THE LEFT LANE
Broadcast battle

Bill O'Reilly

Rush Limbaugh

Limbaugh's program, people close to the matter said. The two radio shows are expected to compete for the same listeners.

Westwood One and Fox News are trying to build on the popularity of "The O'Reilly Factor," which has helped the network beat AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Cable News Network in audience ratings this year. Limbaugh's show, syndicated to about 600 stations with more than 20 million listeners, generates $125 million in annual revenue for Clear Channel Communications Inc.'s Premiere Radio Networks. "That's going to put some pressure" on Limbaugh, said Michael Russell, a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. analyst.

Monk seal by mail

Working from these ideas, a Kea'au-based artist has created a line of postcards for children featuring vintage-look, colored pencil drawings of four Hawaiian endangered species that, with a few snips of a scissors,

become fanciful finger puppets. Cheryl Murakami spent more than a month creating each drawing: a happy-face spider, a nene goose, a green sea turtle and a monk seal. At about $1.25 each, or $4.95 for a set, they're sold at gift shops including Vue Hawai'i, Hopaco, Pat's Island Delights, Outrigger Trading Co., Naturally Hawaiian, the Mission Houses Museum, Native Books & Beautiful Things and Island Treasures. Or order from Murakami's web site, doublebrush.com.