i L i n d . n e t

Welcome to the winter solstice. It rained hard for a while in Kaaawa over night, and it’s still too dark to see what kind of a dawn we can expect. But celebrate it anyway!

I don’t understand this decision at all. The Advertiser reports today that law enforcement officials are warning women after a series of cases involving the “date rape drug” in Waikiki at one particular bar. But the name of the bar isn’t being reported “because the management and employees are cooperating with the investigation and [Liquor Commission administrator Dewey] Kim believes they are not involved in the attacks.”

Is that a proper excuse? It doesn’t seem like it to me. Is someone reporting the story going to break through this strange omission?

Jim Dooley reports in today’s Advertiser that the owners of the Turtle Bay Resort have defaulted on a $283 million mortgage and are facing a foreclosure suit filed by the lender. I seems to me that this should make it much clearer that the bloated development plans the resort is pushing are a product of its financial problems rather than a a blueprint that fits with the community and its long-range needs.

If you live out this way, mark your calendar. The Koolauloa Neighborhood Board is sponsoring a meeting on the evening of January 9 at which developers of projects impacting the north shore and windward side have been invited to discuss their plans. This will allow the community to realize the cumulative impact of what’s on the drawing boards. The Jan. 9 meeting is at 7 p.m. in the Hauula Elementary School cafeteria.

The Progressive Democrats of Hawaii blog has a good entry on the issue of a closed primary that’s worth checking out, along with the comments left by readers.

The PBS Online News Hour last night featured a good discussion of earmarks. That’s “pork” in the vernacular. I appreciated the thoughtful comments by Charles Kronigsberg fromteh Washington Budget Report. He made several points you don’t normally hear. First, he ticked off a number of important and very positive projects funded by earmarks, including the human genome project. And he observed that the appropriations process itself is political. It isn’t that you’ve got a purely objective appropriations process on one side and a political process on the other side with earmarks. In one sense, earmarks are a check and balance on the political influences of the appropriations process. At least that’s a perspective that should inform the discussion, in my view. Some vital Hawaii projects, like funding to keep the tree snake out of the islands, have sometimes been funded through earmarks, perhaps because it seems silly to mainland politicians used to snakes back home. In any case, it was an interesting presentation of the issue.

I spent an hour yesterday morning enjoying the Kaaawa Elementary School’s “winter assembly”, otherwise known as the Christmas program. Even a downpour as the third graders took the stage didn’t dampen the good spirits.

I took “a few” photos, which you can browse by clicking on this one.

Friday’s normal felines will just have to wait until tomorrow.