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October 16, 2004 - Saturday
"Haw why."
First I cringe and then I get angry every time I hear a local broadcaster mangle the name of our island state as if they just got off a plane from the Mid-West for the first time. It's insulting to local residents and especially to Hawaiians, really it is. What I hear is someone saying they live here but don't respect us enough to even get the primary place name correct. Unfortunately, Hawaii Public Radio and PBS Hawaii seem to be home to consistent offenders, although the corporate broadcasters aren't wholly in the clear.
Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but I'm actually in favor of a "three strikes" provision--a third reported instance of "Haw why" and they're off the air until undergoing remedial training and passing a pronunciation test.
I notice that the Star-Bulletin's Craig Gima has another story this morning on the UH Board of Regents deal with a local public relations executive. The story again raises the issue of conflict of interest and again fails to refer to the legal definition spelled out in the state ethics law. Perhaps it's inconvenient to know that the denials coming from UH officials are consistent with the law, but it's a significant bit of information in the context of this ongoing story. It really needs to be explained as a matter of basic fairness.
Thanks to the Advertiser's Vicki Viotti for yesterday's story of Matson, the kitten that survived a sea voyage trapped in a container without food or water. I can't believe that one hasn't shown up on the wires yet.
And the Chicago Tribune has added printable coupons, so you can browse available coupons and print out the ones that you are likely to use. That will keep one large group of people coming back to their web site, so we're likely to see it spread quickly to other sites.
| Who is that guy with the beard and long hair? Oops. Almost didn't recognize myself there in the time warp. This photo is from 1976-77 and was taken while a group of us anti-nuke activists were exploring the Army's abandoned underground command center in Aliamanu Crater. The lights were on but no one was home. Really. |
Click on photo for more
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It was an unusual and somewhat spooky experience, as I recall from this distance of nearly 30 years. I did carry off some government property, including an old wooden "Office of the Commandant" sign that could have been of WWII vintage, some "Top Secret" warning pages tossed among the piles of abandoned papers, and a few old Army rubber stamps to mark classified documents. A fun haul for a peacenik.
October 15, 2004 - Friday
After finishing yesterday's entry, I went back and scanned Richard Mirikitani's letter filed with the Campaign Spending Commission which admits serious problems leasing space at in the Shops at Dole Cannery. It makes interesting reading even apart from the campaign complaint that it responds to.
And how did the Star-Bulletin track down congressional candidate Tanonaka to get his comment on the Campaign Spending Commission's decision to refer his case for prosecution? Well, seems they had an advantage--Tanonaka showed up for a scheduled meeting with the Bulletin's editorial board that same afternoon.
I noticed that the Star-Bulletin is trying to take advantage of the shift in production schedules that makes its online edition available before the Advertiser's. One morning last week the S-B was online by three a.m., give it three hours over its rival. I wonder whether site statistics show any benefit?
The S-B's Burl Burlingame has his own answer to that lingering question that's been floating around the Internet--what was that bulge under the president's coat during the first debate?
And although I trust Molly Ivans when she says that President Bush isn't stupid, I still got a few laughs from the web site, www.toostupidtobepresident.com.
I received this wonderful email a couple of days ago:
I hope this enote finds you and your family well. I happen to be glancing at the photographs in your gallery and came upon my mother's photograph at Sonny Kaniho's protest in Waimea. I was stunned. It brought back memories of Kukuihaele and of my mother. We lost her in 1998, still miss her, but chancing upon your photos brought her back as part of the history of Waimea, the movement and of my mother....
Thank you for your contribution. For a brief moment you enabled the vision of my mother to come alive! Mahalo nui loa.
Needless to say, it made my day.
October 14, 2004 - Thursday
The state Campaign Spending Commission yesterday voted in a split 3-2 decision to refer a complaint against Republican Dalton Tanonaka to the prosecutor for investigation of a possible criminal violation of state campaign laws.
There were a couple of interesting issues. One was the question: Where is Dalton? His attorney told commissioners that Tanonaka was unable to attend the meeting because he was on a previously scheduled trip to Japan, but commission director Bob Watada was obviously sceptical. Watada repeatedly asked for clarification on Tanonaka's whereabouts, citing information that the candidate was expected to be present at other events during the day and appearing to imply that Tanonaka was intentionally avoiding the commission . I notice that the Star-Bulletin's Rick Daysog was able to get Tanonaka's comments on the commission decision, so perhaps Watada's scepticism was justified.
The commission dismissed a complaint against Mufi Hanneman's mayoral campaign, but the discussion brought up some interesting business information.
The complaint had alleged that Hanneman was getting a hidden contribution from Castle & Cooke in the form of below market rent for his headquarters at the Dole Cannery complex. The specific space (#195), is listed on Castle & Cooke's web site. It's 1,776 square fee, and goes for a base rent of $1.50 per foot plus 56 cents in common expenses. If I recall the testimony correctly, Hanneman is paying just 72 cents per foot, or just barely more than the common area costs.
However, a sheepish Richard Mirikitani, brother of former City Council member Andy Mirikitani and senior vice-president of Castle & Cooke Properties, testified that leasing space at Dole Cannery has been difficult and the discounted rate offered the Hanneman campaign was not unique. While not disclosing the names of specific tenants, Mirikitani said "several businesses pay significantly less per square foot" than Hanneman, despite the publicly listed lease rates, and some businesses pay only a percentage of sales with no base rent.
"I don't like having to say this publicly," Mirikitani told the commission. Especially since there are some tenants paying the full freight, who are not going to enjoy hearing about the nearly free ride being enjoyed by others.
| It's not always easy to get home late and create something good for dinner, but I managed to salvage things last night. Here's a visual of the spread. For details, just click on the photo. |
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October 13, 2004 - Wednesday
Did you notice the dueling voter registration stories in the Star-Bulletin and Advertiser yesterday?
The Advertiser headline seemed clear enough: "Hawaii voter registration surges."
But then I sat down with my first cup of coffee and opened the Star-Bulletin, and it seemed a different world: "Isle voter number decrease", announced the Bulletin story on A-3.
The Bulletin story reported the first overall election to election decline in state history, a relatively significant factoid which doesn't appear anywhere in the Advertiser story. Instead, the Advertiser played up the number of new registrations after the primary, which was the highest since 1994. Only in the last sentence does their story mention the decline in overall voter registration.
The Star-Bulletin story by Nelson Daranciang, on the other hand, notes in the second paragraph that the fall in voter numbers came despite the last minute surge in registrations,
Listening to the news the last few days leaves me bewildered. First we hear more about the disintegration of basic city services. It can take weeks or longer to get a drivers license because there's a shortage of personnel to give the tests, and it can take months to get a building permit because of a lack of building inspectors. But at the same time, the city is plunging into a $6 million project to prevent the Waikiki natatorium pool walls from crumbling, even though the pool will remain unusable. So large numbers of residents suffer a lack of basic city service in order to pursue the unattainable natatorium dream and push a few final bucks towards selected contractors. Why not just have a tax dollar bonfire? More people might at least be able to enjoy that.
| If you've got to run a personnel ad, I suppose it helps to have a catchy job title. This one in Sunday's Advertiser caught my eye. However, the job duties are described as dealing with a hotel "wedding product", a term that succeeds in placing the romantic fantasy with a properly commodity-driven framework. |
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October 12, 2004 - Tuesday
There's lighting off to the northeast as I sit here in the dark this morning. I've already done the shift--I freed the cats that were "in" overnight and they have dispersed into the remaining darkness, and those that were "out" successfully fussed to get back in. It remains to be seen whether that lightning is associated with weather that will disrupt our regular walk. We'll walk with umbrellas for passing showers. We normally don't walk in steady rain. It's not raining--yet. We'll see in an hour.
Good stuff happening at Pacific Business News? That's the view of one regular reader: "Have you noticed how much more interesting PBN has become under Kelly? The story selection is really good now compared with what it used to be."
The reference is to former Honolulu Advertiser editor Jim Kelly, now editor at PBN. Apparently he's kicking the weekly business paper up a notch.
Meda was quoted a couple of times last week in a Christian Science Monitor story on the occasion of Martha Stewart's beginning her prison term.
Unusually large increases in carbon dioxide levels measured on Mauna Loa and confirmed by scientists elsewhere have boosted fears of global warming that were widely reported yesterday around the world, from Australia to London. Go to Google News and search for "mauna loa carbon dioxide" to see the range of stories.
All you SETI searchers beware (for the uninitiated, that's the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). A techie for the State of Ohio was canned for installing the SETI@Home software on the office server, where it ran at night and on weekends when the office was closed, according to a report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Many of the Star-Bulletin's SETI team have apparently gone on to other things, but a few people are still contributing. Click here to check the Bulletin's SETI stats.
| David C. from sunny Vermont shared this photo yesterday with this brief explanation: "...on cold New England nights we just throw another Afghan on."
Click on the photo for a larger version.
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He added: "Vermont isn't very friendly to Bush or his likes. Remember Senator Jeffords? Jim left the Republican party so that they would no longer have the majority in the senate. A very popular bumper sticker around here is 'Thank You Jim'."
I got the news last night that my brother-in-law is in a hospital in California where they found a large mass in his right lung. Further diagnostics due today. It's a harsh reminder of what's really important, a strong hint that there's never a bad time to reclaim your own priorities.
And it looks like the rain and lightning is moving off into the distance.
October 11, 2004 - Monday
I had to drive past those "Lost" signs along Kamehameha Highway on the way out to Kaaawa quite a few times before realizing that they weren't referring to unfortunate lost animals but rather to the television production of the same name which has been filming at different Kualoa locations, just down the road. So if you want a different view of our neighborhood, check out the series.
And here's another view courtesy of local photographer Norm Shapiro and the World Wide Panorama project at the University of California Berkeley. Shapiro contributed a panoramic view of Buntin's Bridge, on the other side of Kaaawa, just across the street from the little beach park where we end our walk every morning before turning around and starting the trek home. That's the park off in the distance behind the truck in the photo. And there are usually white ducks in the water below Buntin's bridge, although they didn't stick around for the photo.
| And the house immediately next door to us is now for sale at a price that made me gasp. Everyone around is dreading future property taxes if these few high-priced sales go through in our once very modest neighborhood. Elsewhere in Kaaawa it looks like the buying frenzy has ended, with several houses now lingering on the market or lowering their asking prices in order to attract buyers. |
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Interesting story here on the apparent uprising within the CIA against the demands of the Bush administration to produce intelligence skewed to favor their political agenda.
And 20 years after the "future" depicted in George Orwell's famous novel, 1984, his insights into the power of government propaganda to warp reality are more relevant than ever, as economist Paul Krugman reminded in a New York Times column on Friday.
October 10, 2004 - Sunday
That leftist rag, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, published a strong editorial yesterday endorsing John Kerry and spelling out the reasons.
Meanwhile, though, the red v. blue map maintained by the Los Angeles Times, linked to the latest poll data, indicates that it will be a hard election for Kerry to win. What's worse, there are states out there leaning as much a 3-1 in favor of Bush. I don't think I even want to pass through airports in those parts of the country. Scary.
Star-Bulletin writer Burl Burlingame passed along this election tidbit:
Weirdly, even though they've been informed it's wrong, the George Bush reelection web site continues to give my old, expired personal email address as the Star-Bulletin's address, plus additional wrong info. Doesn't sound very competent on their end..,
For those interested in Hawaii journalism, this upcoming Ph.D. dissertation defense might be of interest:
Ann E. Auman - PH.D Dissertation Defense
Monday October 18, 2004 - 10:00 am Saunders 624
"The Honolulu Star-Bulletin's Crusading Culture Through Tough Times and Salad Days: A Historically Informed Analysis of Culture and Identity"
Auman teaches in the journalism program and is an associate professor in the UH School of Communications, and is completing her graduate work in Political Science. She is married to Advertiser news editor Steve Petranik, who formerly held the same position with the Star-Bulletin.
| Here's the latest batch of Kaaawa cats, featuring Mr. Toby. It's appropriate because he's got a birthday about now. I rescued him back on October 29, 2002. He was only 2-3 weeks old at that point, and a scrawny little guy. But look at him now!
Just click on Toby's photo for the latest cat pics.
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