The following comment, left by someone using the name “a town without a newspaper,” struck me as particularly provocative.

Knowing that not everyone compulsively digs through the daily comments, I thought it deserved highlighting.

Let me know what you think.

Sep 14, 2011 at 10:00 am (Edit)

I once saw a presentation at the UHM for journalism majors. The adviser to the student newspaper Ka Leo explained that if a public official dodges a reporter, the reporter is to look up that official’s home residence address and that evening wait in the drive way to confront the official.

The whole room fell dead silent.

Finally, a young woman spoke out with trepidation, “Can we do that?”

The journalist got angry and started shouting at the students “You are reporters! That’s what reporters are supposed to do!”

I knew one of the student journalists, who was from the midwest but went to high school in Hawaii. She said that in the midwest, people are very nice and considerate in interpersonal matters. They are careful not to say anything that will hurt someone’s feelings. But in practical matters like business and politics, people in the midwest are very firmly but politely assertive and very open — and very hard working. I think that she had a real problem with the absence in Hawaii of that open and assertive side of life, but also with a kind of laid-back negligence and sloppiness.

There is a small-town lifestyle in Hawaii like in the midwestern US, but the geographic isolation amplifies the considerateness of the people, but also their timidity and complacency. They want to become journalists so they can report on restaurants and info tech and baby showers and all the creature comforts that comprise daily life within a very narrow horizon. In the 21st century, this is a path to doom.

The presentation that followed was from a successful journalist, a young guy from the Philippines whose father was a newspaper publisher. (He spoke perfect American English.) This reporter had moved to California during his college years and went to a community college with a decent student newspaper. He bought a Dodge Dart and lived in it, and survived on a diet of crackers and water. He constantly published and built up a big portfolio and got a job as a journalist when he graduated. You don’t need to go to Harvard, he said, but you need to constantly publish.

Again the room was dead silent.

The whole idea of moving to another country and living in an old car and on a diet of crackers and doing nothing but working was totally alien to the UH journalism majors. They probably mostly lived with their families and spent their weekends shopping or at the beach or working at a job (largely so they could go shopping).

The thing is, this guy was from a laid-back tropical island culture, and this guy had some major balls on him. There are people like that in all small-towns, people like Barack Obama, who end up at elite universities and in Hollywood and on Wall Street, etc.

Those kind of people deep down still remain attached emotionally to where they come from, and they keep the values of the culture they were raised in close to their hearts. That’s especially true of people from the midwest, from what I’ve seen.

But that’s not true of Hawaii. Over-achievers from Hawaii do not identify with Hawaii. They grow up alienated from the local culture and it mystifies them. They may visit Hawaii on occasion, but they avoid the people.

If there is a side of life involving openness and assertiveness and hard work and aspiration that is freakishly missing in Hawaii even for someone from rural Ohio who went to public high school in Hawaii, just imagine what Obama thinks of Hawaii.