Why am I having more trouble getting online before our daily walk? This has been the case even though sunrise, and our daily walk, is as late as it will be all year. We now leave the house around 6:30, pretty much in the dark, and see the sun rise as we get to the other end of Kaaawa. I think it’s that I’m not doing as much advance prep the night before. I’ll have to jiggle my schedules and see what happens.

The House Majority Communications Office presented a workshop yesterday for legislative staff on social media, and I was surprised by the statistics in a YouTube video that’s been floating around for several months which appear to show a tidal wave of new communications via tools like Twitter and Facebook. The video is available in a short version or a longer original version. Connecting with these data was worth the price of admission!

Early January and there’s already lots of action on the political scene.

Richard Borreca reported in yesterday’s Star-Bulletin that Wendy Mink, daughter of the late Congresswoman Patsy Mink, called the use of her father’s photo by the Ed Case campaign “disrespectful” and said Case is distorting political history in his own favor.

Case challenged Hanabusa yesterday, saying she should resign from her post as Senate President in order to run, although the law does not require it. According to Borreca:

“She should not do both at the same time,” Democrat Case said. “If she does do both at the same time, it is not because she thinks it is good for the state or the people, it is because she thinks it is good for her politically.”

Hanabusa (D, Nanakuli-Makua) responded: “Ed is wrong. Some of us can multitask and do more than one thing.”

Hanabusa added:

“I think Ed was a representative when he ran for Congress, but he didn’t have a leadership position, so there wasn’t anything for him to step down from.”

Ouch.

Several prominent Democrats are in the race for Lt. Governor, and progressives are already worried that their votes will be divided and allow the more conservative candidate, Sen. Norman Sakamoto, to win the spot on the ticket, and progessives shudder at the prospect of a Hannemann/Sakamoto lineup in November. There’s an interesting exchange in the comments section of a recent blog entry by the Advertiser’s Derrick DePledge over how to deal with the politics of the situation. We’re likely to hear more of the Dems’ dilemma.

Meanwhile, DePledge reports Schatz has landed the endorsement of Maya Soetoro-Ng, the president’s charismatic sister, while L.G. opponent, Sen. Gary Hooser, has a birthday fundraiser scheduled for next week.

Here’s some recommended brain food–two recent National Public Radio reports tracing how drug companies managed to create diseases or diagnoses that created new markets for existing drugs. Last month, it was the story of Merck’s selling of “osteopenia”. You have to listen to this to appreciate the issue. Yesterday, a book review of Ethan Watters “Crazy Like Us” traced a similar exporting of depression and other medical concepts that again extend drug markets.

Great examples of explanatory reporting aimed at the corporate marketing machine.