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I received a quick response to yesterday's entry, saying the fat kids headline had been corrected for accuracy and not toned down.The morning edition said Hawaii kids were twice as fat. They are not. They are overweight at double the percentage rate as kids their age on the mainland. Big difference. Also had to rewrite the lead to jibe with the facts of the study.Also another in a continuing series of complaints about lack of coverage in the weekend entertainment listings. The Na Hoku Hanohano nominated group, PAI'EA, played a one-hour concert of Hawaiian music last night at Kapiolani Bandstand. It was sponsored by the city, free to the public, in one of the most beautiful settings in the world. No one has to have a ticket or buy a drink to get in. Not one word about this event in the Star-Bulletin. Again.
For your weekend reading, check out the analysis of the newspaper war ("Slapfest" by Bob Rees) that appeared in last week's Honolulu Weekly, which is now available online. Despite a few Rees-ish errors, it's an interesting perspective.
And if you're here in Honolulu, grab a copy of the current Honolulu Weekly and check Curt Sandburn's story on Gannett moves to monopolize street sales. Very interesting.
The headline on the Star-Bulletin's front page on Wednesday screamed of the health crisis among island kids: "Hawaii's youth are too fat". That's fat as in obese, and at a rate twice the national average, the story reported.
The headline was toned down in the online edition, and apparently the print final, to just refer to "overweight". Don't want to scare people, although one of the researchers involved called the results scary.
The story jumped inside to A-7, where a large AT&T Wireless advertisement provided a not-so-subtle example of Hawaii's fat epidemic. In context, not funny at all.
I wonder if AT&T asked for a refund after being paired up with the scary fat story? Actually, maybe we should just send AT&T their share of the bill for the community's obesity-related health problems.
What a show. Anti-ADB demonstrators enjoyed a multimillion dollar stage created at public expense, and made full use of it to get their point across during a march and rally that passed the convention center, where the ADB meeting was going on, and proceeded through Waikiki. Traffic was blocked at some of Honolulu's busiest intersections, police and emergency vehicles swarmed at the scene and were standing by at various sites around surrounding blocks, and the whole affairs was accompanied by the droning of police and media helicopters, news cameras galore, and a carnival spirit among bystanders. It was great. My office is across the street, the building was closed to traffic, buses were rerouted, and police observers were staked out in the 4th floor of the parking garage as I left the building to walk across the street and enjoy the scene. I was told that 50 members of the police SWAT team were also somewhere in the garage, but I didn't run across them.
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But this had to rank up there in the roster of government over-reactions along with the mid-1980 "pseudo-nami", when an expected tsunami prompted the closing of government offices, city-wide traffic gridlock, spreading panic, and then the waves never materialized. Yesterday's massive and costly security preparations were almost wholly unnecessary, and it remains to be seen whether reporters will attempt to track down the faulty "intelligence" relied on by local planners. Those attending a series of security planning meetings told of secretive reports from unnamed intelligence agencies describing alleged plans by anarchist groups to disrupt and destroy. It was all smoke and mirrors, it seems, but whether a sign of inept "intelligence" or planned overreaction is unknown. But it would sure be interesting to find out.
This is Axel, a "retired" seeing-eye dog who lives next to Kaaawa Elementary School. He's gained just a bit of weight since he left active duty, to put it politely, but is lucky enough to have a neighbor willing to take him walking in the morning when his own family is heading for work. We've been on just about the same walk schedule for the past couple of weeks, so have been able to greet Axel almost daily.
Is Gannett planning on destroying part of Hawaii's historical heritage out of corporate spite? Star-Bulletin staffers have been given the impression that the archive of photographs taken by Star-Bulletin photographers is destined for destruction by Gannett, which has claimed ownership of the original negatives and prints. The "new" Star-Bulletin has been granted the right to copy any or all the images during an initial period of several years, after which it's off to the incinerator, or so it seems.
Certainly there's a public interest in seeing these originals preserved. Will Gannett listen?
This is the day of the scheduled protest at the ADB meetings being held at Honolulu's Convention Center. The city has traffic cams at two corners of the convention center, so you can tune in mid-day and see whats up. Just scroll down the "Convention Center" and "Kapiolani/Kalakaua" pictures. A march is scheduled to proceed through Waikiki, which may show up on the Kalakaua Ave traffic cams in the early afternoon, Hawaii time.
I'm just finishing off my first freelance assignment, and I can already see the real problem--not all stories are worth writing, given the modest pay. To make this work, you've really got to estimate the number of hours needed to report a story, and assess whether it makes economic sense. This obviously puts a cap on investigative stories that require a substantial investment in basic digging, unless publication is the primary goal and the economics are just considered incidental. This adds a whole new layer of complexity to the task of deciding what to do next.Here a brief excerpt from an email received yesterday from a friend at the Star-Bulletin:
An abbreviated version of your final days journal is on the union bulletin board and I'm glad. Maybe the new guys will read it to really know what went on.It's nice to have my own desk for a change, but I'm hesitant to leave any personal items on it for fear they may not be there. It's also great to have a clean, modern building where it's not freezing. small things matter sometimes in boosting morale.
For the first month, the old staff seemed pretty numb and just went about doing their work because everything was new and we didn't want to screw up. No one seemed particularly interested in making friends with the new staffers, but i have nothing to base that on except my own feelings. And when I threw the question up in a group of old-timers the first week, the response was, "f--- 'em!"
It's now been nearly two months since a few of us were terminated and dumped out on the front steps of the Star-Bulletin. As far as I know, none of us has found full-time work, and we're all slowly adapting to the new realities and testing our own approaches to the future. In the process, I enjoyed reading Diane Chang's May 7 column, which describes her latest move in this post-newsroom adventure.This should be an interesting week, with the Asian Development Bank meeting in Honolulu. A general security hysteria has swept through the law enforcement community. Hundreds of thousands of public dollars, perhaps millions, have been spent on training, equipment, intelligence, surveillance, and so on in preparation for expected demonstrations. Lots of ink has been devoted to this. Less recognized are the costs being forced onto condominiums adjacent to the convention center, where the meetings are being held. My office is in one of those buildings, and our condo owners association is having to spend several thousand dollars for increased security during the week. We've been advised to do so during a series of security meetings with city, state, and tourism officials, who all added that there's no public funding to support these moves. But, of course, failing to follow the advice raises the possibility of liability if some incident does occur. So we're trapped. Also trapped more literally, as the city has announced it will be blocking roads and rerouting traffic to avoid the convention center intersection, and our building, located across the street, could be cut off for an unspecified length of time.
I've updated the photo gallery, again, and Ms. Lizzie stars this time around, along with this weekend's morning low tides in Kaaawa.
A few glimpses of Gannett's renovations in the old Star-Bulletin newsroom and elsewhere in the news building are available, thanks to photos at the end of April by Star-Bulletin writer Burl Burlingame. There's also a good shot of the new Bulletin newsroom, as well as Burl's usual acerbic commentary. If the photos move, you can probably find a way to maneuver back to the last week of April.
8:30 a.m. and I'm just getting started. I really was up early enough this morning, but somehow didn't get around to sitting down in front of the computer before our walk.
The walk experience is quite different now that the sun is rising minutes before 6, just about the time we leave the house. Today the sun was already a large orb sprawling across the horizon by the time we got down to the first corner a half-block from home, and things tend to look different in sunlight, rather than the reflected colors of dawn.
For several days, the tide has been low enough for us to hit the beach directly in front of Swanzy Beach Park and continue down the beach until it ends at a rocky point about a mile down the coast. This part of the coast is usually (a) underwater, or (b) without significant sand. But the tides have been perfect, moving substantial amounts of sand down in this direction and hitting the low for the day just about the time we're out and walking.
It's amazing how much difference a slight variation in perspective can make in the daily routine.
The Star-Bulletin is still suffering from an inability to print more than two sections, apparently due to a press part still on backorder. This means business and features sections remain buried behind sports. And the painful drought of Sunday inserts continues through another week. They've got to break through to this lucrative market at some point in order to guarantee survival.
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