May 13, 2006 - Saturday

Thanks to Jeff Garland for pointing out Hawaiian Telcom's application to the state for a cable operator's franchise, which can be downloaded from the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs web site. I've only waded through part of the document, but it is stuffed with details about the company's structure and finances, included an audited financial statement for 2005.

Interestingly, Hawaiian Telcom attempts by bypass a requirement to disclose all stockholders with at least a 1% share of the company by simply disclosing the names of "three Carlyle investments funds that in turn are owned by numerous private investors." But the point is whether any individual holder has more than a 1% share. Will the PUC allow this little nondisclosure dance? Perhaps that's just a rhetorical question....

Former United Public Workers state director Gary Rodrigues is still waiting for the 9th Circuit to rule on the appeal of his criminal conviction on multiple counts, but now Rodrigues also faces an upcoming civil trial in a sexual harassment case. After numerous delays, a case brought on behalf of former UPW accountant Jeanne Endo has been set for trial in U.S. District Court beginning July 18. The trial had been postponed pending the 9th Circuit appeal, but will now go forward even if the appeal ruling has not been issued.

During Rodrigues' criminal trial, Endo testified he had shredded documents sought by federal prosecutors, according to a Star-Bulletin account.

And here's a provocative commentary from the Corporate Crime Reporter on an amnesty program for those accused of federal crimes, in this case the accused being major corporations.

May 12, 2006 - Friday

The investment firm partnered with Star-Bulletin owner David Black for a potential bid for Philadelphia's two major daily newspapers has suggested they would seek to cut "hundreds" of newsroom jobs, according to a report in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. According to Toronto's Globe and Mail: "A source close to the potential Canadian bid said Black Press chief executive officer David Black, who was brought in to advise Onex, is looking closely at employee morale, along with the state of labour relations at both papers."

Here at home, contract negotiations continue at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Hopefully Black is looking as closely at morale issues here.

Meanwhile, the Honolulu Advertiser currently lists two openings on Gannett's web site:

General assignment reporter: "At least five years' experience at a metro daily required. We want someone who is hungry to break news and has the clips to prove it. Ties to Hawaii a plus. Apply to Editor Saundra Keyes."

Copy editor: "Honolulu, HI: At least five yearsí news desk experience required. We want proven skills, not just potential. Someone who writes headlines that capture the essence of a story and readers' attention. Someone who edits carefully but finds flaws and corrects them. You must know grammar, spelling and AP style. Quark Publishing System experience and knowledge of Hawaii current affairs are big pluses."

If you haven't given a lot of thought to Stephen Colbert's speech at the Washington press corps dinner, this column from the Chicago Reader is a good place to start. It's a fascinating take on the reactions to Colbert's performance and the differences between old and new media.

Here's another quick round of scans, this time the photos are from a family trip to Kauai at the end of March and beginning of April in 1953.

Coco Palms, Kauai, 1953

May 11, 2006 - Thursday

I've still been puzzling over the state's campaign spending law in the wake of the legislature's failure to pass a bill clarifying its intent. Simply put, did the legislature in 2005 intend to prohibit corporations from contributing more than $1,000 in total to all candidates during an election?

Contrary to prevailing opinion, the answer is clearly "No", based on a reading of the legislative history and a bit of knowledge about the past jockeying over the campaign spending law. The elimination of corporate contributions would have been a dramatic change in the the law and in election practices, and it's not the kind of change that proceeds without comment. But there is no indication in the committee reports for HB 1747 , which became Act 203 (2005), to indicate this was the intended result.

If the legislature didn't intend to stop corporate contributions entirely, then the Campaign Spending Commission has overstepped its authority by imposing such a restriction via its own interpretation, in effect creating a prohibition the legislature specifically declined to adopt.

The conflict is actually slightly less direct, since the legislature declined to ban all direct corporate contributions and the commission interpretation limits those contributions to a token $1,000. But the impact is the same.

The prohibition on corporate contributions was added to HB 1747 in the Senate draft of the bill (SD1), which incoporated a provision "(r)estricting campaign contributions by banks or corporations to contributions made from separate segregated funds", which originally was part of a different bill, SB440 SD1 HD1.

But when HB1747 went to conference, the bill was amended by "removing the new limitation on contributions or expenditures by banks or corporations" as specifically noted in the conference committee report.

Doug White, over at Poinography.com, has also been trying to understand the current situation, but ended up wrongly concluding that even individuals who contribute more than $1,000 in an election period are considered "committees" and are required to register and file reports with the Campaign Spending Commission.

His conclusion overlooks the following provision in the law:

Notwithstanding any of the foregoing, the term “committee” shall not include any individual making a contribution or expenditure of the individual’s own funds or anything of value that the individual originally acquired for the individual’s own use and not for the purpose of evading any provision of this subpart, or any organization, which raises or expends funds for the sole purpose of the production and dissemination of informational or educational advertising.

The difficulty comes in interpreting Section 11-204(b):

(b) No person or any other entity shall make contributions to a noncandidate committee, in an aggregate amount greater than $1,000 in an election.

The Campaign Spending Commission has interpeted this as a prohibition on corporate contributions in excess of $1,000.

But if a corporation or union is spending its own money, it does not make a contribution to itself each time it contributes to a candidate, and this provision does not apply.

The restriction would apply to corporations or unions that have set up separate political action committees. In that case, it would appear that no more than $1,000 in general funds can be transferred to the donor organization's separate PAC. That hits hard at labor unions, which are required by other laws to act via their political action committees, but does not appear to restrict corporations expending their own funds.

Will some politically active corporation step up to challenge the commission's interpretation? It wouldn't be the first time that an overly restrictive commission interpretation was challenged in court, and I would expect the challenge to succeed.

Don't get me wrong. A clear prohibition on corporate funding of campaigns might be a step forward and in the public interest, and I would generally favor this move. But the legislature didn't adopt a ban and the commission shouldn't be trying to cobble one together out of disparate bits of the statute.

It's somewhat ironic that folks who normally demand transparency and an open process are now asserting the virtues of a ban on contributions via the commission's back-door legal interpretation, adopted without any form of hearing, opportunity to comment, or open debate.

Recognize this palm-lined boulevard? Probably not. It's Kalakaua Avenue in the heart of Waikiki as it looked in 1954, a whole different world from the Waikiki of today. It's among hundreds of photographs taken by my mother in the 1950s and '60s throughout the islands.

click for more

I managed to dig several boxes of slides out from a storage room at my parents' home and just started the task of reviewing them. Some show the ravages of spending 50 years in storage in Hawaii's heat and humidity, but others are in relatively good shape. My intention is to scan as many as possible, and this is among the first small batch.

May 10, 2006 - Wednesday

This isn't your typical Molokai story--it's a cat rescue tale, the story of Lucas, a special cat who now has his own blog and whose story was being circulated nationally this morning by the animal rescue group, Best Friends.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported over the weekend that a group of Democratic members of congress are asking the Justice Department to carefully review the sale of Knight Ridder's newspapers.

Thanks to the Supreme Court of Hawaii Blog for calling attention to this unusually blunt assessment of a request submitted for legal fees by a prominent local law firm.

More on the Star-Bulletin online ads:

Thanks for the responses. Actually, my pop-up blocker has always been turned on in Firefox and still does not work so whoever the reader is that suggested it either has something else working or they may be confusing pop-ups with pop-unders, which is what the SB is doing (to be completely accurate). On the Adblock, I don't want to block all ads on my computer. Some of them I find useful to see -- in their proper place. (I am in media so ads can tell me key things about the business and who's buying ads). But when ads like the SBs make me go out of my way to shut them off and keep coming back, then I get pretty annoyed.

I just chose a few of our photos from Boston to give the flavor of the weekend, which was highlighted by the spectacle of 43,000 participants in a charity walk on Sunday taking over much of downtown. But I just realized none of those photos made it into this select group. Go figure.

Weekend in Boston

May 9, 2006 - Tuesday

Now I'll reveal that we just returned late yesterday from Massachusetts. Several days in Dartmouth, where Meda made several presentations at a conference sponsored by the University of Massachusetts, and then a quick weekend in Boston before flying home. The forecast had been for rain, but the weather turned sunny and wonderful.

Neighbor David took excellent care of the cats, as always, although they've been extra anxious for attention for the 12 hours since we arrived.

Here's a nice email received late Sunday from Philip Robbins, who has been building the web site documenting hiking trails on Oahu, complete with breathtaking photos of each location:

I just wanted to thank you for your brief write-up of my website on ilind.net. Just before hiking in Moanalua valley today I had the pleasure of meeting a boy hiking coordinator who told me about ilind.net and how he recognized me from your link to my site. After speaking with him for awhile it appeared he had some very positive things to say about both our sites. This very much was welcomed feedback for me as the motivation for my website continues to be the completion and documentation of every trail on the island.

As for that ridge above Ka'a'awa, it continues to be the single most dangerous trail that I've done here. However as you can see the views are spectacular!

Mahalo,
Philip Robbins.

Firefox browser software got strong recommendations from two readers in response to the comment yesterday about Star-Bulletin pop-up ads.

Tell your correspondent to switch to Firefox and the popup problem can be solved. There's a setting in the Firefox options to block all popups. It sure makes websurfing more enjoyable.

And...

I'm surprised, there is ways around this. Most notably use Firefox along with http://adblock.mozdev.org/ and Ad Block Filter Set G extensions you eliminate 99.9% of all ads and pop-ups.

The Los Angeles teachers union responded to the recent Los Angeles Times story on union-endorsed financial plans, in essence agreeing that the situation needs to be critically reviewed.

Another group used the LA Times story to call on New York Eliot Spitzer to investigate, according to a report in Newsday, although the group, which pushes vouchers and "choice" in education, may have its own ideological bias in the matter.

But the NY Times reports today that Spitzer was already investigating the union's tie-in with ING Group based on an earlier Forbes story.

A reader added this comment about the situation with the Hawaii State Teachers Association:

"An HSTA union rep asked  VALIC  rep at a recent meeting why only high cost variable annuity companies were recommended by the HSTA. The VALIC rep said, “They were the only ones to apply” and did not mention anything about the fee that union receives from the insurance company. Interesting…"

May 8, 2006 - Monday

This comment came from a tech-savvy journalist and reader:

The SB is now pushing multiple pop-up adds off its site. Most annoying and harmful. As a result I am on the verge of not using their site anymore except through Google News. Their Webmaster might want to think about how much this angers users.

This is certainly not the first time someone's complained about those obnoxious pop-ups, but the Star-Bulletin's management doesn't seem to be listening.

You never know what you might find browsing the web.

Yesterday I was surprised to find that a police "investigation" in Bali was allegedly started last year after developer and former Hawaii resident Hanno Soth complained about about being "maligned" by an October 2000 Star-Bulletin story in which he was a key figure.

I wrote that story which chronicled a decade-long legal fight between Soth and the Christian Science church in Honolulu, each the primary beneficiary of different versions of the will of Carmen Herbert, a Honolulu woman who died in July 1990.

News of the complaint and resulting "investigation" appear in an April 2005 press release, apparently distributed by Soth's company, PT. Hanno Bali:

The victim of the Defamation case Hanno Soth showed evidence to Polda Bali including a number of authentic facts like the article that written by Ian Lind in Honolulu Star Bulletin, Hawaii which spreads malicious information about Hanno Soth, affecting the business of PT. Hanno Bali.

Bali police "have begun an investigation," according to the press release.

The press release is dated nearly a year after I had received an unsolicited email from Soth in August 2004.

For the record, I've had no contact from either Hanno Soth or the Bali police since this complaint was supposedly filed.

After that discovery, a deep breath and some Kaaawa beach glass to add bit of calming color. Just click for a larger photo.

May 7, 2006 - Sunday

Sense memory is amazing. I started reading a book about digital black & white photography, and it triggered a wave of sensations from my days of hand processing b&w films in our bathroom.

Kaaawa in black & white Click for larger photo

It triggered an almost physical recollection of the days of film and its accompanying sensations that the immediate visual results of digital cameras just can't match: The tactile feel of handling film, opening film cartridges and winding lengths of film onto reels for development in one of those light-tight bags, the smells of chemical developer, time spent studying the time/temperature chart, the anticipation while waiting the appropriate time to be able to retrieve the negatives and inspect the images, even the need to carefully ration images when the film supply was low. All part of that film package and missing today.

Somehow I ended up browsing a catalog from Freestyle Photo, which specializes in all things for "traditional" film-based photography and found myself wondering how much it would cost to have a backup film camera "just for fun".

In the meantime, I'll have to start dabbling in digital B&W, which like the traditional variety has its own sensibility and language that speaks with light, contrast and composition instead of relations between colors.