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June 14, 2003 - Saturday
I'm starting a little late this morning. Just time for a quick sweep of the mail, and the larger amount of pure spam. Overnight, "Diary" has been offered low interest rates, weight loss, cheap viagra, breast and/or penis enlargements, and a selection of mortgages. "Linda" has gotten offers of big weekly income from home, a natural energy boost, and a choice of spy software or heightened computer security. Just a normal morning hitchhiking on the information highway.
The Star-Bulletin's account of Thursday's union rally over at the Advertiser got national attention with a link to the story on Jim Romenesko's widely read media column at Poynter.org. It's over in the left-hand column of newsy links.
June 13, 2003 - Friday the 13th
| Okay, I had it wrong. The newspaper unions didn't picket Gannett's Honolulu Advertiser yesterday. They simply held a lunch hour 'rally', according to Newspaper Guild staffer Wayne Cahill.
A flyer being passed out in front of the building listed some of the contract issues, including Gannett's demand for a 4-year wage freeze and a two-tiered compensation and benefit package, with new hires receiving substantially less vacation time, sick leave, and other benefits.
And the union action included a byline strike in yesterday's print and online editions of the Advertiser, with most reporters withholding their bylines. No local bylines appeared on the front page or anywhere else in the front section, and there was only a single bylined story in the Hawaii news section.
The Star-Bulletin has a good account of the labor action this morning. The Advertiser didn't report on the rally, although it did get considerable air time on television news last night.
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Unions rally outside Gannett's Honolulu Advertiser
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click for larger photos
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June 12, 2003 - Thursday
Union members at the Honolulu Advertiser plan to picket the newspaper at noon today to mark the end of a full year without a new contract, according to news reports yesterday (scroll down to the middle of Erika Engle's column for the story).
KGMB took the hint here yesterday and followed up on the plane that ended up in an apparently illegal dump.
According to a KGMB News report last night (and available online at least for now) the wrecked Cessna had been purchased for use in an episode of Baywatch Hawaii, and has now become another part of its enduring legacy to the islands.
The National Writers Union notified members this week that it has almost exhausted efforts to obtain health insurance coverage for its members. If talks with a final possible provider fail, and things apparently don't look good, the union will cease it's efforts to find health insurance, saying that it has already spent thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars in what has proved a futile search. The insurance search failed despite the backing of NWU's parent union, the UAW. And, since obtaining insurance benefits was one big reason for individual writers to sign up with NWU, this could have a broader negative impact on the writers union. A grim sign of these Republican times.
"Get your war on" comes highly recommended, if you haven't run into it already. It was forwarded over to me with this message: "Okay, this is a little cross-generational but go see it....It's just another view of the same mess we are agonizing over."
June 11, 2003 - Wednesday
It's Kamehameha Day, a Hawaii state holiday. For those of you on the mainland interested in what this means in practice, here's the Honolulu Advertiser's listing of what's open/closed for the holiday.
Yesterday's Advertiser carried a story on more illegal dumping, along with a photo of one dump site that included an airplane. Ryan Ozawa of Hawaiinews.com notes that the plane's identifying number is clearly visible in the photo.
Using that info, Ryan was able to quickly search online and find out that the plane had been operated by Oahu Aviation Flight School, Inc. and crashed on June 30, 1999. So who is responsible for the scrapped Cessna 150M ending up in an illegal dump? I expect that we'll be hearing more about this.
Ryan also sent me scurrying to his gallery of photos taken by 'eyemodule' camera attachments for the Handspring Visor PDA.
We humbly submit that the eyemodule's images — from sharp color to grainy stamp-sized black-and-white — are a distinct new form of geekly art . Herein we present these little contributions from early adopters of new gadget technology... visual imprints of lives gone digital.
The Guardian newspaper has a good interview today with retiring weapons inspector Blix, who says he was the target of a deliberate smear campaign originating in the Pentagon.
It was a bit "soft" and forgiving of government manipulation, but the PBS News Hour's treatment of the Jessica Lynch story last night still couldn't avoid finding some apparently deliberate distortions.
| Finally, the promised cat updates. This is Mr. Lindsey, who has a couple of spots in this week's lineup. Just click on his photo for more. |
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June 10, 2003 - Tuesday
Apologies for the delay in the promised round of new cat photos. I had some technological difficulties (always a good excuse), but they should be available late today.
Investigative Reporters and Editors reports that their annual conference, held this year in Washington, was a success.
Nearly 1,300 journalists from around the world attended this year's IRE annual conference in Washington, D.C. If you were unable to attend the four-day event from June 5 through June 8, you can read about the panels and speeches at the Web news site produced by students from four journalism schools.
The front page is http://www.ire.umd.edu/ and a list of stories are at http://www.ire.umd.edu/news.html
In addition, you can order tapes of the more than 100 panels and workshops through the resource center later this week, including a showcase panel of Bob Woodward, Seymour Hersh, David Martin and Judy Woodruff, a keynote speech by Ben Bradlee, a panel on crafting great stories from documents by Donald Barlett and James Steele, and many, many other excellent sessions.
You can view the entire program at http://www.ire.org/training/dc03/schedule.html
After my Handera 330 (Palm OS organizer) lost its mind twice in the last month, I decided it was time to get a new Palm. After I spent weeks fussing over the decision, Meda came along on a shopping trip to CompUSA. One look at the features of the new Palm Zire 71, with built-in digital camera, and she gave me that look--you know, "why haven't you already bought this one?"
| Okay, so it's not a great camera. Here's one of the first photos, taken while visiting with someone else's cat. It has a bit of trouble with colors under odd lighting conditions, but,hey, what do you expect? It works, and since I always have my Palm with me, the camera's there too.
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If you're looking for a Palm organizer, you might want to check out this Zire 71. It sports the latest screen, which is much brighter and sharper than earlier offerings, and it's considerably faster in all those organizer tasks than the one it replaces.. And it can double as an MP3 player, so you can take hours of your favorite music along in the same package.
June 9, 2003 - Monday
The Advertiser's lead story yesterday reported that 62 deaths in Hawaii last year were attributed to cystal meth, based on data from the Honolulu Medical Examiner's office.
But the same figure was reported in a February 23 Boston Globe story by former S-B writer Pat Bigold, whose stories have been appearing fairly regularly in the Globe. Bigold's story, "Hawaii confronts the perils of drug users on 'ice' ", appeared on page A-7.
Bigold commented yesterday on the two stories.
The Advertiser wrote that deaths had "nearly quadrupled" over the past decade. I chose the more compelling fact that they had doubled over the previous year.
BUT the Advertiser story does not point out, as my story did, that the 62 deaths by crystal meth were actually more than those attributed to alcohol (55). That was very significant.
I quoted Elaine Wilson of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division of the Department of Health as saying she was stunned when ice passed alcohol in 2001 as the primary substance abused by clients in treatment.
For all the attention this ice story has gotten over the past year or so it's incredible that it took either paper so long to draw such vital information from the medical examiner. To me, calling a scientist at the medical examiner's office was a natural step in compiling data for the story.
Another fact I used in the Globe story, and which I don't recall seeing reported locally is something I got from the U.S. Attorney's office. That is that nationally in 2001 (latest for which figures were available) 14 percent of sentenced drug traffickers were involved with meth. In Hawaii the rate was 51 percent for the same year.
I also talked to Big Island Lt. Bob Hickox who said that the Kona airport is "wide open," in the words of dealers, as a port of entry for ice. Hickox said then that he had less than half the staff he needed to patrol his area.
Way to go, Pat.
In another one of those spell checker insights, "Bigold" was flagged as a possible misspelling and the suggested the alternative was "Bulldog".
June 8, 2003 - Sunday
I expect to have another round of cat pics ready and posted later this afternoon, so check back if you're into these Kaaawa felines.
Ryan at Hawaiinews.com pointed me to a recent entry in his blog with this intro:
Most local folks probably wouldn't know Wil Wheaton from a hole in the ground, but his following online is enormous. He's writing about his visit to Hawaii and his Norwegian Cruise Lines cruise, but he's no fan of urban Honolulu. No doubt the local tourism gurus would be nonplussed at his "review." :)
No, I won't take the bait and launch another tirade about our tourism authority run by folks with no tourism background. It's just too easy a target.
I just heard from Keith Chudzik, one of the UPW stewards who stood up and questioned union director Gary Rodrigues several years ago, questions that eventually led to Rodrigues' indictment and conviction, and Chudzik's departure from UPW. Keith and his family have just moved back to the mainland, a real loss for our community. You would think that, at least after the fact, guys like Chudzik would be rewarded for taking the heat and asking the tough questions, but in Hawaii we seem to only reward political "yes" men and women. Did I mention the tourism authority already? Anyway, aloha, Keith.
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