Leslie Wilcox Blogs

The Black Cat Crossing My Path

On this Halloween night, a black cat will cross my path.

Just like he does every single day,  starting first thing in the morning, as he walks in front of me and around me.  That's his way of telling me he wants me to feed him before I put on a pot of coffee.

His name is Kipuka, and he first crossed paths with my family at Joey's Feline Friends, the no-kill animal shelter in Kahaluu. Shelter founder Tedra Villaroz told us that superstition makes black cats the least likely cats to be adopted. www.joeysfelinefriends.org

At Halloween time, according to national reports, animal shelters tend to ask hard questions when someone wants to take home a black cat. Sometimes they're used as props in Halloween stunts and then abandoned--or worse.  A worker at the Hawaiian Humane Society in Honolulu says this is not a problem locally. www.hawaiianhumane.org

Kipuka was found as an undernourished kitten living near garbage cans in Moiliili.  By the time my husband Jeff and I saw him at Joey's, he'd been passed over many times by folks looking for a pet. He was, in cat years, already a teenager.

We chose him because he was beautiful and expressive.  He wanted to be picked up.  He looked us right in the eye and held the look. He walked with us throughout the cat shelter. A strong character, all right, who seemed to want a connection.

Today, he happily roams our yard and basks on the lanai. He's wary around most strangers and tends to disappear until they leave. But he's affectionate and protective with  my husband Jeff and me.  He  comes into the house during the middle of the night and sleeps at our feet.

On this Halloween night, he'll be the black cat on top of our gatepost, as trick-or-treaters come by. He's no prop. He's the real thing, a household member taking in  the strange human parade and watching out for his people and his home.

Walter Dods Talks about Bad Managers

Usually it's employees complaining about bad managers.

  But there was Hawaii power broker Walter Dods Jr., on stage at the Sheraton-Waikiki Hotel, saying that bad managers are a threat to companies and need to be weeded out.

  He's a guy who knows the view from the rank-and-file as well as from the well-appointed top office suite. He started out as a basement mail clerk. Walter knows that employees are well aware of the bad managers, but often Management does not know.  Bad managers can be good at "managing UP."

  Dods was speaking to human-resources directors, specialists and consultants attending a conference of the Society for Human Resource Management, Hawaii Chapter, headed by Melissa Pavlicek.

  He told the HR folks that it's their job to spot the bad managers and work to move them out. He says companies have lost some fine talent because of bad managers. They lose faith in the company and leave, a competitor's windfall.

  How has Walter Dods detected bad managers from his position quite a few rungs above?

   Well, talking and listening to people at all levels of a company helps. And he shared this tip, with a caveat that it may not be all that politically correct:  Look at department participation levels in company-endorsed voluntary community activities. If there's a large discrepancy with one group of employees' participation,  check out the manager.

  Dods just picked up yet another Chairman of the Board job, at A & B. He's also chairman of Hawaiian Telcom and former chairman of First Hawaiian.

  He spoke comfortably with the attendees in the hotel ballroom. The Society for Human Resource Management set up a little living-room set on stage. I joined Walter and asked him questions in the same format I use on PBS Hawaii's "Long Story Short" weekly show.

  Walter Dods was the solo guest on "Long Story Short" when the show became the first weekly program in Hawaii to be televised in high-definition. In that taping, before the recession hit, while many parts of the economy were still strong,  he predicted the economic crisis.

 

Jim Brickman's "Quiet" Performance in Waikiki

    Pianist/recording artist Jim Brickman has performed in concert in Honolulu before, at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. But this time, he was in Hawaii on a brief stop-over, on his way to concerts in the Philippines and South Korea.

    Except---he made time to play for major supporters of PBS Hawaii last Saturday in the intimate setting of Lewers Lounge at the Halekulani Hotel in Waikiki. 

There was no publicity, no press, no payment. The musical artist graciously donated his time, talent and a box of CDs.  Halekulani provided the elegant room and excellent waitstaff. PBS Hawaii was able to invite guests to take in  the evening at no charge, as a thank-you for the generous contributions that supporters had already made to our educational nonprofit organization.

     The audience enjoyed every bit of an hour of Brickman's music, mostly from his latest album, "Beautiful World."  www.jimbrickman.com

    Jim has starred in four national  PBS concerts, and he says he has a natural affinity for public television, with similar goals of inspiring and entertaining.

    He didn't tell his listeners, but he was "playing hurt." He'd injured his shoulder. His manager could tell he was in pain, with the way he sat at the piano bench. But nobody could tell by the way he played.

    Our staff found Jim to be pleasant and easy to work with. Very much in line with the uplifting quality of his music. There's no doubting his positive attitude. After all, he could have cancelled his unpaid performance for the small group, on account of pain. Instead, he showed up, shared a few jokes, and played like a dream.

Halloween Picks: Robots and Fairies

Action heroes and princesses, meet robots and fairies!

 
PBS Hawaii Keiki Club Coordinator Kit Zulueta  notes that after several years in which pint-sized Spidermen and Batmen and tiara'd princesses dominated our annual Halloween parties, there are new "most popular" costumes. The party host, PBS character Curious George, welcomed robots, the alter-ego favored by boys, and fairies, with girls tucked within those shimmering wings.

More than 300 parents and children attended our parties, held in the PBS Hawaii TV studio, which was dressed for the occasion. Just spooky enough to thrill keiki but not scary enough to ruin their fun. The  hit of the party was "Frankenstein popcorn." Kids helped themselves to green popcorn, filling a surgeon's glove with it.  There were a lot of activities, including another party favorite, cupcake decorating. Oscar the Grouch, visiting from Sesame Street, was on hand to collect rubbish left behind. Our staff enjoyed seeing Keiki Club members from different neighborhoods get to know each other. Soon they were playing with each other as if they were longtime buddies.

When the Halloween celebrants left the parties, those robots were showing happy emotions and the faires were floating on air. 

More on the PBS Hawaii Keiki Club on our website on the KEIKI CLUBpage. Or call (808) 973.1375.

"Thank You Too Much"

  How do you say, in Hawaii, "I can't thank you enough"?"

  If you're the family of the late Melvin "Mutt" Matsumoto, you say, "Thank you too much."

   I love that expression.  It was the eloquent title, listed on the program of this afternoon's memorial service in Honolulu, of concluding remarks by Mutt's brother Myron.

  The title of an earlier address, recollections by old friend Thomas Takushi, was "Hanabata Days." Family and friends laughed, hearing of boyhood friends' escapades that always seemed to involve a hotrod.

  Manning the reception desk at the memorial service were five Kaimuki High grads, Class of 1960. Their pal Mutt became a pipefitter at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and with his wife Jeanette raised two daughters, Jill and Jan.

  Jill, a longtime PBS Hawaii staffer, said that her dad's idea of dressing up was to put on a clean T-shirt.  As chuckles broke out, she clarified, "I'm not joking!" The chuckles grew. Everyone knew.

  Hundreds of people came to pay their respects and bid aloha to the gruff and beloved Mutt. So many that the crowd spilled over to a lanai and entry way. 

  Thanking too much works both ways.

PBS Hawaii Gets a 'Heart Transplant"

 PBS Hawaii's regular programming will be affected this week as we perform the operational equivalent of a “heart transplant” in our master control center.

It'll be complex and delicate  surgery, to create more capacity for gorgeous high-definition programming and to better manage our multiple streams of digital content.

Some TV stations may choose to sign off the air during a major undertaking like this. However, our chief of Content Delivery, Steve Komori, is going for the gusto. We''re going to keep broadcasting, even if it means we’re not able to offer all of the programs we usually do and even if it means there may be short periods of loss of signal.

Thank you in advance for your patience and  understanding.

Please expect the following changes to our programming from Monday, Oct. 26, 2009  through Friday, October 30, 2009: -

-Regular PBS national programming will begin a half-hour earlier. (For example, ANTIQUES ROADSHOW will air at 7:30 pm instead of 8 pm on Mon., Oct. 26.)

 --Locally produced shows NA MELE, LONG STORY SHORT and LEAHEY & LEAHEY will air only at 10:30 p.m. on their respective nights—Mon., Tues. and Wed.

--The live public-affairs program INSIGHTS ON PBS HAWAII will not air this week.

--NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT will air at 6 pm instead of 5:30 pm.

--BBC WORLD NEWS will not be shown.

--THE CHARLIE ROSE SHOW will not be available for cable viewers.

We expect to be pau with our upgrade on Fri., Oct. 30, but can’t promise we’ll be done. A familiar pidgin English expression sums up the situation: “If can, can. If no can, no can.

It's possible that our technical surgery will affect the program schedule into Sat., Oct. 31, 2009. 

These programming limitations will only last for a week, and the beautiful on-air results will last for years.

Furious about the Furloughs

   "How ya doin'?"  I greeted my usually easy-going neighbor as our paths crossed in a store parking lot.

    He stopped and shook his fist. "I'm furious about the furloughs! That's how I'm doing."

A wave of anger is cresting as the public school Friday furloughs take effect, giving Hawaii the black eye of having the shortest school year in the country.

But it's not how we look to the rest of the nation that hurts most. It's knowing that our children aren't our state's first priorities--at least, not as reflected in how we're dealing with the fiscal crisis. We can talk about our ideals but they aren't truly our values unless we live them.

"We don't deal with that situation by putting kids on the chopping block. We protect them from the chopping block," says Alapaki Nahalea, President of Hawaii Charter School Network, quoted in Gary Kubota's story in the Star-Bull. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=alapaki+nahalea+choppingblock&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

"My child left behind" said a sign carried by a mother at this week's State Capitol protest.

  Honolulu Advertiser columnist David Shapiro's observation as he considers the school cafeteria workers and custodians on the job even though the schools were closed Friday: "It was the best lunch and the cleanest classrooms that the kids never had."  http://volcanicash.honadvblogs.com/

  As usual,  when a controversy in public education arises, there's a lot of finger-pointing. We have a constellation of government and union organizations involved, a system in which there's no accountability.

    This is a multi-faceted, difficult and deep-reaching problem that demands collaborative leadership. Where is it?

And where will citizens' anger go? Into a gigantic shrug of resignation and continuing mad-scrambling for childcare? 

Grassroots movements are even more unwieldy than the off-balance political power cluster we've created in public education. 

How are we going to succeed in putting children first?

No Tradewinds, One Princess

I often hear from Hawaii ex-pats who want me to write about the sights and sounds of the islands that they miss so much. You know, the spring explosion of gold tree blossoms, keiki picking plumeria trees bare for Lei Day, the roadside deals on pickled mango, new food treats like the spicy ahi donburi at the Sushi Co. on McCully Street, the appearance of the first humpback whales of the season, etc.

Sorry.  I'm too busy feeling wilted. And remembering to hydrate.

Our beloved tradewinds are on furlough--through the weekend and into next week.

When you move away, you tend to forget how sticky and uncomfortable you are during hot, no-tradewind days in Hawaii. 

  Especially with shoreline waters beckoning and business that keeps you out of the water!

  I know. Unwarranted whining. After all, I live in Hawaii.

  And as I write this, I'm appreciating a touch of local color.

  I'm watching a  girl I know in the neighborhood, age 6, walking to school for the third day this week in her Halloween costume. She's a Hawaiian princess, wearing a shiny light-blue holomu'u and a braided ti leaf crown dotted with big sparkling baubles. On her bare feet, she has painted herself some blue shoes. Her mother's walking next to her, and the mom and I exchange a look. She rolls her eyes and shrugs, as if to say,"This too shall pass. After Halloween." 

   Mom is holding a pair of child's sandals, because even in Hawaii, a Hawaiian princess is required to have footwear in school.

   And the Hawaiian princess, swinging a small packpack, isn't at all bothered by the lack of tradewinds...

Not Quite Ready for Paperless Mail

  I braved the periodic five-minute commercial breaks to watch an NCIS re-run on a cable channel. 

   My favorite character is the quirky forensics-specialist named Abby, an efficient lab wizard with dyed black bangs and pigtails, five visible tattoos and the occasional spiked dog collar.

  Abby was telling a co-worker: "I never get mail. Everything comes to me online. I don't have a mailbox."

   Sounded great to me, until I thought of the lovely letters that come to me at PBS Hawaii, in letter-perfect old-world cursive, full of feedback about one of our PBS Hawaii TV programs, or thanks, or encouragement, or scolding.  And then there are the notes in block-print, clear and direct and usually meant to help.

   So I'm not ready to give up paper mail at work.

    Unlike Abby, I have a home mail box as well. It's largely ceremonial. Too much postal mail theft in my family's North Shore neighborhood. Anything I care about, I receive at a post office box in Waialua.

    Abby's no help to a U.S. Postal Service losing money with the shift to online communications. But she could probably help solve the postal mail theft in my neighborhood.

What's Onscreen This Week on PBS Hawaii

There are some emotionally charged issues that amount to religion for those involved. I mean, you're not going to get disciples on either side to change their religion.

One of these divisive controversies in Hawaii is whether to allow bed-and-breakfast establishments in residential neighborhoods. This week,  PBS Hawaii will take  the temperature of this  heated issue in the islands, on  INSIGHTS ON PBS HAWAII (Thurs., Oct. 22, 7:30 pm), with Dan Boylan as moderator.

PBS celebrity chef Martin Yan makes an appearance in the new national show OpenRoad (Sat., Oct. 24, at 7:30 pm), acting as a consummate guide to San Francisco's Chinatown. Chef Yan is also a frequent vistor to Hawaii and knows Honolulu's Chinatown very well. He's a good friend of a predecessor on PBS cooking shows, Titus Chan, of  Hawaii.

There are plenty of diverse national programs to look for this week. For example:

--MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! (Sun., Oct. 18,  2009, 8 pm) provides another web of deceit for Inspector Lewis and his wry sidekick Hathaway to sort out in tracking a murderer to the halls of academia.

--Did you catch last week's "Latin Music USA" shows? Very well done--and the final two shows are just ahead: "The Chicano Wave," showing how music figured prominently in the struggle for Chicano civil rights; and "Divas and Superstars,' focusing on the Latin pop explosion that brought Ricky Martin, Gloria Estefan and Shakira to the English-language market. The music's gonna move you--on Monday, Oct. 19, 2009, at 9 pm.

--Great. All we need is an animal that looks like a dragon and possesses the ability to plan. NOVA (Tues., Oct. 20, 2009, 8 pm) examines monitor lizards, which blur the line between reptiles and mammals. This episode is titled "Lizard Kings."

--FRONTLINE (Tues., Oct. 20, 2009, 9 pm) brings us another report from producer Michael Kirk, who brought us the critically acclaimed "Inside the Meltdown" and "Breaking the Bank." This time, Kirk uncovers a determined effort to keep regulatory hands off the emerging derivatives market, which would become a ticking time bomb within our economy.

 --INDEPENDENT LENS “Butte, America” (Tues., Oct. 20, 2009, 10 pm) is a working-class tale of five generations of mining families in Butte, Montana, once the largest producer of copper in the world.

--GREAT PERFORMANCES (Wed., Oct. 21, 2009, 8 pm) raises the curtain on the inaugural gala of wunderkind Gustavo Dudamel, new music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He's under 30.

 --Ever been to Waikiki on Halloween night and marveled at the excess and extremes?  Perhaps we'll gain insight into this on "Art in the 21st Century" (Wed., Oct. 21, 2009, 10 pm). The subject is transformation.

This is just a sampling of programs you'll find in the next week on nonprofit PBS Hawaii, uninterrupted by commercials. Program guide available at www.pbshawaii.org