Recent photos: Vieques (Puerto Rico) 1978 • Malaekahana 1959 •
Historic Kualoa sugar mill • Kaaawa in November •

February 14, 2007 - Wednesday - Valentine's Day [ permalink ]

Our Star-Bulletin arrived yesterday looking like a cross between Valentines Day and Halloween, with a splatter of blood-red across the front of several sections, including the "Today" secion with its centerpiece valentine photo. Ouch.

[Update: Disregard this report, as the rack was gone when we got there this a.m.] And then there's the Star-Bulletin street rack dumped off onto the beach along Kamehameha Highway a couple of days ago just at the entrance to Kaaawa. It can be found just before the bridge as you enter Kaaawa when driving from the Kaneohe direction. I should try to remember to call and let them know it's there.

Making the rounds in the UH Women's Studies Program yesterday: "Did you know that the new president of Harvard, Drew Faust, used to be director of women's studies at U of Pennsylvania??"

From a reader:

"I am in total agreement with you about the fact that we should grant respect to the community members who serve on state and city and county boards and commissions. Years ago, when I worked for the City and County of Honolulu, I had to make sure the list of names and mailing addresses for all the boards and commission members were current so I could send them the monthly employee newspaper I edited. I knew most of them were very busy people with jobs, families and all that, and I wondered where they found the time to also do this public service."

A story in the Advertiser's Hawaii section yesterday caught my eye:

"Solar water bill shows pitfalls of legislative process"

The substance of the story, though, explains how a bill that seemed to be based on a very good idea is may be seen very differently from a variety of other viewpoints and perspectives, each carrying a different and sometimes competing set of interests. I suppose that could be a "pitfall" ("An unapparent source of trouble or danger; a hidden hazard") from the perspective of the bill's sponsor, but I would turn this around. The legislative process, at least this aspect of it, brings out the pitfalls in what seem initially like good ideas. Isn't it better to catch unintended consequences while in the discussion stage rather than learning about them after a bill goes into effect?

Finally, the link to the rules of the House of Representatives has been fixed and the rules are now accessible again online. The ethics provisions appear on the last two pages in a rule titled "Standards of Conduct".

February 13, 2007 - Tuesday [ permalink ]

Yesterday got off to a good start when Meda found another glass float, this one in the distinctive "rolling pin" shape. It was on the sand in the debris line, apparently washed up during the high tide. We were just luckly to be the first to walk past and notice it.

Are the alarms going off in response to the Advertiser's report of coqui frogs moving into Hawaii Kai? After hearing legislative testimony of the way these critters can quickly transform the quiet of the night, I get worried by every report that they're making headway on Oahu.

In my online ramblings, I came across an interesting example of how the Internet is transforming news coverage, in this case of a warehouse fire in Knoxville.

At the legislature, things are getting hectic. I've noticed several instances of bills suddenly being brought back to life after being "deferred" in committee, which usually means "dead for now". In these instances, previously deferred bills are suddenly appearing again on committee agendas for action, apparently the result of the chair or House leadership flexing their muscles.

Speaking of the legislature, two articles caught my eye, both in the Star-Bulletin. The first was Senator Hanabusa's column describing how bills are introduced "by request". A very educational piece. The second is a story in today's SB about a bill to legalize certain forms of prostitution. The bill is given little chance of passage, but there seems to be more agreement that the issue needs a public airing and proposed legislation is the vehicle for doing that.

"It's one of those bills you do it for public dialogue instead of trying to get it passed," said Rep. Bob Herkes (D, Volcano-Kainaliu), one of the bill's co-sponsors.

Legislative politics can be a nuanced process, and it's good to be reminded that that "up or down vote" we hear so much about isn't all that the process is about.

Final note: I'm getting a new laptop, again. Apple quickly initiated an exchange after I noted the problem my new MacBook Pro was having waking up from sleep. Possibly a fault sleep sensor, said the guy at the Genius Bar, but because I've only had it for a week, the company policy is to just swap for another unit instead of wait for a repair. So it's off to FedEx this morning to send this one winging its way back to the Apple Store.

February 12, 2007 - Monday [ permalink ]

Sorry for the delay in posting this morning. There was a technical glitch at HostRocket.com that prevented uploading the file. I submitted a trouble ticket and all was well when we returned from watching the sunrise.

A friend who flew in from the mainland on Saturday afternoon said commercial flights had to wait before landing while air traffic controllers struggled to accomodate the helicopters and jets that were in the air to prevent any terrorist strikes against the Pro Bowl from above. He was able to follow the above-the-scenes action on the audio channel that listens in on air traffic control.

Star-Bulletin owner David Black is looking at buying another Ohio newspaper, according to a story in his Akron Beacon Journal.

A Seattle Times column takes an interesting look at the debate sparked by Ehren Watada's actions.

Larry Geller stepped up in Dave Shapiro's defense after my rant on Friday about Dave's dismisive comment about the board of education. Here's what Larry had to say:

As an advocate for Felix students, I often attended meetings when an issue related to special education came up. Sadly, to the best of my recollection, the board never took any action at all on the issues brought to their attention by parents. That included cases of abuse of children with autism.

The minutes do not reflect the complete proceedings. What they did in case after case was pass the problem back to the Department of Education to resolve. In the end, the families usually had to find an attorney if they wanted to pursue the injustice. The perpetrator in one case was moved to another school and promoted! But not by the BOE, of course, they had washed their hands of it by then. By the DOE.

The IDEA required school board members everywhere to take special training in disability issues so that they could make decisions when these matters are before them. They have never, to my knowledge, taken that training. I even pointed out the exact section of the federal law to them at one meeting, but to no avail.

The BOE was interested in reducing the number of expensive due process hearings that the DOE is faced with each year. Their discussion was not how to improve the quality of the disgraceful IEP meetings that result in these hearings, but what they might do legally to prevent parents from filing. That's deplorable.

There's more to be said, but it gets tedious to recite a litany of neglect. I wouldn't pay them any more than the $100 they are now getting until they demonstrate better performance than we now see.

I don't really want to get sidetracked into a debate over the BOE. Larry clearly and strongly disagrees with the board's positions. I have no problem with that. I do have a problem, for reasons I've stated, with using witticisms to trivialize the actions and ridicule the members of the board or other public body.

If you're into maps, the Libary of Congress has an amazing online collection. Wander back to the main Library of Congress collection, and you'll find webcasts on a variety of subjects, "today in history", and a lot more.

I'm still a month behind, but at least I managed to finish up my selection of December photos. This is just one of the colorful dawns. Click on the photo for more.

December mornings

February 11, 2007 - Sunday [ permalink ]

A reader added this comment regarding the ethics law and the legislature:

I really liked the piece you did where you dug below the shallow surface of the coverage on the State representative and the care home.  Well done.  The other interesting facet to this is that the regulation of legislator conflicts of interests or perceived ones rests largely with the leadership and rules of the respective houses.  The extent to which the rules are enforced rests largely on the bonafides of the leadership.

Good point. So I went online to check the House rule and got an error message:

The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

Hopefully it's a temporary glitch.

Over on the Senate side, here's the applicable rule, which is likely similar to the one in the House.

Rule 85. Conflicts of Interest

(1) No member shall vote on any legislation if the member has a direct financial interest in the legislation, unless the member is part of the class of people affected by the official action based upon the member's profession, trade or business; provided that this rule shall not apply to votes on the recommendations of a committee when a member has disclosed a potential conflict. For the purposes of this rule, a "direct financial interest" means that the legislation affects the legislator's personal business, property, or financial interest.

As I said earlier in the week, it typically isn't considered a conflict of interest for a legislator to propose or support legislation which will benefit a broad class of which he or she is a member. And voting on the recommendation from a committee that impacts a members interests is permitted as long as those interests have been previously disclosed. I'll have to look more closely as prior ethics commission opinions on this point when I've got a bit more time.

Speaking of ethics, the National Conference of State Legislators has a state legislation database that you can use to look up what's being considered or has passed in other states on a range of ethics issues. There's also a list of news stories which they've gathered under the "Ethics in the News" banner.

I failed to mention last week that Calphalon replaced under warranty the "everyday pan" with the non-stick finish that started to show scratches. Mine is the 10" version of this item. I don't recall if this was a "lifetime" warranty or a 10-year warranty, but the company agreed that the finish was defective and delivered the replacement to our door. Well, actually it was waiting in our garage one night when we got home.

The instructions accompanying the new pan say that you can now use metal utensils as long as they're not sharp, so a metal spoon or spatula is now okay to use. We'll see.

Hint: If you buy one of these pans--and it's one that I consider very useful--just stick the box into a closet somewhere so that when that finish scapes through, it will be available for the return to the factory. It worked for me.

It's about 59 degrees this morning in our living room, with a light wind blowing through the room. It feels like that creates a wind chill inside the house, something mainland folks don't think about when they laugh at our complaints about "cold" Hawaiian weather.

Winter dawn

February 10, 2007 - Saturday [ permalink ]

An Advertiser "breaking news" headline caught my attention a couple of days ago: "Naked man hit by car on highway near Leftovers"

A 47-year-old man has been taken to The Queen's Medical Center after he collided with a vehicle on Kamehameha Highway near Leftovers surf break, Emergency Medical Service spokesman Bryan Cheplic said.

Police said the man, who was naked, was running on the highway before the collision. The driver stopped and checked on the man, police said.

Somehow my brain says naked men are not reasonably described as colliding with moving vehicles. As the headline says, they are "hit" by moving vehicles. I just can't get into calling this naked man-car interaction a collision. Perhaps that's just my own quirk.

Yesterday's entry concerning Hawaiian Dairy Farms LLC and its request for $37 million in state special purpose revenue bonds brought several replies from sleuthing readers.

From Cathy in Honolulu:

I ran into the same zero when searching the DCCA biz registration yesterday; I was so amazed that I confirmed it with Mark Recktenwald, DCCA Director. I called Marcus Oshiro's office to inquire- but no one had an answer; The dairy industry is dying here. Note HB1221. The cost of feed and transport make up 50-70% of expenses--and those items are increasing with fuel and ethanol prices - the local farmers are asking for a manini $6.6 million over 2 years for the 5 remaining dairies and 9 egg farms in the state just to help with feed costs.

Erika tracked the company's Internet registration and came up with this:

Whois info for, hawaiiandairyfarmsllc.com:

Registrant:
Perfect Privacy LLC
303 Peachtree Center Ave
Atlanta, GA 30303
US

Perfect Privacy is a service that allows you to mask your identity when registering a web site. A Google search for perfect privacy llc turns up a number of instances of suspicious or fraudulent web sites registered via the company. You've got to wonder why a dairy outfit with a very large bond request is trying to hide information about itself.

Blaine added this tidbit indicating the web site was only recently registered:

Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
Record last updated on 17-Nov-2006.
Record expires on 17-Nov-2007.
Record created on 17-Nov-2006.

Then Brenda in Austin noted an April 2006 Hawaii Reporter article about the dairy venture signed R. Binversie, executive director. According to Binversie:

Hawaiian Dairy Farms is presently working with Governor’s office as well the Dept of Agriculture, University of Hawaii and several other government and private organizations.

Then she turned up an funny article in the Lakeland College Mirror (a Wisconsin paper), which refers to Randy Binversie as a "local cheese-loving speedskater".

Later in the same story:

"...Binversie's is one of the cheesiest families in Wisconsin. His wife had the once-in-a-lifetime prime opportunity of being "Alice in Dairyland" a few years back. Alice in Dairyland is the cheesy name for a public relations spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture. Binversie's brother, Michael, has one of the larger dairy herds in Manitowoc County."

That led me to Kevin Binversie's blog, Lakeshore Laments., also from the Manitowok, Wisconsin area. Related? Probably. Any clues about Hawaiian Dairy Farms? Not that I spotted in a quick look.

No Binversie shows up in local court records, or in any documents indexed in the Bureau of Conveyances. I haven't checked federal court records yet.

So that's as far as we've gotten on this chilly Saturday in Kaaawa.

By the way, Silverman's responding well to the antibiotics, which seem to have his injury under control.

February 9, 2007 - Friday [ permalink ]

One of the places I always look for items of interest is bills authorizing specific companies to issue special purpose revenue bonds. There's a bill up for a hearing tomorrow (HB 1778) to authorize up to $37 million to an outfit called Hawaiian Dairy Farms LLC to finance "the purchase of land and cattle and the construction of facilities and infrastructure, irrigation systems, and waste removal systems using an anaerobic digester".

The question: "Who are these guys?"

I tried checking the business registration system at the Department of Commerce & Consumer Affairs. The answer: "No businesses found matching 'hawaiian dairy farms'".

The company also has a web site, but it is sort of a conceptual presentation of why this dairy would be a good idea. There's no concrete business plan, no existing facilities, no identification of the principals in the deal. And we're seriously considering letting them snag $37 million of the state's bond allocation? Hmmmm. Maybe there's a whole lot more information somewhere that explains why this deserves major support, but it's not apparent from here.

Okay, I'm going to quibble with Dave Shapiro again. Every week his blog culls out nuggets of news to dress up with one-liners of witty commentary. Fair enough. Here's one of today's items:

Members of the Board of Education say they deserve salaries beyond the $100 per diem and travel expenses they get for each meeting. Golly, how much more nothing could they possibly do to earn the extra pay?

On the one hand, Dave bemoans the lack of citizen involvement and the woes of democracy without participation. On the other hand, he lets loose with cynical salvos like this that really distort the facts to put down those who step up to the plate and devote their time, energy, and reputations to doing the things we all know need to get done.

You may disagree with the actions of the board of education, but it's misleading to give people the impression that they do nothing. It's easy to get a bit of a sense of their job by looking at their meeting schedule or reading through some of the meeting minutes.

How can we ever hope to restore any semblence of democracy if opinion leaders like Dave constantly ridicule or belittle the hard work of others? Dave's approach is cute, but, in my view, debilitating.

Feline Friday, and Mr. Silverman's in his downstairs spa recovering from yet another injury to that same shoulder. He's been to the vet twice for what appeared to be a sprain, but showed up a couple of days ago with a new injury that's swollen up like a ping pong ball. Poor guy. And he really hates that antibiotic.

So it goes on this Friday.

February 8, 2007 - Thursday [ permalink ]

Printing woes at MidWeek delayed Wednesday's issue of Honolulu Weekly, which still wasn't out on the racks by mid-afternoon. And for those who missed it, here's my extended reaction to Lingle's State of the State speech as it appeared in last week's issue.

Media junkies might want to check out MediaBistro.com, a daily compilation of news about the media. One of today's stories appears in slate and asks the question, "Can photographers be Plagiarists?" Hit that link and then run the slideshow. It's similar to the question raised in a federal lawsuit by photographer Kim Taylor Reece who went to court to block marketing of a stained glass image which he says copies one of Reece's iconic photographs.

An alert reader called my attention to quite an extraordinary story in the Maui News this week by Harry Eager, which describes how former state transportation director Rod Haraga was stripped of his statutory authority while deputy directors in charge of the airports and harbors were made to report directly to Bob Awana in the governor's office. According to the story, this situation continued for over a year before Haraga finally resigned.

I've been told of a similar situation in the Office of Youth Services, which administers the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility, whose authority over HYCF was reportedly stripped by the governor's office. Although the circumstances of former director Sharon Agnew's resignation were not reported, a very similar loss of administrative authority apparently played a key role. She took the public heat for conditions at the facility but was blocked from taking action. The situation is hinted at in a reader's comment posted on Dave Shapiro's Volcanic Ash blog earlier this month:

During this administration Sharon Agnew, the ED for OYS, has long taken the bulk of the heat for the vast administrative problems surrounding HYCF. Some of it was fair, most of it wasn't. I imagine it is very difficult to manage a problem when your higher-ups arent willing to acknowledge and grant you the authority to effectively deal with one of the root causes of the problems.

It makes you wonder whether these problems faced by the Lingle administration have been worsened by secret takeovers of the responsible departments by the governor's political staff.

February 7, 2007 - Wednesday [ permalink ]

This is the lead sentence from an editorial this morning in the Advertiser: "What part of "conflict of interest" does state Rep. Rida Cabanilla not understand?"

My pet peeve with reporting on this kind of issue is that it takes a somewhat complicated statute with specific legal provisions and mushes it up into a somewhat vague concept of conflict of interest without ever giving the reader a sense of the elements of the law.

The issue in this case involves a bill which would have amended state law regarding the location of nursing homes and, in the process, indirectly aided a campaign backer of the representative.

The truth is that technically, Rep. Cabanilla, under our law, does not have a conflict because certain conflict provisions do not apply to legislators.

Hawaii's ethics law is found in Chapter 84 Hawaii Revised Statutes, and the conflict of interest provision is down in Section 84-14.

Here's the summary set out in the first few lines of that section:

Conflicts of interests.  (a)  No employee shall take any official action directly affecting:
     (1)  A business or other undertaking in which he has a substantial financial interest; or
     (2)  A private undertaking in which he is engaged as legal counsel, advisor, consultant, representative, or other agency capacity.

First thing to note is that this provision applies to employees and not to legislators, a weakness in the statute to be sure.

But if this standard were applied to Rep. Cabanilla, she would be in trouble because, at least according to the Advertiser's account, she has appeared on behalf of her friend's business at the Waipahu Neighborhood Board and, potentially, elsewhere.

If, however, she was making a regular appearance at the neighborhood board and fielded a question about the nursing home but did not actually appear as a representative of the business, then the conflict allegations might not have been fair. In representing her friend in an "agency capacity", she would have created a "substantial financial interest" in the plan and created a conflict, at least if that standard is applied to legislators.

Two additional provisions of the conflict section do apply to legislators as well as employees:

(c)  No legislator or employee shall assist any person or business or act in a representative capacity before any state or county agency for a contingent compensation in any transaction involving the State.

(d)  No legislator or employee shall assist any person or business or act in a representative capacity for a fee or other compensation to secure passage of a bill or to obtain a contract, claim, or other transaction or proposal in which he has participated or will participate as a legislator or employee, nor shall he assist any person or business or act in a representative capacity for a fee or other compensation on such bill, contract, claim, or other transaction or proposal before the legislature or agency of which he is an employee or legislator.

So legislators and employees can't accept contingent payments for pushing a bill or other matter through a state or county agency, and can't accept payment for pushing a bill or other claim forward if he or she will participate in decision making or if it comes before their agency, in this case the legislature.

A separate section of the ethics law (84-13)deals with "fair treatment" and prohibits giving anyone special treatment.

Fair treatment.  No legislator or employee shall use or attempt to use the legislator's or employee's official position to secure or grant unwarranted privileges, exemptions, advantages, contracts, or treatment, for oneself or others...

But this section explicitly provides: "Nothing herein shall be construed to prohibit a legislator from introducing bills and resolutions, serving on committees or from making statements or taking action in the exercise of the legislator's legislative functions."

And the fact that the bill would have impacted nursing homes generally as a class, rather than aiding a single business, would lessen or remove the chance that this would violate the "fair treatment" provisions.

To appreciate the process the Ethics Commission goes through to assess potential ethics violations, just read through a few of the commission's prior opinions, which are available online at their web site.

You've got to love Bandit, and there's a lot more to love every time we see him as he continues to grow. This picture doesn't really convey the fact that he's getting to be a big dog. He looks like some kind of terrier-airedale-BIG DOG mix and he's got a lot of energy and interest in the dog biscuits I'm always carrying.

Click for more dogs

February 6, 2007 - Tuesday [ permalink ]

The latest issue of the IRE Journal (publication of Investigative Reporters & Editors) has a very suggestive story describing how KNBC television in Los Angeles has effectively used the Internet to boost the visibility of an investigative report on Jiffy Lube.

According to reporter Joel Grover: "When the investigation fi rst aired, it was viewed by 578,000 people in the Los Angeles area. Since then, about fi ve million people across the country have viewed our investigation on the Internet."

The Internet is a great venue for investigative reporters to showcase their work. It allows them to present their investigations in far greater detail than on the airwaves.

“A Web site is the place for an investigative story to really shine,” Buck said. “A Web site isn’t going to tell a reporter to keep their story to three minutes. We’ll give you as much time and space to tell your story as you need.”

Further, most stations’ sites will allow a longer Web version of the story with elements and information that couldn’t be included on air.

Here's an extreme example from the Rocky Mountain News, a 33-part series expanded on the web to include "22 videos, 33 slide shows and scores of supporting documents."

By comparison, Hawaii news outlets are generally behind the times in the use of the web to extend their underlying coverage.

Along the same lines, here's an interesting blog entry looking at the web sites of early presidential candidates. It observes:

Perhaps I shouldn't have been, but I was surprised that none of the Republicans are so far using any social media (except for a couple of feeds), but the Democrats are making quite a use of it.

There is also a great use made (well, by the Democrats) of shared media sites, like Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn and so on.

Finally, here's a view of a recent winter morning in Kaaawa. This is the way I like my winters. Cool but warming quickly. Click for a larger version.

February 5, 2007 - Monday [ permalink ]

Doug White (www.poinography.com) in the second part of an entry yesterday noted reverberations from the disclosure that Senator Will Espero is now employed by a major homebuilder with a massive project in his district. You may recall reading that tidbit here first, where it was noted on January 14.

I ran into the web site, Covert History, while checking out an entry from last week concerning Lee Harvey Oswald's links to the CIA.

And here's another great peek into history with a web site of excerpts from various presidential tapes done by a program at the University of Virginia. A lot of time can be spent browsing this site.

While you're at it, check out the News Index at Journalism.org, which assesses the topics covered in both talk shows and news coverage each week. It's a useful overview of what is, and isn't, grabbing attention.

I took my camera along for super sunday, which we spent up the street with friends. We also encouraged Toby to join us for the party, which he did. In fact, he was the hit of the party except when he discovered the smoked salmon hidden among the platters of goodies in front of the television. Then he was "Toby, NO". From my perspective, the photos were as good as the football, which was great.

Toby & Ms. Sarah