Welcome Yarnod!

I'm slow. It took me a few minutes to figure out the meaning of Don Ray's new blog title: Yarnod the Inihilam Retroper. Don is new to the islands, reporting for the Grassroot Insitute. He and policy analyst Pearl Hahn will be covering the legislature this session. (Of course, it's Don Ray, the Malihini Reporter, backwards.)

There are "soda" states and there are "pop" states

This is one of the coolest maps of the United States that I've seen, one that color codes the regions of our country according to the commonly used term for a soft drink. I stole it from Governing.com's blog, The Thirteenth Floor, and as we enter the season for pundits to break down states by colors, this one may be as good as any in predicting who our next president will be.

I've always been interested in "soda", as we in Hawaii call it. My grandparents owned a company in the 1940's and 50's called Aloha Soda which was located on College Walk, across the canal from River Street on the edge of Chinatown. I played amidst cases and cases stacked to the ceiling of orange, strawberry, lemon-lime, and fruit punch. But when I moved to various parts of the mainland, I was very confused when not only did everyone else call it "pop", but the choices were essentially Coke and 7-Up.

I see by the map that the people in the South tend to use "coke" as the generic name for all soda, people in the North say "pop", and people in New England and California say "soda" like we do. Hmmm, what does this foretell? Zach Patton, the writer from Governing.com, is from Tennessee, and he shared this typical conversation:

Customer: "What kind of coke do y'all have?"

Server: "Coke, Diet Coke, 7-Up, Sprite..."

Customer: "I'll have a Coke."

Server: "Okay. It's Pepsi. Is that alright?"

Customer: "Yeah sure."

If only we could settle our political differences between red and blue states so amicably.

Veto override debate ménage à trois

On Friday, the Star Bulletin printed an opinion piece that criticized the Legislature's reasoning behind overriding 13 of the Governor's veto, asserting that the move was more about power than the public good. On Saturday, Ian Lind questioned in a blog post whether the writer of the editorial read any of the bills in their entirety, and also mentioned several bills he deemed quite pressing and important to the public. Then, today, the Star Bulletin printed a letter to the editor from Rep. Kirk Caldwell, who was quoted in the editorial as saying the overrides were limited to "pressing needs". Caldwell notes that many constituents would disagree with the editorials suggestion that the bills overridden by the Legislature were not pressing issues.

Here is a brief synopsis of a few of their arguments (just in case you don't feel like browsing through the three links).

State regulation of interisland air carriers

SB : Why would the Legislature override a veto of a bill to re-regulate interisland air carrier when state regulation of airlines is prohibited by federal law?

IL: The bill contains a key proviso - which the SB fails to mention - limiting the law to take effect once federal legislation permits implementation.

"What the bill accomplishes is to provide a regulatory structure that can be used to show the state's intent while lobbying Congress for the power to take control of our vital interisland transportation system…the S-B editorial made it sound like legislators were just unaware of the limits of state authority," wrote Lind.

Operation of the University of Hawaii

SB: Differences in opinion on how UH should be operated prompted lawmakers to override two bills, however urgency played no role in the decision.

IL: Requiring the UH Board of Regents to make public administrative salaries and expenditures is already mandated by the Sunshine Law, which the the Board refuses to provide promptly.

Permanent absentee voting

SB: The new law could botch the legitimacy of voting in Hawaii. It will be difficult to verify in all cases if the person registered to vote is actually submitting the absentee ballot. In situations where an individual relocates or dies, ballots could be used by others.

Caldwell: Providing residents with access to voting booths is important, especially to the elderly who support making absentee voting easier.

Begin the Begin

Fans of The Advertiser's popular political blog, Capitol Notebook, will be happy to hear that it's returning in a new form. Derrick DePledge is teaming up with Peter Boylan on a political/government blog called simply, The Notebook. As for Begin the Begin, their first post, I'm told it's an R.E.M. song, and not the Cole Porter (showing my vintage) classic, Begin the Beguine.

Neil Abercrombie - Blogger

U.S. Congressman Neil Abercrombie started a blog on June 1. Thanks to the unofficial Hawaii Supreme Court blog for the alert.

Capitol Notebook Returns

The Advertiser's political blog, Capitol Notebook, returns for the 2008 session. Best title so far: GIA-had.

Value of the Vote

We imagine that those who write political blogs have an interest in creating greater political awareness and activism within our society. This brief from the current issue of The Economist indicates that the hard fought right to vote may be all but forgotten by the younger generation in this country. It states:

"A poll of New York University students revealed that 20% would give up their vote in the next election for an iPod and two-thirds would do so for a year's college tuition. Half would renounce that vote permanently for $1m. " From Washington Square News, Nov. 14th.

Arizona House Majority Starts New Blog

The Arizona House Republicans are off to a good start with a new blog. In the spirit of bi-partisanship, we wish them well. Check it out here.

Volcanic Ash

Dave Shapiro writes about our blog in today's Volcanic Ash posting...whew, didn't get singed too badly!

Skeptical about blogging?

This from the article: "How to Bring Blogging to Life" by Karl Kurtz in the latest edition of State Legislatures:

"Courtesy of Technorati: More than 100,000 new blogs are created daily, but only 50 percent of new bloggers are still posting three months later.

Still skeptical about the viability of this new medium? Ponder this New York Times editorial from 1939 (sorry no link), "The problem with television is that people must sit and keep their eyes glued to the screen; the average American family hasn't got time for it. Therefore, the showmen are convinced that for this reason, if no other, television will never be a serious competitor of (radio) broadcasting."

HI House Blog featured on 'The Thicket'

We're thankful for the kudos the Hawaii House Blog has received recently -- and not just from local bloggers. Earlier this week, Meagan Dorsch, who blogs at the NCSL blog The Thicket, interviewed House Communications Director Georgette Deemer about getting our blog project going.

Read the post at The Thicket and listen to the podcast of the interview here.

Georgette (the brains behind this blog) talks about some of the benefits and challenges of blogging about the House, like opening up to criticism and keeping the content interesting, and offers some tips for others who might want to start similar statehouse blogs.

Blogging 101

By Georgette Deemer - House Majority Communications Director

Earlier this month, I attended the National Conference of State Legislatures professional development seminar for communications and leadership staff in Anchorage, and blogging, podcasting and using new media at state legislatures were a large part of the agenda. Here are some highlights:

Jimmy Orr, online editor for the Christian Science Monitor, was the opening session key note speaker. In former lives, Orr was the White House e-communications guy, and he also developed Gov. Schwarzennegger's website. His main message was to emphasize the importance of new content on your site, for it is the power of unique content (even it's Barneycam) that will drive traffic to your site or blog.

Having worked for government, Orr lasered in on the precise problem that many legislative sites may encounter, this blog included. Problem #1 for government sites is that they look like...well...government sites. Problem #2 is that they often have a .gov extension, and that's an immediate turn-off. Problem #3 is that government sites should, but don't, follow the private sector regarding what makes a site successful. Anything that looks/sounds canned or staged is a sure recipe for no traffic, as are complimentary puff pieces and talking points. Realness, even if it's not pretty, is important.

The Blogging 101 workshop was particularly popular - I think we'll start to see more and more state legislative blogs after Ric Cantrell from the Utah Senate Site, and Rob Weber who does Kentucky Capitol Notes, shared their experiences and showed how easy it is to put up a blog. The harder part is convincing your leadership and caucuses that a blog can be an effective communications tool, especially when you are opening yourself up to comments - sometimes negative, sometimes anonymous. The other hard part is having the discipline and inventiveness to find something new and unique to post every day.

Ric, my blog mentor, has a particularly good perspective on the pros and cons, ups and downs of blog life. He says:

1. Be ready for the flash flood.
2. Traditional media is good. Web 2.0 is good, fun and new, but limited.
3. Effective new media is authentic, terse, humble, human, humorous, and conscious of the blog community.
4. The cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy.
5. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Kim and I have enjoyed working on this blog; we would like to build up the readership, not just among bloggers but soccer moms too. Toward that end, we're eager for comments and suggestions, even criticism, on how to make this blog better. From my perspective, the legislature is a fascinating place, and we'd love to be able to convince a whole lot of young people that they can make a difference through politics and public service. We're not exactly sure what to expect when session starts in January, but we're fairly confident that having the blog will engage more people in political debate and the legislative process, and hopefully we won't have to resort to posting sports news and "fuud" pix to get more traffic.

Big Island political blogs gain recognition

Congratulations to Hunter Bishop who publishes HunterBishop.com, and Aaron Stene who writes The Kona Blog for being named "Best of Hawaii Island" in the website/blog category, voted on by readers of the Hawaii Island Journal. Bishop is a former journalist for the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, while Stene is a private citizen whose profile reads, "I'm just a longtime kama'aina who is very concerned about the direction of this island." As such, Bishop would be covered under the proposed shield law legislation, and Stene would not. See Advertiser story here.