|
August 3, 2002 - Saturday
E-mail will be deleted from state executive
branch servers after no more than 30 days, according to a
memo this week from the state comptroller. All e-mail
older than 30 days will be deleted starting September 3.
Insofar as government e-mails are, in many cases,
considered public records, the 30-day max raises
interesting issues, but I don't know if there's any
interest group positioned to pursue them.
Here's the brief reply that I sent over to Alex
Salkever in response to his HawaiiScoops
entry yesterday.
You raise interesting points.
It is absolutely true that the self-employed are
shafted by Hawaii's prepaid health plan statute, which
fails to provide any relief to those working as
consultants, running their own small businesses,
writers, or the self-employed.
Of course, this is not a Hawaii situation but a
national one. I'm a member of the National Writers
Union, and NWU is going through a terrible mess trying
to find group health coverage for its members, most of
whom freelance for a living. The last provider went
out of business, leaving members in a lurch, and it
has been very difficult to find other insurers willing
to step in. Watching this unfold within the NWU, which
is part of the United Autoworkers union, is a reminder
not to blame everything on our being in Hawaii,
although we should be pressing legislators to get
something in place to service this segment of our
population.
I'm also not inclined to rhetorically solve such a
problem by attacking those, like Hawaii's unionized
hotel workers, who have won a contractual "right" to
health care. They have, by acting collectively,
improved their conditions. And, like others, they are
attempting to continue to do so. More power to them,
as far as I'm concerned.
Regarding the economics of writing for Honolulu
Weekly, you're absolutely right that writers aren't
going to get rich this way. But, unlike the case of
the daily newspapers, or the hotel industry, nobody at
Honolulu Weekly is getting rich. It's not the case
that we're writing for peanuts while the corporate
elite prosper. The publisher, Laurie Carlson, is
probably paid more than others in the company, but
she's not paid a dot-com type salary, and works for
what she gets. I wish writers were paid more. I also
wish that there were other competing alternative
papers. Fact is, though, that the Honolulu Weekly has
survived for 11 years now as just about our only
alternative to the corporate dailies. I appreciate the
opportunity to occasionally contribute to that.
Just my thoughts on these matters.
August 2, 2002 - Friday
Alex Salkever's HawaiiScoops
took a shot at one of the short pieces I did for this
week's Honolulu Weekly, which some of you might find of
interest. I did respond, and perhaps I'll post those
thoughts here tomorow.
I was channel surfing through the 6 p.m. local
television news last night and spotted a brief interview
with Larry Meacham of Common Cause-Hawaii.
I always pay attention because I used to work for CCH.
In fact, every couple of weeks someone will ask me if I'm
still with Common Cause, and I have to explain that no,
I'm not, I actually left that job back in 1987. That
sometimes is a conversation stopper, sometimes the source
of a good laugh.
In any case, in last night's interview, Larry said
that he didn't think the State Ethics Commission would
take any action on a
Republican complaint that Gov. Cayetano is using his
government resources to meddle in this year's election
campaign in which he is not a candidate. He reasoned that
the commission didn't take action on a CCH complaint four
years ago which cited Republican Sen. Sam Slom's use of
his legislative letterhead for a campaign-related
message.
I should first say that I don't know all the facts
surrounding Cayetano's actions. However, the CCH position
as stated in this brief interview seems quite lame.
More importantly, the broadcast failed to note the
makeup of the local board
of directors, at least as listed on the Common Cause
web site. The eight member board includes Margery
Bronster, former attorney general in the Cayetano
administration, and Cindy Quinn, who served as Margery's
special assistant at that time. Then there's Richard
Port, former Democratic Party chairman, and Scott Foster,
a consultant to Democrat Ed Case in this election.
I respect all of these folks, but they open themselves
to criticism based on the appearance of Democratic
leanings.
I had a dream the other night. There was some kind of
party preparation underway. I was intrigued by the
appearance of small Halloween-like costumes of cats. On
closer inspection, I could see that these were dogs of
varied descriptions inside some cool cat costumes, their
dog noses and eyes visible through cutouts in the cat
masks. The dream faded out as I went to call Meda and
drag her over to see costumes.
Meda thinks the dream says something about my
relationship with the dogs on the morning walk, an
interruption of my formerly exclusive "cat person"
status. I suppose that could be, but don't tell the
cats.
Cybelle gave us some worry last night by disappearing
into the darkness. We've been letting Cybelle and Duke
out in the late afternoon, mostly under supervision, and
letting them gradually get accustomed to being outside.
Last night we left them to do their thing while we ate a
late dinner. After dinner, Duke came when called. Cybelle
didn't. A walk around the house with a flashlight
produced no sightings. We finally just left the door open
a bit and sent to bed. Around 1 a.m. I checked, and
Cybelle was asleep on a chair in the living room.
Whew.
August 1, 2002 - Thursday
Sorry for the delay this morning. I received
this message after being unable to upload today's entry:
host4.hrwebservices.net is being worked on.
It will be fixed shortly. Thanks for your patience.
HostRocket.com Support
But now, just back from our morning walk, all is in
order. And here goes.
On the advice of a reader, I checked out Slashdot.org
and found a number of discussions on the question of
online corrections/retractions of news stories. A search
turned up a
long list with several exchanges right on point.
Here's one
example which discusses various types of changes in
online stories. There's considerable discussion of
stories being rewritten or edited. The situation with the
reporting of Dobelle's Chamber of Commerce speech goes
further, altering the facts being reported rather than
just the way they were reported. In any case, there are
some interesting references here.
There are also echoes of Orwell's 1984 in this
process. Here's Bill
Moyers' statement of the problem from an interview by
"Facing History and Ourselves", an education group.
"In George Orwell's novel, 1984, Big Brother,
the totalitarian state, banishes history to the
'memory hole.' The 'memory hole' is that shredding
machine which eliminates all thoughts inconvenient to
the state. And so, as history--the facts of the
past--disappear down that 'memory hole,' the Ministry
of Truth--the propagandists in the Ministry of
Truth--[has] the job every morning of
rewriting history, rewriting reality. They come in,
they take the newspapers of the past, they clip out
something that is offensive to the state, and rewrite
the story of the past as they want the official
version of reality to appear. So that each day there's
a new version of the past being written, a new version
of reality.
"Now why is this important to the rulers of the
state? It's because if there are no objective
standards and evidence from the past against which to
judge what we are told, then what we are told becomes
the official view of reality. So, if the state can
banish history--inconvenient facts, the truth of the
matter--into the 'memory hole' and rewrite the
official view of reality every day, then we're at the
mercy of the official view of reality. . .
Another reader offers this comment:
Should academic CEO's be required to sign off
on the numbers they use publicly? I realize this is
not to be compared with Global.com, but I couldn't
resist the suggestion!
|
Poor Ms. Kili.
She reacts badly to summer fleas. She's
managed to chew most of the fur off of her back
end and underside, although I comb out her fleas
frequently and have applied the latest high tech
chemicals.
Ms. Wally, her sister, has a similar
intolerance. She doesn't chew, she scratches.
And scratches. It does on until her neck is
covered with tiny scabs.
I've tried several different approaches in
the last several weeks, including an adventure
with a flea shampoo that tested both of our
endurance.
|
Ms.
Kili
|
July 31, 2002 - Wednesday
Two more items concerning UH President Dobelle's
recent exaggeration of the economic benefits of the
proposed new medical school.
I received this brief statement yesterday from UH
explaining how they calculated the corrected economic
impact of the project.
Here is the information you requested re:
basis for jobs created by UH Health and Wellness
Center construction--
Work stations/research benches are included in the
plans for 50 researchers. Each researcher brings with
her or him 10 associates and $1-$1.5 million in grants
(Ed Cadman's formula, based on his experience). This
equals 550 high-level science/tech jobs. Support for
these people = another 550-600 for a total of about
1,100 jobs. Hawaiian Dredging confirms that a
construction project costing $110-$115 million would
employ 600-700 construction workers.
Readers can draw their own conclusions about how
realistic these assumptions are.
Another perplexing issue is how the retraction and
correction should be reported.
The Star-Bulletin noted the retraction in its tiny
section of corrections, but the
story appears in the online edition as it was
originally written. The correction is not appended to the
story in the online edition, and was published several
days after the original.
It's different over at the Advertiser. Here's the
relevant paragraph as it appeared in the Advertiser's
July 17 edition, which I stopped by and purchased
yesterday.
But here's the
paragraph as it now appears in the Advertiser's
online edition:
* An independent bond
rating for the UH to pay for the Health and Wellness
Center in Kaka'ako that breaks ground in 90 days, is
expected to create 1,100 permanent jobs and 600 to 700
construction jobs, generate $100 million in new tax
revenues and an additional $300 million in purchasing
power.
There is no indication that the copy has been edited
or is different in any way from that which originally
appeared. In this case, history was simply rewritten.
It's as if Dobelle never made the statement that there
would be 6,000 jobs. What about that concept of the
newspaper providing a historical record?
I'm sure the most accurate approach is for the
archival copy of this contain the original version with
the correction appended, or with a link to the
correction, but this entails quite a bit of work. I
haven't checked whether either paper has a policy
regarding these situations. That might be
interesting.
July 30, 2002 - Tuesday
Residents of Michigan's upper peninsula are
worried that Kamehameha Schools' plans to sell its
390,000 acres there could open the door for developers
and slam the door on public use of the wilderness area,
according to the Detroit
Free Press.
The land, which is spread across 10 counties,
"includes several miles of Lake Superior shoreline, most
of a small island, and more than 200 inland lakes," the
Free Press reports.
In an accompanying
editorial, the Free Press characterized the
importance of the land as "unparalleled" and called on
the governor to take action to preserve their public
character.
The Star-Bulletin ran an small item about the Michigan
land sale in its "business
briefs" last Friday, but given the prominence of the
issue in Michigan, the story seems to deserve more.
The 1919 issue of the Star-Bulletin offered
on eBay sold to the single bidder, a Kailua
collectibles dealer, for $17.99.
If you're wondering what happens if the ongoing
investigations force Mayor Harris to resign, here's a
link to the
City Charter provision governing such matters. If
there's less than a year remaining on the term, the City
Council appoints one of its members to serve as mayor. If
the remaining term is a year or more, then a special
election must be held.
July 29, 2002 - Monday
I just noticed Gannett's
press release on its financial performance during the
month of June.
Television revenue jumped, while newspapers still
struggle.
"Once again, the performance of the company's small
and medium-sized advertisers in its domestic newspapers
outpaced the revenue performance of its largest
advertisers," the company noted.
I didn't succeed yet in prying additional details
about the 1968 mine rescue out of George Steele, but did
get a brief note from an old friend of his. She
writes:
His handling of the breakthrough for the
rescue was a legend in the newsroom by the time I met
him. As the rescuers got closer and closer, George was
in the newsroom in Charleston holding the phone line
open for, as I remember the tale, hours. He may
remember more details.
You know, I _think_ it was Hominy Falls. There used
to be so many of those mining related disasters and
accidents. Frankly, it's hard to keep them all
straight. George covered a few of them.
As I write, Mr. Leo is sitting on a kitchen stool a
few feet to my left, and Mr. Duke is directly under the
stool, chirping and playing, clearly trying to suck Leo
into the game.
An alert reader spotted another set of editing gaffes
in the Star-Bulletin's
Sunday story about Hawaii's version of the fish
called a snakehead.
Given it's name, the story reports, "the fish is
instantly given a bad rep."
A bad rep? Don't they mean a bad rap? At least
that's the phrase according to Webster's Dictionary.
Then the article says Chinese immigrants in the late
1800's "raised the fish in their rice patties and taro
fields."
Rice patties?
A rice field is a paddy. A rice patty must be
something like a veggie burger. Hard to get a fish in
there.
Maybe nobody cares. But other news pros notice.
|
I added a new chapter to Cybelle's Saga
yesterday, but I've also started thinking that
it's time to consider when it will end.
After all, Cybelle and Duke are now almost
totally integrated into the household, and at
that point they become part of the larger
chronicle of our Kaaawa cats.
I'll just have to play it by ear over the
next several weeks.
|
Ms.
Cybelle
|
July 28, 2008 - Sunday
I found myself checking headlines frequently
yesterday afternoon for updates on the fate of the nine
miners trapped in the Quecreek Mine, and I joined the
cheering when I caught the CNN flash that all were found
alive. Then I had to continue checking until all were
successfully returned to the surface.
In between, I was browsing similar mine disasters, and
that's when I stumbled across what some called the
"miracle of Hominy Falls," which turns out to have a
Hawaii connection
"1968 Mine Disaster
at Hominy Falls four miners died but eight miners
rescued after being trapped underground for 11 days (mine
inundation by water from an adjacent abandoned mine),"
according to the entry in a mine
history timeline by the West Virginia Office of
Miners' Health Safety and Training..
One personal home page I found while doing a Google
search included the text of several articles during the
Hominy Falls rescue with the byline
of George Steele, now a Star-Bulletin copy editor,
but at that time a 21 or 22 year old reporter. The
clippings are attributed to the Charleston Gazette, but
with some uncertainty.
George must be getting some weighty flashbacks from
this week's coverage. I'll have to get ahold of him and
find out more.
|
It was gray and threatening yesterday
morning, but cleared later in the day.
Today is starting just about the same way.
It's raining right now, just before 6 a.m. Harry
showed up, wet, but didn't really want to come
back in the house. I think she heard all the
crashing and squeaking sounds of Duke
playing.
|
|
Previous
week •
Other
Search this site,
courtesy of the folks at Atomz.com
\*/.
|
Online
Store 
More
choices
|
