July 13, 2006 - Thursday

Alert: I'm taking a few days off for the first time in several years. Unless there's a sudden change in plans, you'll have to live without your daily dose of iLind.net until next Monday, July 17. Have a great weekend, and I'll try to do the same.

At the same time, I'm starting to phase out these strange little Google Ads. Whatever changes Google has made over the past six months have gradually reduced the already meager stream of revenue to the point where it's no longer really worth putting up with the distractions they create. When I started to do this once before, income unexpectedly jumped and I backed off, but it looks like Google's time on this site has come and gone.

KITV advanced the Art Academy theft story again yesterday, this time identifying the man accused of the theft and explaining how the stolen items were recovered. It leaves me a bit less sympathetic to the Advertiser's "nobody wanted to talk about it" explanation.

The Advertiser does have a good story this morning about the proposed UH military research center based on Navy documents obtained via a freedom of information request. Unfortunately, at least from the point of view of local reporting, the FOIA request did not originate with the newspaper but instead with the Quaker-based American Friends Service Committee. While I'm glad the Advetiser is writing about the documents, it would be a lot better if it were also reporting the story in a way that involved digging out information like this. I would guess there are editors over there saying the same thing.

If you live or work anywhere along Kapiolani or Kalakaua, prepare for months of disruption as a major sewer repair project gets underway shortly. This one is so big that it has its own web site, www.kapiolaniwatersewer.org. A public meeting is planned a week from today (July 20) to share information with businesses and residents who will be impacted.

Public relations for the project is being handled by Community Building & Communications Inc. The company is headed by Kris Young and, according to State business registration records, was incorporated on May 5, 2006. I'll have to search for information on the contract for this one.

With this round of photos from June, the Kaaawa Gallery is officially up to date, at least until the end of this month.

Finally, here's the week's Friday Feline a day early. This is Mr. Leo. I was on the deck trying for a few cat poses when he decided to jump up on a plastic recliner that sits in the corner. The odd perspective added just the right touch. As usually, just click for a larger version.

July 12, 2006 - Wednesday

Honolulu Advertiser editor Mark Platte responded to the readers' comments here yesterday:

There's no conspiracy about the Honolulu Academy of Arts theft and there was no pressure placed on The Advertiser.

We followed up a report in the Bulletin on July 2. The reporter left messages for the academy director who did not call back. He left a message with museum staff. They declined comment. He spoke with a Watumull family member. She said TV had reported it all and did not wish to go further other than to confirm it happened.

We ran an AP brief in the Monday, July 3 paper on B-3 saying a Watumull member confirmed the theft. The rest of the brief credited KITV.

We did not follow up after that. Busy with other things, I guess.

Not sure you want or need all the details but that's what happened.

I don't know Mark, but I hope others appreciate his openness and willngness to communicate. His lack of defensiveness is not the norm among editors and certainly runs counter to the Gannett stereotype.

Is anyone downtown watching California melting down again over the costs of imprisonment? The state's citizens are again being asked to foot the growing bill for long prison sentences and the "three strikes" approach to crime. It's always possible that Hawaii's implementation of the three strikes law won't push us towards bankruptcy, but clearly that's a danger lurking out there in the financial jungle now that the legislature has voted to go off in this direction.

Here's a tidbit from GovExec.com back on July 3:

MONDAY, JULY 3
3:45 p.m. ET

The Air Force thinks there might be some nuggets of information in these little things called "blogs." The Air Force Office of Scientific Research has given Versatile Information Systems Inc. of Framingham, Mass., $450,000 for a three-year project called, "Automated Ontologically-Based Link Analysis of International Web Logs for the Timely Discovery of Relevant and Credible Information." The idea, the Air Force says, is to develop a tool to figure out what information flying around in the blogosphere at any given moment in time is actually important. Good luck with that.

A former neighbor, who forwarded that link, comments: "the air force now knows all the news from kaaawa is important"

I'm still trying to catch up with the past couple of months. This is a collection of my favorite Kaaawa photos taken during May, including this one in Kaaawa Valley. Just click on this picture for more.

5:31 a.m. and the city crew just backed their truck down Haahaa Street for today's trash pickup.

July 11, 2006 - Tuesday

With all the focus on North Korea's recent missile tests, I was most interested in this column from the San Francisco Chronicle, which refers to the tests as "Provocative, alarming, but not illegal".

Regarding the question of why the recent theft from the Academy of Arts received so little news coverage, one reader commented:

I think the reason you never read anything about the Academy of Arts theft in the Advertiser is due to their realtionship with each other. There's probably a reason that for several years now the Advertiser hosts lavish functions there....probably didn't want to rock the boat with a partner.

Another reader had a similar take on the matter:

You were wondering why nobody else followed up on the Art Academy thefts, but I'm sure you didn't want to come out and say that pressure was heavily applied by the Academy big wigs to keep it quiet. Those were gifts from Indru Watumull and she is like a goddess to the Academy staff. I was eating lunch there one day, when she came in with some people to have lunch. Every big shot from the Academy was hovering around her and all but kissing the hem of her sari. She was beautiful and utterly gracious to everyone, even smiling at us strangers sitting near her. What alarmed me about the theft was that the same guy came back and tried to break into another case! Good grief, do they have a security system there at all? Amazing

I did notice that the Academy is advertising for full or part-time security guards, "generous benefits available".

And...it took repeated efforts to give some money to PBS Hawaii yesterday. Actually, I was trying to contribute enough to get a couple of Antiques Roadshow tickets for friends. Otherwise, I would have given up after the first couple of unsuccessful attempts.

On the first attempt, I called the telephone number given on the PBS Hawaii web site for "membership department", and got a recorded message...."We're unable to take your call at this time..." So I left a message.

Five hours later, no call back. So I tried again, this time via the station's main number. A person answered and then transferred me to...another recorded message. I left another message.

Finally, after waiting another hour without a call back, I searched the web site again and spotted a number to use if you want to contribute valuable real estate, stocks, or other valuable personal property. Finally someone answered who was quickly able to take my money and, hopefully, send another pair of tickets our way.

Maybe it was just a bad day over there at the station. But, at minimum, this is certainly not the way to build viewer loyalty and trust.

July 10, 2006 - Monday

Governor Lingle's selection of deputy prosecutor Iwalani White as the new director of the state's Department of Public Safety probably isn't surprising, but it is disappointing.

Here's a department that is in almost perpetual crisis and has faced repeated periods of federal oversight because of mismanagement of the state's prisons, the department's largest responsiblity. With such a history, you would expect the state to seek out an experienced corrections professional to guide the department. Instead, as in so many cases, Lingle turns to a lawyer without education, training or experience in the unique problems of correctional settings.

I'm sure White is a fine lawyer, but she doesn't have the background to deal with the prison system. Hard questions are in order when this appointment is reviewed by the Senate.

Just how much and what kind of use should reporters make of press releases and editorial content provided by the well-oiled military public information machine? And when material written by the military finds its way into our news, what kind of labelling is sufficient so that the reader doesn't confuse it with information gathered by the reporter?

A reader asked those questions in relation to Gregg Kakesako's "In the military", a column that appears regularly in the Star-Bulletin and, just as regularly, contains slightly rewritten excerpts from press releases and bylined articles distributed by military commands.

For example, Kakesako's column yesterday included an item about the visit of a Pearl Harbor ship, the USS Salvor, to Vietnam that appears to be drawn from a bylined story distributed by the Armed Forces Information Service.

The paragraph quoting the ship's commanding officer is taken directly from the AFIS story, although there's no direct attribution to either a military press release or the original story containing the byline of Petty Officer 3rd Class Adam R. Cole, USN.

In the Star-Bulletin's online edition, "In the Military" appears with Kakesako's byline, while in the print edition his name appears at the bottom with contact information but without a byline.

A longer item that appeared in the column back at the end of May described reactions of Hawaii marines to their deployment in Iraq. One sentence makes reference to a military press release:

Daily patrols through this dangerous region in the Euphrates Valley is the norm for these Hawaii-based Marines, a Pentagon news release said.

What is less clear, however, is that the rest of the column was a rewrite of a military-provided and bylined story.

The reader observes:

I'm skeptical as to how many other readers would understand "a Pentagon news release said" to mean "every quote and the majority of the imagery that follows was generated by the Marine Corps News service." If I'd read the column before I'd seen the release, I would have simply thought that the release said "daily patrols ... is the norm."

If the "In the Military" column consistently carried a subhead simply stating that items are drawn from press releases and other material provided by the armed forces, it would eliminate the confusion. The failure to add such a disclaimer places reporter Kakesako in the uncomfortable position of appearing to take credit for original material bearing someone else's byline.

Over the weekend, I caught up on my "Picture a week" project, filling in the remaining weeks from April and May, including this photo from Kaaawa Valley.

Kaaawa Valley Click for larger photo

July 9, 2006 - Sunday

Usually when I hear claims of "exclusive" news stories I take them with a grain of salt. But KITV's had the scoop last week on the $500,000 worth of jewelry missing from the the Honolulu Academy of Arts and remains the only news outlet, print or broadcast, to report the items had been successfully retrieved. Reporter Denby Fawcett deserves credit for breaking this story.

I was checking Google News for stories about Honolulu and noted the Star-Bulletin followed KITV in reporting the initial theft, using KITV's broadcast as its primary source. But no one else followed after the story broke.

You have to wonder why the story was not reported elsewhere. It was apparently the first major theft in the history of the Art Academy, certainly legitimate news, even beyond local circles. Why the silence?

An email from Republican Party chair Sam Aiona to party members on Friday solicited volunteers to serve a July 12 meal at the transitional shelter for the homeless in Kakaako, prompting one reader to comment:

GOP grows a heart every two years, and like the Grinch, it disappears after the first Tuesday in November. Lingle used to get her campaign team to volunteer for IHS before the 2002 election, never to be seen again after Nov. 2002.

The Advertiser business section today carries a Washington Post story on the use of the Internet by angry consumers, but readers got the link to the same story here back on Wednesday.

This is Mr. Liko, one of our Kaaawa morning dogs. On two or three recent mornings, he somehow managed to wind in and out of this large plastic play house until his chain became hopelessly tangled. Despite his plight, Liko still wanted a dog biscuit.

Morning dogs Click for more