i L i n d . n e t

Our New Year’s Eve morning began with a dog rescue. And your 2008 begins with a gallery of our year-end dogs. You can click on this picture for more.

First, though, the rescue. We were at the far end of Kaaawa when we saw this pretty boxer wandering in the middle of busy Kamehameha Highway. The dog, that is, not the woman. She appeared to be coming from somewhere farther along towards Kualoa. We were able to coax her off the road as the first cars swept towards us, and then were doubly lucky to find some useful ocean debris, a length of netting with a few small floats attached. I was able to loop that around her collar and it served quite well as a makeshift leash.

Then off we walked, looking for her home. Long story short–after a bit of walking, including an unsuccessful walk towards Kualoa, we ran into a very relieved young woman who had been out looking for her dog. They were happy to be reunited and we were happy to have an outcome that didn’t involve us taking a dog home to meet nine betrayed and unhappy cats.

By late morning there were random firecrackers going off and we initiated the cat lockdown. By noon all the cats were inside, and stayed inside until I opened a door at 4 a.m., well after the last of the fireworks.

The Cincinnati Post and Kentucky Post closed after putting out yesterday’s edition, and their web site is already history. The old web address now takes you to KYPost.com, a new but newspaperless web site, described by the old Post a couple of days ago.

The last stories from the old Post can still be found, with some searching, via Google’s system of storing copies of old web pages.

I was able to access several last edition columns and stories, including “Last of the Line,” a look back.

The history of The Cincinnati Post and Kentucky Post in the last four decades has been something of an exquisite paradox - an afternoon newspaper that had managed to attract incredible talent and practice a scrappy brand of journalism over those years while staring inexorably into the face of declining revenues and, ultimately, business failure.

None of the links in the story will work, but you can search for Google’s cached versions, such as this set of comments from Post readers, and this review of the demographics that doomed p.m. newspapers across the country.

All pretty sad reading. And all this leaves Honolulu as one of a very small number of cities with more than one daily newspaper. I saw somewhere in the last couple of days that the number is down to ten. Could that be true?

Let’s see. I was taken to task a couple of days ago when Superferry ads appeared here.

One reader chided: “I know you’ve got to make a living Ian but Superferry Ads?”

Actually, to make a living I would have to move to one of those countries with an average daily income of about 60 cents. But I agree that Superferry ads are a bit much right now. So I’ve tried to fiddle with Google’s system for blocking out selected advertisers. Now I’ll have to wait and see if it has worked.

Retired Star-Bulletin editor Chuck Frankel commented:

The Advertiser’s main sports headline on Dec. 31: “Warriors enjoy room service.” The mind boggles.

Another reader recommends Democracy Now!’s recent interview with San Francisco poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

And so it goes on the first morning of this new year.