Monthly Archives: September 2017

Throwback Thursday: A rare sighting without a beard

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I haven’t run across many photos of myself during this brief interlude sans facial hair.

I’m not at all sure of the time period, although I think it was over several months in 1972, maybe dating back into 1971.

There was some experimentation. This is a rare shot, clean shaven. I tried several other looks during that period, including the mustache/goatee, the long sideburns and mustache look, etc. This was sort of the Prince Valiant look. But before long I grew the beard back, and I don’t think I’ve shaved it since.

c. 1971-72

Digesting the Ken Burns-Lynn Novick “Vietnam War”

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I have to admit that I have not been able to watch much of the Burns-Novick Vietnam War series. Getting dragged back into that time and those events is too painful, too gut wrenching. I want to watch, but after a few minutes I realize those old feelings of anger and powerlessness are building again and I turn off the sound and images. Pet a cat. Move around. Do something else other than watch the insanity of a half-century ago, fully aware that those same scenes are now playing out in many different parts of our world.

I do have to thank a former neighbor for pointing me to the Facebook page of Doug Rawlings of Veterans for Peace, which features individual essays on each segment of the Vietnam series as they’re broadcast.

He’s a good writer, and he writes from the depth of his experience. My friend forwarded Doug’s essay on Episode Seven, which aired this week.

Here’s a bit of it:

EPISODE SEVEN
“THE VENEER OF CIVILIZATION”
Every episode is replete with images of the killing machine grinding away — B52’s float like geese thousands of feet above the terrain lazily letting their payload out to nonchalantly ravage the countryside as F-4’s swoop in and 155’s and 175’s pound away day after day. More ordnance than all of World War II let loose on a country the size of Massachusetts. By this time the viewer can’t be blamed for being numbed by it all. But now, in 1968, the bodies start piling up like cordwood, and we are locked into an Hieronymus Bosch painting of our own design. To break us out of our stupor Burns and company flash street scenes from all around the world of student riots and police clubbings (the Beatles’ “Revolution” screams away). Our chopper crewman from the previous episode recounts what it was like in an Australian hotel room (he was on R&R) to watch a cop who looked like his father beating on a kid who looked like him. From that moment on, he tells us, he was politicized. Note that the really bizarre part of R&R (I, too, went to Sydney) was going back. There was no excuse now — you knew full well what you were heading into. There were reports of guys deserting at this point, but not many. Meanwhile, the voices of Simon and Garfunkel singing from “What A Time It Was” wafts out of the TV screen. We are trapped. It is 1968.

Whether you’re watching the Vietnam series or not, do read Rawlings’ commentary. Highly recommended.

Draft ethics rules to be discussed next week

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The State Ethics Commission has released its draft of the first batch of administrative rules, which will be discussed during the commission’s meeting scheduled for next Monday, October 2, at 10 a.m.

The meeting has been posted on the official state calendar (use the link above), but the draft rules had not yet been posted on the commission’s website as of early this morning.

However, the initial set of rules, designated Chapters 1-3, can be found here.

I’m just starting to review this initial set. If you have comments on the proposed rules, please share.

The commission was forced to reduce its guidance into administrative rules as the result of a 2016 court decision (see iLind.net, “Judge says ethics guidelines must be adopted as rules to be valid“).

Here’s some of what I wrote at that time.

The ruling came in lawsuit brought by the Hawaii State Teachers Association appealing a decision by the State Ethics Commission.

The educational travel guidelines, adopted last year by the State Ethics Commission, said several provisions of the ethics code conflict with the past practice of teachers accepting free travel and other benefits from private travel companies in exchange for the teachers planning the trips, recruiting participants, and serving as chaperones. As a result, the commission held that trips could not proceed until or unless they were brought into compliance with the ethics laws.

According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser:

Judge Rhonda Nishimura repealed the Ethics Commission’s Aug. 4, 2015, memo and Aug. 19, 2015, advisory opinion today after hearing oral arguments. She said because the advice applies to a broader group, the process is subject to official rulemaking under law, which involves the public.

“So for the state Ethics Commission to issue such an advisory opinion and guidance memo that has a broader application than just a particular teacher or particular trip, does require that the entities involved engage in rulemaking,” Nishimura said.

The basis for the ruling appears to be that the commission’s “guidance” was actually a rule of general application which should have been adopted pursuant to the Hawaii Administrative Procedures Act, Chapter 91 HRS.

HSTA, represented by attorney Colleen Hanabusa, had previously made this argument directly to the commission, which rejected it. HSTA then appealed the commission’s ruling to the Circuit Court.

He said he wouldn’t “walk away”, but then he did

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I never know what’s going to be lurking in the back of one of my old folders. Always an adventure. An often another treasure.

This was the front page of the Honolulu Advertiser on May 5, 1977. It traces the evolution of #37, Richard M. Nixon.

Squint a bit, and let your imagination run, and you may be able to see the future graphic featuring 45.

But then again, I doubt he’s capable of even as much self-reflection as Nixon.

Imagine...