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The widely reported comments this week by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about his preferred fate for Taliban and alleged al Qaeda soldiers sent me running for information about the Geneva Conventions, the laws of war."My hope is that they will either be killed or taken prisoner," Rumsfeld said, speaking of mass life imprisonment for non-Afghan soldiers. In today's political context, his comments might reasonably have been interpreted as an invitation to executions.
Perhaps its time for Rummy and the whole administration of Bush the Junior, along with much of the press corps, to brush up on the laws of war. Perhaps they could begin by checking out those war crimes prosecutions of Bosnian Serbs accused of mistreating prisoners. Mistreating or murdering prisoners is a war crime, one that we've pushed to prosecute.
The Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War makes our responsibilities towards fighters for the other side. They have rights under international law, including rights to medical care, humane treatment, and due process, which would be violated by the kinds of summary justice being all-too-casually discussed by U.S. officials.
These are laws of warfare which have been developed and have served us well under conditions and with enemies far more threatening than those faced today, despite our government's rhetoric.
Whether Rumsfeld is calculating or simply callous is something I can't figure out. And his timing gives me the shivers. "I hope they'll all be killed, and, oh, pass the turkey dressing, please."
Back on the Hawaii news scene, these comments appeared yesterday on Louise Kubo's Hawaii Cows:
New kid in town
Well, yesterday was the last day for Liberty House. At 7 am today, folks walked into a Macy's instead. We don't know yet just how big a change it'll be, but we did notice one difference yesterday. Macy's ran almost 7 more pages of advertising in Gannett-owned Honolulu Advertiser than in the Star-Bulletin. It's not that they didn't have any ads in the Bulletin, but the difference in the number of column inches (and ad revenue) was huge.
On the cat front, a friend asked whether I had made any progress in figuring out Lizzie's day-long disappearance.
How did the debriefing go?
Did you shine a light in her eyes and ask tough questions?
Did you refuse to give her a Coke or cigarette?
Did she break down and confess?Unfortunately, I've made little headway. And she went walkabout again yesterday, reappearing around 7 p.m. as we were preparing dinner.
More of the tale tomorrow.
Interrogating Lizzie
An aside: When my spell checker hit "Taliban", it suggested an alternative--"Tailbone."
It was the kind of story you might have missed, a report in yesterday's Honolulu Advertiser on a Hawaii contingent making its way to Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York City. The eye opener was the byline--Robert M. Rees, who in recent years has been most notable as a writer for Honolulu Weekly, where he frequently dissected the Advertiser and its owner, the giant Gannett Company, with his acerbic commentaries. And now he's writing for them?"Strange doings." That was the comment received yesterday from a reader using the name "Leo Silverman", apparently a play on two of our cat names.
what's the deal with the top story in the advertiser's island life section by tailgunner bob rees? this guy's made a minor career out of spreading gossip about and generally running down the advertiser (although he seems to have even more of a hard-on for the bulletin), and now they're running a free-lance piece by him? is this some bizarre post-sept. 11 shift of allegiance? or is the advertiser's new features editor getting a free hand to make use of her former minions from the weekly? strange doings.What more can I say?
Former legislator and state judge Russell Blair, who this week asked the Supreme Court to rule on the issue of when a public official must resign in order to run for another office, responded to a query I had sent his way.
I'm very fond of constitutions and the rule of law. That's all (and it's more than enough.) I've got no horse in the races for Governor, Lt. Governor or Mayor. I'm not planning on running for any office. I don't want to be a public figure or a part of anyone's administration. If you've heard any other speculations, let me know. They'll be wrong, too.I'm looking forward to going back to school, but classes don't start until January 14th. I hope this little crusade (oops! can't say that word) will have ended by then.
I don't know about you, but Russ' little crusade sounds a lot like a perfect retirement project, one that could actually make a big impact on island politics.
Here at home, we've been in lock-down mode since last night, following a miserable Thanksgiving day split between searching for Ms. Lizzie and waiting for her return. After my aside yesterday morning about cats scattering, Lizzie was the only one who couldn't be accounted for. She didn't wander back in for breakfast, or at any other time during the day. Somehow she resisted the sound of our voices calling her home. This was most unusual behavior and, for that reason, most worrisome.
By 4:30, we had to head into town for dinner with my parents, leaving her status unresolved. And when we returned hours later, all turkeyed out, she still wasn't around.
I went to bed immediately, figuring I'd have to be up several times during the night to check for her. But just a few minutes later Meda yelled down the hall with the news that Lizzie had just strolled through the cat door. It was 9:35 p.m. She had been gone at least 15 hours. She was a bit skittery, but otherwise ok. What a relief. Today she's scheduled to be interrogated. Maybe we can discover her hideout.
This was yesterday's most colorful Thanksgiving bird. Touba is a Senegal Parrot, named for the city in Senegal, who lives with George & Lucy, two of our favorite morning dog friends (and their people, of course) down along Kaaawa beach.
He was outside yesterday morning while his cage got a good cleaning.
Nervous at first, he soon warmed up and began demonstrating his vocabulary, which was heavy on the "pretty bird" theme.
Rightfully so.
Touba's a Pretty bird.
Just ask him.
November 22, 2001 - Thanksgiving Thursday
From the "oops, missed that one" file: Reuters reported earlier this week that Ford's CEO was in Honolulu last weekend for talks with Bridgestone related to the global recall of tires.According to Reuters: "The secretive talks were thought to be the first of their kind since Ford and Bridgestone's Firestone unit severed their nearly 100-year relationship in a bitter dispute over allegedly faulty Firestone tires."
But the meeting apparently didn't get on the radar screens of Honolulu media. Too bad. It could have been a real coup.
Here's a little different view of Kaaawa, taken as we walked back from the beach one morning earlier this week. In Kaaawa, you're always very close to both the mountains and the ocean. It's an unusual setting.
Most of the cats have apparently been out prowling, and have just started checking back in. Kili just came by, Harry's up on the counter having a snack, Leo's been going around looking for things to hockey (as in "he hockeyed that glass right off the counter!"), Wally went out and up a tree, and Miki stood around staring at her food dish. Still a few unaccounted for, but it's early.Spoke too soon. Just after writing that paragraph, the cats scattered and heading for high places, and I ran outside in time to catch a wandering Chow in the flashlight beam. Got to do something about this. Soon.
In any case...Gobble, gobble, gobble. Have a good and safe day.
Former Star-Bulletin writer Pat Bigold is now handling media relations for the Honolulu Marathon, scheduled for December 9. His latest press releases are available at the organization's web site, www.honolulumarathon.org.Editor & Publisher's web site features a link to the Star-Bulletin's story on the wage cut agreement in its "news from elsewhere" section. "Move Will Stave Off Job Cuts", it says.
The announcement by University of Hawaii President Evan Dobelle of the appointment of two of his own associates from the East Coast to high-level and highly paid administrative positions, VP for external affairs and chief financial officer, has faculty and staff in the UH system scratching their heads and wondering how these selections were made. What has traditionally been a selection process marked by faculty involvement and relatively open reviews appears to have been replaced by presidential fiat. The appointments were described in an Advertiser story over the weekend.
Further musings were fueled by the report that Dobelle was reportedly "in preliminary talks" with Elizabeth Sloane, wife of the newly appointed CFO, "Wick" Sloane, and a former employee when Dobelle headed Trinity College in Connecticut. Some wonder whether these talks could be behind the administration's push for a revised nepotism policy for the UH system.
And while these high-profile administrative positions are being filled by fiat, Dobelle told the Board of Regents last week that some 250 UH administrators will be given legal notices that they could lose their jobs next year, and that their retention will depend on Dobelle's assessment of their work in the months ahead. Happy holidays, folks. Some of the academic administrators will be able to return to teaching positions, an option not available to all.
It turned out to be a tough Monday. First this site was unavailable for several hours.Then a friend raised my anxiety level with a Chow rant, including this snippet:
"They look cute, they wiggle, they have wonderful fur. And they were bred for centuries to be very effective guard dogs: kill the intruder, hunt down the enemy, bite without hesitation, take no prisoners. I really hate these dogs as pets. They eat children. They eat other dogs. They eat cats."Eat cats?! I did my best to repress any worry, responding that I've met one of the wandering Chows and he walked right over and licked my hand. That didn't appear to be a vicious approach to the world.
But when we got home, it was dark and Lizzie had gone missing again. She was the only one missing in a quick cat census, and after the experience of the night before I went out looking right away. This time I got a flashlight when I heard the first faint mewing, and sure enough, there she was, this time balanced on a twig of a branch 15 feet or so straight up a "weed" tree of some kind sprouted on the uncleared little slope alongside the house. Of course, I had to scramble down the slope to get to the base of the tree, then fight the dengue-carrying mosquitoes in order to try coaxing her down. It didn't work. I finally gave up and went back inside to eat and rant after determining that there was enough of an angle that she should be able to get down without falling. About a half hour later, she came running in on her own, a bit wary but otherwise all right.
We're thinking about leaving Ms. Lizzie locked in a bedroom today, just so she has a break from tree climbing.
On the news front, Jim Romenesko's national MediaNews column this morning includes a link to the Star-Bulletin's story about the newsroom pay cuts. There's also an enlightening but depressing recitation of layoffs elsewhere in the media world that's worth browsing.
And my chow-ranting friend also pointed me over to this pretty amazing set of photos of the Leonids meteors. Even if you're not into star watching, this is a wonderful collection of images.
In Kaaawa, yesterday's high waves made the news: "Waves crashed across Kamehameha Highway in Ka'a'awa on the Windward coast yesterday morning, but caused no damage, said O'ahu Civil Defense acting administrator Paul Takamiya." [Honolulu Advertiser]
Meanwhile, the string of colorful sunrises continues.
It makes getting up and leaving the house early a pleasure.
Somehow its not just the visual images but the whole sensual experience that makes these mornings special.
And when ours are the first footprints on the beach, it adds an extra touch.
Kaaawa morning
Those nasty bugs are at it again. It started last night, when I got a strange error message while trying to update one item. Then this message greeted a reader who tried to check in early this morning:
I'm just hoping for an early resolution of the problem by my hosting service on the mainland. If you're reading this, the problem has obviously been solved. And not a moment too soon.
And we had just solved our dying monitor problem on Friday. My dated Sony monitor had just been fading away, growing darker and darker each day. Finally we couldn't really see anything, so broke down and went shopping. Now I'm looking at a bright, clear image on what is just about the cheapest 15" flat panel display available, the Envision 5100e. I was a bit wary of these new fangled things, but this is very clear. The only problem is that the cats have to learn that the skinny screen doesn't offer a good step on the way to the top of the computer. Hopefully they'll figure it out before sending this thing crashing to the floor.
High surf and high tide in Kaaawa this morning had everyone commenting.
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Anyway, if you get this far, you can at least check out the new "mornin' dogs" photos that I posted last night.
Click on the photo
What a morning.I can't say that I saw the hundreds of meteors per hour reported by some observers on the mainland, but I certainly saw dozens in each of several shorter periods when I dragged myself out of bed and onto the deck overnight. We watched a bit about 9:30, then I was up at 1:30 and again around 3:30. The first two times, almost all the visible meteors came from the north or northeast. But at 3:30, they were flying in all directions. What a show! This was certainly the most meteors I've ever seen, no doubt about that.
Here's a meteor report from a friend in Kalihi Valley:
Watched the meteor shower like a sky addict, while my husband slept (big sale at the store today), but I did enough gasping for both of us. Even here, bound by doctor's orders to Kalihi Valley, I was able to see some stunning meteors, some even streaking the whole way from the Ko'olau to downtown. So to speak.That, in spite of the fact that some idiot had a searchlight scanning the sky -- originating somewhere downtown and shining back up toward the valleys, sweeping the otherwise black sky, back and forth -- who would do that during a sky watch? The new big cruise ship come to save tourism? The Victoria Ward capitalists with the Harry Potter movie? Maybe it's part of our war defense, lighting the sky on a moonless night to spot enemy planes. Or even perhaps John Weiser at Moanalua Mortuary "sending off" a soul.
Folks were also burning up the Starry Night discussion list today, with meteor reports from across the U.S., even one from Japan that I noted this morning.
This morning we managed to get both a colorful sunrise and a green flash, which seemed positive omens. But when we got home, the cats were all in hiding places, apparently the result of a visit from a dog belonging to some new neighbors who moved in two houses up the street just two weeks ago. They have two male Chows, and one was loose when we got back. Ms. Kili, Ms. Wally and Mr. Leo were up on high shelves or hidden rafters in the garage. Silverman, Harry and Lindsey appeared from hiding only after I walked around the yard calling. But Ms. Lizzie was missing. Several rounds of the yard failed to turn up any sign of her.
Click to see Lizzie up the treeThen Meda heard a faint mew. It still took us several minutes to spot Lizzie wedged in the branches high up in the mango tree next to the deck. She was several layers higher than she's been before, and was playing the typical trapped cat. Pitiful little meows and no signs of movement. Several times she seemed to be toying with the idea of leaping the 20+ feet to the ground, which gave us the chills. Then she would change her mind, sit down, and wait. Every few minutes, she would look down the tree as if she were ready to start down, but instead just held that position. Then another sad cry, more wiggling around, then hunkering down again. It went on.
She didn't finally make her dismount until about two hours later. Much to our relief. Of course, we'd already nervously gulped down breakfast between observation breaks, and had visions of being here all day before sniveling down to the fire station to plead for help. But Lizzie finally decided it was time, and made her move, first down the steepest section, and then, after a short rest, down another three feet or so onto a lower branch. From there, she made a calculated leap to the roof, and waited for me to pull up a chair, then climb up and pick her off the roof's edge. She was most pleased to be down. She ran into the house and immediately went to her favorite spot on top of the kitchen cabinets, and is now splayed out on top of the computer as I write this. She looks like she would like to go to sleep, but is on half alert, watching for that roving dog.
After the escape
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