Blogs List
Making the Scene
 Rick Chatenever |
No vroom for Speed RacerThu, May 15, 2008 @ 4:10PM Going to “Speed Racer” makes you feel like one of those people who watches the Indianapolis 500 to see the crashes. It’s not as though you haven’t been warned. Beginning with its opening-day reviews, this Warner Bros. action-fantasy from the “Matrix”-making Wachowski brothers has been a $250 million gift to film-reviewing punsters and headline writers trying to outsnide the opposition. All the crash-and-burn, zero-to-20, flat tire, out of gas, speed kills, red flag metaphors had already been used up before I even set foot in the theater. Anyone who chooses to see this big-screen, big-budget version of the Japanese anime TV series had better wachowski, was the best I could come up with. Actually, you could see the problems coming when the trailers caused headaches and motion sickness. What were they thinking? Have we gone to the cartoon well once too often? What there is of a story has to do with Speed Racer’s older brother, Rex, who lost his life in a fiery crash that has l
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The Bald-Headed Truth
 Robert Collias |
Unger added to Rimington listTue, May 13, 2008 @ 6:30PM It was an unbelievable omission when Max Unger, the former Hawaii Preparatory Academy standout who is a rising senior at Oregon, was left off the 2008 Rimington Trophy watch list of 42 released last week. The award is given to the best center in the nation and Unger was first-team All-American (for Sports Illustrated) and first-team All-Pac-10 Conference last season. Anyway, the oversight has been corrected and the list is now 43 (including Unger). Click the link to check out a blog that explains it all pretty well.
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Restating the Obvious
 Harry Eagar |
All the cute animals are dying!Sun, May 11, 2008 @ 11:00AM Here's another global warming crisis: starving koalas. Well, they're not actually starving. But they might starve if their food fills up with anti-nutrients, whatever those are. Does it strike you that global warming is highly selective? It's always the cute animals that are in danger, the polar bear, the koala, the Edith's checkerspot butterfly that are going to go extinct. Never the mosquito, sandfly, hagfish or aluminum siding salesman.
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F.O.P (Fresh Off da Plane)
 Chris Hamilton |
"Maui Reviled"Thu, May 8, 2008 @ 2:27AM I had to happen eventually, I figure. I was at a recent public meeting when someone got up to testify and brought with him a little blue book. Just the sight of it immediately drew murmurs and then quite audible guffaws before this nice man, who has community ties and appears to have lived here for some time, began to actually quote from it -- in what was meant to be a good way. The gentleman was making an argument to keep Honoapiilani Highway close to the highway when it’s realigned mauka to avoid ocean erosion. The little blue book he held with highlighted passages, he said, praised the views of the ocean from the highway, calling such proximity to the water a rarity while driving in Hawaii. But it’s hard to imagine that most people in the room were really listening to him since they were pretty busy talking to each other about either his audacity or ignorance. The book was “Maui Revealed” or “Maui Reviled” as
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Writer's Block
 Ilima Loomis |
wacky and wonderfulThu, May 15, 2008 @ 10:56PM Something I often struggle with when covering public meetings is whether or not to include in my story the odd, off-the-wall or flat-out kooky comments people make. My colleague Chris says no -- it's too distracting for the reader. But sometimes it's pretty hard to resist. I was recently covering a hearing on an A&B project, when a testifier raised concerns based on sister-company HC&S's practice of burning coal at its sugar mill in Puunene. The pollution causes acid rain, she said, and that kills plants, and that reduces evapotranspiration, and that means less clouds, which means less rain, which depletes the aquifer. The A&B project will require water from that aquifer, she said, therefore: "It's unconscionable that A&B is burning this pollution, causing a drought and turning around and asking for water." Huh. I loved the logical acrobatics, but Chris pointed out how many inches of copy I would have to burn just to explain her theory. It was
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