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May 24, 2003 - Saturday
| I was quite flattered when I sat down with a cup of coffee yesterday morning and Mr. Duke almost immediately jumped in my lap and started purring loudly. |
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He ran off to play, or to eat, but returned to my lap a couple of times with the same purring routine.
Along about the third return trip, just as I was really starting to feel special, Meda looked up from the day's newspapers, took in the scene, and said: "You're in his chair."
Impossible, couldn't be, this cat obviously loves being in my lap. Well, I tested my theory by getting up and going into the kitchen for a coffee refill. Before the pour was finished, a very happy Duke was settled down in the chair busily cleaning in preparation for a morning nap.
What can I say? The loud purring was still gratifying. I'll just treat it as an even trade or a chair well earned.
May 23, 2003 - Friday
Okay, I admit it. I'm trying to start a 4-day weekend. So this will be Friday lite, although I've been preparing an interesting entry for use over the weekend.
If you are looking for more information on the proposed FCC rules on media ownership, Democracy Now! has a recording of this week's hearing in Atlanta which was attended by dissident commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps. You can listen to the entire hearing. Have fun.
And if you're not worried about the convergence of media concentration and government power yet, you should be. Here's a recent piece by Robert Sheer that scared the bejeezus out of me. It seems that the whole thrilling rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital was a made-for-television media spectacle fabricated by the military. Virtually every part of the story was either false or created by request.
Sheer writes:
However, according to the BBC, which interviewed the hospital's staff, the truth appears to be that not only had Iraqi forces abandoned the area before the rescue effort but that the hospital's staff had informed the U.S. of this and made arrangements two days before the raid to turn Lynch over to the Americans. "But as the ambulance, with Pvt. Lynch inside, approached the checkpoint, American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch," the BBC reported.
I'm still stunned. Isn't this the kind of thing that should trigger a congressional inquiry into the misuse of Pentagon power and the intentional misleading of the public? Shouldn't the media that dutifully reported the incident be outraged? What's going on?
| Here's my Memorial Day weekend flag photo. We were walking past the tiny Kaaawa Post Office earlier this week just as Postmaster Jan was raising the flag. It was early--no later than 6:15 a.m., and perhaps even a few minutes earlier. It must be fun here in Kaaawa to get her to work so early! |
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May 22, 2003 - Thursday
Definitely take some time to explore Historic Waikiki, an online art project with lots of bite that examines this vital part of the island. The project is well done, growing, and displays a lot of intellectual depth. I guarantee that you'll find it interesting and a site to bookmark for regular visits.
According to a story in yesterday's Star-Bulletin, a lawsuit has been filed challenging the Board of Agriculture's practice of refusing to accept email testimony. A new opinion by the Office of Information Practices ruling against the Ag board is not yet available online. I wonder whether a court decision favoring the plaintiff will apply to the state Senate, which disallowed email testimony during at least part of this year's session.
Invisible Punishment, a collection of essays Meda edited along with Marc Mauer of the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project, was the subject of a front page story in yesterday's Washington Post.
Another UH administrator is under pressure. This time it is UH Manoa Chancellor Peter Englert who is the subject of a petition expressing "no confidence" openly circulating by email among faculty this week.
| And this is another photo from our cat history files. This patriotic beauty is Windfola, our first full time cat, purchased for a couple of bucks at a pet store in Ala Moana Center in late August of 1969. She lived with us for 19 years, and even had a little bit of time here in Kaaawa. She set a high standard for the cats that have followed. |
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May 21, 2003 - Wednesday
My search for Joe Voges, the artist who created the 1945 painting of Sumida Farms that we found a number of years ago, ended late yesterday morning with a phone call to a Nebraska City phone number. I had tried calling this particular Joe Voges before, but that phone number was no longer valid, and it took me a while to catch on that the latest Google search results included a different number.
I've made a bunch of calls like this before, explaining my interest in a Joe Voges who was in Hawaii at the end of World War II. I admit to making a basic error, focusing on finding Voges on the east coast because we had found the painting in Boston. But after posting the comments yesterday, I made another run at less likely prospects like this number in Nebraska.
This time the answer was immediate. "That's me," the voice on the phone said.
So here's the story. Voges, now 90, was stationed in an administrative unit at Pearl Harbor for two years. While here, he took up painting. "I never took any lessons or anything," he said.
According to Voges, he didn't paint very much. "I sold a few, and I brought five home..Mostly oils. And I did a few watercolors. "
He recalls the Sumida Farms picture, and another from the top of Kole Kole Pass, looking down on the clouds. He also painted a Hawaiian couple fishing, with their catch carried in a banana leaf basket. Then there was one looking out to see from up in the mountains with a fleet of Navy ships offshore.
He said he gave one of those watercolors to a friend, a view of Makalapa headquarters of Admiral Nimitz. He said it's still rolled up in a drawer somewhere.
Home for Voges has always been Nebraska City, down in the Southeastern corner of Nebraska. Voges said he was born there and returned there after leaving the Navy.
Voges has been in the taxidermy business for 60 years, and says he did some taxidermy for friends while stationed at Pearl Harbor. He even did his thing on several fish caught during fishing expeditions while in Hawaii, and took some back to Nebraska. Taxidermy was tough during the war because materials were hard to get.
"You had to just scrounge for everything," he said.
Voges said he didn't continue painting after returning to Nebraska, although he has painted backdrops for his taxidermy subjects, and contributed to a mural by the local artists guild created for a natural history museum in Nebraska City which he is supporting.
Voges said his whole collection, including items from his lifetime of taxidermy as well as his paintings, is going to end up in the museum. "I want it to be part of the community," he said, adding proudly, "the third oldest in the state."
He closed his store just a couple of years ago, but still lives on the property. He's single, never married.
It's a good thing that I made the call. Voges said he has been fighting pneumonia and just got out of the hospital. And he enjoyed learning that the Sumida family and others have admired his work from so many years ago.
"I found this call very interesting," he said just before our conversation ended. So did I, so did I.
| My dig through boxes of old negatives continues, but I've finally located the photos of the Kahoolawe Nine, the first protest landing on the island on January 4, 1976. Hopefully I'll finish scanning negatives those over the next couple of days, and plan on getting a selection online shortly. |
Coming soon
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May 20, 2003 - Tuesday
Now we see that the Advertiser's Hawaii's Bachelor project was way behind the curve. A British tabloid, The Sun, is now offering a cash prize to the first contestants in a reality tv show to do it live.
The rules are simple — we will give £50,000 to the first Big Brother boy-girl bonk.
And The Guardian reports that this is really just an effort to catch up with European television, which has already been there, done that.
For eruptions of a different sort, check out the "Eruption Update" maintained by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. As much as you'll ever want to know about the ongoing eruption on the Big Island, and great photographs as well.
I made it through the day yesterday without strolling over to the new Apple Store at Ala Moana for a look-see, but I'm not sure how long I can hold out.
| And from the sleuthing and collecting file: We found this painting in a dim and dusty antique store near the Boston Commons perhaps 10 years ago or so. It depicts Sumida's watercress farm in Pearl City with Pearl Harbor in the background. It is signed "Joe Voges 1945".
It is really a wonderful painting, with dark and brooding clouds over lines of ships in the harbor.
I've been searching for any possible information on Joe Voges the artist ever since without luck. I presume he was in the military and passing through Hawaii on his way back home, wherever that might have been. I'm hoping to add a little slice of history to the image.
Any suggestions would be most appreciated.
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click for larger image
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May 19, 2003 - Monday
There's been a lot of reporting on the Hawaii Kai condominium where authorities found 24 dogs housed in poor conditions. There's another story in the Advertiser this morning.
But there must be another story behind the news--the long tale of the condominium's battle with the problem. What were the condo board and management doing over the last several years as the dog problem worsened?
I notice that the condo, Villa Marina, is not on the Hawaiian Humane Society's list of "pet friendly" buildings in the area. Do its rules allow pets? And, if not, what was the fate of efforts to have the dogs removed?
It just might be a fascinating case study of the limits of condominium rules and the difficulties of civil enforcement. Right now, it's just a case of reporters not straying too far from the immediate story to a perhaps more interesting one.
| I updated the Kaaawa photo gallery over the weekend to keep up with the change in seasons, island style. I also snuck in then-and-now photos of my parents' house in Kahala, views just about exactly 60 years apart. Click on this photo or the gallery banner to get to the latest. |
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May 18, 2003 - Sunday
There's some interesting discussion of the court decision on the new federal campaign finance law on the web site of Democracy 21, the organization formed by former Common Cause president Fred Wertheimer.
| AOL-Time Warner chairman and CEO Richard Parsons is supposed to be in Honolulu today to give the commencement address at UH.
I located these two pics from the summer of 1966, when Parsons was attending UH. That's him waving at the camera during an afternoon game of croquet in the Manoa back yard of Scott and Bruce Johnson, friends from our days at University High School. Click on either photo for a larger version.
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So it goes on this quiet Sunday.
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