Low Down

The local political season is heating up and we are beginning to see the strategy the front running Republican candidate for governor is using. Namely, Slick Willie II. That is, never directly answer a question, always turn questions around to attack others, and tie the candidates to the past wrong doing of others. While this strategy worked on the mainland, it is questionable whether it will work here.

For example, one of the reasons this candidate lost the last election was because she repeatedly refused to come up with a platform. Everything was trust me, I'm about change. I will reveal all after I am elected. While this had traction with voters born on the mainland, ordinary folks looked askance at this and wondered what color her carpet bag was.

So, this year, her handlers came up with a more than 20-page booklet that supposedly lays out what she will do. In fact, they trumpet it as being a detailed, well thought out, point-by-point blueprint. Unfortunately for her, analysis of the costs of the programs found in the booklet indicates a seriously unbalanced budget. In other words, she would either have to raise taxes (Oh! The horror!) or cut most departments (while increasing spending for the Department of Education, teachers being one of her closet allies) by about 25 percent.

Brilliant strategist that they are, instead of creating trust by explaining how she would do what she says she will, they turned it around and attacked the current Governor by saying such analysis is political (Shocking! Just shocking! Who could have known?) and if she were Governor, she would never do that.

Hmmm. If so, why did she make similar "political" statements (as confirmed by the head of the State Ethics Commission), on official stationary during official office hours, while she was Mayor? Of course, brilliant strategist that they are, they decided to not answer that other than to say it was somehow different and then attacked the current Governor again.

I should note at this point, one small problem. Namely, that the current Governor is not running for office as he is in the second term and can not run for Governor again. So why is this candidate attacking someone who is not even a candidate? One can only guess she is trying to use the same strategy that candidate Bush used against Al Gore, attack by association and misdirection. That is, if you are a Democrat, you must somehow be part of all those bad people and I'm not.

As to the plan itself? Her campaign staff, back pedalling furiously, indicated it was merely a wish list and people should not take it so seriously. Hmmm. The truth does eventually come out. But will enough people see this as a cynical product of a cynical candidate trying to pull the wool over the people's eyes? I have much faith in people so I am not worried.

Aloha!

Light Like A Second Sun

On August 6th, 1945, at 8:15 A.M., Japanese time, a B-29 heavy bomber flying at high altitude dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. More than 4 square miles of the city were instantly and completely devastated. 66,000 people were killed, and 69,000 injured.

On August 9th, three days later, at 11:02 A.M., another B-29 dropped the second bomb on the industrial section of the city of Nagasaki, totally destroying 1 1/2 square miles of the city, killing 39,000 persons, and injuring 25,000 more.

On August 10, the day after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, the Japanese government requested that it be permitted to surrender under the terms of the Potsdam declaration of July 26th which it had previously ignored. [From the Avalon project here]

I will leave it to the academics to argue whether it was necessary to drop the atomic bombs on Japan to end the war there. As for me, all I need to do is ask my uncles, who fought in the war, whether they thought it was right and they'll tell you yes, it was. For me, that's more than enough. YMMV.

A Voice Silenced

Francis Dayle "Chick" Hearn, play-by-play announcer for the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team died yesterday from injuries received from a fall in which he struck his head.

Hearn started broadcasting Lakers games in the 1960-61 season when they moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. From 1965 through December of 2001, he called a record 3,338 consecutive Lakers games before missing a game due to an operation to repair a blocked aortic valve.

For as long as I can remember, Hearn was the Lakers. He was there when Jerry West played. He was there when Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jamaal Wilkes, James Worthy, Michael Cooper, Kurt Rambis, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant ruled the courts.

As he would say, when the Lakers were so far ahead in a game that the final result was no longer in question, "You can put this one in the refrigerator. The door's closed, the light's out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard and the Jell-O is jiggling."

Chick Hearn, dead at age 85. Our condolences to his wife and family.

Court Time

Often, change is a difficult process. Especially in our judicial system, based as it is upon years of precedent. But you may be surprised to know that even in the courts, the times, they are a changing.

Michigan is in the process of creating what is known as a single-tier court. What this means is, in theory, you would have generalist judges who can sit on any type of case. While in practise, this may not be exactly how it works, the thrust is to broaden the scope of cases a judge is qualified to hear so that the limited resources of the court can be utilized most efficiently.

As I've noted before, the idea of a single-level trial court is by no means a new one. It goes back to at least 1873 and the English Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 (36 & 37 Vict. c. 66)(see Judicature Acts here).

In the US, the call for court consolidation goes back to Nathan Roscoe Pound's 1906 American Bar Association address (See it here) in which he notes, "Our system of courts is archaic in three respects: (1) In its multiplicity of courts, (2) in preserving concurrent jurisdictions, (3) in the waste of judicial power which it involves."

While there are certainly arguments pro and con relating to this change, what I want to talk about is the change process itself. Below is some information from the legal journal Judicature volume 85, number 3 (November-December 2001, ppg. 131-132) by Chief Judge Alton T. Davis and his experiences in Michigan:

1. Change is unsettling and generates anxiety.

2. Communications with staff and inclusion of staff in every step of the process is critical. You're never as effective at it as you think you are, but it does get better as anxiety drops off and people buy into the change.

3. Centralization of administration is a major key to progress. It is distinct from, and not to be confused with, consolidation of judicial jurisdiction, which may or may not be beneficial in a given system.

4. Good, basic, modern technological capacity is a boon to our business. Courts are in the information processing business. Computers are designed to process vast quantities of information more efficiently than any other means. Modern communications systems tailored to individual needs save a lot of time and money. Funding units need to provide their courts with those basic resources.

5. No two court systems should be expected to operate in exactly the same way; there are a myriad of variables. Adaption to those variables should be encouraged to accomplish maximum results.

6. Finally, the basics remain the same: Good administration, hard work, attention to detail, a well trained and equipped staff, a sense of humor, and a modicum of goodwill and patience.

Hawai'i is going through a similar process. And while there are no assurances that we will end up with a single-tier court (an effort in 1984 did not pan out), we seem to be moving in that direction.

Several committees of judges, administrators, and line staff have been meeting to work out what a single-tier court would look like. The effort has been ongoing for about a year and probably has another year or two to go.

So far, we have fleshed out how cases would be assigned and what kind of staffing needs there would be. The next step is to develop an implementation plan that would identify the tasks to be done, who would be responsible for them, and the time-line in which to do them.

Part of the process will be feedback from the stakeholders involved. These include three broad groups: 1. Internal (Justices, judges, and judiciary staff), 2. Court users (attorneys, agencies such as probation, public safety, the Legislature, etc.) and, 3. The public. This phase is where communication skills will become most critical - because as the number of diverse groups increase, so will the perspectives (and wants/needs/desires and opportunities for mis-communication). But if the lines of communication remain clear, and everyone stays on message, this is the best opportunity to fine-tune the plan.

I'll keep you updated as we progress.

Aloha!

Fire Control

For the person who has everything, or lives in a place where saying have a safe trip means something, comes the ultimate in SUV conversions: a GMC with an M2 .50 caliber machine gun. If you really need heavy stuff, you can swap in a MK-19 40mm grenade launcher instead. See the Ibis Tek site here.

Tyco Braying

Shower curtain: $6,000. 15,000-square-foot, Mediterranean-style, waterfront mansion in Florida with a pool, tennis court and a fountain: $19 million. Antiques, art and other furnishings for his New York apartment: $25 million. The truth: $0. There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, use the new guilt free Master Ultra Platinum Visa American Express Diners UCB card.

Ho hum, another story of corporate greed and corruption. Another case of someone believing they were above the law. Another case of someone believing rules are for lesser beings, not gods. See the story here from CNN.

The Good News for Modern Man

This is another in a continuing series of stories, parables if you will, that I call the Good News for Modern Man. These stories focus on ordinary people who work hard, love their families, and their community. These are the people, while getting little recognition for what they do, that make this world a better place. I celebrate and honor these people by telling their stories here.

-o0o-

Hawai'i may be unique in the types of foods we have. What may also be unique is how it is served. In this case, I am talking about the plate lunch.

The origin of the plate lunch is probably unknown, but like many things, is most likely a product of our plantation past.

Typically, the plate lunch has a hot entree, two scoops of white sticky rice, and one scoop of macaroni or tossed salad. All of this is on a paper or foam plate and placed in a rectangular box just large enough to fit the plate.

You can buy a plate lunch from the lowly lunch wagon parked at the beach or from the most chi chi of restaurant.

But because there are so many places to buy one, it takes something special to stand out and be successful. Even in the best of times, running a restaurant is not the easiest of things to do. Which brings us to Masu.

Thirty years ago, Masu decided to open a restaurant and give his customers great food in massive amounts for a good price. Word soon spread and his lunch counter became known as Masu's massive plate lunch place. His restaurant prospered and grew. That is until the early 1990s and the Gulf War.

The effects of the Gulf War affected Hawai'i in that international travel (read that from Japan) dropped almost to nothing. The reduction in big-spending tourists triggered a local economic downturn that lasted for 10 years. In the mean time, competition in the form of mainland fast-food chains also began to cut into his business, although not in quality or type of food (Masu serves, among other things, steak and lobster tail) but in price and convenience.

So things began to do down hill. But all through that time, Masu kept his place open and paid his bills on time because he felt having a good business relationship with employees, vendors, and his landlord was critical to his success. Little did he know how critical it would be.

Recently, however, things have really left him with no leg to stand on. Sort of. It began with recurring problems with leg ulcers. I don't know if they are a result of his years of working while standing but it could be. In either case, the ulcers became so severe his doctor immediately wanted to admit him into the hospital.

This he would not do because he was responsible for running the business and providing care to his ailing elderly mother, who up until recently, had been helping at the restaurant. Unfortunately, in June, his mother fell and broke her hip which led to other medical problems and a care home.

His medical problems, on top of his mother's, was just too much to carry and he closed the restaurant on June 11, hoping to reopen as soon as things stabilized. Of course, he still had bills to pay and here's where those 30 years of cultivating good business relationships paid off.

First, the family that owned the building he was renting voted unanimously to defer all payments stating he should take care of his medical problems first. In fact, the daughter of one of the landlords drove Masu to and from the hospital, since he was unable to drive himself.

"I think this kind of relationship is hard to find nowadays when the bottom line is all money...But that's another reason why I just gotta really plug away [and get back to work] because I can't let them down," Masu said. Other creditors and vendors have also shown aloha, bending over backwards to help the man who has so faithfully upheld his part of the relationship.

Masu summed it best when he said: "Funny, but being human you concentrate on the pain and the suffering and you focus on all the bad things, but if you turn it around and you think, 'OK, you've still got this, you've still got that,' the scale just tips. I'm really blessed."

As we all are to have such people as Paul Masuoka, owner of Masu's Massive Plate Lunch.

Talafaaiva Atisanoe, RIP

The mother of former sumo wrestler Salevaa "Konishiki" Atisanoe died on Monday at the age of 72. The gentle giant's mother was a source of comfort and guidance to the wrestler as he made his way up the ranks of the closed society that is sumo. Our condolences to the Atisanoe family.

Mail Call

From: Jan Swijsen
To: Dan Seto
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 11:39 PM
Subject: late reaction

<quote from="last Friday">
One would hope teachers would see their work as a calling, as opposed to a job. But perhaps that is expecting too much of people now-a-days. </quote>

Most teachers (at least around here, I don't know the USA) start out 'with a mission'. It is usually after some years at the job that their enthusiasm wanes.

The problem for most is that reforms are pushed on them from above. It is very frustrating to be told how to do your job by people who don't do the job themselves. Especially is you have done what they dictate, several times changing your methods, without seeing effects.

For example you say that making smaller classes proven not to increase students achievement. Is that because smaller classes are not good at all? Or could it be that they did not aggregate the students by ability. One reason big classes are not 'good' is that the class can not move faster than the slowest pupil. If you split the class randomly (as usually happens in schools) both small groups will have slow and fast pupils and thus go slow. If you split based on ability (as happens in special case-studies) one class will achieve much more than the other. Of course putting pupils in classes based on ability is seen a 'judging' and 'discriminating' so schools aren't allowed to do that so. The class-splitting is a a good foundation but building on it is prohibited.

Most changes work that way. They don't work out in real life usually because they are implemented wrongly of saddled by conflicting rules. Most good teachers know how to correctly implement the reforms but they are not allowed to do so. So they oppose (most of) the changes because the change (temporal) increases their workload and won't be effective. (It's like your boss telling you to use your mouse alternatively with your right and left hand because it is proven to reduce the chance of RSI. But then refuses to provide left- and right-hand shaped mice. You know it won't be effective because using a right-hand mouse with the left hand is bad. You are likely to oppose the new rule.)

It is also grating on people to be told do do their thing one way and then, a few seasons later being told they are doing it all wrong. It's an ever repeating cycle because most every new government feels it's obliged to change things around. Who remains happy when he has to implement changes that he knows won't work, especially when later he will be blamed for them not working.

Education-policy makers seem to be think it is possible to lift all pupils above average. And every reform is claimed to do just that.

Regards,
Svenson

From: Dan Seto
To: Jan Swijsen
Subject: Re: late reaction
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 07:04:37 -1000

I don't disagree that most reforms come from the top and filter down. Obviously, this type of change is difficult to implement because there is no ownership by the individuals who have to make the change work. And yes, as political administrations come and go, so do the reforms. Having said that, and not making any apologies for it, that does not mean it is somehow then OK to resist all change. Understandable maybe, but not acceptable.

The Hawai'i Dept. of Education administration is filled with terrific people. In fact, most if not all of the administrators are former teachers. So whenever reform is proposed, they have meetings with the teachers to get feedback and buy-in.

As to class size, the number of pupils per teacher matters only at a point of about three students per teacher. Obviously, that kind of student-teacher ratio is incredibly expensive. However, comparative statistics indicate most industrialized western countries (i.e., European and Japan) have more students per teacher than the US, while at the same time having higher student achievement.

Your point about some schools not dividing students by ability is well taken. The educational state of the art says you should mix students of differing abilities so that the more advanced can help the less so. Of course, doing this runs counter to everything we have learned in life (and common sense) but is based on the value of fairness and not wanting to leave some students behind. The problem, as you clearly point out, is that everyone else is held back and may not be able to reach their own potential.

Obviously, there are dangers in comparing students across countries and many difficulties in defining and measuring student achievement, but there you go. But if you want to identify the one factor that does point to student achievement it is the involvement of the student's parents in the process. That's right, not the number students per teacher, not the kind of process used to teach, not vouchers or any of the other so called reforms. The active involvement of parents in the learning process of their own children. Who would have thunk it?

Aloha!

It's Friday!

Lotus Land

So, we now have Lotus Notes R5 installed as our internal and external mail client. This replaces the aged and no longer supported Lotus cc:Mail. I have heard that there are some show stopping bugs in the client but so far, knock on wood, all is well.

Although, there are two things I don't like about Notes. The first is it tries to do too much. At least for me it does. All I need is a mail client. I don't need no stinking calendaring (I have one hanging on the wall, a calendar that is, which doesn't stink) or "To Do" lists (I have scraps of paper for that). All I need is email. And from what I hear, most people feel the same. So why did we spend all kinds of money on this? I dunno.

The second problem is that the programmers did not follow the Windows GUI guidelines. For example, in most Windows programs, there is a close button, marked by an X, in the upper right hand corner. When you have multiple windows open, clicking on the X button closes each window until you reach the main one, whereupon closing that window closes the program itself.

Notes uses something akin to a browser frame where windows open within the frame. If you want to close one of the windows, you must click on what looks like a drop down box on that particular window's tab. If, by chance or commission, you click on the X button, you will close the entire program. This behavior will take awhile to get used to. But one must wonder why you would do this (program it this way) though. I dunno.

Short Shrift Mode

I'm tired and my back is acting up again. Not to mention a ton of reading to do for work so I gotta go. But looking over this weeks postings, not bad [although not in the John Dominik league - ed.], if I do say so myself.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!