Monthly Archives: September 2011

An update, and some suggested readings

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First, a Friday update in response to several questions.

First, we did buy a new range after our previous appliance went out with a bang, or at least a cloud of acrid smoke. We got through the interim cooking on our small gas grill, with one night of takeout from our regulat Thai restaurant in Kaneohe (Chao Phya, next to Starbucks in the Windward City Shopping Center).

Thanks for all the suggestions, but after exploring many of them, and checking availability, we ended up back at Sears, which was able to deliver and install an electric, smooth top drop-in range to us in Kaaawa within two days. They could have come the next business day, but that didn’t fit with our schedules. We managed to get a decent price, thanks to (a) a pricing error that cut off $200, and (b) another 10% discount for using a Sears charge card, which we signed up for on the spot in order to claim this discount. Sears was about the only place to find a mid-priced drop-in that was in stock, ready for delivery. Lots of other places had great selections of items for special order, delivery in about 4-5 weeks, which just wouldn’t have worked for us. Oh, there were also the high priced ranges in the $2,000+ category, which we never considered. Are people crazy?

Second, a Feline Friday report on Ms. Wally. If you recall, I took her to the vet two weeks ago when her appetite had dropped to near zero. The first round of tests diagnosed a urinary infection and crystals in her urine. The good news was that all other major systems checked out okay, heart, kidney, liver, thyroid, etc. I begged for to get the prescribed antibiotic as a shot rather than a twice-a-day battle to assert human authority over cat, the kind of battle that mortal humans rarely win and that end up with that sticky pink goo spit out over everything. They also sent Wally home with a fancy pain killer, which had her wandering the house, eyes dilated, looking for love, and a little food. She went back last weekend for another shot of antibiotic. I was able to report that her appetite had picked up, not to normal levels, but at least to the point where I’m not worrying that she’s going to starve. Next stop–a round of dentistry. She has some dental “issues” that could account for her picky eating. So now we’ve got to schedule the dental work and figure out how to pay for it. But that’s another tale.

And here are some suggestions for today’s almost-weekend reading.

From The Atlantic, “The Shame of College Sports,” which begins with four incredible paragraphs.

“I’M NOT HIDING,” Sonny Vaccaro told a closed hearing at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., in 2001. “We want to put our materials on the bodies of your athletes, and the best way to do that is buy your school. Or buy your coach.”

Vaccaro’s audience, the members of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, bristled. These were eminent reformers—among them the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, two former heads of the U.S. Olympic Committee, and several university presidents and chancellors. The Knight Foundation, a nonprofit that takes an interest in college athletics as part of its concern with civic life, had tasked them with saving college sports from runaway commercialism as embodied by the likes of Vaccaro, who, since signing his pioneering shoe contract with Michael Jordan in 1984, had built sponsorship empires successively at Nike, Adidas, and Reebok. Not all the members could hide their scorn for the “sneaker pimp” of schoolyard hustle, who boasted of writing checks for millions to everybody in higher education.

“Why,” asked Bryce Jordan, the president emeritus of Penn State, “should a university be an advertising medium for your industry?”

Vaccaro did not blink. “They shouldn’t, sir,” he replied. “You sold your souls, and you’re going to continue selling them. You can be very moral and righteous in asking me that question, sir,” Vaccaro added with irrepressible good cheer, “but there’s not one of you in this room that’s going to turn down any of our money. You’re going to take it. I can only offer it.”

From Pro Publica, “The Hidden Hands in Redistricting: Corporations and Other Powerful Interests.” Can someone involved in tracking Hawaii’s redistricting comment on whether any such groups have been spotted here?

Also from the ProPublica Blog: “Do Regulations Really Kill Jobs Overall? Not So Much.” Throw this into the debate.

Any interest in more focused online discussions?

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I’ve been mulling over the possibility of adding a new level of online discussions. I notice that there is a lot of interst, resulting in lots of comments, on certain issues, usually issues where there is a strong contrast of opinions but sometimes a wide disagreement over the factual context. I’m wondering if there is any interest in a series of more focused online discussions that would include some specific readings, to get us on the same page regarding the “facts,” and perhaps Q&A’s with experts or other authorities.

My cousin, who teaches at Boise State, is an expert in such things, and I asked her for suggestions. She reponded:

I suppose you could use a threaded comment section following a blog post that either contains the article or a link to it, and close the comments for each blog post when you post the next article. I haven’t deployed a threaded comment plugin myself, but people seem pretty happy with both the Disqus and Intense Debate plugins for WordPress. I have had issues, as a commenter, with Disqus occasionally, as the university’s network here doesn’t always recognize it as a “trusted resource,” and in that case won’t display any comments at all.

Or you could use a WordPress plugin to turn a section of your site into a forum (for example, at forum.ilind.net or ilind.net/forum), and each article could have its own thread. You could close threads after a certain amount of time. Again, I haven’t tried this myself, but I have looked into it, and from what I found, there’s no one forum plugin that everyone loves (surprise!), but people who have a lot of members and don’t want to spend a ton of time approving and managing members tend to use either WishList Member or aMember in addition to their forum software. There’s also vBulletin and phpBB, of course, outside of WordPress.

Those online forum systems could accomodate as many as were interested, without scheduling issues. Smaller groups, though, could possibly use an online conferencing setup to hold live lecture-discussion sessions as well.

This format could be used to explore Hawaii’s sunshine and ethics laws, their substance, history, and politics, or jump directly into more political topics.

Or, perhaps, reading a daily blog is about all anyone has time for.

All comments or reactions appreciated.

Kudos to Disappeared News, and a blog controversy on Maui

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Thanks to Larry Geller for his description of a whistleblower lawsuit against United Airlines over working conditions in a call center tucked away in a former storage area in the bowels of Honolulu International Airport. The problem is proximity to a grease trap that services a kitchen operated by Gate Gourmet. The lawsuit alleges that United, along with regulatory agencies, failed to respond to employee complaints and reports that workers’ health suffered.

If you’ve ever been around a grease trap, you know they can be very nasty. Larry puts it all on context very well.
Good job. As a relatively frequent United customer, I’m not happy to be reading of the company’s failure to respond.

On Maui, a controvery over a proposed bottled water operation spilled into the blogosphere and into the mainstream media this week.

The Maui News reported that the organization Maui Tomorrow had removed information about the project from its web site because it said certain allegations about the project were incorrect or could not be verified.

The critical comments about the water project had been posted by Jonathan Starr, who certainly has the experience to know what he’s talking about. Starr is a former chair of the Maui County Democratic Party, past chair of the Maui Planning Commission, and former member of the county’s Board of Water Supply.

According to the Maui News:

Starr said Tuesday that he had never met with Tony Liserre, the developer of the proposed project, and that all the information he had reported in his blog post about the project had been “secondhand.”

He said he felt his post had been effective in raising awareness about the project and provoking discussion about the prospect of exporting water from Maui.

“I feel it was appropriate,” he said. “I feel a public citizen does not have to make sure that every fact is corroborated two or three times by sources the way a journalist does. It is enough to state one’s opinion and what one has heard when one is operating as a public citizen.”

But county Environmental Coordinator Rob Parsons said the post was a major source of misinformation about the project and contributed to an “explosion” of online falsehoods, rumormongoring and hyperbole.

I haven’t seen the original comments, so it’s difficult to assess the situation.

But Starr’s comments about the difference between a “public citizen” and a “journalist” deserve further digesting.

Is it really enough to state your opinion and “what one has heard” when blogging? Comments, anyone?

A greeting from Ms. Bella

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Ms. Bella quickly became one of our favorites after being adopted into her new family around Christmas last year. She is growing up into quite a nice dog, although a little naughty.

Her latest “trick” is to jump down to the beach and run out to meet us in the morning, then run back and climb back into her yard to wait for a biscuit.

Here’s her performance yesterday morning.