David Lawrence Brown, former Hawaii State Archaeologist/Branch Chief, emailed this notice which will be of interest to many:

I thought you might want to announce to your website readers and other interested parties that the Hawaii State Historic Preservation Division (SHPD) is seeking public input for the Hawaii Preservation Plan.

What’s interesting is that the DLNR and SHPD have never actually notified “the public.” Instead, they decided to have the questionnaire hosted on the Historic Hawaii Foundation (HHF) website. I could speculate as to why DLNR/SHPD have not notified “the public” and have chosen to only have the questionnaire with HHF, but that’s another story.

The Preservation Plan is very important since provides the direction of the SHPD for the next five years. Please let Hawaii folks know that they’re supposed to have a say in the matter.

Here’s the link for the questionnaire.

Veteran reporter and MidWeek columnist Bob Jones shared his view on the selection of a new Honolulu police chief:

I know the law requires widespread advertising for a new Honolulu chief of police, but does selecting one from outside make sense? Experience tells us no.

We’re not a police force in extremis that needs a William J. Bratton (New York and Los Angeles) to come riding to the rescue of a force out of control. We’re a low crime city with a big city drug problem but a police force with very minor problems of corruption and promotion. We don’t need an outsider to change our culture.

In fact, our police culture contributes to our relative contentment with HPD. I can’t imagine how a Mainland chief would improve things here.

I’ve watched Oahu chiefs since January of 1963, never seen a bad or corrupt one. I agree that the current one has problems of getting along with the rank-and-file and the media, and mainly has to go because he failed at the outset to put himself up for a 5-year term and wanted only one more year. Only when the Police Commission balked did he say “okay, five years.”

But why not look deep down in the ranks, maybe as deep as major, for our next leader? A community police officer. One without such an old-fashioned approach to the news media.

I happen to know that the commissioners regularly check this site and I figured it’s my best way to reach them.

And the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting yesterday criticized the media’s misreporting on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

The lengthy and detailed assessment notes, in part:

But anyone who reads Sotomayor’s 2001 speech can see that the prevailing media discussion is totally misleading. Her point was that people’s backgrounds affect how they see the world. This would seem to be a rather uncontroversial fact of life; justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Samuel Alito made similar statements about their own backgrounds to no great controversy.

In regards to cases involving race and gender discrimination, which was the topic under discussion, Sotomayor was arguing that the experience of facing discrimination may help in judging such cases–pointing out that despite the presumption that “a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases,” such wise old men as Oliver Wendell Holmes and Benjamin Cardozo “voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society.” She added: “Let us not forget that until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case.”

It’s definitely good reading and a needed corrective.