June 18, 2005 - Saturday

I gave Mr. Romeo a few extra strokes when he started fussing for attention at around 4:30 and then caught an extra 45 minutes of sleep,which meant that I almost missed the Saturday garbage pickup. But I managed to get that out to the street in time, as it didn't turn out to be one of their extremely early mornings. Whew. This did disrupt my morning schedule, though, hence today's late posting.

One reader had this comment on yesterday's entry:

If a CEO neglected his/her largest revenue producer – the way our government has with the tax department – that CEO would be fired in an instant.   <sigh>

Another offered this:

Unlike you I was able to conduct "business" over the phone. I'm taking care of matters for an uncle now in a nursing home. Had some tax matters to take care, actually questions and verification of the process. I did have some "steam" built-up and was "prepared" to "gas'em".

I could NOT! The woman, on the phone was so POLITE, so HELPFUL, she caught me "off-guard". Once, the Q's were answered to my "satisfaction". I was fumbling for words… but, I did compliment her on her deportment and being a credit to her office. I did NOT get her name, but I "suspect", she may have been the woman featured in the Business section of the h-s-b a few months back.

With all the NEGATIVES about local and state civil servants, this along experiences with the ID department, the C&C motor vehicle department on matters concerning my uncle, were pleasant surprises to me! Ya gotta be a true, blue… Li-BOO-r'ALL, going by the empathy showing in today's BLOG on the civil service workers you encountered!

Will Las Vegas become a one newspaper city? It all depends how you look at it. Later this year, the Las Vegas Sun will be reduced to a section stuffed into its larger daily rival, the Review-Journal. It's a strange twist in the saga of joint operating agreements, but at least according to this one story it is likely to pass muster with the Department of Justice.

Seattle Weekly takes an interesting look at blogging in the arts sphere, and BBC and lots of others are watching the impact of blogs in Iran's elections, where several bloggers have been jailed for speaking freely via the Internet..

I finally gathered a selection of Kaaawa photos from last month and got them organized. This time I even included a few photos of peoples as well as landscapes. So just click on this sunrise to see the full batch. Enjoy.

Kaaawa, May 2005

June 17, 2005 - Friday

We just had a brush with the state tax department and learned a lot in the process. The main lesson? Those poor tax folks across from the federal building have a terrible job.

Think about it. First off, you're seen as the bad guy, especially these days when taxes for the common good are portrayed so negatively by the media and are generally loathed in most quarters. And, secondly, most of the people making their way to your office aren't simply taxpayers, they are taxpayers with a problem.

Third, this is probably not their first step in trying to address the problem. For example, I got up early and phoned the appropriate phone number on the tax department's own form. Of course, the phone is not answered by a person. It's answered by machine. But after making my way through the voicemail system, I managed to reach a point where the computerized voice said I would be transferred so that I could speak to a real person and solve my problem. The phone clicked, there was a pause, and then, instead of a person's voice, a double speed busy signal.

So I tried again. Several minutes later, same result. Busy signal on steroids. It seemed a cruel trick, luring callers in like that and then springing this trap at the end of the voicemail maze.

The meaning, though, was clear. The situation now demanded a pilgrimage to the source. So off we went to the tax office. It's on the corner of Punchbowl and Halekauwila. A friendly enough building. That is, until you get inside. This is point #4: this building is uniquely unsuited to its mission.

People, the public, taxpayers or taxpayers-to-be, us, we're all there seeking information. And, in this building, there are no places for the public. Instead of a waiting room, one of those modern conveniences that some agencies dealing with the public now provide, this building has offices inside and room for the public, well, outside. In an open courtyard. While you're waiting for your number to be called, you may sit on the concrete planters, at your own risk, of course. If you're lucky, it's not raining. We were at least lucky.

After one round in which the tax staffer was fortunately in a good mood and quite helpful, we then shuffled along the corridor to the office that processes tax clearances.

The sign says simply, "tax clearances processed inside room 124". I took that to mean that if you want a tax clearance, enter room 124. Wrong.

Walk into room 124, pick up a blank form, and start to fill it out, and a somewhat overworked clerk soon conveys the unexpected news. You can't remain in room 124, apparently because of the danger that you might overhear confidential tax matters being discussed with the person at the front of the line. So it's back outside with the blank form, now to find a pen and a suitable spot to sit and complete the form. Then it requires a dash back into room 124 to drop the form in the in-box and escape before getting another scolding.

And now it's back outside to wait. Look for a planter without many ants. That could take several tries. And get comfortable, because it could be a long wait. The only solace is that you won't be waiting alone. There will be plenty of other folks sitting uncomfortably while waiting for their forms to be processed there in room 124.

Now comes the best part.

We didn't know the drill, and there wasn't any obvious information about what to expect next. Would someone come out and call our name? But we noticed that every few minutes other people would stand up, walk to the wall, then return to their planters.

Watching closer, we finally figured out the system, which harkens back to a day before electricity. As a tax clerk finishes work on a tax clearance application, he or she stands, gathers the paperwork, walks around an office divider into the next section, moves over to the window, removes a small white board from the spot where's it's been balancing against the clear glass wall facing the courtyard, and writes on it. Then the clerk walks back to the window and places the white board where it can be read by those waiting outside (or is it inside?) in the courtyard. That's when we all stand, stretch, walk over and see if your name has been written.

I can't recall seeing a system quite like this before. Or at least in any recent period. Again, these tax folks are struggling to do their jobs in a facility that works against them and with a system that is, well, outmoded and outgunned at best. I give them credit for returning, day after day. I'm just glad we don't have to.

June 16, 2005 - Thursday

Thanks to Eloise Aguiar for yesterday's Advertiser story on the free store in Kailua, part of FreeBay Hawaii.

With the first arrests to result from the scheme to inflate circulation numbers at Newsday, there must be other newspaper execs looking over their shoulders today.

Here's an interesting site, Media Transparency, which is tracking "the money behind conservative media". It's worth putting on your "check out now and then" list.

Just a reminder that we live in what qualifies as "the country"--this photo of our house was taken a few mornings ago as we walked up to the end of the road behind the Kaaawa fire station. The house appears in the upper left. And, yes, our lot extends down that little hill to the road.

Click for larger photo

June 15, 2005 - Wednesday

Both Honolulu dailies are reporting today that Peter Posang Wong, the founder of Pacific Group Medical Association, entered guilty pleas to two felonies yesterday in U.S. District Court in Honolulu. It's a milestone in a saga that dates back nearly a decade to collapse of the once high-flying health insurer.

I spent a lot of time reporting on PGMA's collapse. It had been reported on as a business story, but my first pass through court records provided the evidence to start reporting it as a story of fraud and white collar crime. It also provided clues to the kickbacks being paid by PGMA and other firms to then-UPW state director Gary Rodrigues, which eventually led to the conviction of Rodrigues and his daughter.

Interestingly, Wong and his wife suddenly moved to California just as the state moved in on PGMA, and bought into a small insurance agency where they quickly took control. Within a couple of years they had again expanded into handling lots of other people's money through an online system for handling employee benefits and related services, and I've received several inquiries over the years about whether this was the same Peter Wong involved in the collapse of PGMA and the disappearance of millions in the process.

Here's another "what's happening to him now" story. Former family court judge Richard Lee is still facing disbarment proceedings. Although the Supreme Court has given him extra time to file an additional legal brief in his defense, the process seems to be moving towards an inevitable conclusion. In addition, Lee and his company, Nu-u Corp., are being foreclosed on by First Hawaiian Bank in a case involving the mortgage on a penthouse unit in the Century Center condominium as well as Lee's law offices on the ground floor of the same building, which was offered as additional collateral. Lee is trying to avoid the foreclosure by selling the penthouse to...his daughter, who also has taken over his law practice. A good trick if he's able to pull it off.

June 14, 2005 - Tuesday

I may have waited a bit too long to shift to the summer version of the title photo for this page with the summer solstice arriving next week. In any case, I'll make the shift today.

Here we go again, another British memo disclosing that Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq in mid-2002, and then had to look for an excuse to make it appear legal. The text of the memo was printed by the Times of London.

The Chicago Tribune reports today on several Illinois county officials having to defend their trip to Hawaii for the National Association of Counties. And an AP story by former Ka Leo editor Alex Da Silva, which reports that some officals are being forced to cancel their Hawaii trips, is getting wide play across the mainland.

Is Oceanic keeping track of what you watch? I haven't checked their privacy policy lately, but according to this report they're testing a new system for tracking viewing data. Lots of implications to this, it appears.

I had to offer the cats equal time after yesterday's round of morning dogs. Here's Ms. Wally, looking a bit pensive. Just click on her photo for more. Please.

Ms. Wally. Click for more

June 13, 2005 - Monday

The announcement came about 10 minutes before our scheduled flight last evening as we sat at Gate 87 in the main United concourse at San Francisco Airport.

The voice of the customer service agent filled our end of the concourse: "As of June 7, United is no longer serving hot meals on flights to Hawaii."

"It's a long flight," she said. "You will have the choice of four snack packs, with things like sandwiches, or crackers and cheese, the kind of things you get from a vending machine. These are $5 each, cash only. If you think you'll get hungry, I would advise you to go to one of the places here in the airport and buy something to eat."

This was after a free-for-all at the understaffed self check-in counters, where delayed flights and other problems appeared to be on the verge of overwhelming United's limited staffing.

United's organization on the ground in Honolulu seems to work much better than in SF, but the danger signs are clear. There were quite a few unhappy people coming away from the check-in counters and grumbling about the elimination of meal service, a bad sign for an airline struggling to survive. And, with United's survival so important to Hawaii tourism, these are these are certainly releveant to us here in the islands.

Media news: In a decision and order signed by DCCA director Mark Recktenwald and issued last week, the state has directed Time Warner's Oceanic Cable to make another channel available to Olelo, Oahu's public access provider. The move was opposed by TW/Oceanic. The new channel will be used to expand public access programming, which had been reduced to accomodate increased hours of government and Dept. of Education-controlled broadcasts. A copy of the D&O #320 is available online from DCCA. It provides an interesting current assessment of Olelo and its programming issues.

That we miss our cats after being gone for a week is a given. But we've also seriously missed our morning dogs, like Ms. Tiki, whose medical condition is a cause for worry. So I put together a new dog gallery during yesterday's flight home before my laptop battery faded. Just click on Ms. Tiki.

Ms. Tiki Click for more

FYI, we didn't get home until about 11 p.m. last night, but all the cats checked in within just a few minutes of our arrival. They were as happy to see us as we were to see them.

June 12, 2005 - Sunday

Well, despite being bounced around occasionally in the dangerous seas of extended family dynamics, there have been some obvious benefits to this Chesney gathering. I'd have to count yesterday's visit to the Mariposa grove of giant sequoias among them. We didn't start on any of the longer hikes, but did take the modest walk to several of the giant trees, which were quite amazing. By volume, the world's largest trees, or so the signs said.

In any case, this is a travel day. Five hours or so of driving to get back to SFO (the San Francisco Airport) and then another five to get back to Honolulu, and the 45 minute drive to Kaaawa via H-3. A long day, but we'll sleep tonight with the sounds of cats instead of listening for bears in the darkness. Meda's sister, Mae, reported that yesterday morning a good size bear was climbing up one of the main beams up to the deck of their rental house down the street after spotting an ice chest left outside. Mae grabbed the chest and ran inside, and Mr. Bear apparently went on his way. I'd rather put up with the early wake-up call of cats playing.

Back to "normal" tomorrow. Photos to follow.

Previous week • Other