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August 16, 2003 - Saturday
Does June Jones realize that his public petulance has boosted interest in the details of his contract way beyond where it would otherwise be? He's falling into the same trap as the Fox network in its beef with Franken. There were several versions covered on the broadcast news last night, and both the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin offer up their versions today.
Check out this rich set of interesting links from author William Greider's web site. I'm still working my way through the first layer of sites I've never heard of before. Lots of good stuff.
I'm glad to see that my old friend Gene Stoltzfus was recently recognized for his long and continuing experiment in peacemaking. Bravo, Gene!
The anniversary holiday was fun, and my birthday's tomorrow. What a weekend!
August 15, 2003 - Friday
On to a bit of fair and balanced commentary to start the day, and if you want more, check here.
I made an early stop at Foodland in Kaneohe a little after 3 p.m. yesterday, and the Star-Bulletin in the rack outside had the story of the day's power blackout on the East Coast. The Advertiser still displayed its pre-blackout morning edition.
One Honolulu newswatcher had these observations:
After watching snatches of CNN on the East Coast power outage in the morning and afternoon, at 5:30 p.m. I turned on KITV, ABC, to see how it reported the news. It was an amateur performance, with little of late news, with reports from its so-called Washington correspondent, and then four minutes after the start, it cut into Hawaii weather. I cut into our local CBS station, for professional reporting from Dan Rather. What a difference.
The afternoon edition of the Star-Bulletin was delivered with major impact, with good photos and a fine wrapup.
The Advertiser got to gloat a bit this morning at the University of Hawaii's belated agreement to disclose the contracts of football coach June Jones. The UH decision followed a strong opinion by the state Office of Information Practices which, unfortunately, is not yet available online.
The fair and balanced story by Stephen Tsai and Ferd Lewis quotes UH Pres. Evan Dobelle:
UH president Evan Dobelle said "we will, of course, release the contract. It's in keeping with my openness policy."
And what about the years of stalling and stonewalling in this and other cases? Was all that in keeping with that same "openness policy?" Someone's got to be choking on this bit of hypocrisy.
Advertiser writer Andrew Gomes also has a good story this morning on the money woes of Andrew Tatibouet, former owner of Aston hotels, which pulls together data from a chain of foreclosures and other lawsuits.
Happy anniversary to us! We'll be in a parallel celebration today while the rest of the state observes Statehood Day, formerly Admissions Day. The state has a few years on us but, from today's vantage point, not all that many.
August 14, 2003 - Thursday
The Communications Workers of America, the Newspaper Guild's parent union, is asking people to pledge to switch local or long distance phone service away from Verizon if recommended by the union. CWA and Verizon have been in extended contract negotiations with job security a key issue. CWA suggests being prepared to switch to ATT, also a unionized company. In Hawaii, where Verizon has a monopoly on local telephone service, CWA recommends cancelling "enhanced" services and switching long distance service away from Verizon.
Another day, another little word problem at the Star-Bulletin, this time in Tuesday's story about a parolee's unusual deal to join a church team heading to Kenya. Although the parolee's name is Mike Noland, the subhead says "Peter Noland", and there's no other "Peter" mentioned in the story. No big thing, really, just a bit jarring.
A reader in Wisconsin sent along this link to a column declaring Friday "Fair and Balanced" day on the Internet, in recognition of Fox's suit against Al Franken regarding those three words.
And these comments from another reader:
1. Burl's Blue Devils easily were the best of the three bands I saw at the HPR Battle of the Blues Bands. The judges might not have shared my opinion because Burl & Co. made it look so effortless -- none of the posturing and faux hipness of the others. Or maybe the judges figured they were too good looking to have lived the blues!
2. While in Germany this summer I tried to access your site from the internet cafes of the Kaufhof department stores. They wouldn't allow it, claiming it was pornographic. A strange reading. Too many naked cats, perhaps?
3. With both papers and all the TV stations simply gaga over the AF Thunderbirds coming to town, none took time to ask the question: How much of our taxpayer money is burned up in this blatantly PR/recruiting effort. We jump all over the governor and mayor for every dime they spend on PR, and ignore the millions the military spends to raise our testosterone levels.
Yet another failure to challenge the underlying assumptions of society: This mega-expensive display is actually good for us. Takes our minds off the billions we're going to have to pour into Iraq, I suppose, and the havoc it will wreak on our economy to support Bush's adventurism.
August 13, 2003 - Wednesday
| Yesterday was one of those funny mornings when a seemingly gray and cloudy horizon exploded into color just a couple of minutes before the sun appeared, and then disappeared almost as quickly. And in the midst of those short moments, a green flash. A great morning to be up early. |
 click for larger version |
There's somebody out there with a sharp, red pencil, poring over the Star-Bulletin and Advertiser. He writes:
I don't go looking for this stuff, and I don't read the paper word-for-word, but a couple of errors jumped out from Sunday's papers:
Advertiser page A-1, Dan Nakaso's story on the Thunderbirds: "And they're job is to display the skills that every Air Force pilot has to know."
Advertiser page A-25, traffic accident story: "Three cars parked on the shoulder was hit in a chain reaction caused by the young driver, but none of the other drivers were injured."
(The "was" and the "were" got transposed - unless, of course, modern useage says it's okay these days to say "none were...")
Later in the same story:
They do not know if speed or alcohol was involved.
(Is/are "speed and alcohol" now a single entity - as "media" apparently is now singular?)
Parade magazine, page A-14, description of a 2004 model car in a caption - talks about "it's unique design."
Phooey.
OK, after this one I'll stop ...
... unless it's just too outrageous.
In the Star Bull a photo caption under a photo of Perry and Price in which Mike "holds a pitcure of he and Larry..."
arrghh
Good thing he doesn't read this site as carefully. Or maybe he sends those complaints to someone else.
Satire2. You really can't make this stuff up. First there's the Fox network kicking up a fuss about humorist Al Franken while claiming to own the phrase "fair and balanced". Then comes this tribute to Poindexter's Folly. The folks at the Daily Show must be dancing today!
August 12, 2003 - Tuesday
The reader who raised the issue of science coverage forwarded another example:
This SB piece on a UH researcher who just won a major prize? It's pretty obvious they didn't even bother to call him and wrote it straight from the release. In fact, between you and me, I feel that SB's quality of journalism is on a steady slide downwards. Aside from some interesting pieces from hard core reporters, the daily fare looks fluffier and fluffier with less broad coverage of big issues and more "town meeting" pieces that should be blurbs of a graph and nothing more.
This is likely an effect of the Black regime and its predilection for fairly limp journalism. While some SB writers may fight it, it's hard to overcome a top-down cultural attitude transplant for any sustained period.
Another reader added this comment:
Reference the comment about science news in the Star Bull - AP reporter Mary Vorsino's story about UH/IBM/Maui SuperComputer and the work of UHM scientist Maqs Alam was used in Sunday's Star Bull and then popped up in this morning's (Monday) Advertiser.
Similarly, although not a science story, both papers today relied on AP writer Matt Sedensky's piece on Sen. Kalani English's cruise to Fanning Island, which appeared on B-3 in the 'Tiser and on A-3 in the Star-Bulletin, but I don't know whether such cases are really becoming more frequent.
Burl Burlingame, Star-Bulletin writer, history buff, and blues guitarist, came through with this explanation of the performance of his band in the recent blues shootout:
Hey! You make it sound like we didn't do well! Thing is, of all the blues-rock bands on Oahu, only four were invited to participate. That's quite an honor. SOMEBODY has to come in on the tail end, but the scores weren't that far apart, I hear. (We were also the only band that didn't have ringers sitting in!)
The "bucket" is the coveted 5-gallon "Blues Bucket" personally decorated by Jeff Illardi of public radio. He gives it to bands he likes. Many bands have them, and they're quite useful for hauling cords and mikes.
Here's the bottom line - the main "prize" was a gig at Kapono's, and we were asked to play at Kapono's anyway. We already are, about once a month (see you there Aug. 30 and Sept. 25!). We opened for the esteemed Third Degree last week.
And here's a link to an original right off the Kapono's soundboard.
So there's the story.
| This is Ms. Pua, one of the latest round of Kaaawa dogs we meet on our early morning walks. Pua doesn't get to the beach as often as she would like, so she hits the ground running when she has a chance. Just click on her photo for more of our canine friends. |
Ms. Pua
Click on photo for more
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August 11, 2003 - Monday
The Journal Newspapers, owned by former Star-Bulletin owner Rupert Phillips, have been in the news again. Editor & Publisher reports that the Journal Newspapers settled a complaint brought by the Newspaper Guild after the company abruptly laid off a group of reporters and editors just prior to a December union representation election. Washington D.C.'s News8 adds a few other details about the settlement. The deal followed an NLRB ruling that the dismissals violated labor law, according to the Newspaper Guild.
| Okay, so it's a bit disrespectful, but deservedly so. And it is funny! It's available as a T-shirt from Funny Times, along with a bunch of other designs. Worth a bit of Monday morning browsing. |
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And still on the less than fully respectful front, here's an online way to preview how Arnold Schwartzenegger might sound on the campaign trail in California--in fact, you can put together your own Arnold campaign speech from the sound bites available at ebaumsworld.com. A great way to pass some spare time and free the mind.
A reader had this brief comment on Science Coverage in the Star-Bulletin: "Seems to be on a downward spiral. They pick up most of their Hawaii stories now off the AP wire. I guess its cheaper to use Bruce Dunsford's troops."
Well, Star-Bulletin writer Burl Burlingame's band, the Honolulu Blue Devils, did play before thousands of people at Hawai'i Public Radio's second Battle of the Blues Bands competition held down by Murphy's Bar & Grill at the end of last month. Unfortunately, I just learned that they were ranked last among the competing bands by a distinguished panel of judges, but did receive an award anyway--a black bucket. A bucket? Well, that's what I was told. Perhaps Burl can clarify.
August 10, 2003 - Sunday
There were several small items in the Honolulu newspapers last week noting cuts in flights from Japan to Hawaii, and the Advertiser has a longer story this morning.
"It's not good news. It's a major decrease," Chris Kam, HVCB's director of market trends, told the Advertiser.
But none of the articles have noted that these flight cuts are the first moves to be announced following Gov. Lingle's much ballyhooed marketing trip to Japan. The absence of any comment on this juxtaposition is certainly striking.
Old school ties...It's interesting to see that former Verizon Hawaii spokesman and one-time ASUH president Keith Kamisugi counts the DangerousEquations.com web site among his accomplishments. The site, of course, is home to the original "Dangerous Equations" essay and other information highly critical of UH President Evan Dobelle. Kamisugi filled the ASUH post in 1990-91, the year after Mark Takai, lead author of "Dangerous Equations" (and now Higher Education chair in the State House of Representatives).
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