Last week we pointed our cheeky tongue at the GOP state convention, and now it’s the Democrats’ turn in our weekly “flASHback” on the news that amused and confused.
For those who prefer watching to reading, click on the video link below.
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And now back to the readers.
Brian Schatz became the Hawai’i Democratic Party’s youngest chairman at 35. The Barack Obama campaign drew so many young, first-time delegates to the state convention that they had to set up burping stations at the end of the buffet line.
Convention leaders were determined to promote harmony between Obama and Hillary Clinton supporters. Delegates who showed up wearing “Nanny-Nanny-Boo-Boo” t-shirts were sent home to change.
Democratic State Sen. Ron Menor went to jail for part of the weekend after pleading no contest to drunken driving. That was one way to get out of listening to convention speeches.
U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye had an even better ball-and-chain excuse, skipping the convention to get married in Beverly Hills. Now he goes forth to exemplify what they say — husbands are living proof that women can take a joke.
Police hope to deter shady activity on the River Street mall by removing trellises that provided cover for troublemakers. If it works, maybe we should take the roof off the Capitol.
Mayor Mufi Hannemann is so competitive. When Hawai’i’s average gasoline price passed $4 a gallon, he had to immediately top that by nine zeroes by pushing the cost of rail transit past $4 billion.
Blaming high fuel costs, airlines raised fares by to Hawai’i by $80 and added a $15 fee for the first checked bag. Next they’ll charge extra for lost luggage to ding us for the fuel to send our bags to Helsinki instead of Honolulu.
I thought I heard Mesa Air Group CEO Jonathan Ornstein promise his near-bankrupt airline is committed to keeping go! flying in Hawai’i, but I’m rusty on translating forked tongue.
Several public schools will be fined up to $26,000 by the Department of Education for spending too much on electricity. Pretty soon, the kids will be flailing around in the dark just like the policy-makers.
Consumers around the country are joining Hawai’i in eating more Spam as rising fuel costs cut into food budgets. If there was a way to harness the gas that Spam produces, we could tell the Saudis to keep their oil.
And the quote of the week …
… from U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie on Obama’s impact on Democrats:
“I think this is a real chance to bring the party into the 21st century.”
Talk about slow learners. The 21st century started eight years ago!
I hate it when old geezers smugly put down the ways of the young, but sometimes the offspring step in it so deep that a pat on the head doesn’t seem the appropriate response.
To wit: I was minding my own business shuffling through my iTunes collection when Peter, Paul and Mary came up singing “We Shall Overcome.”
I could see my daughter in the next room shaking her head. “Is there a problem?” I asked.
She smirked condescendingly. “Two white guys and a blonde woman singing about oppression? Come on.”
She said if I wanted to understand the true meaning of the song, I should listen to the gay version. Or at least the gospel version. Or I should have heard her and her college chums sing it when George Bush the Elder launched Operation Desert Storm.
Grrrrr.
“We Shall Overcome” became an anthem during the civil rights movement of the 60’s, and those two white guys and the blonde woman were on the Washington, D.C., stage on Aug. 28, 1963, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
They were also with King on his historic march from Selma to Montgomery; “We Shall Overcome” was sung a few times along the way, I’d wager.
She wasn’t so dismissive of Peter, Paul and Mary when I drove out in the Washington snow when she was 8 or 9 to take her to her first grownup event, a PP&M concert at Constitution Hall.
I’ll give her the gospel version …
Nap time at Honolulu Hale. Did everybody catch the great quote from Ira Rohter, the University of Hawai’i political science professor, on his surprise that no challengers are taking on the five City Council members up for re-election this year:
“They have constantly been portrayed as kindergarten buffoons and this vacillation on the rail issue is amazing. If you’re bored with television, go down to Honolulu Hale and watch a hearing on a controversial issue. It’s comical. There is a common perception that they are not the best and brightest.”
Actually, that’s a bit harsh on kindergartners, don’t you think? My granddaughter starts school in a few months and it’s my humble opinion that she possesses more common sense and maturity of judgment than some council members.
If council members get even with me for this dig by taking it out on my daughter the next time she has to cover one of their meetings, she can stand outside their chambers and give them a few bars of “If I Had a Hammer.”
Folks who follow this blog know that one of my biggest peeves is the 10-percent cut the state is taking from the half-cent excise tax for O’ahu mass transit to pay for nonexistent state collection costs.
The state rakes in $15 million a year from its share of the transit tax, almost all of which is clear windfall profit for the state, with actual collection costs budgeted at only $700,000 next year.
It amounts to a back-door general tax increase that legislators can spent on non-transit projects anywhere in the state. The siphoning unnecessarily inflates the cost of rail transit, already the most expensive public works project in Hawai’i’s history at some $4 billion.
Given the obvious inequities, it’s good to see Mayor Mufi Hannemann finally make an aggressive move to try to get the money back for the city with his proposal to use the $300 million the state will divert over the 20-year life of the transit tax to pay for a 2.1 mile rail spur to the airport.
Hannemann will have to press the Legislature hard to pry the money away, and it’ll be interesting to see if Gov. Linda Lingle joins him. For somebody who ran for office as a tax-cutter, Lingle has been strangely quiet about how the state tacked its own sneaky tax increase onto the city’s transit tax.
Update: I received the following email from Rep. Rida Cabanilla. I felt I laid it at the Senate’s feet by naming two senators who have been most publicly visible in blocking the legislation (the whole Legislature approved the 10-percent kickback in the first place), but she makes fair points and offers interesting insights:
Dear Dave,
Your comments today are inaccurate. Instead of accusing all legislators you should limit it to senators. HB 724 which will do just what you are asking for passed unanimously in the House. It was the Senate who refuse to hear it. You might find it interesting that when I was walking the floors of the Senate to force them to schedule the bill for a hearing, the comment to me was, “Why are you the one asking us, it should be the Mayor?” So, I repeatedly called the Mayor’s office and notified the City Council members to help me lobby Senator Fukunaga to schedule the bill for a hearing, finally on the third day his Managing Director whose name I cannot remember this very moment called and said “the Mayor does not want that matter opened at this time.”
HB 724 HD1 specifically asked that the State withhold only the amount necessary to process the tax and nothing more. Unlike what you said, not every one in this building consider it their birthright to cockroach money. Please review the attachments and make the proper corrections.
It’s not surprising that thieves around Hawai’i are targeting gasoline now that it costs more than $4 a gallon, but it’s heartbreaking to read about vehicles owned by organizations such as Lanakila Meals on Wheels being targeted.
Lanakila Meals on Wheels vans in Liliha have been hit three times recently, and the cost isn’t just the loss of gasoline. Thieves cut the fuel lines to get to the gasoline, costing up to $350 for repairs each time.
It puts a strain on the financially strapped agency’s checkbook and delays the delivery of meals to some 1,000 elderly clients a day who need the help more than ever in the current tough economy.
One of the great tragedies of modern society is that there seems to be no level below which the worst elements among us won’t sink; there’s just no semblance of honor among thieves anymore.
Another recent story about our community’s dark side told how a 44-year-old Waianae man in a wheelchair was punched and pushed over by a younger assailant who stole his PSP II game player.
That story hit close to home; I use a wheelchair and often cruise around with my wallet hanging from my neck on a cord.
Those of us in wheelchairs get a false sense of security that being obviously disabled makes us safe from violent attack, but it actually makes us appear all the more vulnerable to predators looking for an easy score.
I’d better put my wallet away. I use a strong lanyard, and if anybody goes for the billfold I’ll probably lose my head as well as the wallet.
Anybody wishing to make a donation to help out Meals on Wheels can do so here.
Mainstream Democrats are campaigning to persuade voters they’ll lose rights if they call a Constitutional Convention in the November election.
Delegates at the party’s state convention wouldn’t endorse a ConCon and instead adopted a Hawai’i Government Employees Association proposal to “educate” voters on how a ConCon would imperil their rights.
They couch the rights in terms of equality, privacy, and culture, but clearly the HGEA is most worried about losing its political choke hold on Democratic legislators, which assures that public workers are taken care of ahead of the public at large.
Lawmakers, in turn, worry about keeping their rights to act without transparency, operate without meaningful ethical guidelines and perpetuate themselves in office with special-interest campaign money.
The Kaua’i Democrats’ Web site screams, “Hawai’i Constitutional Convention aka How to Lose Our Rights,” pointing to an anonymous Maui site painting a ConCon as a Republican “sneak attack” on rights to water, shoreline access, good union jobs and privacy — ignoring that reform-minded Democrats who don’t genuflect to the HGEA support a ConCon as the first comprehensive review of state government in 30 years.
Kaua’i Rep. Hermina Morita pushed the loss-of-rights theme in an interview with the Garden Island that was posted on the House Democrats’ blog.
“If we open the constitution for review at this time, it’s not to enhance any rights, it’s to take away rights,” she said, specifically citing her concern that term limits will be placed on legislators.
Such legislative self-interest is a reason freshman Rep. Della Au Belatti is one Democrat supporting a ConCon.
“I have been very disappointed in the lack of public discussion about the important decisions made by our Legislature and the inordinate amount of focus by elected folk on protecting their own office at the next election,” she said in an appearance on Jeanne Mariani-Belding’s blog, “The Hot Seat.”
“This sense of self-preservation is only natural – but something that if unchecked or unchallenged for too long can be terribly dangerous for democracy.”
ConCon opponents say no convention is needed because the Legislature has the power to place constitutional amendments on the ballot when needed; unfortunately, their amendments are as likely to serve legislators’ own interests as their constituents’.
Their amendments in 2006 sought to lift judicial age limits to prevent the Republican governor from appointing a new chief justice, restrict the governor’s power and expand their own in appointing UH regents and clear the way for lawmakers to get 54-percent pay raises without having to vote on them.
I hate it when old geezers smugly put down the ways of the young, but sometimes the offspring step in it so deep that a pat on the head doesn’t seem the appropriate response.
