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December 21, 2002 - Saturday
| Happy solstice, or whatever the appropriate greeting is. I expect this morning's sunrise to look very much like yesterdays, shown in this photo. It's been cold, down into the mid 60s these nights. Good sleeping weather, with clear mornings, except for a pesky layer of haze along the horizon that has blocked any potential green flash sightings all week. |
Kaaawa solstice (almost)
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The cats have been passing around a cold or light respiratory infection all week. Toby has been sneezing, but has a good appetite and lots of energy, so I'm not overly worried. Leo got hit the worst, but he's finally turned the corner after several days "down". I've been having to pamper him with treats to keep food and water intake at sufficient levels while he tried to sleep it off. Just this morning he's returned to his normal food dish and is beginning to display more of his routine behaviors. Monitoring cat health is in my job description, so it's been a stressful week.
This message from T.D. may be the last word on Heco's revenge (although it looks like they might have shut down power to a good part of the island after seeing the photo of those poor trees):
When I showed up at our new plot in Kailua in 1951 every acre makai of South Kalaheo Avenue between the 2 approaches to Kaapuni Drive as far as the ironwood-shaded eye could see was all ironwoods; it was truly dramatic then, just as dense as the huge ironwood grove makai of Farrington Hwy across from Dillingham airfield that was almost pegged recently for cabins. After hiking in Sequoia National Park one long day HECO-free this summer from Kaweah Basin past Little Five Lakes and over Black Rock Pass descending from 11,600 feet to Redwood Meadow at 4,000 feet then up over Timber Gap at 9,000 feet to Mineral King it occurred to me to ask in a postcard what happened to all those minions of ironwood trees in 1951. When HECO or the City or even the Advertiser or an airline aggressively cuts it probably does so with good reason. Screw the 'spineless jellyfish' ironwoods in town. Wise men have left an astronomical revenge of ironwoods amassed throughout Hauula Loop Trail.
December 20, 2002 - Friday
Several people responded to yesterday's jellyfish comment with the same message: "Spineless jellyfish" is redundant, but it's not an oxymoron.
Whatever your opinion of state auditor Marion Higa, you've got to give her office a lot of credit for getting information to the public. Audits are available online as they are published. For example, an audit of the state's historic preservation office was announced yesterday, and already available for download when I checked this morning.
A holiday email from Peter Adler informs friends and colleagues that he is "off to Colorado to direct The Keystone Center's Science and Public Policy Program just after the new year."
Here's a comment received concerning Tuesday's entry on Heco's revenge:
Wow, they really brutalized those trees in your picture. It appears to be a case of topping-off of ironwoods, which is a virtual death sentence. Think Kapi'olani Park. It was the topping-off of the precious Cleghorn trees in the 60's (I think) which ultimately led to their premature rotting.
Anyone who is lucky enough to be home when HECO's tree-whacking minions come to call can stop them. I have. You just tell them you will have the trees privately trimmed. They make you sign a waver. If you do it two years in a row, they can no longer legally trim your trees, according to the guys who came this year, even if you want them to.
BUT, the homeowner had better stay on top of their own tree's yearly growth, because in denying HECO the right to ruin them, the homeowner also accepts liability for any problems their trees may cause in future. Which could translate into huge lawsuits if an outage were traced to those trees growing into the lines.
I think a hands-off arrangement can probably be made ahead of time, by phone, but I prefer to be there when the trucks are roaming the neighborhood, to make sure they don't touch our trees or set foot in the yard. The first year, the guys moved right in, through my flower bed and up into the mountain apple tree, before I had a chance to think. They trimmed the tree horribly and it took a year to recover and bear fruit again. Plus, they trampled the hybrid anthurium I had hand-carried back from Hilo and planted around the tree. So that was the last time they got into my yard.
Tomorrow marks the winter solstice, which actually occurs this year at around 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon, Hawaiian Time. We're hoping for a dramatic sunrise to start the day. We'll see....
December19, 2002 Thursday
A bit more info on the Rees incident reported yesterday. According to an eyewitness account of the incident circulated to Media Council officers yesterday, Sen. Les Ihara was the brave soul who saw Rees choking another council member with both hands, and intervened to pull Rees away, only to be rewarded by "a string of outrageous profanity" from Rees.
Mr. Rees did, however, offer his resignation from the Media Council yesterday. It was immediately accepted.
One comment from a reader:
Rees prides himself as in intellectual, he therefore, should know that Jellyfish are, by definition, spineless. Thus, his adjective, "spineless jellyfish" is actually an oxymoron. I'll leave it to you to explain "oxymoron" to Mr. Rees.
Gannett may be talking poor mouth in labor negotiations here, but they reported strong earnings to the investment community last week.
Gannett's Honolulu Advertiser executive editor Jim Kelly is scheduled to speak to the local AARP group on January 8 (Hale Koa Hotel--lunch at 11:30, meeting at 12:45). Topic: Why people love to hate newspapers."
AARP's newsletter encourages people to bring their complaints and criticisms "and really air them out!!" Could be interesting.
Cost is $17 for nonmembers. Send checks to AARP Chapter 60, PO Box 23227, Honolulu HI 96823.
Last Gannett tidbit: The Advertiser has reportedly fired one of their award-winning photographers over a free-lancing issue. The Newspaper Guild they will fight to get him his job back but it could take up to a year.
December 18, 2002 - Wednesday
Here's a little item posted this morning on the Cops & Courts Reporters list (a service of Criminal Justice Journalists).
My sometimes funny editor has a problem with pronouns. He said today - as he often does - that someone wanted to meet with US. I asked if he needed a ride, since WE were going. He replied with the following translations:
we = you.
us = you
let's = you do this.
could we = you do this.
how about we try this = you do this and there is no negotiating the task.
think with me here = listen to me talk.
have a nice day = make my day nice for me.
What's with local commentator Bob Rees? His column in the Advertiser this week is full of name calling and personal nastiness in place of thought, while presenting his own somewhat warped viewpoint as if it represents reality.
This time he needlessly beats up the Honolulu Community-Media Council, of which I am a member, referring to us all as "intellectually spineless jellyfish", apparently because we gave an invited speaker a polite hearing rather than underscoring our differences with the kind of invective Rees himself is so adept at spewing.
There are several descriptions of the Media Council session Rees is so critical of, which are referred to on the Council's web site.
Rees continued yesterday at the Media Council with a personal performance accentuated after the meeting with conversation-ending profanity followed by a physical assault on another member. According to several witnesses, Rees reached out and grabbed the person's neck and squeezed, choking him. I suggested the victim immediately call the police and file assault charges, but in the emotional aftermath, he declined.
December 17, 2002 - Tuesday
:My apologies for yesterday's access problem, which I never really diagnosed.
| I'm calling it Heco's revenge. These trees at the corner of our street were apparently growing high enough to challenge the power lines directly above.
Beware the roving tree trimmers, believed to be dispatched by Hawaiian Electric, who showed up and in no time had completed an incredible butcher job. It would have been hard to plan an uglier result,
Perhaps the goal is to train homeowners to do their own trimming before it's too late. I feel the worst for the folks who live directly across from the carnage, who look out their front window at those trees.
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Heco's revenge? Click for a closer view |
Roll Call newspaper reports that an employee trying to copy a personal tape inadvertently beamed a pornographic video into U.S. Senate offices via their in-house cable network. The employee involved has been disciplined, the newspaper reports.
Less civil, fewer liberties. The San Francisco Chronicle carried an excellent NYT syndicated column pointing to civil liberties impacts of security policies, concerns echoed in a second column at sfgate.com on the same day.
December 16, 2002 - Monday
I've gotten several reports from people who have gotten error messages when trying to access this site over the last several hours, although it appears to display fine when I try it. I'm trying to figure out what might be causing the problem. Hopefully I'll stumble across the answer sooner rather than later.
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We indulged ourselves by taking it very easy on Sunday, abandoning ambitious plans to make the drive into town for various errands.
Click on the "Cats cats cats" banner to the right for the latest on Mr. Toby and the rest of the brood. And on your way there, notice Duke's expressiveness.
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Thanks to Helen Altonn for the eye-popping report on salaries being offered a whole new layer of university bureaucrats. It still isn't clear why administrators in the UH system require salaries so out of line with any other state department, and so far above the ranks of faculty, but the Board of Regents approved the plan and so we're off on this wild ride.
Johnny Brannon and Treena Shapiro have a good story in today's Advertiser on tax breaks granted a local telecom firm by the City Council. The lingering question, though, is how this measure made it through the Council's legislative process without more debate? Were the crew of city hall reporters looking the other way?
December 15, 2002 - Sunday
The Advertiser's Sunday edition was pretty hefty again today, clearly outweighing the Star-Bulletin's. Makes me think it's a very profitable Christmas season for Gannett. By the way, there was a little item this past week indicating that Gannett has broken ground for its new (and long overdue) printing facility. When that is finished in several years, the newspapers wars will probably jump to a new level of competition.
The S-B appears to be holding its own, though, in seasonal advertising. A glossy Macy's insert appeared in today's S-B, along with two different Sears inserts, and one from Old Navy. But the last I heard, SB staffers are still taking home reduced paychecks, meaning the company continues to run in the red, despite the appearance of increasing advertising.
| I harvested a large bunch of apple bananas from our hillside yesterday. At one point I thought the bananas were going to win, but I was finally able to drag myself, fruit in hand, back up the slope, and hang them in the garage to ripen. |
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