By Anne Harpham

A column in Island Life on Tuesday infuriated some readers.

Keiko Ohnuma, who is one of our copy editors and a rotating columnist for our "About Women" feature, wrote about "the myth of submissive Asian women."

Readers objected to the column for a variety of reasons. Some saw the entire column as male-bashing, particularly white men. Several objected to the phrase "rice-loving haoles" and said they considered it an ugly racist slur that wouldn't have been tolerated if it had been written about any other ethnic group.

One woman simply called the column rude and offensive.

Columnists are expected to be strong writers with strong opinions. They can be provocative and they have wide latitude to state their views. When they write on a subject as emotionally charged as racial and gender stereotypes, readers are going to have strong reactions.

I'm sure Ohnuma's column was discussed in homes and workplaces across the state. It provoked a lively discussion in the newsroom. Whether one agrees or disagrees with her conclusions, she has the right to make them. When a columnist does his or her job well, it should be a catalyst for passionate discussion and even disagreement.

In retrospect, the author and editors agreed that the phrase "rice-loving haoles" was over the top and could easily have been changed to something just as grabby but less offensive.

"You left us hanging," one long-time subscriber said of our March 8 story on former U.S. Sen. Hiram Fong's bankruptcy filing.

Actually, we left readers hanging on two Page 1 stories that Saturday and we heard from many of them. Both the story on Fong's bankruptcy and a story on U.S. unemployment were missing final lines.

It was simple human error in both cases, done by two different people.

In one of the last steps in the editing process, copy editors read page proofs, checking for misspellings, grammatical errors and to see that stories end properly and jump to the right place. When there are fixes to be made, page designers are supposed to make sure the changes don't make the stories longer or too short. In each case, the final check was not made.

That happened again in Friday morning's edition with the New York Stock Exchange listing, again because of an error. The list was cut off in the Vs because a page designer forgot one step in the process of flowing the listings onto the page.

It seems like nearly every week there are rallies, vigils, protests and parades in opposition to a war in Iraq, or to support U.S. troops who may be called into battle.

Organizers have complained that we have done little or nothing to give advance notice of their events.

As a general rule, we don't run notices about upcoming marches or protests, whether they be teachers picketing the Capitol to publicize their demands for a raise, or religious organizations protesting legalized abortion, or partisans lining King Street to sign-wave for a political candidate.

We have run brief news stories about the involvement of local groups such as Not In Our Name in coordinating war protests as part of simultaneous international events staged to demonstrate opposition to war.

And while we have covered such events as news stories, organizers shouldn't expect that we will automatically give them advance publicity to ensure a good turnout. That goes as well for organizers of rallies that support the Bush policy on war in Iraq.

Senior editor Anne Harpham is The Advertiser's reader representative. Reach her at 525-8033 or aharpham@honoluluadvertiser.com.