The Thirty Meter Telescope proposed for construction just below the summit of Mauna Kea dwarfs a Boeing 747 and makes a semitrailer truck nearly unnoticeable in this image from engineering firm Imtec Corp.
Sandra Dawson, in charge of site master planning for the “TMT,” will be the featured speaker at BIPC’s Annual Installation Dinner on Friday, Jan. 23 at the Coconut Grill in the Seaside Hotel next to Ice Pond. Please note that the date is less than two weeks away. As always, the restaurant needs an attendance count soon. Also, we have to charge no-shows or we lose money.
As early as 1999, the draft Mauna Kea Science Reserve Master Plan proposed space on the north slope of Mauna Kea for a “Next Generation Large Telescope.” Since then, the concept has evolved to the TMT, and proposed sites have narrowed to Mauna Kea and Cerro Armazones in Chile.
To review, the two largest telescopes in the world are the 10-meter Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea. Ten meters means a main mirror 33 feet across. No single piece of glass can be made that big, so the Kecks use 36 mirror segments computer controlled to act as a unit.
The TMT mirror would be 98 feet across and would be composed of 492 mirror segments. The cost is over $1 billion. A portion of that would be spent on the Big Island…or in Chile.
Mauna Kea, while a better site than Chile, is not a certainty. Opposition here killed the Outrigger telescopes planned around the Kecks and could kill placing the TMT here.
Creature – In 1954, a “shocking” and “terrifying” movie hit the theaters, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The script was written by Maury Zimring, also known by his pen name, Maurice Zimm. A few years later, Maury and wife Molly moved to Hilo, and Maury became a founding member of the Big Island Press Club.
Now the Zimrings’ son, international law professor Franklin Zimring at the University of California at Berkeley, is planning a retrospective at the Palace Theater on Friday, June 19, Maury’s birthday.
Here’s Frank’s explanation.
Maury and Molly moved to Hilo in 1960, and spent three decades there. It was the most important home base they ever had, more so than Hollywood. And the Palace Theater is a very special place, with seats dedicated to Maury, Molly and my sister Eva. So when Anita Politano [also a BIPC] suggested showing the films, the site was a “no brainer.”
At least two of the four grandchildren will fly in for this, and my wife and I have a house in Hilo right at the end of Kalanianaole where my folks lived in the 1980s. When the Richardson Beach Park renovations are made, there will also be a memorial bench (it was my mother’s favorite beach.) I just wish Maury could attend!
For those who can’t wait to see the “terror” (smirk) that this film inspires, you can see a preview here.
There’s actually more than campy humor in this oldie. Gleanings editor Rod remembers Maury telling him in 1978 that he insisted, as a condition for writing the script, that he be allowed to make the creature more than a monster, a “person” with real feelings.
It’s a GEM – That’s incoming 2009 BIPC Vice President Stephanie Salazar with her GEM, a street-legal Global Electric Motors electric car. With a top speed of 25 miles an hour, this is not something you want to use as a getaway car in in your next bank robbery. But Stephanie drives it to and from work every day without incident.
She’s also protected from the weather by the car’s sturdy (!) canvas doors. That orange thing she’s holding is the extension cord she uses to “fuel” it. Monthly cost to charge it: $30-$40. The whole thing is the idea of Stephanie’s husband, Russell Doi, who bought three, two for $5,000 and one for $10,000.
On the Web – BIPC member Tiffany Edwards Hunt is posting her own blog these days, since leaving her position as aide to councilwoman Emily Naeole. Tiffany is also interim president of the Puna Community Medical Center. See the Jan. 12 entry on www.bigislandchronicle.com
Member Karin Stanton has joined former West Hawaii Today photographer Baron Sekiya in posting their own news site (not a blog, no personal comments) http://www.hawaii247.com Member Hunter Bishop has shut down his blog since becoming an aide to Mayor Billy Kenoi.
Judy Bird – In the November issue, we mentioned member Judy Bird as a protector of cats. A few members got to meet her at the Christmas Party at Hugh’s house. Judy has an interesting background as a former assistant to television newsman David Brinkley. Rod is sorry his limited wizardry doesn’t permit a picture of her at the moment, but she can be seen second from left in the “shepherds” picture in the December issue. Here’s Judy’s story.
As a starving graduate student in 1961, I got an interview to work for David Brinkley at NBC News in Washington DC to serve as a researcher for his new show. “David Brinkley’s Journal” pre-dated “60 Minutes” as the first news magazine on television. Each program lasted one hour, at the time a revolutionary idea and a tedious, expensive business in the days of 16mm film. Brinkley was bored with the daily “Huntley /Brinkley” show out of Washington DC and New York, and he wanted to do deeper looks into American and foreign issues
I was tested on my ability to whip up enough juicy bits about Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia and his wily use of both East and West to win foreign aid. Because my specialty was Southeast Asia, I knew the history, the Washington experts, the USAID people. I got the job, and worked as a scout/researcher for nearly six exhausting, exhilarating years.
“Journal” lasted only until 1963, but the unit Brinkley founded rolled on with” specials”, starring himself. I worked on “America the Beautiful”,” Our Man on the Mississippi”, stories on pacifists, crooked boxing, congressional reform, French Guiana, the first look at birth control in the US, the Enola Gay bombers, and one of his favorites, “Election Year in Averagetown”.
Brinkley was fascinated with small-town America. It was 1964 with Lyndon Johnson a kind of love/hate figure nationwide. I spent a fortnight in Salem, New Jersey, famous only for its ketchup factory, interviewing folks who poured out their fantasies, their bigotry, their love problems to me. Brinkley ate it up, and wanted to replicate some of the better quotes, but when he traveled to Salem, his fame intimidated most of my standouts to shy stutterers. I will never forget him muttering, “This is my last interview with real people. I have painted myself into a corner (by being famous). No one will tell me the truth anymore”.
My other Brinkley moment came with the assassination of JFK on Nov. 22, 1963. Producer David Asman grabbed us from the cafeteria to run to the studio, saying, “The President has been shot. You are all working for NBC NEWS now”. Brinkley was onstage, lights on, but the screen was running some ladies’ lunch show out of NY. Walter Cronkite had already gone on air at CBS.
Brinkley screamed, “Get those goddamned women off the air,” and seconds later, they did. Brinkley got on; we all worked in a blither of everyone from all parts of the NBC station pitching in for three days straight, with very little sleep, writing, phoning dignitaries to go on to reminisce about JFK…a total blur.
Brinkley was not a warm, cuddly type. No one except the producers called him David. It was “Mr. Brinkley” whether in the office or on a steaming hot day on the banks of the Mississippi River with him. He was aloof when on the road, and never ate with the troops or gave a party for the crew. I went on to work with his chief producer, Ted Yates, wangling myself a trip to Indonesia and scouting, then co-writing an award-winning documentary called “Troubled Victory” in 1966, which ran February 1967.
I quit NBC to go back to Indonesia where I freelanced for Newsweek, BBC, McGraw-Hill, ABC News and others for twelve years. They were years of living dangerously, but the best ones I ever spent.
Pre-bill – Billing for 2009 memberhip dues will be coming soon. E ‘olu’olu ‘oe, please pay quickly when billed. Even nicer, send dues now to the address at the top of this newsletter. Regular members pay $25 per year. Seniors pay $15. Students pay $5.
Reminder – Call or email Rod with your reservation for the Annual Dinner.
