|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Previous week • Other date • About iLind.net • Search • Contact us |
|
|
|||
What are you doing here? Today that's more than a rhetorical question. I really would like to know. So, please, take a minute or two and fill out a little survey that I've prepared. If enough folks fill it out, I'll have a better sense of the meaning of life. Well, perhaps that's an overstatement, but at least I'll know a bit more about what you're looking for. Click here for the survey.
The Star-Bulletin announced yesterday that Mary Poole has been named editorial director. Meanwhile, Mary's husband, Burl Burlingame, reports that Managing Editor Frank Bridgewater has been named editor, but I can't tell whether Frank's merely adding another title or whether this is a promotion that signals the possibility of a new managing editor. We'll just wait and see.I'm glad to have made it past the Star-Bulletin's first anniversary, which, of course, was also the first anniversary of my getting the old heave-ho. I really wasn't quite sure how this temporal landmark would feel, but it's all farther in the past than I expected. I do still have some unresolved issues, like what to do with the old Star-Bulletin shirts hanging unused in my closet? Someday they'll be worth something as island collectibles, but I'm not sure the curing process should take place in my space. And I still don't have a shorthand answer for the people who I run into just about every day and ask whether I'm still working at the paper and then want to know what happened. The difference is that the lack of a quick answer doesn't bother me anymore. Beyond that, I just wish my S-B friends well and consider my time with them both valuable and clarifying.
It will be interesting, though, now that I've been invited to rejoin the Honolulu Community-Media Council. I was a member before going to work at the Star-Bulletin, but ended up resigning because the time demands were difficult and the my position became awkward since management from both the S-B and Advertiser also sat as members. It's a different situation now, though, and it will be quite interesting to see this unfold. For example, I haven't talked to John Flanagan, the former S-B publisher, since the very unpleasant job interview with him and the subsequent "thanks but no thanks" dismissal letter bearing his signature. What will that first conversation be like? Frankly, I don't know, but the next council meeting is in two days.
It's raining again this morning. I could hear it drizzling much of the night, but it turned the corner to real rain more than an hour ago. Most of the cats are in, or at least around. For the last 24 hours, Wally's taken up a position just outside the front door, leaning back against the door and blocking the way for any person or cat wanting to go in or out. With cats, as with politicians, you've always got to assume that a change of behavior means something,but the significance of this behavioral shift hasn't become clear yet. [The rain ended just before 6 AM, as it has most recent mornings, almost like clockwork.]
Yesterday's mention of the cottage in Scotland brought this reply from a former Hawaii reporter now on the mainland:
Followed your link to the ancestral cottage...That is seriously cool; hope you get a chance to go sometime. You've inspired me to see if I can't track down where my family originally lived (in England, Scotland and Ireland).A second reader responded: "You could not either stay in that cottage!! It says no pets!!"
Finally, a warning that the web hosting service I use (HostRocket) is under attack, and there could be trouble with this site over the weekend. If I read this correctly, the problem shouldn 't effect most of you, but just in case, you're forewarned.
This in an emergency announcement to all HostRocket.com Customers with accounts residing at the Virtual Development Inc. datacenter in New Jersey. Currently this datacenter is undergoing a series of network attacks and is having great difficultly maintaining their connection. We have a team on their way their right now in the event we decide to relocate those servers to our local datacenter in Clifton Park, NY. Should this occur some, but not all accounts that have dedicated IP addresses may have a shared IP address for 1-2 days while we are assigned more IP blocks by the American Registry of Internet Numbers. As of now it is undetermined as to whether or not the servers will be relocated, but we will announce our decision when it is made. Thank you for your patience.
Folks in the Star-Bulletin newsroom will be pausing at 2 p.m. this afternoon to celebrate surviving the first year of independent publishing. Owner David Black's in town for the occasion.Looking for a vacation getaway? My sister tracked down this little vacation cottage in South Cobbinshaw, Scotland. It's believed to be the house where our great-grandfather, his father and his grandfather lived. And now, apparently, I could live there too, at least for a week. That would be a strange trip, wouldn't it?
Calling all Hawaiiana buffs. Can you identify this mark and the maker?
It's the mark on the bottom of the monkeypod bowl pictured yesterday.
If you recognize it, please let me know.
Click on photo for larger version
The last edition of the "old" Star-Bulletin came of the press one year ago today. Most of the staff then marched off down South Street to another newsroom and another adventure. The adventure continues. Survival is not assured, but in many ways the Star-Bulletin is doing much better than the San Francisco Examiner, which went independent at about the same time.Correction: I've been informed that the Star-Bulletin's online edition, Starbulletin.com, is actually produced by just two staff, not the 2-1/2 mentioned yesterday. And a S-B staffer observed that the web edition has always been posted in the afternoon to coincide with home deliveries of the print edition, while the Advertiser's morning subscriber base supports an a.m. web presence.
Perhaps. But I still think that this schedule, and the S-B's gradual shift towards fewer online updates for breaking news, push web readers towards the Advertiser, and that's momentum that will eventually impact hard copy readership. It would be interesting to see some data comparing visitors and pages viewed on the competing web sites.
There's an interesting behind the scenes battle over a proposed audit of public employee union health benefit funds. The unions have been asked to consent to an audit of the funds they've received to provide health benefits to their members. The amount transferred to the unions each year is not supposed to exceed the actual cost of providing those benefits, but an audit of the state's system several years ago found that no audit of the union funds had ever been done. The need was underscored when UPW leader Gary Rodrigues was indicted on federal charges stemming from allegedly padding health premiums to include kickbacks to himself or members of his family. If excess amounts were paid, as alleged by the indictments, then those funds and the resulting kickbacks really came out of taxpayers pockets. And if it happened at UPW, did it also happen in other unions? That's an obvious lingering question.
Most unions, including those representing UH faculty, police officers, and firefighters have already agreed to open their books, but Rodrigues union, the United Public Workers, along with the Hawaii Government Employees Association, have so far not complied. The right to audit is incorporated in the legal fine print of the state health fund, so one has to wonder why the UPW and HGEA, both linked to Royal State Insurance, are risking a showdown over the issue.
We're feeling pretty good after buying this beautiful old Hawaiian monkeypod bowl at an auction over the weekend, and at a bargain price. It was somewhat hidden from view, tucked in a cabinet in a lot of more ordinary wood pieces, and didn't come up until almost the very end of the three hour auction. It's 13.5 inches in diameter at the top, and a beautiful piece. The signature on the bottom appears to say "Iaia's Monkeypod Hawaii", but is a bit hard to read. If that rings a bell, please let me know.
A couple of people pointed out that the Star-Bulletin's online edition is understaffed compared to its competition over at the Advertiser. I'm told that the S-B operates with 2-1/2 positions devoted to online, while the Advertiser lists five in their "contact" list and could have more.An ex-Star-Bulletin/MidWeek staffer commented that the SB's difficulties can be attributed to its own management problems rather than "the Bully Gannett". If the Star-Bulletin had experienced and qualified leadership, instead of charging ahead despite ignorance about this market, "we might actually have a bona fide, qualified newspaper war."
Thanks to all who responded to my informal survey. I'll hopefully get around to assessing the responses in the next several days. I can confidently say that there is a clear bi-modal response to the cats. One faction says "more cats" while another distinct faction says "skip the cats, please". In less polite terms, perhaps. One person suggested that I give cat comments a distinctive format so they can be easily skipped. Maybe I should offer a premium version where, for a price, the cats are omitted.
5:32 AM, and a we're in the midst of one of those hard (but typically brief) morning rains in Kaaawa, the kind that pounds on the roof and creates rivers as it overflows gutters and cascades towards the ground. Plants and trees love it. Cats caught outdoors don't.I asked a friend in the Star-Bulletin newsroom about the mood there as the first anniversary of the demise and rebirth of the paper approaches. "So far, so good," was the cryptic reply.
He later added:
I'm sorry, I didn't intend to be cryptic. "So far, so good," was simply my honest appraisal. There are so many unknowns. Will we live to fight another day? I don't know. I hope so. Not just for the sake of a pay check, though that's what makes the wheel go around. I hope so because every day that we stay alive, we make a point. Every day that we continue to accept an 11.5 percent pay rollback, we make a point. Every day that we stick together, we make a point. So what is the point? It's a lot of things. One of them was well expressed in a popular chant of the anti-Vietnam War movement: "Hell no, we won't go." We won't go quietly just because Bully Gannett commands us to do so. We're journalists. We stand our ground.Uncertainty is obviously still the constant background for S-B staffers, as it has been since the September 1999 announcement that led off this extended battle for survival. The latest question mark is the 2 percent increase scheduled by contract for March 15, the one-year anniversary of the "new" Star-Bulletin. I can't recall whether this is a 2 percent bonus or a raise, as the two types of increases alternate through the term of the contract. In either case, with "voluntary" salary cuts still in place, the fate of latest increment is in doubt.
A morning like this, following a bombshell local legal decision that would require Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris to resign from office or drop his bid for the governor's seat, highlights differences between the online approaches of the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin.
The Advertiser's online version of their morning paper becomes available as early as midnight or in the very early morning hours, while the Star-Bulletin's daily edition isn't online until mid-afternoon, although its morning edition hits the streets no later than the Advertiser.
The extended delay means that anyone searching online for news of events like this ends up being driven to the Advertiser, and this court decision is a prime example. The decision, which obviously came as a shock to many observers, is the lead story in the Advertiser's web edition, which has been available for hours. StarBulletin.com, by contrast, still displays yesterday's newspaper and has only an inadequate five sentence blurb tucked away in a section reserved for "breaking news".
The Advertiser's web presence, while less elegant than the Star-Bulletin, manages to kick the competition's butt when it comes to situations like this. Perhaps there are other reasons to keep the Star-Bulletin's online edition on a p.m. cycle while the street edition has essentially become a morning paper with an afternoon update, but the setup reduces the impact of Star-Bulletin reporting for news-aholics who want details ASAP.
6:20 AM, and the rain has tapered off, leaving behind the sound of rain dripping from leaves, birds emerging from hiding, and the crowing of not-too-distant roosters.
Here's a wonderful site to start your week--The Mirror Project (www.mirrorproject.com). I ran across the link on BlueEar.com, a source of intellectual stimulation.If you're taking a moment from your antiterrorism alert to plan ahead for St. Patrick's Day, take a minute to read this column from the other side of the Atlantic. Actually, check it out even if you're not brushing up on your Irish culture.
Monday's a good day for a confession of sorts. I wasn't strong. I was the one who blinked. Under pressure, with no one else stepping up for the rescue, I took the Siamese to my small studio office in town last week for temporary "foster care". No, really, we're not adopting her ("and this time, I really mean it!") It was that or the gas chamber, and I didn't have the heart to send her off. So she's tucked away on the outer edge of Waikiki for a two-week regimen of isolation from other animals, antibiotics and good food. I've got a whole new crop of scars on my hand as evidence to my administration of the pink goo they call medicine. But it seems to be working. Her runny nose and wet eyes have cleared up, there's no more sneezing, and she's playing, always a good sign for a sick cat.
And I updated the photo gallery again this weekend, so click on this photo (or the gallery banner at the top of the page) for the latest.
It was one of those bad news-good news mornings in Kaaawa. The bad news was that a turtle was hooked by some weekend fishermen. The good news was that they carefully brought it to shore, cut and removed the hook, and then set the turtle back in the ocean. I'm sure they would have done the right thing even if we hadn't wandered by at the crucial moment. After all, killing a sea turtle is a federal offense. But I was glad to be on hand as an accidental witness anyway.
click on photo for larger version
Narrowing the information highway. The web site of MidWeek, the Star-Bulletin's "sister" publication, used to include a listing of the weekly paper's staff, including photos and contact information. All those listings, and the accompanying staff photos and phone numbers, have disappeared, stripped from the site. Could this have anything to do with the unsolicited telephone calls I made to several M-W staffers late last year? I know what my bet would be.
Search this site,
courtesy of the folks at Atomz.com
\*/.
