SPOTLESS: When it comes to blogs not all are created equal.
Though what we do is no different than the news analysis and op-ed type column we’ve been writing on and off for 25 years- except for the freedom to extend to 12-1500 words from the standard 800 limit that the newspaper “news hole” imposes- we have suddenly morphed into a blogger.
So be it. Although we often run straight PNN news it’s all in one place due to our sketchy ability to manipulate the technology beyond what the “blogger” software provides.
Not so for the oxymoronic “on-line newspaper” where their reporters can file standard stories and also post “blogs”- if they dare
Trouble is few do. Most of the hard news reporters who have tried such as KITV’s Darryl Huff quickly remove themselves from the fray after finding the opportunity to express themselves is countered by the exposure to vagaries of public discourse with readers.
Perhaps the only one who has done it successfully with any consistency is Honolulu Advertiser’s Derrick DePledge.
None can dispute the hard news value of DePledge’s blog posts. They are often the only coverage of some of the most important events of the day that eventually appear in the headlines of the Advertiser and other papers.
And therein lies the pitfall.
What at face value is a value-added feature, at times turns into a dumping ground for important stories that corporate overlording editors either don’t want to see in print or don’t see the importance of so they wind up before a handful of on-line readers instead of the thousands that their print or even regular on-line coverage reaches.
While more and more people turn to independent blogs as a source of news outside corporate control, the corporate press has apparently usurped that independence and actually used it to counter the charge that they are ignoring certain stories by relegating them to blogs like DePledge’s.
One example is the story of State Rep. Joe Bertram’s (D-Makena-Kihei) defense of a man accused of being a child predator after being caught in one of those “Dateline” style entrapments where there is no actual child involved- a police tactic Bertram called an “imaginary crime” invoking images of the Orwellian thought police.
Bertram became the target of whack job Willes Lee head of the Hawai`i Republican Party who started a radio ad and eventually a TV campaign spinning Bertram’s support of constitutional rights as being “pro child molester”.
But aside from a couple of posts here defending Bertram-electing the same accusations against us- the story was the chief province of DePledge’s blog with a couple of posts on the story as it evolved.
No one but those who perused DePledge’s “Notebook” would have known anything about the story until today when, not DePledge or the Advertiser but the Associated Press picked up the story that Lee decided for reasons unknown to “cut it out” and pull the ads, presumably due to outside pressures- an accusation upon which Lee had “no comment” according to AP.
But if that story could be excused from prime time coverage due to some kind of anti “inside baseball” rule editors often use to dismiss reporters’ stories, it has to make us wonder what the editor was thinking when he relegated DePledge’s coverage of the last minute petition campaign to revive HB 444, the civil unions bill.
Even though the activists, pushing the revival and the petition, put on a full court press on the media, the advertiser’s sum total of coverage was in DePledge’s blog and the Advertiser has yet to run a story on the subject, even after a couple of TV news stations finally relented and ran stories on the filing of the 7000-plus name petition.
DePledge has to be commended for hanging in there with his blog especially after episodes like our post the other day wondering, along with a couple of other bloggers- Poinography!’s Doug White and Kauai Eclectic’s Joan Conrow- why the scrupulously “objective” reporter apparently signed the petition
White had his comment asking about it on DePledge’s post deleted- “accidentally” according to DePledge- from the post and Conrow left a comment on our post saying “(b)etter be careful, Derrick. You wouldn't want someone ratting you out to the editors as a political activist.”.
That seeingly refers to the fact that she lost the race for the job as Advertiser Kaua`i Bureau chief after long time reporter Jan TenBruggencate retired last year when, she says, DePledge turned her in to the editor for an alleged lack of “objectivity” in covering the Superferry story for the paper after she expressed her opposition to the project in her blog.
Then when Conrow tried to post a comment on DePledge’s original post she found herself “awaiting moderation” until it was finally posted today
All that that apparently forced DePledge to put on a full court of his own to clear his name and reputation.
Sensing that it didn’t look good DePledge, after unequivocally saying he didn’t sign the petition, went to the source of the email he cited- and posted portions of along with a personalized URL that provided the petition with a “signed Derrick DePledge” at the bottom- and got an explanation for why he received a copy with his name from Alan R. Spector who organized the emailing campaign to the media and supporters.
He wrote to DePledge saying that:
I just verified all the signatures and your name is not on our petition.How did you get the URL that you posted on your Blog?the correct URL should be
http://eqfed.org/campaign/cupetition
You indicated a different URL (below). that one takes you to a page that auto fills out your info.
http://eqfed.org/campaign/cupetition/8wi8esd4h7k3k5kj
I just figured out what happened. You are entered in our database as a media contact only. On April 27, you received an email from us with a link to the petition. It was my understanding that this was going out to just "General Members" and not "media contacts". Don must have goofed when he ran the query. I noticed that it also went out to media in error. That URL is specific to your account. It makes it easy for our members to click on a link, whether it be an action alert, petition, etc, and have everything automatically filled out based on the information we have on file. In your case, just a name, email, and phone number but no address.
No other media we contacted received an email with that “error” and none of our six emails- all in the form of letters urging us to write about the petition, not press releases per se, contained anything but a “blank” form.
It’s no wonder many if not most MSM reporters refuse to blog, especially with the “appearance of impartiality” requirements of the job and the exposure to criticism reporters face if they “blog”.
“Objectivity” and “lack of bias”, while mythical, remains an imperative of the late 20th and early 21st century press. It’s always been exercise is futility and duality when juxtaposed with the first-day journalism school axiom of “news is what we say it is”.
It insults the intelligence of the reader to think that reporters and editors are either something less than human and that people cannot separate opinion from factual reporting even within a single piece or handle a first person style that is at the core of the news analysis of the now half-century of “New Journalism" originated by Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson among others.
No one with a modicum of sense reading this could confuse the opinions in preceding two paragraphs from the factual material reported above it. But somehow it is considered something less than reporting when the reporters expose their preconceptions in order to give readers an accurate prism through which to read the piece rather than try and obfuscate the biases all humans have.
The only ones who complain about the biases of the media are those whose biases are exposed and contradicted by the elements of factual reporting. But as long as the mainstream media insists they are something they can’t be, people like DePledge will come under scrutiny, not necessarily for actual bias but for the contention of the lack thereof.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Bertram. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Bertram. Sort by date Show all posts
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
BREEDING DISCONTENT
BREEDING DISCONTENT: Did you ever take a substantial vacation on the mainland and upon return feel like you not just traveled 2000 miles but 25 years back in time, especially in terms of our various island institutions’ mindsets.
It’s simply amazing to see our legislators refuse equal state-granted civil rights for gays and lesbians while almost every state- even those with constitutional bans on same-gender “marriage” – have granted civil unions either voluntarily or upon court order... Most- even some the most rabid bigots- are slowly and inexorably giving up the monopoly on the word marriage itself.
It boggles the mind how while more states each year ban corporate campaign contributions and enact “CleanElections” public election financing, many of our lawmakers are actually trying to raise the corporate money ceiling and repeal even the pilot public finance program on the Big Island.
So much for the islands’ reputation- no not the ad-nauseum repeated “big lie” that we are “anti business” – of being the most progressive of all states, especially in the second congressional district.
The disconnect is even worse when it comes down to the most traditionally reactionary of our institutions- our police departments.
This week Larry Geller at Disappeared News has been highlighting the Big Island’s PD’s use of a taser to break up a high school fight. Despite the fact that reports on their lethality blanket the mainland press, our PDs- especially here on Kaua`i- are living in some world where tasers are still considered “non-lethal” and, instead of being used as they should be- only to avoid using “deadly force” (read: gun)- they are used for crowd control.
But don’t try to point these things out or you’ll be pilloried if not tased yourself..
Take the case of Maui State Rep. Joe Bertram III, (D-11th Mäkena, Wailea, Kïhei), who “dared” to echo our- and the US General Accounting Office’s – objections to and ridicule of the nationally discredited laughing-stock of the ‘just say no” aspects of the useless and lost “war on drugs”- the D.A.R.E program.
According to Derrick DePledge’s “Notebook” blog post last Friday
Bertram sent a letter to Maui police on Wednesday suggesting, in these tough economic times, that they stop funding Drug Abuse Resistance Education and the marijuana eradication task force program.
The representative, who wants to expand the state’s medical marijuana program, wrote that DARE has proven unsuccessful and the marijuana eradication program “infringes on the privacy of medical marijuana patients and the noise is a disturbance of the peace.”
Maui police, in a press release today, were not down with the ideas:
The Maui Police Department’s response from Deputy Chief Gary Yabuta is, “We were quite aware of Representative Bertram’s position on the legalization of marijuana issue; however, we find his criticism of the DARE Program offensive.”
Offensive? What kind of response is that- is that the best they can come up with?
Seems like they’ve been taking PR lessons from Kaua`i Chief Darryl Perry who started off on the wrong foot when he and then Police Commission Chair Tom Iannucci wrote some equally-inane, provocative newspaper articles.
When local columnist Juan Wilson dared to criticize their attitude they refused to clean up their act and in fact made sure Wilson’s column was killed by the sycophantic local newspaper.
Bertram is certainly gutsy, brash and outspoken and it’s possible he pissed off the MPD and PD’s in general when, according to another blog post from DePledge last week, he had the temerity to condemn the practice of arresting so-called “on line predators” for soliciting not actual minors but under cover police detectives
He called it an “imaginary crime” and later said that although it was “a poor choice of words” according to DePledge, “he would not back down from his main criticism of the law, which he described as the policing of thoughts since no minor was involved”
Attacks from local rhetoric-spewing Republican boss Willes Lee notwithstanding, it’s only in the last decade or so that American jurisprudence has allowed the once ridiculed notion of having “thought police” to become an actuality.
Of course Bertram was absurdly painted as being “pro child molester” even though he was defending a once-sacred constitutional right that has been tossed aside but this couldn’t have endeared him to many in law enforcement who chose the expediency of shredding the constitution over the legitimacy of good police work.
On the neighbor islands we occasionally elect not just unabashed progressives but intellectually honest legislators. It’s no mistake that we sent Patsy Mink to D.C. for years and have sent Gary Hooser, Mina Morita, Kalani English and others to butt heads with the likes of Sam Sloam and even Democratic representatives of the right-wing-nut privileged, mainland transplants who populate Honolulu.
So it’s especially head-scratchingly baffling that, despite the obvious bent of the electorate, at the same time we allow our governmental institutions- our councils, planning departments, police departments and the like- to operate like a hunting party of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals?
It’s understandable how city and county-based legislators are so blinded from hanging out in the city core all the time and hearing exclusively from people on O`ahu that they can think they are serving the will of the whole state. The city people have the access that rural O`ahu denizens and more so ocean separate neighbor islanders don’t.
So what allows the neighbor island institutions to be so reactionary when the people are seemingly a lot more intellectually honest?
Ordinarily, at least over time, local institutions will catch up with the will of the people. It takes a particularly uninvolved apathetic populace to countenance a fully entrenched corrupt institution that maintains the status quo.
And we “laid-back” islanders certainly resemble that remark.
It’s simply amazing to see our legislators refuse equal state-granted civil rights for gays and lesbians while almost every state- even those with constitutional bans on same-gender “marriage” – have granted civil unions either voluntarily or upon court order... Most- even some the most rabid bigots- are slowly and inexorably giving up the monopoly on the word marriage itself.
It boggles the mind how while more states each year ban corporate campaign contributions and enact “CleanElections” public election financing, many of our lawmakers are actually trying to raise the corporate money ceiling and repeal even the pilot public finance program on the Big Island.
So much for the islands’ reputation- no not the ad-nauseum repeated “big lie” that we are “anti business” – of being the most progressive of all states, especially in the second congressional district.
The disconnect is even worse when it comes down to the most traditionally reactionary of our institutions- our police departments.
This week Larry Geller at Disappeared News has been highlighting the Big Island’s PD’s use of a taser to break up a high school fight. Despite the fact that reports on their lethality blanket the mainland press, our PDs- especially here on Kaua`i- are living in some world where tasers are still considered “non-lethal” and, instead of being used as they should be- only to avoid using “deadly force” (read: gun)- they are used for crowd control.
But don’t try to point these things out or you’ll be pilloried if not tased yourself..
Take the case of Maui State Rep. Joe Bertram III, (D-11th Mäkena, Wailea, Kïhei), who “dared” to echo our- and the US General Accounting Office’s – objections to and ridicule of the nationally discredited laughing-stock of the ‘just say no” aspects of the useless and lost “war on drugs”- the D.A.R.E program.
According to Derrick DePledge’s “Notebook” blog post last Friday
Bertram sent a letter to Maui police on Wednesday suggesting, in these tough economic times, that they stop funding Drug Abuse Resistance Education and the marijuana eradication task force program.
The representative, who wants to expand the state’s medical marijuana program, wrote that DARE has proven unsuccessful and the marijuana eradication program “infringes on the privacy of medical marijuana patients and the noise is a disturbance of the peace.”
Maui police, in a press release today, were not down with the ideas:
The Maui Police Department’s response from Deputy Chief Gary Yabuta is, “We were quite aware of Representative Bertram’s position on the legalization of marijuana issue; however, we find his criticism of the DARE Program offensive.”
Offensive? What kind of response is that- is that the best they can come up with?
Seems like they’ve been taking PR lessons from Kaua`i Chief Darryl Perry who started off on the wrong foot when he and then Police Commission Chair Tom Iannucci wrote some equally-inane, provocative newspaper articles.
When local columnist Juan Wilson dared to criticize their attitude they refused to clean up their act and in fact made sure Wilson’s column was killed by the sycophantic local newspaper.
Bertram is certainly gutsy, brash and outspoken and it’s possible he pissed off the MPD and PD’s in general when, according to another blog post from DePledge last week, he had the temerity to condemn the practice of arresting so-called “on line predators” for soliciting not actual minors but under cover police detectives
He called it an “imaginary crime” and later said that although it was “a poor choice of words” according to DePledge, “he would not back down from his main criticism of the law, which he described as the policing of thoughts since no minor was involved”
Attacks from local rhetoric-spewing Republican boss Willes Lee notwithstanding, it’s only in the last decade or so that American jurisprudence has allowed the once ridiculed notion of having “thought police” to become an actuality.
Of course Bertram was absurdly painted as being “pro child molester” even though he was defending a once-sacred constitutional right that has been tossed aside but this couldn’t have endeared him to many in law enforcement who chose the expediency of shredding the constitution over the legitimacy of good police work.
On the neighbor islands we occasionally elect not just unabashed progressives but intellectually honest legislators. It’s no mistake that we sent Patsy Mink to D.C. for years and have sent Gary Hooser, Mina Morita, Kalani English and others to butt heads with the likes of Sam Sloam and even Democratic representatives of the right-wing-nut privileged, mainland transplants who populate Honolulu.
So it’s especially head-scratchingly baffling that, despite the obvious bent of the electorate, at the same time we allow our governmental institutions- our councils, planning departments, police departments and the like- to operate like a hunting party of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals?
It’s understandable how city and county-based legislators are so blinded from hanging out in the city core all the time and hearing exclusively from people on O`ahu that they can think they are serving the will of the whole state. The city people have the access that rural O`ahu denizens and more so ocean separate neighbor islanders don’t.
So what allows the neighbor island institutions to be so reactionary when the people are seemingly a lot more intellectually honest?
Ordinarily, at least over time, local institutions will catch up with the will of the people. It takes a particularly uninvolved apathetic populace to countenance a fully entrenched corrupt institution that maintains the status quo.
And we “laid-back” islanders certainly resemble that remark.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
KIBBLES AND BITS
KIBBLES AND BITS: The push to revive HB 444, establishing civil unions, is on with three, count ‘em three, emails from activists arriving with petitions under Senate Rule 67, not in our usual yahoo email account but in the gotwindmills(at)gmail inbox listed only at the bottom of our “right rail”, showing the work that’s going into the effort.
One link was for a sheet you can print out and circulate and another is for signing it electronically.
The petitions got some play from Honolulu Advertiser capitol reporter Derrick DePledge, not in an article but in his blog. which contained a link to the electronic petition web site.
But the scrupulously “objective” DePledge didn’t count on the electronic fingerprints the internet often provides because the link he provided was apparently lifted from the site after he personally signed it with “Signed by: D. DePledge [Your address]” at the bottom of the linked page and a note saying “If you are not D. DePledge, click here” where the sign-in portion appears.
-----------
It seems like follow-up Tuesday and although it was stated over and over at last Wednesday’s council meeting that there would be a written plan available “by tomorrow” (last Thursday) for flushing a million county dollars down the rat-hole of Kaua`i tourism “marketing”- as we described last Friday- a request for the supposedly detailed strategy at council services yesterday elicited some scratched heads and only a re-regurgitation of the one-page appropriation bill
So far no one seems to care, even those who need the services that will be cut in next year’s budget. Perhaps it’s because those that whine about government spending are commonly the self-same types who populate the board rooms at the hotel plantations, whose bottom line is all that will benefit most from the corporate welfare.
---------
We still have not received our promised “expedited" rejection of our request for the particulars of apparently fired deputy County Attorney Margaret Sueoka’s discrimination suit against the county allowing us to file with the state to declare the public interest in the case more important than Sueoka’s privacy.
But we were struck that, unless you were a reader of our news article last week or the agenda for last Wednesday’s meeting, her name would not be known to you.
Seems that when the agenda item was read aloud to appropriate the $50,000 to fight the EEOC charge, along with another for an executive session where the real decision to spend it was made, the name of the litigant was glaringly omitted, depriving the home viewing public the specificity that the sunshine law requires of the agenda items themselves if not the public reading of them.
We’ve heard through sources- although we still cannot confirm it through new County Attorney Al Castillo, who apparently was the one who fired Sueoka since she was still working for the county attorney’s office until he came on board- that our speculation that Sueoka was canned for her past work and a “difference in philosophy” and not due to her gender, race or any other “protected class” status, was pretty much right on target. We’ll keep you informed.
-------
We certainly don’t have an exclusive beat in uncovering county corruption although it might seem so when perusing the “all fluff all the time pages” local newspaper.
If you haven’t seen it take a gander at Joan Conrow’s bombshell as an adjunct to a Kaua`i People piece she wrote on Uncle Bernard Mahuiki, the trash-master at the Hanalei Transfer station.
Unfit for the local paper’s wholly owned freebie, mid-week advertising-throwaway, Joan relegated the real news to her Kaua`i Eclectic blog where she wrote in prose so disarmingly charming and folksy you might have missed the significance of what you were reading
( Mahuiki) said he was given a list of guys — cronies of county bosses — who shouldn’t be asked for their pre-paid tickets to dump commercial waste because they were getting freebies. In that case, he told them, I won't ask for anyone’s tickets. Oh, you can’t do that, he was told. I can and I will, he replied. Either everybody pays or nobody pays.Folks often think that really big money changes hands in back room deals and friendly favors. But a lot of times, it’s pretty manini, like $10 or $20 bucks a day in waived dumping charges. Still, as Uncle Bernard noted, that does add up over time.
Just how much info does the FBI need for it’s investigation we reported last December?
-----------
Finally check out right-wing, yet strangely also sometimes intelligently written Big Island blogger Aaron Stene and his post regarding our defense of State Rep. Joe Bertram’s fear of the “thought police” taking over by prosecuting “imaginary crimes” where alleged on-line child predators are prosecuted for soliciting, not actual children but, cops posing as children.
Stene calls our defense “disgusting” and as we predicted tries to paint the issue as one of Bertram- and us- being pro-child molesting instead of one of punishing people for their thoughts and ignoring the substitution of expedient yet unconstitutional measures in supplanting the good yet difficult police work that identification and surveillance would entail... as do others who commented on the piece.
Stene asks “Andy, I guess you haven't seen Chris Hansen's To Catch a Predator.” Yes we have, speaking of disgusting....
There’s nothing wrong with surveiling a suspect when probable cause exists to think they will commit an actual crime and doing so until he or she actually attempts one. But there is in entrapping that individual. The only thing disgusting is the thought that some- be they sick or otherwise- don’t deserve and in fact have the same rights as everyone else.
It isn’t just child predators, drug dealers and terrorists that are caught in these new laws that the current anti-civil rights US. Supreme Court claims trump your rights in the name of providing for the catch-all safety and welfare of the nation.
Lately protest groups and activists have been caught up in roundups of those who have committed no crime but have thought about committing non-violent civil disobedience such as occurred during the Republican Convention last summer.
---------
Well, go Rangers... and take the Knicks with you.
One link was for a sheet you can print out and circulate and another is for signing it electronically.
The petitions got some play from Honolulu Advertiser capitol reporter Derrick DePledge, not in an article but in his blog. which contained a link to the electronic petition web site.
But the scrupulously “objective” DePledge didn’t count on the electronic fingerprints the internet often provides because the link he provided was apparently lifted from the site after he personally signed it with “Signed by: D. DePledge [Your address]” at the bottom of the linked page and a note saying “If you are not D. DePledge, click here” where the sign-in portion appears.
-----------
It seems like follow-up Tuesday and although it was stated over and over at last Wednesday’s council meeting that there would be a written plan available “by tomorrow” (last Thursday) for flushing a million county dollars down the rat-hole of Kaua`i tourism “marketing”- as we described last Friday- a request for the supposedly detailed strategy at council services yesterday elicited some scratched heads and only a re-regurgitation of the one-page appropriation bill
So far no one seems to care, even those who need the services that will be cut in next year’s budget. Perhaps it’s because those that whine about government spending are commonly the self-same types who populate the board rooms at the hotel plantations, whose bottom line is all that will benefit most from the corporate welfare.
---------
We still have not received our promised “expedited" rejection of our request for the particulars of apparently fired deputy County Attorney Margaret Sueoka’s discrimination suit against the county allowing us to file with the state to declare the public interest in the case more important than Sueoka’s privacy.
But we were struck that, unless you were a reader of our news article last week or the agenda for last Wednesday’s meeting, her name would not be known to you.
Seems that when the agenda item was read aloud to appropriate the $50,000 to fight the EEOC charge, along with another for an executive session where the real decision to spend it was made, the name of the litigant was glaringly omitted, depriving the home viewing public the specificity that the sunshine law requires of the agenda items themselves if not the public reading of them.
We’ve heard through sources- although we still cannot confirm it through new County Attorney Al Castillo, who apparently was the one who fired Sueoka since she was still working for the county attorney’s office until he came on board- that our speculation that Sueoka was canned for her past work and a “difference in philosophy” and not due to her gender, race or any other “protected class” status, was pretty much right on target. We’ll keep you informed.
-------
We certainly don’t have an exclusive beat in uncovering county corruption although it might seem so when perusing the “all fluff all the time pages” local newspaper.
If you haven’t seen it take a gander at Joan Conrow’s bombshell as an adjunct to a Kaua`i People piece she wrote on Uncle Bernard Mahuiki, the trash-master at the Hanalei Transfer station.
Unfit for the local paper’s wholly owned freebie, mid-week advertising-throwaway, Joan relegated the real news to her Kaua`i Eclectic blog where she wrote in prose so disarmingly charming and folksy you might have missed the significance of what you were reading
( Mahuiki) said he was given a list of guys — cronies of county bosses — who shouldn’t be asked for their pre-paid tickets to dump commercial waste because they were getting freebies. In that case, he told them, I won't ask for anyone’s tickets. Oh, you can’t do that, he was told. I can and I will, he replied. Either everybody pays or nobody pays.Folks often think that really big money changes hands in back room deals and friendly favors. But a lot of times, it’s pretty manini, like $10 or $20 bucks a day in waived dumping charges. Still, as Uncle Bernard noted, that does add up over time.
Just how much info does the FBI need for it’s investigation we reported last December?
-----------
Finally check out right-wing, yet strangely also sometimes intelligently written Big Island blogger Aaron Stene and his post regarding our defense of State Rep. Joe Bertram’s fear of the “thought police” taking over by prosecuting “imaginary crimes” where alleged on-line child predators are prosecuted for soliciting, not actual children but, cops posing as children.
Stene calls our defense “disgusting” and as we predicted tries to paint the issue as one of Bertram- and us- being pro-child molesting instead of one of punishing people for their thoughts and ignoring the substitution of expedient yet unconstitutional measures in supplanting the good yet difficult police work that identification and surveillance would entail... as do others who commented on the piece.
Stene asks “Andy, I guess you haven't seen Chris Hansen's To Catch a Predator.” Yes we have, speaking of disgusting....
There’s nothing wrong with surveiling a suspect when probable cause exists to think they will commit an actual crime and doing so until he or she actually attempts one. But there is in entrapping that individual. The only thing disgusting is the thought that some- be they sick or otherwise- don’t deserve and in fact have the same rights as everyone else.
It isn’t just child predators, drug dealers and terrorists that are caught in these new laws that the current anti-civil rights US. Supreme Court claims trump your rights in the name of providing for the catch-all safety and welfare of the nation.
Lately protest groups and activists have been caught up in roundups of those who have committed no crime but have thought about committing non-violent civil disobedience such as occurred during the Republican Convention last summer.
---------
Well, go Rangers... and take the Knicks with you.
Friday, January 30, 2009
2009: THE YEAR OF CANNABIS REFORM
2009: THE YEAR OF CANNABIS REFORM: Though most would have no idea amidst the mainstream media coverage of various and sundry “silly season” bills introduced at the legislature this year, a package of bills of the utmost seriousness for many is on the agenda..
It’s marijuana reform year (stop giggling) for both medical users and those who have suffered under the insanely draconian- and costly- recreational use laws in Hawai`i.
We fully expect the law enforcement and prosecutorial community to continue their fear-based and fact-lacking crusade to try to stop the sanity.
If the example of what happened on the Big Island when the voters dared to instruct their police department to make enforcement of marijuana prohibition laws the “lowest priority” is any indication, the constabulary has obviously been watching Reefer Madness too many times.
And since they’ll be there we have to be there too.
Eight great bills have passed first reading so far and three are essential to reform the uniquely cruel medical marijuana laws in this state.
The first and most important is one that would put regulation where it belongs- in the Department of Heath instead of the Department of Public Safety where it’s been since the legislature passed the measure a few years back
HB 967 (click here now and throughout the session for status) is assigned to the Public Safety, Heath, Judiciary and Finance committees. It:
Amends the term "medical marijuana" to "medical cannabis"; transfers the administration of the program from the department of public safety to the department of health; authorizes a registration fee of $50; establishes the medical cannabis advisory board; provides for the department of health to license producers to dispense medical cannabis.
The absurd practice of administering the program in a department where the leaders oppose the program has led to things like the ”accidental” release of the list of all the names of participants to a Big Island media outlet and the provision of the list to local police departments rather than having local law enforcement ask whether or not a specific patient is permitted to use cannabis.
Another farce that would end- this one if Bill HB1194 (Status) is passed- is the one that forces patients who need their medicine to illegally purchase it if they can’t grow their own- something difficult for the debilitated and chronic pain patients and something impossible for people who are diagnosed with cancer and start chemotherapy the next day- one of the most common types of users of medical cannabis..
It has also been referred to the Public Safety, Heath, Judiciary and Finance committees and
Requires department of health to grow, manage, operate, and dispense medical marijuana collectives to qualifying patients. Requires department of public safety to provide security for marijuana growing facilities and for transportation of marijuana. Limits each qualifying patient to 1 caregiver. Allows no more than 4 ounces of marijuana to each patient for every 30 calendar days.
The third medical bill HB226 (Status) referred to the Public Safety and Judiciary committees would increase the amounts patents can possess and stops the illegal sharing of medical information that current practice allows along with protecting the location of growing sites from prying eyes. It
Allows a qualifying patient to possess 12 marijuana plants and 7 ounces of marijuana at one time. Prohibits identification of the site where marijuana is grown on a registry card. Prohibits a certifying physician from naming a patient's particular debilitating condition. Allows a caregiver to grow marijuana for no more than 5 patients.
But if the prohibitionists ridiculous attempts to deny sick people medicine is cruel and inhuman their rabid irrational persecution of recreational users is not just over the top but is one of most costly boondoggles in American history.
While real felons roam free due to an acknowledged lack of resources and drunks beat their families and drive off to the next drive-in liquor store, we spend precious dollars on prosecuting otherwise law-abiding pot smokers’ use of an innocuous herb
There are five bills that would rein in the law enforcement zealots.
The first three contain three different ways to decriminalize marijuana use
HB190 (Status) in the Judiciary Committee
Reclassifies possession of less than one ounce of marijuana from a petty misdemeanor to a violation.
HB227 (Status) is also in the Judiciary Committee and
Decriminalizes possession of less than 1 ounce of marijuana and makes the possession a civil violation subject to a fine of not more than $100. Jud
HB1192 (Status), in the Public Safety Human Services. Judiciary and Finance committees,
Makes the possession of less than one ounce of marijuana a civil offense and imposes fines. Requires persons under eighteen years of age against whom a civil judgment is entered to complete a drug awareness program.
The final two make it clear that we are a society where the people make the laws and determine the punishment and the police and prosecutors enforce them- a concept of civilian control over our paramilitary law enforcement agencies that some of them seem to forget.
The first would mirror that Hawai`i Island “lowest priority” provision and make it a statewide mandate
HB1193 (Status) is in the Judiciary and Finance committees and
Provides that the enforcement of laws related to the personal use of marijuana by adults shall be the lowest law enforcement priority for state and local law enforcement agencies.
The last one would bring some sanity to the idiotic “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” policy for both marijuana and low-level felony drug “offenders”
HB308 (Status) in the Judiciary, Public Safety and Finance committees
Directs the attorney general to coordinate a review of the impact of diverting marijuana and low-level felony drug offenders out of the criminal justice system into treatment.
Most of the bills were introduced by House Public Safety Committee Chair Faye Hanohano and Maui Rep. Joe Bertram, and many have support from Speaker Calvin Say, Majority Leader Blake Oshiro and Judiciary Chair Jon Riki Karamatsu – Say even introduced a couple “by request”.
But if these bills are to have any chance we need to let the chairs of the committees know NOW that we are eager for them to schedule hearings on them and let the committee members know of our support.
This could be the year, especially if we remind the legislature of the many millions wasted to interdict, arrest, prosecute and jail both sick people and those who might enjoy an evening of a less radical, more peaceful form of relaxational imbibment than the often-violent alcoholics do.
Check out the full list of committees and their members and write them an email today.
Note: We’re gonna try to set up “Actions at the Legislature” box on the left to track the bills we write about this year so look for it as soon as we can figure out how to do it.
It’s marijuana reform year (stop giggling) for both medical users and those who have suffered under the insanely draconian- and costly- recreational use laws in Hawai`i.
We fully expect the law enforcement and prosecutorial community to continue their fear-based and fact-lacking crusade to try to stop the sanity.
If the example of what happened on the Big Island when the voters dared to instruct their police department to make enforcement of marijuana prohibition laws the “lowest priority” is any indication, the constabulary has obviously been watching Reefer Madness too many times.
And since they’ll be there we have to be there too.
Eight great bills have passed first reading so far and three are essential to reform the uniquely cruel medical marijuana laws in this state.
The first and most important is one that would put regulation where it belongs- in the Department of Heath instead of the Department of Public Safety where it’s been since the legislature passed the measure a few years back
HB 967 (click here now and throughout the session for status) is assigned to the Public Safety, Heath, Judiciary and Finance committees. It:
Amends the term "medical marijuana" to "medical cannabis"; transfers the administration of the program from the department of public safety to the department of health; authorizes a registration fee of $50; establishes the medical cannabis advisory board; provides for the department of health to license producers to dispense medical cannabis.
The absurd practice of administering the program in a department where the leaders oppose the program has led to things like the ”accidental” release of the list of all the names of participants to a Big Island media outlet and the provision of the list to local police departments rather than having local law enforcement ask whether or not a specific patient is permitted to use cannabis.
Another farce that would end- this one if Bill HB1194 (Status) is passed- is the one that forces patients who need their medicine to illegally purchase it if they can’t grow their own- something difficult for the debilitated and chronic pain patients and something impossible for people who are diagnosed with cancer and start chemotherapy the next day- one of the most common types of users of medical cannabis..
It has also been referred to the Public Safety, Heath, Judiciary and Finance committees and
Requires department of health to grow, manage, operate, and dispense medical marijuana collectives to qualifying patients. Requires department of public safety to provide security for marijuana growing facilities and for transportation of marijuana. Limits each qualifying patient to 1 caregiver. Allows no more than 4 ounces of marijuana to each patient for every 30 calendar days.
The third medical bill HB226 (Status) referred to the Public Safety and Judiciary committees would increase the amounts patents can possess and stops the illegal sharing of medical information that current practice allows along with protecting the location of growing sites from prying eyes. It
Allows a qualifying patient to possess 12 marijuana plants and 7 ounces of marijuana at one time. Prohibits identification of the site where marijuana is grown on a registry card. Prohibits a certifying physician from naming a patient's particular debilitating condition. Allows a caregiver to grow marijuana for no more than 5 patients.
But if the prohibitionists ridiculous attempts to deny sick people medicine is cruel and inhuman their rabid irrational persecution of recreational users is not just over the top but is one of most costly boondoggles in American history.
While real felons roam free due to an acknowledged lack of resources and drunks beat their families and drive off to the next drive-in liquor store, we spend precious dollars on prosecuting otherwise law-abiding pot smokers’ use of an innocuous herb
There are five bills that would rein in the law enforcement zealots.
The first three contain three different ways to decriminalize marijuana use
HB190 (Status) in the Judiciary Committee
Reclassifies possession of less than one ounce of marijuana from a petty misdemeanor to a violation.
HB227 (Status) is also in the Judiciary Committee and
Decriminalizes possession of less than 1 ounce of marijuana and makes the possession a civil violation subject to a fine of not more than $100. Jud
HB1192 (Status), in the Public Safety Human Services. Judiciary and Finance committees,
Makes the possession of less than one ounce of marijuana a civil offense and imposes fines. Requires persons under eighteen years of age against whom a civil judgment is entered to complete a drug awareness program.
The final two make it clear that we are a society where the people make the laws and determine the punishment and the police and prosecutors enforce them- a concept of civilian control over our paramilitary law enforcement agencies that some of them seem to forget.
The first would mirror that Hawai`i Island “lowest priority” provision and make it a statewide mandate
HB1193 (Status) is in the Judiciary and Finance committees and
Provides that the enforcement of laws related to the personal use of marijuana by adults shall be the lowest law enforcement priority for state and local law enforcement agencies.
The last one would bring some sanity to the idiotic “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” policy for both marijuana and low-level felony drug “offenders”
HB308 (Status) in the Judiciary, Public Safety and Finance committees
Directs the attorney general to coordinate a review of the impact of diverting marijuana and low-level felony drug offenders out of the criminal justice system into treatment.
Most of the bills were introduced by House Public Safety Committee Chair Faye Hanohano and Maui Rep. Joe Bertram, and many have support from Speaker Calvin Say, Majority Leader Blake Oshiro and Judiciary Chair Jon Riki Karamatsu – Say even introduced a couple “by request”.
But if these bills are to have any chance we need to let the chairs of the committees know NOW that we are eager for them to schedule hearings on them and let the committee members know of our support.
This could be the year, especially if we remind the legislature of the many millions wasted to interdict, arrest, prosecute and jail both sick people and those who might enjoy an evening of a less radical, more peaceful form of relaxational imbibment than the often-violent alcoholics do.
Check out the full list of committees and their members and write them an email today.
Note: We’re gonna try to set up “Actions at the Legislature” box on the left to track the bills we write about this year so look for it as soon as we can figure out how to do it.
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