June 19, 2004 - Saturday

Former Hawaii resident and one-time broadcast sales rep Ken Harris was surprised to find my photos of final day of the old Kaimuki Theater, which brought back memories of growing up in Niu Valley:ken

I used Google to search for "old pictures of Hawaii" your collection was found in the search. When we were young kids are parents would give us a ride to the old theater, saturday double show for $1.00. When we got older(10yrs!!) we would make the trip by bike it was a long ride but we had plenty of time. Also, that was before the freeway and widening of Kalanianiole. It used to be just two lanes..long before Hawaii Kai was developed.

One of my first political/social involvements was with the protest over kicking the pig farmers out of Kalama Valley. I used to know several old local famlies and their kids that farmed downed the old dirt road across from Sandy beach.. Seems so long ago.. As a freshman at UH in 1970 I was one of the founders of a organization called L.O.V.E. ( Love Our Vital Enviroment) with a fellow named Paul Fagan. We both also worked at the old KHVH-TV station. I ended up in the late 70's being in sales at the now KITV and was transferred to the mainland..

I bet we came across each other at a protest or rally long ago.. will never know.

Ken Harris
Fleet Manager
Donovan GMC Truck Center
Wichita, KS

Another contribution of the Internet to the small world experience!

June 18, 2004 - Friday

The Dobelle firing continues to surprise. Last night's local television news reported that Dobelle's assistants have also been terminated or resigned, and the whole Dobelle crew from president on down have been barred from their offices and locks changed to prevent reentry.

Another reader weighed in yesterday with this:

I've never really been a fan of Evan Dobelle and his apparent "feather the nest and reward cronies" style. I have no basis to dispute your observation that he is been absent without leave at important times, but I have to wonder whether he was told before he left for vacation that there would be a Regents meeting to evaluate/fire him, or whether his absence was used as a convenient opportunity.

It seems a common perception, reflected in much of the commentary on the regents' action.

But here's an inside look from a source close to the situation:

What may help people understand Dobelle and the reason why the regents took this action is to really understand his absence. In the SB today (Thursday), regent Lagareta said that the meeting date was changed from the usual Thursday and Friday to Tuesday and Wednesday to "accommodate Dobelle after he said he would be able to attend a meeting earlier in the week."

This is a very important fact that seems to be missing from much of the public discussion.

In fact, there are two earlier instances when Dobelle choose to not attend the regents' meeting. No other UH president has treated regents with so much disrespect.

Additionally, the regents tried to contact Dobelle on numerous occassions on Tuesday, but were led to believe that he was trying to avoid them.

Finally, Dobelle left them no other alternative but to fire him. Two of the Cayetano-appointed regents (Kawakami and Nunokawa) will be leaving the board at the end of the month. There was not enough time (since Dobelle insists that the public be given ample opportunity to know about the scheduling of board meetings) to re-schedule another meeting and there was no assurances that Dobelle would have shown up for that meeting.

FYI: Kristin (one of Dobelle's personal assistants) resigned a week ago (before the regents' action). Seems that she saw the writing on the wall. If she knew, then clearly Dobelle knew . . .

June 17, 2004 - Thursday

The Dobelle dismissal continues to reverberate. A couple of readers did react to my comments yesterday, both wondering about the timing of this decision.

On this one, I would have to fault the Board. Dobelle was on a college visit with his son. I think it shows particularly bad form to make this kind of announcement or try to force him to respond when he was on this kind of trip. Most of the board would not have wanted that kind of interruption during their own personal family business. What happened to the golden rule? Yes, some of his absences in the past might have raised eyebrows. This one just seems to illustrate that Dobelle's view of the board as vindictive has some merit. Please don't attach my name to this one. Thanks.

And a second reader added:

I've never really been a fan of Evan Dobelle and his apparent "feather the nest and rewared cronnies" style. I have no basis to dispute your observation that he is been absent without leave at important times, but I have to wonder whether he was told before he left for vacation that there would be a Regents meeting to evaluate/fire him, or whether his absence was used as a convenient opportunity.

I don't have any inside information, but if I had a very well paid job that I wanted to keep, knew far in advance of the regent's meeting schedule, was aware that the evaluation was well underway, understood that at least a faction of the board appeared to want my scalp, and knew that there might be some time pressure because the terms of two more regents expire in two weeks, then I would have certainly scheduled my own discretionary travel so that I could have been around "just in case" personal lobbying might make a difference. But maybe that's just me. Maybe Dobelle felt things were bad enough that personal lobbying might just make it worse. I don't know.

Have you checked out the new look of the state government web portal (reached via either www.hawaii.gov or ehawaiigov.org)? It's a much cleaner design, although I haven't tried getting around much yet. One change jumps out at me, though--where's the Legislature? The link to the Legislature's web site used to be prominent among the list of government agencies, now it is missing in action. There's a big link to the city, why not to the Leg? Am I just overlooking it in the dazzle of the new design or is it really gone? If it really is still there somewhere, it certainly isn't easy to find. Is this politics at work?

It must be summer! At least that's the conclusion after assessing the crowd on the beach in Kaaawa at dawn yesterday morning. I wrestled with my own typical canine focus and actually got a group photo of dogs and people. Most of the early morning regulars were there. Just click on the picture for a larger version.

June 16, 2004 - Wednesday

While Hawaii residents are just waking up to the news that the UH Board of Regents announced it had fired president Evan Dobelle, the story has already been picked up and reported around the country and even internationally, according to an early morning search of Google News.

Dobelle continued his pattern of being absent when key issues were being discussed by the board, a pattern that is nothing new in what has long been his tense relationship with the BOR.

The Honolulu Community-Media Council failed to draw a quorum to its business meeting this week, leaving the group unable to officially approve a new slate of officers for the coming year. The council is in the process of attempting to "reinvent" itself, opening its membership to the general public for the first time. The group has been seeking a new "mission" after a self-assessment determined it was unlikely to rekindle the interest of the top print and broadcast news execs whose participation was instrumental to the group's success in earlier decades.

Editor & Publisher reports that 8 of the top 20 news web sites belong to newspapers or newspaper groups like Honolulu Advertiser owner Gannett. The rankings reveal a lot about the relative online presence of the nation's largest newspapers and news chains.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D, California) has compiled a searchable database of 237 misleading statements about the "need" to attack Iraq made by five top members of the Bush administration, including Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, and Rumsfeld.

June 15, 2004 - Tuesday

Is Ashcroft the worst Attorney General in history? That's the assessment of NY Times columnist Paul Krugman.

And although Reagan is gone, members of his Iran-Contra gang are alive and well and heavily involved as "contractors" and key players in Iraq.

And now there's a new nagging legality to worry about. The International Committee of the Red Cross says the planned June 30th turnover of "sovereignty" is the legal end of the occupation and the end of our authority to hold prisoners of war without charges. Continued detentions would be war crimes, in their view.

Meda is quoted extensively in a story about prisons appearing in today's Chronicle of Higher Education (here's a link that will work for five days before the article reverts to "subscriber only" status).

I see that the new Hawaii series, is already being panned in some quarters as a clumsy knockoff.

"Las Vegas" isn't a great show, or even a good one most of the time, but it can be fun and self-consciously goofy. "North Shore" doesn't even have the grace or sense of humor to understand what a bad imitation it is.

Are we going to read the bad press in our local papers?

[7:30 a.m.: I stand corrected. Yesterday's Star-Bulletin a critical review that originally appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. It was back on D-4 behind Tim Ryan's "North Shore Sweetheart" feature. Now, how did I miss it?]

Meanwhile, the eastern sky is a pale pink-orange at 5:28 a.m., with clouds hugging the horizon but otherwise clear. Time to hit the walking trail.

June 14, 2004 - Monday

A group of Wisconsin prisoners were pulled out of a Mississippi prison after complaining it was too far away from home for family visits. So their replacements? Prisoners from Hawaii. That's a crime in itself, in my book, cutting them off from everything at home. And folks in Ol' Miss apparently weren't sure whether these Hawaii guys would speak English. It's a sad tale, told by LA Times writer Ellen Barry.

Hawaiian Electric spokesman Peter Rosegg submitted a long response to my rant about the new and much larger utility poles being installed along Kamehameha Highway, and it's taken too long to share it. Here goes:

Perhaps you would be interested in background on the utility pole matter you raised recently. This is not a HECO initiated project but a State DOT project to widen the shoulder of the highway by two feet on either side for safety and better traffic flow. As a result of DOT’s project, HECO has to relocate about 100 poles.

Going back to April, 2003, HECO held meetings (and urged the state to do the same) with both the Kahaluu and Koolauloa neighborhood boards as well as others including Kualoa Ranch and the Waiahole Community Association, whose president recently wrote to compliment HECO on the way things were handled. We tried our best to be square with the community.

Just click here to read Rosegg's extended comments.

Writer Alex Salkever had this comment on the franchise newspaper model mentioned yesterday:

The only reason I can think of to do something like buy a franchise for a weekly paper is if they also include you in the revenue split and use your circ numbers for national advertising buys and sells. It's an advantage the big weekly chains have and one the regional business mags have struggled for a long time to put together. Otherwise, what could you possibly gain by buying this franchise? Am curious.

This was Sunday's dawn as seen from up the hill as we were just beginning our walk. With the solstice just a week away, the sunrise is at about it's earliest point of the year and we just plain don't leave early enough to get down to the beach in time. But soon the pendulum starts its slow swing back.

June 13, 2004 - Sunday

Craig Gima reports in today's Star-Bulletin that University of Hawaii regents are expected to discuss whether or not to fire UH President Evan Dobelle when they meet this week. Dismissing Dobelle without "cause" would cost the state $2.26 million that in payments that he would be entitled to under the terms of his contract, Gima reports.

Dobelle's contract was posted here a couple of years ago, and page 7 of the contract specifies conditions under which Dobelle would forfeit those payments, including conduct which constitutes "moral turpitude", brings disrespect to the university, or "if proven in a court of law, would constitute grounds for criminal conviction of the President or civil liability of the University."

Start your own weekly newspaper. No journalism experience necessary. Could this be a journalism trend? Snitch, a new weekly newspaper reporting on crime has appeared in several mainland cities, and a check of its web site discloses that it is a franchise operation. According to a set of frequenty asked questions, a Snitch franchise can be purchased for $15,000 to $40,000.

SNITCH is a crime-oriented, weekly newspaper, so previous journalism and criminal justice experience would be helpful. Nevertheless, the critical skill franchisees must have is the ability to sell advertising (or hire others who can). Franchisees without journalism experience can have SNITCH FRANCHISING handle the journalistic tasks required to publish their SNITCH newspaper for them (for which they will pay additional service fees).

Your franchise comes complete with a newspaper template, along with specific advertising and editorial standards that must be followed.

Freedom of the press apparently takes a back seat to franchise terms.

According to a press release issued in April:

Prosperitas Investment Partners, L.P., initially funded Snitch, LLC, publishers of Louisville Snitch and licensor of the Snitch brand and syndicated content, in January 2001. Louisville Snitch launched in July 2001 and became that city's second-largest newspaper -- with a circulation of 50,000, according to independent audits -- in less than two years.

Very interesting.

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