Oh Yes We Can

ALOHA, Friend!

Welcome to

Spring Time

in

Honolulu

Click on Chinatown images:

I love strolling in the oldest China Town in America,

right here in Honolulu.

"Many of the significant problems in our lives are more about recognizing the obvious

rather than discovering the mysterious or hidden.

One of the classic ways we deceive and hide from ourselves

is by refusing to recognize

the obvious, and shrouding what is right before us

in rationalization and false complexity."

Jonathan Zap

You run into the most interesting folks there.

"One must look with the heart."

The Little Prince

Dr. Sun Yat Sen spent his school-boy years here in our town,

before he went on to shake the world.

"The whole world is one family."

Dr. Sun

Who is this, under that giant hat, taking picture after picture?

Undemocratic sore-loser forces in our country

have ramped up the intimidation

against their Congressional representatives

who's votes on health care they dislike.

The video below is a great answer to their adolescent outbursts:

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History!

Aloha, Friend!
Today We Celebrate
The Making of
History


click on the miracle of the day:

We long to join the birds in their freedom. . .

"The man who is anybody and who does anything
is surely going to be criticized, vilified, and misunderstood.
This is a part of the penalty for greatness, and every great man understands it;
and understands, too, that it is no proof of greatness.
The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure contumely without resentment."
Elbert Green Hubbard

The progress of humanity has been a long journey. . .

"Any person in a position of prominence
must always keep in mind
that if he is going to accomplish anything worthwhile,
he must have courage and fortitude
to stand against the abuse and criticisms of others."

Paul Osumi

It seems folly, trying to get new ideas to fly. . .

"Greatness does not approach him
who is forever looking down."
Hitopadesa

And sometimes, as if in a dream, they fly. . . They FLY!!!


"The Way of Heaven
is to benefit others
and not to injure.
The way of the sage
is to act
without competing."
Lao Tzu


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"All violent feelings
have the same effect.
They produce in us
a falseness in all our impressions
of external things. . .
the 'Pathetic Fallacy.' "
Ruskin, 1856

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It has been much worse than pathetic watching transcendentally hypocritical blow-hards like Boehner weep crocodile tears about extending health care to the millions of our fellow citizens who lack it. It has been beyond sad to see the slurs hurled at civil rights veteran Congressman John Lewis, at Representative Frank, and others who aroused the ire of "Tea Bagger" demonstrators in Washington this past week by having opinions different than theirs, but mostly for being "different" from the bulk of the demonstrators themselves.

But we did it.

It included over 200 amendments proposed by Republican members of Congress
but not one of them voted for it.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says that the new law will reduce our deficits
by one trillion dollars in the next ten years; but the opposition says that we cannot afford it,
despite current trends in health care costs that will bankrupt the nation if they continue as is.
Americans, alone of all major nations' citizens, must fear bankruptcy if they have the misfortune to become seriously ill - and these are people who have insurance! Every day too many of us lose our insurance, or are denied critical, life-saving care. To say nothing of those, including children, who cannot even GET insurance coverage.
Now all of that will likely end. Republican leadership calls it "Armageddon."

So today is a historic day. As people benefit from the new law, they will forget that they were ever against it, or why they feared it. Those who called FDR a "devil" did not decline their own Social Security checks.

In a neat bit of timing, our historic accomplishment marks 45 years to the week
that Martin Luther King said:

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long,
because "truth crushed to earth will rise again."

How long? Not long, (Yes, sir) because "no lie can live forever."





And, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow,

Keeping watch above his own.

How long? Not long,
because the arc of the moral universe is long,
but it bends toward justice.

How long? Not long, (Not long) because:



His truth is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat.

Glory, hallelujah! Glory, hallelujah!

His truth is marching on. [Applause]


Martin Luther King
Our God Is Marching On!
March 25, 1965. Montgomery, Ala.


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Play on, Illusion

Aloha, Friend!



click on the clouds to rise among them

"The Poets down here don't write nothing at all
they just stand back and let it all be."

Bruce Springsteen

"The miracle is to think of our career
as our contribution,
however small,
to the healing of the universe."

Marianne Williamson

"Who is rich?
He that is content."

Benjamin Franklin


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We ran from the tsunami
weathered the hurricane
bailed each other out of jail
and into the emergency room.

Let's keep going,
the adventure continues.

Happy Birthday
to
my Favourite Husband!



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Lost a Newspaper? News Morphosis 2.0

Aloha, Friend.
What do You Know
Today?


you GOTTA click on this baby!

"There is one thing more powerful
than the armies of the world,
and that is an idea
whose time has come."

Victor Hugo

please excuse these "shot into the light" pictures below

John Temple



"The contest, for all ages,
has been to rescue Liberty
from the grasp
of executive power."

Daniel Webster

David Shapiro (John Stewart 1.0)




"A joke is a very serious thing."

Winston Churchill

The Provocative Sarah Lacy


"The price one pays
for pursuing any profession,
or calling,
is an intimate knowledge
of
it's ugly side."

James Baldwin

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Has your hometown lost a newspaper recently?

It was here a moment ago. It was always there.

Maybe as a kid you got up early in the morning, like I did, to deliver it to your neighbors. Newspapers have been a part of the rhythm of life in America since Thomas Jefferson said that, having to choose between government with no newspapers, or newspapers without government, he'd have to choose the latter.

Now don't worry.

This isn't going to be another boring lamentation of Journalism's death blaming all the usual things: the internet, bloggers (that's you and me, guys!), opinion-shouting cable TV (the ersatz feedback loop of talking points posing as news), decreasing attention spans in our youth (that we raised and educated). . . Blah blah blah. Yeah, there used to be these civic institutions called newspapers, public town squares that needed to sell lots of car ads to keep going, but now are being destroyed by Craigslist.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, founded in 1882 as the Evening Bulletin, published its first edition on February 1 of that year. 1912 saw it merge with the Hawaiian Star to become the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. (Wikipedia). Recently this institution has been put up for sale in the current panic atmosphere of cash-hemorrhage and closure among newspapers, leaving many Honolulu locals to assume that we will soon be down to one major daily, the Honolulu Advertiser (celebrated it's 150th anniversary in 2005 or `06).

Meanwhile, several of our local TV stations have recently "consolidated" their news operations, which means running the same news-cast on 2 stations, and re-broadcasting it at a different time on a 3rd station. Their news director, Chris Archer, tried to sound upbeat at a conference on March 18 here in Honolulu: NewsMorphosis 2.0 How the Transformation in our News Media is Transforming our Society. I wish him well as the operation prepares to take on it's first Merrie Monarch Festival, a revered local institution sometimes called the Olympics of Hula that brings dancers, fans, and eyeballs from around the world to sleepy Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii every Spring. You could tell he was excited about this "away game" far from Honolulu City lights. So I was much too polite a small fry in that room of somebodies to ask him why his smiling, likeable anchors regularly deliver incomplete, and sometimes misleading, information, and why the same badly-written line is read the same way on the next newscast. I call it "you know what I mean journalism." But I do wish the local HAWAII NEWS NOW team well - they're much too important to this town!

Into this trembling moment steps a millionaire. (Billionaire?) Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar who was born in Paris, came to the USA with his physician father as a boy, and graduated from Tufts in 1988 with a computer science degree, but not before spending some time as a student in Honolulu at President Obama's high school ala mater, Punahou. Among other things, Mr. Omidyar started a little on-line auction company called Auction Web in 1995 largely so his Bay Area friends could more easily trade and collect Pez dispensers. He later changed the name of that company to eBay in 1997. Cue the angelic choirs of capitalism!

This tyro with a local connection has confirmed his genius by moving back to Hawaii with his wife Pamela, and has lately been spreading the wealth around in socially constructive ways, such as a 100 million endowment of the Hawaii Community Foundation (our school kids are still being "furloughed" on some Fridays, as are many of their State employee parents, and the redoubtable Meals on Wheels program, that lifeline of too many of our Kupuna (seniors), is perpetually hurting for funds, but who am I to wonder about that stuff...).

The generous Omidyars were also instrumental in the launching of Kanu Hawaii, a grass roots movement of "9,443 islanders committed to protect and promote island living - a connection to the 'aina (land), a culture of aloha, and local economic self reliance."

Now, the philanthropists are investing in an interesting new endeavor: Peer News. John Temple, Pulitzer award-winning editor, president, and publisher of the late lamented Rocky Mountain News is the founding editor, and the newest intellectual landmark on Oahu, drawing a virtual who's who of Honolulu media, communications, policy, tech, and entrepreneurial types to the conference.

I sat between my old friend Kim Coco Iwamoto, elected Hawaii School Board member, and the sharp Susan Yamada, Interim Executive Director of the University of Hawaii's Shidler College of Business.

Star tech reporter and author, Sarah Lacy flew in from Asia for a lively panel, as did William Moss ( CNET Asia, China Economic Review). The founding Executive Director of the George Washington University Global Media Institute, former general manager of CBS Radio News, Michael Freedman spoke, as did, locally based lights including the day's informative Keynote, Avi Soifer, Dean of UH's high-ranking
Richardson School of Law.


With the enviable freedom of a visiting writer whose reporting continues to be sought, lauded, and deservedly rewarded,
Sarah Lacy pointed out that in today's landscape of personal, even portable, news options, the "traditional media is doing a worse job. I read things in the New York Times tech section that is just wrong." She also made the attending local newspaper pooh-bahs squirm when she scorned inauthentic "astro-turf tweets that are just re-packaged paragraphs by established news people who don't really comprehend the medium."


Mr. Temple inspired some stirring of excitement as he spoke of "lots of reasons for optimism in this age of surprises, twists and turns." Content being the critical issue, not platform. "I am not prescient," he said, but "we're gonna approach things differently at Peer News. "People feel concerned and disconnected. PN is aimed at providing a different voice, giving folks entre` and a fresh start.
Our mission statement is simple:
To Create a New Civic Square.
Citizen contributions will be as integral as paid journalists.
The reporting is a resource, sort of a living history on topics as things develop. Big Picture will be inherent, not just today's 'story.' We'll start with the readers' needs, and be question-oriented, driven by asking 'why?' Let's talk about community. Reporter/hosts working for readers, not as detached chroniclers, no slightly re-written press-releases.
And no faceless comments.
In the civic square we can see each others' faces.
Discussion and debate will be hosted.
It's about speaking to hard issues but with Aloha
which I am beginning to learn about.

I envision a dialogue with other views, straightforward, to fulfill common needs." Temple says that he expects to present "content and an experience worth paying for' and to launch early in the second quarter of this year.

The pithiest remarks of the day came from my favorite truth-teller,
much respected local editorialist/blogger, David Shapiro
who responded to his introduction as one of the best Hawaii journalists by saying that it was
"like being called one of the best dinosaurs in the tar pit."
He commented on the hubris-panic of the traditional "gate-keepers" by advising them to realize that the gate is "now a swinging door" and that they have morphed perhaps into filters.

Now David is a kind reader of my little Hawaii novel, and a respected long-time internet friend. His often brilliantly funny jabs at the local circus of power called State and City government are the best thing in the Advertiser and @ their website.
Yesterday I got a chance to hug him local-style.

Wish I had thought to build on his swinging door analogy by wittily adding to it:
"Yeah, a swinging door. Just don't let it hit you on the okole!"

So I am sorry if you are losing one of your local institutions,
but I'm happy to say that our Honolulu seems poised to enjoy the birth of something truly hopeful and groundbreaking.

One thing I DO know, is that a local outsider, small fry, columnist/ blogger walked into that conference feeling like a nobody, but I walked out feeling empowered, feeling like the future, feeling like a million comments on this blog!

ALOHA, cloudia

Morning Downtown

Aloha, Friend!

It's

Friday.

Let's take an early morning walk

through downtown Honolulu

Click da pics!

I love our older buildings.

They are reminiscent of the monarchy era,

of territorial days,

and the early statehood days of the 60's. . .

"I have an affection for a great city.
I feel safe in the neighbourhood of man,
and enjoy the sweet security of the streets."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There are sweet touches everywhere.

Of course my beloved Chinatown (just a few blocks away)

is a different world that we've visited before.

Today I have an errand in the business district.

"The city is what it is
because our citizens are
what they are."

Plato

The spiral is EVERYWHERE!

See the 3 news boxes?

The WEEKLY is an indispensable "alternative" to the two major dailies.

It seems that we will lose one of the majors very soon

and become a one-newspaper town

like many other American cities.

Sleepy Fort Street Mall

where homeless mix with college students and business people. . .

"Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle,
it is a human zoo."
Desmond Morris, The Human Zoo

First Hawaiian Bank's modern tower,
with 70's cement to the right.

"Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men."
John Milton


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A Day

Aloha, Friend!
It's Thursday in
Honolulu

One of the most achingly lovely songs of all time:


click on the images!

Honolulu's Aloha Tower,
one-time site of the comings and goings of passenger ships.
You can almost hear the Royal Hawaiian Band playing, smell the lei for sale, and see the splashing children as they dive for coins tossed by the passengers - even today.
As your departing ship passed Waikiki, it was custom to throw your flower lei into the swells. If it floated towards the verdant shore you could expect to return once more to these magic isles.

Ganesh arrived safely!

"Best be yourself
imperial, plain
and true!"

Elizabeth Barret Browning

Which green would YOU choose?


"Show me a man who claims he is objective
and I'll show you
a man with illusions."

Henry R. Luce


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On yesterday's post,
friend Dinesh Chandra left me this comment:

"Hi good pictures great blog to read, great post
how r u, say something about u.
regards
dinesh chandra"


So today I want to say something personal,
something about me.

I been crying in my car today.
This morning I drove out of Honolulu,
up the Pali,
over the Ko`olau Mountains
to the windward side
of Oahu.

The mists arose from the forested hills.
Hawaiian music played on my radio.
On this day I would accomplish many
every-day tasks.

And I would do them with the help
of people I love,
on an Island I love.

My eyes filled with tears
for all the good
that pours down on me
everyday.

Overcome with gratitude,
eyes filled with beauty,
a heart bursting with Aloha,
I drove and drank
in the treasures of the day.

My blog was off making friends.
When I got home
I marveled at this
friendship
you & I have discovered.

Today I cried in my car.
Cried for joy,
cried my thanks.

That's something about
me, Dinesh.

And I thank you
EACH
most sincerely
for spending some of your precious
life
here with me.


Bless You! cloudia

Always With Us

Aloha,
Inter-Species Friends!


clickity!

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words
but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?"”

Winnie (the) Pooh

“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together,
there is something you must always remember.
You are braver than you believe,
stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
But the most important thing is, even if we're apart.. i'll always be with you.”
Winnie (the) Pooh

Stolen from a great blog. Yours?



“You can't stay in your corner of the Forest
waiting for others to come to you.
You have to go to them sometimes.”
Winnie (the) Pooh

Stolen from another cool blog. Thanks fellow blogger!

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In the infancy of humankind
the other creatures
were our companions-
not merely our prey,
or threat.


They taught us much.
We clothed our gods
in their forms.
We emulated them
in ceremonies, yoga, and kung fu.



In each of our childhoods
the animals were there:
The crib companion
(dear Teddy Bear)
household pets,
fascinating insects,
patient farm animals,
and always the birds in public.


Still their stories
touch and teach us.


Thank you dear Charlotte,
Winnie,
Big Bird.

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