Here’s a blast from the past. It’s excerpted from a longer post here dated December 13, 1999.

I guess United Public Workers state director Gary Rodrigues is in that small minority who are very angry that the Star-Bulletin did not cease to be on October 30.

I started getting the calls on Friday night alerting me to the personal attack in the “Malama Pono” newsletter just mailed to some 13,000 members of UPW, the state’s second largest public employee union and a subject of an ongoing investigation. This follows a shorter attack printed in the last issue of the newsletter.

It seems I’m a cover guy for the new issue, but it’s not flattering. The cover features my photo, with snakes dancing out of my head like halloween dreadlocks. The snakes, in turn, have the faces of Star-Bulletin editor and publisher, John Flanagan; managing editor Dave Shapiro; editorial page editor Diane Chang; and my wife, Meda Chesney-Lind. From the following 16 pages of invective, I presume that the union’s state director, Gary Rodrigues, is unhappy with my reporting. Of course, he has refused since day one to be interviewed, and has instructed all staff to hang up if I phone, and respond with abuse if I show up in person. The result has been a long series of stories over 15 months.

There are different reactions to this strange attack. I think it is kind of humorous. My wife doesn’t agree, neither do several of the UPW members named in the newsletter.

It was about 15 months later that Rodrigues and one of his daughters were indicted on a laundry list of federal charges. The last story I had the pleasure of writing for the Star-Bulletin before the old newspaper closed and I lost my job was reporting on the indictments.