The conflict and confusion surrounding changes of health benefits administered by the Hawaii Employer-Union Heath Benefits Trust Fund continue to be interesting to follow.
Yesterday, following a special board meeting, EUTF administrator Jim Williams issued a long press release blaming the whole mess on misleading information distributed by HMSA.
Williams’ [...]
Sean Hao has another good story this morning on Honolulu’s rail plans in today’s Honolulu Advertiser, this time focusing on the city’s failure to revisit the “at grade” or street-level option.
Speaking of trains, check out the Brookings Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative, which is compiling information on the nation’s urban [...]
We had a few lemons left over in the refrigerator. Then I bought another 3 pound bag. And a few days ago my mother gave me several more for good measure, including a couple of her home grown giant Meyer lemons.
So we’re swimming in lemons.
What do [...]
This cryptic message received from a friend:
Who remembers where you were 46 years ago today?
My reply:
Probably anyone who was 10 years or older on that dark day.
I remember that our junior class at University High School boarded buses and headed for Ala Moana Park for a scheduled class picnic.
The news [...]
WHITMORE VILLAGE — Helemano Farms, grower of thousands of Norfolk Pine Christmas Trees in Central Oahu, opens on Black Friday! This is our fifth year of tree sales. The farm will be open every day, from noon to sunset on weekdays and 10 a.m. to sunset on weekends, until two [...]
If you missed Bill Moyers Journal on Friday night, “A Tale of Two Quagmires”, you can still watch it online or read the transcript, or listen to excerpts.
Do it now.
Moyers walks viewers through the history of President Lyndon Johnson’s struggle with Vietnam policy, using the [...]
I started getting emails Wednesday morning following eBay chairman Pierre Omidyar’s announcement of the planned launch of “a Honolulu-based local news service that will produce original, in-depth reporting and analysis of local issues in Hawaii.”
Plans which, they way, will create a profitable and sustainable enterprise.
All I could think of was, [...]
Here’s another small moment in Hawaii culinary history, found among the papers and photographs belonging to my father, John Lind. It was taken at a meeting of the Geneva Club in Honolulu, probably in the immediate post-WWII years prior to 1950.
On [...]
The state and University of Hawaii have blown opportunities to reach a contract settlement with the faculty union several times since preliminary talks started nearly two years ago, according to the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, the faculty union.
In one glaring example, the union and the UH Board of Regents [...]
I just found a file among my father’s papers containing several issues of the Waikiki Surf Club newsletter (”The Surfer”) from the period 1954-56.
These are very informal and simple, typed sheets, 1-3 pages each. They introduce new members, name club officials, congratulate teams in various competitions, recognize births, birthdays, and [...]
It’s funny how little changes can shake up a cat’s world.
Over the weekend, I moved an old rug-covered cat tree from a spot under a window in a back corner of our dining room to a new spot on a corner of [...]
In 2002, my father was asked for his recollections of the founding of the Molokai to Oahu canoe race on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.
It became an opportunity for him to record some memories of that period in the history of Hawaii’s competitive surfing and canoeing.
I’ve found [...]
All aboard the Superferry Express!
While most news media focused on Honolulu Mayor Hannemann’s announcement of a labor agreement that will prevent strikes during the construction phase of Honolulu’s proposed rail system, Star-Bulletin reporter Gary Kubota jumped on the more important news of the signing of the first phase [...]
The colors were slow in appearing this morning. At first it looked like a simply gray dawn where the sky slowly gets lighter and at some point you realize the sun has somehow moved up somewhere behind a cloud. No colors, no light show, [...]
I’ve been spending some time browsing the web sites of state and county agencies, trying to get a better sense of how well they are being used to inform the public and provide useful information.
Yesterday I found myself at looking at the State Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, where [...]
I hear your pain.
Google’s flood of ABC News/Sarah Palin ads took me by surprise this morning.
Enough is enough, right?
I’ve followed the instructions to block further appearances of this ad.
The instructions warn that there’s a delay before the ads are blocked.
Hopefully it won’t be a long delay!
We were sitting here over a few cups of coffee digesting the morning news when Meda suddenly sputtered and shook the copy of the Advertiser at me.
She pointed to a long sentence in Derrick DePledge’s story on Department of Education furloughs.
“This makes no sense,” she said, and read the [...]
I was very interested in Chad Blair’s story, “Tourism 101 tour aims to make legislative friends“, which appeared in the November 6 issue of Pacific Business News. [I don't know if the link will work for non-subscribers, but give it a try.]
The story describes an ongoing “series of informal' [...]
Monday morning, time to browse the news in the Pacific Northwest, something I try to do several times a week.
The Oregonian (Portland) is reporting that Portland State University’s athletic director will make a decision soon on whether to fire football coach Jerry Glanville, who took over at PSU after [...]
Sunday morning browsing…
Over at the city, check the FY 2011 budget forecast, which predicts a 29.5 percent drop in the value of building permits during 2009, a 10% decline in real property tax income, and a total $140 million budget shortfall.
Or the list of settlements in [...]
I received this email message & attached comments overnight.
“Sent to the KHON news team after one of the most mediocre news broadcasts in a long, long time….Regards, Desmond Yen”
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Desmond Yen
Date: Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 12:55 AM
Subject: The quality of your newscast has reached new [...]
At the end of October, I visited my dad at his nursing home and told him we would be traveling for much of the following week. He seemed to track the discussion, although he’s been slow, sleeping an awful lot, to the point that even he comments on sleeping too [...]
Just a note to say that after many requests and questions, I figured out how to add a link to contact info, which includes my email and cell phone.
The “Contact” link now appears in the header, along with links to the Home page, archives, sitemap, etc.
I guess you can teach [...]
The woes of the Hawaii Employer-Union Health Benefits Trust Fund keep expanding.
Last week was the letter describing the ballooning backlog that could prevent timely verification of health insurance by the beginning of 2010.
Now comes a fat packet of papers for a newly required “Dependent Eligibility Verification”.
In what is described [...]
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The sun doesn’t appear at this time of year until after 6:40 a.m., which means that it’s still pretty dark when we make our way down along Kamehameha Highway to get to the beach.
This was the view this morning some 15 minutes [...]
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It’s Friday. Time for Felines!
This week I almost failed to get enough cat pictures and had to scramble a bit on Thursday morning so that there would be enough to choose from.
In any case, this is Mr. Toby.
He’s a reminder that we need [...]
Well, well.
Credit where credit is due.
I received an email from the director of the city’s Department of Human Resources yesterday afternoon (Thursday) with the quarterly list of personal services contracts for quarter ending Sept. 30 attached. It was delivered well within the 10-day response period provided, and the report was [...]
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In 1933, my father and a friend hitchhiked from California to Chicago to see the World’s Fair, then returned to the West Coast for free by signing on with a group of drivers to shuttle new cars from Detroit to San Francisco. Each driver drove [...]
It’s cold, just barely above 60 degrees in our living room. But it’s not raining, despite the threatening forecasts of the past couple of days.
And maybe I should just blame the cold for this morning’s outage. Yup, this site was down and unavailable early today (Hawaii time). Hopefully it’s going [...]
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Just after 4:30 a.m. it was raining here in Kaaawa, so I checked the current weather radar. You can see the rain that was sweeping across Oahu–it’s the yellow and red area on the map, with the red indicating heavier rain. You might have to [...]
Back in July, I raised questions about a quarterly report of personal services contracts that the city is required to produce. The problem is that names of those receiving these contracts are removed from the report somewhere between the time it is prepared by the city’s Department of Human [...]
Silly me. I thought I would drop by the State Capitol yesterday afternoon for the information session about changes in the public employee health insurance plan choices. Just me and thousands of others, it turned out.
There was no parking anywhere near the capitol. The capitol auditorium turned out to be [...]
Media Council Hawaii, formerly known as the Honolulu Community-Media Council, has announced a December 2 forum featuring the attorney representing the council in a legal challenge to the KFVE-KHNL-KGMB merger.
The council believes the merger violates policies of the Federal Communications Commission, which are designed to further localism, diversity, and competition, [...]
Did you catch the Advertiser story last week on an HPD joke about the UH football program that spread outside the department?
According to the Advertiser, a notice at police headquarters reported on discovery of a mysterious white powder during UH football practice. The FBI reportedly was called to the [...]
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Of course, finishing up next year’s calendars has taken longer than expected. But the end is in sight!
“Good Morning, Kaaawa” is the 2010 version of Kaaawa at Dawn.
To order, just click on the cover photo.
I’m putting the finishing touches on additional calendars featuring our favorite [...]
My dad, John Lind, spent time after his retirement in 1998 pecking away at an well-used typewriter to record some of the experiences of his long life. This little episode describes his first meeting with Henry Kaiser in 1955.
The opening of the Kalia Towers by Hilton Hotels occurred the later [...]
The administrator of the Hawaii Employer-Union Health Benefits Trust Fund, or EUTF, has warned legislative leaders and both state and county personnel officers that vacancies, furloughs, and other issues have created a massive backlog that could leave thousands of public employees unable to access the health care they are paying [...]
Ms. Wally is really the star of this week’s Feline Friday, despite the recent injury to her tongue, now healing. She appears in several different poses, outside on the deck, standing at attention, lurking at the edge of Mr. Toby’s picture, and rolling [...]
“Kolea” raises some excellent questions in a long comment posted here yesterday concerning the manuscript of Down & Dirty”, the recently rediscovered 1993 collection of items from my Hawaii Monitor newsletter. You can click on that link and scroll down to read Kolea’s comment.
Kolea wonders “if the older, wiser [...]
Another excerpt from my father’s rambling description of his life and times. John Lind arrived in Hawaii in 1939 and worked in the hotel and restaurant supply business until his retirement at the end of 1998, after more than 60 years in the business.
War, it seems, was good business as [...]
I’m tired of the “no new taxes” rhetoric spouted by lots of our pundits.
The latest to set my teeth on edge comes from the Tax Foundation of Hawaii, where the rhetoric has really heated up in a weekly commentary dated November 1, by the group’s director, Lowell Kalapa.
In fact, [...]
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Here’s my initial assessment of Feliway spray, based on about two weeks of use in our multicat household. This isn’t yet a true test because I started using an outdated bottle of Feliway of unknown origin, and am just shifting to a newer bottle of [...]
I’m posting Tuesday’s entry on Monday night, but it’s not the result of the daylight savings shift gone haywire. I’ve just got an early morning appointment and decided that trying to get something posted in the morning was pushing my a.m. schedule. I should get things be back on track [...]
Same old, same old. The Star-Bulletin reports today on the ruling of the Intermediate Court of Appeals upholding an earlier circuit court decision that the state underpaid substitute teachers.
The Advertiser reported this yesterday, but didn’t do their own reporting, instead carrying a Maui News story.
None of the reports [...]
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In case you missed it, Hawaii’s school furloughs made it into the big time as the focus of a New York Times editorial on Friday.
Back home, I was searching for a particular computer cable yesterday and finally looked in the bag I carry on [...]
It may have been snowing in Denver earlier this week, as a friend there told us, but here in Kaaawa the weather has been beautiful.
This was taken earlier this morning on the beach in Kaaawa. No pumpkins or goblins in sight.
Canon 5d MKII, Canon 24mm [...]
Early Friday morning, I added a caption to Ms. Wally’s photo saying that her poor appetite had me concerned.
An hour or so later, when we got back from our early morning walk, she jumped up into my lap and I took the occasion to [...]
I don’t think there’s any disagreement among those in the newspaper industry that making effective use of the Internet is the key to the future of new.
Then why do our newspaper seem so reluctant to make use of its natural advantages?
Here’s what caught my eye this morning. In print, photographs [...]
You’ve got to give Mayor Hannemann very high grades for shameless “spin”.
He makes the announcement that, in essence, the city can’t proceed with contracts and groundbreaking for the rail project in December because it has not obtained necessary government approvals. Simple.
So how does he turn this around?
According to the [...]
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