Voter Registration Deadline: Monday, October 8
Gays Attack Hawaiian Culture, ‘Multi-Generational Families’ Use Feds to Pressure Hawaii DoE Bullying Programs
CB: Camaron Miyamoto, who works in LGBT Student Services at UH Manoa, said it's outrageous that groups like the emerging Hawaii chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network have had to pick up the slack for the DOE's shortcomings over the past 10 years.
"I believe it's the responsibility of the Department of Education to meet certain needs that they're delinquent in meeting," he said. (And what are those ‘needs’?)
Mono Ah Nee of the Life Foundation — a nonprofit that focuses on HIV/AIDS but has branched out into other areas — talked about being "mahu" yet bullied by family members. He attributed the cultural shift to the colonization of Hawaii, which pushed assimilation. (The gays need to tell you what Hawaiian culture should be.)
"But you realize that you're Native Hawaiian, that you have a greater bone density, you're darker skinned because your family works in the fields, you're plantation workers," he said. (Does he work at HC&S? LOL!) "Then you realize you're not going to have 3.5 kids because you're LGBT — you're mahu — and so you get bullying from your parents, you get bullying from your cousins.
"So how do you address that? Where do you start to try to change the community who's tried to erase who you are? But my culture says this. You know this mom, you know this grandma, auntie, uncle, brother, sister. You know that we have this in our tradition. You're forcing me to be someone who I know I'm not as a person, spiritually, or as an individual."
Ah Nee said on Oahu he can drive five minutes down the freeway and be who he is, but Neighbor Island residents may not have that opportunity. (Complaining there are not enough gay bars on sister isles.)
Antonia Alvarez, Mental Health America-Hawaii's youth suicide and bullying prevention director, said this is a unique challenge the state faces.
"What is framed as protective factors in most states, like having a multi-generational household, having extended family around, here becomes a risk factor," she said. "Many of our youth do not describe that as a protective factor and instead say they have no confidentiality, they have constant breaches of trust." (In other words, they need to get kids away from their families in order to enhance availability.)
Star-Adv: To Pay for Rail We Must Fire Lots of UPW and HGEA Members
SA Editorial: the finished transportation system, a network of buses complementing the core east-west alignment of the rail, is going to take a bigger bite of city tax receipts than the current bus-only transit service does now.
That figure is startling at first blush. Porter & Associates' forecast is that transportation services will need 19.1 percent of revenues from city general and highway funds in 2021, up from 11.1 percent in 2011. That's a peak figure: The share of revenues then will stabilize at an average of 17.5 percent through 2030, according to the report….
Any transportation system that will effectively serve the long-term needs of Oahu's urbanization and suburban sprawl will cost more. Budget priorities need to be rebalanced to reflect that higher priority….
So the message here is that transit costs are inexorably going to rise, and the city must consider strategies for reducing other costs to accommodate that.
Ideas such as restructuring the bureaucracy to manage services more efficiently deserve more attention. (Translation: Fire HGEA members)
The proposed merger of the fire and emergency services departments is just one example. (Translation: Fire EMS workers)
Further, it may be time to consider privatizing some city services, such as parks maintenance, if that can be shown to be a cost-saver over the long term. (Translation: Fire UPW members)
read … You’re Fired!
Lingle-Hirono Debate Tonight 7pm
Tune in to KHON2 AARP Debate this coming Monday, October 8 from 7:00-8:00 p.m. as Governor Lingle faces Mazie Hirono in the first televised debate of the General Election.
Starting 7:00 p.m. on Monday night, this page will be updated.
In the first of five scheduled forums and debates between Governor Linda Lingle and Mazie Hirono, candidates for Hawaii’s open U.S. Senate seat, Hirono attempted … Continue reading
Civil Beat Salivates Over Democrat Legislative Candidates
CB: Just how many Democrats will be elected to serve in the 2013 Hawaii Legislature?
Question: Could Republicans be shut out of the 2013 Senate?
Question: Will House Republicans lose seats?
Star-Advertiser Runs Hanabusa Commercial Disguised as Article
SA: the economy continues to languish and that Hanabusa is part of the status quo in Congress that has failed to confront federal spending and a $16 trillion national debt….
Djou, 42, said the political atmosphere in Washington, D.C., has become so corrosive that bipartisan solutions are difficult.
"Either we give in to the status quo and just say, ‘That's the way it's always going to be,' or you stand up and you try to change it," he said. "And I believe we should change it."
Djou, an opponent of the city's rail project, could be lifted if there is a surge of anti-rail voters behind former Gov. Ben Cayetano, who would stop the project if elected mayor.
Hanabusa said she would continue to pursue federal money for rail as long as the project is alive. "I believe it is my obligation to do what the people want to do," she said.
Djou said he would respect the views of the new mayor on rail, whether it be Cayetano or former acting mayor and city Managing Director Kirk Caldwell, a rail advocate. "And if Ben Cayetano doesn't want this project, we shouldn't be pushing this project," he said.
Djou, a major in the Army Reserve who was deployed to Afghanistan for six months, said the experience has helped him put priorities into focus. But while he said he has a better understanding of the pressures on military families and veterans, he does not believe the military should be exempt from spending reductions.
"I believe that we've got to turn around our economy. I believe we've got to start balancing our budgets. I believe we've got to bring down our national debt, because if we don't, we're going to ruin our country for the next generation. It's that serious and it's that important.
(Most of the rest is a Hanabusa commercial disguised as a newspaper article.)
Reality: www.TheRealHanabusa.com
read … What ‘The System’ Wants You to Think
Ed Week: HSTA May Strike
EW: Hawaii teachers have still not come to an agreement with the state over a new contract, in what some commentators think could lead to a strike.
Officials from the state and the Hawaii State Teachers Association were in mediation with the Federal Mediation and Reconciliation Service that the union reportedly walked away from, saying it was limited to 10 days.
Teachers in the state are working under a "last, best, and final" offer from July 2011 that the state imposed after the union's board rejected an agreement struck by its negotiators and the state. Among other things, teachers took a 5 percent pay reduction. The union filed a complaint with the state's labor-relations board, which hasn't yet issued a ruling.
The two sides took another whack at reaching a contract this January, but the state's teachers didn't ratify the agreement. In May, the union had members revote on this tentative contract, but this time the state said the vote wasn't valid.
(Confused yet? I don't blame you. If you're interested in more details on all this, you can try making your way through a lengthy press release issued by Gov. Neil Abercrombie. A warning, though: It's almost too complicated for rocket scientists.)
First-time voters must show ID at polls
SA: First-time voters who did not provide identification when they registered to vote by mail will be required to produce identification when they show up at precincts to cast their ballots.
The state Office of Elections is enforcing the requirement at precincts for the first time this year as the state fine-tunes its compliance with the Help America Vote Act, a 2002 federal law approved in response to the disputed presidential election in 2000.
First-time voters will be expected to produce a state-issued driver's license or identification card, a passport or a current utility bill, bank statement or government check with their name and address. People who do not have proper identification will be permitted to vote by provisional ballot, but their vote will not be counted unless they produce identification to county clerks within two days after the election….
"The bottom line is that this really isn't a big problem, because most people have something in their wallet or their purse to positively identify themselves," said Rex Quidilla, a spokesman for the state Office of Elections.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, which has distributed voting rights guides, has called special attention to the fact that Hawaii voters do not have to show photo identification to vote. (If lots of people do this it will provide camouflage for fraudsters.) The interest group said Hawaii has among the most progressive voting laws in the country, but cautioned that even well-trained and well-intentioned poll workers can make mistakes.
read … Nothing Controversial about this in Hawaii
City, Supreme Court Justices Conspire to Seize House from 93-year old widow
SA: …the city is foreclosing on the Punchbowl home of a 93-year-old widow because of her failure to connect the residence to the city's sewer system for more than nine years.
Sunny Lee has lived at the two-story Prospect Street home for 55 years, but she and her daughter Monica, who also resides at the two-story home, represented themselves in losing three court cases that led to a state judge granting the city's foreclosure request.
The two nonlawyers maintain that the elderly woman has a legal right to use an underground sewer line that goes through a neighbor's property
read … About what happens to the little guy
Green Energy Scammers Continue to Panic over Natural gas
CB: “About the author: Jeff Mikulina is executive director of the Blue Planet Foundation.” (All you need to know.)
Hawaii Co. Council decides to not hire special counsel against advice of county attorneys
BIVN: In executive session, the council voted not to hire special counsel to represent Kawauchi and Council Chairman Dominic Yagong in a lawsuit filed last month by two of the four fired workers
Big Island Reporters Hound Kawauchi, One Files ‘Ethics Complaint’ After Being Blackballed
CB: Not surprisingly, complaints from reporters have been amplified on the Big Island. The Big Island Press Club’s Yisa Var on Aug. 16 sent Kawauchi a letter that criticized her treatment of the media. Hawaii Public Radio’s Sherry Bracken has also spoken out about the issue. And BigIslandNow.com has published numerous opinion pieces denouncing Kawauchi, including one published Friday.
"The Hawaii County Council needs to recognize the obvious, that a fresh serving of humble pie for our county clerk just won’t cut it," wrote Big Island Now's Nate Gaddis. "It’s time for Jamae to go."
But Edwards Hunt is the first to file a formal objection with the Ethics Board.
Edward Hunt’s complaint alleges that Kawauchi violated Hawaii County’s Ethics Code, which states that “All persons shall be treated in a courteous, fair and impartial manner.”
Kawauchi “has been very selective in ... dissemination of public information and showed preferential treatment to certain reporters and stonewalling others,” the petition says.
‘The religious right’s leading ghostwriter’ Escaped from Hippie Hawaii
TNY: Lynn Vincent has ghostwritten or co-authored successful nonfiction aimed at a Christian audience. Vincent’s most well-known book is “Going Rogue,” which she ghostwrote for Sarah Palin, but she’s also written best-selling books, like “Heaven Is For Real” and “Same Kind of Different as Me,” that are centered on explicitly Christian themes. Vincent had an unsettled childhood: she was raised by a neglectful mother who moved them from Florida to Germany to Hawaii. The atmosphere was hedonistic and permissive: in Hawaii, the house welcomed a steady stream of visitors who often brought drugs (the name of the family dog, Pakalolo, is the Hawaiian word for marijuana).
She and her sister were molested, and Vincent eventually ran away, finally settling with her maternal grandmother in Alabama and becoming a Christian. She became a staff writer for World, a Christian magazine, and since then has created a successful career as a ghostwriter. The people in Vincent’s books make a journey, from spiritual torment to happy routine, which is similar to Vincent’s own. She is now writing a book under her own name, based on the experiences of Army soldiers in Afghanistan who discovered that some of the Afghan personnel on their base were actually Taliban infiltrators.
(Remember: Hippies are enlightened, conscious, and progressive. They are superior to us.)
Will US Supreme Court Destroy EBay?
CBS: At issue in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons is the first-sale doctrine in copyright law, which allows you to buy and then sell things like electronics, books, artwork and furniture, as well as CDs and DVDs, without getting permission from the copyright holder of those products.
if the Supreme Court upholds an appellate court ruling, it would mean that the copyright holders of anything you own that has been made in China, Japan or Europe, for example, would have to give you permission to sell it….
There are implications for a variety of wide-ranging U.S. entities, including libraries, musicians, museums and even resale juggernauts eBay Inc. and Craigslist. U.S. libraries, for example, carry some 200 million books from foreign publishers.
(Look for Pierre Omidyar with a ‘Will Work for Food’ sign)
City director of planning and permitting David Tanoue resigns
KHON:A city spokeswoman says David Tanoue resigned to take a job in the private sector.He became Director of the Department of Planning and Permitting in 2008….
HPD Seeks Privatization of Burglar Alarm Registration
SA: Bill 66 also would allow the police chief to hire a private vendor to manage the 10-year-old security alarm registration program, a move designed to free up officers now assigned to the Alarm Tracking and Billing Unit, which is attached to HPD's Records and Identification Division.
A law in place since 2002 requires any building owner with a security system to register it for $15 and renew it annually for $5. The program was created in large part to encourage alarm owners to be more accountable for their systems and cut down on false alarms, which waste officers' time.
Maj. Thomas Nitta, who heads the Records and Identification Division, said in recent years the city has lost out on about $108,000 annually in unpaid service fees, charges and fines.
read … Burglar Alarm
Custody Group Attacks Tanaka
AG: Since 2007, disturbing rulings have appeared in Family Court under Judge Keith E. Tanaka. Custody of children has been given to abusive parents; Family Court Rules have been bent beyond recognition; Court clients have been disallowed documents to defend themselves; Vexatious Litigant orders are issued against pro se litigants (court client is not allowed to file a document unless approved by the judge) – and extended to include all judisdictions (all other courts); Emergency orders are issued without allowing hearing on the matter and without any evidence to support the allegation; Evidence has been ignored to favor of one side; Real property is given to one side but the other side is forced to keep the debt (like the mortgage); and Court officers and witnesses who've been caught lying are not held accountable. Attorneys have left Tanaka's courtroom muttering, "that's illegal" under their breath.
19 year-old UH swimmer remembered by teammates
KHON: 19 year-old Peter Chi, who grew up on the Big Island, was found dead in his UH Manoa dorm room yesterday, after apparently suffering cardiac arrest.
He was a member of the UH swim team.
Peter suffered from a rare heart disorder called Wolff-Parkinson-White-Syndrome….
A similar thing happened to Peter 2 years ago, his heart stopped after swim practice.
It forced him to be in the hospital and out of the water for weeks.
"For him to come back from what happened, and to be able to perform at a high level, says alot about his character," said Reed.
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