i L i n d . n e t

It sounds like high drama at the Hawaii State Bar Association during its consideration of the nomination of Randal Lee to the Intermediate Court of Appeals. A bit more is now known about the Bar’s deliberations following last week’s Senate hearing.

It turns out that the vote of the committee, made up of the group’s officers and directors, was initially against the nominee, with eight voting that Lee is “unqualified” while only seven found him at least “qualified”. A letter was immediately sent by HSBA president Jeff Portnoy notifying the Senate of the finding.

Things apparently got interesting when one director noticed that only 15 votes had been cast but there were 16 members participating in the meeting (in person or by phone) and eligible to vote. The search was on. It was discovered that the missing vote belonged to a member who participated by speakerphone and later said they had intended to vote but somehow failed to hit the “send” key to actually submit the vote by email, a procedure set up to confidentiality of the vote. Obviously, though, at this point the confidentiality was compromised. During the hearing, Senator Hee questioned whether this was merely a case of personal or political pressure being applied after the fact to someone who had really intended to abstain, but Portnoy said he was convinced that the person had legitimately tried to cast a timely vote.

I’m told it was then Portnoy’s decision to allow the late vote to be received and counted, resulting in a tie, obviously a more favorable outcome for the nominee than an “unqualified” finding. A second, amended letter was then delivered to the Senate.

So far, though, Lee has gotten the votes that count on the committee. The fate of the nomination now depends on the discussion in the Senate majority caucus.

What is it about modern loha shirts? I went on one of my very infrequent shopping runs yesterday looking to replace a few of my faded and well-worn shirts. The surprise was that most aloha shirts now appear to be designed for the obese male. Those that would fit me at the shoulders ballooned like tents in the body. Can this really be the shape of the average male aloha shirt buyer? Ouch. Time to declare an obesity emergency! Or was it just that I was pawing through the racks of sale shirts available at more reasonable prices than the top tier brands?

I should probably leave Bali off my future travel itinerary, according to a report from Indonesia earlier this month. It appears that a story I wrote for the Star-Bulletin seven years ago is still reverberating in Bali.

Of course if Lind ever went to Bali he would probably find his name on the detain list with the immigration officers at Ngurah Rai Airport, as totally outrageous criminal libel and other investigations give the chance for Bali’s mafia in uniform to play the “failure to respond to a summons” card.

The author describes himself as a non-journalist and “human rights victim who runs an anti-Indonesian (web) site”. In a subsequent email, he wrote:

From your point of view understand that if you ever went to Bali, your name would almost certainly be on the detain list at immigration. It is very likely the police processed a summons against you with someone who claimed to know you, and then you failed to attend so the police now have the automatic right to detain you in jail for 60 days (plus an extra 30 days if they get a judge to sign off on that).

Hanno went directly to the detectives against you, not the police complaints investigation department. This method is reserved for influential and wealthy people. He either had someone very powerful tell the police to take his complaint, or he paid around US$5000 to maybe US$20000 depending on how well he knew the police beforehand. The irony is you would probably be 100% OK going to anywhere else in Indonesia, as these are games the police play within their island jurisdiction, not according to national law, interest or infrastructure.

I suppose that’s reassuring, but I doubt that I’ll want to test the theory any time soon.