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May 17, 2003 - Saturday
A story headline in the Advertiser yesterday confidently reported: "Sex-abuse suit filed against ex-priest".
The problem, pointed out to me by an astute reader, is that the named defendant is not an ex-priest. Although he was removed from his position as pastor of a local church, he remains a priest and has been reassigned to the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts. The story never describes him as an ex-priest, although it is vague on his current status. But the headline isn't vague. Just wrong.
A bit of confusion up in Manoa this week appears to have exposed the UH administration's practice of evading or simply ignoring the state's sunshine law. An Advertiser story yesterday reported on a flap at the Board of Regents over a last-minute proposal to dump the UH Lab School (disclosure: I'm a grad of the school back when it was simply known as University High School).
The university's reaction came in a statement by Manoa campus spokesman and ex-newsman Jim Manke:
"It was placed on the public agenda in error," said Manoa campus spokesman Jim Manke. "The regents asked the chancellor to prepare a discussion paper. The intent was to send it to the Regents for discussion prior to reaching some decisions."
Manke appears to be referring to what I understand is a routine practice of sending discussion or issue papers to the Board for discussion in executive session.
The problem, of course, is that state law strictly limits what can legally be discussed in closed executive sessions that bar the public. Policy issues such as the university's long-term relationship with the Lab School don't fall under any of those specific exceptions to the law (see section 92-5 of the "Sunshine Law"), making the Board's intended discussion illegal. And if such discussions of policy issues are routinely taken up in executive session, it would indicate a broad pattern of sunshine violations.
Reporter Bev Creamer gets credit for at least noting Manke's statement, since the Star-Bulletin failed to report the Lab School issue. But Creamer dropped the ball by failing to point readers, and the administration, to the sunshine law issue. It would be good to see the Advertiser, which has been particularly aggressive in using the Sunshine Law to pursue public records, now shift gears and pursue the issue of violations of the open meeting provisions.
And the matter poses an early test for Gov. Lingle's appointees to the Board of Regents, who now face the challenge of bringing the board into compliance with the Sunshine Law.
May 16, 2003 - Friday
We had dinner with my parents last night to celebrate my mom's 89th birthday. And, as usual, learned a thing or two.
It seems my parents attended the luncheon of lifetime members of the UH Alumni Association last month where President Dobelle discussed the proposed new logos and announced that he was scrapping both finalists.
Star-Bulletin writer Rose Bernardo reported the audience cheered Dobelle's announcement that both would be killed. But a detail not reported is that at Dobelle's first mention of the proposed logos, the audience booed!
And while Dobelle can see which way the winds blowing, his sidekick Paul Costello (my initial Freudian typo called him Paul Dobelle) obviously hasn't learned the art of claiming victory in defeat. Costello is usually very, very good at what he does, but The Advertiser this morning captures both sarcasm and failure to gracefully and deftly acknowledge errors in testimony at yesterday's Board of Regents committee meeting:
"We didn't just come up with a logo and say, 'Here's two logos that we think are disgusting, let's put them out to the public and let's have them hate them,'" Costello said.
He also cautioned committee members that logos need time to be accepted by the community.
"Until a logo has a story behind it, people behind it, marketing behind it, love behind it, passion behind it, it doesn't mean anything," Costello said. "We felt very strongly that in time these would resonate."
Oh, they resonated all right. Loudly and negatively. At least the president knows the art of claiming credit for 180 degree course changes when politically necessary.
Ran across Civil Liberties Watch, an interesting blog tracking aspects of the Bush administration's war at home.
And speaking of Ashcroft's war, just be glad your name isn't David Nelson, as the Portland Oregonian reported on Sunday.
| Our experience of dawn is quite different at this time of year. Gone are the blazing colors so typical of the first couple of months of the year. Well, gone for all practical purposes. There may be brilliant colors a half hour before dawn, but with the sun rising now before 6 a.m., we never see them.
When we leave the house at 6 to walk down to the beach, the sun has already been up for 8 minutes. I'm having to adjust my expectations in order to "see" the season's photo opps. It's a bit of a transition.
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 Kaaawa in May
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May 15, 2003 - Thursday
A very strange half-hour at the Honolulu Medical Group yesterday morning, laying on an exam table watching what looks like a scene out of "Fantastic Voyage" in colorful video while carrying on a surreal conversation about the wonders of Habanero peppers and the merits of shopping at the "It's Chili in Hawaii" store. Fantastic Voyage meets Fernwood Tonight. Certainly memorable.
State cable administrator Clyde Sonobe took exception to my comments yesterday and sent this message to access gadfly Jeff Garland, who had initiated the request at issue. Sonobe says the redactions--the black lines obscuring almost the entire 4-page document--were made by Olelo, not by his office.
Mr. Garland,
As you know, on 5-8-03, I sent you an email informing you that Olelo would be forwarding to you a copy of Mr. Gary Honda's resume, which would be redacted by Olelo, based on the OIP opinion dated 4-8-03. I confirmed with Mr. Les Kondo of the OIP that this would be the appropriate course of action regarding your request of a copy of Mr. Honda's resume.
Olelo did in fact send you a copy of Mr. Honda's redacted resume, not me or the DCCA. Again, it was sent to you by Olelo.
It would be appreciated if you would provide this accurate information to whomever was copied on your attached email dated 5-14-03 or provided with the inaccurate information.
Thank you.
Clyde
While I appreciate Sonobe's reply, it sidesteps the issue. The OIP opinion was addressed to Sonobe, and indicated the document was maintained by DCCA and Sonobe's Cable Television Division. His office was the appointing authority that considered the resume and presumably had reviewed the resume itself prior to making the appointment. And if DCCA delegated the responsibility to Olelo for interpreting the OIP decision, it certainly had a responsibility to be sure that Olelo acted properly and made the necessary disclosures. If Olelo failed to do so, then it seems to me that Sonobe and DCCA retain the authority to require that it be done right. This is becoming a familiar situation as privatization spreads through a variety of government functions.
The underlying issue, though, is that OIP appears to have rushed to judgement regarding the extent of the privacy protections involved. The law says that such information should be publicly disclosed unless it would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
In legal terms, that is a high standard. It isn't enough that disclosure invades personal privacy, or even that it could be considered an unwarranted invasion of privacy. It is further qualified and must be a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy before it can be withheld from the public. The OIP opinion glosses over the nature of this standard. Frankly, it is difficult to see what information in a resume prepared for circulation (and distributed without apparently restrictions) could possibly rise to this level. The law is designed to protect intimate information. In a professional resume? That's a claim that is hard to digest.
But that's another battle. Even in the terms spelled out by OIP, Sonobe--and Olelo--have failed the public in this case by their actions or, if Sonobe is to be taken literally, by inactions. At least that's how it looks from here.
May 14, 2003 - Wednesday
UH veep Paul Costello was prominently quoted in a NY Times story yesterday on Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Massachusetts senator and presidential hopeful John Kerry.
On the sunshine front, I'm again wondering whether we're entering another period of government secrecy in Hawaii.
This time it's a question of whether the public has a right to inspect the resume of a state appointee to the board of Olelo, Honolulu's public access cable provider.
A recent opinion by the Office of Information Practices (OIP Opinion 2003-4) gave the short answer, "yes", but qualified it by saying that information in the resume relevant to the appointment should be disclosed, while other personal information should remain private and confidential. So far, so good.
But the version of the resume released by the state's cable administrator, Clyde Sonobe, is almost entirely blacked out. Only three entries in a four-page resume remain, while virtually all information regarding the board member's educational and employment background and experience has been redacted. These few fragments would certainly not have earned an appointment to the Olelo board, so the decision to withhold further information clearly goes well beyond appropriate boundaries and appears to have been made in bad faith. This harkens back to the good old days prior to passage of Hawaii's Uniform Information Practices Act when privacy was synonymous with government secrecy.
OIP has now been asked to review Sonobe's decision, but OIP, citing restricted funding and resources, says it will be "some time" before any review can be done.
It's never a good sign when administrators go overboard to keep information from the public, which certainly appears to be the case in this instance. Whether there's any recourse in the Lingle administration remains to be seen.
I should have realized that it was a trick question when my doctor seemingly idly asked, "Didn't you turn 55 this past year?"
Failing to think quickly enough, I answered affirmatively. All sorts of medical mischief apparently follows from that simply answer, with this morning's scheduled duty among the unpleasant ones. No, I'm not going to get explicit, just use your imagination. A hint: no food since breakfast yesterday. Enough said.
| While sitting around getting hungry yesterday, I put together another round of Kaaawa dogs. Just click on Ms. Tiki's photo to see the whole batch. |
Ms. Tiki
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May 13, 2003 - Tuesday
I don't know whether salaries in the Star-Bulletin newsroom have been fully restored, but the company's got enough cash for another acquisition. Star-Bulletin owner David Black and his Black Press have purchased another string of British Columbia community newspapers. The papers were bought for an undisclosed sum from Quebecor Inc.'s Sun Media, along with a printing plant in Penticton, BC.
The deal provides a new assignment for former Star-Bulletin publisher Don Kendall, according to the Canadian Community Newspaper Association:
The deal, which includes the Penticton Western, Summerland Review, Revelstoke Times Review, Golden Star and Invermere Valley Echo, is for an undisclosed amount.
The new papers will be managed by Cariboo Press. Don Kendall, who recently left as publisher of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, months after Black Press owner David Black bought the paper, will become publisher in Penticton and Summerland.
I can't say that I'm surprised by the shutdown of Vitex, the company formed last year to deliver summaries of Dow Jones columns and headlines via telephone for a fee. It just didn't sound like a service that those with money for such things would find appealing. PBN reported the company's end last week, and the Advertiser had the story this morning.
Last Friday, the Advertiser ran an Associated Press story on a critical audit of UH early retirement incentives. On Monday, the story was rewritten and appeared again, this time with writer Bev Creamer's byline. A reader noted the redundancy and forwarded the stories to me under the heading, "Once more, with feeling..."
| I've been digging through old photographs for the past week since buying a relatively inexpensive film scanner. Here's an interesting one--the view of downtown Honolulu from Aloha Tower taken in 1967. There was a lot more view available back then. |
View from Aloha Tower, 1967
(click for larger photo) |
Aha, mystery solved. Turns out that yesterday's recollection of the Joe Palooka Club was a followup to a message I didn't receive. We finally sorted that out, and here's the missing original, inspired by last week's Kaimuki Theater photos and mention of the Porky Pig Club:
I think ours was the Woody Woodpecker Club - at the Wahiawa Theater. The manager was a very haole white-haired gentleman who always wore a white suit when he hosted the "game" portion of the Saturday morning fun interspersed between cartoons and the "chaptah" cowboy serials and the Durango Kid/Lash Larue features. He looked like Col. Sanders, and was always referred to as Mr. White, but now that I think of it I'm not sure if that was because (1) that was his name, (2) he was a haole, or (3) he always wore a white suit.
I do remember that the movies in those days were 9 cents for kids' admission, and the story (perhaps an urban myth?) was that they charged less than a dime because if they charged 10 cents they would have to add tax. Where do these stories come from, and why would a kid know that?
I also remember that when I was still at Wahiawa Elementary in the sixth grade, my after-school goal was to get down to the shack where the Star Bulletin was dropped off for us delivery boys so that I could fold my 70 papers and get them delivered before the 3:15 matinees - assuming there was a picture worth watching (for 9 cents). Made it most times. My most "famous" customer was Wahiawa lawyer Bob Oshiro, and even as a sixth grader it was in my mind somehow that this was a Person of Influence. This was in 1952.
May 12, 2003 - Monday
Last week's mention of the Kaimuki Theater and the Saturday morning Porky Pig Club of the 1950's dredged up this memory from a reader:
I had one of those wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night moments and remembered that at the Wahiawa Theater it was the Joe Palooka Club, not the Woody Woodpecker Club.
And the Advertiser's Bachelor bit drew several comments yesterday. Here's one:
This whole Advertiser bachelor thing looked ridiculous. The guy they chose wasn't even into the spirit of the game, and it was rather apparent that the writer, Tanya Bricking, wasn't going to make him look any better than he deserved:
Whichever bachelorette received the bouquet of roses from Bachelor Kelly Komoda to end the game, they decided, would give him a playful peck on the lips.
But Komoda, a 26-year-old teacher who wants to be an actor when he grows up, had trouble pretending to be excited about puckering up.
He congratulated bachelorette Brynn Leake as the winner and handed her an armful of two dozen red roses, saying she made him feel the most comfortable throughout the game. When Leake revealed the plan to kiss him, however, that comfort turned cold.
"Oh, I ain't kissing," he said, sending Leake into a fit of embarrassed laughter.
The guy doesn't even let the woman kiss him! I mean what the hell is that? Sure it was a dumb promo, but who'd have expected it to go so bad that the bachelor would embarrass the woman he picked?
And note that phrase Bricking wrote about how he wants to be an actor "when he grows up." Was this commentary Bricking slipped past her editors?
Haha!
| Just a thought prompted by the accompanying photo.
We should require all Hawaiian Electric executives, and state legislators for that matter, to live in beautiful places marred by HECO's overhead lines.
It isn't just that our neighborhoods are blighted. It should be obvious to all that the value of our tourism "product" is greatly reduced by HECO's foot-dragging on the necessary process of moving utilities underground. Put a dollar a day tax on visitors and dedicate it to an underground fund to be matched by tax dollars. There's got to be a solution.
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Kaaawa rainbow
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May 11, 2003 - Sunday
It's Mothers Day. Who knows what little gifts the cats will deliver if they get in the mood.
Diarist Ryan Ozawa made my Sunday morning easier by sharing substantive comments on the Advertiser's bachelor project:
Speaking of media commentary... I was really hoping someone would've taken the Advertiser to task for its ridiculous "Hawaii's Bachelor" project, which was smelling like a bust since week two and proved itself such with the 'finale' today (Friday).
1. Newspapers (or news agencies) should not be "manufacturing" public figures and celebrities. The project took dozens of everyday citizens and made them into lunchroom conversation. Radio station commentary on some participants was downright mean.
2. Why did this kick off in the midst of war? I imagine it was planned long before, but, it could have been delayed. Even worse, the Advertiser started specifically positioning/marketing the fiasco as a distraction, as a way to _not_ think about what's going on in the world. News outlets do way too much "pet of the week" and "teen prostitutes with a heart of gold" stuff as it is, especially for sweeps week, and CNN is a disgrace these days... _except_ when global events dictate a return, however brief, to Real Journalism(tm). The fact that the Advertiser was overtly saying, "If you don't like news, we can also provide your guilty entertainment," is apalling.
3. Why Hawaii's Bachelor? I realize this is a small point, but why "a guy chooses a girl" intead of "a girl chooses a guy," when generally a girl will apply a number of criteria (and generate deeper and varied analysis, i.e. more interesting copy) versus a guy who will - under most circumstances - take "whatever"? (And why this bachelor? A piece of cold toast has more personality.) Was there, perhaps, some irony in Mike Leiderman's May 5 column on chauvinism?
The one thing I'm glad to see is that one conclusion seems pretty clear: Journalists are pretty good at covering the news, but they suck at trying to make it.
Some discussion here.
Ramblingly yours,
Ryan
| I've got this latest round of cat pictures is ready...I just added captions and final touches and it's going up at 7:30 a.m.. So just click on poor neurotic Leo's handsome foto, and you'll be transported to the latest on our cats. |
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