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Strange item #1. Ka Leo, the student newspaper at the University of Hawaii Manoa Campus, had a small item this week about a student assaulted while taking a shower in his dorm."The suspect, who was later identified as the victim's next-door neighbor, called the victim obscenities before hitting him on the head several times," Ka Leo reported.
Both campus police and Honolulu police were notified. The suspect, who had been drinking, apparently was found.
Here's the kicker: "The officers advised the victim to consider switching dorms." Way to go! Crime prevention, Hawaiian style. That's the way to increase safety in the dorms--ask the victims to leave.
Strange item #2. It looks like former PBN writer Malia Zimmerman has rowed right over the edge. A recent column in her new venture, HawaiiReporter.com, pronounces the socialist takeover in Hawaii "nearly complete", and proceeds to spew out a lengthy screed about leeches, the "socialist monster", and so on. Whew.
In this tilted view, business owners are good, all others evil. And if business owners, even the fabled small business owners, don't agree with her, well, somehow they've been captured by the socialist monster and are no longer protected by the cloak of the entrepreneur.
There must be a little stress over at the Hawaii Reporter. I'm not sure when her flight from journalism departed, but it's already quite a ways from the gate. I'd say Malia had better slow down, or she's likely to skid off the runway like her former buddy, John Fund, who used to write regularly for the Wall Street Journal.
Back home, the kittens continue to grow. It's hard to see in these photos, but compare these to the first picture of the kittens nursing. Their growth relative to their mother is suddenly dramatic. And in the photo to the right, you can see that emerging play behavior.
These photos were taken by our friend and neighbor, David Mosley, and forwarded to me. Almost like being at home!
David & his wife, Sandra, who live two houses away from us in Kaaawa, maintain a web site, ZodiacArts.com, which provided an aerial view of our little corner of the neighborhood. It's a photo from the mountain just behind us. There's a red arrow on the picture pointing out where David & Sandra live. The next house towards the ocean is where Anna Banana staged her sit-in up an african tulip tree back in March. Then there are a whole bunch of trees, and our house is the next visible rooftop towards the ocean from there, straight ahead and a bit to the right. In front of us is the large area with no houses. This view is part of a Kaaawa gallery that David put together.
It appears that Hawaii.com web site has now been taken over by Gannett and the Honolulu Advertiser. No more mentions of Stephens Media Group appear on the site, and all links appear to be Advertiser news and classifieds. Stephens had inherited the site when it took over Donrey and then partnered with Gannett on the project at the beginning of this year.I didn't find any clues to ownership of Hawaii.com in a quick look this morning. If there's some sort of "about Hawaii.com" info on the site, it's sufficiently buried to escape casual notice. Is Gannett consciously concealing it's control?
Hawaii isn't the only place where health insurance coverage for sole proprietors and consultants is unavailable or prohibitively expensive. The National Writers Union just notified its members that group coverage, most recently offered through a policy with Aetna, is being cut off. Replacement coverage under individual policies is said to be unrealistically costly.
An alert journalist pointed me to a Reuters story, dateline Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, claiming that Cocoa, "a Siamese cat with an attitude problem," went on a rampage that drove its human family from their home.
"Earlier in the afternoon, the cat had attacked the babysitter," police Sgt. Don Spicer told Reuters. "The residents went to check on the cat and, essentially, the cat went crazy on them as well."It attacked the father and ripped his pants as well as the flesh underneath," Spicer said.
But let's not give Ms. Cybelle any ideas.
Perhaps it's my imagination, but it looks like the Star-Bulletin is increasing its advertising base. I don't know what kind of rates are being paid, but the overall column inches of ads in the daily paper seems to be growing, at least to the nontechnical observer.And there are rumblings of other things to come for the Star-Bulletin, but newsroom sources are pretty guarded. I wonder what's on tap?
We've been really enjoying watching Cybelle's kittens in their first weeks of life. After their eyes and ears opened fully over the weekend, they've started to exhibit the first signs of self-awareness, such as grooming behavior. And they've "discovered" each other, along with the very first hints of mutual play. I find it very interesting that play makes its appearance within weeks of birth, and before many other behaviors.
Cybelle herself is starting to feel better. She's playing a bit now, and is showing more interest in what lies under and outside that door to her room, which is still closed.
We'll probably wait until the kittens are quite mobile before we allow any contact with the rest of our cats.
Here's another interesting comment from a reader on the issue of movie advertising.A local movie theatre executive once said he believed that newspapers should print the movie listings for free, as they do for TV. It was pointed out to him that TV programming is available for free while people have to pay to get into theatres to see a flick. He countered by saying that CABLE programming is not free, yet newspapers run the cable listings for free.Hmm.
I also got a note yesterday from a Colin Lind in New Zealand, with a link to the history of his Lind family, which sounds quite different from my own.
I'm going to be traveling for several days, which means possible delays in updating these pages, and a certain disruption in updated kitten photos. I apologize in advance to those addicted to such things.
Speaking of kittens, the animal abuse case on Maui that's getting lots of attention sounds very much like the one that we rescued Cybelle from. I was told the final count of cats removed from Cybelle's house was 46.
No media news & comment today, but if you checked in early yesterday and missed Honolulu Weekly publisher Laurie Carlson's reply regarding movie advertising,, which was added a bit later yesterday morning, check it out.From my Canadian correspondent, Anna in Edmonton, this description of the arrival of Spring:
We finally got some weather worthy of shorts and Tshirts. 25 Celsius yesterday. You could almost watch the plants growing. There were 1 and 2 inch shoots in my garden last night that were not even visible Sunday morning. I live up the road from a very popular greenhouse and with the warm weather and Mother's day, it was packed! I prefer to wait to put out my bedding plants, we aren't clear of the frost threat until after May 24th. I have started lemon grass, the collards and a few other tender plants under cover outside but still have to bring them in at night.The iguana was in heaven, I put a little harness on him and took him into the garden. He basked, he dug, he explored and he ate half my tulips. One of the dogs kept bringing a ball over and dropping it in front of the lizard. The lizard wouldn't get into the spirit, neither chasing nor retrieving the ball so the dog eventually gave up. Late afternoon brought the smell of barbecues being fired up in just about every backyard. Smelled so good I went out for dinner! (I don't cook).
It's going to take me a while to shake off the image of the dog dropping the ball and excitedly waiting for Mr. Iguana to do his thing.
Another friend responded yesterday to our stated intention to find good adopted homes for our three kittens.
Uh huh. Wait 'til you watch them learn to drink milk. They'll try to suck it from the saucer at first, and they'll sneeze. Wait 'til you watch them chase their first string across the floor. All enthusiasm and no coordination.You're stuck, Ms. Meda and Mr. Ian. These are your kittens. You saved them. They belong to you.
With blessings. Keep lots of toys around and your ankles might be safe. Just don't walk too close to a couch.
On the other hand, several adoption inquiries were also received yesterday. So we're still on track.
I'm waiting to see whether our morning walk is going to be rained out again this morning as it was yesterday, although it rarely happens two days in a row. We usually walk rain or shine, but there are days that wet enough to make the experience too unpleasant. Yesterday was one, although it was crystal clear by the end of the day.
Hawaii lost another of its old-time journalists and a bit of history with the passing of former Hawaii Tribune-Herald editor Ray Yuen. The Tribune-Herald and today's Advertiser have nice write-ups.A reader offered up a further observation which, in his view, indicates Honolulu Weekly is in a precarious position:
I noticed they have lost their movie advertising. Maybe this was a one-week blip but if you look through you will find some film ads but no listings for Consolidated or Signature. They still have Wallace but actually have a smaller Wallace ad than in TGIF, the Advertiser's supplement. The Weekly also has far fewer ads for individual movies than TGIF. The implications of this are fairly stark. Movie ads are a key source of revenue for weeklies -- the steadiest source of entertainment ads for publications that generally sell themselves as superior guides to entertainment. In most other cities, weeklies are absolutely chock with movie ads. A likely conclusion -- theater chains and movie marketing companies think the Weekly is not a strong advertising vehicle in Honolulu, because these guys have significant leverage with the big dailies and they have a strong interest in using the best vehicles because not doing so in pursuit of cheaper ads can dramatically affect their bottom line.I hope he's wrong, since we need an alternative to the corporate dailies.
And Weekly publisher Laurie Carlson had this prompt reply:
I'd like to take a moment to respond to the piece that appeared on your web site and point out that movie advertising in the Weekly is actually stronger at this time than it has ever been. 95% of all movie ads are paid for by the studios, not by Consolidated, Wallace or Signature. We now get movie ads from all major studios and receive more revenue from this base of advertisers than ever before.The only movie advertising we have lost (after Sept 11) was Signature who felt that because we had the movie clock they didn't need to replicate the information in their ad--and because their major competitor (Consolidated) has never run billboard ads in the Weekly. Readers who would like to influence Signature can call the local manager, Joe Cuculich at 455-8890 , and ask them to reevaluate their support of the Weekly.
The National Writers Union has issued an appeal for support a freelance writer jailed in Seattle.
Paul Trummel, a member of the Seattle local, has been in jail since February 27. 2002. He is charged with contempt of court by James Doerty, a King County Superior Court judge, who says Trummel is not a legitimate investigative reporter because he edits and publishes his own work.Click here for the full story from NWU.
It's been raining in Kaaawa since late afternoon after a day of ominous gray and lingering mist. All the cats have been inside except for Silverman, and I had to free Lizzie a while ago. She's been in since early yesterday morning, far longer than her normal routine would allow, so if she wants out in the rain, she's got it. Then Lindsey decided he needed to be out, although he's just hanging around the front deck.
I just posted a Mother's Day kitten update with fresh photos. And Cybelle received mother's day greetings from as far away as Japan.
I picked up my parents in town yesterday and drove them out for a site visit in Kaaawa.
We celebrated with lunch, a glass of wine, and presents for my mother. But the day's best family photo turned out to be the self-portrait with my dad, now 88 and counting.
Happy Mother's Day, everyone.And thanks to Rolf Nordahl, the headcheese at local Macintosh dealer MacMouse.com, for reminding me of the origins of the holiday in Julia Ward Howe's protest against the ravages of modern warfare. Her 1870 Mother's Day Proclaimation is an important counterpoint to today's consumerist celebrations.
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.We'll be having a Mother's Day lunch with my mother in Kaaawa later today. I'm hoping the rain will hold off a bit, but we'll see.
Mr. Leo is one of the stars of today's photo gallery update.
And just a progress report on the kittens. Their eyes have opened, although I can't tell whether they can really see much yet. But they're looking more like little cats. The next landmark will be mobility, which comes over the next week or so. They're growing up so fast! The next thing you know they'll be off for college. At least that's how it feels.
And there's a recently arrived gold and white stray in the neighborhood, making the rounds of all the houses. He's been by here several times this week, almost always under cover of darkness, looking for food. Our cats are on alert, but there haven't been any major border wars yet.
Mr. Leo
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