Honolulu Lite
I'm thinking of changing my name to Waldo. I keep getting these calls and e-mail from readers saying this column is harder to find in the paper than Waldo is in the "Where's Waldo?" books. Life is lonely in the
back of the paperMaybe we should rename the column from "Honolulu Lite" to "Where's Charley?"
On Monday, "Honolulu Lite" was as far back in the paper as written material can get without becoming a Notice to Creditors or classified ad for dental hygienist.
It can sort of bruise a columnist's ego when the syndicated Bridge column gets better play in the paper than he does. It's lonely back here.
But, as regular readers know, the Star-Bulletin still is going through growing pains as a new, independent newspaper. One of those pains is mechanical. We only have the means to print two large sections of the daily paper. That means the first section contains national and local news and editorials, while sports, finance, features, comics and classifieds are housed in the second section.
It's a situation that is as aggravating to us as it is to those readers who have contacted me. But it's a lot better than the alternative, which is that we might not have been here at all.
As publisher John Flanagan pointed out in his own column recently, we will be going to more separate sections in a couple of months. That means that the feature section will have it's own cover and some of your favorite parts, for example, apparently the bridge column, will be easier to find. And hopefully, you won't have to play "Where's Waldo?" with Honolulu Lite any more. Until then, I suggest your read the paper from back to front.
Surprisingly, quite a few people did find "Honolulu Lite" on Monday way back by the legal ads and most of them were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That's the official name of the church, although members don't mind being referred to as Mormons.
What they do mind is calling certain Utah residents of the male persuasion who have more than one wife Mormons, as I did in my column.
The column was about a guy named Tom Green, who claims to be a Mormon, who was recently put on trial for polygamy. The point of the column was that if Green had called his "wives" girlfriends, the way Hugh Hefner calls his plural girlfriends "girlfriends," he would not have been busted. But the Hawaii Mormons who wrote to me have a point.
Even if Green considers himself a Mormon, he isn't. Jack Hoag, public affairs director for the LDS church wrote: "Tom Green, though he may feel it is 'cool with God' (having more than one wife), it isn't cool with the Church. ... Plural marriage has been forbidden since 1890 and any member violating that is automatically excommunicated."
Big Island resident Robert Donigan points out that not all polygamists are (former) Mormons. Some claim to be associated with other religions. I still can't figure out why some men WANT more than one wife. Most men would agree that just the one is enough.
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
The Honolulu Lite online archive is at:
https://archives.starbulletin.com/lite