Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Changing Hawaii
FROM a columnist's perspective, spring break 2000 wasn't a good time to be away from the newsroom. Big stories made headlines in Hawaii and around the world last week, and were just aching to be featured in this humble little space. News worthy of
comment last weekBut nooo, I had to be on vacation -- tackling something that few adore but which must be confronted at least once a year: the dreaded spring cleaning.
Utilizing one of the great inventions of the past millennium -- those plastic garbage bags with the handy draw-string closures -- this journalist-turned-janitor whipped up an impressive cleaning frenzy. Ah, there's nothing like the smell of Pinesol in the morning.
In the evening, though, I would read my home-delivered Star-Bulletin and curse my ill-scheduled absence from the office, where I certainly could have written columns on:
The sad story of the two 442nd veterans accidentally killed after a fellow regimental combat team member backed his car into them after a reunion at the Sheraton-Waikiki.
The irony of the tragedy -- that Thomas Sakamoto and Eiro Yamada had survived war only to die in a traffic accident caused by a comrade -- was soon overshadowed by the amazing forgiveness expressed by the victims' families toward the still-grieving driver.
Makes you wonder which is more dangerous and likely to happen -- someone getting swept out to sea while trying to cross the waist-deep river rushing into Waimea Bay or having one's car hit by an errant boulder on blocked-off Kamehameha Highway. (Personally, I'd risk the rocks.)
Common sense and the U.S. Justice Department both mandate that, unless the 6-year-old's father is unfit, Elian should return to his surviving parent in Cuba.
But if the tyke is sent back this week without a Family Court hearing, Cuban Americans will riot, Castro will gloat, Elian will miss his U.S. relatives and our government will look a like heartless wimp.
Anyone for threatening to cut the kid in half and awarding custody to whichever side objects?
Like other females in the armed services who have suffered similar mistreatment, Kennedy reported the "inappropriate touching" to superiors immediately after the incident, yet no follow-up occurred.
Only after the accused general's name came up for a promotion last year did she file a formal complaint with the inspector general's office.
NOW let's see if anyone tries to discredit the distinguished General Kennedy, just like other women in the military have been ignored or called liars after they've been sexually harassed (or worse) while serving their country.
Golly. Maybe Pentagon officials might want to follow my lead and take some time off, too. It's never too late for a thorough, perspiration-inducing, overdue spring cleaning.
Diane Yukihiro Chang's column runs Monday and Friday.
She can be reached by phone at 525-8607, via e-mail at
dchang@starbulletin.com, or by fax at 523-7863.