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December 6, 2003 - Saturday
Sounds of cars honking and people shouting woke me up around 12:30 a.m.--it took me a few seconds to realize that Kahuku must have won their big football game. I zoned in and out of sleep for several minutes as the parade of fans made their way through Kaaawa in the direction of Kahuku.
Robert Meyerowitz, veteran editor of the weekly Anchorage Press, has been named editor of Honolulu Weekly and will assume his new duties next month, according to a report this week in the Anchorage Daily News. Here is a link to the story, which may require a free registration.
And the student newspaper at the University of Texas Arlington scooped everyone with the news that Neal Smatres, science dean on that campus, has been offered and has accepted the position of vice-chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Hawaii's Manoa Campus.
The political snake pit in Manoa didn't escape these astute student journalists:
“It’s a tense situation down here,” the second source said. “There are so many dynamics that don’t usually play into academic equations. It’s really quite difficult.”
In any case, according to the story, Smatres' appointment has cleared the UH Regents' personnel committee and will be presented formally to the full board for a vote at their meeting next month.
It's still wet out here on the windward side. Water from a rain-swollen stream has been flowing freely across the road in Waikane for the past two days, apparently stopping traffic from time to time when it gets too deep.We've hit it for two days, but it has been passable. Sitting here at home in Kaaawa, the still air is ripe with the smell of wet and rotting leaves, which haven't had a chance to dry in well over a week.
| And this photo will give you an idea of how much sand has been moved around by the recent series of storms. Click on the photo to see a larger version, which clearly shows that some four feet of sand has been eroded from this section of Kaaawa's beach. |
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December 5, 2003 - Friday
The Star-Bulletin apparently has stirred things up in Manoa by pushing for disclosure of the Board of Regents' latest performance evaluation of UH President Dobelle. A story today by Craig Gima describes the ongoing furor. It raises some interesting legal issues for the Office of Information Practices and the BOR to deal with.
Speaking of the Star-Bulletin, writer Burl Burlingame reminded me yesterday that he did a special two-part feature more than a year and a half ago on the young Hawaiian men caught on remote Pacific islands when WWII broke out. The Advertiser and Honolulu Weekly wrote about the situation this week, but the S-B's detailed account stands out (see Part 1, Part 2, and a follow, all by Burlingame). It's worth a look back.
| I couldn't help it. Just after completing and posting a new round of photos of our Kaaawa dog friends, along came Ms. Sadie, her people, and a recently adopted puppy. The encounter prompted me to go back and fiddle, adding Sadie and Roxy to last weekend's dogs. So if you took an early look, you might want to check back. Just click on this photo of Ms. Sadie, or on the "Mornin' Dogs" banner to the right. |
Ms. Sadie's got a new friend |
December 4, 2003 - Thursday
The Advertiser moved quickly to chase a story that ran in the Honolulu Weekly that hit the streets yesterday. The brief Weekly story described the forgotten story of two young men killed in a Japanese attack on Howland on Dec 8, 1941. The story got a current news hook when family members successfully lobbied to move their remains to the state veterans cemetery. The Advertiser reports the story this morning.
It's going to be interesting to see whether Gov. Linda Lingle will be helped or hurt by agreeing to serve as the Bush reelection campaign chair in Hawaii. She was elected with the support of crossover Democrats while distancing herself from the national Republican Party, so this in-your-face reminder of her political commitment in a remarkably divisive presidential campaign could undermine her ability to retain those crossover votes. Stay tuned.
Steve Case, former AOL chairman and major Hawaii landowner, has invested $10 million on a luxury timeshare operation called Exclusive Resorts, which has some holdings on the Big Island. I noticed the story first in the Denver Post this morning, and later found in on the front page of the Star-Bulletin's business section.
We got home a bit late last night after attending funeral services from an old friend, and got a bit of a scare. One of my walking shoes was in the driveway, and our neighbor called over the fence to say that two dogs had been running through our yard until another neighbor chased them off. And, of course, our anxiety levels rose when several of our cats were nowhere in sight. Dogs that go up on the front steps to carry my shoe off might also chase cats. Or so we feared. And then the dogs made another appearance, prompting me to go sliding across the rain slicked lawn with arms flapping while shouting bad-dog phrases in my best alpha dog voice. Then followed the slow one-by-one cat retrieval. A few of the cats were safely indoors. The rest took longer than normal to appear. Surprisingly, Silverman showed up first. Then Harry responded to my back yard serenade and came slinking out of the bushes to be picked up and ferried to a food dish. Toby finally turned up on the roof and had to be coaxed down. Annie crawled out of some hidden spot. And then Leo showed up standing in a puddle on the back deck and crying to come inside. Ms. Kili remained the only missing cat, but she reported in sometime in the short night and settled down in an open dresser drawer.
So it goes on this damp Thursday a.m.
December 3, 2003 - Wednesday
The sun made a welcome appearance downtown yesterday but out here in Kaaawa it was wet when we got home, and light rain continued through the night. It is still alternating between rain and drip outside as I write.
Did you happen to tune in to PBS Hawaii last night for a classic "life imitates art" experience? It was a special concert, billed as "American Soundtrack, "This land is our land: The folk rock years II", featuring original artists singing their oldie hits.
But it immediately hit us as a poor imitation of "A Mighty Wind", director Christopher Guests' fantasy concert of mythical folk has-beens. I found one online mention referring to it as "surviving acts that didn't make the final cut for A Mighty Wind."
And the PBS version had been seriously flawed by careful neutering. How else to you bring out songwriter Tom Paxton and not get one of his political songs? Despite an array of musicians from the 1960's, there were no protest or peace songs, no mentions of Vietnam, etc. It presented a whitewashed version of folk music of the period. In this sense, as a product designed to show off the abilities of PBS, it was a disappointing flop, with the same white bread character as the commercial networks. PBS can and should do better.
Buried in a story over the weekend on the landfill dispute was a brief comment that again showed that old foot dragging attitude when it comes to enforcement of the state's "Sunshine Law". According to the Star-Bulletin story by Diana Leone, a member of the committee reviewing sites for a new landfill asked officials, including the prosecutor and the attorney general, to review whether open meeting provisions of the law had been violated by a faction on the committee.
This paragraph appears toward the end of the story:
Jim Fulton, spokesman for the city prosecutor's office, said yesterday that generally, a formal complaint for an open-meetings violation must be filed with the police before it is decided whether the city or state would have jurisdiction.
Fulton appears to be referring to an otherwise hidden requirement for enforcement of this provision. Oh, you didn't file a police report? Then we can't possibly enforce.
It is a silly position to take, and just embarrasses Fulton's boss, City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle. The statute, Chapter 92 HRS, has no requirement for a police report before enforcement by the prosecutor or A.G., although, envisioning the problem of official inaction, it provides the right for "any person" to challenge a sunshine law violation in court.
December 2, 2003 - Tuesday
I received the news mid-morning yesterday that UH's Paul Costello is leaving to take a position at Stanford School of Medicine. Costello's departure was reported by the daily newspapers' online editions shortly after noon.
I have to say that I'll miss Costello. He's a professional and good at what he does. Despite getting bogged down in the whole logo mess, he's increased the visibility of the UH system. He put together a tremendous speaker series which had public impact. I'm sorry to see him leaving. Does this signal that Dobelle may also be shopping for an exit strategy? That's the obvious question, but I'm not sure whether anyone asked it yesterday.
Speaking of UH, any oldtimers know what the whereabouts of Leon Edwards or Robbie Robinson, who were around the Manoa campus in the 1960's? I had an inquiry from a former UH student who's now in Berkeley, drew a blank, and so I'm passing it on to you. Please email me with any suggestions, ian@ilind.net.
| After introducing a new round of Kaaawa dogs on Sunday, I naturally had to gather up recent cat photos as well. Just click on this shot of Ms. Annie for the latest batch. |
Ms. Annie |
That reminds me of this week's magic word: Pumpkin. Our vet had suggested mixing a little pumpkin in Ms. Miki's cat food to aid digestion, to put it politely. So when I popped open a big can of pumpkin to make Thanksgiving pies, I set some aside and tentatively offered a finger-full to the oldster. Miki licked it off and moved into position for more. I scooped up another finger full. Eager licking.. Another, and another. Pumpkin was a major hit with Miki. Off I went in search of other cats. So far, here's the result: Miki, Leo, Kili, Wallly, Annie, Duke and Toby love pumpkin, straignt up, no mixing in food. Harriet isn't interested. And Silverman hasn't been around at pumpkin time.
December 1, 2003 - Monday
| The rain continued on and off all day Sunday, at least until late in the day.
Makaua Stream, which runs down from the valley behind our house, was full and in the larger version of this photo you can see the waterfall in the back of the valley.
Kaaawa was cut off again when Kamehameha Highway was closed again in Waikane due to water flowing across the road.
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Makaua Stream.
Click for larger photo. |
The state has released a draft plan that would decentralize control of public access television and boost the share of resources distributed to the counties. You can check out the executive summary, and then browse the full plan.
The Toronto Star has a long story today on the return of a Canadian released from U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay in mid-October.The paper carried a critical column on Guantanamo yesterday.
November 30, 2003 - Sunday
An AP story by B.J. Reyes on the settlement reached a couple of days ago in the federal lawsuit over Kamehameha Schools' admissions policy appeared many places, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and even The Guardian (UK).
The Guardian also picked up the story of Christmas cheer in Florida, where a woman was trampled at her local Wal-Mart by a crowd rushing for bargains. Happy holidays!
The weather was threatening when we left Kaaawa to drive into Honolulu mid-morning yesterday, and it was raining very hard by the time we got through Kaneohe and headed up through the Pali tunnel. It was still raining hard when we returned in the afternoon. Road conditions were bad, with streams crossing the road in several places between Kaneohe and Kaaawa. The road was closed around Waikane not long after we got home. For those who aren't familiar with the situation, there is only one road in and out of Kaaawa. When that road is closed, we're trapped.
A friend who lives near the where H-3 crosses Kamehameha Highway measured over 5" of rain by 3 p.m., and over 2" more in the next couple of hours. We cancelled a planned dinner over at his place and instead hunkered down here at home. The rain stopped for several hours but started again mid-evening, and it has rained all night. At 5:30 a.m., it's still raining hard, but that's not drowning out the sound of the high surf which has also returned.
Cue the locusts!
| This is Kolohe, who lives just around the corner. On most mornings, he's the first dog we run into as we set off on our early a.m. walk. Just click on his picture to see this new batch of photos of our Kaaawa morning dogs. |
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