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October 5, 2002 - Saturday
| It was a different walk for us this morning. We spent the night in my office after a late evening with friends (more on that later). So our walk this morning took us over to Ala Moana Park and Magic Island, which offers some wonderful morning sights. The difference is that there are hundreds of people walking, running, cycling, and swimming by 6:30 a.m., quite a contrast to the quiet and relative solitude of our Kaaawa mornings. |
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And it's a good thing we didn't head home yesterday afternoon, since a dramatic shootout closed Kahekili Highway, the main route to our part of the island.
It was quite a crazy news day with the shootout, Patsy Mink's funeral services, the visiting Congressional delegation, high-stakes movement in the dock situation, etc. The various newsrooms must have been just about off the frantic scale.
Then there was J.C. Penney's announcement that they'll be closing all there stores on Oahu and possibly all in the state. What luck for the Star-Bulletin, since that Penney's advertising insert has been one of the very few national retail preprints handled by the S-B. Now losing that account has to hurt, at least the spirit if not the bottom line.
October 4, 2002 - Friday
The Rodrigues trial was on hold yesterday because a juror got sick, and won't reconvene until Tuesday.
One reader commented yesterday on the west coast shipping dispute in which the ship owners have locked out union workers and prevented them from doing their jobs:
Personally, I think the dockworkers ought to embrace the new technology instead of buck it. I have to say I side with the shippers on this one. Stevedores are well compensated. Perhaps their brute strength merited their exceptional wages way back when. It won't even take that much smarts to learn new technology! Uber nerds who create software for items like scanners or cranes or what have you also make them embarrassingly easy to use.
That doesn't sound unreasonable, except that the union isn't resisting technology. What they are resisting is a move by the shipping companies to use technology as a cover for union busting.
Actually, the ILWU put a proposal on the table back in July to accommodate the latest technology, as long as the jobs created along the way would continue to be union jobs, rather than allowing the companies to begin shifting jobs into nonunion categories.
And are the costs of union labor unreasonable? In an interesting discussion last night on the PBS News Hour, both a union backer and a banker agreed that labor costs are only about 5 percent of overall shipping costs. Not insignificant, but certainly far less than the companies would have us believe.
And from a longtime labor analyst:
The longshoremen are NOT on strike -- they are locked out by the employers, the stevedoring companies, with the support of the three major shipping lines: Hanjin, Evergreen and COS (China Overseas Shipping). The PMA is trying to eliminate the hiring hall and to end coast-wise bargaining. Their position is too unreasonable for them to agree to effective mediation. The ILWU has agreed to submit the remaining issues to mediation and arbitration. To avoid this, the PMA resorts to dramatic gestures such as bringing armed guards to the Federal Mediation Service meeting, with 25 people instead of the five ordered by the Federal Mediator. The PMA goal is Bush to intervene on their side -- rumor has it that Taft Hartley will be invoked Saturday.
| It rained through the full hour that we were out walking yesterday. Not hard, but a steady drizzle. I haven't developed a good technique for holding an umbrella and snapping off photos at the same time.
But I managed this image earlier in the week. Each morning we wonder what the sunrise will be like, and that bit of mystery, the unknown potential of the dawn, is a strong motivator that gets us out of bed and out the door and walking.
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click for larger photo
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October 3, 2002 - Thursday
I spent the day yesterday observing the end of jury selection and an afternoon of opening arguments in the trial of UPW director Gary Rodrigues. He and daughter Robin are facing a total of 102 counts of theft, embezzlement, conspiracy and mail fraud. There may be some other things in there as well.
Advertiser court reporter David Waite has a good description in today's paper, as did the Star-Bulletin's Debra Barayuga. Most of what was said yesterday has been heard before, but there were a few new bits.
It was disclosed that a insurance agent Herbert Nishida is the previously unnamed person who allegedly passed on envelopes of cash to Rodrigues to show his "appreciation" for the union's life insurance business. Assistant US Attorney Florence Nakakuni, who took the lead for the prosecution yesterday, said Nishida earned $100,000 a year in commissions from the union's deal, and returned thousands annually to Rodrigues.
Nakakuni said a UPW staff member will testify that she was once called into Rodrigues office, where he counted out $5,000 in cash and asked her to purchase a cashier's check made out to his daughter, Shelley.
During sparring over pretrial motions in the morning, it was disclosed that prosecutors recently obtained evidence that Rodrigues shredded documents relating to union contracts with Hawaii Dental Service and Pacific Group Medical Association after learning that the deals were subjects of a federal investigation.
Prosecution witnesses said to include Rodrigues' former girlfriend and secretary, Georgietta Carroll and her mother, several UPW members and staffers, and others.
The trial is expected to stretch over six weeks. An interesting six weeks, it appears.
The Writer's Almanac on National Public Radio pointed out that Tuesday was the birthday of Fletcher Knebel, the political columnist and novelist, who spent his last years here in Hawaii before ending his life in 1993.
Here's what they had to say:
It's the birthday of journalist and novelist Fletcher Knebel, born in Dayton, Ohio (1911). Knebel turned to fiction only after a number of years as a top-level political correspondent in Washington, D.C. In late 1950, he joined Cowles Publications and became a syndicated political columnist, creating a short daily feature, "Potomac Fever," that satirized the day's news. Cowles Publications also owned Look magazine, and Knebel soon began to cover important politicians--especially John F. Kennedy--in Look features and profiles. He persuaded a colleague, Charles W. Bailey, to collaborate with him on a nonfiction account of the bombing of Hiroshima. The collaboration produced No High Ground, a well-received short history of the politics, military production, crew training, and execution of mission in the first deadly nuclear explosion.
I checked my own file, and came up with a copy of The Last Word, a little verse that Fletcher read at his 80th birthday party, held at the Chinese restaurant in Kahala Mall and attended by quite a crowd of family and friends. I guess this verse is now a piece of history.
October 2, 2002 - Wednesday
I received another report on the same polling operation described here on Monday.
had an interesting phone call this morning from some research firm (think Pacific research) asking a few questions of registered voters.
the questions were about assisted suicide for the terminally ill (pro/against), the direction of life in hawaii (getting better/worse) and which candidate for gov & state representative and one other race, i forget which. he butchered every name except the haole ones and had my wrong district.
when i mentioned that it was Hirono not heranono and that i wasn't in pendleton's district he seemed a little confused that it wasn't the appropriate response.
if this is the polling sample they're relying on, someone is in trouble.
The lock-out by shipping companies on the west coast finally got my attention. So there I was yesterday afternoon in Safeway. While those around me were stocking up on toilet paper, I had the real essential: cat sand. I don't know what would happen if we ran out. It's one of those things I would rather not be forced to experiment with.
And I wonder what kind of newsprint stockpiles the newspapers have? Or does their newsprint arrive from foreign ports?
I had a telemarketer call a couple of days ago offering a promo on home delivery of the New York Times Sunday edition. Guaranteed by 8:30 a.m. I bit, but only after pushing a bit to see whether our area (Kaaawa) is really within their home delivery zone. I'll believe it when it arrives.
| Lucy's puppies were 4-weeks old on Monday. This is one that stayed still long enough for a photo.
For more info on the pups and our other dogs of the morning, just click on the photo or on the mornin' dogs banner to the right.
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October 1, 2002 - Tuesday
The trial of United Public Workers director Gary Rodrigues gets underway today in U.S. District Court in Honolulu. Today's just the beginning of jury selection. I fully expected Rodrigues to cut a deal of some kind by now. He's got a lot to lose by going to trial. But what a fascinating trial it will be! One thing the trial will do is focus attention on the financial workings of the union health plans, which are still a hotly disputed terrain where the unions and legislature still disagree. Rodrigues is accused of using his position to arrange kickbacks in the form of payments to a company owned by one of his daughters, who is also a defendant in the case. Inquiring minds have to be concerned whether there have been similar arrangements linked to other union contracts.
I stumbled onto an interesting site, Collective Detective, which boasts "Distributed Investigative Environments". It's an interesting concept, but I have no idea whether it really works. It comes with a hefty fee of more than $40 a year for full access, although there's a free "rookie" account for newbies who want to see what the site offers. It might be worth a wander.
A formerly confidential documents surfaced recently. It seems that after I wrote a series of stories about District Court Judge David Fong, the Office of the Disciplinary Counsel was appointed to staff an investigation of his financial disclosures. The appointment was made via a confidential Supreme Court order. The order remained confidential for eight months, and then was unsealed by a second court order. The substance of the Disciplinary Counsel's findings, however, apparently remain confidential.
September 30, 2002 - Monday
As the national media react to Patsy Mink's death, it's obvious how little we get in the way of Washington reporting. I noted in the Chronicle of Higher Education that she was "the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce's Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness, which oversees most higher-education programs."
Maybe so, but we didn't read or see much about it in our local news. Washington is typically just a void. No wonder interest in politics is low.
There are some people whose names I love to see in the email list. My friend Marnie is one of them. She's always good for a laugh, or a genuine insight or two. Her weekend email was no exception.
I just received a phone call from Pacific Rim research something-or-other, wanting to ask three questions in a political poll. Curious, I said okay. The first question was, "Do you like the direction things in the state have been going?" I asked her what the hell that meant. Which things? She paraphrased, "Are you happy with the way things are, or would you like to see change?" I told her, firmly, that I was very happy with the way things are, mainly because I didn't like being baited, and because I'm a to-the-death Democrat and was feeling suspicious.
Then, I told her the question was vague and leading and sounded like something a Republican in Hawai'i might want them to ask, so the answers could be used in a political ad about how unhappy everyone is with the status quo. I also told her that it was also incredibly unscientific, since it could be interpreted in too many ways. It's not whether you want some things improved that's important; it's where you think the solutions may be found.
I asked if her bosses ever took feedback on the quality of their survey questions from people they called. She said, "No, but many other participants have said the same thing as you about that first question." I asked her if it was the client or the research firm who had written the question and she said, "I have no idea. I'm calling from Chicago and we just read the script."
For the record, the other two questions were "Do you plan to vote Democratic or Republican in the upcoming Hawaii state gubernatorial election?" and "Are you for or against assisted suicide for the terminally ill?"
By the way, if I hear the word "change" one more time I will throw up.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of change. I also hate getting old. Did you know John Prine is coming to town? Not to be missed. I was listening to his music this morning and a line jumped out:
"She has the mind of a child and a body peeking over the hill." Don't we all. Heehee.
Well said, Ms. Marnie.
September 29, 2002 - Sunday
Aloha to Patsy Mink. We live in her Congressional district, and will vote for her next month. We will also miss her political voice, although she rarely appeared in our part of the district. What a strange situation. Party strategists must have looked closely and decided that odds for retaining the seat in the Democratic column are better in a special election than with the last-minute candidacy of a replacement. At least it will be an even playing field. The party already has its hands full with the tough governor's race, and another costly, island-hopping campaign at the same time would have been difficult.
Speaking of obits, SF Chronicle writer Alan Saracevic wrote a nice one today for the afternoon newspaper tradition in the Bay Area, which died along with the Chronicle's P.M edition. Scroll down to the end of his column today for this tribute.
| Red, white and blue, Kaaawa style. Click on the photo to see a larger version. |
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