Posted on: Saturday, May 30, 2009
E-voting on board seats fails to click
By David Shapiro
The incredible shrinking Hawai'i voter gets us started as we "flASHback" on the week's news that amused and confused:
Turnout was dismal for online-only Neighborhood Board elections to fill 445 seats on 33 boards. The winners serve two-year terms. Losers have to serve four years.
The state wants public input on who should get priority for scarce vaccine in a flu pandemic. The most common response is "Besides me?" Beyond that, it's "Ainokea."
The state Commission On the Status of Women is hosting a seminar for women who want to run for office. Gov. Linda Lingle will give the Maureen Murphy lecture on the No. 1 challenge for women in politics: the hassle of putting makeup on two faces.
Scientists who genetically altered a monkey to glow green said the primate successfully passed the gene to its offspring. Isn't that the same way HGEA created the Legislature?
A Maui man was arrested for allegedly coming to O'ahu to have sex with a child. Does anyone else find it ironic how Maui Superferry opponents once fretted that Oahuans might travel to their island for nefarious purposes?
Board of Education member Kim Coco Iwamoto objected to a school disciplinary rule banning "consensual touching of body parts." How are kids supposed to learn anything if they can't cop an occasional feel?
To save travel money, the BOE will hold all remaining 2009 meetings in Honolulu. If folks in outlying districts don't miss them, will they take the hint and stop meeting in Honolulu, too?
A family comedy film to be set in Hawai'i is about kids who save the world from space aliens by sneezing on them. Sounds like "Lilo and Stitch Meet the Swine Flu."
Prosecutors weren't sure what charges to bring against a Makaha woman who allegedly beat a peacock to death with a baseball bat. Stepping out of the batter's box?
And the quote of the week ... from former Campaign Spending Commission chief Bob Watada, consultant for online-only Neighborhood Board elections that drew only 6.5 percent of eligible voters: "This is the future for presidential elections, general elections, primary elections, all the way." Never let failure get in the way of a bad idea.
