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November 13, 2004 - Saturday

We said goodbye to Ms. Miki late yesterday morning at the VCA Animal Hospital in Kaneohe. It was very hard to do.

It was emotionally even more wrenching than expected because it was our regular vet's day off, and it turned out that the doctor who would normally fill in for her was also off, leaving us dependent on a nice vet who we had never met before. He was very nice and caring, but a stranger nonetheless. A tough break, for us at least.

The details are important for us, but not for you. In the end, we held Miki while she lay quietly and the vet administered a lethal overdose. As someone wrote me several days ago: "We'll think good thoughts for Miki and hope she heads off into the kitty afterlife with much catnip and a tuna in every feedbowl."

But here's a list of the cats who have lived with Meda and I since 1969 (with the exception of Fred, who hung around but was never really adopted when we first got out to Kaaawa). You can see that we rescued Miki in 1986 and she then ruled a household that over time included a lot of other cats, none of which reached her venerable age of 18. She was a very old friend.

Name	Year adopted

Windfola	1969
Emma	1970
Miki	1986
Kua	1987
Kolo *1st Kaaawa cat	1988
Hiwa	1989
Tommy	1990
Buster	1991
Lindsey	1993
Kili	1998
Wally	1998
Leo	1998
Silverman	1999
Lizzie	2000
Harry	2000
Cybelle	2002
Duke	2002
Toby	2002
Annie	2003

Based on this, I tried to make a chart of our annual cat population which started out at one and grew to a high of 11 a couple of years ago. With Miki's passing, we're back down to a modest eight cats.

Tomorrow I promise to get on with the affairs of the world.

November 12, 2004 - Friday

Thursday wasn't a good day for the Star-Bulletin. Our copy arrived with a full sheet--four full pages--printed as a smear of grey. It made a mess of the paper's main section and business section. I'm not sure what I did with the rest of the paper, so I can't say whether the same smear hit every section. Our copy, delivered to Kaaawa in the early a.m., presumably comes from the first press run, so hopefully this was quickly caught and corrected. Even so, it's not a good image to project.

At the risk of appearing to be Bulletin bashing, I'll also share this inquiry from a former islander who keeps tab on things in Hawaii:

What is it that's wrong w/the online "front page" in the Bulletin?

It really bothers me - almost, but not quite, to the point I want to stop reading it.

It's so cluttered. It reminds me of a young child's picture book.  

The page used to be so clean and easy on the eyes.

Grrrrrr.

Tell me what went wrong.

I'll leave that analysis to others. If you would like to agree, disagree, or explain, please email me, ian@ilind.net.

We're trying very hard to think positively and cosmically today. The sunrise has been beautiful for the last couple of days, which has helped. We have an appointment at the vet this morning for a 2nd and perhaps final opinion on Miki's prognosis. Whatever the outcome, we've had quite a time during Miki's18 years in the family.

November 11, 2004 - Thursday

Did you notice Bob Jones' comments on the Malia Zimmerman "smear" controversy in his MidWeek column in the issue that just arrived? Jones writes:

"Hannemann's campaign officially distanced itself from the smear. But Mufi and Sen. Donna Kim had badgered at least one reporter to air the allegations."

I'm told the interaction between Mufi and the reporter came after a third person was asked to leave the room (aloha, potential witness). Kim reportedly called later to reinforce Mufi's request.

Of course, that's quite a bit different from the representations made by Keith Rollman last week, who indicated that Hanneman has "NEVER" mentioned it.

I queried Rollman and he responded with this clarification:

I have not read Bob's column, and don't have any information to either verify or refute his comment about Hannemann and Kim having "badgered" a reporter on the Jennifer Toma-Bainum story. I do know several reporters in this town who feel "badgered" if you look at them to long.

My statement to you that Hannemann had never mentioned the rumor applied to his public statements. Of course he talked about it in his personal conversations, including internal campaign meetings where we discussed how we should officially handle it. It was decided, without dissent, that the campaign would simply ignore the developing story and move forward with our own planned messages.

If Jones is right, though, it looks like the candidate didn't stay with the program.

Thanks to everyone who sent messages of support as we deal with Ms. Miki's worsening condition and the inevitable decision that we'll have to deal with today. Thank you.

This is a late addition to today's entry--A bit of good news. When I wrote the rest of this entry, we were dealing with another level of stress that we didn't need. Harriet didn't show up at all yesterday, and we hadn't seen her since sometime Monday night or Tuesday early morning. I'd been out looking for her, many times, no luck. We rushed to get home by 6 p.m. or so, since she usually appears just as it gets dark. No Harry. I called before and after dinner last night, gave the flashlights a workout. No Harry. Checked again around 2 a.m. No Harriet.

I had a plan for today. Abandon the regular walk and instead walk a major search pattern, first up "fire station road" and the yards along the road, then down to the highway and up into Kaaawa Park Lane, a long single-family condominium development on the other side of the stream. It was the last place that Harry's sister, Lizzie, was spotted before she disappeared a couple of years ago. If we didn't find any sign of Harry over there, then it would be back here for a full search of the four acres of state land next door. Then, I suppose, repeat the above.

But I was up early, and could't wait for the plan to unfold as scheduled. So instead I went out for a preliminary run just after 5:30 a.m., a good cat time. No sign of her in the first few places, but folks below us and across the street were sitting out with a guitar and who knows what elese. They said she comes and hides in a small boat that is in storage in their front yard. "Looking for rats", they said.

She wasn't there, and she wasn't in the next yard where I often spot her.

But when I pointed the flashlight back across the road towards the lower end of our lot, there was cat. I thought at first it was Annie coming down the hill to wreck my search, but then I realized it was Harriet! She was a bit jumpy and nervous, but otherwise just fine, thank you.

Harry is now here on the table finishing a big bowl of Whiskas cat food while we enjoy the relief of her company.

We've threatened to return to the "inside only" cat regime, or at least the "no free roaming" regime. Perhaps it's time.

November 10, 2004 - Wednesday

I'm not up to this today as we struggle with the necessity of saying goodbye to Ms. Miki, our wonderful calico friend of 18 years. She's been in gradually declining health for at least a year of so, but just in the last week or 10 days has started to just shut down. We've lived together so long that it's hard to accept. She's the last of our cats to have lived with us before we moved to Kaaawa, adopted at the bar in the old Spindrifters restaurant in Kahala Mall by my mother's neighbor, then rescued by us on Christmas Day in 1986.

Ms. Miki

We were at the vet again with Miki on Sunday. Unless the blood test turns up some clearly treatable condition, it looks like it's time to let her go. It's not unexpected, but that doesn't make this moment any easier.

At some future point, I'll be able to chant down some tales of our life with Ms. Miki. For now, though, we have to treasure her while we can and accept what's ahead.

November 9, 2004 - Tuesday

Yesterday morning, as happens from time to time, I accepted a bit of what my Quaker colleagues call "eldering", a gentle and courteous nudge from a friend on the other side of the political aisle to reconsider a recent bout of excess.

I awoke to a note from a friend, Doug, who got right to the point:

I started reading your blog after you pointed me to it on the Jennifer Bainum rumors. I was shocked to see you compare me to the Taliban (text included at the bottom for your reference). I did and still do consider you a friend. Perhaps you didn’t realize that you have been consorting with a “religiously intolerant, sexist, anti-modern, anti-science, and if that weren't bad enough, aggressively evangelical” monster like me. I don’t consider myself any of that stuff and I doubt you really believe that the majority of Evangelical Christians are like that either....

There are some incredibly insensitive Christians that make the headlines and may make it seem like we’re all that way; but we’re not. We’re just concerned about family values and morality; some of the same things that brought the Christians here and the same values that most of the founding fathers held. 

John Adams really disliked France and the immorality there but he was the reason we didn’t go to war with them during Jefferson’s first term. I wish there were more Christian politicians like him that would refuse to talk bad about others but he also lost the election because he wouldn’t defend himself against the attacks made on him.

Please continue to set yourself apart from the Malia Zimmerman’s of the world whose only mission is to divide and conquer. You have always impressed me with your level headedness and desire to unite people. Comments like your American Taliban comment will only serve to divide. We can’t afford to have our nation’s finest minds thinking like that. (Yes, I’m talking about you!)

Aloha,
Doug

From your blog for your reference:
“I have a hard time even imagining what it will take to overcome the cultural chasms that split the country now that the Republican Party has become so heavily reliant on the American Taliban of conservative evangelical Christians--religiously intolerant, sexist, anti-modern, anti-science, and if that weren't bad enough, aggressively evangelical. I used to think this couldn't take hold in cosmopolitan Hawaii, but the Gabbard and Cavasso campaigns with their open appeals to religious bigotry and homophobia certainly put that myth to rest. From where I sit, the religious right appears intent on undermining the pillars of our constitutional experiment by seeking to reimposing religious orthodoxy, the exact thing that brought many of our country's founders to these shores. Well, not these shores exactly, but you get the drift. Tough times ahead.”

I sat down later in the day and returned this response:

I really appreciate your message.

It's always useful to be "eldered", as my Quaker friends would say, when the occasion merits it. In this case it did.

Meda and I had already started a list of people we know and like, some close friends, who probably voted for the other guys. It was a longer list than I would have thought when I wrote the offending paragraph. You were on it, by the way.

How is that possible?

Because we, like you, tend to look to things we have in common with others in personal interactions and avoid bringing up areas of major differences, at least until there's a suitable basis of trust that we can deal with those without flipping out.

You approach people the same way. That's why we get along so well.

When I wrote that paragraph, I wasn't thinking of you, obviously. I was thinking of the Christians who get into positions of power and then forget some of the basics. You refer to them as "incredibly insensitive" and I would agree. I guess they're the ones that make us feel like we're exposed to Taliban rule.

But I'm sorry for painting with such a broad brush.

And, yes, we're still friends.

Thanks for keeping me on the right track.

November 8, 2004 - Monday

Another experienced media professional shared these thoughtful comments yesterday morning on the Zimmerman-Bainum situation:

Although I did support Hannemann, I'm no fan of Zimmerman's political perspective. I agree that her reporting was biased and in many respects unfair. But it was not "under the radar," as you write. The fact that a by-lined piece from an electronic journal was widely circulated on the internet is no different from interested parties reprinting and mailing endorsements from the dailies. Three other thoughts:

1. She (Jennifer Bainum) was fair game. As was John Zaccaro, husband of v.p. candidate Geraldine Ferraro, for his history of tax problems back in '84. If he was, why not a prospective First Lady of Honolulu?

2. Bainum's wife and the campaign should have responded forcefully and fully to the specific allegations. (My understanding is that she was asked for comment prior to publication.) All Bainum had to do was look at the disastrous results from the Kerry campaign's attempt to ignore the allegations of the Swift Boat Veterans.

3. The two dailies were derelict in not aggressively looking into the details of the allegations, in the process providing balance lacking in the Zimmerman piece. Zimmerman might not have been fair, but she reported enough telling details to perk my interest.

Then came the Sunday Star-Bulletin in which editor Frank Bridgewater explained they had checked out the matter before it broke on the Internet. Bridgewater wrote:

The Star-Bulletin had investigated the issue before there were any online postings. We reviewed court documents and talked at length with several people and agencies involved.

We concluded that there was no valid, legitimate story to be published.

Bridgewater's editorial note prompted a follow-up from the earlier writer:

Reasonable people can disagree on this, but I think that by not reporting the results of their investigation, after the wide circulation of the HawaiiReporter.com story, the Star-Bulletin did a disservice to the public, including the Bainum campaign itself.

One lesson here is that traditional media have been too slow to recognize the influence of electronic media. Try to imagine the public's reaction if The Advertiser had printed a story that the Star-Bulletin had found --through its own investigation -- to be illegitimate, and the Star-Bulletin then simply sat on its findings, letting The Advertiser's version go unchallenged.

Thorny issues indeed.

FYI: New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark says her government views the potential migration of Americans as "very desireable", according to a story from Agence France Presse.

There's more than jewelry at Kamaaina Metals.in Restaurant Row. Meda calls it a "perfect storm" of shopping--jewelry and kittens. What a combo! Just click on this photo for the story.

November 7, 2004 - Sunday

The news on KHON last night (half of the Emmis duopoly in Honolulu) included a feel good story about improvements by a group of Rotary volunteers to make Camp Erdman physically accessible. The story was reported by Linda Coble, who was in the news last week as chair of Kids Voting Hawaii.

Linda Coble? I was glad to see her back on the air, but she isn't part of the regular KHON news lineup. A quick check does show, though, that she's been spending the last several years as a Rotary honcho and activist in both the local and national levels of that organization.

So although it was a nice story documenting a real public service by Rotarians, it raised a troubling issue. Was this essentially a video press release for Rotary passed off as a KHON news product? Or was Coble on special assignment reporting on a group that she has been at the center of without disclosing her personal interest?

In this case, there's probably no harm to the viewer. But the same confusion in a different situation could be a very different story.

Oh, my! The detailed election results published by the Office of Elections shows District 47, Precinct #1, which includes Kaaawa, went for Bush over Kerry by a 65.4% to 33.1% margin, while Mike Gabbard prevailed over Ed Case 60.7% to 35.5%. It seems we're in a distinct minority in our little section of the world.

It's been a damp several days all over the island and Kaaawa has been no exception. It rained through much of the last couple of nights, but yesterday morning it was mostly clear in the early morning except for a layer of cloud and mist hanging down on the horizon.

Click for a larger photo.

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