|
October 23, 2004 - Saturday
The spin doctors in Gov. Lingle's office are refining their efforts to shape, manage, and control information by quietly directing all state departments to make up "catchy names" for their legislative proposals.
Here's a clarifying email that was circulating in the state system this week:
The Policy Office has received inquiry from certain departments regarding the Policy Office's request to add "Catchy Act Names" to the bills.
To clarify:
1. The Catchy Act Name is separate and in addition to the bill title.
2. The Catchy Act Name is not intended to be part of the HRS and also separate and in addition to Chapter Names for new chapters to the HRS.
3. Departments are to use discretion as to whether a bill warrants a Catchy Act Name. Not all bills to be introduced need to be named. For example, technical amendments to bills to expand definitions or other similar corrections probably do not warrant a Catchy Act Name.
4. The Catchy Act Name should be included in Section 1 of the bill. For example,
Section 1. This Act shall be known as the "Drugfree Playgrounds & Parks Act of 2005."
Please see last session's Education bills in the Governor's Package for some additional examples: HB2332(04) & HB2331 (04).
5. During Legislative Session, departments are reminded to monitor whether the Catchy Act Name conforms to the contents of the bill. Note that names that conflict with the content may raise issues of legislative intent.
If you have any questions, please contact the Policy Office.
Perhaps someone will provide a copy of the original Policy Office "request".
I just about choked on my coffee yesterday morning when I got to the full page advertisement featuring conservative Republican Sam Slom endorsing Mufi Hannemann (and, by implication, his labor-based coalition) for mayor. The mayor's race is nonpartisan, as are all elected city offices, but I can't help speculating that perhaps Republicans see backing Mufi because he poses less of a threat to their broader political order than Duke Bainum, who appears to have considerable support in GOP areas of the state.
Meanwhile, all pretense that local Republicans are a kinder and gentler breed than their mainland counterparts have been shed with yet another round of smear mailers heavily reminiscent of the infamous and discredited "Willie Horton" ads from the 1988 presidential campaign.
This mailer is aimed at Democratic Rep. Tommy Waters, and features a full sized photo of a criminal shown in a "mug shot" holding a sign that says "Tommy Waters has my vote." Versions of the same ad may hit other House Democrats as well. That's just sleazy, in my view.
Retired orthodontist David Spafford has a suggestion:
"Do me a favor. Call the Hawaii Republican Party and express your outrage. 593-8180. Tell them this kind of campaigning has no place in Hawaii.
Kahoolawe is in the news today, and not just in Hawaii. A Google search for "Kahoolawe" turned up a story about the mud slide that threatened residents of the Polynesian Mobile Home Park in the California city of Santa Clarita, where Hawaiian street names are the rule and mud washed through the intersection of Kahoolawe and Monakea (?). Other streets, on the map I located, are Lahaina, Molokai, Haleakala, and Diamond Head.
And so it goes on this Saturday morning. I'm posting this just as we head out the door for the dawn walk, so no time for proofing and editing. That will have to come later, if at all.
October 22, 2004 - Friday
Last night was one of the rare occasions when we missed the Daily Show on Comedy Central because we were engrossed in The Office Special and the follow-up on the making of the British comedy series. But a reader reports that Jon Stewart skewered the new Keeaumoku Wal-Mart, citing the handling of burials uncovered on the site.
Stewart quoted a spokesman as saying that the store
would bring "Wal-Mart's spirit of Aloha," then added:
"As we all know, 'Aloha' is a Hawaiian word meaning 'Hello,' 'Goodbye,' and "fuck you and your dead ancestors."
Good stuff.
I can honestly say that we've been in a Wal-Mart store only once in our lives, and that was when we were visiting Washington state and it was next to the little hotel we were stuck in. Never been in one before or since, and proud of it.
This note came in yesterday from the Star-Bulletin's Burl Burlingame:
Now that the Red Sox are in the Series, it's a convenient time to forget about presidential politics and simply have fun … time to rock!
The Honolulu Blue Devils will be tearing the roof off O'Toole's 8 p.m. to midnight Sunday, October 24. Downtown Honolulu, near the waterfront.
More information - 753-6742. Or go to honolulubluedevils.com
Hawaiian-style plate lunches in sunny downtown Chicago? That's what a Chicago Sun-Times review says. It's always interesting to see how other folks see us (and our food). So just click here and then scroll down to the section about the Aloha Grill.
Speaking of the Sun-Times, they just reached a contract agreement covering the Newspaper Guild's folks in the newsroom. The deal came Wednesday afternoon, just as they hit and passed a strike deadline.
Meanwhile, Guild workers are facing layoffs at the San Francisco Chronicle and the Seattle Times.
October 21, 2004 - Thursday
The Los Angeles City Beat has done an excellent profile of "ratfucking", the art of political sabotage and below-the-belt campaign tactics that became famous during Nixon's Watergate era but it has been perfected since.
Vote Watch 2004 is a site gathering disturbing reports of election problems around the country on the eve of presidential voting.
Another new web site reports on newspaper goofs and corrections. Check out "Regret the Error".
Over at Hawaii Reporter, Malia Zimmerman is stirring things up again with a bit of reporting on mayoral candidate Duke Bainum's wife, Jennifer. It makes for an interesting read.
| October in Kaaawa. It's been cloudy, threatening, and occasionally raining hard over the past several mornings, giving our morning outing the character of an adventure walk. Click on the photo for a larger version. |
 |
October 20, 2004 - Wednesday
Did you notice the contrast in how Honolulu's two daily newspapers covered a Nanakuli family's reaction to the death of their son in Afghanistan? Both reported the story on the front page on Monday, but that was about the only similarity..
The Star-Bulletin story by Mary Vorsino focused on a comment by the soldier's father, who blamed President Bush for rushing into war and called for a change in national leadership. The story then backed into more traditional recollections of the soldier and his life.
The Advertiser featured a photo of the man's mother, wife, and daughter, and led with a description of the family "devoting parts of their lives to military service since the Korean War." The reader had to make the jump inside to page A-5, then get down to the second to the last paragraph to catch a passing mention of the father's opposition to Bush.
Vorsino and the S-B deserve credit for recognizing that this was something more than a standard story of tragic loss and mythical heroism. Something more is happening when a family with this military background comes out publicly against the Commander in Chief.
Thanks to the folks who pointed me to the video of Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire, which is available online at ifilm.com. Now that I've seen it, that was one tough interview, no doubt about it.
Okay. I learned one other thing in the last few days: Don't cross the grammar police. Don't try clinging to the usage guidance in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and certainly don't suggest changing usage. I've been worked over by the protectors of grammatical correctness and the bruises will take a while to heal.
Just one sample gives you the idea:
You are obviously not a word smith (Is it safe to assume you have not had experience as an editor in newspapers or book publishing?) to defend your use of "they" in neutral and non-gendered statements. Proper English seems to be on the path to extinction as each generation passes. How unfortunate that dictionaries are nowadays so lax in the rules that dictate proper grammar. (From which dictionary are you citing? I must know so that my child never gets his or her hand (THEIR hand?) on it.)
Another reader referred me to this Q&A from the publishers of the Chicago Manual of Style:
Q. PLEASE tell me what you are recommending when people need a gender-neutral singular possessive pronoun. In order to avoid saying “his mind” or “her mind” (or, God forbid, “his/her mind”) people are saying “their mind”—and it blows MY mind—unless, of course, those people could be sure “they” are “of one mind”! If you have a discussion on this issue, I’d be most happy to receive it or be directed to it.
A. I’m afraid your gender-neutral pronoun (at least in the sense you need) does not exist in our lexicon. I agree that the plural pronoun with a singular noun seems inadequate; I would suggest that you recast the sentence altogether or at least make “mind” plural for agreement: their minds. Other writers alternate between using “his” and “her” in such constructions in order to give equal status to each pronoun.
He or she did add a caveat: "It is fine to try to be gender neutral, however, our language is not so. Still, it's just a matter of style so if you want to break the 'rules' go ahead (just be aware that you are breaking the rules)."
On the other hand, one brave soul stood against the tide: " I also intentionally violate AP-style in favor of English. Is there a 12-step program for me/us?"
October 19, 2004 - Tuesday
The most read story on the Smirking Chimp this morning is an extended rehashing of Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire, in which the host of Comedy Central's Daily Show outflanked the screaming hosts with his own biting brand of media criticism. I wish I had seen it, but it's almost as wonderful to read.
The Advertiser appears to have changed its schedule again. It's early, just after 4:30 a.m., and both the 'Tiser and Star-Bulletin are already up and online. That's a big change from the 6 a.m. that has been standard for the Advertiser since the new and later deadline was announced just a month ago.
The state Republican Party is in the process of quietly dismantling more than two dozen political action committees originally set up to funnel campaign funds to candidates in individual House districts, part of the GOP's attempt to increase their numbers in the Legislature.
A list prepared by the Campaign Spending Commission staff lists 25 committees currently being terminated, with the status of several others still up in the air. At least two Republican PACs that are not affiliated with the state party will retain their independent status.
State law caps the amount any person can contribute to a party committee at $25,000, and House Democrats feared these independent district level PACs would be used to circumvent the limit by allowing large donors to give the maximum amount to the State Republican Party as well as to one or more district PACs. However, this doesn't appear to have happened. Instead, while most of the PACs held at least one district level fundraising event, the typical committee raised only a modest amount of cash.
Campaign Spending Commission Director Bob Watada said his office advised GOP chairman Brennon Morioka that a single limit would apply to aggregate contributions made to the state party or any of these affiliated district committees, and centralized reports would have to be made by the state party.
"I told Morioka: 'We’re not going to aggregate dozens of committees for you. You’re going to have to turn in one report for the Republican Party,' ” Watada said.
According to Watada, Morioka directly denied any intent to use the district PACs to bypass contribution limits. Instead, according to Watada, GOP officials misread an earlier commission advisory opinion and mistakenly believed that subcommittees are required to be registered separately.
"They thought they had to do it," Watada said yesterday.
The GOP decision to terminate the district committees was made voluntarily and did not require official commission action.
| This is J.R., one of our morning regulars in Kaaawa. He's down at the beach with Jarrett, his person, every day. Several times a day, actually. He's big on chasing after crabs. He sticks that nose down into crab holes and starts digging if there's a scent. His attention span is short enough that he doesn't usually get the crab, but he obviously has fun going through all the motions. |
 Click on J.R.'s photo
for more Morning Dogs
|
| To avoid any appearance of favoritism, here's just a few more pictures of the cats. I know, I know...But cat people enjoy them. Or at least that's what they say. To me. Looking at it as a reporter, I suppose that's a pretty flimsy basis for any assumptions about how they really feel. Never mind. Here goes. |
click on Ms. Annie
for a few more cats
|
October 18, 2004 - Monday
Attorney and former family court judge Richard Lee, who for several years has promoted his law practice with the slogan "Ask Judge Lee" and a web site, www.askjudgelee.com, faces a disciplinary hearing today at the Office of the Disciplinary Counsel, the agency responsible for protecting the public from unscrupulous or dishonest lawyers. Hawaiian Electric executive and former Waihee administration official Robert Alm will chair a three-person hearing panel.
An investigation over several years by the Disciplinary Counsel determined that Lee violated the rules of the Hawaii Supreme Court by requiring clients to sign a contract that penalized any client who complained about him to ODC. The provision was found to be unethical and Lee was directed to remove it from the client contract as early as October 2002. He apparently refused to comply despite a series of demand letters over the next 8 months.
In addition, according to ODC records, Lee further violated the rules by failing to provide information and documents requested by ODC investigators, making false and misleading statements, at times putting client deposits into the bank account of his company, "NU-U Corporation" instead into a separate client trust fund, and failing to retain complete client and billing records.
Lee and his attorneys are expected to launch an attack on the constitutionality of the Disciplinary Counsel and a hot time is expected: “Petitioner (ODC) anticipates that as a result of these assertions (as well as the assertions in the Petition) these proceedings will be extremely adversarial,” a memo in the ODC file advised.
The Office of the Disciplinary Counsel is slowly being dragged into the public arena. For years, it operated in virtually complete secrecy and the public was given virtually no information about problem attorneys unless they were disbarred or suspended. A new Supreme Court rule that went into effect earlier this year, however, opens ODC proceedings and associated records 90 days after a petition for discipline has been served in a proceeding against an attorney.
This means that the case against Lee, as well as today's hearing, are open to the public.
But, unfortunately, it's not that simple. ODC still operates within a framework that assumes total secrecy, so there is no public notice of today's public hearing, no public listing of matters now open to public review, and no direct way to penetrate the office's automated telephone answering system to obtain that information.
Unless you already have knowledge of a proceeding from an inside source, there's really no way for a member of the public to discover the basic what, when, and where of the agency's public proceedings and records. Reporters can leave telephone messages and will eventually get a call back from ODC staff, but their office is simply not set up to handle calls from the general public. So although the information is legally public, in practice it remains out of reach. But at least the door has been kicked open a crack and further painful progress is inevitable.
By the way, I noticed that the AskJudgeLee.com web site has been taken down, and Lee says he has already voluntarily withdrawn from the practice of law, although his license remains active and he has continued to represent himself in certain matters.
| On the home front, our new addition (using space under the house where our garage used to be) is finally taking shape. Here's a view of the new addition with a little roof going up over the walkway to the side door, and our new garage awaiting its roof in the background. |
 |
October 17, 2004 - Sunday
Yesterday's entry brought lots of replies.
From webmaster Ryan Ozawa: "Someone had just recently complained about HPR's bad pronunciation at HawaiiThreads.com."
Then a Star-Bulletin friend who has spent her share of time in the editing trenches weighed in:
"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."
Funny, that's how I feel every time I hear a journalist, who should know better, using "they" when he should use "he" or "she"!
but seriously, you are making a good point.
I quickly responded:
But "they" allows me a neutral, non-gendered statement.
A similar singular usage is even recognized in the dictionary:
Main Entry: they
Pronunciation: '[th]A
Function: pronoun, plural in construction
Etymology: Middle English, from Old Norse their, masculine plural demonstrative & personal pronoun; akin to Old English thæt that
1 a : those ones -- used as third person pronoun serving as the plural of he, she, or it or referring to a group of two or more individuals not all of the same sex <they dance well> 2 -- often used with an indefinite third person singular antecedent <everyone knew where they stood -- E. L. Doctorow> <nobody has to go to school if they don't want to -- N. Y. Times
The dictionary reference goes on from there: "The use of they, their, them, and themselves as pronouns of indefinite gender and indefinite number is well established in speech and writing, even in literary and formal contexts. This gives you the option of using the plural pronouns where you think they sound best, and of using the singular pronouns (as he, she, he or she, and their inflected forms) where you think they sound best."
But that wasn't enough for my friend. Her equally quick reply was clear: "It's still WRONG."
| Today's sunrise photo is a long way from Kaaawa.
It's from a Marine camp in Baghdad, courtesy of one of Meda's students who was part of a recent deployment. Worries about his safety are giving the headlines a whole new depth of meaning.
|
|
.
Previous week • Other
Search this site,
courtesy of the folks at Atomz.com
|
