August 19, 2006 - Saturday

August 18, 2006 - Friday

The Star-Bulletin is wrong to term this week's attack on Ed Case's legislative position on Hawaiian issues as "political dirt".

At the time, the problem in my view seemed to be that Case either didn't understand or didn't care about the actual politics of the issue, the inner "who is doing what to whom and why" dynamic that lies just beneath the surface and is so important to dealing with this kind of hot button topic. He pushed in with his particular agenda and, whatever its merits, seemed oblivious to its context and the vested positions on different sides or how his actions would be perceived by others and, without understanding the political landscape, stumbled badly.

Examining that history may stir up the same conflicting political currents but shouldn't be construed as "dirt".

From today's Daily Kos, a bit of cat blogging about our purring partners as keen predators.

Congressional candidate Mazie Hirono has produced her first radio spot. It's not apparent anywhere on her campaign web site but can be downloaded here, according to a campaign supporter.

My birthday lacked most of the celebratory pizzaz, instead was spent in a long and difficult condo board meeting, and dealing with a situation that hopefully I'll get to write about soon. We did, as expected, have the birthday "treat" of an obligatory trip to Costco for those big box essentials (charcoal, dog biscuits, pasta, etc.). There wasn't much energy left for cooking, but dinner turned out okay nontheless.

Birthday meal- Click for more

August 17, 2006 - Thursday

Happy birthday to me! Another year...

Several people responded to yesteday's mention of the Advertiser story on the bank probe.

Great story, absolutely. Of course, bank folks have been a'titter about it for a while, and I'd have to credit Hawaii Reporter for pushing the story out first. The HR piece links to the actual filings, decent reads for public records folks!

A while back, I got a request from a relatively new cat owner wondering what to do with their indoor-outdoor cat while away on a trip. I offered some advice, and yesterday received an update on how it all went:

I ended up timing my trip at a time when a neighbor could stay at my place. And, as expected, the cat was fine...he adjusted quickly to his new caretaker and seemed quite unfazed by having a new bedmate to snuggle up to at night. My neighbor did avert at least two catfights with a big neighborhood tabby who likes to antagonize my much smaller cat. This convinced me that I should definitely board this cat on future trips when someone may not be around regularly to check on his comings and goings.

An email from Jim Albertini is reminding people that there is a local web site set up to support Lt. Ehren Watada. Jim writes: "Please ask everyone on your e-mail list to go there to the home page and scroll down to the bottom, then click on comments and leave a message of support to Ehren. Let's all show him that we are behind him 100% and that he has our Aloha. Mahalo plenty."

I checked this morning for any goodies on Coolgov.com, which usually points to some fascinating government documents, and found the site has been hacked and defaced. Cyber vandalism.

Not much celebrating on today's birthday agenda. I've got a noon meeting, some other work to do, and we may end the day with a stop at Costco for dog biscuits and other necessities. A real party animal. Right.

August 16, 2006 - Wednesday

The Advertiser is a good read today with excellent stories by Rick Daysog on an FBI probe of allegations at American Savings Bank and Peter Boylan on an HPD betting probe. Both great stories.

Early readers today were greeted by my major morning error, for which I apologize profusely to the folks at First Hawaiian Bank. I was about 10 minutes into our early walk down to the beach and was thinking about Daysog's story when I realized my fingers typed "First Hawaiian" although the brain was reading "American Savings" as target of the FBI interest. First Hawaiian came to mind because that's our bank, as in the one that we entrust our various accounts to. [Disclosure: American Savings is "my" bank as well in the sense that I have a bit of stock in the bank's parent, HEI, that has been on automatic dividend reinvestment for at least twenty years.]

Yesterday's court ruling that two San Francisco Chronicle reporters will have to testify about their sources for grand jury testimony on drug use in sports is buzzing in journalism circles. I'll check for interesting documents from the court file later today.

Star-Bulletin labor negotiations continue. I'm told they're closing in on a contract for those working in the MidWeek press room, after which they'll be turning to the remaining issues for the Star-Bulletin newsroom.

We didn't manage to get through our usual run of thrift shops and other favorite places, but finally managed a good representative sample. It will take a couple of days to put together the photo record, but here's a teaser.

August 15, 2006 - Tuesday

I'll probably be lazy and cut this entry short today as we begin celebrating our [number deleted]th anniversary! Nothing special, just the usual tour of our normal haunts.

The source is conservative, the math interesting. The conservative weekly, Human Events, is projecting that the Senate would be split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans if the election were held today.

Hey, the sun's going to be coming up in 15 minutes or so, time to start walking down to the beach. Please check back in tomorrow.

August 14, 2006 - Monday

In a Star-Bulletin story on Saturday, UH film school director Chris Lee was pitching a student-produced news show by criticizing what he referred to as the mainland bias of local news.

As an example of the drift away from local concerns, Lee said weather reports never used to be a major concern for Hawaii viewers. But now, some stations have followed the lead of mainland stations to make the weather a central part of their news broadcast, he said.

But there's a history to the weather reporting which goes back to a broadcast "audit" done by the Honolulu-Community Media Council in 1992 under the direction of Fletcher Knebel. That audit found that weather was getting only the briefest mention, the then-traditional "highs in the mid-80s, lows in the low 70s, windward and mauka showers," etc. Then came Hurricane Iniki just about the time the audit was released, underscoring that weather has news value, and the rest is history.

Check out the item in June Watanabe's Kokua Line column on Sunday regarding surveillance of public areas outside the Hawaii Paroling Authority office on Ala Moana Blvd. Quite an interesting issue.

The Detroit News carried the first installment of reporter Jill Carroll's account of her experience as a hostrage in Iraq in yesterday's edition.

Do you know anyone with a desire to travel, do good, and feed their adventurous spirit at the same time? Christian Peacemaker Teams is looking for a few good people willing to make a three-year commitment. Check it out.

Our week of celebrating (our anniversary and my birthday) got off to a good start at yesterday's UH summer commencement ceremony, where Lisa Pasko, Meda's first "official" doctoral student, was among those graduating. Meda was able to do the traditional placement of a UH academic hood on the new Ph.D. who flies off later in the week to a waiting job at the University of Denver. They've had a close relationship during Lisa's graduate career and, along the way, even worked together to produce a new edition of one of Meda's earlier books.

August 13, 2006 - Sunday

Catching up with email, here's a comment from a reader on coverage of the Kauai nurses strike:

August 11th, Friday – will mark the 49th day of the Wilcox Nurses Strike.  There has been little coverage of the event – though it ranks high to the people of Kauai – and is in their consciousness - there has only the occasional spike due to collective picketing of the HPH corporate offices in Honolulu. What the strike hinges on is the employer’s complete refusal to put in place an acuity system that works.  The Wilcox nurses have been pushing for a real system for several years – and now at the bargaining table they pushed – and the result is a strike.  

Why an acuity system, why not merely $$$ and more benefits for nurses?????  Because the bedside nurse is the direct hands-on caregiver – and the check between delivery of care and fiscal restraints, such that quality medical care is not sacrificed at the altar of fiscal priorities.  Remember – an acuity system determines how many RNs you will have on the floor, when an acuity system does not work, patients are at risk because there will be too few RNs for the level of needed care. (It can be heady stuff – remember the nurse in the OR that saved the piece of metal from the screwdriver that the doctor cut as a replacement part for a back operation on the Big Island? Who was speaking for the patient in that action – it was the nurse!!!)  

But where are the stories about the average RN and what is expected of them in the newspaper? Did you know that the average patient in hospital today in critical condition in Intensive Care is someone that 10 years ago would not be alive? How has the higher acuities affected the delivery of patient care in a hospital….and then how does one equate this with the shorter hospital stays?   In plain English – there is a unit in Queens Medical Center where 2 years ago the average stay was 7 days – it is now 3.5 days – that means the bedside nurse has doubled their discharges and admissions in a 7 day sequence…..in addition to processing patients who are more ill.  Remember to discharge a patient can take a lot of time, there are medications to distribute, educating patient about their condition and the family etc.  Where is the community (the newspaper?) that addresses the stories of this streamlined medical brave new world? And why aren’t the newspapers looking beyond just ignoring labor actions – so they will not have to address the uncomfortable realities of the shortages of medical personnel and the logical outcomes of this neglect.  I don’t need to hear about avian flu to know that we are facing real calamity in our healthcare system.

On August 7th the Advertiser had several stories on the front of their Section C - “Business” – that was the 45th day of the strike on Kauai……what were the stories that the Advertiser printed????? The headline was “Hawaii economy still strong”…..interviews with L&L owner, Duty Free and Times Market (what’s the matter – so they only ask people that advertise with them?).  Then below that are the “labor” articles…..”Who’s at fault when workers fall?”, “Survey:Workers goof off a good bit” and “Study links mood to performance”.  Somehow I think that company’s human resources departments are too narrow of a group for a state-wide paper to concentrate on.  Then – as an afterthought - there was an article about working for the FBI (“FBI work out of reach for many”).  It was puerile, and left out a major fact, there are age restrictions for applying for a job with the FBI.  

Thanks for listening.

There were also quite a few comments on Friday sparked by Bob Jones' comments on carry-on free flights.

Here's LeeAnn from the Bay Area:

Just wanted to point out that the TSA has approved locks for bags. You can buy them from the airlines and the TSA has the "key" to open them, should they have to.

I am also looking forward to no carry-ons. As an airline employee I spend must of the boarding time gate checking bags that don't fit (just cause it has wheels does not mean it's a carry on!) and when we run out of overhead space. The businessmen are the worst and I do understand the frustration of having to wait at the end of your flight for luggage but just think if everyone had to check in a bag how fast the security lines would move.

And (name withheld) from Atlanta:

Personally, I wouldn’t mind a little bump-and-grind stripper music to take my belt and shoes off by and to get me in the mood for my inevitable pat-down. (My artificial hip lights up the metal detector like a Christmas tree.)

Interesting note:  The smaller the airport, the more aggressive the pat-down. I guess those TSA agents don’t get to feel up as many passengers – and they’d like to make the romance last.

Pretty soon we’ll all be flying naked.  And it’s so darn cold on those flights.

And your reward for reading this far? More cats. I was working downstairs on Friday and Silverman apparently thought he could help work the phone. Or keep work from happening anywhere near the phone, perhaps. In any case, he moved right in and made himself comfortable. So click on his picture and check out a few of our other Kaaawa cats.

Time for more Kaaawa cats

We're heading out early for the UH summer commencement, where Meda is going to place a doctoral hood on her first Ph.D. student.