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July 27, 2002 - Saturday
One last thought about Rex Johnson's appointment
as director of the Hawaii Tourism Authority.
Why was Johnson looking to bolt from his current job?
He's been in charge of facilities for the UH Research
Corporation and project manager for development of the
new medical school in Kakaako for less than a year. Isn't
this a critical period for this project, with
construction supposedly due to begin on phase 1 in just a
few months? Does Johnson know something about the project
that the rest of us should know? Under the circumstances,
you've got to wonder.
It's very still and humid this morning, with a little
morning drizzle. We're waiting to see if it turns into
rain.
A bunch of boys' toys from the bankrupt Worldpoint
Interactive, Inc. go on the auction block later this
morning (10 a.m.) at McClain Auctions, 825 Halekauwila
Street. If you're in the market for anything from a 50
inch plasma monitor to paper shredders with a past, this
is the place to be.
I ran across a description of a
night with our cats written back just about two years
ago. Some of the cats have changed, but it's a wonderful
glimpse into the scene.
July 26, 2002 - Friday
A couple of odds and ends worthy of a Friday
morning.
The May/June 2002 issue of The IRE Journal, put out by
the organization Investigative Reporters and Editors,
carries a story on a cooperative effort among media in
Washington State to test the public's access to
government records.
The
project had the backing of SPJ, Associated Press, the
Washington Newspaper Publishers Association, a long list
of daily newspapers across the state, and several weekly
newspapers as well.
Conspicuously absent--the chain of weekly's owned by
Sound Publishing, which is owned in turn by the
Star-Bulletin's David Black.
Reading the Star-Bulletin's
account of Rex Johnson's appointment appointment as
director of the Hawaii Tourism Authority gave me the
chills. I have a vivid memory of phoning Johnson for
comment on a story back when he was the state director of
transportation. It was in December, probably in 1993.
Johnson spent so much time hurling profanity at me that I
could barely find anything that could appear in a daily
newspaper. "Expletive deleted" was a necessary phrase for
me that day. I have never experienced a display of this
kind by a public official in 30 years of dealing with
various levels of government.
The story that set Rex off dealt with his department's
misuse of restricted airport funds to buy a racetrack
favored by Gov. Waihee's administration, a transaction
later determined to be illegal after an extensive federal
audit.
Thanks to veteran reporter Russ Lynch for getting
State Sen. Donna Kim's inane comments about the
appointment into print.
In response to criticism that Johnson knows nothing
about tourism and, as a result, might be a less than
ideal choice to direct the state's tourism efforts, Lynch
reports Kim's comments:
Anyway, she said, everybody in Hawaii has
experienced the visitor industry in some way.
"You don't really have to have a lot of background,
but you have to really be able to look at things and
assess it," she said.
So much for education and training, and, to be catty,
subject-verb agreement. Yup, when our state wants the
"best", they tend to walk right past expertise and
training, and head right for familiar entities who can be
relied on to take direction well. If the senator is
right, perhaps we should save the state a lot of money by
closing down the School of Travel Industry Management up
at UH.
I wonder who the other finalists were. To his credit,
Chuck Gee, retired UH professor and former dean of the
the travel industry program, questioned the secrecy of
the selection process. And we haven't been told who the
other finalists for the position were. Apparently that's
another state secret.
July 25, 2002 - Thursday
The Washington Post has compiled lists of the
highest paid executives in the Washington area, and our
friends at Gannett are well represented. There's a list
of "total
compensation" which includes stock options, while the
list of "cash
compensation" includes salary and cash bonuses.
Top among the Gannetteers is Douglas H. McCorkindale
ranks #3 in cash compensation ($3,450,000) and #7 in
total compensation ($19,929,518). Others include Gary
Watson, Larry Miller, and Cecil Walker, Tom Curley.
Advertiser staffers should have fun checking this out
before their next bargaining session.
I only got a couple of reactions on the issue of
checking i.d.'s of anyone attempting to buy cigarettes or
liquor who happens to look "under 40".
"Longs Drug's policy is not unusual," wrote one
reader. "All the booze stores I've been to in Chicagoland
also ID anyone who appears to be younger than 40."
And, from a woman in Honolulu:
Well Ian,
If I don't get carded the next time I try to buy a
bottle of wine at Longs, I'm going to shoot someone.
@:)
Another interesting spell checker insight. "Dobelle"
brought back the suggested substitute: "Doable".
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The photo gallery got updated yesterday with
the latest in Kaaawa at dawn, and a couple of
our cats. The usual.
Just click on this photo, or on the "photo
gallery" banner to the right.
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July 24, 2002 - Wednesday
UH President Evan Dobelle made a big splash last
week with a speech to the Chamber of Commerce.
The Star-Bulletin headline read: "UH Wellness Center
will add 6,000 new jobs, Dobelle says". The same
claims of job creation were echoed by other news
media.
It sounded, well, too good to be true. After all, the
university as a whole only had the equivalent of 6,915
full-time jobs in total during 2000, the last year for
which data is available, according to the State Data
Book. So I asked for whatever supporting data UH could
provide for the numbers.
Yesterday, in response to my query, UH withdrew the
employment claim. Never mind.
According to a UH spokesman, Dobelle's speech had
erroneously referred to a different economic development
scenario spun by campus economists.
"The correct figures as they relate to the
med school construction project are: 1,100 permanent
jobs, including 550 NEW research jobs, about 600
'support' jobs (anything from secretaries to
post-docs), and an estimated 600-700 construction
workers on the job during the building phase of the
project."
The text of Dobelle's speech, which is available
online, has already been quietly revised to reflect the
corrected numbers and, I'm told, a correction has been
issued to the media.
Even the "corrected" numbers didn't address my
question concerning how they were derived, so I've
repeated that part of my original query. I'll just have
to wait patiently for a reply.
Here's another tidbit from a friend at the
Star-Bulletin:
The Arizona
Republic picked up the story about Gary Baldwin
getting nabbed for a 16-year-old indictment
The story quotes our reporter Tony Sommer, but
doesn't name the Star-Bulletin.
Little wonder
The Republic is a Gannett paper.
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Here's Ms. Wally in a suitably royal pose,
stretched out across our bed. Unfortunately, for
me at least, that's my side of the bed that
she's claimed. Every night is a complex series
of negotiations over space, and she considers
her place a right, not a privilege.
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Ms. Wally
[click for larger photo]
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July 23, 2002 - Tuesday
A couple of items regarding contract
negotiations at the Advertiser. First, I'm reminded that
the staff at the Maui News accepted a two-tier salary
scale when that newspaper was sold to it's current owners
several years ago, just as the Star-Bulletin did last
year.
And the status of the Advertiser talks has the gossip
mill working hard. Here's an example of what's reaching
the Star-Bulletin newsroom down the street:
thought you may wanna know that things are
getting a bit petty over at the tizer these days.
first, editor keyes sent out a message saying that the
union folks could not send out any more union meeting
messages over the company computer system. then, some
manager ripped down a bunch of union support signs off
worker's desks - even though the workers have the
right to put the signs up. and lastly, in the pbn
article, publisher fish mentioned that talks " will
get robust right up till the 11th hour." funny thing
is, there is no 11th hour - there is no deadline.
unless he slipped, and was referring to gannett's own
built-in deadline.
With the hotel workers Local 5 initiating civil
disobedience, with a fair amount of community support,
and an election coming up quickly, the battle lines on
the labor front are being drawn pretty starkly.
Anybody else noticed this example of regulation gone
nuts? Long's Drug
Stores have a policy of checking id's of anyone
purchasing tobacco or alcohol who "appears to be under
the age of 40." That's 4-0. As in ridiculous. Something's
very wrong with how that bit of unnecessary law is being
administered.
July 22, 2002 - Monday
Sorry, Rob. I got a chuckle out of the blooper
buried in the Rob
Perez column featured in Sunday's Star-Bulletin. The
column was exploring the financial and resulting
operational challenges facing a nonprofit service
provider.
"The state's decade-long economic slump,
which hurt all nonprofits, only exasperated the
crunch."
Another case, perhaps, of a spellchecker taking the
place of a thorough edit.
The first sentence of the column also fell victim to
the typical journalist's confusion over numbers and
rates. The sentence expressed astonishment that many
employees of the agency have not had a pay raise in
years, "...especially considering Honolulu's inflation
rate during that period rose roughly 30 percent."
Now, I'm sure he wasn't really referring to the
inflation rate, i.e., the annual rate of change, which
dropped precipitously during the 1990's from over 7
percent to around 1 percent. In context, it's clear he
meant to say that inflation has driven the cost of living
up by roughly 30 percent. It's not the first time rates
have been mishandled, but coming in the first sentence
hurt.
So it goes.
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I did manage to track the latest on Ms.
Cybelle and Mr. Duke, including more photos.
Just click on this picture or on the
"Cybelle's Saga" banner to the right for the
kitten fix of the week.
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Click on the
photo
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July 21, 2002 - Sunday
A sharp-eyed reader spotted an
unusual eBay item, a Star-Bulletin dating back to
Kamehameha Day 1919. The owner is looking for a $17.99
opening bid. So far, no takers.
The note about the item arrived in my mailbox along
with this comment:
I wonder if it has a Helen Altonn byline?
(She's gonna kick my ass if she reads this!!!---only
kidding!)
Here are a
few more documents from the antitrust investigation
of the former Hawaii Newspaper Agency. No zingers today.
The first is a memo showing continuing close contact
between the Attorney General's office and the Department
of Justice, and the next one is early correspondence
between DOJ and attorney's for Liberty Newspapers Limited
Partnership, then owners of the Star-Bulletin.
It's Sunday. A little tropical rain this morning, but
it should be cleared by the time we're ready to walk.
Rain means cats are restless, unable to do their normal
bit of morning roaming.
Cybelle, by the way, spent Wednesday night and
Thursday at the vet for her bit of surgery. She's had her
last kittens. And she came home feeling good, ready to
play. And she'd better do more than a little playing in
order to work off that little belly she's developed.
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