Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

It’s seldom that a blogger is given a gift such as the front page of today’s Star-Advertiser.  It’s a great opportunity to comment on how news is covered today in our one-paper town, and to suggest to the editors that they could (and should) do better. I’m a paying subscriber, I have every right to kvetch.

Referring to numbers on the snip above—

(1)

When I reached over to pick up the paper outside my door this morning, I saw the glaring, all-caps headline “RAIL AT A STANDSTILL” and nearly toppled over in surprise. Did the court decide in favor of the no-rail plaintiffs?

I know that the headlines often are more cute than accurate.  In fact, Honolulu’s rail project is still coming at us. Nothing has happened to stop it. Who knows what the headline means.

(2)

This top-of-the-page headline, in bright color, says “U.S. TEAM COMES UP SHORT.” Hey, they won a Silver Medal! That’s fantastic! Editors, you could have said something like that. But you came up short.

(3)

This local news headlines says “STATE FINE-TUNES PLAN TO SIDESTEP U.S. SCHOOLS LAW.” Did they finally catch some kind of lawbreaking at our Department of Education? No, the DOE is just applying for a waiver of part of the No Child Left Behind law. The inside article reports that 33 states have already been granted waivers. All perfectly legal and within the law. Actually, the article affirms that the state is trying to find a way to conform to the law, not sidestep it.

(4)

Hey—it looks like opposition to rail is up—from 50% to 53%. Well, it’s a small difference. Actually, it’s the other way around. The Star-Advertiser has used this strange presentation method before—while we expect the time line to move from left to right, at their office it moves from right to left.

 

Each of us learned, from our earliest school years, that when one plots a measured value on an axis, time goes from left to right and the measured quantity increases from bottom to top. This is a universal expectation.

So last year is on the left, this year is on the right. Last month was towards the left, this month towards the right. Right?  Right.

This is how we are conditioned to read information. To present data in a way that it cannot be easily grasped is a mistake.

Let’s look at some more examples.

Here, it looks like I should be able to tell at a glance that HMSA rates for small business are going up. Indeed, the bar on the right is noticeably higher. At the top of the sidebar is says “higher rates.”

But the graph shows no such thing. The numbers don’t relate to the bar graph. And the time axis is backwards.

Here’s another. The headline says “rail support falls” but the “Yes” side shows an increase. Yup, time is going backwards again.

 

Sometimes the S-A does it right, which kind of makes matters even worse. Here are three snips showing the time axis pointing the way it should—2012 is on the right.

Yes, tourism numbers are up, and we grasp that fact instantly.

The paper won its Society of Professional Journalists awards only for layout this year. Hey, guys and gals, don’t endanger that.

I do need to close by recognizing the good work we do find in the paper. Now, please bring a little clarity to how data is presented.

“ ‘The poor, no matter how loudly they speak, no one hears them. No one listens to them because they are viewed as unimportant…’ ‘There is no question this means other companies will continue to do the same thing,’ and trap others in slavery.”

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by Larry Geller

Today would have been the final pre-trial hearing in the now-dismissed Global Horizons human trafficking case, billed as the largest such case in US history. I still have it on my calendar for 1:30 p.m. today.  Of course, now it isn’t going to happen.

 

‘Slavery’ case dismissal frustrates Utah ‘victims’

Human trafficking » Case dismissed after federal prosecutor missteps, but Utah workers say they were enslaved.

The two Thais are strong men, but they wept Monday. One even abruptly jumped up from an interview table, darted into a corner, and buried his face there to hide and wipe tears that embarrassed him.
…
The Thais in Utah thought they helped break that case against labor-recruiting company Global Horizons, and mistakenly believed that it would lead to prison terms for company officials they view as slave masters.

[Salt Lake Tribune, ‘Slavery’ case dismissal frustrates Utah ‘victims’, 7/30/2012]

 

Please check out the complete story at the link above.

“This was the tipping edge: the transition to the finance economy through deregulation, on credit offered with no capital, on insider trading betting against customers, on buying legislators by financing their campaigns, on Supreme Court judges appointed by bought legislators. Goodbye democracy, welcome finance mogul plutocracy.”

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The Politics of the Economic Crisis


by Johan Galtung, 30 Jul 2012 - TRANSCEND Media Service

From Jondal, Norway

Writes Eduardo Porter on The New York Times:

“Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the Libor scandal is how familiar it seems. Sure, for some of the world’s leading banks to try to manipulate one of the most important interest rates in contemporary finance is clearly egregious. But is that worse than packaging billions of dollars worth of dubious mortgages into a bond and having it stamped with a Triple-A rating to sell to some dupe down the road while betting against it? Or how about forging documents on an industrial scale to foreclose fraudulently on countless homeowners?”

A useful summary of the situation as of today.  But, a summary of what? What is this?  We have been through many answers starting with credit squeeze, then a real estate bubble that burst, toxic assets, credit swaps, hedge funds, derivatives–bets with the money of  other people, yours and mine–all finance and banking.  A psychologism was added at an early stage; greed.  Small savings banks wanted to be in it, the pattern was contagious and spread from Wall Street to the Euro Zone.   Bailout vs Stimulus, Wall Street vs Main Street; but as big banks are too big to fail there was bailout for the former and austerity for the latter, with misery.  Jobless growth in the USA, 17 percent unemployment in the EU; “stocks slump worldwide and euro sinks as bond rates soar to record” (IHT, 24 July 2012).  And so on. And so forth.

Whatever it is, the effect is an enormity.  It stands to reason that the causes should be commensurate.  True, the system could have reached a tipping edge and tumbled down after one small step–but then that tipping edge is the huge cause.  But why didn’t we know about it?  Ignorance, sloppy theory?  Maybe.  But there could be other causes.

See it as bad finance economics and banking practice at work, and the structural violence hitting the old, the poor, the underprivileged is unparalleled since the Great Depression.  See it as politics, as intended acts of commission, and it becomes direct violence hitting people whose only wrongdoing was to trust the system.

One hypothesis does not exclude the other.  The question becomes, how much was banking gone mad, how much was politics as usual?

One guide in the morass is useful if not perfect: who are the winners, who are the losers.  US class warfare, said Warren Buffet, and the rich are winning.  Banks that had taken risks with other people’s money and lost billions were bailed out, the victims were foreclosed.  Speculation all over, and on basic needs: food, water, housing, education (tuition fees), health services (ever rising costs), well knowing that these are necessities, that the demand is inelastic, people have to buy them at whatever price, hence safe bets.

Speculating on the stock exchange on privatized prisons. When common people do wrong signing a mortgage they cannot service, the court system criminalizes them and the police throw them out of the property. When the fixing, manipulating and betting against their own customers, and rigging the London Interbank Offered Rate-LIBOR is the matter, there are no arrests to prevent destroying evidence and coordinating testimony, but gentle hearings in prestigious places, mild rebukes and milder fines.  One may argue that there are no laws clearly defining their actions as criminal. Precisely; but why not, why not right now?

The transfer of capital from investment in the real economy to speculation in the finance economy done digitally, in microseconds, is to a labor-free economy.  Workers, the plague of industrial capitalists, quarrelsome, on strike, always demanding more, are out.  The longer the buying and selling chains in the finance economy, the more commissions-and hence, “economic growth”-, the fewer jobs.  A handful can do it; Lehman Brothers taking huge risks that are compensated by huge Goldman Sachs bonuses.

This was the tipping edge: the transition to the finance economy through deregulation, on credit offered with no capital, on insider trading betting against customers, on buying legislators by financing their campaigns, on Supreme Court judges appointed by bought legislators.  Goodbye democracy, welcome finance mogul plutocracy.

The crisis was an opportunity that the rich used to cut whatever smelt of welfare state, privatizing basic needs including health and education (coming).  Under no democratic checks & balances control.  Using the crisis as a cover for brutal class politics.

If the cause is not yet big enough, an international dimension comes to the rescue.  The US empire is threatened militarily by being beaten in one arena after the other; politically, by elites they thought they could trust but that are withdrawing into regional groupings like Latin America and SCO-Shanghai Cooperation Organization; culturally, by the US exceptionalism running out of its magic touch. And economically? By the threats to the Bretton-Woods/International Monetary Fund-IMF system with the dollar as the world reserve currency. Deals are increasingly made in other currencies.  Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were punished; but to punish China and Russia is more problematic.

The economic goal is to control the global flow of capital via such privatized central banks as the Federal Reserve.  Seven not-US-friendly countries had state central banks: Iraq-Iran, Lebanon-Libya, Syria-Sudan-Somalia; they were targeted after 9/11 according to Wesley Clark, the US general who commanded NATO’s attack on Serbia (1997-2000). Libya has already privatized.

But how to manage the Euro zone?  By having Goldman Sachs fixing the Greek accounts, and by having GS insiders appointed as interim prime ministers of Greece and Italy and as head of the European Central Bank (who makes money available to the banks at very cheap rates–below inflation?). The name of the game is finance, not real economy, with bailouts, not stimulus; and then the new European Stability Mechanism-ESM treaty of debt, with Article 27: “The ESM, its property, funding and assets…shall enjoy immunity from every form of judicial process”.

Goldman Sachs all over, itself bailed out by the president they bought, Obama, hitting the most US-loyal European countries which would engage in other than US-style policies: Italy-Portugal-Spain-Ireland. The Euro sinks and may implode, the dollar and US bonds survive. Using the crisis as a cover for brutal global politics.

Till one day the US bubbles start busting: the real economy lagging too much behind the finance economy and behind the massive printing of money, and serving people too much behind serving debts. Sacrificing their own people for a world hegemony long since lost. And who will be the winners? The non-West; already taking shape.

This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 3.0 United States License.

 

by Larry Geller

(see also: State running up legal fees on contempt/sanctions order, 7/19/2012)

After learning about the case linked above wherein the state has decided to risk a contempt ruling by refusing to pay court-ordered tuition for a special-needs student at a private school and may incur legal costs of $1-1.5 million, I decided to review some cases that are brought to federal court to see if there is a pattern here.

Today was the first day of my review. And today there is indeed a case before Judge Barry Kurren to recover fees that the state appears to have been obligated to pay. The complaint for CV 12-00032 notes that as prevailing party in a due process hearing, the attorney is entitled to payment of fees, but that “Attorneys fees and costs remain unpaid for all Plaintiffs.” The complaint notes that the state did not appeal the hearing decisions, and that the time for appeal has run out. The hearings in question were held in 2010 and 2011.

The caption of this federal case lists nine plaintiffs whose attorney’s fees and costs have not been paid.

Of course, this case has not yet been decided. When, as is likely, the federal court enforces federal law and orders the DOE to pay, there will be additional fees run up by this additional federal action.

And the DOE will not be paying these additional costs itself—you and I, taxpayers all, will have our pockets picked to pay these avoidable expenses.

by Larry Geller

It’s true: a picture can be worth 1,000 words:

Climate change could make Oahu a lot hotter in the future. Sitting in Aloha Stadium could get even more uncomfortable on a sunny day. So check out the slide above from the TEDx talk Wolfgang Kessling: How to air-condition outdoor spaces. Just change “Qatar” to “Honolulu.”

Aloha Stadium just sits out in the hot sun all day every day. If the surfaces that produce shade for spectators could be covered with photovoltaic cells, it would be sitting there making electricity for all of us. We’d get back a bit of our investment.

Then, when electricity is needed for a bit of cooling, it can take back some electricity from the grid if it needs to.

The concept is simple—when you make shade, also make electricity.

Instead of rusting away and remaining an expense for the next 20 years, Aloha Stadium could help reduce our electricity bills.

What’s needed? You’re probably ahead of me. As it is now, if Aloha Stadium replaces HECO burning some fossil fuel, all of our electricity rates would go up because HECO is guaranteed a profit.

This needs to be changed. Hawaii will not become self-sufficient in energy if you and I can no longer afford to power our homes. Not all of us can get off the grid.

I’ve advocated separating the grid from HECO—that is, have it independently operated. HECO would then be a competitor with other energy sources to supply power to the grid and to customers. The state and the county can also supply power by feeding energy from public buildings into the grid—a great use of our tax money. So Aloha Stadium would become a natural resource and an asset.

What will happen to HECO? The sun doesn’t shine all the time, nor is the wind constant. Wave energy, which would be more continuous, is still lurking just around the corner. So HECO’s generators are still needed. Over time, however, we want to get off of fossil fuels.

We don’t know where natural gas is going, or if that could be a “bridge” source of energy, or if it is ecologically sound. If competitors could come in and make a profit, it might be. Gas generators spin up quickly, and would work when the sun doesn’t shine. Energy storage (pumped hydro) is also used, but not here. Yet. Batteries? Flywheels? Who knows.

Here’s where we lived in New York City many years ago [See: Re-thinking Hawaii’s utilities means thinking smaller (1/9/2009)]. In the upper left corner is a little generating plant that was constructed along with the buildings in 1964. It has since been upgraded to a gas turbine generator and not only supplies the buildings, but feeds power back to Con Ed. During the New York blackouts, the residents had power. It can be done. And yes, power sold to the grid makes money.

Not having a workable feed-in tariff and artificially supporting HECO profits is holding back Hawaii’s future. Some may disagree with me, but when electric rates soar towards four times the national average (instead of the present three times) I feel confident I’ll have many allies.

I’ll have no trouble kissing HECO goodbye. Would you?

by Larry Geller

Amazing… how often does this happen?

Tonight at 8 p.m. on PBS, Insight host Dan Boylan will moderate a live forum -- with all of the Democratic Party primary candidates for the US Representative District 2.

This is your chance. KITV, KHON etc. are not likely to follow suit. Tune in, send questions according to the instructions they’ll explain.

by Larry Geller

Snip from the July 25, 2012 front page of the Star-Advertiser:

True, our state lawmakers seem mesmerized by high tech. Or rather, they seem to swallow high-tech Kool-Aid a bit too often. I’m still waiting for the arrival of a spaceport here. And for a stock exchange. And they pass laws favoring big business with far too much secrecy.

There’s another tax that could benefit from an audit—the state beverage tax.

If an auditor would visit a recycling center, I think she’d discover that the bottles are not checked too carefully. I’ve seen them weighed. The problem is, the bag likely contains all sorts of bottles that are not qualified for the tax refund.

Weighing doesn’t work. But then the recycler gets reimbursed, from our tax money. Is it a case of just making up some numbers on a claim form? Who’s checking before writing them a check?

So how much waste is involved in the process of reimbursing the beverage bottle tax?

Heck, it’s only taxpayer money. Like the high-tech tax credit. One mystery after another, at our expense.

Bring on the audits, say I, knowledge is the first step to a fix.

by Larry Geller

It’s been a while since I revisited my March story, Financial disclosures the Ethics Commission should have caught… (March 1,2012) in which I highlighted three state legislator’s financial disclosures that appear to be incomplete but that escaped the attention of the Hawaii State Ethics Commission.  I checked in with the Ethics Commission website several times to see if any corrective action had been taken, but it has not.

The March article revealed that three legislators filed apparently incorrect financial disclosures for 2011. There certainly could have been more than three, but heck—it’s not my job to check these, it’s the job of the Ethics Commission staff. It’s not their fault that their budget is limited, of course, but still… they have had plenty of time to fix this.  And they are required to do so. Yet there are still no amended forms on their website.

Again, here’s the certification that each candidate signs at the time they submit their disclosure form:

The March article linked to disclosures filed by Rep. Rida T.R. Cabanilla Arakawa, Senator Donavan Dela Cruz, and Rep. Scott Nishimoto. Checking just now, the three disclosures are unchanged.

What is new is a memorandum circulated by the Ethics Commission with instructions for filing amended returns for 2012 disclosures (see below). Snip:

It has come to our attention that some of the forms that were filed with our office were not completely filled out and that information that is required by law was not provided on some forms. We ask that you please review your completed form to ensure that you have provided all of the information that is requested for each item on the form.

This is unquestionably a positive step. For one thing, it puts legislators and state employees on notice that the Ethics Commission may be awakening, so they ought to check their forms for omissions. It’s also good practice.

In the corporate world, say an executive hears that some loudmouth in the Wichita office is making off-color remarks to female employees. Immediate disciplinary action is one option, but the employee may retaliate against the target of his language. Another option is to circulate a note to all employees reiterating the company policy against sexual harassment. The offending employee will likely figure out that the memo is targeted at him, though he can’t be sure, so retaliation is not as likely. If he changes his behavior, mission accomplished. If he continues, the next step will likely be to swiftly terminate him. And the exercise will then serve as a warning to others, and a demonstration that the company is serious about promulgating and enforcing its policy against sexual harassment.

But the Ethics Commission memo refers to only 2012 filings. The three I posted were 2011 forms. And they followed on the heels of Ian Lind’s article Politically powerful state senator files false ethics reports (ilind.net, 5/21/2011). The latter refers to financial forms filed in sequential years by the “politically powerful state senator” Clayton Hee (who, incidentally, is on the list of non-filers of candidate disclosure forms for the 2012 election). There is no indication that Sen. Hee was fined anything, nor that action was taken to fine the three legislators chosen for my March 1 article. Nor does the Senate President seem to take disciplinary action when rules or laws are broken.

Has the Ethics Commission adopted the “look forward, not back” policy of President Obama and Vice President Biden? When will amended forms appear on the Commission website? Can the Commission simply ignore the law and let prior transgressions stand?

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Download 2012 Memorandum to Filers of Public Financial Disclosure Statements

by Larry Geller

Is the giant awake?  A state ethics commission is designed to ride herd over the antics of negligent or sometimes malicious lawmakers and state employees who may think that laws apply to everyone but themselves. It’s an essential function to protect the integrity of government.

On July 24, the Hawaii State Ethics Commission issued a press release listing up both Senate and House candidates who failed to file financial disclosures as required by law, and indicated that they would be fined all of $25 each. Ouch! That must smart. But it’s all they can do.

The amount is set by statute—that is, the legislators themselves determined that they will subject themselves to only a slap on the wrist if they fail to file. The fine amount is less than the cost of a decent dinner for one in Honolulu.

The statute also requires that the Ethics Commission release the list of names, which they have done. Perhaps the list of names will have more of a deterrent effect than the tiny fine.

It’s not exactly “disappeared news” since KITV and a Civil Beat blog carried the list. But the Star-Advertiser seems to have skipped the story. They did post a short breaking news article on-line only, as far as I can detect with a search of my daily paper. Ethics Commission fining 22 legislative candidates for not filing financial disclosures was posted on the evening of July 24 and is credited to the AP. There is no list of names. The AP story was given little editorial scrutiny, it seems. For example, it stated that “more than 160 candidates filed their statements by the Monday deadline” whereas the Ethics Commission release gave the precise number as 163. Why fudge the data when you have the exact number staring out of the page?

For the record, here is the list, snipped from the Ethics Commission release.

CANDIDATES FOR SENATE:

Clayton Hee
Wendell Ka’ehu’ae’a
Gilbert Kahele
Michelle Kidani (Financial disclosure statement was received after statutory deadline)
Colleen Meyer
Bart Mulvihill
John Totten
Glenn Wakai

CANDIDATES FOR THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

Joe Bertram
Corinne Ching
Beth Fukumoto
Colin Hanlon (Financial disclosure statement was received after statutory deadline)
Kaniela Ing
Edward Kaahui
Tercia Ku
Rose Martinez
Joe Rattner
Lei Sharsh
Dwight Synan
Clifton Takamura
Danny Villaruz
Carl Wong

by Larry Geller

Big Island blogger and citizen journalist Damon Tucker was able to observe first hand how training and discipline pay off in the Navy. While on board a Navy ship as an invited guest a week ago today, Tucker witnessed a “man overboard” situation and the quick and effective rescue operation that followed.

It was probably one of the emergencies that is a possibility during any exercise as complicated as RIMPAC. None would come to public attention unless a civilian journalist just happened to be on board.

Tucker was invited aboard the USS Essex, the Navy’s High-Tech Transport vessel for the Marines. He described his experience in an article posted on his website, Damon Tucker: Hawaii News and Island Information.

The article includes several photos, including one of the air cushion ship he got to ride on to go out to the Essex. Check it out. There’s also a video of the craft leaving the water and coming up onto the beach. Water, sand, whatever—it’s all the same to this landing craft.

On July 20 he posted a second article with a reply from the RIMPAC commander to his inquiry about the rescue.

by Larry Geller

It's perhaps too easy to forget how many times this has happened. The horrific mass murder at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado on Friday is the latest in an epidemic of such gun violence over the last three decades. Since 1982, there have been at least 50 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 27 states.

[Mother Jones, MAP: 50 Mass Murders Across America in 30 Years, 7/20/2012]

The article includes a clickable map. Yes, the Xerox killing in 1988 in Honolulu is included:

Incident: Xerox killings
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: 11/2/99
Shooter: Byran Koji Uyesugi, 40, a Xerox service technician, opened fire inside the building with a 9mm Glock. He fled and was later apprehended by police.
Fatalities: 7
Injured: 0
Total victims: 7

And both presidential candidates, Mitt Romney and Hawaii’s favorite son Barack Obama, are talking 2nd Amendment instead of gun control.

Indeed, the White House’s only remarks in the aftermath of the carnage in Aurora have been to say the president backs the country’s existing laws — even though the alleged gunman in the Colorado shootings legally acquired various weaponry, including an assault rifle and 6,000 rounds of ammunition purchased online.

[MetroNews (Canada),Obama, Romney won't talk gun control, 7/23/2012]

I have no idea if the tweet below is accurate, but it illustrates the issue nicely:

From the MetroNews article:

There are an estimated 270 million guns in the hands of U.S. citizens, making the country the most heavily armed nation on Earth on a per capita basis.

Polling suggests the American public has grown increasingly resistant to tougher gun control legislation over the past two decades, with many states loosening laws to the extent that their citizens can carry weapons in public.

Gun sales are booming, with 2011 breaking records for gun purchases; the numbers for 2012 are expected to soar even higher. An estimated 50 per cent of American households now contain guns.

Both Obama and Romney have learned lessons from those who have waded into the debate before them, said William Schneider, a well-known American political analyst and public policy professor at George Mason University — gun control is a no-win issue, no matter how passionately gun control advocates clamour for it.

by Larry Geller

I interviewed Clare Hanusz, an attorney who represents many of the Thai workers affected by the human trafficking cases filed in federal court in Honolulu. The video is below.

On Friday, July 20, 2012 the US Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss all charges against Global Horizons defendants in what was billed as the largest human trafficking trial in US history. Earlier in the year a similar case against Aloun Farms owners was also dropped after it was discovered that the federal prosecutors made an error in instructing the grand jury.

Click this image for video interview or click here.

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Here is the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint mentioned in the video. It’s quite long, but is good reading. Several Hawaii farms are mentioned in the complaint.

This case is different—it is a civil, not a criminal case, and alleges discrimination in employment as described in the complaint. It could result in payment of money damages to the affected workers.

Download 1-11-Cv-00257 263 3rd Amended Complaint EEOC

by Larry Geller

This just in from the Associated Press --

A federal judge in Hawaii has dismissed a human trafficking case against executives of a labor recruiting company accused of exploiting hundreds of farm workers from Thailand.

The prosecution's request for dismissal was granted Friday in the case against the CEO and other officials of Los Angeles-based Global Horizons Manpower Inc. It was the U.S. government's largest-ever human trafficking case, involving about 600 Thai workers placed in farms across the U.S.

[Huffington Post, Feds dismiss largest US human trafficking case, 7/20/2012]

The Department of Justice had previously abandoned its case against Aloun Farms shortly after the trial had begun when a prosecutorial error was discovered.

This leaves only a series of civil actions by the EEOC still going forward with regard to accusations of human trafficking of hundreds of Thai workers in Hawaii and on the Mainland.

Update: This just in from a Department of Justice spokesperson:

Today the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the human trafficking criminal prosecution against defendants in United States v. Orian, et. al. in Honolulu, Hawaii. The department moved for the dismissal based on an additional review of the evidence following the August 2011 dismissal in United States v. Sou.  A team of attorneys and agents determined the government is unable to prove the elements of the charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt, the high standard applied in criminal prosecutions, and that proceeding with the prosecution no longer serves the public interest.  The dismissal is based on facts and circumstances specific to this case, applies to the criminal prosecution only, and does not apply to any ongoing civil litigation being conducted by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
 
The Department of Justice is committed to identifying, assisting and seeking justice on behalf of human trafficking victims who have been trapped in some form of slavery, coerced labor, debt bondage or sex trafficking.  Over the last three years, we’ve achieved significant increases in human trafficking prosecutions—including a rise of more than 30 percent in the number of forced labor and sex trafficking prosecutions, and we will aggressively continue to bring significant cases, ranging from single-victim domestic servitude cases to prosecutions that dismantle transnational organized criminal networks.

A copy of the motion to dismiss appears below. Caution: this is an OCR copy. Do not rely on it, there could be OCR errors.

Download 1-10-cr-00576 368 Dismiss-OCR

by Larry Geller

Readers not from New York may not have heard that Mayor Michael Bloomberg would like to limit the size of sodas that may be sold in the city. He’s dead serious, but it does make for some good comedy. For example:

(Daily Show, July 17, 2012)

Jokes aside, the mobilization against size limits and soda taxes is a great example of corporate America at its best (that is, at its worst).

If corporations are people, some of them are pretty despicable specimens. They don’t care about us flesh-and-blood type people, only about themselves. And their profits. They live, if they live at all, to take advantage of us. Whether we live or die, are healthy or are sick, is nothing to them.

Some of them make sugary beverages that have no place in a healthy diet. The country has an obesity epidemic linked to a diabetes epidemic. Diabetes is a devastating disease. The manufacturers and distributors of these products don’t care.

Bottoms up! Supersize that! Free refills!

Like the tobacco industry, the health of their customers is of concern to them only in that they need us to live long enough to buy lots of their products.

New York’s Mayor Bloomberg is famously pushing to limit the size of sodas allowed to be sold in New York City. No sooner did Bloomberg make his move than a fake grassroots coalition was put in place by the soda industry to whip up public opposition.

In June, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a controversial cap on sugary drink portion sizes. If the proposal is passed, sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces will no longer be able to be sold in the city's restaurants, stadiums, food carts and movie theatres.

Last week, a so-called "grassroots" coalition, New Yorkers for Beverage Choices, emerged to oppose the mayor's measure. But an investigation by the Republic Report found that the coalition is entirely the creation of the American Beverage Association and its high-powered issue advocacy firm Goddard Gunster (formerly Goddard Claussen):

[Huffington Post, The Masterminds Behind the Phony Anti-Soda Tax Coalitions, 7/3/2012]

Hawaii is one of the states listed where Goddard Gunster has been active. The article links to the website No Hawaii Beverage Tax, a domain name similar to others that the firm has reportedly created.

Of course, New Yorkers could simply buy two 16-ounce servings instead of a forbidden 32-ounce size. The ban would get the message across, though, and might well be effective.

So would a soda tax.

Americans don’t like being told what they can eat or drink, of course. I suppose getting diabetes is some sort of Constitutional right, but there is a clear public interest in minimizing avoidable disease and death as well as the public expense that obesity and diabetes represent.

Disappeared News suggested a soda tax for Hawaii back in 2009, possibly the first here to do so, or at least among the earliest.

Using an on-line calculator in 2010 demonstrated that a 1-cent-per-ounce tax could bring in as much as the estimated 2012 hotel tax. Of course, one could adjust the soda tax parameters downward to any value.

Articles on the soda tax idea are here.

The media, of course, back the soda companies. Our daily paper is named, after all, the Star-Advertiser.  Between industry propaganda and media objections, it is difficult to gain support for a sugary beverage tax.

I’d like to reproduce one of my articles below, the one complaining about the S-A editorial. I think it’s a good summary of the advantages of a soda tax, and I suggest again that Hawaii might adopt one next legislative session.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Star-Advertiser mixes ideology into soda tax debate leaving bad taste

by Larry Geller

The Star-Advertiser needed to fill the editorial page space today that is normally occupied by Richard Borreca blasting the governor for something, and they chose a guest editorial headlined Put state on spending diet rather than impose soda tax (Star-Advertiser, 12/28/2011).

While it makes some arguments about the role of sweetened drinks that I’m not qualified to debate, it is basically the old right wing no-tax-increases, destroy-government mantra.

Where exactly is Hawaii supposed to cut its government? Shall we have 1/2 of the one ag inspector checking our farms? Should the Department of Health inspect restaurants every four years instead of every two?

The best and most effective job creator is government, so a very good argument can be made to reduce the damaging cuts and put people to work in this bad economy. To do that, it’s necessary to raise revenues. Also, right-wing critics seem never to argue against damaging social-service cuts, it’s always more cuts for them, cut, cut, cut, without empathy or common sense burdening their thought processes.

Disappeared News first suggested a soda tax in 2009. That article linked to an on-line calculator that is state-specific and allows policymakers to play around with various tax schemes. The full-bore tax-the-heck-out-of-every-sugary-molecule approach could bring in as much as $169,160,651. That’s extreme. The state’s proposal is moderate in comparison.

More articles on the soda tax idea are here.

The writer might have consulted the draft state budget for 2012, which indicates how the money for an augmented alcohol tax and new soda tax would be used. Here’s a table from the budget document for the Department of Human Services:

 

Programs	FY2012	FY2013
Healthy Start	$6,500,000	$7,000,000
Fetal Alcohol Prevention/Treatment	170,000	1,500,000
Baby SAFE (PATH)	400,000	1,000,000
Obesity Prevention	750,000	3,500,000
Breastfeeding Promotion	850,000	1,500,000
Development Screening	300,000	500,000
EC Health Coordination	175,000	200,000
EC Mental Health	205,000	2,000,000
EC Health Passport	650,000	650,000
Health Equity Best Practice Models		1,500,000
Prenatal Risk Surveillance Integration		650,000
Total	$10,000,000	$20,000,000

There’s a secondary effect to sin taxes that takes time to work. The constantly increasing tobacco tax, along with package messages and advertising restrictions of course, sent a clear message that smoking is bad and that society wishes to discourage it. Soda should be removed from schools (as it increasingly is), and even adding a warning label would not be totally outrageous. Increasing a tax on the stuff would help with the message. Like smoking, drinking empty calories is bad for you.

There is an argument that a soda tax is regressive. Diabetes is regressive. The 1% is certainly in better physical shape than the fast-food guzzling part of the 99%. Who has time for two jobs and visiting the gym as well?

Yes, a debate at the Legislature is very appropriate and there are differing points of view. 

Pity that the newspaper needs to muddle the subject with a right-wing message.

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By H. Doug Matsuoka

Day 257, DeOccupy Honolulu. I couldnʻt be at Thomas Square today for the expected seizure/tagging raid by Honolulu Police and the Department of Facilities Maintenance, so I followed along on Honolulu City & Countyʻs "traffic cam" of the area. The encampment was abbreviated in preparation of the seizure raid, and also because there is currently a second encampment in front of Kamehameha Schools Kawaiahaʻo Plaza protesting Bishop Estate landlord injustice.

I followed along also on livestreamer "iZombies" livestream of the raid. And when the police and DFM crews went to the Kawaiahaʻo encampment I switched to livestreamer "RebelutionNovaʻs" channel. My five photo Flickr set also has links to the recorded livestreams.

I long ago noticed that the camera was almost never focused on the traffic. Itʻs usually focused directly on the DeOccupy Honolulu encampment. This is creepy in some ways, and in some ways, not.

Mayor Carlisle had some expensive high resolution cams put in for APEC but the image gets deresolved before itʻs served to the public. The one devoted to DeOccupy Honolulu is usually (around 5 out of 6 images) especially blurred out. I did find a (legal) way to access the unblurred image, though.

Hereʻs one I just captured from the official "traffic cam."
During todayʻs raid, I noticed the camera "zoom" into the action. Check the Flickr set for some comparison shots.

For better or worse, weʻre living more and more in public, and Iʻm okay with that. Now, imagine if we could bring this sort of transparency to government! Iʻd really like to see who Mayor Carlisle is talking to or what lobbyist is buying the drinks for my legislator. Or whatever.

Maybe a politician will volunteer for some kind of constant live streaming coverage? He/she would be able to turn it off whenever he/she wanted to, but at least the public would either be able to follow or know he/she had killed the feed. What think you?

H. Doug Matsuoka
Ustream "HonoluluDoug"
19 July 2012
Makiki, Honolulu

by Larry Geller

The Hawaii Department of Education has decided at all costs (that is, all costs to be paid by Hawaii taxpayers), it does not want to reimburse Loveland Academy for services given to a special needs student. See: Hawaii’s war on the disadvantaged shuts down special needs school (7/10/2012) and Parents on difficuluty (sic) of finding good schools (KITV, 7/10/2012). The school is owed $700,000 and a federal judge agreed. KITV indicated that the school may have to close.

On May 25, 2012, Judge Susan Oki Mollway issued an order. This is the last bit of the text:

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, that Plaintiffs Ex Parte Motion to Shorten Time for Hearing on Plaintiffs Motion for an Order to Show Cause Why Defendant Should Not be Held in Contempt, Directing That a Garnishee Summons Issue and Imposing Sanctions is GRANTED and Plaintiffs Motion for an Order to Show Cause Why Defendant Should Not be Held in Contempt, Directing That a Garnishee Summons Issue and Imposing Sanctions shall be heard before the Honorable Judge Susan Oki Mollway, United States District Court Judge for the District of Hawai'i, on June 14, 2012 at 10:30 o'clock p.m. or as soon thereafter as counsel can be heard.

(Sig: Susan Oki Mollway)
DATED: Honolulu, Hawai'i, May 25, 2012.

So the battle now is whether the DOE will be found in contempt, and whether the federal court will have to garnishee a state bank account in order to extract the money owed to Loveland.

On June 14 it appeared that the state would spend more taxpayer money by taking the case to the 9th Circuit. From published minutes of that hearing:

Discussion held re: whether or not Loveland Academy will continue to provide services if this motion is continued to the same time as Defendant's Motion for Preliminary Injunction Order to Stay Enforcement Pending Ruling on Defendant's Appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is set for 8/21 @ 9:45 a.m., etc.

Plaintiff's Motion for an Order to Show Cause Why Defendant Should Not Be Held in Contempt, Directing That a Garnishee Summons Issue and Imposing Sanctions continued to 8/21/12 @ 9:45 a.m.

This particular case, 1:10-cv-000381 Marcus I., et al. vs. State of Hawaii Department of Education, has run for several years. It’s already been to the 9th Circuit and back.

In the end, most likely the state will have to pay Loveland as ordered, could possibly be found in contempt, and could have one of its bank accounts snatched if it continues to refuse to pay. Along the way, Loveland Academy will likely shut down, thereby depriving other special needs students of its services.

You and I are paying for the legal fees in this case. Considering how long it may last, the final tab could be $1 – 1.5 million. And that’s over and above having to pay as the court ordered.

The present action is only the most recent segment of the dispute over providing this student with a Free Appropriate Public Education as the federal law requires. Along the way have been due process hearings and court reviews. A reader not familiar with the tension between the DOE and special needs students might be mystified at the shenanigans that are described in the many legal briefs. For example, Judge David Ezra was called to review a due process hearing in 2009. He issued an order on October 21, 2009 affirming a hearing officer’s decision. End of that chapter? Yes, but reading his unpublished opinion is educational.

Just a few high (low?) points: after several IEP (Individualized Education Program) meetings that determined that the student should be placed in a residential educational facility, we skip ahead to discover that the DOE suddenly thinks he can just attend his local school. Ezra wrote:

On July 17, 2009, this Court held a hearing on the administrative record. During oral argument on the appeal, the Court was informed that DOE had subsequently developed IEPs for Marcus that determined his home public school of Baldwin on Maui would be a sufficient educational placement.

This appears bizarre.

Then there is a Clinton-esque skirmish described by Judge Ezra in which a vice-principal “is careful with her word choice.” In a nutshell, the DOE had claimed they did not have information on the student’s progress from Loveland, but it turned out that they did have information. Ezra described some of the testimony thusly: “Such testimony could have been careful word choice, at best, and outright misleading, at worst.” A judge doesn’t usually write that someone lied. I would love to have been present in the courtroom that day to hear what each side and the judge did say.

The DOE clearly doesn’t want to pay what it owes to Loveland, never mind a court order. So likely we taxpayers will fund another appeal at the 9th Circuit, and perhaps further court hearings here in Hawaii after that.

What about just educating the students, all of them, in the first place? The federal law says a student will be evaluated, an IEP will be drawn up and revised as necessary, and the required program and services will be delivered. It doesn’t say that parents have to go to due process hearings in between each of those steps. It doesn’t say that a student needs a lawyer to get a Free Appropriate Public Education.

But in Hawaii we do it that way. The DOE won’t learn as long as the taxpayers just keep covering their legal expenses.

 

 

 

 

by Larry Geller

The AP gives its members plenty of opportunity to exercise their biases. For example, on p. A3 of today’s Star-Advertiser is a story with the screaming headline “AMERICA PARCHED.’ It’s similar to a couple of versions that Google will find for you out there.

The selected story probably does a good enough job of drawing attention to the drought that currently grips so much of the country, and compares it to the droughts of the 1930’s and 1950’s.  Those droughts may or may not have been worse than the current situation, but it’s only July and we’re not out of it yet.

Of course, much of the right-leaning press wants to avoid the two words “global warming” or even “cllimate change.” The story the S-A chose uses neither. The closest another version came was this:

"I have never seen this type of weather before like this. A lot of old timers haven't either," [cattle rancher Brian] Baalman said. "I just think we are seeing history in the making."

[ap.org, Drought now grips more than half of the nation, 7/16/2012]

I’ll venture that most readers are aware of “global warming,” so it’s kind of amusing to see newspaper editors go to such lengths to maintain an ideology that they have no chance of imposing on the reading public.

This is just one article. Let’s see how the S-A handles future articles.  And no, I did not sit down and do a comprehensive review of all their coverage. I’ve read many articles on-line that similarly omit “global warming” and will just see how it goes with our daily paper as time goes on. They are not alone in this.

And they could do better.

by Larry Geller

Today’s paper illustrates an on-going battle that developers always seem to win. Well, almost always.

Somehow, as a project moves from initial proposal to completion, the pencil eraser gradually removes parks, schools, or in this case, affordable housing, from the blueprints. Unless citizens intervene, the erasures stick, and everyone (except the developer, of course) loses out.

There were at least two instances in which community activists won government to their side in forcing a developer to keep its promises. Old articles are now missing from the web, but we’ll look at one of these victories.

Here's the lead from the Star-Advertiser story today:

When the state offered 40 acres in Kapolei for private development of affordable housing several years ago, the plan was to produce 751 homes for sale or rent to occupants who met tight income restrictions. But the result has fallen short of those ambitions. The number of homes being built was reduced by more than 100 while many of the planned rentals were converted to for-sale housing and the income restrictions were lifted on about 20 percent of the homes.

[Star-Advertiser p. D1, Affordable housing cut from Kapolei, 7/15/2012]

The reaction should be “Well, you don’t get to build on public land unless the promise to build affordable and low-rent housing is kept.” But most likely, absent citizen intervention, that housing will simply not happen.

A prior conflict was won by parents and activists in Central Oahu.

[Activist and Neighborhood Board Member Laura] Brown said that, over the years, land earmarked by developers for schools has been released by the DOE and "turned into multifamily housing by the City Council."

[Star-Bulletin, Builder pursues Mililani housing project, 6/20/2002]

Castle & Cooke, the same developer that now says it is cutting affordable housing this time, was made to keep its promise by the community a decade ago. From the Star-Bulletin article:

Last week, the state Land Use Commission proposed approving two of three phases of the company's Koa Ridge subdivision near Mililani, but only if Castle & Cooke would build schools to support residents before any of the 3,237 new single- and multifamily homes are occupied. The proposal was unprecedented for a major housing project in Hawaii, observers said.

Housing Finance, which facilitates affordable housing development, selected Castle & Cooke through a competitive bid process based on providing the maximum number of affordable units at the lowest expense to the state, which provided the land and some infrastructure for the project.

The current development is a perfect example of the eraser at work. From today’s paper:

But Castle & Cooke has since sought and received several approvals from the agency to alter its original plan, including changes to the type and number of homes, prices and buyer qualifications. The timetable for completing construction also has grown by roughly three years.

In the earlier case, parents had an interest in eliminating overcrowding that is rampant in Central Oahu schools. Multi-tracked, over-crowed schools create problems for families who cannot schedule trips or vacations, for example.

In the current instance, there may be no one to speak up for those who will not be able to move into the erased housing units.

There oughta be a law, something like “you draw parks or schools into a plan for approval, or specify the type and number of affordable or low-rent units, then you have to build according to that plan if approved, or you build nothing.” I’m not holding my breath.

Laura Brown wrote in a Hawaii Reporter article about the disappearing parks and schools:

…Under the leadership of Rene Mansho, the City Council approved zoning change after zoning change to convert the number of parks and school lands into additional housing. Unilateral agreements were amended or brushed aside.

[Hawaii Reporter, Damn the Community, Full Speed Ahead, 11/1/2002]

When a school is erased, it’s not fair to build it in what was originally to be a park, later, or to dump the responsibility onto the DOE and taxpayers. Similarly, and particularly if the use of state land was granted, developers should be held to promises made on how it would be developed.

Pitting the houseless against developers means developers win

The City and County of Honolulu has no sympathy or empathy for those who have lost their jobs and then their homes. The city knows how to sweep people from the parks and confiscate and destroy their property, but it doesn’t do very much of anything to solve its housing crisis. Nor does the state administration, which thinks that stopping feeding programs is somehow humane or helpful.

As the sweeps and confiscation has continued, many of those living close to the city have moved to rural areas and are less able to access social services than before. In other words, they are being dumped into rural areas without thought to the well-being of the people displaced or of the effect on the receiving communities.

So any loss of so-called “affordable” housing and low-rental housing is a giant step backwards. Instead of sweeps, housing first or other evidence-based solutions should be what the city and state put their effort into.

I put “affordable” in quotes because it is a misnomer. The housing built is not for those who cannot pay low rent. It is not “attainable” housing. So it doesn’t even begin to solve the problem. Still, allowing a developer to drop a promise of affordable and low-rent housing is something that should be strongly resisted. Families could be put in those homes instead of being condemned to the beaches on Leeward Oahu. The city and state could put pressure on developers to include much more low-rent housing as a condition for building anything on the island.

by Larry Geller

I’m working on an article about something that appeared in today’s Star-Advertiser, so I went to fetch the text from their web page. I’m logged in, no problem there. But it doesn’t want to show me the article.

See, it confirms at the top that I’m logged in. But the article is cut off with a banner asking me to log in.

I’ll try again and I’m sure it will [eventually] work.

But dear editors: I had no trouble quoting the Wall Street Journal earlier today and the New York Times also has a paywall but one can read the articles. According to reports, both papers are happy with their paywalls, and it seems readers are, also.

Why demonstrate that we are still in the dark ages technologically speaking, here in Hawaii? Please find a 13-year-old kid who can fix your website.

And locking away David Shapiro not only does injustice to an author who should be read by everyone, but is probably punishable in the afterlife.

Consider the damage you do to Hawaii by not allowing the world to read about what we are doing, what we achieve, and what a great place this is to live and to visit.

“Nearly 18,000 Kindle readers have highlighted the same line from the second book in the series [Suzanne Collins's "Hunger Games" trilogy]: ‘Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them.’ ”

---

by Larry Geller

The pull-quote above is from Your E-Book Is Reading You (Wall Street Journal, 6/29/2012). I’ll admit to finding it very frightening. Indeed, something is happening to people and perhaps they are not dealing with it.

More from the WSJ article:

The major new players in e-book publishing—Amazon, Apple and Google—can easily track how far readers are getting in books, how long they spend reading them and which search terms they use to find books. Book apps for tablets like the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook record how many times readers open the app and how much time they spend reading. Retailers and some publishers are beginning to sift through the data, gaining unprecedented insight into how people engage with books.

I find this kind of spying frightening. Keep in mind that whatever data Amazon, Apple, Google and Barnes & Noble gather on a person can be available to law enforcement. As readers of alternative media know, government officials seem to be able to get hold of detailed information on us without warrants or court intervention. They’ve long been after our library borrowing records. Now they can find out what sections of what ebooks we spend time perusing. Right down to the sentence, in fact.

A note to Nook users: the WSJ reveals that your detailed reading habits are already being shared with publishers. Barnes & Noble is supposedly sharing only data on groups of readers, but admits that they already have "more data than we can use."

Don’t worry, they’ll find a way to use it.

When you highlight a passage by pushing that button on the Kindle, Amazon knows about it. Is that ok with you? The data is already being shared on their website.

What about readers who choose to select books on sensitive subjects. Could merely reading a page in a book on sexuality figure in a police investigation of a sexual assault in your neighborhood? Would the FBI single out for scrutiny anyone who spent time reading particularly violent passages in crime novels, for example?

While organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation are seeking to prevent data from being turned over to law enforcement agencies, a better approach would be to not let these companies have the information in the first place.

I had thought it would be nice to have an iPad (I’m one of the few holdouts I suppose) to be able to read ebooks while waiting to testify at the Legislature, for example. Instead, I think I’ll stick to my aging HP tablet, which I’m pretty certain doesn’t have the smarts to send details of my life to Amazon.

by Larry Geller

While studying organization development I ran into the “Garbage Can Model” originally developed by Dr Michael D. Cohen in 1972. I simply filed the paper away at the time, and it wasn’t until I started taking classes at the University of Hawaii that I realized how much the garbage can model described the organizational anarchy I saw everywhere at UH.

The current scandal over the Stevie Wonder concert scam reminded me of my early observations of how UH departments and management operated.

First, let’s look at why an organization might be described in terms of a “garbage can” and then see if it fits. Finally, how might it be improved?

Why “garbage cans”? It was suggested that organizations tend to produce many “solutions” which are discarded due to a lack of appropriate problems. However problems may eventually arise for which a search of the garbage might yield fitting solutions. A snip from a glossary of terms:

… Organizations operate on the basis of inconsistent and ill-defined preferences; their own processes are not understood by their members; they operate by trial and error; their boundaries are uncertain and changing; decision-makers for any particular choice change capriciously. To understand organizational processes, one can view choice opportunities as garbage cans into which various kinds of problems and solutions are dumped. The mix of garbage depends on the mix of labeled cans available, on what garbage is currently produced and the speed with which garbage and garbage cans are removed.

[washington.edu Economic Geography Glossary]

This fit my observations perfectly. I had signed up initially as an unclassified student to take political science classes offered by visiting professor and renowned peace researcher Johan Galtung and some others. I was hopeful, at the time, that UH might actually form a peace center and offer a masters degree in peace studies. Well, both the peace center and the possibility of a masters program were continually impeded by internecine squabbles within the political science department. Imagine, continual battles over a peace center! There was little or no intervention by department heads, much less any higher level in the university.

Finally I thought I might enter a degree program. The polsci department head refused to allow me to move my credits in, even though they were in his department. But the sociology chair was very welcoming and allowed me to come in with my credits. What of university policy?  Aha! The garbage can model. What one department head chose to take out of the can was different from what the other retrieved.

Anarchy was the operative word. I think the department heads referred to it as “discretion.” A weak distinction.

From the Wikipedia article, referring to a paper co-authored by Cohen:

The paper, since frequently cited, describes a model which disconnects problems, solutions and decision makers from each other.

At the lowest levels of university organization are the minor fiefdoms in which tenured professors basically do as they wish. At the top level is the shogunate, an elite position richly rewarded but unable to exercise effective control through the ranks.

Fast forwarding to the present, we’re seeing the model at work as UH scrambles to sort out responsibility for the Stevie Wonder scandal. Who’s in charge? Who was responsible (See Ian Lind’s article here)? What kind of management controls are in place and institutionalized in this institution? What kind of management training and measurements are in place? The garbage can model assumes nothing about this.

Cohen’s model is not specifically aimed at educational institutions, but it seems to fit them particularly well.

It suggests four consequences that arise from the decision-making process: solutions may be proposed even when problems do not exist; choices are made without solving problems; problems may persist without being solved; some problems are solved.

[ehow.com, What Is the Garbage Can Model Approach?]

From Ian’s article we learn that problems in the UH athletic department are long-standing and remain unsolved. He also emphasizes the question of governance, that is, was the chancellor in charge? Was UH administration in charge? Who runs the athletic department? To which I might add, following the model, does anybody really run the athletic department? Who reviewed the

Meals and entertainment at Gordon Biersch, Hooters, Moose McGillycuddy’s and other spots.

that were on the list of expenses that Ian highlighted in his article? Hooters-really??

Now, clearly the UH administration runs the university, but it’s not anything like the way Jack Welch ran General Electric. Welch’s leadership and development ran up and down within the organization. As a GE employee I attended company management training. I knew whom I worked for and later, who worked for me. We all fit in. Garbage of any kind in the company was soon dumped, often mercilessly.

Reinventing college education

Perhaps some other organizations have emerged from their garbage cans, and perhaps UH may. But the reform will have to start at the top, and the UH regents are not going to do that. Hawaii is very much wedded to a certain style of management, whether at the University or in state or local government: the feudal fiefdom. I don’t believe that feudal systems reform. They are replaced after some kind of revolution, upheaval, or perhaps decay.

It would take foresight and vision to bring some of Jack Welch’s magic (regardless of how one feels about “Neutron Jack”) to UH.

For one thing, state legislators are enthralled with UH athletics. No reform is likely from there.

UH leadership comes from the 1% world—money is often the driver, and though sky-high salaries (on a Hawaii scale especially) are often questioned, those salaries remain among the “problems that persist without being solved.” There is an assumption that paying high salaries is congruent with being some kind of “world class” institution.

Now, UH doesn’t do badly in many respects, but is it because of the pay and management structure, or though the hard work of dedicated faculty? And yes, I know that UH is more than just an educational institution. It is many things, some of them intertwined with Hawaii’s economy in complex ways.

Still, we seem to be paying for a Jack Welch level of leadership, but it just doesn’t work the way it does at a corporation.

Perhaps a university shouldn’t be compared to a corporation.

But then should we be paying corporate salaries to university staff?

There could be a reform that would work, though it is unlikely that it can be implemented here or at other institutions of higher learning where business has supplanted education and money keeps feudal lords in power—and that is, a grassroots-designed and -operated educational structure.  That would mean, I think, starting from scratch with a parallel institution and building it over the decades. Whether it could be economically feasible or whether it would be taken over by feudal lords, I don’t know.

With today’s graduates living with oppressive debt loads and unable to find work, perhaps a future generation of students will notice that the only way they are going to get a college education is by reinventing college themselves.

I think the iPad generation could do it. I doubt there would be many lecture halls, for example. Sitting in a huge room listening to one person lecture each semester is so 18th century. A couple of universities are already posting complete courses on-line. The only thing missing is the ability to be examined to demonstrate understanding, and to get credit for attending via the Internet.

You can take many classes right now, for example, from the Yale University website, but Yale won’t email college credit to you. I can see that one day this may change.

Imagine how many on-line video classes could be offered for UH president Greenwood’s $425,000 annual salary?

In the meantime, we’ll be amused by this and future scandals as money goes down the UH garbage disposal. Dr. Cohen’s model continues to drive governance at our state university. The current scandal is just a small blip, but one that illustrates why college education needs to be re-invented.

by Larry Geller

The Star-Advertiser coverage of the UH/Stevie Wonder scandal has been shallow at best. If you’d like to learn more than how UH officials are scrambling around like chickens without a head, click over to Ian Lind’s More background on how $200K of UH money could have gone walkabout (7/12/2012).

Speaking of chickens, the S-A could give us more value for our paywall dollar. For example, on the claim that the FBI is investigating, we read this from the front-page story (strangely missing from the website home page unless you have the patience to endure the rotation of the photo gallery through seven stories):

Meanwhile, the FBI has begun a criminal investigation and has told UH officials it can find no trace of the $200,000 the university wired to a Florida bank account said to be involved in the bogus fundraising concert for UH athletics planned for Aug. 18 at the Stan Sheriff Center, UH sources told the Star-Advertiser.

[Star-Advertiser p. A1, More at UH may face the music, 7/13/2012]

Ah, good, the feds on on it. But wait… I thought that the FBI won’t confirm whether it is conducting an investigation. Is the paper reporting that there is an investigation? Actually the paragraph seems to say that UH asserts this, as we find out if we make it all the way to the end of the paragraph.

And indeed, the very next sentence seems to confirm that the previous paragraph was groundless:

FBI Special Agent Tom Simon acknowledged that the FBI has been contacted by UH officials, but said he could not comment further.

Simon goes on to shred the credibility of the story he appears in:

"I can confirm that the referral has been made to the FBI Hono­lulu office by the University of Hawaii," Simon said. "But DOJ (Department of Justice) policies prohibit me from confirming or denying the existence of an FBI investigation unless or until charges are filed."

So in the end it seems that UH may have no grounds to claim a criminal investigation is underway, but the reporters didn’t clarify whether they asked UH about this claim, only that they couldn’t verify it from speaking to an FBI agent.  Not bad, but not terribly insightful.

Over on the editorial page, the editors neither confirm nor deny that they know about an FBI investigation, suggesting only that:

…an FBI investigation is appropriate to get to the bottom of the alleged scam and support criminal charges.

This is perhaps a small but basic factoid. How do the reporters fact-check their story? Is the UH claim true or false? And who actually cares?

Ian’s article is a much better read. Recapping his previous investigation, he reveals, for example:

Money from sponsors and booster clubs was deposited in 39 special accounts at the UH Foundation, where it could be spent without restrictions that normally apply to state agencies.

And Ian questions whether the Manoa chancellor or the UH administration itself was running the athletic department, which brings with it questions about what UH president Greenwood knew or should have known about the current concert arrangements:

The NCAA has rules which say the Manoa chancellor, as the top administrator of the campus where the athletic program is lodged, should be in charge. And UH reported to the NCAA that the chancellor was firmly in control, as the rules require. But there were lots of questions about whether that was the reality, which were discussed here late last year. The evidence seemed to show UH President Greenwood’s office was calling the shots, and the chancellor was relegated to a minor role, certainly not setting policy.

Snipping Ian’s article doesn’t really work well—I suggest you click over and read it in full, along with the comments.