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November 20, 2004 - Saturday
Give your brain a little tweak and check out this selection of fascinating maps based on the data from the presidential election. Some of these are amazing, a reminder that our view of the world is more dependent on what we choose to count than we normally believe.
| It was shortly after 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon when I realized I do know someone here in Nashville. So I ventured out into the cold, overcast, and gloomy afternoon to find the King & Ballow law firm and attorney Alan Marx. |
King & Ballow, Nashville
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.Marx represented former Star-Bulletin owner Rupert Phillips in Gannett's attempt to close the paper in 1999, and has represented other newspaper managements in bitter labor negotiations, like our own Hawaii Tribune Herald.
I located the firm in a nondescript older building near the corner of 3rd and Union, not too far from our hotel. At first I thought I might call and see if Marx was available, but eventually decided against it. Too much history there that I would rather not dredge up from the back corners of memory.
After all, although Marx and Co. did their best to shut down the Star-Bulletin, fortunately without success, they were not the ones who ended my career as a S-B writer. That was done by folks much closer to home, those in the Bulletin's own management that I had, apparently erroneously, counted among my friends. They were so frightened by the idea of a blog that they decided I had to go. Best, in any case, to leave that unpleasantness behind, as I've pretty much managed to do.
Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I sat in the Nashville Renaissance Hotel yesterday afternoon watching the Honolulu City Council public hearing on the landfill issue via Olelo's streaming of Channel 54. It's a reminder of how much things have been changed by this new connectivity.
| I finally got around to sifting through October's photos and pulling out a reasonable selection. So just click on this bright Kaaawa sunrise to check out what the month of mornings looked like out our way. |
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November 19, 2004 - Friday
The City Council is expected to vote today on a new landfill site, according to Johnny Brannon's story in this morning's Advertiser.
The proposal for a privately owned and funded landfill in Nanakuli is still on the table. So far, I haven't seen any reporting on the politics of that proposal, including an examination of the key players, including businessman and investor Clyde Kaneshiro, whose companies already dominate the waste hauling business in the state.
I received several responses to Tuesday's entry regarding Kaneshiro, reminding me that he was the key man behind the scenes in attempts over the last several years to change state law to allow a landfill in Kunia, a move which opponents (including the state Department of Health and the city's Dept of Environmental Services and Board of Water Supply) say would threaten a key part of Oahu's water supply, the Pearl Harbor aquifer.
The measure was pushed aggressively at the Legislature in 2003 and surfaced again this year, where it passed out of the House by a 26-25 vote but died in conference committee. The votes came amidst rumors that Kaneshiro is a "good friend" of House Speaker Calvin Say and a business associate of Senate President Bobby Bunda. True or not, the rumors raised the stakes and caused a buzz in the halls at the capitol while the bitter debate raged.
All of that is still very much at play behind the scenes as the Council readies its decision.
I'm amazed! It didn't take long--just a few minutes, actually--for the first reader to correctly guess our location as downtown Nashville, Tennessee. Ray in Wisconsin says he was tipped off by Gaylord Arena, seen in the background of one of the photos. Several others noticed the Bill Voorhees Co. sign in the background of another photo, and easily placed it in Nashville after a quick Google search. One reader flipped the photo of Meda and I reflected in a storefront window in order to read the sign of "D. Danica's Deli", which he was then able to place in Nashville.
I have to say that I didn't notice the arena when I selected that photo. I did see the Voorhees sign, but the location was so nondescript and the name so innocuous that I didn't think there would be a quick trace available. And Danica's Deli? Who could ever find that, I thought. Well, I was wrong, it seems. Very wrong.
One reader noted: "Never lived in Tennessee. Been to Nashville, though. Once. In 1978. And if you think wine is hard to find there now, you should have tried in 1978!!"
A one-mile walk that left the barren church zone of downtown, passed several blocks of religious publishers, and then traversed a dangerous looking post-industrial area beyond did get me to the Froogle Mac Doogle Liquor Warehouse, over on the other side of the tracks. It was an oasis in a dry city. Well, not dry, exactly. There are plenty of watering holes among the BBQ joints and country-theme bars, but nowhere to get a bottle of whatever to sit in the room and enjoy.
Over at Froogle Mac Doogle's I picked up a couple of bottles of wine, then asked about Tennessee whiskey, figuring that I could take advantage of the visit to down a local favorite. But I was surprised to learn that Jack Daniels and rival George Dickel are the only two Tennessee whiskeys, while bourbons, largely from Kentucky, appeared to pour from many specialty distillers as well as the corporate giants. Live and learn.
November 18, 2004 - Thursday
| We got the message from VCA in Kaneohe today. Ms. Miki's ashes are ready to be picked up. I don't know if I'm ready for it.
This is one of my last photos of Miki, taken the day before she died. She had gotten down off our bed and slowly made her way down the hall, through the living room and out onto the back deck, where she found a spot of sun and settled down. It was one of her last remaining pleasures and she took advantage of it.
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Remembering Ms. Miki
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I guess that we'll make that trek to VCA and bring Ms. Miki home, and come to terms with our feelings later.
| But that will have to wait until we get back to Honolulu. We're currently on the mainland. In a Red state, no less. Where are we? Check these photos and then take a guess. Just click on this lovely cityscape to get started. |
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And, finally, I was tipped off to a Nov. 8 entry in the Hawaii Radio & Television Guide (www.hawaiiradiotv.com), It seems Linda Coble is subbing at the KHON-TV while Trini Kaopuiki is out on maternity leave. That clarifies questions about her recent on-camera appearances, but not the issue of reporting stories without disclosing glaring conflicts.
November 17, 2004 - Wednesday
It's certainly interesting to browse through the people named to head up Mufi Hannemann's transition team for clues as to the administration's possible orientation. I ran a quick check through federal campaign records as well as those for a few key state campaigns and came up with the following preliminary tidbits.
During the 2004 election cycle, Co-chair Christine Camp Friedman contributed $1,000 to the Bush-Cheney reelection, $1,000 to Gov. Lingle, and $1,000 to Mike Gabbard's bid for Congress, along with a relatively token $250 to the Hawaii Republican Party. On the other hand, she apparently maxed out to Democrat Neil Abercrombie with contributions totalling $4,000. I noticed that her comany, Avalon Development, gave at least $3,900 to Gov. Lingle's 2002 campaign.
Meredith Ching doesn't show up as a frequent donor as an individual, but contributed $1,000 to the Hawaii Republican Party, FEC records show.
Paul Yonamine's only recent campaign contribution went to Sen. Dan Inouye, although he was a former contributor to the Hawaii Republican Party. But Yonamine and his family have been generous contributors to Hannemann over the past several years, giving over $16,000 since the 2000 election.
Transition team member Joe Pickard gave $4,000 to the Hawaii Republican Party, according to a search of FEC records, and $2,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign (with another $2,000 to Bush-Cheney from his wife). Again, on the other hand, Pickard contributed $500 to Democrat Ed Case, while both Pickard and his wife appear to have given the maximum allowed to Abercrombie this year ($2,000 each for both the primary and general). A $2,300 contribution to Lingle's 2002 campaign was also recorded from Pickard's wife.
Another key link appears to be with the supposedly "independent" committee, Republicans for Real Change, which sponsored several full page advertisements in the closing days of the campaign featuring Sam Slom's endorsement of Hanneman.
According to the committee's initial report on file with the Campaign Spending Commission, Christine Camp Friendman gave $1,000 to the group. Joe Pickard's father and brother gave $1,000 each.
Joe Pickard added $1,000 to another committee, "Morality in Government", which placed radio ads on christian radio stations accusing Duke Bainum of promoting gay marriage. This group was also backed by developers Mark and Craig Watase, who were among the primary backers of the "Republicans for Real Change" as well as substantial donors directly to Hanneman.
In sum, apart from union staffer Liz Ho, Hannemann's transition team appears to have a distinctly Republican tilt.
Very interesting.
November 16, 2004 - Tuesday
I was disappointed to see Gov. Lingle's appointment of first deputy attorney general Rick Bissen as director of the state's prison system.
Bissen, who was prosecutor on Maui before moving to the AG's office, has no apparent background in corrections other than from a prosecutor's legal perspective. It is no insult to Bissen's skills as a prosecutor to say that this lack of corrections experience is a glaring shortcoming in a era where correctional planning, programming, and management has become a professional speciality with its own realm of technical knowledge and education.
Hawaii has, for too long, ignored professional educaiton and training in making key appointments in several departments, with corrections perhaps the most glaring example. Linda Lingle's campaign promise to appoint the most qualified people regardless of political affiliations appeared to offer hope for change. But reaching down once again into Lingle's familiar pool of former Maui political appointees doesn't bode well for the prison system.
On another front...Honolulu's City Council is careening towards the deadline for selecting a new landfill site. One late entry to the landfill derby, Leeward Land LLC, is offering up a privately run landfill requiring no public development costs, only "pay as you dump" costs. It sounds attractive on its face, but let's hope the council takes a good long look in the mouth of this gift horse.
The newly organized Leeward Land LLC (registered May 14, 2004) has two members, Leeward Land Company, Ltd., and Central Oahu Recycling & Disposal Facility, Inc., state business registration records show. The clue to the players here is Central Oahu Recycling, whose sole officer and director is Clyde Kaneshiro, perhaps the dominant figure in Hawaii's waste hauling industry through a network of interrelated companies.
Last year, the Star-Bulletin reported that Attorney General's office was moving to examine a corporate takeover that could give Kaneshiro's Honolulu Disposal Service an 80% share of the commercial waste disposal market.
Another Kaneshiro firm, Valley Isle Disposal, was recently accused of undercutting its competitors on Maui by offering lower prices, while failing to pay the county hundreds of thousands of dollars in dumping fees.
Kika Bukoski, who was ousted from his seat in the State House during this month's election, accused Kaneshiro's firm of unfair competition, according to the Maui News.
“Valley Isle Disposal was low-balling the industry. I couldn’t compete because they were going below cost, but yet I couldn’t figure out how they were staying in business,” he said. “I had no idea that what they were actually doing was not paying their landfill bills.”
Maui County had to sue Kaneshiro's Valley Isle Disposal in order to collect the landfill fees, which were eventually paid minus $120,000 of penalties and interest. According to business registration records, Maui representative and former House Speaker Joe Souki served as a director of the company.
Back in 1996, other waste businesses complained to the City Council that Kaneshiro's companies were being allowed to create a monopoly over the disposal of food waste by controlling the primary processing facility. According to the Environment Hawaii newsletter, an official of Browning-Ferris Industries complained at the time:
: "The recent disclosure that Unisyn, Unisyn Hauling, Inc., Ali`i Refuse Corp and Honolulu Disposal share a common officer and director once again raises the concern that a monopoly is being formed. More importantly, Honolulu Disposal, Ali`i Refuse Corp and Honolulu Recovery are all owned by Clyde Kaneshiro… These are our competitors and this ordinance would force us to patronize their processing facility. It's like asking you to contribute to the campaign fund of your political adversary."
In 1997, Honolulu Disposal paid $823,000 to settle charges that it had padded its refuse collection figures, resulting in overcharges to the federal government amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Also in 1997, I reported that Honolulu Disposal had maintained a secret labor pact for 17 years in order to qualify for certain public business while denying its employees union benefits. The secret contract was only discovered after company employees petitioned to form a union, only to be told that they couldn't proceed because there already was a union contract.
By all appearances, this is not the kind of track record that should be rewarded with private control over the Oahu's primary landfill. Hopefully the City Council will agree.
November 15, 2004 - Monday
It should be a hot time at the Honolulu Community-Media Council's noon meeting today which features a panel on "digital journalism" including Hawaii Reporter's Malia Zimmerman, prolific webmaster and web publisher Ryan Ozawa, and Burt Lum, longtime observer of Internet trends.
Ozawa's short essay prepared for the meeting was printed in yesterday's Star-Bulletin.
Warning--strong language alert--DO NOT proceed to the following link if you are easily offended by strong language or strong sentiments about the country's cultural/political divide. I can't even print the name of the site without risking offense to some. On the other hand, it is too good to ignore.
I should explain my sensitivity. A recent visit with my parents at their Kahala home led me to start my father's aging blue iMac in order to display a few photos of our still ongoing home renovation/addition. I was sitting at the computer, my parents peering over my shoulders to see the screen, when my mother (age 90) asked a question: "So, your father says you're using four letter words on your web site. Is that true?"
I started running through the possibilities in my mind, then recalled the quote from Jon Stewart that I cited a while ago [October 22] regarding Wal-Mart's brand of "aloha".
"It was a quote," I manage to stutter in self-defense.
"Oh, a quote," says she, the statement drifting off to an indefinite conclusion. End of discussion.
Whew.
But here's the bottom line: proceed with caution to what is admittedly a rant which came to us via a friend and prominent historian after he found it circulating in academic circles. "Forget the South" is the printable version of the other F-word that marks this site. If you do proceed, don't blame me. Of course, if you think it's riotously funny, as we did, then I'll be glad to share the credit.
| Okay, dog people, here's your equal time. Another round of Kaaawa's morning dogs. Just click on Ms. Sugar's photo for today's batch. |
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November 14, 2004 - Sunday
On the local scene...Perhaps I should apologize for giving Hannemann campaign consultant Keith Rollman a free ride to add his spin to these pages on the Hannemann-Zimmerman links. Now Rollman has surfaced writing in Zimmerman's Hawaii Reporter with a very revealing and over-the-top attack on any media that failed to buy into Zimmerman's biased and unfair reporting.
Rollman goes so far as to assert, without evidence of course, that polls showing Bainum leading Hannemann in the final weeks of the mayor's race were "manufactured" and that in fact there was no such lead. Hello? Even Hannemann's campaign didn't dispute the reported poll results, although Mufi's folks were aiming for a last-minute surge.
I should have recalled Rollman's earlier Republican campaign work for Frank Fasi (when Frank ran as a Republican), Pat Saiki, and then for Gene Ward, when he tried to harness anti-gay sentiment to Ward's conservative campaign for Congress in 1998.
It's just another reminder of Hannemann's nontraditional coalition that links the major labor unions with religious conservatives and Republicans. It will be fascinating to watch this balancing act as his administration takes shape.
Hawaii tech writer Alex Salkever had an interesting piece in BusinessWeek Online a week or so ago on the Carlyle-Verizon Hawaii deal. [Oops, broken link. Hopefully fixed now.]
If you're curious about the flood damage to Hamilton Library up at UH, check out this collection of photos. Amazing.
And, finally, thanks to Karen Waygood for sharing this quote:
"No heaven will ever a heaven be;
Unless my cats are there to welcome me."
-Anonymous
Amen.
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