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Honolulu Lite
Charles Memminger
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Brit writer's reporting snake bit
FRANCIS HARRIS, the intrepid reporter who told millions of London Daily Telegraph readers that Hawaii was infested with snakes and that it is "virtually impossible" to get to the Capt. James Cook memorial on the Big Island -- even though it is virtually possible to get there in no less than four ways -- has sent an e-mail apology for his defective reporting.
Well, sort of an apology. It's more like a list of excuses for his rookie reporting mistakes.
I wrote a scathing yet kind of funny column chastising the veteran writer, because it seems that whenever foreign journalists breeze through the islands they feel compelled to dash off bulletins about life in the tropics, filled with all the usual clichés and misnomers that, if you will excuse me, "infest" such reporting.
IT'S USUALLY the "crime in paradise" kind of story put out by visitors who are shocked (SHOCKED!) to find that Honolulu isn't a collection of little grass shacks but a major metropolitan area with all the good and bad that goes with that, including murders, robberies and jaywalking. Our waters are continually described as "infested with sharks," as if two sharks swimming by each other constitutes an infestation. As I have pointed out before, journalists visiting Alaska rarely refer to "bear-infested forests" or -- bringing us back to Mr. Harris' stomping grounds -- "raccoon-infested" London.
Reporting that the Big Island has a "snake-infested" hillside was a first, though.
Before we get to Harris's mea culpas, let's be clear about something: He believed that the government of Hawaii and native Hawaiians in general were deliberately keeping people from visiting the 27-foot high Capt. Cook obelisk on the edge of Kealakekua Bay. He apparently was deeply offended by this perceived slight, to the point that he never bothered to find out the true situation involving the monument, which sits on a plot of land sold to the British for a dollar and, I guess, is technically part of the U.K. (To understand how important even small, remote plots of British territory are to the former empire, remember the Falkland Islands War of 1982, during which, I believe, several thousand sheep were rescued from the grasp of Argentina. This isn't to say that the Falklands are infested with sheep, only that there are a lot of them.)
THE TRUTH IS there are several ways to get to the Cook monument, including a 45-minute walk down a hillside completely devoid of snakes, horseback rides offered daily by a commercial ranch, rented kayaks or a tourist catamaran. No, there are no air gondolas, escalators or bus or limo service.
Harris, in his e-mail, was kind enough to compliment my column, calling it "great stuff," which always makes me a little nervous. Then he says, "Let me respond with a mea culpa. I'd made the assumption that there were snakes on Hawaii based on the presence of mongooses, which generally feed on them."
That quantum leap is one that would make Marlin Perkins wince. He then goes on to justify his snake assumption, pointing out that there are several Internet references to snakes being in Hawaii. The only snakes I recall being in Hawaii are brown tree snakes that die en route from Guam in the wheel wells of commercial jets. Oh, yeah, and the occasional python that exotic dancers sneak into the islands to spice up their shows.
I could go on about all his other excuses -- depending on anonymous passers-by for the information that you can't get to the Cook memorial -- but they are all lame. He could have gotten correct information about kayak rentals, tour boats and horseback rides from any hotel information desk, limo driver, water sports shop or by calling, as I did, the Big Island Visitors Bureau.
He's still convinced that Hawaii doesn't want visitors to know about Capt. Cook's death and monument.
Harris writes: "Quite simply, there's nothing to indicate that Cook died there and is buried there. That might be by accident or might be by design. I don't think you can say it's untrue."
Yes, I can. There's an entire town there in honor of the famous English explorer. The name of this not-so-secret town is Captain Cook.
Charles Memminger, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' 2004 First Place Award winner for humor writing, appears Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. E-mail
cmemminger@starbulletin.com