at excuses. Some say they won’t support pulling the bill from committee because Gov. Lingle would veto the bill and the House may not have a veto-proof majority. Isn’t this one of those cases where they should let the House worry about getting its votes in order and just do the right thing?

I think I’ll be sending a small campaign contribution to Sen. Gary Hooser, who has been steady in his support of HB444 even while votes began eroding around him.

Over in the House, Majority Leader Blake Oshiro has been trying to shore up support for the measure. Word yesterday was that he was preparing to circulate several legal opinions contradicting several of the most erroneous claims made by opponents of HB444.

The beat goes on.