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September 3, 2005 - Saturday

While the controversay at the University of Hawaii has been focused on the proposed Naval applied research center, plans for another project involving biodefense research have quietly moved forward. And yesterday it was announced that UH has been awarded a large grant for construction of a regional biocontainment laboratory. A similar proposal was recently dropped by the University of Washington, in part because of the controversy it had triggered.

The furor at Akaku: Maui Community Television, shows no sign of passing any time soon. In the latest development, former CEO Sean McLaughlin yesterday declined to return to his former position, "at least until pending investigations are completed."

This statement was transmitted to the Board and Staff of Akaku this morning.

Statement of Sean McLaughlin
Regarding Akaku: Maui Community TV
September 2, 2005

I greatly appreciate the recent actions of Akaku's Board of Directors, including their decision to conduct an investigation of the Board's chair and treasurer, and their unanimous vote on August 26, 2005 to reinstate me as president and CEO.

Recent Akaku Board actions validate my call several months ago for a complete, independent investigation by the State Attorney General's Office into bylaw violations and potential wrongdoing by the Board's chair, treasurer and secretary. Further, the Board's action to reinstate me indicates that the prior Board action of July 13, 2005 was politically motivated and constituted a wrongful termination violating State and Federal laws.

While I continue to support Akaku's mission, the professional staff of Akaku, and the hundreds of community volunteers who breathe life into local access media for Maui and Kalawao Counties, I have respectfully declined the Board's invitation to return to my previous position - at least until pending investigations are completed.

Meanwhile, I call on the people of Maui Nui to support Akaku's mission: "Empowering our community's voice through access to media," and to insist upon full transparency and public accountability to ensure that special interests are not allowed to silence the public's voice.

O wau me ka ha'aha'a,

Sean McLaughlin

So I suppose we'll just have to stay tuned.

An interesting column published by Hawaii Reporter offers evidence of another deep divide within Hawaii's Republican Party between more conservative hard liners and Lingle's moderate faction. Whether this is just another reflection of the split between moderates and the Christian right, or whether it reflects a new splinter in the party, isn't clear yet but will deserve watching.

A lot more information is available now about efforts to save pets trapped or abandoned after Hurricane Katrina. An item in the breaking news page of NOLA.com reports Louisiana SPCA staff are accompanying other agencies in searches in order to rescue animals, including breaking into homes where authorized by the owners. Donations can be made to the LA-SPCA via their web site. And a quick Google search turns up numerous stories about efforts by local agencies throughout the region to shelter displaced animals. National pet store chains Petsmart and Petco are both taking part in relief efforts and raising funds through their stores and web sites.

The political fallout was clear on the PBS News Hour last night, when conservative commentator David Brooks admitted being terribly angry at President Bush for his handling of the disaster:

I think it is a huge reaction we are about to see. I mean, first of all, they violated the social fabric, which is in the moments of crisis you take care of the poor first. That didn't happen; it's like leaving wounded on the battlefield.

So there is just -- in 9/11 you had a great surge of public confidence. Now I think we are going to see a great decline in public confidence in our institutions. And so I just think this is sort of the anti-9/11 as one of the bloggers wrote.

For those who missed the radio interview with the mayor of New Orleans, here's a transcript. And the breaking news page of the Times-Picayune, found at NOLA.com, reports equally angry reactions from other officials feeling abandoned by federal relief efforts.

September 2, 2005 - Friday

The University of Hawaii announced yesterday that special consideration, including possible tuition waivers, will be given to local students seeking admission to UH because their colleges and universities have been closed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

We want our local students attending schools on the mainland affected by this devastating event to know that the University of Hawai‘i will do whatever it can to assist them in continuing their higher education,” said UH President, David McClain.

According to the press release, UH has already had inquires from students from Tulane and Loyola University of New Orleans.

Webmaster Ryan Ozawa noted the similarity on yesterday's page A1 in the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin, and posted a photo of the two side by side.

Here's a reader's anecdote about the "free classifieds" competition between the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin.

I called the Advertiser a couple of Mondays ago to
sell my Honda, but I found out that the free ad was an
unreal deal. I couldn't sell my car, it's not part of
the deal. In fact I called on the wrong day. You can
only call on Tuesdays and you can't sell anything over
$200. But I was told that if I wanted to sell my car,
they had great deal for me. Which was for $229, I
could have an ad in their paper. I told the women that
I would get back to her.

So I looked for another way to sell my car. The
Starbulletin also had a special running for free ads.
I called their number and told the guy, I saw an ad
for free classifieds, but I was wondering how much
would it cost me to sell my car? He told me it was
free, and guess what, over the weekend someone bought
my car.

I don't know about that 64%, 24% or 88%, but I got
over 5 grand for my car using the Starbulletin's free
ad!

So I didn't have to spend over $200 for an ad and not
know if the car would have sold. I got a free ad and
sold my car.

Mr. Green, must make a lot of money, because I know I
don't have $200 to throw away on something that I
could have got for free.

It's hard to assess this kind of personal report and where it fits in the overall situation. But the competition is certainly alive and well.

Last month, a reader complained about the Star-Bulletin's use of Zedo, a bit of Adware that many consider an unwanted bit of commercial spyware.

"I'd like to know how to prevent it, other than stop reading the S-B," she wrote.

A week later, she commented again:

I emailed the webmaster about this zedo nastie, but he hasn't replied. After 39 years of reading it daily, I'll stop til I find out more about zedo -- a neat name but a not-so-nice bug.

Then, finally, a message yesterday:

Never did hear back from the webmaster about getting zedo every time I go to the S-B site. Needless to say, I don't go there anymore.

Here's another bit of history. Can you name the year when a 14 percent pay hike brought senior professors at the University of Hawaii up to a maximum annual salary of just under $16,000? This old clipping tells the tale. Just click on the paragraph to the right to see the full story.

September 1, 2005 - Thursday

American refugees. It's an uncomfortable concept, and a painful one to watch as the refugee ranks swell. I've been hooked on coverage by the New Orleans Times Picayune, as well as readers' stories submitted to national media. Coverage of this disaster appears to bring the integration of mainstream reporting and citizen journalism to a new level, with major media somewhat seamlessly combining the two.

After writing yesterday's entry, I found the Humane Society of the US, as well as other smaller rescue organizations, are sending teams of veterinarians and other resources in to the storm damaged areas.

As expected, the UH Manoa Faculty Senate issued its committee report on the proposed UARC yesterday, with the recommendation that the matter not be presented to the Board of Regents until at least six weeks after key documents, including a management plan, are available for review.

The committee report is low key and balanced, but recommends polling of faculty after reaching an agreement on what level of faculty opposition would be sufficient to scuttle the whole project.

It will be interesting to see whether, as the committee requests, those on campus with opposing views will "treat the arguments of the other with the respect with which it is due, for example by endeavoring to refute them rather than simply dismissing or ignoring them."

The 9th Circuit Court's latest bombshell decision puts the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in the cross hairs and further highlights the stakes of the Akaka bill debate. Those seeking additional details may consult the full text of the court's decision, and even listen to the arguments made by the attorneys (click here and then enter the case number--04-15306--in the search box).

I ran into an interesting blog yesterday by a professor of law at Ohio State University who comments on election law issues and includes a number of useful links for anyone concerned about such matters. I also highly recommend regular visits to Infomaniac,a blog by a Miami Herald editor, as well as the related site, Infomanic: Behind the news.

This is one of my favorite Kaaawa photos of the past week. Byron lives across the road than runs up along the lower side of our lot, and he's often out in his driveway in the early morning working on a car or, as on this particular day, playing his guitar. In any case, it's another piece of the Kaaawa experience.

Byron before dawn. Click for larger photo

August 31, 2005 - Wednesday

It's hard to imagine the long term technical, political, and financial challenges facing New Orleands at this point, not to mention the immediate problem of keeping survivors alive without infranstructure and in the face of rising waters. The ripple effects will be felt in more than gas prices. After the last series of hurricanes, the price of plywood soared in Hawaii due to post-storm demand in Florida, and I'm sure there are lots of other ways that we'll be impacted. Engineering firms and architects will be booked solid, contractors swamped. Construction fraud likely to be widespread.

No one's talking about the pets. This was an issue that could always get our late friend at the Star-Bulletin, George Steele, riled up about this hidden edge of natural disasters. If it's like Hawaii, pets aren't allowed in public shelters. I know we couldn't evacuate to a shelter because of the cats, so in any disaster we would be sticking it out here despite official edicts to the contrary. I'm sure there were people like us caught in this hurricane's path because of the animals.

The UH-Manoa Faculty Senate is expected to unveil a committee report on the issue of the classified research center that has been debated over the past year. The senate committee apparently is recommending against proceeding with the UARC, but more will be known when the committee report is distributed at this afternoon's senate meeting.

The Maui weekly, Haleakala Times, has its version of the Akaku battle story online, at least for now.

Jeff Green, the senior vp for marketing at the Advertiser, added his views yesterday on the issue of classifieds:

Thanks for some intelligent discussions on the free classified issue. My old mainland friend, Bryant Pierpont, is correct that the classified franchise is vital to any newspaper. However, in the examples he cites in Houston and Little Rock, the circulation of the papers was much closer so free classified could make a significant difference. You have to have enough circulation and readership for the free ads to work. The latest independent Scarborough research puts The Honolulu Advertiser Sunday readership at 64% of Oahu adults compared to just 22% for the S-B (and much of that is duplicated). 

We saw the S-B get a two week trial bump before returning rapidly to previous private party levels. By contrast our expanded "Unreal Deals" has doubled and is still growing since we began marketing them more aggressively. Our program is aimed at maintaining and growing our classified private party business, but like San Diego we view online only sites as our primary competitors for this category. 

Thanks for that, Jeff.

After the Advertiser story on local hospital performance by Rob Perez, which followed the item here last Friday by my friend Mike Sullivan, I welcomed Mike as an official part of the news food chain.

His cogent reply: "Better to be a news feeder than to be feasted upon."

August 30, 2005 - Tuesday

The Maui News story with details on last Friday's Akaku board meeting on Maui and the decision to negate the prior firing of CEO Sean McLaughlin became available online yesterday, along with several photos. It's an important situation that should be of interest to those concerned about the broader issues of free speech and corporate control of the media as well as the immediate issue of public access television. Although Akaku is center stage, you can be sure that Time Warner's Oceanic Cable is right there behind the curtain next to Maui developer Everett Dowling.

My own connection is that I was appointed to the first board of directors of Olelo, which is Oahu's equivalent of Akaku, back in around 1989-90. At the time, I was senior aide to then-City Councilmember Neil Abercrombie, who had been on the initial planning board that established Olelo. When the handoff to the new organization took place, I was appointed to the board. It was obvious that state cable regulators maintained a fictionally independent organization (Olelo) to avoid certain legal entanglements while cooperating with Oceanic to maintain an iron lock on the organization's management and policies. At that time, it was irritating but seemed necessary to swallow to keep everyone on board the fledgling public access experiment. The idea of access was new, at least in Hawaii, and was considered politically vulnerable. So we put up with the behind the scenes conspiring for the broader sake of access.

But now, with access firmly established, that same iron fisted control seems more flagrant and far less justified. In any case, the Akaku situation is the canary for those toiling in the area of public access, advocacy, and free speech. Best we pay attention to the events on Maui.

Oh, did I mention that I wasn't invited to stick around for a second term on the Olelo board?

A routine complaint to the City Council about this small homeless camp along the Ala Wai Canal included an unintended x-rated attachment. Click on the photo for the (short) story.

I've gotten generally positive responses to the addition of Google ads, which somewhat surprised me, including one particularly enthusiastic comment:

With regards to the new Adsense listings, the only negative comment I can make is "What took you so long?"

The first link to catch my interest took me to http://www.hawaiitravelnetwork.com. This site has a ton of 360 degree virtual tours from all over the islands, most of which are places I had either never seen before or hadn't seen since I left Hawaii in 1995. And I never would have found them without the tailored ads you now serve.

So the experiment will continue for at least 30-45 days before I evaluate and make a decision regarding the longer term.

Here's another report to stir the "presidential gesture" pot. Capitol Hill Blue reports that an increasingly defensive president has "obscene tirades" that frequently include that famous gesture (no, not the one with the thumb).

Bryant Pierpont, writing from Japan, responded to the issue of free classified ads:

I started my newspaper career in classified. It still is near and dear to my heart. One of the things I've learned over the years is that whoever owns the classified franchise wins the newspaper war. I once did seminars on that topic.

For a long time, free classified ads have been used, both successfully and unsuccessfully, to attempt to win that market. I always thought the Star-Bulletin should have done that from the first. The only example I know of where Gannett lost a newspaper war was in Little Rock, Arkansas. One of the main tools used by the family-owned paper were free classifieds.

There are always restrictions. The best way to do it is to allow an unlimited number of ads from private party advertisers and to charge for commercial advertisers. You don't make that much profit from the individuals anyway and, once you own the market, you can charge a bit more for the commercial ads.

Classified ads are content. You can start a successful weekly with nothing but classified ads. It's hard to start one with only ROP ads or only news. I'm not saying it should be that way but it is.

In my home town of Houston, we once had 2 major dailies - the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post. My family read the Post. It had far better writers and a more even-handed approach to the news than the Chronicle of those days. However, the Chronicle had the classified franchise. The Chronicle won the war. Naturally, there were other factors but, I think, this was a major factor.

Newspaper management has, for the last decade or so, tried to get every drop of revenue from classified...particularly recruitment advertising. Pricing got so high that folks were forced to go to the Internet to advertise. Now, papers are trying to get those folks back. It's much tougher than it would have been to have kept them all along. But let us never be accused of long-range planning!

Good luck to the Star-Bulletin. They're going to need it. Watching their business decisions is a painful process...even from afar.

August 29, 2005 - Monday

The Star-Bulletin and Advertiser are in an advertising war over classified ads. The Star-Bulletin has been featuring a somewhat misleading offer, "Classified are FREE!", (actually one free ad for first time ad buyers only). This move was countered by the Advertiser's offer of "Unreal deals", free ads for items under $200. The Star-Bulletin then ran a 1/2 page ad in Sunday's editions challenging the Advertiser's "unreal" claim by pointing out the offer's limits and conditions.

Meanwhile, free classified ads appear to be a trend. A story in the San Diego Union-Tribune is offering free classifieds to individuals for items priced under $5,000. The story reviews the pressures on classified ads from competing internet sites and the move towards free classifieds throughout the newspaper industry.

A Maui News story on Saturday, which I haven't found yet online, explains the series of board actions that resulted in the reinstatement of Akaku CEO Sean McLaughlin. The board majority faction reportedly walked out, but those remained preserved a quorum and then moved to invalidate last month's firing of Mclaughlin based on the view that one member whose term had expired in June was not eligible to vote, and the chair would only have been allowed to vote if there had been a tie. With those two votes invalidated, the motion to oust McLaughlin would have failed 7-6. I'll be looking for the full story online at the Maui News.

Slashdot provided links to podcasts from across Canada by employees locked out during the current contract battle at the Canadian Broadcasting System.

Right now, it's strange to sit in Kaaawa with a little wind and an occasional bit of rain, while watching CNN coverage of the hurricane battering New Orleans and the Mississippi coast.

I finally managed to pull together the photos from our anniversary-birthday celebration, such as it was. Just click on my birthday photo, or the banner over on the top-right. Either one gets you to the same place. Warning: boredom could be overwhelming. Proceed at your own risk.

Happy birthday to me...

August 28, 2005 - Sunday

I sure hope that a tape of Friday's meeting of the board of directors of Akaku: Maui Community Television will be available for public viewing because it must have been one heck of a scene, ending with the ouster of the board's chairman and reinstatement of CEO Sean McLaughlin.

A photo in the Maui News shows a small group standing outside Akaku's offices while watching events unfold on a video monitor.

The photo caption tells the story: "Supporters of reinstated Akaku Chief Executive Officer Sean McLaughlin clapped and cheered while watching a live feed outside the Akaku: Maui Community Television studios Friday evening as a group of board members successfully maneuvered to dismiss Myles Inokuma as board chairman."

McLaughlin's prepared testimony denounced political pressures and censorship, and called on board members to uphold their community responsibilities. A second Maui News photo shows him testifying at the meeting.

You all must remember that it is not your place as the governing Board of Akaku to curry favor or personal benefits by offering privilege to special interests - least of all when you are asked to censor or silence the voices of our community.

The full text of McLaughlin's testimony is available here, and I'm still looking forward to the video.

Inspired by the "One Minute Vacations" mentioned here yesterday, I stood on the beach yesterday morning a few minutes after dawn and captured a 360 degree view, sights and sounds included. Not much is happening, and that's the beauty of it.

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