Michener’s Afghanistan Lessons

Just finished reading James Michener’s novel Caravans, and both my immediate and lingering impression is that it is a book every American who goes to Afghanistan would do well to read, whether soldier, diplomat or NGO worker. Likewise for anyone who has any voice in creating American policy there, starting with the president and congressional leaders of both parties.

Originally published in 1963 and set in 1946 following the end of World War II, Caravans is written in the first person, in the voice of a young American diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Kabul. His work, adventurous spirit and growing affection for the country and its people take him on a journey criss-crossing rivers, deserts and mountains. Foreshadowing future wars, the Soviets (Russia), English and Americans have a foothold in Afghanistan.

 

Page after page, I had one recurring thought: Almost nothing has changed since 1946! Then as now, modern, often Western-educated Afghans attempting to build a functional government that provides security, clean water, roads and jobs are in a constant battle against the medieval influences of imams with a strict Sharia law view of Islam. Then as now, Afghanistan is largely caught in the Iron Age, with tribal loyalties outweighing national interests. Then as now, there is great pressure on women to live beneath a chador, the full-body gown that covers the face. Then as now, there is a great mistrust of foreigners - which may have something to do with having a million people slaughtered just by Genghis Khan, among other invaders who swept through from one direction or another.

Without commenting on U.S. policy and strategies in Afghanistan, I will say that most of the Americans and British in Michener’s tale seem as clueless about this harsh land, its people and its history as the current Americans there I read about in the news magazines. And like the protagonist, that young diplomat, I wonder if any war there is winnable in any way that we normally associate with victory - short of the Genghis Khan approach.

Caravans is Michener at his best, mixing stellar historical research and remarkable personal travels throughout the country, while creating a captivating plot and characters you care about.

It does not end in a way I had hoped. Instead, it ends in the only way it could.

Another Michener book has been on my mind for, oh, the past year and a half or so: Poland. It is, in fact, the story of Europe and how it developed from primitive societies to modern times.

A recurrent theme is how little the ruling families and dynasties that warred for power on the continent cared for the people they ruled, and how personal interest repeatedly trumped national loyalties, even national borders.

In fact, it reminds me very much of current U.S. politics, especially in Washington, as well as the attitude of Wall Street bankers - only personal interest, profit and power matter, not the health and welfare of the nation and its people. Instead, it’s all about getting yours while the getting is good, and to hell with the serfs and peons who do all the productive work.

I highly recommend both books.

Mr. Michener, by the way, appeared on MidWeek‘s cover in January 1986. Our columnist Dan Boylan, a historian, didn’t write that one, but did visit Michener in the early 1980s while he was working on Texas. Recalls Dan: “I was researching a book on Gov. Burns. Michener had an office at the University of Texas in Austin, and I was visiting the LBJ Presidential Library there to read files on Hawaii state-hood. He granted me an interview over lunch at a cafeteria near the UT campus. He was very gracious and talked with total recall about his time in Hawaii in the late ‘50s. A lifelong Democrat, he was particularly interested in the formation of the post-war Democratic Party in Hawaii and the first statehood election. His novel Hawaii contained a composite character based on Burns and labor leader Jack Hall.

“Michener did voluminous research for his novels, and while historians have been heard to fault his knowledge of history, Michener did label them historical fiction. And, in my opinion, they were historical fiction of a very high order.”

Talk about brazen. Just when you think you’ve heard it all - especially after MidWeek‘s Most Wanted cover story that focused on scams, forgery and identity theft - the FBI’s Honolulu office has sent out an alert warning about “fraudulent e-mails coming into Hawaii that purport to be originating from the FBI. These e-mails often seek personal information or payments from unsuspecting recipients.The fraudulent e-mails give the appearance of legitimacy through the usage of pictures of the FBI Director, seal, letterhead and/or banners. Schemes utilizing the FBI name are typically notifications of cash prizes or inheritance proceeds that do not exist. Other e-mails purport to be the FBI levying fines via e-mail.”

“This a practice that does not exist in reality,” says FBI special-agent-in-charge Char-lene Thornton (another recent MidWeek cover subject). “The FBI does not send out e-mails soliciting personal information from citizens.”

By the way, thanks to tips from alert MidWeek readers, nine of the 12 criminals on our Feb. 3 cover had been apprehended as of last Friday. Good work, folks!

 

Finally, a salute to Gen.

Fred Weyand who died Feb. 10 at age 93. I was honored to write his MidWeek cover story in July 1997, and honored more that while he chose never to write a book, he shared so much of his remarkable career with me.

As I told his daughters last week, I was never in the military, but would have followed Gen. Weyand into any battle. Active in our community to the end, this old soldier did not just fade away. Aloha, sir.

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Speaking Frankly With Mayor Fasi

As MidWeek political guru Dan Boylan writes on page 10, everybody has a Frank Fasi story, and some of us have several. This was my introduction to the late mayor, who passed away last week at age 89:

It was December 1979 at Ali’i Beach Park in Haleiwa, where a big professional surf contest was happening. I’d been at the Advertiser as daily columnist about a month and a half. Buck Buchwach, the editor who’d hired me, had mentioned during the job interview how Fasi hated the Hawaii Newspaper Agency and the joint operating agreement that allowed HNA to handle advertising, production and distribution of both the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin. In fact, Fasi often blamed “the media” for everything wrong in the world, or at least in Honolulu.

Anyway, we were in a roped off press area on the beach, and Fasi - a big camera buff - was asking my colleague Gregory Yamamoto about the long lens he was using that day. So I introduced myself:

“Hi, Mr. Mayor, I’m Don Chapman, the new columnist at the Advertiser, and even though I know you’ve had some differences with the paper, I wanted to get off to a fresh start with you personally.”

Shaking my hand, he looked me in the eye and said, ‘You sure work for a sh—-y newspaper!” and with a smirk on his face turned on his heel away from me.

Whereupon I said loud enough that he couldn’t miss it, “Geez, this guy is a bigger (10-letter compound cussword) than I’d heard he was!” Which made him do a double-take as he walked away.

Funny thing is, after that when I saw him he was relatively cordial. I suspect that he was accustomed to talking to people like that and getting away with it, and street fighter that he was, when someone threw it back at him and didn’t back down, he could respect that.

Speaking of Fasi and cameras: Talking with George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin photo editor, on the day after Fasi died, he recalled that while Fasi disdained reporters, he liked to hang out with the photogs, inspecting and inquiring about their equipment. “He loved us,” George said.

Probably no coincidence that Charles Fasi, his son, is a professional photographer.

Fasi also loved his dog Gino, a black-and-white spaniel. Gino was always good column fodder, especially when the carpet in the mayor’s office had to be replaced - twice, as I recall - because Gino did what dogs, uh, do.

Fasi twice appeared on MidWeek‘s cover, first as mayor in October 1984, just a few months after the paper started publishing, and again in May 1998 when he was running for governor. Nathalie Walker’s cover photo shows him doing push-ups - he’d do hundreds every day in his office and was in exceptional shape at age 77.

He was an odd man - playing dirty politics and slinging mud with the best of them, standing up for the little guy, double-crossing Gov. Ben Cayetano (according to Cayetano’s book), but doing many good things for Honolulu, including making TheBus one of the best transit systems in the U.S.

Frank Fasi left a mark on Our Town, and for all his faults and foibles I’d rate him as good a mayor as I’ve seen in my 30 years here.

We got some excellent news late Friday afternoon as we were putting MidWeek to bed: Thanks to tips from alert MidWeek readers, four of the 12 CrimeStoppers Most Wanted criminals on last week’s cover were caught: James Aiwohi, Roxanne Arzaga, Sheldon Pepee and Isaiah Kaisa.

Better yet, says HPD Sgt. Kim Buffett, CrimeStoppers coordinator, “Thanks to MidWeek readers, we have info on all but one of the others and hope that they will all be apprehended soon.”

And please check out our new CrimeStoppers Most Wanted feature on page 18, with two more criminals.

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A Nice Memento For Criminals

Hard to believe, but it’s been 15 years since MidWeek first published a CrimeStoppers’ Most Wanted Criminals cover story - quite shocking at the time for a publication known for publishing good news. Since then it’s been nearly an annual thing, and as mentioned in this week’s cover story (page 38) over the years MidWeek readers have helped take about 100 lawbreakers off the streets of Honolulu.

Congratulations and thank you!

This is, frankly, one of my favorite issues of the year. My good pal Rick Ornellas spent 25 years with HPD, and when we at MidWeek hear of yet another Most Wanted criminal captured and arrested, I get a sense of the satisfaction - and a bit of the rush - police officers find in their work.

 

We’ve also noted with a certain amusement that various other media outlets saw the attention MidWeek received when our Most Wanted were arrested, and in the truest form of flattery have given more coverage to CrimeStoppers’ bulletins. Hey, it’s all for a good cause, I say, so go for it.

Several readers over the years, most persistently the noted classical harpist Ruth Freedman, have suggested a weekly CrimeStoppers feature. Thanks to our president Dennis Francis, beginning next week we’ll introduce just such a feature. Which means that every week you’ll have the opportunity to be an active participant in fighting crime and making Our Town a safer place.

That said, we want to emphasize, as does HPD Sgt. Kim Buffett, CrimeStoppers coordinator, that you should never attempt to apprehend these fugitives from justice. Instead call the anonymous hotline (no caller ID and conversations are not recorded): 955-8300 or *CRIME on your cell phone.

You’ll be given a code number, and if your tip leads to a conviction, you’re eligible for a cash reward of up to $1,000. Although many citizens decline, happy just to be contributing to the greater good, over the years Honolulu CrimeStoppers has paid nearly $300,000 in rewards.

Other salient statistics: Overall, Honolulu CrimeStoppers tips have led to about 2,400 arrests, 6,000 cases cleared, $4.5 million in property recovered, nearly $2 million in drugs seized, and more than $6 million in cash recovered.

CrimeStoppers, by the way, is a nonprofit that receives no government funding, other than the city paying the salaries of HPD officers assigned to CrimeStoppers. Like most nonprofits, monetary donations and volunteers are always needed. For more information, go to www.crimestoppers-honolulu.org.

Serious as this endeavor is, it has not been without a few amusing moments.

Such as that first year, 1995, when a regular MidWeek reader went out to her mailbox to get the latest issue and was shocked to see herself on the cover among the Most Wanted. She immediately called me and demanded, “Who gave you permission to use my picture?!”

“Uh, HPD,” I replied. “By the way, ma’am, where are you calling from?”

She turned herself in a couple of days later. Then there was the letter that arrived a couple of years ago from OCCC - marked with a red stamp indicating that prison personnel had reviewed the letter before it was mailed. The incarcerated writer asked if it was possible to obtain a copy of a past Most Wanted cover. He wanted it as a keepsake, he said, because not only had he appeared on that cover, but so had his girlfriend, and it would mean a lot for them to have their moment of fame framed.

Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. We at MidWeek value our relationship with CrimeStoppers and HPD, and with your help look forward to assisting them in their very important work.

Not to mention creating new mementos for other criminals.

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Fireworks, Tiger, Painful Pineapple

Ah, tradition - or, do you hear what I hear?: A friend in Tokyo was shocked when I described in an e-mail about Honolulu fireworks on New Year’s Eve - bombs rattling windows, the sky filled with colorful explosions, smoke so thick it was tough to see houses a block away. Things could not be more different there: “Tokyo is very quiet, almost silent, a time for reflection, and we strain to hear the temple bell ringing.”

To do so is considered a blessing ... And to the schmuck who blew off a bone-rattling bomb a block or so away as I was about to hit a shot at Bayview golf course at about 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 1: Dude, if I knew where you lived, I just might have been teeing off at your house ...

 

Speaking of golf: I certainly was not thinking about Tiger Woods and his alleged dependence on the sleeping drug Ambien as I watched the DVD Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man, about one of my generation’s great songwriters. But then came this lyric: “If you take sleeping pills / you will end up in the company of unhappy women.” ...

So, one more year we won’t be seeing Tiger at the Sony Open, eh ...

Here’s one of my favorite Sony Open stories, although this one goes back to when it was called the United Airlines Hawaiian Open. It was told to me a few years ago at Kapalua by golfer-broadcaster Gary McCord, and happened in the early 1970s.

Like many pros playing in their first Hawaiian Open in those days, Kermit Zarley was astounded by the pineapples used as tee markers on each hole, the young Texan never having before seen one. “It’s a pineapple,” a veteran pro explained. “It’s a fruit, you eat it.”

The next day, Zarley showed up for his round at Waialae CC with cuts and scratches all over his lips and chin. As McCord tells it, “Kermit went out and bought a pineapple at a grocery store, took it back to his hotel room and tried to eat it - like an apple - without cutting it open! And he didn’t give up right away, either.” ...

Otherwise: Voting by mail-in ballot worked well in choosing a replacement for the late Windward City Councilwoman Barbara Marshall. And Oregon uses mail-ins exclusively. While I personally like stepping into a voting booth, and seeing other citizens coming out to exercise their most basic American right, why not use mail-in ballots to choose a replacement in Congress for Neil Abercrombie after he resigns Feb. 28? Shouldn’t be that tough, as the 1st Congressional District is mostly urban Oahu, although as our political guru Dan Boylan says, “It’s creeped out in recent years to include some of Leeward Oahu.” ...

The new decade got off to a good start in my world with news that MidWeek read-ership is up another 2 percent. May not seem like much, but that’s 2 percent of 500,000. (Nice to see that readership of our sister publication the Star-Bulletin is also up.)

I believe one of the reasons more people are turning to MidWeek is they appreciate our dedication to presenting multiple voices and multiple points of view. A great example this week is the very different takes Bob Jones and Jerry Coffee give to their Vietnam experiences (pages 8 and 10). Bob tends to be liberal, Jerry conservative. Different as they and their experiences are, there is obvious respect between the two men. I’m proud as heck to be their editor.

Thank you to one and all who reach for our paper each week, and to all those on our team who work so diligently to produce and deliver Hawaii’s best-read publication. In MidWeek, it will be a very good year ...

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The High Priests Wore Board Shorts

Medical evidence suggests sitting on the beach watching waves breaking on the shore lowers your blood pressure. Such has been my experience.

But such was absolutely not the case last Tuesday at Waimea Bay when The Eddie went off for the first time in five years.

Formally known by a commercial mouthful so ponderous it seems to need punctuation - The Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau Fueled by Monster Energy (whew!), named in honor of the late, heroic Waimea lifeguard - The Eddie happens at the bay only when wave heights reach a minimum 25 feet. The occurrence of big and clean is so rare, this was just the eighth time in 25 years contest organizers called it “on,” and the first since 2004.

Yers truly had to be there. Midway through the contest, beach announcer Kaipo Guerrero - surveying 20,000 to 30,000 people lined 20-deep on the beach and clinging to rocky cliffs on either side of the bay like so many ‘a’ama crabs - asked, “Don’t any of you people have to work today?” Sitting in the shade of a hau tree, notebook in hand, I thought, “Dude, I am working.”

 

Of all the displays of nature’s power I’ve experienced that make a person feel puny upon this Earth - volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, earthquakes, typhoons, blizzards, rains of Biblical proportions and historic floods, house-shaking thunder and lightning, eclipses of the sun - there is nothing quite like massive waves. So big that the first thing you notice is the sound of the ocean, rumbling like thunder, exploding like live-fire ordnance, even the remnants of a barreling shore break creating such compression it reverberates through your bones, sinew and tissue.

The raw power of the sea on such days is a heart-pumper even if it’s limited to just waves - water incited and agitated by faraway storms and winds - that make you gasp in awe.

And then, on the day The Eddie goes, tiny little men on tinier little boards made of foam and resin and decals and hope jump into the ocean and paddle out 500 to 600 yards through freight train after freight train of onrushing walls of water, all for the right to essentially jump off a five-story building with a surfboard. Sorry, Doc, no lowered blood pressure here, just good, edgy excitement churning the innards.

Waves were so huge Tuesday, spectators standing at the top of Waimea’s severely canted beach, 15 feet above the waterline, were sometimes unable to see surfers taking off on waves because their vision was blocked by a preceding wave. Even from the judges’ tower another 20 feet up, contestants were occasionally blocked from view by waves in front.

On a day like this, with both nature and humans showing off, adrenaline hangs in the air like the salty mist kicked up by the constant explosions of sea crashing upon sea, sand and lava rock.

And surfboards. I lost track, but at least six or seven boards were broken during this year’s running of The Eddie - four just in the third hour-long heat of the day, two of those coming undone beneath the feet of Garrett McNamara. (Fortunately, board “caddies” on Jet Ski sleds rushed replacement boards to surfers who broke one.) And these are not your usual surfboards. They’re longer, thicker, heavier. Halves of one red board hauled ashore were about 4 inches thick. Kelly Slater, the nine-time world champ who finished second at Waimea this time (and won in 2002), has a board he uses only in The Eddie.

Then there was 1990 champ Keone Downing, who wiped out, lost his leash, he said, “and my eyes - my contact lenses got knocked out.”

Packed and ready, I’d left my Kaneohe home seven minutes after the call was made that The Eddie was on. Kaneohe Bay was placid as a pond, but driving up the east side of Oahu - through Kaaawa, Punaluu, Hauula, Laie, Kahuku - the sea grew increasingly turbulent. Here and there were wet patches where an hour or so earlier at high tide waves had thrown sand and pebbles onto Kamehameha Highway.

Turning the corner at Turtle Bay, the North Shore was catching a full frontal assault, and the turquoise sea roiled and frothed, waves crashing in towering white explosions like oceanic geysers.

Finding a parking place at Shark’s Cove - and a legal one, luckily, because HPD officers were going through parking ticket pads the way Garrett McNamara was going through surf-boards - I walked across to Foodland-Pupukea to grab a sandwich (an employee was filling a cooler case with cartons and cartons of fresh sandwiches just trucked in for the expected crush) and a back-up pen (told you I was working). The woman at the checkout counter shook her head and laughed the laugh of a woman who is not really amused when I said, “Kind of busy today, eh?”

“Busy?” she replied, blowing bangs off her forehead. “We’ve never had anything like this!”

Outside, throngs of people on foot and on bikes - I didn’t realize that many cruiser bikes existed on the entire planet! - made their way along the bike path toward Waimea, ecstatic pilgrims in sandals on their way to the mecca of surfing, passing cars that inched along the road bumper to bumper, called ever onward by the throaty roar of the sea and of early arriving spectators. In ancient times, Waimea was such a sacred place to Hawaiians it was known as The Valley of the Priests of Priests. On this day, the high priests wore board shorts.

The beach was a patchwork of towels and blankets and mats and lava-lavas arrayed across the sand, hem to hem, with no exit aisles. (Spectators may have set some sort of record for saying, “Uh, excuse me,” light-stepping as if through a maze to get to a lua or find a friend.)

And the beach scene was buzzing with a positive vibe, as if everyone there was grateful to be experiencing such a glorious day at the beach, such epic surf and such ridiculous displays of courage and cojones.

But there was also an undercurrent of menace - these guys were literally risking their lives. Prayers were whispered.

Fortunately, there were no serious injuries, although the day before, with waves huge but sloppy, former two-time world champ Tom Carroll of Australia broke an ankle in a wipeout, which left his foot “flopping around” at the end of his leg. Talk about a goofy footer. The worst injury Tuesday seemed to be to Brock Little’s elbow. Coming down a sheer face, the nose of his board pearled (dug into the water), slowing him, and the wave “ran me over,” he said, knocking him to the bottom where his elbow banged a coral head and opened a cut. That may be the most amazing aspect of the 2009 Eddie - 28 surfers, eight hours of surfing on raging monster waves, and the worst injury is a scraped elbow. High priests, indeed.

No, I take that back. The most amazing thing was seeing Clyde Aikau, Eddie’s kid brother by three years and the winner of the second Eddie, in 1986, out there in the lineup, still competing at age 60 and taking the drop down those treacherous faces. Clyde and I are, shall we say, contemporaries, and the graying dude finished ahead of relative youngsters Keone Downing, Michael Ho, Darryl “Flea” Virostko, Brian Keaulana, Rusty Keaulana and Pancho Sullivan. I have a new hero.

(Yes, head-jarring as it may sound, the “Eddie Would Go” icon, who was lost at sea in 1978 while paddling for help when the sailing canoe Hokulea was floundering in wild seas off Maui, would be 63.)

In the end, the winner’s check went to 26-year-old southern Californian Greg Long, a guy who lives out of his van so he can chase the biggest waves on a moment’s notice, and as a boy dreamed of surfing in The Eddie. On his first try, he got the win with a perfect 100-point ride in the last heat to overtake Slater, on a 50-footer, the biggest wave of the day.

It was a wave, said Sunny Garcia, who took third place, “I didn’t want ... He’s crazy.”

Which of course he meant as a compliment.

Who knows when the next Eddie will happen. Twice the contest got the go in back-to-back years - 1985 and ‘86, 1999 and 2000 - but there was once a 10-year hiatus - 1990-‘99 -and then the just-ended five-year furlough. But whenever the call may go out for the next Eddie, I hope ol’ Clyde is in the lineup, and I’m on the beach to see it.

Until then, The Eddie of ‘09 will forever be a day not just to remember, but to savor. Because this is as fantastic as life in these Islands gets.

 

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BOE Members In It For The Dough

Where to start with what’s wrong with our public schools? How about a Board of Education where at least two members show up at their twice-monthly board meetings so they’ll be reported in the minutes as present - and thus collect their $100 stipend - and then often leave shortly thereafter. Or so one disgusted BOE member tells me. What a lousy way to make a hundred bucks ...

And why have less than half of public schools applied to convert teacher prep days to teaching days? Are there that many principals who are not paying attention? ...

Otherwise, sorry to hear radio legend Ron Jacob’s Kaneohe hillside home caught fire the other day. Started at a neighbor’s house and jumped to Ron’s place. Fortunately, his studio and extensive record collection were saved as firefighters got there just in time to extinguish the blaze before it could spread ...

Ran across a great quote from the late Rev. Paul Osumi, whose “Today’s Thought” was a popular newspaper feature for many years. Does this sound like anyone you know? And might it help explain our cultural mania for nonstop cell-phone talking, texting and tweeting, as well as playing video games and watching movies on small hand-held devices to fill every waking moment?

 

“Many people try to run away from their inner loneliness. They do not know how to be alone. They do anything to escape being alone. They are always on the go; they are always doing something. To live meaningfully, we must master one of the fine arts of life - learning how to be alone without being lonely.” ...

Just wondering: Why is it traditional to bestow the honorific “The Honorable” before a politician’s name - as in the Honorable Sen. Quid Pro Quo - when so many of them are clearly not very honorable? ...

My take on UH football head millionaire, er, coach Greg McMackin: The Warriors of 2009 have suffered too many injuries to too many key players, putting too many young men on the field who were a year or two away from being skilled enough to play significant minutes. It doesn’t matter how well they’re coached or how hard they try if the skill, knowledge and physical abilities are not there. Apart from the state being in no position to buy out McMackin’s contract, the guy deserves at least one more year. And those kids who are taking their lumps this year will hopefully come back in 2010 smarter, stronger and more skilled - and with big chips on their shoulders ...

Couple of significant anniversaries in my life recently: Oct. 29 marked 30 years since my first byline appeared in a Hawaii newspaper, and Nov. 7 marked 15 years since I became the editor of MidWeek. Time flies when you’re working with great people and editing Hawaii’s best-read paper. And, yes, I did celebrate the 11/7 date with a chilled beverage ...

And thank you to the United Filipino Council, which recently honored me with its annual Ating Kaibigan (Our Friend) Award - presented to a non-Filipino who has shown support for the Filipino Community in Hawaii. I’m grateful for the honor, and all the friendships ...

Recently finished former Gov. Ben Cayetano’s book Ben - a surprisingly good read - and it reminded me why I enjoyed interviewing him over the years. You might not agree with Ben, but he’s going to give you the straight scoop, no holds barred. And unlike many pols, he truly cared about “the little guy.” ...

Heck, you could even call him “The Honorable” and I wouldn’t argue ...

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Creating Hawaii’s Favorite Paper

I’ll begin this column in MidWeek‘s 25th anniversary issue with the same anecdote I shared in my first column as MidWeek‘s editor in November 1994.

You see, during the 20 previous years I spent as a reporter and columnist, my attitude toward editors was summed up by a veteran New York Times reporter at his retirement party after 40 years. Asked why he never became an editor, as if that were some sort of career deficiency, he legendarily replied: “Editors are those people who separate the wheat from the chaff, and throw away the wheat!”

Having had my brilliant copy hacked up too often by what I considered clumsy, insensitive, goose-stepping Nazi storm troopers posing as editors, I agreed completely.

And then I became one. Yikes.

As it turns out, in a career of what I consider to be nothing but plum jobs (some guys have all the luck), this is by far the best. I’ve heard that it’s not healthy to identify what you do with who you are, but it’s too late for that. I am the editor of MidWeek, and love everything about this job.

(What makes that funny is I hated MidWeek when it began publishing in July 1984. At the time I was the Advertiser‘s lead columnist, and the job came with six paid Neighbor Island trips annually, as well as a Mainland trip. Yes, sweet. But shortly after MidWeek first rolled off the press, my travel budget got whacked - because the little startup was luring away ads from local grocery chains. Even funnier: Today I’m pleased to say they remain a big part of what we do.)

Anyway, over the years I’ve tried to throw away only the chaff, and to cultivate the wheat. You’ll have to ask our writers how well I’ve succeeded. But it’s my humble opinion that

MidWeek is the best-written publication in town.

In the past 15 years, both MidWeek and its editor have undergone some changes (in my case, less hair, more pounds and kids all grown up). When I started, MidWeek had almost no journalistic credibility. It was rightly called a “shopper.” I was determined to change that.

Almost equally bothersome to me was the lack of organization within the pages. Politics, sports, entertainment and food columns were sort of jumbled throughout the paper. So the first thing I did was establish a sensible, predictable flow of content from front to back.

I also started lobbying for more color pages - at the time the only color was on the cover and in a few ads - much to the consternation of our late press manager Russ Retynski, one of the world’s all-time great grouches (but who is still greatly missed).

One story in particular started to change the way people looked at MidWeek - and who even bothered to pick it up. In January1995, for an interview that then-columnist Eddie Sherman helped arrange, Eddie, myself and photographer George F. Lee flew to the Big Island to sit down with Larry Mehau. I brought along four hours of blank tapes, normally more than enough, but we ended up spending the entire day with Larry and his wife Bev at their Waimea ranch, even staying for dinner. Larry and I met two more times at his Hawaii Protective Association office in Honolulu, for a total of 15 hours of interviews, which produced a two-part cover story - among other things debunking Rick Reed’s self-serving fable that Larry was the so-called “godfather” in Hawaii.

Similarly, retired Gen. Fred Weyand sat down for a series of interviews that produced another two-part cover story, in which he for the first time detailed a career that included service in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. I was, and am, honored that this great man shared his stories with me and MidWeek. (The general has so many good stories, I repeatedly urged him to write a book, but he always refused. He is man of honor.)

Perhaps nothing brought MidWeek as much attention in the early days as our Most Wanted covers, publishing photos and rap sheets of CrimeStoppers’ most-wanted criminals. With a capture rate of about eight of 10, even other media had to cover the captures and mention us. My favorite story regards the woman who appeared on that first Most Wanted cover. An avid MidWeek reader, she went out to her mailbox as usual on a Tuesday in September 1995 and was shocked to see herself. So she called me and demanded, “Who gave you permission to use my photo?!” My reply: “HPD. Uh, where are you calling from, ma’am?”

We also added new features, including Newsmaker, Old Friends, Good Neighbor and Movers.

Readers noticed the changes, and within one year of my assuming the editor’s desk MidWeek‘s readership for the first time surpassed that of the daily papers. Given my 13 years with the Advertiser as daily columnist, beating some of those storm trooper-editors tickled me quite a bit.

And a decade ago we moved to a more convenient tabloid format (from a double-foldout broadsheet, because we wanted a paper people could read on a bus without getting into a fight with their seatmate).

As our readership continued to grow, so did the paper itself - from 24-32 pages in 1994 to 80 or more today.

In the early years, I wrote most of those features, along with a column and some cover stories. But as our staff gradually increased from three full-timers in the office to 14 (with a similar increase in the number of local columnists and freelance contributors), in recent years I find myself writing less and managing more. In fact, working with younger writers, photographers and artists to help turn a raw idea into a polished story is every bit as satisfying to me as writing a solo story.

Also significantly, in the early days I judged MidWeek columnists to be too white, male and liberal. Nothing wrong with any of those - to paraphrase the old saw, hey, some of my best friends are liberal white males - but not when that describes nearly all your political writers. And so we began to find some balance by adding new columnists, including Rick Hamada and Michelle Malkin, ardent conservatives both, one of Japanese heritage, the other Filipino.

The single thing of which I am most proud is that you will never find a newspaper that presents a broader spectrum of opinion on matters of politics and world affairs than MidWeek. This represents my world view as perhaps the most independent editor you’ll ever meet. Which is why each week we publish columns with which I disagree, from both our liberal and conservative writers. To do anything less, to me, is to fail to fully express our sacred American liberty. At a point in history when press freedom is limited or nonexistent in so many parts of the world - Iran and Myanmar are perfect examples, China limits news about protests by Tibetans and Uigurs, and when President Obama gives a speech to the people of Russia it is not carried by state-controlled Russian TV or papers - MidWeek will remain a beacon of free expression, where all civil dialogue is welcome.

Indeed, nothing gives me more satisfaction than hearing from readers who say they appreciate MidWeek‘s obvious respect for their intelligence by offering multiple, undiluted opinions of all stripes.

And so, considering all this, by the time MidWeek was named best non-daily newspaper in the Hawaii Publisher’s Association Pa’i Awards a few years ago, nobody was surprised.

One of the best things to happen to MidWeek during my tenure was the promotion of Ron Nagasawa to publisher in December 2001. Ron tends to be a quiet guy, but when he speaks good ideas pour forth. Honolulu Pa’ina photo pages, Business Roundtable, the Hot Ticket movie review, Style pages, Scene@Night nightlife photos, Ron Mizutani’s ocean column and the pets column by Dr. John Kaya each originated with Ron - who also just happens to be our town’s most popular columnist. Among our staff, Ron is like the coach you want to play your best for and win, because you respect him so much and don’t want to disappoint him.

Likewise, our owner David Black bringing in Dennis Francis as company president in July 2004 infused us with new energy and good ideas, including the popular Doctor In The House column as just one example. In this business, we run on energy and ideas as your (non-hybrid) car runs on gasoline.

Two things about MidWeek have remained constant over the past 15 years:

First, senior editor Terri Hefner had been here nearly two years when I arrived, and she is one of the most solid, reliable and hardest-working people I have ever known. I respect her tremendously, and often bounce ideas off her. If Terri thinks an idea is bad, forget about it.

Second, readers appreciate that we do “good news.” Next time you hear someone say good news doesn’t sell, point ‘em our way. In fact, in the past year MidWeek readership is up by 20,000 adults, according to Scarborough Research, at a time when papers across the country are losing readers, from The New York Times to the Los AngelesTimes, and other papers are tanking, including big, venerable papers in Denver and Seattle. Even the San Francisco Chronicle is on the ropes, and its demise would leave the city without a daily paper. Meanwhile here on Oahu, half a million folks pick up MidWeek every week, and we thank each one of you for doing so.

But we’re not about to take anything for granted, not in these times. Yes, being the best-read newspaper in Hawaii does make us proud, especially looking back at whence we came. But it’s also a responsibility to every week bring you stories that are of continuing interest and relevance in your life - stories that inform, entertain and edify. And by story I mean the full package, words, photos and headlines.

At many papers there is a sort of disconnect between the editorial side and the advertising side. But you’ll never meet an editor who appreciates more than I what our sales folks do, and what our advertisers make possible - the delivery each week, for free, of an award-winning paper to nearly 300,000 Oahu homes, not to mention some fantastic savings when you shop. If you like receiving MidWeek, please continue to support the loyal advertisers who pay all the bills. (The amazing thing is our ad rates are considerably less expensive than, say, the Advertiser, which then charges people for the paper.)

As I’m fond of telling our staff, journalism is the greatest team sport ever. The process of turning raw story ideas into a printed newspaper that shows up in your mailbox requires so many steps and skill sets, so many people, only a great team can pull it off. And we’ve assembled a great team here at MidWeek.

I am eternally proud and grateful to serve as their editor, and look forward to celebrating future significant anniversaries with them and with you.

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Bucking A Trend With Good News

Although MidWeek is one of the rare newspapers in the U.S. to increase readership in the past year of economic doom and gloom - a total of nearly 500,000 readers, up (according to well-respected Scarborough Research) a whopping 20,000 adults, thank you very much - we’re not about to sit on our laurels. Not even as we prepare to celebrate our 25th anniversary next month. (Besides, I’ve heard laurels are not all that comfortable to sit on.)

So in the interest of continuing to give our readers fresh content, while also giving back to our community, with this issue we’re introducing a new feature, one that is uniquely MidWeek - which is already known for publishing “good news.”

It’s called Proof Positive. In conjunction with Clear Channel Radio (KSSK, etc.), every week we’re inviting an Island charitable organization to share its story, and the stories of people who have been helped.

This week it’s the Partners In Development Foundation, which focuses on “meeting today’s social, educational and environmental challenges through the application of Hawaii’s values and traditional practices.” It includes a great program that brings seniors to schools to interact with kids - something I believe is good for both kupuna and keiki, and for our whole community.

In addition, each week on the same page we’re offering free advertising space to another Hawaii nonprofit.

Also sharing space on the page is our popular Good Neighbor feature, which every week highlights exceptional volunteers in our town. Close by you’ll find Pamela Young’s Applause column, which salutes regular folks coming to the aid of total strangers in times of stress, and worse - it happens every day in Hawaii.

Good stories about good people doing good things and producing good results that’s Proof Positive, and you’ll find it only in MidWeek (page 41).

And I must say that in these days when papers from the New York Times to the L.A. Times are losing readers and money, with papers in Seattle and Denver shuttering after 150 years of publishing, and San Francisco on the verge of not having a daily paper, big kudos go to our president Dennis Francis and publisher Ron Nagasawa for essentially giving away valuable space for free in Hawaii’s best-read publication. As Dennis says, “Many nonprofit organizations are experiencing declines in contributions due to our faltering economy. This page will not only share good news stories, but will also allow nonprofits a chance to highlight their organization and tell readers how to make contributions.”

(Happily, and significantly, our cousins at the Star-Bulletin also showed remarkable growth over the past year, and that was even before they went to the handy tabloid format MidWeek readers know so well.)

You may have noticed that we also recently added a couple of other new features.

One is Dr. John Kaya’s On The Wild Side column, in which he shares humorous tails, er, tales from his veterinary practice, as well as practical pet tips (page 36).

On the same page is Pet Parade, where we invite readers to send us photos of them and their pets. Oh da cute!

And while he’s been cartooning for us for a few months now, I also want to mention that Dick Adair has brought his poignant pen to MidWeek. With Dick, Roy Chang and Steve Kelly, MidWeek editorial cartoons are second to none. Dick and I were colleagues many moons ago at the Advertiser, and I’ve always respected his work and hold him in high esteem as a person.

Speaking of talented contributors whom I hold in high personal regard: Congratulations to Uncle Tom Moffatt, who last week was nominated to the National Radio Hall of Fame. It’s a well-deserved and long-overdue honor, but it’s just a nomination. Public online voting is allowed, and you can vote for Tom at www.radiohof.org. If even half of MidWeek‘s readers vote for Uncle Tom, he’s a shoo-in.

Yup, we have lots of which to be proud here at MidWeek, including our readers. At a staff meeting last week, Yu Shing Ting and Nathalie Walker told of an incident while out doing a Mystery Shopper story in Wahiawa. As Ron Nagasawa says, it’s reflective of the times and the aloha spirit of MidWeek readers: When a woman answered Yu Shing’s question correctly and was told she’d just won a $250 shopping spree at Foodland, she waved it away and replied, “I’m doing OK. Give it to someone who can really use it.”

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The Joy And Perils Of A Foul Ball

I wasn’t going to mention in the pages of MidWeek that I recently caught a foul ball at a UH baseball game, but since Bob Hogue is spilling the beans in his column on page 70, well ...

And I’m not just bragging here - OK, maybe a little - there is a moral to this tale.

Setting the scene: It was a Saturday afternoon game against Loyola Marymount. Sitting in the first row of the upper section of seats behind first base, first inning of my first UH game of the season, fortunately I’d just put down my beer and hot dog when Rainbow third baseman Vinnie Catricala fouled off a screaming line drive - directly at me! If you were counting Mississippis, from the time it left his bat until it got to me was about one Mississi… Also fortunately, this old high school and college catcher had enough left in the way of reflexes to sort of smother the ball between my left thigh, forearm and right hand. It may have looked more like a soccer goalie making a save, but a catch it was, my first foul ball catch in a lifetime of attending ball games.

 

Woo-hoo!

I mention it here now only because UH baseball is again a hot ticket in town, and I’m frankly amazed that so many in attendance don’t seem to be paying attention, including kids running around the stadium, apparently without a thought about what could happen if a ball were ripped at them.

While catching a foul ball is the ultimate thrill for a lot of us fans, these batted projectiles can be dangerous and are potentially lethal. Not to sound like an old scold, but in the two games I’ve attended since that one, I’ve noted people sitting in that same seat, or walking up and down the stairs in front of it, entirely oblivious to the action on the field. Aball similar to the one I stopped could have caused an awful injury. If I’d been looking away at that moment, it might have cracked a rib. As it was, the ball left a pretty good bruise.

My healthy respect for these rock-like spheroids comes in part from having spent much of my youth as a human backstop, in part because the only player ever killed by a pitched ball in Major League Baseball was a guy named Ray Chapman, in the days before protective helmets. And a couple of years ago a minor league coach was killed by a foul ball. There’s a reason they call the game hardball. Which is why, back in the day when I was taking my two young keiki o ka aina to UH baseball games, I preferred sitting behind the protective screen. If that wasn’t possible, I at least sat between the kids and the batter, so I could intercept a foul ball before it hit them.

In short, the basic survival rule for fans, and the only way to catch a foul ball, is that if the batter is facing your side of the stadium, you should pay about as much attention as the defensive players on the field.

All that said, as Bob Hogue writes, I do like this UH team, a lot. Coach Mike Trapasso’s squad has talent throughout the lineup, plays good fundamental baseball, often comes up with spectacular defensive plays and timely hits, and always hustles. Most of all, they’re fun to watch play this great game. Oh, and they’re winning.

There’s nothing more relaxing to me than going out to a game, putting the feet up, having a couple of those tasty all-beef Eisenberg hot dogs and a tall, cold Gorden Biersch Marzen, and cheering the Bows.

This season, there’s lots to cheer about, and there’s a fresh buzz at the old (but beautifully refurbished) ball yard.

As they say, though, keep your head in the game and your eyes on the ball. It could be coming in a hurry to a seat near you.

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Behind The Scenes Of Obama Cover

‘08: Year of Obama

It was the last week of 2007 when I wrote that headline for the cover of our Jan. 2, 2008, issue, an intentional wordplay on the approaching Chinese New Year, Year of the Rat.

I tried other headline ideas, scribbling in a notepad, but kept returning to that one, even as part of my brain was screaming, “Idiot, Obama hasn’t won anything yet!”

So, yes, I knew MidWeek was taking a chance with such a bold prediction. But there was also another part of my brain, or gut, or something, maybe just an editor’s intuition, that made me go with ‘08: Year of Obama.

In light of last week’s stunning election, it’s looking pretty good.

The idea for MidWeek‘s first cartoon cover began with publisher Ron Nagasawa. In looking at photos with senior editor Terri Hefner, including several excellent shots we obtained from our cousins at the Star-Bulletin and from the Des Moines Register (Obama had been campaigning in Iowa leading up to the first caucuses), nothing was jumping out at us as a compelling cover shot.

That’s when Ron said, “Let’s ask Roy Chang to draw Obama.”

When I called our ace editorial cartoonist, he was immediately excited by the assignment. When, a few days later, Roy showed us the drawing of Obama with both Diamond Head and the White House, we too were excited, and pleased.

Creative director Gina Lambert completed the package by choosing a perfect font for the headline. And Dan Boylan’s cover story was insightful.

All of which further proves my belief that journalism is the world’s greatest team sport, and that the MidWeek team is as good as they come.

(Regular readers also will recall that, in the interest of fairness and balance, we would later publish a cover story on Sen. John McCain.)

Regardless of which candidate you favored, I was most pleased by the number of Americans who voted, and especially the enthusiasm shown by people in their 20s, my children’s generation. More than anything, that bodes well for the future of our American republic.

The headline I’d write for Obama in 2009:

The Year of Getting to Work

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A Rewarding Award Weekend

In Dallas to accept MidWeek‘s award from the American Cancer Society, I was reminded of how much Texas and Hawaii share in common.

Really.

Yes, there are obvious differences - Texas being the largest state by far in the “Lower 48” and Hawaii being one of the smallest states in land area. But beyond that, there are remarkable similarities.

For starters, Hawaii and Texas are the only two of our 50 states that were once independent nations.

No two other states can boast lively, homegrown music industries that write and sing about the glories and legends of their home states, both relying heavily on steel guitar.

And both states have local cuisines unique to them, each derived from rich multi-ethnic traditions, including smoked meats - we like teriyaki, they prefer thick, vinegar-based red-brown sauces.

 

And as in Hawaii, I was greeted each day with a rainbow of ethnic hues, something I’ve come to prefer (over monochrome faces) during 29 years in these Islands. The Dallas-Fort Worth “metroplex” is home to nearly 7 million people hailing from every corner of the world. The primary ethnic groups are Caucasians, Mexicans and African Americans, but as my taxi driver last Monday said en route to the DFW airport, “Dallas is like New York City - any kind of people you want, you can find here.” He is a native of Congo, but after 20 years in Dallas is a true Texan - knowledgeable and passionate about the Dallas Cowboys and University of Texas Longhorns football teams.

The bellman at the Crowne Plaza Dallas Market Center hotel who’d helped load my bags was from Bulgaria.

The cabbie who upon my arrival several days earlier drove me from the airport to the hotel, Abbas, was from Sudan.

He turned out to be one of two Muslims with whom I enjoyed very interesting conversations, both personal and theological, deep in the heart of the Bible Belt. (Confession: Before taking up the pen, as an undergrad I minored in theology and later spent two semesters in a seminary.)

The second was Shubar, an Iraq native, who was a shuttle van driver employed by the hotel. A Shia Muslim from Basra in southern Iraq, he’d fled the country as a teenager with his brother.

“Many people in my family were killed by Saddam,” he said. “My brother and I were told that if we stayed one more night, we would be dead.”

They ended up in a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia, before Shubar found his way to Dallas a decade ago.

Although he would like to be home in Iraq, he is busy working on the American dream. Stylishly dressed in slacks, dress shirt and necktie, Shubar drives the hotel shuttle van from 2 to 10 p.m., answering his cell phone with a hip, “Hey, what’s happening, man?” Then he goes to work as an overnight delivery driver for a bakery. In his free time, he buys old cars, fixes them up and sells them.

Four years ago, after the Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein’s capture, he and his brother returned to Iraq for the first time since they fled.

“It was wonderful,” Shubar says. “Every day for three months it was like a party. Everyone wanted to cook dinner for us. I had to ask my mother, ‘Where should we go today?’”

While there, he met an attractive young woman, and they were married.

“She is a good Muslim, so of course she was a virgin,” Shubar said. “But on our wedding night, we made a baby.”

That child, a girl, is now 3. His son is 1. He showed me photos, and they are both beautiful little cherubs. “They are my heart,” he said.

When he learned my mother was at that moment in a hospital and not doing well, he offered to pray to Allah for her, and later reported that he had. “The Koran teaches,” he said, tapping his chest above his heart, “that God is above all, and second below God is your mother. You must never say anything bad or angry to your mother.”

The last time I saw Shubar we embraced, and he gave me a string of Muslim prayer beads, a cherished gift.

So when, back home again, I heard on the TV news another ignoramus say she could not vote for Barack Obama because he “might be a Muslim,” I had to say (this election season has me talking to the TV way more than usual): “He’s not, he was baptized a Christian, as an adult, but so freakin’ what if he were Muslim?”

The Muslims I have known, including Shubar, have been among the most decent people I’ve met. (They in fact remind me of my Mormon friends in their upright morality, dedication to family and charity in helping less fortunate members of their community.)

Yes, as both Shubar and the cabbie Abbas said, there are Muslims who take Allah’s name in vain by killing in his name. “They are wrong,” Abbas said, fingering the Koran he keeps on his dashboard. “They do not please God.”

I was certainly pleased, and blessed, to meet Abbas and especially Shubar.

 

As for that award - for a MidWeek cover story about seven women who beat breast cancer, written by Alice Keesing with photographs by Nathalie Walker - it was gratifying to hear fellow award winners from the Dallas Morning News, Daily Oklahoman, Omaha World-Herald, Lincoln Journal Star and others rave about our story and cover photo (copies of the the newspaper winners were posted on a big bulletin board at the awards luncheon.) In fact, I was told that in the weekly newspaper category, judges gave MidWeek‘s story scores of 10, except one who rated it a 9. A Cancer Society official told me, “There were a lot of good entries in the weekly category, but you were so far in front there was no second place.” (See Hot Shots on page 20 for a photo from the awards luncheon. In addition to print media, awards also were given to radio and TV reporters.)

In accepting the award, I commented that the response to our story came from women with breast cancer as well as their families, who called and e-mailed that the story gave them renewed hope, and in my experience there may be no more powerful ally in fighting cancer than hope.

I hadn’t planned on saying this, but in closing - and being so proud to be among so many good journalists - another thought hit me:

“I’m looking forward to this election being done as much as anything because I’m so tired of hearing the media criticized. If anyone says anything negative to you about the media ...” - and here I paused and pointed to the bulletin board covered with well-crafted and inspirational stories about courage, human resiliency, faith and hope - “... tell them this is what we do.”

I noticed then another award winner in the audience, a woman who twice beat breast cancer, applauding with tears in her eyes.

 

And not to get all preachy on you, but ... That pro-rail “Eddie Would Ride” bumper sticker is an absolute sacrilege. It’s dishonest, and dishonors the life and memory of Eddie Aikau.

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Savings In MidWeek,Nice Awards

When times get tough, as they most assuredly are, the tough turn to MidWeek.

And the wise.

Throughout the pages of MidWeek you’ll find great savings from our advertisers. In particular, grocery inserts from Times, Star, Foodland and Safeway point you to the best deals on everyone’s most basic necessity, food.

Likewise, restaurants are offering some terrific deals. You’ll find those on pages 65 through 68.

And there are more savings throughout the publication.

As the editor, my primary focus is on editorial content, but it is our advertisers who pay the bills and make it possible for 268,000 Oahu homes to receive MidWeek free of charge twice a week.

While we hope you’ll support the advertisers who make that possible, as a guy worried about his own 401K and other investments, I want to encourage you to take advantage of the savings our advertisers offer every week.

Combined with the broadest spectrum of opinion you’ll find in any American newspaper, plus entertaining and informative features and photos about local people and events, the savings available through our advertisers makes MidWeek unique, and quite a value.

And that’s some good news for you.

* I’m no economist, but it seems to me that while everyone I know is into saving money, if I spend some money at Business A, the people who work there benefit and have money to spend at Business B, and people at that establishment have money to spend with my company, on and on.

Call it the economic circle of life.

* You may recall the cover story we did in October of last year on seven breast cancer survivors, one in her 20s, as well as women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and even 80s, titled “Sisterhood of Survivors.”

During the summer we entered it in a journalism contest sponsored by the American Cancer Society, and just received notice that we won first place in the large market feature story category.

Kudos go especially to writer Alice Keesing, photographer Nathalie Walker and page designer Gina Lambert for putting together a compelling package of words and images.

By the way, and I’ll ask why when I accept the award at a luncheon in Dallas in coming days, Hawaii was grouped in the ACS’ High Plains Region with Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Whatever the reason, there are some excellent big city newspapers in those states, so we’re all the more proud of this latest award for our trophy case.

* Speaking of awards:

MidWeek and our cousins at the Star-Bulletin were involved in judging an essay contest - on the most inspirational woman in the writer’s life - for the recent fifth annual International Women’s Leadership Conference, hosted by Gov. Linda Lingle. Five MidWeek female journalists read the essays and were deeply touched by many of them. In the end, Melissa Pavlicek was named the winner for an essay on her mother-in-law Eloise Teves’ selfless devotion to her family.

It was quite appropriate, because after attending an earlier conference Melissa was inspired to start her own business, Hawaii Public Policy.

The conference was very impressive, bringing in accomplished women to share their stories, including the chief of police in Washington D.C., the first African-American woman Marine Corps jet fighter pilot, a woman CEO in the aerospace industry and a female Army general.

It’s an event with which we are proud to be affiliated, and are already looking forward to reading some more essays and being inspired again next year.

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Ben’s Book, Great Quotes, Etc.

I had a chance to chat with former Gov. Ben Cayetano recently when my son and his grandson graduated from the Honolulu Fire Department academy in the same class. Among other things, I asked about the memoir he’s writing.

“I’ll tell you this,” he replied, “if I ever write another book, it’s not going to be non-fiction. With non-fiction, you have to check and check and check to get your facts straight.”

“Welcome to my world, Governor,” I said.

“I mean it, if I ever write another book, it’s going to be fiction - you can just make stuff up.”

I mentioned this conversation to MidWeek political columnist Dan Boylan, who said he’d heard from a number of Ben’s former associates who’ve received late-night calls from him, asking for their recollection of specific details.

The manuscript is currently with the publisher, the governor says, and he expects to do some revisions before it goes to press.

Ben was certainly our most tell-it-like-it-is governor, and I’m looking forward to reading his book. * Got a kick out of meeting new UH football coach Greg McMackin when I was invited as a guest to hear him speak to the Pearl Harbor Rotary. With his warm, outgoing demeanor, in public he’s the anti-June Jones. And I liked this honest assesment:

“I’m still in the honeymoon phase. People are always coming up, shaking my hand, saying nice things. Of course, I haven’t lost a game yet.”

I also liked that he’s told his players to get physically fit enough to perform in the searing heat and humidity of an August afternoon in Gainesville, in the season opener against the tough Florida Gators:

“I told ‘em there will be no leaning over with your hands on your knees when you get gassed. Do that and you’re coming out of the game. We will not show any sign of weakness.” * Master sommelier Roberto Viernes’ recent MidWeek column on great wine quotes reminded me of this one from the late, great Robert Mondavi, spoken at the Kapalua Food & Wine Festival circa 1988: “Just because I like a wine doesn’t make it a good wine. What makes it a good wine is if you like it.” * Speaking of quotes: This is from a San Francisco Chronicle online columnist known as The Betting Fool, regarding Michelle Wie’s disqualification from a tournament for failing to sign her scorecard:

“How do you forget to sign a scorecard? Good Lord, it’s a wonder she can remember her phone number. How in the hell did she get into Stanford? ... Have you ever listened to a Michelle Wie press conference? You can practically hear the air rushing through her head as she talks.”

Ouch.

* I will say this: Michelle’s decision to pass up playing in an LPGA “major” - the Women’s British Open last week - in favor of playing what amounts to an exhibition against second-tier male pros in Reno is a head-scratcher. So she proved again she can’t make the cut against men. She needs to prove she can beat the women. If she can.

* I was sorry to hear of the recent death of Rocky Aoki, the colorful Benihana founder and adventurer. Back in September 1979, a month before I would move to Hawaii to begin work as a daily columnist at the Advertiser, I was the outdoor columnist at the San Jose Mercury News and was supposed to accompany Rocky on a test run out of the Golden Gate in a 38-foot offshore racing boat, on the day before a big ocean race. But at the last minute my editor decreed he wanted me in the office writing headlines instead. I was not pleased, to put it mildly. But it turned out to be a lucky thing. Racing at 70 mph, the boat hit a huge wave and disintegrated. Rocky suffered a ruptured aorta, a lacerated liver and a leg broken in four places. When I heard the news, I kind of felt better about that editor.

Condolences to his family, including his son Kevin Aoki, who runs the excellent Doraku Sushi at the Royal Hawaiian Center.

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The Education Of A Firefighter

Little did I know when my son Kai began training as a Honolulu Fire Department recruit in March that I would be receiving an education myself. But by the time he graduated on July 18 with 20 others in HFD’s 93rd recruit class, having lived vicariously through his four and a half months of training, I had a greater understanding and even more respect for our firefighters and what they bravely yet routinely do.

Which seems to be just about everything and anything.

Once he began training, seemingly every day on the news I noticed firefighters rescuing people from flaming buildings, sink holes, crane collapses, car accidents, home medical emergencies, chemical spills, natural disasters, and boating, swimming and hiking incidents. One of the senior officers who spoke at the graduation ceremony said that he’d participated in some of Class 93’s training because firefighters today are expected to learn and do so much more than they were just a few years ago - including experiencing a “flashover,” when heat from a fire builds up to 1,200 to 1,500 degrees and in an instant combusts everything in the room.

Yes, I’m writing as Kai’s very proud Pops, but also as a huge admirer of the men and women in those yellow trucks and fire-retardant uniforms. These people are truly elite, in the very best sense of the term. To put it in perspective: 5,000 people requested applications for the last HFD test, 4,000 people submitted applications, just 600 passed the test. From there, a grueling physical test and personal interviews narrowed the field, and Kai and his classmates were among the top 88 chosen. Happily, his brother Daniel Andrade begins training next month in HFD recruit Class 94, following their older brother James Andrade, a seven-year veteran, into the department. Class No. 94 will be the final group of 22 chosen from that last testing phase.

But that’s just the start of testing.

Kai and his classmates - who include the grandsons of former Gov. Ben Cayetano and legendary coach Al Minn - were tested on an almost daily basis, both academics and physical skills.

And they were allowed to fail just three tests, with one more opportunity, on the spot, to retake and pass the test. Fail that - or your fourth test overall - and you’re gone. So the pressure was on every day. As I commented after the graduation ceremony to lead training officer Captain Guy Katayama, Kai studied harder at the HFD academy than he did at Kamehameha or HPU. “They have to,” he replied. “It’s pretty intense.”

Kai’s training began with him and his classmates learning how to quickly put on their “turnouts” - protective boots, pants, jacket, gloves, helmet/mask and air supply - not as simple as it sounds to protect every inch of skin and seal out smoke, ash and water.

From there it was everything from learning how to use the various ladders, implements and hoses, using the “Jaws of Life” to cut open a car and doing traffic control, learning to tie all kinds of rope knots, passing national EMT certification (he did a stint doing “vitals” in the St. Francis West ER), two weeks of hazardous materials training, and lots of physical conditioning. Hearing about his first house fire and being “on the nozzle” brought home the reality - especially for me - of the career he was embracing. So too did his being on the nozzle for a training fire at the Chevron refinery, where he found himself almost knee-deep in a mixture of oil and water that began to burn. Unable to move the spray of water off the much bigger fire, they were trained to simply kick the floating flames to the side. He honestly seemed to enjoy that day as much as jumping out of a helicopter into the ocean at Sandy Beach, practicing ocean rescues.

Then there was learning triage for mass casualties - doing quick tests to decide who needs immediate medical care, whose injuries can wait and who is too badly injured to be saved. One of the firefighters who was first on the scene at the awful Sacred Falls rock fall spoke to the class about the emotional difficulty of identifying a woman who’d suffered massive internal injuries and for whom nothing could be done to save her. It hit me then that in his job Kai would be seeing things that I’d never wanted him to see as a little boy. “I know, Dad,” he said, “but people need us.”

Indeed, they - we - do. As Kai’s training progressed, I was increasingly impressed with the thorough preparation he and his classmates were receiving - first in the classroom, then outside to do it physically - as well as the discipline and camaraderie. When I think of the dangers he could face on any given day, that training makes me feel better.

Yes, as Kai goes to work at Engine Company 33 in Palolo Valley, I am indeed a very proud father. But each of us on Oahu can be proud of, and daily thankful for, all the men and women of the Honolulu Fire Department.

To each of you fire folks, thanks, God bless and stay safe.

 

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‘Most Wanted’ Are Now Behind Bars

Way to go, MidWeek readers! Thanks to you, the Honolulu Police Department and CrimeStoppers have accomplished a 100 percent arrest rate for the 10 Most Wanted criminals who appeared on our May 28 cover.

For the record, one of the 10, Moesolo Tuiloma, had died in prison but paperwork didn’t reach CrimeStoppers by the time we went to press, and the warrant for Mellisa Magbitang was subsequently recalled.

So we’re batting a solid eight for eight in ‘08.

In case you missed it, this year’s Most Wanted class were all involved in crystal methamphetamine - ice - in some way. As we said in the story, this is where ice leads, “first to a really crummy life and then to prison.” The case of Tuiloma - dying in prison - says it all. If there is a sadder, more pathetic way to die, what would it be?

By the way, since we began doing Most Wanted cover stories in 1995, we’re averaging about nine out of 10 captured. Yes, this is the one MidWeek cover on which nobody wants to appear - thanks to our readers.

As it turned out, I was attending the annual CrimeStoppers awards luncheon last Wednesday when CrimeStoppers coordinator Sgt. Kim Buffet shared the news that all of the fugitives were accounted for. It was a great feeling to have police officers, including Chief Boisse Correa, walk up and shake my hand and say thanks for what MidWeek does for our community.

The thanks here goes entirely to you, our readers. We work with CrimeStoppers to publish the story and photographs, but readers make the calls. Sgt. Buffet says that calls started coming in to CrimeStoppers immediately after the story was published, and that they received 35 tips that led to the arrest of the eight criminals by HPD officers.

Also of interest: At the luncheon Sgt. Buffet reported that in 2007 CrimeStoppers handled 968 tips that led to the arrest or case-closing of 268 criminals, and paid out more than $13,000 in rewards for anonymous tips that led to arrests. For the Student CrimeStoppers program, 85 tips led to 26 school actions and 64 arrests.

Kudos, too, to Ramsay Wharton of KGMB-TV, who also received an award at the luncheon. About half of her “Wanted Wednesday” criminals have ended up behind bars.

It’s a tough world out there, and CrimeStoppers does an outstanding job of removing criminals from our midst. All of us at MidWeek are proud to be associated with such an outstanding organization. In fact, each time we heard of an arrest of one of the Most Wanted, there were fist pumps in the office worthy of Tiger Woods.

Go ahead, MidWeek readers, give it a fist pump, too.

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D.K. And The Mad Sushi Scientists

After a sneak preview of the new sushi dishes that D.K. Kodama is introducing to his Sansei menu this week - which I’ll take over a sneak preview of Indiana Jones or the new line of cars from Detroit any day - I was reminded of Jack Nicklaus’ comment after watching Tiger Woods play golf for the first time: “He’s playing a game with which I am unfamiliar.”

Because as much time as I have spent in sushi bars over the years, I’ve never encountered anything quite like this.

Sure, D.K. and others have previously rolled out, so to speak, “Spider Rolls,” for example, but those still use traditional ingredients. Likewise for California rolls, Texas rolls and Philly rolls - variations on a theme that is centuries old.

But now D.K. is taking raw fish, fresh local produce and amazing sauces to create entirely new kinds of tastes.

“D.K. and the guys in the kitchen have been working on new sushi items that utilize less rice,” says general manager Ivy Nagayama.

I can’t help thinking of “D.K. and the guys in the kitchen” as the mad scientists of sushi: “Ah ha ha ha, taste this!”

Taste this, indeed, which we happily did last week:

Torched Kona Kampachi sashimi stuffed with sweet Maui onions, chiso and Tsukodani Yuzu Aioli and drizzlied with chili pepper tosazu ($14). The meat is firm, the sauces lightly spicy.

Or this: Japanese Hamachi and Grilled Shiitake Mushroom Tartare ($12) with truffled soy sauce, orange tobiko and chiso chiffonade ($12). It’s a tight little mound that looks like traditional poke, but tastes nothing like it. My notes from the evening for this entry read simply, “Omigod!” Ivy says it’s her favorite among the new dishes.

Then there was the Fresh Salmon Asian Carpaccio with zesty green apple-soy salsa and ikura herb salad ($12). The salmon melts in the mouth.

On the spicy side: Cajun Seared White Tuna sashimi with shaved Maui onions, red jalapeno and yukke sauce ($12).

D.K. and the Mad Sushi Scientists (now there’s a name for a band) have been a busy bunch. We also tasted:

Matsuhia Style Miso Butterfish marinated and roasted in sake and sweet miso ($11). This was perhaps the most traditional Japanese dish we sampled, but it’s several steps beyond any butterfish I’ve tasted previously. The fish is Alaskan cod.

Also semi-traditional is the Grilled Fresh Hawaiian Ahi with Sansei’s award-winning Asian Shrimp Cake with furikake yaki onigiri, ginger lime chili butter and cilantro pesto ($25), but just semi.

Spiny Lobster Tail topped with panko-crusted Spicy Crab Cake over Capellini pasta tossed with Island vegetables and creamy Sambal Aioli ($43) nearly brought us to our feet in standing ovation. The lobster was tender and smoky, the zing of the crab cake and the buttery thin noodles a fantastic complement.

Bringing down the house was Panko Crusted Ahi sashimi roll wrapped in layers of arugula and spinach, flash-fried and served in a mild soy-wasabi butter sauce ($11). The combination of crunch and smooth textures was wonderful. No wonder this one took first place at Taste of Lahaina.

Throughout these tastes, Jamie Robinson was proving why he’s perhaps the top Caucasian sake expert in town. We tried two of the three sake samplers, each a flight of three sakes ($14). The Shogun - that’s me - includes, starting with the lightest: Masumi “Okuden Kantsukuri,” called the mirror of truth, quite smooth; Kokuryu “500 Mangoku,” called black dragon, a deeper and richer flavor, and Kampoizumi “Junai Daiginjo,” an autumnal elixir that has notes of persimmon and autumn leaves.

These are, by the way, cold sakes, and Jamie has arrayed them as food pairings.

If you prefer wine, D.K. works with various winemakers to produce wines that work well with his food. On this night we tried a 2005 Muller Thurgau CF Wines Eurasia ($39 bottle), a pale, dry German wine that went well with the sushi, as did a 2006 Niersteiner Hipping CF Euro-Asian Riesling ($37 bottle). Ivy, who, like her boss, loves bringing new ideas and tastes to diners, brought out a glass of 2005 Green Lion Napa Merlot, made by Australian wine super-star Chris Ringland, which went astonishingly well with the lobster.

Sansei is located in the Waikiki Beach Marriott, and if it’s been a while, the entrance is from makai-bound Ohua Avenue.

 

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Introducing An Unusual’Cartoon’

Turn this page and you’ll find the newest MidWeek feature: Don Asmussen’s Bad Reporter.

I can assure you that this is the only time I’ve attempted to bring a “bad reporter” into these pages.

While officially called an editorial cartoon, it’s a very non-traditional sort - creating fake newspaper front pages and headlines, based on actual news.

To me, it’s terrific political/cultural satire - sort of like a late-night TV monologue, but funnier - and I hope it will bring you a few yucks, too.

Having added Ron Mizutani to our list of columnists three weeks ago, in this issue we introduce a new writer, Brandon Bosworth, who filed the Newsmaker story on energy expert Fereidun Fesharaki, a fellow at the East-West Center. A native of Iran, he sees $6-a-gallon gasoline unavoidably on our horizon. Yikes.

On another note, kudos to our cousins at the Star-Bulletin for publishing the important Esquire magazine article that led to Adm. William Fallon’s resignation/ouster as the head of the U.S. Central Command, which has oversight of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But I must disagree with critics who compared Fallon’s disagreement with the Bush administration’s Iran policy to President Harry Truman canning Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. The big difference is that MacArthur wanted to nuke the Chinese, then as now North Korea’s biggest ally, while Fallon, former head of U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith, wanted to avoid another war for our troops, possibly World War III.

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So How Do You Want To Be Dead?

My kids have probably received better Christmas presents than the one I gave them a couple of months ago - a funeral plan for their dear old Dad.

Uh, gee, thanks.

But they’ve never received a more expensive gift - not counting college - not to mention one that will save them a lot of hassles and headaches on the day that is certain to come, and in the days after.

No, as I reassured them and a couple of friends with whom I shared this news, I am not planning on being dead any time soon. I’m in good health, exercise more days than not, passed a treadmill stress test last year, love my work and love my life. I plan on being around for quite a while, enjoying my version of the good life in Hawaii.

But you never know, and this was something I felt that I needed to take care of. I share it now with MidWeek readers only as something you may want to think about for yourself. Or not.

Look at it this way: We buy car insurance and home insurance, not knowing if we’ll ever need them. So why not buy “insurance” for one of the few certainties in life?

I’d actually been thinking about buying a funeral plan for a few years, but always managed to put it off. But then last fall I received a mailer from Hawaiian Memorial Park. Not long after, I was sitting down at the Kaneohe cemetery with Linda Herman to look at and talk about all of the options.

Linda was very informative and helpful, and I actually found the process to be interesting - thinking through how I want to be dead. What I decided is that when the time comes, I want to be dead in a way that is consistent with how I’ve lived (minus the, uh, deadlines).

Before meeting with Linda, I was pretty certain I wanted to be cremated. Going through the process with her, I decided that’s definitely what I want.

But then what? Linda drove me out to a scenic overlook at Hawaiian Memorial Park, where urns are entombed in a variety of stones or in large family settings. As a single guy, I was just looking for a puka, and found a spot beside a babbling waterfall with both mountain and ocean views. It’s a lovely spot, and for a day I thought about being there. On a return visit, though, I realized that my urn would be about a foot away from a woman, Margaret somebody, born 1941, died 2005. She was probably a very nice person, but I didn’t know her. And what if she talks all the time?

So I ultimately decided to have my kids scatter my ashes at a special place at the base of the Ko’olau mountains with a view of Kaneohe Bay (and even of the MidWeek plant; the editor will be watching). It’s a beautiful, peaceful place, one to which I’ve taken them and other family and friends over the years. The kids and I went there when my daughter Dawn was home for Christmas, and as she said, “This is like your sanctuary here, Dad. I can’t imagine you being anywhere else.”

Or as my son Kai said, “Yeah, Pops, I can see coming up here and having a couple of beers with you ... Eh, howzit, home boy?”

The package I bought, including cremation and a funeral service, came to about $4,500. I also bought what could be my last plane trip to Honolulu. If I die off Oahu, the cost of my ticket home is paid. (Do you get miles with that?)

The package also came with a sort of workbook, in which I left my kids information on financial accounts, Social Security, insurance and other information they’ll need, including names and numbers of people I’d like to be notified.

At the same time, I contacted the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine and filled out papers to become a Willed Body Program donor.

Hey, if there’s a body that should be studied by science, it’s this one!

When UH medical students are done with me after a year or so, the school will cremate me and return me to my kids, after a ceremony in which other body donors are also honored. Medical students say their best teachers are these body donors, and it’s comforting to think I’ll be doing some good when I’m gone - that a person yet unborn at the time of my demise will benefit years later from a medical student’s hands-on education.

And if UH accepts me - gosh, I feel like a hopeful would-be freshman again! - my kids can roll over (so to speak) my funeral plan to use for themselves or get a partial refund. Up to them.

For more information on the UH program, Google “jabsom” and then click on departments, then on Anatomy. There’s a link to the Willed Body Program in the second paragraph.

Now that all this is decided, I feel a kind of calm - knowing that I’m choosing how and where I’ll be dead, and that my kids will not have to worry about taking care of (and paying for) all this. As Linda Herman put it, heartache is bad enough without the headaches.

By the way, my kids (now 24 and nearly 23) also got another present for Christmas. I took our old Hi-8 home videos to Alan Nielsen at Affordable Image, and he converted them to DVDs, about 10 hours in all. They enjoyed seeing and hearing themselves again as children as much as I did, and they say this one does rate among the best presents they’ve ever received.

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Bring Back The Rainbows

Good luck to June Jones, and thanks a ton for the season that none of us who lived through it will ever forget, but ...

Can we please have the Rainbows back now?

As much as Coach Jones accomplished, he was also a sometimes divisive force - just ask Joe Moore and Larry Price. The coach’s banning of Rainbows as our team’s name, and even of the rainbow logo, because for him it conjured up images of a gay rights parade is one of the silliest and most insecure things I’ve ever heard.

Whoever the new coach is - and if so many assistant coaches and players want Greg McMackin, then I’m all for him - I hope that we can return to the Rainbow Warriors.

And as much as I like the H logo and the modern uniforms, how about at least once a season bringing back the retro kelly green jerseys and somehow incorporating a rainbow onto the black/dark green unis?

And please, please, can we get rid of the silver pants and helmets? When did that become an official school color? (Only June knows.) And what does silver have to do with Hawaii? To quote the band War (which is coming to town), “Absolutely nothing!”

Another question: Why did state legislators wait so darn long to actually check out facilities on campus? It’s been nearly a year since Colt Brennan first starting talking publicly about the decrepit conditions on campus, and it was a topic for commentators on every ESPN broadcast of a UH game this season as well as during the Sugar Bowl on Fox. And as former hoops coach Riley Wallace said on Jeff Portnoy’s radio talk show on 1500AM last week, when athletic director Herman Frazier came in he was presented a poll of UH coaches and at the top of everyone’s list of priorities was facilities. Frazier promised to improve facilities and obviously failed. So the problem wasn’t exactly a secret, and legislators and the governor dropped the ball long ago.

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A Drunken Idiot, Taxes, Evel, Sevey

Why some people should not be allowed to drink (because you cannot handle, brah, you cannot handle): At the big UH-Boise State football game, a young professional guy I know was leaning on the lower-level railing of one of the bridges connecting stadium sections, watching the halftime show with half a dozen buddies, when moisture began to fall. No, not rain. They suddenly realized that someone on the upper bridge had vomited, and it hit all seven of them - and each of them had to buy a new shirt. True story, sorry to say ...

* I hope you saw Robert Novak’s columns in the past two issues of MidWeek as well as this week, reporting how a stupid squabble in Congress could mean that Americans won’t get their IRS tax refunds until weeks or months later than usual. I also hope you’ll call our Congressional delegates and tell ‘em to get their act straight - and that if your returns are late you’ll remember the next time up they’re up for re-election ...

* By the way, here are the local phone numbers for Hawaii’s D.C. Fab Four:

Sen. Dan Inouye - 541-2542

Sen. Dan Akaka - 522-8970 Rep. Neil Abercrombie - 541-2570

Rep. Mazie Hirono - 541-1986 ...

* Hearing news of the death of daredevil motorcyclist Evel Knievel, I recalled covering his ill-fated attempt to jump the Snake River canyon in a rocket-powered bike, in 1974. I was there as the sports editor of the University of Oregon’s Daily Emerald, the campus paper. The day before the launch, I was at the site just outside Twin Falls, Idaho, when Evel landed in a helicopter, and I joined a throng of people following him. We passed through a couple of gates, and at each one people dropped out, until I was one of 10 or so folks entering his quarters in the back of a big Mack truck. As folks were being seated, somebody asked if I wanted a beer. You bet. That’s when another person asked who I was. I produced my media credential, and suddenly a big bodyguard was pulling out a big pistol and pointing it at me - I think it was a Smith & Wesson .45. Whereupon I excused myself and departed, without the beer. It was the first, and I hope it remains the only, time I’ve had a gun pulled on me ...

Next day, I was stationed just to the side of the launch ramp, and recall being shocked at how slowly the rocket propelled the bike, thinking no way it’s making it to the other side. Then the parachute deployed almost immediately, and Evel crashed on the rocks below, not even making it to the river. I’ll always believe it was a cheap stunt, and that Evel never intended to make it across the huge canyon - and that all of us there, as well as a national TV audience, got suckered that day ...

* Last week’s big storm and ensuing blackout was a reminder of just how tenuous our modern life is. As a friend who stayed home with his two young sons while power was out for almost 24 hours said, “Without electricity, whew, it’s straight back to the 1800s.” ...

* It was good to see my old Columbia Inn Roundtable All-Star teammate Bob Sevey talking with Leslie Wilcox on Public TV recently. Here’s my favorite Sevey story: Back in the days when he was the most respected TV news anchor in Hawaii, Bob was playing golf at Hawaii Kai when he hooked a shot and hit a house. Upon closer inspection, Bob saw that he’d broken a glass jalousie, and that nobody was home. Returning later, he apologized to the homeowners and gave them two glass jalousies.

“Why two?” they said. “You only broke one.”

Replied Bob, “I play here every week.” ...

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Richard Pryor: Not So Crazy After All

The whole N-word thing that’s gotten my cousin the Dog into so much trouble should have been settled 30 years ago.

That’s when Richard Pryor, on his brilliant but short-lived (just five episodes) The Richard Pryor Show on NBC in 1977 said that he would no longer use the term that had played a part in many of his bits and monologues.

The title of his 1974 masterpiece album was even titled That N——-‘s Crazy.

I can’t recall Richard’s exact words from 30 years ago, but it went something like this:

I’ve decided to stop using that word. I heard a white man use it on a black brother, and it hit me - that’s not a word that we made up and chose for ourselves. It was a term made up to express ridicule and hate, and to hurt, and it was forced on us by people who had made us their slaves. I’m sorry that I ever used it to refer to another black person, and I’m not going to use it again.

The same message should get passed along to the black rappers who have sadly “popularized” the term all over again - while calling black women ho’s.

The N-word is a term that should die, and the only way to make that happen is for everyone of all races to follow Richard Pryor’s example and simply refuse to utter it, no matter the context.

To quote another of my favorite entertainers, Aretha Franklin, it’s all about R-E-S-P-E-C-T ...

* I was discussing this last week with Cedric Petty, a close friend who happens to be black.

“It’s a hot button with me,” he said of that term.

For Dog or anyone else not to realize that the N-word is an insulting and hurtful term, well, Cedric was having a hard time believing that.

“I used to be a big fan of Dog’s,” he said. “But that’s all changed.”

Lest any of us feel too superior to Dog, Cedric, a warehouse supervisor at Hagadone Printing and father of two great boys, says he sees subtle and not-so-subtle signs of racism on a regular basis.

“Awoman sees you on the street and crosses the street to avoid passing you. And there’s ‘The Look.’ It says, ‘A black person, what are you doing here?’ You wouldn’t believe how often I get that one.’”

There are a lot of stupid things in the world, but there are few stupider than judging a person’s character and worth on the basis of the color of their skin - or for using racial terms that insult and injure ...

* I’m not always a big ‘Olelo person - only so much TV you can watch in a day - but I do plan to watch town hall meetings discussing the city’s rail plans on the next several Monday evenings - and hope you will too. It is the biggest economic question - and potentially an economic disaster - facing our city and state. The shows air Mondays for the next three weeks ...

* Played golf with UH hoops coach Bob Nash - what a gentleman, a class guy all the way - in the recent Ito En charity tournament, and he told me a spooky story. He and son Bobby, one of the team’s stars, were at home taking apart a rebounding machine, meant to increase Bobby’s jumping ability. They unscrewed a bolt and it suddenly shot at Bobby like a bullet and hit him in the middle of the forehead, drawing blood. “We didn’t realize the thing was spring-loaded,” the coach said. Thankfully it didn’t hit an eye ...

Anyway, geev ‘um, Coach!

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Kauai Invaders Sweep Across Oahu

My next-door neighbors in Kaneohe hosted an extended Kauai family over a recent weekend.

I thought about throwing rocks at them, pounding on their two rental cars and screaming that their mere presence defiled my island, not to mention my street, but had more important things to do - like cleaning my fish tank.

So instead I asked them if everyone on Kauai agrees with the folks there who’ve protested the Superferry so boorishly.

“There’s only about 12 of them,” one of the women said with a dismissive shake of her head.

“We’d have loved to bring our cars over on the Superferry with everything we need to tailgate at the UH homecoming football game,” one of the men said. “That would have been perfect.”

Turns out they were also here to see Lion King and do some shopping - not to mention clog up our roads. But being the magnanimous guy that I am, I forgave them ...

* What’s going on in our ocean with all of the recent shark attacks? Oh, yeah, it’s not our ocean - it’s their ocean! And it’s obvious that the tiger shark population has rebounded after being whacked down to almost nothing in research by former UH prof Albert Tester. Following the fatal attack on Billy Weaver, of restaurant legend Spence Weaver’s family, while he was surfing off Lanikai in 1958, the state legislature gave funding to Tester do shark research. And the only way to do that is to catch and kill them. The program continued into the 1970s. Now it appears that the tigers have bounced back. My son Kai and a friend were playing catch with a football in knee-high water at Kailua Beach Park a while back when lifeguards ordered everyone out of the water - because out by a buoy marking off a swimming-only area, a big tiger was tossing a turtle into the air, taking a bite, then tossing it again. I haven’t gone swimming there since ...

The California guy who was bit last week on Maui was breaking the first rule of how not to get bit by a shark: swimming in murky water. Tiger sharks love murky water, especially near the mouths of streams, because all kinds of morsels wash down when it rains, including dead animals ...

* What’s wrong with Michelle Wie? Let’s put it this way: When Tiger Woods enrolled as a freshman at Stanford, Mommy and Daddy didn’t pack up and move to Palo Alto with him. College is where kids are supposed to start growing up and making decisions on their own - sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but that’s how kids learn to be independent adults. And if there’s any trait that history’s great golfers share, it’s being strong individuals who think for themselves ...

* No moral to this story, just a little observation: While driving on a recent sunny day, moments after seeing three teen girls walking along laughing and dressed in what seems the requisite practically nothing, I passed three elderly ladies walking along laughing, all wearing broad-brimmed hats and long-sleeved shirts. No matter the age, friends are good ...

* Speaking of the way kids dress these days: Heard about a preschool girl whose mother sent her to school on Halloween dressed as Beth Chapman, including large fake breasts ...

* As for my cousin Dog: What a sad story. But I have to disagree with a columnist for the Advertiser, who wrote that Dog’s stupid, racist rant showed his true colors. That’s just simplistic thinking. We humans are each capable of doing great good and terrible immorality - none of us is all good or all bad, not Dog and not that columnist. Unfortunately, the bad Dog spoke that day. And as you may also have learned in life, once something is said you can’t remove the words from another person’s ears and put them back in your mouth. Sad, sad…

* November, I’ve been informed, is International Drum Month. Did you know that playing the drums can burn up to 270 calories in a half-hour - more than cycling, hiking or weight lifting. It also lowers stress hormones. According to the Percussion Marketing Council, girls especially benefit from drumming: “Percussion can transform a quiet, timid, ordinary little girl into a strong, powerful, focused and confident young woman.” I’ve been fooling around with congas and various other hand drums for a decade and can attest to drumming’s therapeutic effect. For more info, please check out www.PlayDrums.Com ...

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Keeping It Green At MidWeek

MidWeek reader Adam Kahualulani Mick e-mailed me with a good question. A gardener, he wanted to use old issues as mulch in his vegetable garden, but was worried that MidWeek might be printed with a petroleum-based ink. Absolutely not. Since well before I became editor we’ve used exclusively soy-based inks. Same is true of the Star-Bulletin, which is also printed at our Kaneohe plant ...

Like Adam, you might like to know that we also have an aggressive paper recycling program, from unused/old newspapers to phone books, as well as turning the thousands of faxed pages that arrive here into pads of scratch paper ...

And kudos to Foodland, Times, Star, Longs and other merchants who now offer customers reusable grocery bags. As a bonus, they give you anywhere from three to five cents back for each bag you bring to carry home your purchases ...

Safeway also offers plastic bag recycling bins outside its stores. How many plastic bags do we really need in our landfills? And according to the Sierra Club, when one ton of plastic bags is reused or recycled, the energy equivalent of 11 barrels of oil is saved….

And more kudos: Turtle Bay is now offering golfers tees that, if left in the ground, are biodegradeable ...

Speaking of eco issues: Roy Chang’s recent cartoon about the effects of global warming - showing TheBoat making stops at downtown Honolulu street corners - made me recall that Queen Street was once on the Honolulu Harbor waterfront, as seen in a 1906 Army Corps of Engineers map. Hopefully it will not become oceanfront again ...

And speaking of global warming: The organization that received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is chaired by an East-West Center alumnus, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri. The award, shared with former Vice President Al Gore, was for “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” At the East-West Center, he was involved with a number of environmental and energy projects during the 1980s, and is a great example of the wonderful and too-often unsung work that happens at the EWC ...

Full disclosure: I am rather partial to the EWC, especially after receiving a fellowship there two years ago for travel in Korea ...

Best analogy I’ve heard for why our planet is obviously heating up: Yes, we do seem to be in the early phases of a natural cycle in which the Earth’s temperatures are rising, but human activities that include deforestation and air pollution from PCBs and burning fossil fuels just multiply the effect - it’s as if we’re in a car heading toward a cliff and we’ve responded by stomping on the accelerator ...

Changing subjects: Walking through my Kaneohe neighborhood the other day, I noted that neighbors who have a variety of chew toys in the yard for their dogs have added a small football inscribed with the name of Michael Vick. A Standing O! ...

But who’s counting: Hard to believe, but last week I celebrated 28 years of writing columns in Hawaii, and next week celebrate 13 years as editor of MidWeek. Time flies when you’re having fun and working with great people ...

Our crazy language: Why don’t the first syllables of these two words rhyme? Pleasure and please ...

Just ran across a quote from humorist Malcolm Kushner: “There are three ways to get something done: Do it yourself, hire someone to do it for you, or forbid your kids to do it.”

True story ...

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Welcoming The Hopi Medicine Man

You may recall a column I wrote in May about visiting the Hopi reservation in Arizona with my just-graduated daughter Dawn, and spending time with the Hopi medicine man Grandfather Martin Gashweseoma, who’d predicted 9/11 five years before it happened.

I received several calls and e-mails from readers wanting to know how they could meet Grandfather Martin. The good news is that he’ll arrive in Honolulu on Oct. 9 for a week, thanks to my acupuncturist Dr. Peggy Oshiro and her meditation students. He’ll be visiting a number of sites on Oahu, including the Royal Mausoleum at Mauna Ala, Helemano Plantation and Sea Life Park. He’ll also visit the Hindu temple at Lawai, Kauai. His one public talk will be at Hawaii Business Equipment on Oct. 12, 7 p.m. Seating is limited. For more information, call Gladys at 396-9703 ...

(If you missed it, you can see that original column at http://www.midweek.com/content/columns/editorsdesk_article/lunch_with_the_h opi_medicine_man/ ...)

By the way, for readers who may also recall my writing about my daughter Dawn’s first day of kindergarten at Kamehameha and various other milestones between then and her college graduation from Northern Arizona U. at Flagstaff in May, she was just hired as a claims adjustor by an insurance company in Phoenix. Few things have given me such a parental thrill as receiving her first e-mail from her work address, with her name and title at the bottom. Yup, I’m a proud pop ...

We’re all sorry to see Lisa Asato leave our staff for another opportunity. She’s been an important part of Team MidWeek, a smart young woman who is a hard worker - always a tough combination to beat - and whose calm personality was much appreciated. We wish her all the best ...

Taking her place is Alana Chun Folen, who just graduated from the UH-Manoa journalism program. We see a great future for this talented young writer ...

Another big change here is that Yu Shing Ting - another smart, hard-working young woman - goes on maternity leave this week. The baby boy was expected by Tuesday. Yu Shing does so much for both editions of MidWeek, we’ll miss her and eagerly await her return ...

Filling in for Yu Shing is Sarah Pacheco, another recent UH journalism grad. While I was interviewing her for the job, Sarah glanced at some photos on my office wall and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, you’re Dawn and Kai Chapman’s dad!” Turns out she was my son Kai’s classmate at Kamehameha (class of ‘03). It’s a small world, and a smaller island, but Sarah got the job on her own merits. We’re glad to have her ...

Hiring people the same age as my children doesn’t exactly make me feel older, but it doesn’t make me feel any younger either ...

Dining tip: Just tried Cassis, Chef Mavro’s downtown restaurant, for the first time and it was one of the greatest dinners I’ve ever enjoyed. Reasonable prices, wonderful food and ambiance, with a perfect wine pairing for each dish, including dessert. Onolicious barely does the fare at Cassis justice ...

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A Note, Li’ Dat, To Kauai Protestors

Here’s what Braddah Bash (as in Cala-) has to say to residents of Kauai who protested the arrival of the Superferry:

Mahalo for da aloha, li’ dat, when us Oahu guys try come Kauai on da Supahferry.

Not!

OK, OK, so we know you special, eh - Kauai is da one island Kamahemaha da Greates’ nevah wen’ conquer. Jus’ one leetle remindah, tho: Your chief joined da kingdom, and now you part of da state. Fo’ real! E komo mai!

And da folks you protesting against an’t'rowing rocks at is us Oahu peoples - local kine folks like you, yeah?

From what I saw in da paper an’ on top da TV, you t’ink we make less traffics if we fly ovah on one airplane and rent one car, ‘stead of taking da ferry wit’ our own vehicles. You know, ‘as kinda like my auntie - to make her coat less heavy, she cut off da buttons and put’ em in da pockets ...

Speaking of pockets, I kinda wonder who’s slipping some kala in your pockets fo’make you ac’ so lolo ...

‘An what, you want us protest when you try come Oahu fo’shop Ala Moana? Better watch it, we get plenny more peoples den you. So you like see one protest, ho, we show you one protest…

‘Kay den…

Mahalo, Braddah Bash. And speaking of Kauai, here’s one less reason to visit the Emerald Isle: The back nine of the Kiele course at Kauai Lagoons, much of which runs along the ocean and overlooks Nawiliwili Harbor, is being plowed under to make way for luxury homes and condos. As you may know, I write for a number of Mainland magazines about golf, and have rated Kiele No. 1 in Hawaii, and that back nine as Hawaii’s best nine holes. It may be Jack Nicklaus’best design work anywhere, and ‘scuse me if I can’t help taking this like a death in the family…

So in the spirit of a wake here’s a true tale: When Kiele first opened, you could drive your cart nearly all the way to the green of the short, severely downhill 16th hole, with the the harbor on the left side. The reason fencing was later put in to prevent carts from going so far down the hill is that a couple from Japan was speeding down the hill, lost control of the cart and managed to leap safely from the cart just before it plunged off the cliff onto the rocks far below ...

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A Tough Way To Make $575

There’s gotta be an easier way to make $575: Did you see that the copper wiring stolen from the Campbell High football stadium, and later recovered, was valued at a whopping $575? Let’s see, you do something that could get you arrested, not to mention cause your death either by falling from a pole or by electrocution, for $575? Sounds like a heckuva job description to me ...

The kicker, of course, is that the thief apparently abandoned the wire, along with his car, and won’t make a dime. This one is worthy of our Chuck Shepherd’s Weird News column ...

It also seems a crime that the cost of repairing Campbell’s lights is estimated to be $25,000 ...

Speaking of weird news: A Mainland eco group that wants to promote a concert at Magic Island is asking the city to first take away 15 big trees. Eh, go save somebody else’s planet, pal ...

This one makes me “green,” alright - as in nauseous! ...

Driving down Kahala Avenue for the first time in a while, I was amazed that our town’s priciest neighborhood has Third World streets just like the rest of us. How about that? ...

Does anybody else feel like the city’s proposed rail plan is getting rammed down our throats? ...

I got to ride two fixed-rail lines recently - in Las Vegas, where the train is such a bust that it can’t even pay for its own debt service, and Portland, where TriMet is popular and well-ridden, largely because it goes where people want to go - including downtown and the airport, unlike the Honolulu plan. Seems to me that success or failure of a rail system - based on how many people actually ride the train - depends largely on how good your plan is. My concern with the mayor’s planned route is that it’s fatally flawed - it’s not going where people want and need to go ...

But, hey, these are the waning days of summer, so lighten up, brah ...

I’ve been learning that summer isn’t quite as much fun when your favorite baseball team - in this case the San Francisco Giants - is one of the worst teams in baseball and seems to invent new ways of losing every day. But even worse news was seeing a report that a Giants fan was tossed out of San Francisco’s beautiful bayside stadium for chanting “Dodgers suck!” Which is ridiculous, because the fan is right. And if you can’t hate the sucky Dodgers, and tell them so, what’s the point of being a Giants fan, especially in a season like this when we suck even worse? ...

Thanks to readers for appreciative e-mails regarding last week’s column on Churchill’s Folly in Iraq. It’s such a fascinating book, when I was finished nearly every page had been marked up with a highlighter ...

But I also got in some lighter reading this summer. If you’re also a fan of the delightful madman Christopher Moore, his new novel You Suck, a modern vampire love story, has some good laughs ...

Our crazy language: Why don’t we pronounce the wh in “while” as we do in “whole”? ...

No wonder UH-Manoa does big business with foreign students taking English as a Second Language classes ...

With the end of summer coming, are you ready for some football? ...

I sure am, but maybe you’re also wishing you could get more excited about UH’s weak-sister football schedule in Colt Brennan’s final year. There are only so many 62-7 games you can stand watching, even if you’re winning, and I see a bunch of ‘em coming…

But then that’s why God invented tailgating, isn’t it? ...

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Following Churchill’s Folly In Iraq

“When Iraq becomes strong enough in our opinion to stand alone, we shall be in a position to state that our task has been fulfilled, and that Iraq is an independent sovereign state. But this cannot be said while we are forced year after year to spend very large sums of money on helping the Iraqi government to defend itself and maintain order.”

Sound familiar? Perhaps like something you’ve heard from a stay-the-course advocate, circa 2004-7?

Nope, it’s Winston Churchill, writing in 1922 as head of Britain’s Colonial Office. At the time, Prince Feisal - whom Churchill had appointed king of the nascent nation of Iraq, whose borders Churchill had drawn up the previous year - was balking at the protectorate agreement the British wanted. To rule a land and people with whom he was largely unfamiliar, Feisal, a native of the Arabian Peninsula and not the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, and who had spent much of his life in Turkish Constantinople, needed legitimacy - and as much independence from the British as he could get.

Which is much the same problem that the American-supported government and army of Iraq are having today.

That, and the above quote, are just two among endless parallels between the British experience in Iraq and the American experience 80-plus years later - as reported in Churchill’s Folly, by historian Christopher Catherwood (2004, Carroll & Graf). It wasn’t written yet when the Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003, but the information was there for the learning if anyone in the White House had cared to pursue it. E-mail subject: Things To Avoid in Iraq! For this book, Catherwood relies heavily on the archived letters and memos written by the remarkably prolific Churchill.

Abrief bit of background that is necessary to understand the current situation: The Ottoman Empire based in modern-day Turkey ruled from 1299 until 1920, at its peak controlling three continents. Already with their empire in decline, the Ottomans sided with Germany in World War I, and in its defeated aftermath saw remnants of the empire subdivided, with Western nations given “mandates” by the League of Nations to govern various areas. The United States was given present-day Armenia, but the isolationist administration of President Woodrow Wilson - the U.S. was not even a member of the League of Nations - chose not to get involved. The French got what today is Syria and Lebanon, and the Brits got what is now Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, among other real estate. A map of the region before Churchill convened what he called his “40 Thieves” in Cairo in April 1921 to draw up new national boundaries shows not countries, but tribal areas - the Ibn Saud clan ruling the Nejd on the Arabian Peninsula and the rival Hussein clan ruling the neighboring Hejaz along the Red Sea, to name the largest two. They often skirmished, and the Sauds also had their eyes on what would become Kuwait.

Note: The Husseins, also known as Hashemites and unrelated to Saddam, are descended from the prophet Mohammed and held the position of Sharif of Mecca. They are key characters in the film Lawrence of Arabia and the book about the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans on which it is based, Seven Pillars of Wisdom - although Catherwood says the historical details of both are quite wrong and based largely on the fantasies of T.E. Lawrence. Nevertheless, Churchill dragged the old desert soldier out of retirement, and Lawrence became one of those “40 Thieves,” and much responsible for Churchill agreeing to put Hussein’s son Feisal on the new Iraqi throne (after he tried usurping the new throne in Syria until the French kicked him out). Feisal’s brother Abdullah would become king of the new country of Jordan.

Call it arrogance, perhaps: Churchill had never actually visited what was then called Mesopotamia when he arbitrarily drew up the borders for a new land called Iraq, doing so in Egypt, although he did visit Jerusalem.

And while Catherwood writes that Churchill was well aware of Sunni-Shia differences in the region, he ignored them as well as tribal boundaries. Thus Churchill, the classic colonialist, brought a Sunni from outside Iraq to rule a country that was two-thirds Shia.

As for the Kurds in the north, they were Sunni but not Arabic. The “40 Thieves” discussed creating a separate Kurdish nation, but failed to do so - Kurdish homelands were split between Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria - to the continuing detriment of the Kurdish people.

In short: Three nations - for Shia, Sunni and Kurds - could have been created at a time when Arab nationalism was rising, and such an idea might have been popular. Or the Brits could have simply let those tribal lands revert to their traditional ways. But that is not the way of empires, and today the Iraqis - and Americans - are paying for it.

Oil was not yet an issue for the Brits - Iraqi oil was still just speculation in 1922 - but they had their own economic self-interest here. As Colonial secretary, Churchill was interested in Iraq because it would save several days in the time it took to send troops and goods from England to India, then the UK’s prize colony. And Churchill, Catherwood shows again and again, was chiefly interested in saving the British Empire money - call it empire on the cheap.

Thus it was that troop levels were always an issue, with British generals saying that far more troops were necessary to stabilize Iraq than Churchill and politicians in London wanted to hear. Ask retired Gen. Eric Shinseki if that sounds familiar.

Feisal would turn out to be a terrible choice for reasons greater than his religion. He was simply not a good ruler, his administration disorganized at best. That said, as Catherwood points out, the British presence that lasted until 1932 never allowed Feisal any true legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people. Who’s in charge here? He died in 1933, succeeded by the young playboy King Ghazi.

Churchill’s formula created inherent instability in Iraq - in the nation’s first 37 years, there were 58 different governments! The bloody Baathist overthrow of 1958 ended the Hashemite monarchy, and especially after Saddam Hussein seized power in 1979 would show that only an iron-fisted dictator could hold a country of such disparate parts together.

So what might this history mean for America and Iraq?

The greatest problem, it seems to me, is that Iraq was never a nation of ideals, or dreams, or unified core beliefs or ethnicity. Today, Catherwood points out, the people of Iraq still identify themselves more by tribal and religious affiliation than as patriotic Iraqis. They may cheer the Iraqi soccer team, because they love soccer and it’s the only team they have, but they don’t get all chickenskin when they hear their national anthem.

And the concept of democracy does not resonate; they are content with a system that offers security, and a religion that provides answers for life’s vagaries.

It seems unlikely to the point of impossibility that the Shia majority, dominated by a Sunni minority going back to the Ottomans and then by a Western-appointed monarchy followed by a military dictatorship, will ever give up the dominance they now and newly enjoy. Share power? Ha!

It seems equally unlikely that the long-dominant Sunnis would allow themselves to become a persecuted minority, or that the Kurds of Iraq, with a strong regional government now in place and lots of oil underfoot, would be willing to be dominated by Arabs of either Muslim stripe. And why share?

And it seems there is no essential reason for these very different people to find a unifying cause other than oil profits. But that would involve sharing, and that’s a problem.

Whether it was the British in 1921 or Americans today, Western powers have dictated what Iraq is and what Iraqi policy should be. The stated Bush agenda to establish democracy in Iraq is a lovely idea, but so is money growing on trees. For Iraqis, democracy is not a golden ideal, but just another Western concept being forced upon them by violent means.

Even if some kind of democracy prevails in Iraq, says Catherwood, expect it to act rather as Feisal did with the Brits who put him in power: ungrateful. There was never a pro-British government under the Hashemite monarchy, and there is not likely to be a pro-American government that follows our exit.

Whether U.S. troops leave Iraq tomorrow or next year or even beyond that, it’s highly unlikely that ancient tribal and religious identities will be superseded by national pride.

As Catherwood points out, whether it was artificially configured Yugoslavia or the French creation of Lebanon, nations drawn up by outside forces are never successful for very long. The U.S. invasion of Iraq and the bloody chaos it set loose seems to bear out that historical verity.

Yes, Iraqi oil is our economic self-interest, and a very serious one, but this should give Americans even more reason to find other ways to power our cars, homes and businesses, and our nation.

Bottom line: I can’t see any way that America can get out of Iraq without the serious involvement and cooperation of the Arabic Sunni Saudis, the Persian Shia Iranians and the Sunni Turks - a treaty between those traditional regional rivals allowing Sunni, Shia and Kurdish home-lands in the former Iraq would be a good start, and would provide a sort of buffer among those powers.

And I can’t see a way out of Iraq without finally letting the people of the region redraw their own borders. They’ve been subject to outside dominance since 1299 - a mere 708 years. They could hardly do any worse than Western meddlers have done.

Will there be bloodshed as they sort it out? To answer with a double question: Is there unconscionable bloodshed happening in Iraq now? And how else do you propose to stop it?

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Another Happy MidWeek Birthday

Happy Birthday to us! With the publication of MidWeek‘s weekend paper last week, we began the paper’s 24th year of publication.

And to think that some media wise guys predicted MidWeek wouldn’t last two years.

I was a daily columnist at the Advertiser when the first MidWeek hit homes on July 18, 1984 - Joe Moore was featured on the cover, wearing his Columbia Inn Roundtable All-Stars softball uniform. But what I really remember is the immediate hit the Advertiser took in advertising revenues when the supermarkets began choosing the little weekly paper to carry their inserts. I remember it because my expense account got severely whacked.

By the way, for those of you who are old enough to remember my years of daily columnizing, I’ve now been at MidWeek longer than I was at the Advertiser.

Especially gratifying is the growth of our readership. A year ago we passed the Sunday Advertiser in readership - we’re at about 467,000 and growing, making MidWeek the most popular publication in Hawaii.

And of course there are now two MidWeeks every week. Our fantastic staff also produces four MidWeek Islander community newspapers for Windward, West, East and Central Oahu, as well as Oahu Military Star, an independent weekly military newspaper.

And far from the little shopper that was MidWeek in 1994, we’ve won a number of journalism awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Hawaii Publishers Association, including being named the best non-daily paper in Hawaii.

I give a ton of credit to Ron Nagasawa, who after being promoted from assistant publisher to publisher in late 2001 has instituted some exciting changes, and has given us stable and smart leadership. With this issue we introduce Doctor In The House, a weekly medical Q&A column in which Lisa Asato interviews a different doc each week.

Another key but quiet member of our staff is senior editor Terri Hefner. I dread the weeks she goes on vacation. And Dennis Francis has brought great energy and ideas to the company since coming over from the Advertiser to become company president three years ago.

We’re grateful that you and so many of your friends, family, colleagues and neighbors choose to spend part of your busy week with MidWeek, and are always mindful that we are writing stories and shooting photos for you.

We are also grateful to our advertisers, so please support them, because they pay the bills so we can bring MidWeek to you.

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Finally, Good News For Pali Golfers

You may recall a strongly worded column I wrote on Feb. 7, “The Sad State Of City Golf Courses,” after playing Pali and West Loch and finding their conditions deplorable - with large areas of dead grass and bare dirt on putting greens and fairways.

Pali, which I’ve been playing and enjoying since 1984, was especially tragic - like seeing a loved one with a terminal illness slowly wasting away.

As I said then, when playing a muni I don’t expect the perfectly manicured conditions of, say, a Mauna Lani or a Kapalua course. But I do expect an actual golf course with actual grass on fair-ways and greens.

Now there’s good news to report for fellow Pali fans. Here’s how I stumbled upon it.

While chatting last Thursday at the MidWeek/Star-Bulletin Hawaii’s Best awards party at the Honolulu Design Center with my old friend John Fuhrman, who runs the city’s Blaisdell Center and the Waikiki Shell, he introduced me to his boss, Sidney Quintal, director of the Department of Enterprise Services.

“Don Chapman!” he said. “You’re the guy who wrote all that stuff about Pali Golf Course!”

That’s me, I said, and it’s true, Pali’s condition is really crappy.

“I’m the guy in charge of it,” he said.

Well, how do you do?

It turns out that column was well-read at Honolulu Hale.

“I won’t say that it was the sole reason for what’s happening, but it did get some people’s attention at City Hall,” Sidney said.

People, I inferred, like Mayor Mufi.

Whatever the case, Sidney said that column helped prompt some changes. The most dramatic is that this week public bids close for the job of redoing each of Pali’s 18 greens.

“We’re bringing in all new turf,” Sidney said excitedly.

He said they’re going all out, and that the course will be closed for a month.

He also said that he’s now having weekly meetings with his course superintendents, and doing regular observation tours of each of the city’s six golf courses.

The other great news for Pali golfers is that Sidney has hired Leighton Wong, the guy who kept Royal Kunia green and alive during the bare-bones decade the City Council shut it down after the former Japanese owner went bankrupt and did not pay the multi-million-dollar “use fee” the city demanded. Leighton knows how to take care of a golf course on a limited budget and is the perfect guy for the mayor’s policy of not creating anything if it can’t be properly maintained.

With Leighton there, I see great things ahead for one of my favorite courses. In fact, I’ve

always said Pali has the capacity to be one of the top 10 courses in Hawaii if it just received decent maintenance, and could be to Honolulu what legendary Harding Park is to San Francisco

Anyway, Sidney promised that when the new greens are ready he’d invite me out to play, and he hoped that I’d write about that experience.

You can count on it.

I also mentioned to Sidney that I’d recently played West Loch again, as well as Makalena. West Loch was improved, though with still too many patches of bare dirt in fairways. Makalena’s greens were remarkably good, and the course is vastly improved from the last time I played it.

By the way, Sidney and John were at the bash for Hawaii’s Best (as voted by our readers) to receive the award for best venue to hear live music, which went to the Waikiki Shell - a real shocker there, eh.

They were also pleased to report that they have the funds to replace seats at the Shell.

That’s a good thing too, because the last time I sat there for a concert - Bonnie Raitt last winter - many seats were dangerously rickety and rusting with sharp metal edges. They’re at least as bad as the seats at UH’s Les Murakami Stadium, and that’s saying something.

But that’s another column.

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Lunch With The Hopi Medicine Man

I was standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona ... not that it’s pertinent to anything, really, but there I was a couple of weeks ago, standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, and I’ve never before had the opportunity to start a column with the line from the iconic Jackson Browne-Eagles hit Take It Easy, and am not likely to ever get another, so ...

We - my daughter Dawn and I on the day after her graduation from Northern Arizona U. in Flagstaff, as well as my Honolulu acupuncturist Dr. Peggy Oshiro and several of her meditation students in two other vehicles - were making a pit stop in Winslow en route to the Hopi Indian reservation. There we were to have lunch with the medicine man who five years before 9/11 predicted a foreign attack by airplanes on two New York high-rises, killing thousands, causing a war about money and oil ...

After a drive through the Painted Desert and past fantastic rock formations and remnants of the ancient inland sea (where fossilized sea creatures are found at 5,000 feet elevation), we meet the Hopi spiritual leader in a restaurant on Second Mesa ...

His name is Martin Gashweseoma - pronounced the way it looks - but people simply call him Grandfather Martin. He is 85, and when he speaks he looks you directly, unwaveringly in the eye. He was trained in the ways of the spirit world and the ancient practices of the Hopi people by his uncle Yeukioma, who spent 17 years imprisoned on Alcatraz for hiding his children and refusing to send them away to the white man’s schools, in 1906. Like the Dalai Lama, whom he has met twice, Grandfather Martin has been invited to speak at the United Nations ...

The peaceful Hopi originated with the Mayans of Central America, he says, but at some point they migrated north. Up at Third Mesa where he lives is the village of Oraibi, believed to be the longest continuously inhabited piece of real estate in North America - for at least 1,100 years ...

After lunch, I drive Grandfather Martin up to his house at Third Mesa with Dawn and his friend Sakina Blue-Star. Streets are sandy, and on the roof of his traditional home he’s raising three juvenile golden eagles, a spiritual symbol for the Hopi. Grandfather Martin invites us in to talk some more, and he is no more enthusiastic about the world today than he was when he predicted 9/11. Producing a copy of the “Mayan Codex,” a series of highly complex hieroglyphics, he explains the meaning. The first three figures representing the Hopi people survive attacks from Spaniards and other outside forces because they remain rooted in Mother Earth. Only when they forsake those essential roots do his people - and all people, he says - lose their way ...

Following Mayan-Hopi belief, Grandfather Martin says we are nearing the end of the “fourth world,” which will end with a complete “cleansing.” He draws a finger across his throat, and the Mayan drawing indeed shows the head of the fourth, rootless figure being severed. He urges wealthy people to spend their money now, and tells Hopi people to remain living in their villages high on the mesas to remain safe. After the cleansing, he believes a fifth world is coming, one populated by “onehearted people who all speak the same language.” ...

I ask if there is anything that we can do as individuals for this world. “It is set. You first have to heal yourself,” he says, and it echoes words I’d heard from the Dalai Lama barely two weeks earlier on Maui ...

We’re struck by the similarities between Hopi and native Hawaiian culture and beliefs. In fact, Grandfather Martin was invited to the Big Island a few years ago to interpret cave petroglyphs. After coming down from Third Mesa, we’re invited into the home of a Hopi woman named Rowena, Sakina’s hanai daughter, who is a member of the Hopi’s Sand people. Their aumakua, as it were, is the lizard - just like the Hawaiian mo’o. She greets us with chanting, while burning sage and waving the smoke toward us. When we leave, she asks us to pray for rain - up on the mesas the Hopi people are feeling the effects of climate warming, and the level in the natural spring from which Grandfather Martin and other Hopi draw their daily water is dropping year to year ...

Back in Flagstaff, a newspaper story reports that climate warming is happening in the American Southwest at a faster rate than in the rest of the country. Unfortunately, warmer also means drier ...

Speaking of the Dalai Lama, here are a few out-takes from my May 16 cover story:

* The 14th Dalai Lama, his representative in the U.S. Tashi Wangdi says, is not a big follower of sports or popular culture, but he has seen the films Kundun, which tells the story of how he was discovered, trained and then forced into exile at age 24, and Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad Pitt. Of those, Kundun is the more historically accurate. He has never seen Caddie Shack, nor Bill Murray’s classic ramble about ending up at a Tibet golf course and caddying for the Dalai Lama: “He’s a big hitter, the lama, long ... We finish 18 and he’s gonna stiff me, so I say, Hey, lama, how about a little something for the effort, you know? So he says, Oh, no money, but when you die, on your deathbed you’ll receive total consciousness. So I got that going for me, which is nice.” But His Holiness does watch in-flight movies, and when he ran into Robin Williams started laughing and exclaiming “Ah, Mrs. Doubtfire, very funny!”

* As he did for the Dalai Lama’s visit to the Big Island in 1990, Shep Gordon, the Maui agent who coordinated the Maui events, arranges for special meals for the Lama, and again for Maui artist Piero Resta and his potter wife Gail to create dinner plates, bowls and cups with Buddhist symbols. The food is prepared by Mark Ellman - asparagus soup, filet mignon and grilled salmon from his Mala Ocean Tavern in Lahaina on the first day. Filet mignon? “I was blown away, I thought he was a vegetarian,” says Chef Mark. “But the Tibetans are big meat eaters. It’s cold up there.” The next day’s menu from Mark’s Penne Pasta Cafe was scrapped when the Lama called and said he was in the mood for French onion soup and Pasta Bolognese. Shep and wife Renee Loux were previously married by the Dalai Lama, and for dessert he was served Renee’s Dolphin Vegan cookies with wild jungle fruits from Hana.

* Shep says it makes sense to follow the Dalai Lama’s teachings if for no other reason than self-interest: “In a very selfish sense, if you practice compassion, you’re guaranteed to get happy.”

* Going through security at the Kahului airport on my way back to Oahu, I was gathering my stuff out of the plastic bin and putting on my shoes when a woman in a National Transportation Safety Board uniform spotted my copy of the Maui Arts and Cultural Center magazine with the Dalai Lama’s smiling face on the cover. She asked if I’d had it autographed, and I said no. “Oh,” she said, “I did!” It turns out even the Dalai Lama has to go through airport security. She asked him for an autograph, he obliged and shook her hand. She looked me in the eye and said earnestly: “It was a life-changing moment, you know.” I said I understood, that I’d never forget the two days at the stadium. “OK, gimme five!” she said, held up a blue latex-gloved hand, and I slapped her five. “You have a really wonderful day, sir,” she said as I departed.

And I thought, eh, maybe there is something to this compassion stuff. Because if you can get people at the airport to treat you like a human, with compassion, then ... who knows?

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Pitching A Tribute To A Teammate

I heard about Don Ho’s untimely passing while driving to town - from, of all people, Don Robbs, who was broadcasting a UH baseball game at Fresno State on the radio. Ironic, because back in the days of the infamous Columbia Inn Roundtable All-Stars softball team, the pitching rotation was Don Ho, Don Robbs and Don Chapman ...

The thing I’ll always remember about Don Ho as a softball teammate was how down to earth he was - just one of the guys. And in his day, he was a pretty good athlete ...

(Note to Gene Kaneshiro: Eh, let’s get the gang back together, while we still can ...)

We’re proud to say that Don appeared on MidWeek‘s cover three times - originally on March 6, 1985, in the paper’s first year; with daughter Hoku on Oct. 20, 1999, and most recently with children from the Aha Punana Leo Hawaiian immersion school on Dec. 6 of last year…

As Jack Nicklaus once said of Arnold Palmer - “I don’t think anyone enjoys being themself more than Arnie enjoys being Arnie.” - I doubt that anyone enjoyed being himself more than Don ...

As talented as Don was as an entertainer, he also had a great talent for choosing good friends. I recall a story told by the late restaurateur Henry Loui, the guy I call my Chinese father, about “busting heads” of some tough guys who wanted to beef with Don when was he was just starting out in Waikiki. As I recall Henry saying, Don had flirted with one of their girlfriends from the stage ...

They remained friends over the years, and so when Don sang Kui Lee’s I’ll Remember You at Henry’s funeral in 1991, there was some extra feeling to it ...

And the Feb. 1, 1995, MidWeek cover story I wrote about Larry Mehau - second in a two-part series that dispelled any notion of Rick Reed’s “godfather” nonsense - includes a tale I’d first heard from Eddie Sherman, which Larry confirmed. During the ‘70s, in Don’s dressing room at the Polynesian Palace showroom on Lewers, with Eddie and Tommy Campos in attendance, a Mainland crime figure tried to extort protection money from Don, who was visibly perspiring with nervousness:

“Yeah, when Don got in trouble, I tried to take care of the problem,” Larry recalled. (They were pals from Kamehameha Schools days.) “I wouldn’t say Mafia, but he was with a Mainland crime faction. The guy said, ‘If you don’t like what’s going on, I have instructions, all I have to do is call the big boys on the Mainland.’ I handed him the phone: ‘OK, you better start calling, pally, because you in trouble here. If you looking for trouble, I’m gonna help you find it. So call whoever told you to come over here. And if your orders are to continue, I hope you can swim good. There’s no place for you to hide, and you’re going to have to swim a long way.’ They (organized crime) don’t like that kind of talk, But if they talk to you like that, what are you supposed to do? Eat it? B———-!”

And that was the end of that problem for Don ...

Hang loose forever, brother ...

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Awful Drivers, A Great Golfer, Etc.

Where’s a cop - or a handful of carpet tacks - when you need ‘em? My pal Dr. Mark Stitham forwards a YouTube video, shot apparently by a young Marine from Kaneohe, although it could just as easily be a civilian employee. The camera shows his speedometer and the road ahead as he accelerates past the base sentry booth onto the H-3, quickly hitting and maintaining speeds over 150 mph as he dangerously weaves in and out of traffic, even passing other vehicles on the shoulder of the road, reaching the Halawa interchange in barely five minutes. The bike, it says, is a 2004 Yamaha R6 - so it shouldn’t be too tough to track him down. You can view his criminally self-centered act at www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTFWfJZqzHo ...

Only slightly less idiotic was the guy in a car I saw running every red light as he sped up Pali Highway from town the other day - too quick, alas, to get a license number ...

But driving stupidity isn’t always reckless - sometimes it comes veiled as courtesy. A guy I know recently rear-ended a woman driver when she suddenly slammed on the brakes - on a busy four-lane highway - to let a pedestrian cross. Good drivers know what’s going on behind them as well as ahead of them, and are as courteous aft as they are fore ...

Speaking of fore: The Aloha Section PGA will be inducting Dick McClean into the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame this month, and it’s a well-deserved honor for one of the game’s truly nice guys. In the 1980s and early ‘90s, Dick was Da Man of island golf, winning a ton of tournaments and helping to revive the Hawaii State Open.

Here’s how good Dick hits it: Before the Plantation Course officially opened at Kapalua in 1991, Dick was playing a round with Mark Rolfing and some other pals, and on the par-3 second hole, with the usual trade wind at their backs, scored a hole-in-one with a 6-iron. A week later, Mark invited NBC broadcast partners Johnny Miller and Charlie Jones to play the Plantation. This time, with a kona wind howling into their faces, Dick pulled out his driver on the second hole and scored another ace! ...

The induction dinner, by the way, happens at the Hawaii Prince Hotel on April 30. For ticket info, call 593-2230 ...

Speaking of golf: I’ve been going around and playing city golf courses, and will be doing a follow-up to the recent column on how terrible conditions are (still) at Pali ...

And speaking of awards: Please join me in offering kudos to Linda Dela Cruz of the MidWeek staff. On April 27, she’ll receive the Small Business Administration’s journalist of the year award for Oahu. Linda writes our Entrepreneurs column and edits the Movers column, so she’s well-plugged into the Hawaii business scene. This follows Katie Young’s award from the Hawaii Psychiatric Association and Bobby Curran, who writes for our weekend paper, being named Hawaii sportscaster of the year. I’m proud to work with such talented and hard-working folks ...

The SBA awards luncheon happens at the Hyatt Regency. For ticket info, call 526-1001 ...

Oh, and MidWeek just took second place in the state publishers association Pa’i Awards, for best non-daily paper. Pacific Business News won that, so you could say MidWeek is the best non-business non-daily with circulation of 268,000 and reader-ship of 467,000 - although with Linda’s award, plus the Business Roundtable column edited by Kerry Miller, we feel pretty good about our business coverage too ...

Good name for the state Ethics Commission’s newsletter, eh: The High Road ...

With so many people already running for president in 2008, you’d think there would be more appealing candidates. But as an independent, I wouldn’t vote yet for any of the frontrunners - especially with everybody dodging serious issues ...

Go figgah ...

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Let’s Put Music Back In Schools

I’ve been thinking lately about the dearth of music programs in our public schools, and talking with a variety of people about what might be done to create a non-profit organization that would encourage and support school music programs.

A press release I received last Thursday was the kick in the head I needed to mention it in this space:

The eight winners of the Honolulu Symphony’s competition for young musicians represent just three private schools - and six of them attend Punahou.

Congratulations to each of them - they, their parents, peers and teachers should be proud.

But still ... not one public school kid!

One of the sad truths about our public schools is that they largely deprive children of both the immediate and lifelong benefits of musical education.

Repeated studies have shown that young people who study music do better in core academic subjects, and the earlier they’re exposed to music the better. And playing well and performing also build self-esteem - the real kind that is based on actually accomplishing something.

Yes, there are the Pearl City High and Roosevelt High bands, which have marched in the Macy’s Thanksgiving and Rose Bowl parades, and the musical theater program at Castle High, which has sent grads on to Broadway.

But those gleaming examples are exceptions. All of our students deserve such opportunities.

My own experience - forced, and initially mortified, to take orchestra in the seventh grade because art and band classes were filled - opened the wonderful world of classical music, which has given me countless hours of pleasure. Playing string bass in orchestra - even making all-city orchestra in Salem, Ore., although that’s kind of like being on the all-Honolulu toboggan team - led to playing in a jazz quartet, and later to a bass guitar in rock bands, and a lifetime of enjoying music of all kinds from country to opera.

Talking about this subject over a recent lunch with my friend Dr. Mark Stitham, he shared a great quote from Voltaire:

“A life without music would be a mistake.”

I also spoke with Johnny Kai of the Music Foundation of Hawaii, which contributes funds to the state Department of Education. As a professional musician, be believes school music programs would provide a career path for local students who could earn music scholarships to college and grow up to earn a living playing music, whether in Waikiki or in the symphony or Royal Hawaiian Band, or beyond our shores. He is also convinced that a study needs to be done that would prove to legislators the economic benefits of music in Hawaii, which he believes runs into the multi-millions of dollars.

As Johnny says, “Music is one of the reasons people come to Hawaii.”

My ideas are admittedly still rough, but I believe that if our legislators will not better support music education - and a bill this year would make the decision on music or no music up to individual school principals, whose needs are great and budgets are tight - then concerned citizens, parents and community and business leaders need to step up. For starters, I’ve discovered a couple of national foundations that provide a framework for organization.

Music is just too important to deny it to children whose parents can’t afford to send them to private schools.

If you’re interested in working to form such an organization, please e-mail me at:

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

And if you’d like to see how wonderfully children can play, those eight contest winners - ranging from age 10 to 18 - perform in concert Saturday evening at the Blaisdell Concert Hall, with Henry Miyamura conducting.

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A Dishonest Book And A True Tale

This column is written especially for Hawaii schoolteachers who may assign what I find to be an offensive book, and for the parents of young students who may bring that book home.

It’s probable that there are historically accurate elements in the book So Far From the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins - the autobiographical tale of an 11-year-old Japanese girl fleeing Korea with her family at the end of WWII, highlighted by a few Koreans killing and raping Japanese.

In fact, I don’t for a moment doubt some of that happened.

But let’s put it in an honest perspective:

The U.S. victory in the Pacific and Japan’s surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay ended 36 years of brutal Japanese occupation of Korea that included Japanese soldiers forcing Korean women into prostitution and forcing young Korean men to hard labor in coal mines that provided fuel for the Japanese war machine. And as I learned in Korea during my East-West Center fellowship and U.S.-Korea Journalists Exchange, the Japanese removed Prince Yongchin, younger brother of Sunjong, last monarch of the native Choson (Jeoson) Dynasty that had ruled since 1392, and forced him to marry a minor Japanese princess, Masako Nashimoto. That effectively dead-ended the Korean royal line. The Japanese also sent Korean rice and other produce back to Japan, thus forcing many Koreans to starve. And they relocated Korea’s best artists and craftsmen to Japan, made the Korean language illegal on the peninsula and forced Koreans to take Japanese names.

That’s a lot of ironfisted forceds. And let’s be clear on this point: Japanese citizens in Korea in August 1945, including Kawashima Watkins’ family, were not just there for the hot spring spas.

So after two-plus generations of such degrading treatment, you can’t much blame a few Koreans for angrily lashing out at their oppressors when they had the opportunity for some instant pay-back.

I have here another young girl’s story from that time, one that paints a more accurate picture of Japan’s vicious and dehumanizing rule. It’s told by my good friend Mi-Soo Smith, Ph.D., a former math professor at UH and Chaminade, who was about the same age as Kawashima Watkins when the war ended on Aug. 15, 1945, the day Koreans still call Kwang-Bok Jeul, the Day the Light Returned.

“My father had been the assistant director of the Sugamo train station in Tokyo, but after an American B-29 bomber flew over our house in 1943 we came home to the Daegu area where my mother is from, and he bought an apple orchard. My father thought that area was not likely to be bombed.

“When the war ended, my father wanted to go up to Seoul because he knew the new government could use his experience, but first he went to his home town of Sang-Nam to see his family. The mayor of Sang-Nam had just been kicked out by the people because he was a collaborator with the Japanese, and the people asked my father to become the mayor - everything was in such confusion with the war ending, and he was well respected. He said OK, but only for one week until you can decide on a new full-time mayor, then I have to go up to Seoul.

“On his sixth day (Aug. 24), Japanese navy men came to Sang-Nam - the Americans were still using them (as well as the Japanese army for policing). They came under the pretext that they heard some wells were being poisoned by Korean people. They were fully armed. The next day they came back to take my father. They came to murder him.

“They kidnapped my father, carried him over the mountains to the coast, took him out in a boat, tied him up in heavy chains and threw him overboard in the deepest part of the bay.

“My mother was very angry, she hated the Japanese for killing her husband. I didn’t hate them, but I remember crying, and feeling sorry for the Japanese who did it - they would have to live with that in their hearts for the rest of their lives.”

One can only hope that it gnaws at their souls still.

In my business, I’m entirely opposed to government censorship, so I’m pleased that the state Department of Education did not outright ban So Far from the Bamboo Grove from classrooms and libraries, as some people have called for, but instead provided guidelines for its use.

But I also believe that it would be irresponsible for teachers to use So Far from the Bamboo Grove in the classroom.

If they must, then it’s essential to put it in the context of Japan’s murderous inhumanity toward Korea’s people, history and culture for 36 years, and then to tell the true story of what those Japanese sailors did to young MiSoo’s father.

Mi-Soo’s story is also a cautionary tale for those critical of the Bush administration for dismissing the Iraqi military, police and Baathist Party bureaucrats in the government immediately after the fall of Baghdad. Keeping them on - as the Americans did with Japanese military in Korea - would not necessarily, as critics have contended, have kept Iraq from disintegrating into religious civil war, terrorist breeding ground and general thuggery. And it could just as easily have led to incidents such as this one ...

Finally: Did you see the quote attributed to a senior Air Force official in an AP report last week about electronic/computer problems that F-22 Raptor fighter jets experienced on a test flight from Hickam? “Until you fly the airplane,” he said, “that’s when the rubber hits the road.”

Go figgah ...

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Mr. Common Sense Strikes Again

The state Legislature is one of those places where good intentions go to get twisted into bad ideas, and where responsibility gets shoved onto other people’s doorsteps.

Exhibit A is Senate Bill 1702, which would force stores that sell “HI-5” beverage containers to take back and redeem those containers.

To follow that illogic to its logical conclusion, stores that sell cigarettes should then be forced to take back the used butts - because there are way too many butts tossed on the ground. (Not to give politicians any more bad ideas.)

Herewith is my counter proposal to SB-1702, one requiring less government intervention in commerce, and based on a good deal more common sense:

If legislators believe that recycling is so important, they should take the lead. Show us some serious and true leadership, not dictatorship. Create a system in which recycling is easy and comes naturally - not just for beverage containers, but for mayo and pickle jars, soup and Spam cans, paper products and all of the plastic packaging that seems to come with everything we buy.

It should be curbside recycling, but could be neighborhood redemption centers.

And whatever the big plan, it should include public waste receptacles specifically for recyclable metals, plastics, paper.

There is no question that Hawaii lags far behind other states (and countries such as Korea and Japan) in government-sponsored recycling. I’ve heard visitors remark on how shocked they are that America’s most beautiful state seems so intent on burying itself under a mountain of trash - call it Mauna Opala. (There are always those who argue that just because the Mainland does something, Hawaii doesn’t need to follow. When the subject is recycling and preserving Hawaii’s beauty and quality of life, that argument is cockeyed at best.)

The state certainly has the money to institute real recycling programs - only about 70 percent of HI-5 containers are redeemed, meaning a profit of millions of dollars for the state. And the state has way more available land to build recycling centers than do the stores affected by this bill.

Also, if the half-thought-out program the Legislature originally instituted had been better designed - and performed better - this silly stopgap measure that reeks of punishment would not be necessary.

Although Mayor Hannemann cancelled the city’s planned curbside recycling program in 2005, a basic plan is in place. It’s time for the city and the state, for a change, to actually cooperate on something for the good of Hawaii, its aina and its people.

So I applaud the mayor for trying to restart curbside recycling - even if it means a $10 monthly fee. For what we and our descendants will be getting, that’s a bargain. And I urge City Council Chair Marshall - who represents my Kaneohe neighborhood and for whom I voted - to seriously reconsider her opposition to that plan. The people have spoken: We resoundingly approved a city charter on last November’s ballot mandating curbside recycling. If our politicians aren’t listening, well, I know who I’m not voting for next time.

And in light of the misguided SB-1702, I’m also calling on Gov. Lingle, Senate President Hanabusa and House Speaker Say to work with the counties to give us a sound and comprehensive statewide recycling program that does not place the greatest burden on any one segment of the population, but is inclusive of every home, condominium and business.

To paraphrase the classic line from Jerry Maguire, just show us the leadership ...

Otherwise: It’s unbelievable that the U.S. government is allowing Mexico to possibly extradite Dog Chapman. Cousin or no cousin, he took a serial rapist who intended to rape again off the street. Dog should be receiving grateful presidential citations from both countries, and the Mexican ambassador to Washington should be getting a message from the White House that his country really ought to find something better to do with its prosecutors’ time ...

I cannot see a way to extradite ourselves from Iraq without the help of Iran, as well as other regional neighbors. A recent Newsweek story reported that Iran was instrumental in forging the alliance that put the U.S.-backed Afghan government of Hamid Karzai in place, and that it pledged twice as much money to rebuild Afghanistan as the U.S. did. A week later, President Bush gave his infamous “Axis of Evil” speech, including Iran in a terrible trio with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Kim Jung-Il’s North Korea - a sharp slap in the face. Soon after, the Iranians amped up their nuke program. Meanwhile, Iranian diplomats continue to try to talk with the U.S., to no avail. In the real world, the Bush policy of not talking to people he doesn’t like is dangerously naive ...

BTW: I celebrated a birthday earlier this week. Someone asked if it was a “significant” birthday. You bet - at my age, they’re all significant ...

Another friend said: “I hate birthdays!” I say, they beat the heck out of the alternative! ...

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The Sad State Of City Golf Courses

It’s really sad: The lousy condition of some of our municipal golf courses. My son Kai and I played Pali recently and were shocked at the deterioration of the course - big patches of bare dirt in fairways, more large patches of dead grass, including on putting greens. A couple of days earlier I’d played West Loch, and it was nearly as bad as Pali. Both are great layouts with the capacity to be absolute gems - but not with the derelict maintenance they’re receiving ...

Other golfers must be noticing too - every time I drive past Pali, there seem to be few people playing the course, far fewer than in the past. Which means diminished revenue. I’m sure not going back any time soon ...

Weird: President Bush has obviously aged during his six years in Washington, yet VP Cheney seems to look exactly the same as he did on the day they took office. How does he do that? ...

I’ve been amazed by the uproar over news that the U.S. military is giving some attention to operatives of Iran in Iraq. We’ve known for years that Iranian agents and Iranian weapons have been crossing the border to make pilikia in Iraq, so what the heck took us so long to respond? ...

And I hope those in Congress calling for an immediate troop pull-out pay more attention to post-occupation than the Bush administration paid to post-“Mission Accomplished” ...

Bravo to all those working in the Legislature to toughen the law protecting pedestrians in crosswalks. Having been hit a couple of years ago in a crosswalk outside the Hawaii Theatre - in broad daylight by a car turning left onto Pauahi Street from Bethel - I was amazed to learn that a) an injured pedestrian can sue the driver only if medical costs go above $5,000, and that b) I had to report the accident to my car insurance company. So I’m all for forcing drivers to be more responsible and respectful, especially considering the response of the older fellow who hit me - as I lay on the pavement half under his car: “Hey, buddy, I hope you’re not gonna blame me for this!” ...

Sorry to hear of the death of syndicated columnist Molly Ivins, from breast cancer. I often didn’t agree with her liberal opinions (published locally in the Star-Bulletin), but she was fearless and funny - such as her description of a more conservative columnist: “Cal Thomas, one of the great minds of the 15th century ...”

Have you seen our new baby? That would be MidWeek‘s totally revamped weekend paper. New features include associate editor Melissa Moniz’s Music Montage, covering the local music scene; Russell Tanoue’s MW Space, featuring our town’s hottest models (of both genders); a style page from the ladies at Smart magazine; Jerrette Kamaka’s MW Rides, highlighting the coolest tricked out cars, and a new sudoku puzzle, as well as popular holdovers such as complete movie listings and reviews,Yu Shing Ting’s Xposure, Amy Alkon’s Advice Goddess column, Spotted photos, Alison Stewart’s Click Chick tech report, Jo McGarry’s Food For Thought, Kimo Akane’s Kimo’s Vegas, Bobby Curran’s sports column and Gary Kewley’s surf report, plus Kerry Miller’s expanded calendar of events. Filled with photos, it’s a quick, fun weekend read. As Mr. Kewley likes to say: Stoked! ...

BTW: To accommodate the new features, Yu Shing’s On The Move and Roberto Viernes’Vino Sense columns move to the Wednesday paper ...

This is one of my favorite times of the year - both UH baseball and Hawaii Opera Theatre seasons are beginning. Based on the first weekend of games, this seems to be Coach Mike Trapasso’s best squad yet, and we could be cheering into June. As for HOT, I’ve listened to CDs of the three operas, and this could be artistic director Henry Akina’s best season too. He deserves credit for skillfully blending a growing pool of local talent from the UH opera lab with international guest stars. Samson and Delilah concluded to a standing ovation Tuesday evening, and next up is Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Feb. 16, 18, 22) and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (March 2, 4, 6) ...

For opera recordings, I enjoy and recommend the EMI Classics series - CDs come with a booklet that includes story synopsis and lyrics in English and Italian (French in the case of Samson)...

Did you see the news report about a truck from a Milwaukee TV station - cost with all of its electronics, $250,000 - crashing through thick ice on a lake and sinking? True. And the story the truck’s crew was shooting on the frozen-over lake? A feature on “ice safety” ...

Go figgah ...

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Making A Deal With Politicians

As an independent, here’s my deal with politicians: If I vote for you, I’ll be watching how you perform, and may or may not vote for you next time. It all depends. Thus my vote for Bush in 2000, and for the other guy in ‘04 ...

In light of the Iraq Study Group’s report, here’s my short take on Iraq: The reasons given by the administration for staying - if we leave, the country will devolve into sectarian violence and become a breeding ground for terrorists - have been happening for some time already ...

As for the predicted “regional conflict” if we leave: Iran (Shia) and Saudi Arabia (Sunni) are already heavily involved in the Iraq ground war ...

Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek, one of the most intelligent, independent and insightful reporters anywhere today, put the American quandary best: One day recently U.S. troops bailed out a Shia militia led by Muqtada al-Sadr that was under attack by Sunnis, and the very next day the same Shia militia opened fire on U.S. troops ...

And there’s this: Iraq was a tribal area and never a country until the Brits drew up arbitrary boundary lines - something Winston Churchill considered one of his greatest mistakes ...

On a much lighter note: While comedian Lewis Black was in Hawaii to do concerts in Honolulu and on Maui, I got to play golf twice with him. It started when he told our managing editor Terri Hefner in a cover story interview that he intended to play golf while he was here. (“And you know why I play golf?” he said. “Because I’m f———stupid!” It’s a line with which all golfers can relate.) Anyway, I’ve known concert promoter Greg Azus since we played together on a basketball team (that won a media league championship) more than 20 years ago, and offered to set up some golf for Lewis. We played MidPac CC in Lanikai with Rick Davis of the Davis Entertainment Agency here and Lewis’opening act, comic John Bowman. A couple of days later, it was the King Kamehameha Golf Club (formerly Grand Waikapu) on Maui. Can’t remember ever laughing more during a round of golf than I did on those two days. And there’s no “act” to Lewis’ act - what you see on TV or on stage is the same thing Rick and I experienced on the golf course. You learn a lot about a person during a four-hour round of golf, and I learned that Lewis Black is a genuinely good guy ...

I asked him and John about Michael “Kramer” Richardson’s blowup at an L.A. comedy club.

Bottom line: Richardson is a great comedic actor, but not really a standup comic, and that’s a tough club on the best of nights ...

For more laughs: If you’re of a certain age where you recall the music of Jim Morrison and the Doors, you’ll get a kick out of a very clever Christmas spoof on YouTube by McCrea Adams, a magazine editor in L.A. with whom I sometimes work. You can view his impersonation at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4baSntmh4w ...

With veterans of the Pearl Harbor attack getting together officially for the last time on the 65th anniversary, here’s hoping their descendants, as well as Hawaii’s younger generations, will ensure that 12/7/41 always remains a Day of Infamy ...

Sorry to hear of the passing in California of former Advertiser 3-dot columnist Tom Horton. The list of Honolulu’s former 3-dotters continues to decline - just Eddie Sherman (Author! Author!), George Daacon (living in Florida, the last I heard) and yers truly are left ...

As great as the UH-Oregon State game was - not counting the final score - watching from the upper deck I was most impressed with how truly awful the Aloha Stadium sound system is. So bad, we could not understand a single word that came through the speakers. It was all just audio mush. In this digital age, that’s unacceptable ...

On the plus side, I suppose: The mush was really, really loud ...

Go figgah ...

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Funding Rail, Not Pothole Repair

Unbelievable: With summer long gone and the rainy season nearly upon us, major city and state roads are still in urgent need of patching/repaving. Come the first big rains, the potholes will quickly get bigger, deeper and more dangerous. Kaneohe Bay Drive is so bad, I’d be afraid to drive a motorcycle on it. Walking through my Kaneohe neighborhood, there are a couple of streets where you can sprain an ankle if you’re not paying attention. Kapiolani Boulevard, as a major urban thoroughfare, is a disgrace. Likewise for Ala Wai and Ala Moana. And it’s hard to imagine that the mayor’s and governor’s bones haven’t been rattled while transiting the Punchbowl-Beretania intersection ...

And if we don’t have funds to adequately pave our roads, which obviously we do not, how can we possibly afford to build - and maintain - a multibillion-dollar rail system? I just don’t get that one. Is there a physician who can prescribe some reality pills for the mayor, governor and city council? ...

Conspiracy theory: Maybe our “leaders” are hoping that by letting our roads fall into such dis-repair, we’ll surrender to rail? ...

Then again: Just heard about a Jaguar driver who sued the city because his car was so badly damaged by a pothole ...

There’s good news to pass along: MidWeek columnist Katie Young recently received the Hawaii Psychological Association’s media award. The citation says that her column, The Young View, “explores the hows and whys of life, relationships and other topics often backed up by expert advice from local psychologists. Her column has helped erase the stigma that can sometimes be associated with seeking mental health treatment in Hawaii.” Congratulations, Katie, the award is well-deserved. Thanks for adding to our trophy case, and for making us proud ...

Barack Obama: the Michelle Wie of politics ...

I recently happened upon some wise words from the late Rev. Paul Osumi, whose old columns have been published in book form. It’s amazing how timeless the good rev’s words are: “Many people try to run away from their inner loneliness. They do not know how to be alone. They do anything to escape being alone. They are always on the go; they are always doing something. To live meaningfully, we must master one of the fine arts of life - learning how to be alone without being lonely.” Sound like any cell phone/video game addicts you know? ...

I was saddened to hear of the passing of state statistician Bob Schmitt, but am grateful to have known the man. Back in the days when I was writing a daily column for the Advertiser, he was the instant cure for a slow news day. A call to Bob always produced a fun fact, a surprising statistic and usually a good chuckle. As a guy whose interest (and skill) in math is ridiculously limited (there’s a reason I work with words), I was gratefully impressed at the way Bob somehow turned cold statistics into fascinating stories ...

Go figgah ...

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Advertising-Editorial Differences

More than one reader called or e-mailed about the ad for the Democratic Party of Hawaii on the bottom of last week’s cover.

The indignant gist of all of them was: “I thought you said MidWeek was editorially independent and would not be endorsing candidates or parties?!”

That’s still true. The ad was paid for by the Dems. It was in no way an endorsement on our part.

That new advertising space was created by our sales team, and as you’ve probably already seen it was purchased this week by Republican Gov. Linda Lingle.

How’s that for balance? * Speaking of policies, we are also not running letters to the editor supporting or trashing candidates. We are, however, continuing to publish letters relating to our columnists’comments - such as one this week from an army officer regarding Bob Jones’ comments about Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona.

* Meanwhile, MidWeek continues to grow. In the past month we added Lisa Asato, who had been working for us as a freelance writer, to our office staff. That brings our staff to 13- compared to three when I became editor in December 1994. To say my job description has changed in the past dozen years would be an under-statement.

* And as long as we’re talking shop: In addition to producing two MidWeeks every week, our staff also produces a weekly military paper, Military Oahu Star, weekly community newspapers for Windward and West Oahu, plus community papers for East and Central Oahu. That’s a lot of pages.

* I’m proud to have Attorney General Mark Bennett and McGruff the crime-fighting dog on our cover this week. Twenty years ago, I was a member of the Judiciary Committee that introduced McGruff to Hawaii.

* Otherwise: Here’s the reality for Kim Jong-Il and his nukes: As I was told by a Korean expert at Camp Smith and later by a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel at the DMZ in Korea, Kim understands very well that “he gets one shot and one shot only.” In other words, if he fires a missile at South Korea, Japan or the U.S., we bomb him to smithereens and end his rule. He’s goofy but not suicidal.

* Was anybody else not exactly encouraged to hear that FEMA, the folks who bungled Katrina, were riding to the rescue of earthquake victims on the Big Island?

* The thing that lingers still from the quake is the sound of the groaning Earth.

Fortunately, the fridge was stocked with food and chilled beverages, and there was plenty of charcoal for the grill. Other than missing a couple of ball games, it turned out to be a really good

day. Go figgah.

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You Read It Before Congress Did

* If you my read my three-part series from Korea last year as part of an East-West Center fellowship, you already knew what the U.S. House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee learned last week from a new report: If North Korea develops a nuclear weapon, it would likely spur South Korea, Taiwan and especially Japan to begin their own nuclear programs. Last week the North said it was moving forward with plans to test a nuclear device.

* To quote Bob Woodward’s new book about the Bush administration’s management of the war in Iraq, Bill O’Reilly and Greta van Susteren of Fox News are in a “State of Denial” about their - and all of cable TV news’ - responsibility in what appears to have been copy-cat murders of school children by non-student intruders. “Does the media have that much power?” said O’Reilly, hosting van Susteren on his show. She added: “We have to report these stories. We can’t ignore them.” Perhaps that’s true, but is it necessary to make these essentially local news stories the major national story of the day? I don’t believe so. Some stories are local - police chases, for example - and should remain that way. When some people with twisted psyches see how much attention is possible by acting out their worst impulses, it may be the final, deciding factor.

* Bottom line: If a school shooting is the biggest news of the day, it says more about media reporting it than it does about what kind of a news day it was.

* Quote of the week, from MidWeek publisher Ron Nagasawa: After learning that I’d served years ago on the state judiciary’s McGruff Committee, which introduced McGruff the Crime-fighting Dog to Hawaii, and having just seen last week’s column regarding my cousin Dog Chapman the bounty hunter, Ron quipped: “Man, what’s with you and all the crime-fighting dogs?”

* I mis-read my own notes last week, and incorrectly reported that all four of the new private golf clubs in the Kona area charge a $250,000 initiation fee. At Ke’olu, the private course at the Hualalai Resort, the fee is $175,000. I apologize for the error.

* Re-doing the math, this means that the people who are members at Hualalai, Kukio and Nanea are only paying $650,000 in golf club memberships.

* By the way, I recently played Ke’olu (a terrific Tom Weiskopf design) with Hualalai’s head pro, John Freitas. A Punahou alum, he’s the son of opera diva Beebe Freitas. When I asked John if he’s a good singer, he just laughed. “No, my mom and sister got all the singing talent. I don’t even sing in the shower.” Go figgah.

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A Special Letter To The Editor

In the last few weeks, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeldtwo of the last three men in America who want to believe the war in Iraq is not only necessary but going well- have claimed that opponents of continued U.S. involvement are not just wrong, but actually “appeasing” the enemy by raising objections to administration policies in Iraq.

If they didn’t occupy two of the most powerful positions in our nation’s government, their fulminations could be dismissed as the deluded ranting of people increasingly unmoored from reality. However, when such comments come from the Vice President of the United States and the U.S. Secretary of Defense, it is incumbent on responsible leaders to speak out in a Truth Offensive.

To begin with, consider who is speaking for the President: the same two who said there were WMD in Iraq, U.S. troops would be welcomed with flowers, Iraq is not a guerilla war, and the insurgency was in its last throes- more than year ago. Their predictive track record alone should make the public skeptical.

More specifically, both men have made three main points to advance their political agenda in the face of the facts on the ground. The first is the scale of the threat posed by al Qaeda, which they have compared to Nazi Germany. The idea that a loosely connected group of individuals motivated by religious fervor, some living in caves in Afghanistan, would be comparable to the threat to the world posed by Nazi Germany - a nation (in 1939) of 80 million people with a large, highly trained, superbly equipped military and enormous industrial capacity motivated by strident nationalism - is historically absurd. And, worse it misses the essential goal of al Qaeda regarding Islam and unbelievers.

Like other terrorist groups before it, al Qaeda is clearly capable of appalling acts of violence against innocent people, but al Qaeda’s object is less to “take over a country” as Dick Cheney warns than to drive out occupiers whom they deem unbelievers. Before 9/11, the Taliban ran Afghanistan, not Osama bin Laden. In Iraq, the people killing our troops are Iraqis or Muslim sympathizers whose affiliation is sectarian in origin. Our occupation is creating this terrorist response. Al Qaeda is the beneficiary by default.

Cheney and Rumsfeld claim that any strategy to get U.S. troops out of the middle of this sectarian war will somehow “embolden” terrorists and be a “defeat” for the United States. This comes from two of the people most responsible for sending U.S. troops into Iraq who now haven’t the slightest idea how to get them out. It is the occupation itself which feeds the insurgency. The only defeat in sight is for the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war as the first response to political challenges.

No responsible person wants our troops to leave behind a legacy of anarchy or a return to despotism. But U.S. military action at this stage only prevents the Iraqis from determining their own political fate. To date, we have sacrificed the lives of more than 2,600 American men and women and spent almost $500 billion dollars to further the Bush doctrine. The result is that U. S. forces will have to permanently occupy Iraq, like a colony. The American people do not share this appetite for an endless overseas military adventure in Iraq masked as a central element in overcoming terrorism.

Citing terrorism, Cheney and Rumsfeld also assert that administration policies are above question because “the nation is at war;” that dissenting from U.S. policy in Iraq fails to support the Commander in Chief and is therefore unpatriotic. They are wrong. Patriotism requires a full and open discussion about Iraq, and unfortunately, it’s about three and a half years late. A half century ago, legendary news reporter Edward R. Morrow said, “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”

The truth is the Bush Administration has made no effort beyond accusatory rhetoric to truly mobilize the nation for their war. They have continued to call for more tax cuts while letting our military’s readiness deteriorate. They have repeatedly refused to expand the size of the Army and Marines because it would admit to a devastating underestimate of the troop strength needed to sustain an attack and the subsequent occupation of Iraq. U.S. troops went two full years without adequate body armor and armored Humvees. The administration and Congressional Republicans have consistently resisted any kind of “full mobilization” because it might jeopardize their domestic agenda of tax cuts for the ultra wealthy and shameless corporate welfare.

Simply put, the voluntary military of this nation is at war, but most of the American people are not. And this administration has been completely unwilling to ask for the public sacrifice required to fully support its own misguided policies.

Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have a clear agenda: frighten the American people by hyping the threat to preclude any rational assessment, and condemn those who oppose them rather than encourage a debate on the wisdom of the deluded path they have chosen for our nation. They seek to avoid any sort of accountability for the profound strategic error of invading and occupying Iraq by blending it with the terrible events of 9/11. They are shamelessly willing to use both the death of innocents on 9/11and the selfless sacrifice of our troops in the years that followed to justify the utter failure of the Bush doctrine.

It was sadly predictable that as the November election nears, the Bush Administration would resort to labeling anyone who opposes their policies as unpatriotic. But references to Nazi Germany and equating dissent on Iraq with the “appeasement” of terrorism are sure signs of the desperate nature of their political failure.

If historical references are in order, I suggest George Orwell’s 1984 may be far more useful. According to Cheney and Rumsfeld “War is Peace”- endless war with an enemy to be named periodically; “Ignoranc