I’m heading off this morning to attend the city’s rail transit symposium at the Blaisdell.

Funny thing about it is that the city has been featuring Dan Doyle, who was a transit official in Vancouver, B.C. during construction of the SkyTrain system, the model for Honolulu’s proposed system. But most of the rest of the “experts” appearing in today’s program are from cities featuring the more flexible and less expensive type of light rail technology that would allow planning a system that would run on overhead tracks where appropriate, but drop to street level where that would work best. Charlotte, Denver, Phoenix, and Seattle have all gone with the more flexible system. So while the experts from those cities will sing the praise of rail transit, it’s important to keep in mind that Mayor Hannemann is trying to prevent Honolulu from considering the actual rail technologies they have implemented.

And in today’s program, it’s the Skytrain that gets the prime morning slot that probably will get most broadcast news attention, while those flexible rail systems get pushed into the afternoon, after lunch, when attendance and media interest is likely to wane.

Kind of like the old card trick where you fan the deck out but “push” a selected card forward so that it’s likely to be selected. The illusion of choice masks the deliberate effort to push one solution.

Kauai blogger Andy Parx raised some excellent questions last week about blogging and journalistic independence in the age of Google AdSense and other automated contextual ads. He noted that the day I wrote about door-to-door alarm system sales, Google’s system was pushing some of those same alarm systems.

Lind has no control over which ad google will post with which article, but of course google is well known for automating a process where their ads correlate with the content- as anyone who uses gmail knows all too well

The problem is that to anyone who doesn’t know how google works or doesn’t put it together with the ad on Ian’s site, it makes what is an extraordinary piece of investigative work onto one that raises questions about the integrity of the author by making it appear Lind is just running down the competition for his “paid” masters.

Andy’s right. I usually just laugh at the pairings that can result, but the questions remain.

I’ve been quite ambivalent about those ads and have gone back and forth on whether or not to use them.

If they produced real money, the choice would be easier. But over the course of a year, they really don’t produce much at all, enough to pay hosting fees and some incidentals, but no real income. I’ve stripped the ads off several times, then experimentally added them back.

I tried limiting ads to companies I really like, like Powell’s Books, but few people seem much interested in books. Even Amazon produces only miniscule income, and I’m not even sure why I leave those ads there. Inertia is the operative word, I believe.

So what’s the answer? Is there an answer? I could try declaring this site “shareware” and solicit donations. I could require subscriptions. Perhaps there’s someone locally with good values and business practices who would like to advertise in one of those spots currently occupied by Google or Amazon? I would love to hear from you.

Part of the problem is that I’ve never been clear what this site is all about. It’s not a business, that’s clear. But it’s more than a “hobby”, since I feel that need to publish daily and, at least now and then, produce original content and useful documents and information. It’s an expression of that journalistic impulse that hasn’t been either constrained, or supported by, any economic sense. In other words, somewhat unsustainable except in this crazy world of blogging.

Suggestions? Thoughts? I welcome them all.

This was the view yesterday morning in Kaaawa. Clouds, the threat of rain. Umbrellas at the ready. Enjoy.