December 25, 2004 - Saturday

Merry Christmas to all! We spent Christmas eve with my parents, feasting and exchanging gifts. Doing this on Christmas eve is, I'm told, a German tradition which was passed on to us by my grandfather, Duke Yonge, who must of picked it up from his longtime friend, Emil Kruss, who arrived in Hawaii from Germany a century ago.

Ho, ho, ho

Amidst the commercialism of the season, the American Friends Service Committee issued a plea for peace on earth by calling this week for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

In an accompanying statement, the AFSC board of directors said:

Since President Bush's declaration (of the end of major hostilities), AFSC has consistently called attention to the fact that by law the U.S. is responsible for the success or failure of the military occupation. Iraqis, the international community, and the U.S. public will judge success, not by how swiftly military action toppled the Hussein regime, but rather by how it:
• Establishes and maintains security for Iraqis,

• Restores basic services, including electricity, water, health care, and education,

• Revives the local economy to meet day-to-day as well as recovery needs of Iraqis,

• Effects a rapid transition to a sovereign representative Iraqi government,

• Assures the active presence of the international community in Iraq's rehabilitation, represented by the UN and non-governmental organizations, and

• Demonstrates responsibility in the allocation of U.S. funds.

On all these points the U.S. has failed. As a result, the troop presence in Iraq has lost the support of the Iraqi people and, by most accounts, the U.S. public. All of these events confirm our long-held belief that violence can only beget further violence.

Disclosure: Meda and I have been associated with the Quaker-based AFSC in one capacity or another for more than 35 years.

You know, I don't think that we should cede the issue of putting Christ back into Christmas to those who see it as part of a conservative political agenda. It's a debate that we can't leave to the Right, any more than we can let them stake a sole claim to the American flag or other traditions. This debate over Christmas is useful because it offers an opportunity to air the varying approaches to Christianity itself. This column appearing in The Guardian offers up a lot to contemplate on this December 25th. Whose side should "real" Christians be on, that of Jesus or that of the Roman Empire? Think about that while ripping through the wrapping paper this morning.

December 24, 2004 - Friday

Don't try this at home!

The warning should have been prominently displayed along with the favorite staff recipes shared with viewers during the 6 p.m. newscasts this week on Emmis Communication's KGMB.

It's been a festival of heart-stopping and artery clogging fat and cholesterol presented as yummy holiday fare.

Spinach sounds healthy enough. But Liz Chun's Spinach Casserole is something else.

Among the ingredients:

1 cup of mayonnaise. There are about 175 grams of fat in this one item alone.

Then it calls for 1-1/2 cups of grated cheddar cheese, which typically has 8-9 grams of fat per ounce.

Then it adds some liquid in the form of a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, which by one estimate gets 39% of its calories from fat.

At the bottom of the printed recipe on the KGMB web site there's an important caveat: "If you're watching your cholesterol and fat intake, then use "eggbeaters" instead of real eggs, low fat cheese, low cal or no cholesterol mayo. It'll taste the same." But I don't recall this important advice given to viewers on the air.

Or take Jade Moon's brownie recipe. It seems to offer even more arterial sludge, with a commercial devil's food cake mix (already an excellent fat delivery vehicle) augmented with a full stick of butter (92 fat grams), a cup each of chocolate chips (48 grams of fat), shredded coconut (another 28 grams), nuts (well, these add "good" cholesterol), and butterscotch chips (more fat?), and a can of sweetened condensed milk (another 35+ fat grams). And no suggestions for health conscious substitutes are offered up for this one.

Stacy Loe's Chocolate Delight was just as damaging on the health scale, with it's heavy reliance on vegetable oil, real eggs, whipped cream, and chocolate chips.

And that's how it's gone all week.

These folks know better. They report all too often on our epidemic of obesity and the sad state of health among our island kids. Is it unreasonable to hold them responsible for connecting the dots between those pressing issues and the food we eat or recommend to others? I know I'm going to recall KGMB's happy cooking suggestions the next time they report critically on our public health. And it won't be a warm recollection.

December 23, 2004 - Thursday

Another reader commented on the expansion of MidWeek:

Your correspondent...notes that MidWeek is inexpensive to produce and send out. True, the cost of their content is low compared to that of a Daily/Sunday product. But it’s important to keep in mind the large cost of mailing that comes with a product like MidWeek. To me this raises the question of long term viability of a second direct-mailed product for Oahu Publications. To use a mailing permit like they’ll need for timely delivery of the second product will cost some serious kala. Also, paper costs have gone up.  The success of this second weekly will remain to be seen, but I’m on the skeptical side going in….

If you haven't done this already, you might want to spend some time browsing through the FBI documents concerning the torture of military prisoners which were obtained by the ACLU as part of their litigation on the matter. The ACLU's been right in the middle of the action on this issue, perhaps a good reason to update your membership or make a special contribution.

Another reporter has been fired as the result of his personal blog, this time at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, according to a story in the weekly Riverfront Times.

And from the "what ever happened to...?" file, I happened across a news item about one-time island resident Charles Chidiac announcing a run for president of Lebanon under the banner of the Republican Reform Party of Lebanon.

Chidiac was the man behind Palace Development Corporation who spent $40 million or more of other people's money while pushing his Hawaiian Riviera Resort proposed for an undeveloped section of Kau on the Big Island. Chidiac, part of an influential Lebanese family, came to Hawaii to go to college and married a local woman, the daughter of island businessman Jack Eagle. Chidiac is also a former international arms dealer who was an unindicted coconspirator in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro scandal and later turned FBI informant in the investigation of the Asian fundraising scandal during the Clinton era that led to the convictions of former Hawaii residents and political players Nora and Gene Lum.

The problem with the announcement of Chidiac's candidacy is that the only mention I can find is on the web site of something called the Chidiac Family League, and his name doesn't seem to appear in published news accounts of the Lebanese political situation.

December 22, 2004 - Wednesday

Pacific Business News used the announcement of the new MidWeek "weekend" edition to take another look at Honolulu's evolving newspaper war.

The story in this week's PBN, by writer Kristen Sawada, turned up several interesting new points:

• MidWeek is "enlarging the capacity" of its printing plant. But no details are given, so we're left wondering whether this means new presses or other equipment.

• The company recently laid off eight employees.

• Oahu Publications, parent company of both MidWeek and the Star-Bulletin, threatened to sue the Advertiser over Gannett's use of an anonymous letter attacking the smaller paper.

• And Star-Bulletin circulation is put at 63,037 daily and 60,453 on weekends, according to Oahu Publications President Dennis Francis, himself a former Gannett exec. That's down from 66,079 daily circulation claimed immediately after the sale of the S-B in 2001, and the 85,072 Sunday circulation claimed for April-June 2001, immediately after the debut of the Sunday edition.

And a reader here sees critical implications in the move to expand MidWeek:

To me, its really sad. It means the SB really doesn't have much legs since they have shelved all sorts of plans there to buff out the business section, create a real magazine on the weekends, and hire more staff to become more competitive with the Advertiser. What this means is that they can beat the Advertiser with a free weekly that is published cheaply with a small number of local columnists but mostly canned content and total powder-puff journalism. And that, it appears, is the future in Honolulu.

An interesting but somewhat depressing take on the situation, for sure.

Sunrise on yesterday's Winter Solstice was quietly spectacular. It was one of those late blooming dawns that had us wondering if it might just slip by without notice, and then suddenly emerged in full color with the sun rising directly behind Molokai, which can be seen clearly in the larger version of this photo.

click for larger version

It's raining lightly early this morning in Kaaawa, the first sustained rain after quite a long dry spell. It's kind of a relief. I didn't realize how dry it has been until the painters finished their work after 7 days without any rain worries. In Kaaawa, that's quite a long stretch without rain.

[Late note: It's 10 a.m. and still raining, flood warnings have been issued, and we're hunkered down with seven of the eight cats. Silverman's the only one still outside. It's 72 degrees with a dewpoint of 71, meaning that it's almost 100 percent relative humidity, out of the approved operating range of most of our electronics. And so it goes.]

December 21, 2004 - Tuesday

The Winter Solstice occurs today or tomorrow in the Northern Hemisphere, although most popular accounts appear to accept today as the proper date. So here goes--Happy Solstice! Isn't it fortunate that this falls right in the middle of our own festival season?

My mention yesterday of the Star-Bulletin newsroom's current labor contract prompted a suggestion to check out these photos by former SB webmaster Blaine Fergerstrom, who call them "the only photos taken at the last 'take it or leave it' bargaining session held while David Black jumped a plane for Vancouver."

At the time, Black was insisting on getting the union's agreement to significant concessions before entering into a binding agreement to purchase and operate the Star-Bulletin. Under the circumstances, the union had precious little bargaining leverage.

Blaine notes:

"... nobody else was there and nobody else on staff could possibly comprehend how ugly that night was.

It was a horrible, horrible feeling knowing we had absolutely nothing to bargain with, that the entire staff was depending on us to pull them out of the hole, and here we were left with a life or death decision concerning the paper. We all felt like a bomb had gone off in our faces. I suppose that was the desired effect.

And remember all those anecdotal tales of phantom subscriptions to both the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin following Black's purchase and the dissolution of the JOA? Well, after the big-time circulation accounting scandals of recent months, such happenings are now making "news", such as this report from Newsday.

When I wrote about leaks at Honolulu Airport after our return from Nashville last month, an airport employee added these observations:

Have worked at HIA for (xx) years and have seen passengers splattered with dripping newly poured cement leaking from the ceiling as they stood in queues.....and next time you are at the airport you should take a look at the "Aloha and Mahalo For Visiting Hawaii" sign at Checkpoint #2 between Lobby 4 and 5. The sign is literally black with years of accumulated dust and grit.  

Could be a budget thing, you know....now that I can understand....no need to exceed the budget just yet for a new sign.... 

Could go on and on about what our visitors see as a first impression of our facility at HIA but I don't have the time and or the life span to see our airport moving to be what I consider a world class facility compared with airports in HKG, SIN, Korea, Japan, and much of the US. 

P.S. Forgot to mention, re leaks....there are so many leaking ceilings ....the custodians used to gather and spread out old rags throughout the lobbys, etc.....really looked neat, with all the different colors and all.....but since then things have improved. The custodians now used these green absorbent pads so whenever it rains you see these green pads spread out all over the airport.....we give weather forecasts on whether it will be a "Green Pad" day or not.....

Now if the AirportScandal.com folks would just expand their focus just a bit, perhaps we could bring more of these routine failures to light.

December 20, 2004 - Monday

Don't ask me how or why it happened, but yesterday I somehow found myself at Amazon.com reading the recommendations of Stephanie Mellen, who quite descriptively calls herself the cat pee vigilante.

And while I fretted about why cats pee in uncommon places, I ran into these New York Times and Washington Post stories about the Pentagon plans to pursue a strategy of disinformation and its implications for journalism and for democracy.

Staffers at the Seattle Times are worrying about layoffs, while folks at the San Francisco Chronicle are freaking out at the appointment of Frank Vega as their new publisher. Vega, of course, gained fame in newspaper circles for his role in the nasty 20-month strike while he ran the Detroit JOA.

Thinking ahead, the union contract covering the Star-Bulletin's newsroom expires in just 15 months, and both management and the Newspaper Guild can be expected to be jockeying for position over the next year. The Guild gave up a lot in its initial contract and will be looking to regain some of what was lost. That's something to keep an eye on in the coming year.

I hope my Christian friends looking forward to the celebration of Christmas will take a few minutes to ponder the plight of Nick Coleman, columnist for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, who ran headfirst into a backlash for suggesting that the Christmas story might have some real relation to our public policies towards the homeless. It's a fine column. Read it and weep.

And after all that, if you're looking for real Christian inspiration, here's a profile of Peggy Gish, one of the unlikely folks who have donated parts of their lives to the efforts of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT).

December 19, 2004 - Sunday