Change!
Let me – your editor, Rod Thompson – start with a personal note. As some of you already know, all of the neighbor island offices of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, including the Big Island office, are closing effective Feb. 27. I will be laid off.
Although I was planning to work for a few more years, I’m a couple of months short of age 65, so this is not catastrophic for me. I don’t have a mortgage, so there is no gorilla on my back. The biggest bugaboo is officials in Hawaiian Paradise Park, where I live, who raise association dues every year.
People have asked what I will do in life after the Star-Bulletin. I will grow bananas and pineapples for home consumption, I will exercise a lot more, and I will remain open to part-time news work.
BIPC must change.
How will these changes affect BIPC? I have been the treasurer of BIPC since 1994. I will continue to be treasurer, in the absence of any other member challenging me for the prestigious (chuckle, guffaw) duty.
An immediate change can be seen in the masthead above. Financial information will no longer go to my office address. It will go to my home address above. That means an address change for monthly credit union statements and for the place where you send your annual BIPC dues. Puna has two branches of Credit Union of Hawaii, where we keep a major part of our money, and it makes sense to give me quick access to the credit union in the district.
A second BIPC address will not change, P.O. Box 1920, Hilo, HI 96721 will remain, primarily for scholarship matters. Another matter, getting a new home e-mail address where you can contact me, is unsettled.
The bigger picture: BIPC – My reaching retirement age and the Star-Bulletin downsizing signal bigger implications for BIPC. We need to have younger journalists active in the club, and we need to be more flexible in giving responsibility to non-traditional journalists, bloggers among them.
The current club bylaws pose barriers to those goals.
Keep in mind that in 1967, when the club was formed, there were no communications satellites and television programs aired two weeks later here than on the mainland because videotapes had to be flown from the mainland. With limited outside entertainment in Hilo, BIPC was formed as much to entertain its members with its clubhouse and bar as it was to promote professional activities. General membership meetings took place once a month.
Now we have only three general membership meetings a year, Christmas, Annual Dinner in January, and Scholarship Dinner in the summer. For entertainment, there are the Internet, video rentals, and satellite TV.
But our bylaws, especially the amendment procedures, are stuck in 1967. They called for introduction to the directors of a proposed amendment one month, explanation to members at a general meeting the next month, and a vote by Professional members at another general meeting in the third month.
That was a three-month process.
Today, if an amendment were proposed in March, we could tell you about it by e-mail the same day. But the bylaws require us to wait until the next general meeting, the Scholarship Dinner in the summer, to formally tell you. Then we have to wait until the following general meeting, the Christmas party, to let Professionals vote. That’s nine months.
This gets worse.
If you – a Professional – live outside Hilo, the bylaws allow you to cast an absentee ballot. But if you live in Hilo, you must attend the Christmas party in person or lose your chance to vote.
With these tremendous obstacles in place, never envisioned by the founders of the club, I believe it is better first to amend the amendment process this year. After that we can use a hopefully streamlined amendment process to help younger and alternative journalists next year.
The board of directors is in the early stages of considering these matters.
Thirty Meter Telescope – Sandra Dawson, the public face on the Big Island of the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea, described the project at the Annual Meeting of BIPC on Jan. 23. Here are some highlights.
The TMT, whether built in Hawaii or Chile, will be nine times as powerful as each of the Keck Telescopes. Its images will be ten times sharper than those of the Hubble Space Telescope.
What are astronomers trying to learn? “Something happened (the Big Bang). Then when it was over, there were galaxies,” Dawson said. Astronomers don’t yet understand how galaxies formed. Looking farther in space and farther back in time will help them get answers.
“We need a lot of people who do software,” Dawson said.
Not a lot of those on the Big Island? “If you want a really smart work force, you have to provide education,” she said. One piece of that: The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is providing to the Imiloa astronomy center up to $670,000, which must be matched by one community dollar for every two of their dollars.
The goal is to pay for every child on the Big Island, K-12, to visit Imiloa in the next two years.
Some TMT numbers: Cost, $1.2 billion; annual operating cost, $25 million; permanent employees, 130; completion, 2018.
Awards – John Burnett was given the 2008 Member of the Year Award at the Annual Dinner. At the end of 2007, BIPC went through a crisis trying to find a candidate for club president in 2008. After difficulties were perceived with two candidates, John volunteered to take the post, “saving” us. John has also been a consistent and generous donor to BIPC for years.
John also arranged for martial artist B.J. Penn to be speaker at the 2008 Annual Dinner, producing one of the most successful events we have had in years. For his involvement, and for the assistance of Hunter Bishop and Wendell Ka’ehuae’a, all three were recognized with the Project of the Year award.
Member doings – BIPC member and UH-Hilo journalism instructor Patsy Iwasaki, with artist Avery Berido supplying drawings, has published a graphic novel – a comic book to oldtimers – but there’s nothing comic about Hidden Hero, the story of a real contract laborer. Patsy wrote, Katsu Goto was lynched and hung on a telephone pole in Honokaa in 1889, four years after he arrived on the Big Island. He was just 27 years old. He was an early “labor leader” championing the rights of the early Japanese immigrants in the face of sugar company management. He also generated animosity because of the success of his general store which he opened after his three year contract was completed. A lot of people don’t know about him, hence the title “Hidden Hero.”
Patsy will teach a four-week course on the book starting April 6. Price, $35, which includes a free copy of Hidden Hero. Call 974-7664 for info.
Editorial comment: This book reminds us about something we already know, that 19th century Hawaii was a multi-ethnic nation, if at times a rough one. Therefore government lands, later “ceded” lands, served multiple ethnicities.
Speaking of ethnicities, member Hal Glatzer is directing a play he wrote, “The House Without A Key,” based on the 1925 novel by Earl Derr Biggers that introduced Honolulu police detective Charlie Chan. Glatzer noted, “In the movies, Chan was always played by a haole in makeup.” Glatzer wanted an Asian-American character to be played by an Asian-American actor. He got pretty close, with local boy Ron Serrao (half Chinese, half Portuguese) playing the part. “The House” plays March 5-7 at the East Hawaii Cultural Center
And speaking of donations, as we did of John Burnett, founding member Don Miller, although an exile from the Big Island for three decades, sent a donation with his annual dues.
Last month we mentioned that member Karin Stanton had joined former West Hawaii Today photographer Baron Sekiya in starting a new Web news site, www.Hawaii247.org. We’re happy to report that Baron, who envisioned Hawaii 247 as much as a decade ago, has since joined BIPC. We should note that Hawaii247, although straight news, not a blog, is the kind of new source of members that we refer to when we tout change in BIPC.
Long time member Bob Duerr, not seen by us in a while, attended the Annual Dinner with his wife Adriana. Editor Rod asked him what he’s been up to recently, and Bob submitted this brief version of a longer article he wrote for Hawaii Fishing News, going way beyond fish.
The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas have nearly four million square miles of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). This may seem eco-friendly but diving deeper reveals murky waters.
Last year, former Australian defense minister Kim Beazley said U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had set a “subtle new direction” in security policy.
Gates claims “there is sovereign American territory in the western Pacific from the Aleutian Islands all the way down to Guam.” Over the complaining of Marianas, the Marianas National Monument further cements U.S. “sovereign territory.”
Why the need for ocean territory? Honolulu journalist Richard Halloran says senior Chinese naval officers have told Honolulu’s Admiral Timothy Keating they plan immediately to build aircraft carriers. The Chinese want the U.S. to stop to patrolling the western Pacific.
The military’s latest Hawaii Range Complex environmental impact statement shows the testing zone for the complex completely enveloping the northwest islands. U.S. military action is provided in MPA legal clauses, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest ruling exempting the Navy’s high-powered sonar from harming marine mammals sets the precedent for an environmental open door policy.
We interrupt – Dr. Todd Belt, associate professor of political science at the University of Hawai`i at Hilo, will be at Borders Books and Music in Hilo on Saturday, February 28 from noon to 1 p.m. to sign copies of We Interrupt this Newscast: How to Improve Local News and Win Ratings, Too, a new book he recently co-authored. The book is billed as “what the media think about the public and why they are wrong.”
Finally (for this edition) – Editor Rod still has no new e-mail address and still hasn’t had time to send out dues billings. You will be hearing from him. Or you can voluntarily send dues – $25 for most members, $15 for seniors, $5 for students – to the address in the masthead.
