Toguchi has spent several weeks stoking a pointless war of words with Gov. Linda Lingle over his dead-in-the-water plan to end a few furlough Fridays, while making zero progress in coming up with a real solution to resolve this state embarrassment he helped engineer.

He's pushing the Legislature to fund a scheme he cooked up with the Hawai'i State Teachers Association to take most of the $50 million Lingle offered from the rainy day fund to end all furlough Fridays and instead use the money to end only a handful of furlough days.

It's a waste of time because even if the Legislature does what Toguchi and the HSTA want, Lingle has the legal authority to withhold funding for any settlement that she thinks costs too much or doesn't meet her demand that schools be reopened on all the furlough days.

Lingle's hands are less than clean after she signed off on the teachers' contract that enacted the unpopular furlough plan.

But she's right to insist on a global resolution rather than a piecemeal deal that drags out the drama, and whether Toguchi likes it or not, the governor is holding most of the legal cards and any settlement will have to go through her.

It's time for Toguchi to stop acting like a business agent for the HSTA with his political finger-pointing and start representing the schoolchildren he was elected to serve.

I barely watched a down of NFL football this year after age and distance forced us to disband the Big Island football club that kept me interested for more than 30 years with our 25 cents-a-game bets.

I didn't recognize the celebrities in the high-priced commercials. In one, two current basketball superstars played a game of H-O-R-S-E while Hall of Famer Larry Bird stole their lunch; they didn't know who Bird was and I didn't know who they were.

The halftime show featured an uninspired performance by The Who, who couldn't seem to find the tune as they labored through their classic hits that have since become the theme songs for CBS crime dramas. It seemed fitting that their set was followed by a commercial for "CSI."

Aging rockers have become the norm at Super Bowl halftime since Janet Jackson's infamous costume "reveal." Surely there must be a more contemporary performers who still have their pipes and can be trusted not to show America their tatas.

Mostly, the stark Roman numerals of Super Bowl XLIV represented the passage of time.

I flashed back to watching the first Super Bowl between Green Bay and Kansas City 43 years ago with my friends from Hilo High.

There were no satellite broadcasts of same-day Mainland sports in Hawai'i back then. Special arrangements were made to fly in the tape from Los Angeles after the game and Hawai'i fans had to get through the day without hearing the score.

To put the time that has since passed in context, it was two years before the late Frank Fasi first became mayor of Honolulu. If memory serves, the TV exec who arranged to fly the tapes to Hawai'i was Cec Heftel, who also passed this week.

Super Bowl I was a one-sided contest in which Green Bay dominated, but it was honest football without all the commercial hype.

I had to admit that once we got past halftime, so was Super Bowl XLIV.

The Saints started to make it interesting with a second-quarter rally against the favored Colts,  and it became a helluva football game when New Orleans started the second half with a gutsy onside kick that decisively turned the tide.

In the end, you had to feel good seeing the joy in a great city that was almost washed away four years ago, and it was hard to feel too old in a celebration of rebirth.

• Students protesting school furloughs delivered cookies to the Capitol to remind the governor and lawmakers that they're future voters. If half of their parents voted, they'd be spending Fridays with Mr. Kotter instead of Mrs. Fields.

• The state ordered a student art exhibit on "furlough Fridays" removed from Capitol corridors as too political, then relented and let it stay. As if the kids needed more reason to doubt the sanity of the adults who locked them out of school.

• Former Govs. George Ariyoshi, John Waihee and Ben Cayetano shared their secret for making the troubles in our schools disappear: Retire and let it be someone else's problem.

• The state's bond outlook was lowered to negative because our per capita state indebtedness of $3,675 is  four times the national median. Gov. Linda Lingle always said she'd leave Hawai'i in her debt.

• President Barack Obama had to apologize for the second time in a year for bad-mouthing Las Vegas. Just think, if the Legislature passes one of the gambling bills in the hopper this year, we can get the president dumping on us, too.

• The state elections office reported heavy traffic on the first day candidates could take out nomination papers for the 2010 election. To prevent gridlock, a separate HOV line was set up for Democratic lieutenant governor candidates.

• City managing director Kirk Caldwell far outpaced potential opponents by raising $327,928 for a campaign to succeed Mayor Mufi Hannemann. Most voters never heard of Caldwell, but donors are attracted by his catchy campaign theme: "Get your train contracts here."

• The Hawai'i-based TV series "Lost" kicked off its final season. Next year, viewers looking for a big cast that's totally lost will have to make do with 'Olelo's gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Legislature.

• Kona Councilman Kelly Greenwell, who once proposed releasing Guantanamo terrorism suspects on the Big Island, says he may not seek re-election because of frustration with the Sunshine Law. You've got to love a law that both lets in the light and takes out the trash.

And the quote of the week ...

... from Frank F. Fasi after his final campaign in 2004:

"I think I've had it. The last hurrah has taken place."

There's always one more. R.I.P, Mr. Mayor.

Now we'll see if public officials who hold the keys to reform have more respect for their kupuna than they've shown for the keiki they locked out of classrooms two Fridays a month.

George Ariyoshi, John Waihee and Ben Cayetano  offered a three-point fix for the schools  that includes replacing the dysfunctional elected Board of Education with one appointed by the governor, giving principals greater authority and mandating more class days.

They say the discussion must ultimately include streamlining the education bureaucracy, pay for performance in the school system, more stringent accountability and better support for charter schools.

The governors powerfully spelled out the failure of our schools — bottom-skimming national test scores, the fewest class days in the country, military families avoiding Hawai'i assignments because of the poor schools, students unprepared for college or good jobs.

They also shot down the usual excuses about local  students handicapped by poverty, poor language skills and special education needs, noting that we're near the national average in those areas and schools elsewhere with similar challenges are doing better than we are.

Hawai'i's per-student funding is 13th highest among the states, with an annual expenditure of about $16,000 that exceeds the annual tuition at most Hawai'i private schools.

Ariyoshi, Waihee and Cayetano made a strong case for change, but the test will be whether they're  willing to put in the elbow grease — or have the clout — to persuade Democratic office-holders to make it happen.

Democratic legislators of this generation are more respectful of their campaign donors than their elders and the teachers' union, which has led the opposition to restructuring the school system, was the third leading donor to legislative campaigns in the last election.

"Make no mistake, powerful interests will fight to protect the status quo,"  the governors acknowledged. "Virtually every governor over the past 50 years has tried in one way or another to decentralize or reform the DOE. Each effort has had broad support from the public, but each failed because the system fought back against effective reform."

Defenders of the status quo are  already voicing the familiar refrain that the problem isn't governance, but resources in the classroom. What the former chief executives understand and they don't is that good governance is exactly the way resources get to the classroom.

Silva conceded that it's discriminatory to allow opposite-sex couples to marry while disallowing the same for same-sex couples, but added,  "not all discrimination is unjust. Some is quite justified because it is based on reality and truth."

The problem, of course, is that we hold to many different faiths in our community with different views of reality and truth. The best public policy in our diverse society doesn't hew  to one faith as the only truth, but finds ways to accommodate all faiths.

The marriage debate is an incendiary mix of religion, politics and law, and the path to accommodation is to separate the three.

The most obvious answer is to get government out of the marriage business and put all committed couples — heterosexual or same-sex — into civil unions that apply legal rights equally while leaving churches free to sanction ceremonial marriages or not as they wish.

Ultimately, this would have to be enacted on the federal level to put an end to the local skirmishes such as our battle over HB 444 that have resulted in a hodge-podge of conflicting state laws.

The guiding principle should be to find an accommodation that avoids discrimination, not a rationale to justify discrimination.

I take a closer look at the politics behind the Legislature's bailout on HB 444 in my column in the Opinion section of today's Advertiser, "Lawmakers dodged vote, but to no avail."

Are they kidding me? After all the efforts of parole and probation officers to help their charges stay on the straight and narrow by keeping them away from intoxicating substances, lawmakers are now proposing to help them get an intoxicating drug?

It's made more preposterous by another measure up for hearing, SB 2141, which among other things would prohibit the state from requiring that the doctor certifying the need for marijuana be the patient's primary care physician and also bar the physician from disclosing the patient's medical condition that warrants the marijuana use.

This is the opposite of laws governing more medically accepted controlled substances, which require doctors to describe the condition being treated and carefully justify the purpose of their prescriptions.

So in the case of parolees and probationers, they could get a state license to get high from a physician other than their regular doctor and without proving that the marijuana is medically justified.

Where do we get these legislators?

SB 2212 was introduced by Sens. Will Espero, Robert Bunda, J. Kalani English, Brickwood Galuteria and Josh Green. SB 2141 was introduced by Espero, Bunda, Carol Fukunaga, Galuteria, Les Ihara, Michelle Kidani and Dwight Takamine.

Thursday's hearing is scheduled for 1:15 p.m. in Capitol conference room 229.

Last year, an outcry from clean elections groups forced the Judiciary chairman to back off a scheme to abolish limits on corporate donations to political action committees that support lawmakers' campaigns.

But Karamatsu and his colleagues won out in the end when the courts stuck down the limits, leaving corporations and labor unions to dominate elections while ordinary citizens, who can donate $1,000 per election, have barely a whisper.

This year, less than two weeks into the session, Karamatsu has already pushed a bill through the Judiciary Committee to ease restrictions on campaign donations to candidates and political parties by government contractors — opening the door anew to the pay-to-play ethic that has fed charges of bribery and corruption in local government contracting.

HB2249 passed the Judiciary Committee by a 9 to 1 vote with only Rep. Della Au Belatti objecting, and could come up for a floor vote as early as this week despite opposition from the state Campaign Spending Commission, Common Cause Hawai'i and Americans for Democratic Action. Nobody testified in favor of the measure.

"This change would open the way to allegations or the reality of corruption and further decrease the confidence the public has in state government," said Barbara Polk of ADA. "The public needs to know that government contracts are not awarded on a quid pro quo basis, depending on contractors contributions to candidates or parties."

Nikki Love of Common Cause said, "The existing law is the result of a 'pay to play' reform enacted in 2005 in response to public concern about ties between contracts and political contributions. The existing law is clear and simple. The question now is: Why change this law? We believe that there is already enough money in politics."

Attacks on campaign spending limits are usually piously tied to the free-speech rights of  special interests.

But Karamatsu, who may run for lieutenant governor, has tied it to legislators' rights to have more corporate money — and for uses other than campaigning, such as making charitable contributions out of their campaign funds instead of out of their own pockets like everybody else.

He chastised critics last year that "costs have gone up extraordinarily ... you're tying our hands on what we can do here."

• President Obama said in his State of the Union that Americans have a "deficit of trust" in government leaders. That would explain why his speech made such a deficit of sense.

• Gov. Linda Lingle couldn’t say if she’d veto a civil unions bill if it passes the Legislature because "I don't spend time reading things that aren't passed." Smart, it saves her the trouble of reading her own legislative package.

• A sign of the times spotted by a “flASHback” reader at a Manoa school: “No school Friday/Teacher work day.” Perhaps they should work on a pop quiz about what’s wrong with this picture.

• The teachers’ union wants lawmakers to give them more money than Lingle offered to end school furloughs. If I was the third biggest donor to legislators’ campaigns in the last election, I’d expect a return on my investment, too.

• Sen. Mike Gabbard got a restraining order against an 80-year-old gay rights activist who allegedly jabbed his chest at a civil unions rally. Geez, and he’s always telling them to man up.

• Forecasters say the vog choking O’ahu may not clear until late April. Isn’t that when the Legislature adjourns?

• Councilmen Todd Apo and Ikaika Anderson are huhu that Lingle won't let them tag along on her trip to Washington to meet with transit officials. Who can blame her? It's a long flight and it's hard to travel with children.

• GOP congressional candidate Charles Djou may hire a strategist who helped Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown pull off his upset win. Cover your eyes if Djou hires the fotog who shot Brown’s nude Cosmo spread.

• A United Airlines flight from Maui to San Francisco had to turn back after running low on fuel. Did they take off expecting to find a gas station at Cloud Nine?

• Maui all-star Shane Victorino signed a $22 million contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. He’s a one-man economic recovery.

And the quote of the week ...

... from Ka’u Councilman Guy Enriques on a proposal to legalize marijuana:

"I don't think any of us would want to go to a doctor who's high on marijuana and have him make a decision."

Ah, so that’s how you get a doctor to make a decision.

With a few clicks, you can e-mail the senator to sound off on issues before Congress, research legislation, get help dealing with a federal agency, learn about grants and arrange tours of the Capitol.

Many senators have been slow to take advantage of the new information technology, and it's good to see the 85-year-old Akaka embrace it to help his constituents navigate the federal maze.

In addition to the redesigned Web site, Akaka set up a fan page on Facebook — which his fellow Hawai'i Sen. Daniel Inouye also has — and a YouTube site to distribute video of his interviews, speeches and hearings.

Akaka has also cranked up his office PR operation. For many years, I'd go months without seeing a press release from him; now there's a steady flow every week.

It all suggests he's gearing up to run for re-election to a fifth term in 2012, when he'll be 88. Inouye is running for a new term this year at 86.

Akaka wouldn't likely face any serious Democratic opposition after the licking he gave former Rep. Ed Case in 2006, but Democrats assume the national and local GOP will mount a strong push to win the seat for Gov. Linda Lingle.

I'm not sure Lingle is looking like somebody preparing for such a race as she nears the end of her second term as governor, but she's an excellent campaigner with the ability to raise all the money she'd need and would be a formidable contender if she runs.

Akaka will never likely admit it, but Case probably did him a favor by running against him in 2006 and forcing him to get off his okole.

When Time magazine that year named Akaka one of the five worst senators, it was a fair assessment at the time.

But it's also fair to say that he's moved up the list since then, partly from becoming part of the new Democratic majority, picking up seniority from all the Senate turnover and ascending to chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee.

But perhaps the biggest part of it is becoming more active and engaged after decades of legislative lethargy and doing a much better job of showing face in Hawai'i and communicating with his constituents from Washington about what he's up to.
***
My column in the Opinion section of today's Advertiser, "Same old government stifles 'New Beginning,'" looks at the Lingle legacy after her final State of the State.

The bottom line in the story by Carol E. Lee is that the president probably won't get involved in the likely Democratic primary between U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, an early supporter and longtime Obama family friend, and Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, who has relentlessly courted the president's favor since jumping on the bandwagon late.

Less certain is whether Obama will weigh in on the special election to replace Abercrombie in the 1st Congressional District between Democrats Colleen Hanabusa and Ed Case and Republican Charles Djou.

Stories have been circulating locally about an allegedly unsuccessful attempt by Hannemann to crash Obama's family outing at Hanauma Bay during the first family's recent vacation here.

Hannemann, who wangled some face time with the prez last year during his tour of the Honolulu Zoo, was said to be agitated when the Secret Service wouldn't let him down to the beach at Hanauma.

Here's the Politico account:

Hannemann has been so unabashed in his efforts to see and be seen with the president that it’s become a local joke. Eyes rolled across Honolulu when he recently introduced a proposal to change the name of a park that’s long been known as Magic Island to The President Barack Obama Beach Park at Magic Island. The signature photo on his Twitter page is one of him and Obama. And the 55-year-old loves telling people about the time then-Sen. Obama once called him one of the country’s best mayors.

When Hannemann showed up at Hanauma Bay, the city park where Obama was snorkeling during his recent holiday vacation, no one was surprised. The mayor also appeared at the Honolulu Zoo shortly after the Obama family arrived, anointed himself their tour guide and made it into all their photographs.

Hannemann explained that he rushed over to Hanauma Bay after Obama got there only so he could get his parks manager down to the shore, not himself.

“All I was there for was to make sure — I never even wanted to go down — my guy was told he couldn’t go down, he’s the head of the bay, so I had to straighten out the White House staff and say, ‘He goes down; this is our city,’” Hannemann said defensively.

As my Uncle Otto from Brooklyn used to say, "You believe dot?"

The Politico piece is a good read and I recommend you follow the link to the full story.