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November 23, 2002 - Saturday
MediaWeek.com reports that a Democratic member of the FCC is preparing to hold hearings outside of the Washington D.C. on the proposed lifting of restrictions on concentration of ownership, with or without the support and participation of his colleagues.
One of those meetings should really be out here in Hawaii, since the KHON-KGMB duopoly is said to be the only place in the country with joint ownership of two top stations combining different network affiliations.
"Ego flatulation"? Say what? Brain gas? That was apparently Bob McDermott's explanation of why so many candidates have entered the 2nd Congressional District special election. The comment was included in a story on Thursday's 6 p.m. news, which we heard on the radio while driving home. Since we jump between stations, I'm not sure whether it was KHON or KGMB. Did anybody else see or hear this story? Did we hear it right?
While looking for info, I noticed that KHON's web site has been taken down. It was the last station to include transcripts of the daily news broadcasts, a most useful service, which now appears to be a thing of the past. A very visible impact of the duopoly, I suppose.
On the other hand, at least some local content has been added back onto the KGMB site, which had previously included only CBS network information.
And so it goes. Have a good weekend.
November 22, 2002 - Friday
The Star-Bulletin had the breaking news posted first following AFSCME's announcement that Gary Rodrigues has been suspended from his position as state director of the United Public Workers.
It's a key move. Gerald W. McEntee, AFSCME International President, has been Rodrigues' guest at his Oregon home several times, and Gary has spent years as a member of the parent union's judicial panel, which rules on grievances filed against union officials.
It's always good to know someone's listening. After the entry here on Tuesday about the possible censure of UH President Dobelle, the Advertiser's Bev Creamer chased down the story and then followed up on Wednesday with a report on the Faculty Senate meeting where the matter was discussed.
A Hawaii reader shared this somewhat lengthy comment on the recent election outcome which I found interesting.
I think there is some validity to an anti-Cayetano vote influencing this election. But, in the end, the real reason that Hirono lost here and democrats lost practically everywhere else is that they are running on ghosts of the party past. Democrates have so mingled their ideology with Republicans that they are nearly inseparable. Thank corporate influence for that. The Democratic Party like the Republican Party is an arm of monied interests. Welfare cuts, education cuts, social service cuts, tax cuts for the wealthiest are all bipartisan policies now. Cayetano cut taxes for the wealthiest, lowered franchise fees (banker fees), cut budgets to social services, removed landing fees at the airport, cut millions of dollars out of UH in the name of autonomy, and essentially followed a trickle down agenda that was supported by the democratic legislature. This was done all in the name of dealing with a down economy. I don't see an FDR legacy here. I do however see a shell game being played with cash that continued to fortify the democratic insiders with gov't contracts. That's what gov't is now about--supplying cash to a selected few and sheltering that wealth once acquired. There is little thought to the key and most fundamental political question--distribution!! That's why I am union active and socially active--distribution.
That people don't vote is not necessarily a good or bad thing. Emma Goldman said, "Women get to vote. Big fucking deal. Twenty years of voting and their wages haven't changed. Their conditions haven't changed. Voting is highly overrated." I tend to agree with Emma, although I take my son to the voting booth to enrich his civic experience and to fertilize his young political mind. Considering the candidates, I should let him fill out the ballot. If the world stays as it is, he will discover the nonsense of voting. I look forward to changes though, because as history has taught, changes will come and when they do voting might make a difference. It hardly makes a difference now.
| This was the scene in our kitchen a couple of nights ago as Mr. Duke modeled appropriate eating behavior for the still unnamed kitten. They are slowly becoming pals as Duke learns to handle the kitten a bit gently. |
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November 21, 2002 - Thursday
Did UPW director Gary Rodrigues threaten federal prosecutors as he left the court on Tuesday?
It was widely reported that he held his granddaughter up, pointed to the prosecutors, and said, "Remember their faces, remember their faces." He also described them as "evil". The comments were presumably aimed at the audience of supporters as well.
Rodrigues is a master at such tactics. Several times when we crossed paths in public settings, Rodrigues looked at me and said in a loud voice for public consumption, "what's that pilau smell? What stinks in here?"
Well, as one former UPW activist said to me yesterday, "Who's pilau now?"
The late afternoon verdict came after normal court hours and, more importantly, after the U.S. Marshalls had left for the day. If the marshalls had been there, the unruly courtroom behavior would not have been tolerated. According to S-B reporter Debra Barayuga, writing in this morning's paper, Senior Judge Sam King told prosecutors that they could bring criminal charges if they want to.
The Star-Bulletin's Erika Engle has a good piece on Rick Blangiardi's spirited defense of media monopoly before the Honolulu Community-Media Council on Tuesday.
Blangiardi is senior vice president for Emmis Communications Corp. in Hawaii, owner of both KHON and KGMB. Emmis is seeking to overturn the FCC's existing ban on ownership of more than one television station among the top four in a market, a policy change that has been opposed by the media council.
Blangiardi tells a good story, but seems to take pride in dissing the stations' staff as he touts his emphasis on changing the news product. Engle caught this quote:
Blangiardi told KHON anchor Joe Moore, who he's known for 35 years, "If you want the next seven years to look like the last seven, I'll find a way to buy you out of your contract."
Seeing comments like that in print can't make the popular Moore very happy.
November 20, 2002 - Wednesday
When the Rodrigues jury delivered their verdict late yesterday afternoon, it was a stunning "Guilty" on all counts. I was surprised. The defendants and their supporters must have been stunned.
I'm not happy to see this labor leader's career end in this way, but the blame is spread across the labor movement and the political establishment, which both tolerated or facilitated Rodrigues' behavior for years. Questions about union funds being diverted for Rodrigues' personal or family use were raised almost as soon as he was first elected state director back in 1981, and he was allowed to bully those who questioned or challenged him.
Everyone found it convenient to look the other way, news media included. I'm still puzzled by the failure of other reporters to jump on the story after I first mentioned the payments from PGMA to Rodrigues' daughter, Robin, in early 1998. It never happened.
Prosecutors said the case was about greed. Actually, I think it was about power. Rodrigues had enough power that he believed he could do anything, and he got away with it until the jury spoke.
I'm still processing my feelings about the whole case, and will post additional comments later.
| Yesterday was a landmark on another front. October's kitten ate from a bowl for the first time in the morning, and by last night was eating canned cat food out of a bowl. He's still major cute, and this is a major developmental breakthrough. |
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November 19, 2002 - Tuesday
The Star-Bulletin has picked up another experienced writer, former Advertiser reporter Sally Apgar. It's a smart move, especially if she's going to be turned loose to develop investigative stories. She's a good writer who should team well with Rick Daysog.
It's been a bad month for UH President Evan Dobelle. First he stepped into a political minefield with his last-minute endorsement of Mazie Hirono (check Dave Shapiro's recent column), and now he faces a possible censure of his administration by Manoa faculty concerned over his sidestepping of established procedures in his rush to present a reorganization plan to the Board of Regents last week.
Text of the reorganization proposal was distributed to faculty in the November 11 edition of the regular weekly UH e-newsletter, News@UH. Of course, November 11 was a state and federal holiday.
You had to click through to the proposal itself to get the following message: "Comments on the proposal will be accepted through Nov. 12," and all comments were directed to Dobelle's personal email address. With a Nov. 12 deadline, and the proposal set to be presented to the Regents on the 14th, this amounted to virtually no advance notice at all and barely qualified as even a token opportunity for review.
A draft resolution calling for the censure of the administration for its failure to seek Faculty Senate advice on the reorganization proposal in a timely manner has been circulating, an indication of strong faculty sensibilities on this matter.The resolution is on the agenda for debate at a Faculty Senate meeting scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.
| I managed to scrape together a few quick images of Chicago, or at least the small part of it we visited last week. Click on this photo to visit this Chicago gallery. |
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November 18, 2002 - Monday
We walked out of the old Palmer House hotel in Chicago early yesterday morning into the city's first snow of the season. "Lake effect snow," they were calling it, but to winter-challenged islanders, it looked like the real thing. We saw cars covered with about 6 inches of wet glop. Our only fear was that it would make it difficult to get to the airport, but that turned out to be no problem. And unlike the flights to Chicago, everything went smoothly on the way home. We even arrived a few minutes ahead of schedule.
We're still rounding up cats. We stopped on the way from the airport and picked up Harriet from the vet, then headed home. She's so happy to be home that she spent most of the night in our bedroom, crying every time we appeared to wake up. All the other cats except Lindsey appeared soon after we got home. He was probably hanging out next door, and I expect him to walk in early this a.m. [note: Lindsey strolled in a 4:47 a.m., right on schedule.]
The case against Gary Rodrigues is scheduled to go to the jury today following a brief closing rebuttal by Ass't U.S. Attorney Flo Nakakuni. Then it's just waiting for the jury to decide.
Whatever the jury decision regarding the criminal charges, there was certainly more than enough evidence presented at trial to show Rodrigues' betrayed the trust of his members and of the union. But it still isn't clear whether AFSCME intends to pay any attention at all unless he is convicted. It will be a real black eye for the labor movement if there's no internal accountability, whatever the outcome of the criminal case. All those labor ideals will start to ring pretty hollow if this kind of behavior by a key union leader is tolerated, now that it's a matter of public record and not simply rumor or conjecture.
I enjoyed Jerry Burris' column in yesterday's Advertiser trying to explain why Hirono lost the election. I'll add another factor that makes sense to me--she lost in part because so many people were angry at Ben Cayetano.
Gov. Ben almost seemed to delight in pissing people off. Not just crossing them with his policies, but rubbing it in, being nasty about it, calling names, getting personal. I'm sure lots of teachers and public employees cast anti-Cayetano votes despite their union's endorsements because of what they perceived as his treatment of them. Then there were the gratuitous insults, like the arbitrary renaming of the H-3 tunnels, which surely undermined the support a good number of AJA Democrats.
But it's not fair to pile blame on Ben, despite his contribution to the outcome. After all, despite all the packaging, Mazie just failed to convey a gubernatorial image. Several people who hosted small "meet the candidate" events for Mazie told me they were surprised and disappointed by her poor performance in these campaign settings. They reported that she didn't really answer questions or get to the point about her own reasons for being in the race.
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