One thing I never thought I'd suffer from was Twitter Follower Envy. Mainly because for 99 percent of my time on Earth, Twitter wasn't even around. Then, when I found out about it I went for a year or so trying to figure out what it was all about. I never did. But I knew that if you didn't join Twitter, you weren't cool. I'm still not cool. But I do Tweet, mainly about this blog, which I think is a violation of Twitter protocol of some sort. There are all kinds of unspoken and sometimes very often spoken rules by Twitterers. You aren't supposed to promote products and try to make money Twittering. If you do, people send angry Tweets to you calling you names. Since I don't get paid for blogging, I don't think I'm violating that rule.
But I have been sucked into the matter of followers. Followers follow your Tweets. The more followers you have, the more popular you are in the the alternate reality of Twitter World, I suppose. I'm not doing real good but not real bad, either. I've almost got 1,000 followers. I only need about nine more to break the 1,000 barrier. So, if you are reading this and aren't bothered by people who beg for followers, go on Twitter and look me up @CharleyMemm. Be my follower.
I'm actually following a lot more people than follow me. I figure that's just good manners. But not everyone does that. I noticed Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC begging people to Tweet her the other day. I did. Found out she's got only 3,868 followers. That doesn't seem like much for a national news anchor. But the weird thing is she is only following 25 people. How rude! That situation apparently isn't limited just to Democrats. Rush Limbaugh has more than 56,000 followers on Twitter and he doesn't follow ANYONE.
Locally, politicians and celebrities do better. Andy Bumatai has a huge following, 13,510 and he follows 13,601. City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle, who is running for mayor, has only 1,800 followers but to his credit, he's following more than 2,000. Neil Abercrombie, who is running for governor, has 5,685 followers but is following more than 6,000. Maybe people in Hawaii are just better followers than Twitterers in other states.
By the way, Neil, Andy and Peter .. if you've got any followers to spare, send them my way.
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Charleyworld (The Column) from Honolulu Advertiser, Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010.
By Charles Memminger
That over-rated rodent Punxsutawney Phil popped his over-exposed head out of a fake tree stump last week and saw his shadow, which - according to people who predict weather based on large beaver-like creatures - means several more weeks of winter weather. I suspect he didn't didn’t come out his hole to see his shadow but to see his Hollywood agent to pester him about when a sequel to the movie "Groundhog Day" would be made. (Bad news, Punx, after reliving the same day over and over and over, your acting career went into the toilet an infinite number of times … sorry … blame quantum physics.)
I would have loved to see Al Gore’s reaction to Punx Phil (if I keep trying to spell “Punxsutawney” bad things are going to happen) predicting six more weeks of winter. (“Damn! When is it ever going to stop snowing? That muskrat just cut my Global Warming speaking fees in half!”)
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) issued a plea that the live groundhog Punx be replaced with a robotic one. That really happened. PETA wants an automatonic groundhog to pop up like something from the “Porcupines of the Caribbean” exhibit at Disneyworld and make weather predictions. I wouldn’t be surprised if Al Gore was behind that. With the real Punx gone, Gore could program the mechanical creature to say things like, “Man, is it hot out here or is it just me?” and “Hey, where’s all the polar bears at?”
In Hawaii, we don't use groundhogs, rats, beavers or badgers to predict our weather because they are notoriously unreliable. We use mongooses. With their long snouts and cunning beady eyes, mongooses can predict all kinds of things, not just the weather.
About the time Punx was embarrassing himself in Pennsylvania, Makani da Mongoose poked his head out of storm drain Kakaako and saw a gecko, meaning that Hawaii will get seven more weeks of mauka showers, vog and high gas prices.
If Makani had seen a cockroach instead of a gecko, it would have meant four days of heavy snow in Kalihi. So we were lucky there. If he had seen a 1982 light brown Honda Civic it would have meant five more weeks Toyota recalls. And if he had seen his own shadow … well, let’s just be thankful he didn’t see his shadow. When a mongoose sees his own shadow on the second day of February … that’s extraordinarily bad juju. Nostradamus ain’t in it.
It’s too bad no TV crew is ever on hand to catch Makani da Mongoose poking his head out of the storm drain. He could be famous; Star in his own movie, “Mongoose Day,” where Bill Murray has to relive every day until he finally tips over a rubbish can and eats a five-day-old plate lunch.
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I'm finally getting around to last year's summer reading. The book that surprised me the most is "Ben - A Memoir, from Street Kid to Governor" by Ben Cayetano. I don't know what I expected, maybe a boring tome about state politics. It is about state politics, but it is far from boring. And it is an important book. It fills in much needed background about the way politics is played in Hawaii, how people come to run for office and how, sadly, a lot of people abuse that office when they get there.
Because I did a lot of investigative reporting on Bishop Estate and Kamehameha Schools years before the famous "Broken Trust" treatise exposed the blatant corruption of the country's richest charitable trust, I was fascinated to learn in Cayetano's book what happened behind the scenes that eventually led to the Bishop Estate trustees being forced out of office. I think history will show that Cayetano, by ordering his attorney general, Margery Bronster, to investigate the politically powerful estate, rescued one of the country's finest educational and charitable institutions from the brink of destruction.
Bishop Estate had managed to co-opt all of the regulatory mechanisms that had been set in place to oversee charitable trusts. It corrupted the state Supreme Court by arranging to have the Chief Justice of the high court essentially appoint himself a trustee. It bullied the state probate court into turning a blind eye to its various economic conflicts and double dealing by trustees. Through its power in state government, thanks in part to having the former speaker of the House AND the president of the state Senate on the board of trustees, it kept the state Attorney General's office (before Cayetano took office) from exercising its duty as legal "parent" of all public trusts. And, most sadly, it hoodwinked the Hawaiian community, playing on its ethnic loyalty, into believing the estate was acting honorably while trustees were looting the estate and putting this grand charitable legacy into jeopardy. By the time Cayetano set about putting Bishop Estate's house in order, the IRS was already closing in, ready to revoke the estate's tax exempt status, which would have destroyed the estate and put the future educational opportunities of thousands of young Hawaiians in danger.
It's hard to imagine the kind of guts it took for Cayetano to stand up to the political and judicial establishment, including aggressively prosecuting former political allies and personal friends. Like I said, I believe the people of Hawaii eventually will look back on the Cayetano era with pride and awe.
There's a lot more in the book that makes it a great read. If you haven't finished you summer reading from last year, I highly recommend it. You can order it here on Amazon or from Watermark Publishing. (Personal disclosure: Watermark also published my book, "Hey, Waiter, There's An Umbrella In My Drink!" We don't know how history will deal with "Hey, Waiter!")
Do you want to advertise on TV but think it's too expensive? Think again. Charley will make a custom designed, funny, quirky, entertaining commercial for you to run on KHON 2 TV at an affordable cost. Just email him for details.
As I pointed out in a recent item, my article on "Astounding Honolulu" is the cover story this month in Honolulu Magazine. If it's not on the shelves now it should be soon. It's also online. But since I want you to go out and buy the magazine, I'm not going to tell where to find it online. (A clever reader probably could guess it's located at honolulumagazine.com or something.)
Anyway, in the piece I point out that in order to collect the large number of weird and little known facts about Honolulu, I had to use a lot of different sources and depend on the kindness of a lot of good people. As I put it, "A project of this scope is necessarily subjective, elective, derivative and certainly not definitive."
But I do think some of the contributors deserve your attention, especially Bob Sigall, whose books "The Companies We Keep" and "The Companies We Keep 2" and his suggestions were a great help to me. The books contain amazing things about just about every local company in Honolulu like why Lex Brodie says "Thank you very much" in his TV commercials (hint: it has something to do with a rude boy to whom Lex once gave a bumper sticker of his caveman making a stone wheel) and how Tripler Hospital came to be painted pink. The books were the result of a graduate level marketing class Sigall taught at Hawaii Pacific University in which he used something like 150 students and contributors to do the research on all the companies in the books. It was an amazing effort and the books are an important - and entertaining - piece of Hawaii history. You can buy the books at Sigall's website (click ) "The Companies We Keep" or on Amazon.com.
While I'm thanking people, I should thank KSSK radio jock Michael W. Perry for putting me in touch with Bob Sigall; Michael Van Dorn, who contributed the story about and a photo of John Walbert, the first guy to hang glide off the Waimanalo cliffs; the Hawaiian Humane Society, which offered some amusing animal tales; HPD officer Eddie Croom, who runs the HPD Police Museum which holds some very cool stuff; legendary surfer Gerry Lopez who told me about his first surfing experience at 10 years old; Federal Judge Sam King, who shared with me an interesting tale of one of his most unique trials (can something be "most unique"?); and Nedra Chung, a colorful Realtor with great stories of Honolulu.
I thank them all and all the ones I'm probably leaving out. Get the magazine.
Do you want to advertise on TV but think it's too expensive? Think again. Charley will make a custom designed, funny, quirky, entertaining commercial for you to run on KHON 2 TV at an affordable cost. Just email him for details.
Back in November I predicted that the trial of the architect of the 911 bombings, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would not take place in New York City. It's beginning to look like I was right but maybe for the wrong reason.I suggested the lawyers for the sheikh would ask for a change of venue because there's no way that he could get a fair trial just blocks from where the twin towers went down. I had neglected to realize that KSM (that's what they call him now because, like Kentucky Fried Chicken, it's easier to spell) actually would be looking forward to having his trial in Manhattan so he could turn the proceedings into a publicity coup for al Qaida. So now that KSM is more or less saying "don't throw me in that briar patch!" the Mayor of New York and other political figures are saying move the trial somewhere else. Some of them are not so much interested in the safety concerns of having a trial of this length and magnitude in the heart of the biggest business district in the world, but what it would do to traffic and how much it could cost ($200 million a year!).
So, it will be moved. But to where? I still think Hawaii should offer up the Convention Center as nice trial venue. We could use a $200 million stimulus. And god knows the tourists aren't using the thing. (And we're used to bad traffic.)
The location of the trial for KFC, I mean, KSM might become moot anyway. There's still a chance, as I did point out in November, that charges will be thrown out. If you try someone in American federal courts there are rules, like defendants can't have been tortured, they have to be tried by a jury of their peers and they are given the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. President Obama, through his press spokesman, just the other day proclaimed that KSM will be not only convicted but exterminated, I mean, executed. So much for the presumption of innocence. When the president of the United States says you're going to be convicted and put to death ... hmmmm, I think that infringes on your right to a fair trial.
But that's what happens when enemy combatants who have declared war on the US are given the Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens instead of being tried in a military court as they should be.
Do you want to advertise on TV but think it's too expensive? Think again. Charley will make a custom designed, funny, quirky, entertaining commercial for you to run on KHON 2 TV at an affordable cost. Just email him for details.
Charles Memminger, is the biggest humor columnist in the country (242 lbs vs. Dave Barry — 156 lbs — dripping wet). He is also author of the book, "Hey, Waiter, There's An Umbrella In My Drink (Tales from the Tropics by Hawaii's Favorite Humorist)" available on Amazon.com and in Hawaii book stores.
what it was all about. I never did. But I knew that if you didn't join Twitter, you weren't cool. I'm still not cool. But I do Tweet, mainly about this blog, which I think is a violation of Twitter protocol of some sort. There are all kinds of unspoken and sometimes very often spoken rules by Twitterers. You aren't supposed to promote products and try to make money Twittering. If you do, people send angry Tweets to you calling you names. Since I don't get paid for blogging, I don't think I'm violating that rule.
Ben Cayetano. I don't know what I expected, maybe a boring tome about state politics. It is about state politics, but it is far from boring. And it is an important book. It fills in much needed background about the way politics is played in Hawaii, how people come to run for office and how, sadly, a lot of people abuse that office when they get there.
I suggested the lawyers for the sheikh would ask for a change of venue because there's no way that he could get a fair trial just blocks from where the twin towers went down. I had neglected to realize that KSM (that's what they call him now because, like Kentucky Fried Chicken, it's easier to spell) actually would be looking forward to having his trial in Manhattan so he could turn the proceedings into a publicity coup for al Qaida. So now that KSM is more or less saying "don't throw me in that briar patch!" the Mayor of New York and other political figures are saying move the trial somewhere else. Some of them are not so much interested in the safety concerns of having a trial of this length and magnitude in the heart of the biggest business district in the world, but what it would do to traffic and how much it could cost ($200 million a year!).
