Thanks to Christy Wilson for the story in Sunday’s Advertiser looking at the actual record of past environmental assessments done for state harbor projects. She found the record contradicts assertions that the Supreme Court decision “singles out” the Superferry project. It was a good read based on solid documentation.

I’m interested in seeing the Advertiser’s new business section, announced yesterday by editor Mark Platte. Platte promises lots of local business news. It looks like an attempt to challenge PBN in certain areas, but past attempts to displace the small but focused PBN luckily haven’t succeeded. The key is going to be whether it can produce enough local stories and whether reporting can take on a critical edge more than occasionally. I haven’t seen the print edition yet this morning, but the Advertiser’s online business news today is still heavily weighted to national wire service stories. We’ll have to wait and see on this one.

Yesterday’s Washington Post story on the clash between former Pacific commander Admiral William Fallon and Iraq commander Gen. Petraeus was certainly illuminating and well worth wading through.

Can we be the only people who have a cat that, well…there’s no polite way to say this…a cat that on occasion has peed on the tv?

It’s bad enough that several of our old television sets got the famous “piss of death”. But that was back when televisions, at least the ones we would buy, cost maybe $200-300.

Now that our television turns on with a horizontal ribbon of light across an otherwise dark screen, we’re having to shop for a new tube if we want to catch the PBS News Hour. The Daily Show, and the handful of other programs that we regularly tune into.

In the old days you could put your television in a cabinet and close the doors to keep the cat away. There don’t seem to be similar cabinets for today’s wide screen wonders.

Any suggestions for increasing the lifespan of a new television in a neurotic cat household would be most appreciated.

Beyond that, I’m relying on readers to make my Monday morning a bit easier.

Luckily, they’ve have been providing some interesting insights in recent days. Judy from Honolulu chimed in last night about the Sacramento columnist cited here yesterday. She writes:

Let me get this straight–the Graswich guy who wrote about Hawaii in such disparaging terms is from Sacramento? Do you know what an awful place that is? It is the capitol of California, but it is just dreadful. And his comments about Hawaii disappearing under the waves, oh, maybe in a couple thousand years was too much. Those waves may happen when an earthquake splits California and drops half of it into the ocean, causing the tidal waves of all tidal waves to descend on us. He doesn’t seem to think of that. And, of course, we don’t sit around talking about waves overtaking us any more often than Californians admit they are living on top of enormous fault lines.

Here’s one from yesterday:

This is interesting, from the Advertiser’s breaking news:

Posted at 1:37 a.m., Sunday, September 9, 2007 Police checking on report of brawl at Yokohama Bay

Advertiser Staff
Police are checking on a report of a large brawl taking place at Yokohama Bay on the southwestern tip of O’ahu. A caller told police that several shots were fired.

Officers were sent to the area about 1:30 a.m.

Kinda geographically challenged, and 7 hrs. later, no follow up. Was there really a brawl? Were shots fired? Was anyone hurt or killed? What’s the point of posting raw, unconfirmed reports and then leaving it at that? What does that tell readers?

And then there was this one on Saturday:

Did you see the article about Mark Teruya in this morning’s papers? I’ve been following him turd for years, after a similar type of scam artist tried to work on my mother, who was suffering from early dementia.

He had blanketed the press for years with full page advertising (Advertiser, Midweek, Star-Bulletin, and Generations (Kini Popo’s new free bimontly magazine).

The Advertiser specifically owned up to him being one of their advertisers, however the Star-Bulletin did not. Is there a professional obligation to state that? Here’s a link to an advertorial they let him do even just last year

I had tried to notify the advertising sales staff at Generations, then heard from Teruya’s lawyer to cease and desist trying to defame this “nice guy.” So I did. It’s really a problem, I feel, that advertising sales staff are not in any way obligated, nor skilled enough, nor inclined to check on the ethical or pending complaints of financial “adviser” who are proliferating and really causing a lot of damage for seniors, and their families.

BBB listened, but weren’t very proactive. He had himself listed there as Senior Resources of Hawaii, but held other licenses under his personal name, which were the ones with numerous complaints pending with the local insurance commissioner and DCCA. Ronda is his wife, I assume Craig is his brother. But, don’t know how to find out who Rodelia Ferrer is. First time I’ve seen that name crop up. I worry that she one of these caregiver procurer types. Wish I had your skills for online research.

Thanks for listening, anyway. Really really enjoy your blog, and learn a lot from it. Also, appreciate your amazing dog photos!

And, finally, going back to Friday:

Is anyone ever going to challenge Zippy’s restaurants on the amount of plastic they use? All of their take-outs containers are plastic! They used to use paper and cardboard but went all-evil plastic a few years back. Yet nary a peep from anyone on any level. I’ve written to Jack Johnson’s foundation-nada. Same response from Sierra Club. The city’s environmental coordinator was supposed to get back to me but that was 6 months ago. And of course I can’t rock that 1 because they’re an advertiser and at 57, some boats I just leave alone now.

Doug, our new neighbor down the street, showed off his cooking prowess on Saturday night. Wow. I had to wave a white napkin after the second course and admit that I’ll have to go back to school on the food front to play at his level. It was a slow cooking evening, and Doug whipped up three incredible courses over a number of hours paced against the consumption of several bottles of good wine. Just click on this photo to follow along visually with the slow feast.