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by Jacob Shafer

April 30, 2009

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22

Each week, my inbox is inundated with solicitations and releases from various organizations. They run the gamut from the sincere to the silly to the downright strange. This one falls somewhere in the middle, but I mention it because I honestly wasn’t aware barbequing was in need of PR assistance. Learn something new every day. “The Psychology of Grilling,” an apparently unironic e-mail from the Hawaii Cattleman’s Association, highlights the results of a study wherein “participants kept grilling diaries and talked about their sensory responses to grilling food, especially beef.” The shocking results? People like the smell of grilling beef. Also, the number one reason why people grill beef? I hope you’re sitting down. OK, don’t say I didn’t warn you: it “tastes good.” 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23

A couple weeks ago, I (sort of) questioned the state and federal tax hikes that raised the cost of a pack of cigarettes by $1 in Hawaii. This being an opinion column in an independent newspaper, that was appropriate. Here’s something that’s not appropriate: Philip Morris is distributing anti-cigarette tax fliers at gas stations and other places where tobacco is sold. I first saw one at the Wailuku Chevron, up by the cash register, which is some pretty prime real estate. It’s not that Phillip Morris doesn’t have the right to oppose these taxes (it would be foolish of them not to) but this is crossing the line (or at least where the line would be if there were any lines regarding corporate shenanigans). You and I can’t just waltz into Chevron with a self-serving political flier and place it up on the counter. Does the fact that Philip Morris’s products are carried by Chevron afford them some special privilege? If so, what if a company that made, say, a GMO-free product wanted to place fliers about the dangers of GMOs at the register? Would Chevron be cool with that? Probably not—but then GMO-free products don’t come with a huge, addicted customer base… Speaking of GMOs: they’re the subject of this week’s cover story by contributor Heather Nicholson, which is an informative read. Though the piece is about legislation and other stuff, it necessarily mentions Monsanto and its Maui operations, the subject of a well-worth-digging-up June 2005 feature by former MTW editor Anthony Pignataro titled “Corn Pone.” (Search the archives at mauitime.com.) Interesting how the more things change, the more they don’t. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 24

With the legislature looking to raise income taxes on the state’s highest earners (and Gov. Lingle threatening a veto), Hawaii’s anti-government crowd has broken out the big guns: Joe the Contractor. According to an item in today’s Honolulu Advertiser, an Oahu contractor named Joe Pandolfe who helped organize one of the April 15 “tea party” protests is being hailed by Hawaii Republicans as, you guessed it, an “average Joe.” Not unlike that other Joe the GOP co-opted for PR purposes, Pandolfe, according to the Advertiser, doesn’t actually make enough money to be hurt by the proposed tax hike, which would affect only the wealthiest 2.6 percent. But, you see, he plans to be rich, and he doesn’t like the idea of the government taxing his imaginary future income. “Once I make more money, now I can’t keep it,” he told the Advertiser. Folks, this is the dark side of the American Dream: it convinces members of the lower and middle classes that they, too, can (and will!) be well-heeled and powerful someday, to the point where they’ll fight for the interests of the affluent over and above their own. It’s nothing new, of course—aristocrats have always gotten the commoners to do their dirty work. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 25

Consumer alert: According to a Pacific Business News report, Hawaiian Telcom (which filed for bankruptcy protection late last year) wants the Public Utilities Commission off its back so it can stay “competitive” with rival communications providers that operate under federal oversight. Nobody’s saying the PUC is perfect (at least I’m certainly not saying that), but does anyone still believe deregulation will end up serving the greater good? Apparently yes, because the bill that would grant HawTel’s wish—SB603—is still very much alive as of this writing. Let me go on the record now, so I can break out the “I-told-you-so” later: if that bill passes, customers will pay. 

SUNDAY, APRIL 26

I mean they’ll pay more than they already do. 

MONDAY, APRIL 27

Cows—they’re craftier than we thought. According to an AP report, “after exhausting other…eradication methods,” state officials have resorted to shooting feral cattle from helicopters on the Big Island. (Must…resist…making…Palin…joke.) The cows (which, the AP story notes, “are not native to the islands”—gee, you don’t say) are being picked off by marksmen from Hawaii’s forestry department to make way for a koa forest that would help support endangered birds. That’s a laudable goal, but really, did you think you could just start shooting cows from helicopters without attracting the attention of the media and animal rights groups? At the same time, we do inject these poor beasts with all manner of hormones, then slaughter them and grind them into quarter-pounders, so the bar for humane treatment has been set pretty low… In other news: I am officially sick of hearing about “Obama’s First 100 Days.” After the election, we got weeks upon weeks of commemorative covers and long-winded, misty-eyed wrap-ups. (Yes, I’ll admit, we did one of our own, but we did it two days after the inauguration and that was that.) No sooner had the first wave of fluff and circumstance come to an end than we arrived at this meaningless milestone. Why 100 days, and not 50 or 200? What if a bunch of important stuff happens on day 108? Here’s a novel idea: report on things as they occur, and dispense with the phony, heavy-handed gimmicks that try to shove messy, evolving events into neat little pre-planned boxes. 

TUESDAY, APRIL 28 

At the risk of looking woefully out-of-touch if the swine flu outbreak explodes into a full-blown pandemic between the time I write these words and the time you read them, I’d just like to point out: no one in Hawaii has been diagnosed with swine flu. No one outside of Mexico has died from swine flu. Even in Mexico, the epicenter of the illness, less than 200 people have died. Perspective—it’s a good thing. MTW