Civic Activism
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1996-10-27
Guests: Bud Smyser (POP '94 community effort; Honolulu Star-Bulletin); George Chaplin (POP '94 community effort; former editor, The Honolulu Advertiser); Chuck Freedman (POP '94 community effort); Jerry Burris (POP '94 community effort; The Honolulu Advertiser)
Duration: 1:09:10

[0:00:02] Randall Roth: Aloha, this is Randy Roth, host of The Price of Paradise Radio show. Everyone who brings the show to you is a volunteer. We're a bunch of amateurs who enjoy what we're doing and we do it in large part because we believe in the importance of lively and informed public dialogue. The basic idea is to provoke critical thought and increase the activity in Hawaii's marketplace of ideas. Our sponsor, the Hawaii Community Foundation is an organization that encourages grassroot efforts to improve the quality of life in Hawaii and that administers charitable funds with efficiency and compassion. Our topic today is civic activism and with me in the studio is Chuck Friedman and Jerry Burris.

[0:00:45] Randall Roth: Chuck is a vice president at Hawaiian Electric. He was director of communications for Governor Waihee, before that, he was the chief planner for a number of Big Island Community Action agencies. A few little-known facts about Chuck, in high school back in New York, he was a star sprinter and that's the truth. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Micronesia and that's the truth. He starred in as the monster created from nuclear waste in the classic film, Horror on Party Beach and that's the truth except maybe for the word classic.

[0:01:21] Randall Roth: I can tell you more about Chuck, including he was 50 years old yesterday and a die-hard Yankee fan. The Yankees went out of their way to win the World Series just to celebrate Chuck's 50th birthday. Jerry Burris is the editorial page editor of the Honolulu Advertiser. He's the former city editor and former chief political reporter. He's a former Jefferson fellow and Fulbright Hays grantee in Southeast Asia. I happen to know he's a marvelous chef and he tells me and this is the truth, his brother was the star in another movie classic, Killer Clowns from Outer Space. Jerry, is that really the truth?

[0:02:01] Jerry Burris: That's really the truth.

[0:02:02] Randall Roth: Okay. Well we've got Chuck and Jerry with us in the studio this morning. If you happen to see this morning's advertiser, you see on page B3 of the focus section, the headline Civic activism and that's what our topic is today. Chuck Friedman, any quick thoughts? Can you kind of sum it up in a word or two, Chuck? What are we talking about?

[0:02:22] Chuck Freedman: I think in reading the three articles and probably what people are feeling, two quick points, one is that when the election is over, things really start. It's not, it's not the end, it's the beginning. And the second is that along with all these wonderful rights we get in a democracy, come responsibilities, and maybe this morning we can discuss what some of those responsibilities are.

[0:02:44] Randall Roth: Jerry, how optimistic are you that readers are going to read all three of those articles in their entirety? Civic activism isn't the sexiest issue in the world.

[0:02:54] Jerry Burris: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:03:36] Randall Roth: Okay, sounds good. Well, we've also got on the phone a fellow by the name of Bud Smyser and listeners may have noticed in Thursday's star bulletin, Bud wrote a column, very nice column from our point of view about Price of Paradise activities, probably too nice. But before we go to Bud and hear what he has to say about civic activism, I wanted to ask each of you a quick comment. Who is this guy Bud Smyser, Chuck Friedman?

[0:04:04] Chuck Freedman: Bud Smyser today is a fellow who I think more than anybody in town, at least any journalist in town, is trying to define who we are as a community and, and where we can go as a community and he's probably a little schizophrenic about it himself. That's why I'm interested to hear what he has to say, but this is a fellow who every day tries to get us closer to the future.

[0:04:26] Randall Roth: I know when you and I were talking about Bud's column earlier this morning, you had commented something that I noted when I wrote it, he actually acknowledged that the Honolulu Advertiser exists and that some things that the advertiser is closely associated with have done some good things. Why is that so unusual?

[0:04:54] Chuck Freedman: Well, you just sort of, there's the feeling that one, one paper aligned with one television station doing one debate will, they'll, they'll only cover that and they won't talk about the other guys because it's competitive. I don't really know if all that's true, although there's been some indications of it. But Bud's a guy who crosses the lines, no problem.

[0:05:06] Randall Roth: Okay. Jerry Burris, you're with the competition. Quick thought about Bud Smyser and then after we've embarrassed him completely, we'll go to him on line six.

[0:05:14] Jerry Burris: One other thing that, that, that you have to recognize about Bud in his column that he does every couple times a week in the paper is he is, at least journalistically, the town's institutional memory and he's not sitting there writing nostalgia columns, but what he's doing is going back and lacing things that have happened and lacing them into what's going on now. So there's constantly, he's, he's tying things together in a way that I don't think anyone else could do. So, that's, you know, some of us tend to think that we have institutional memory because we have a couple of decades under our belts but, uh, not to embarrass him about how long he's been covering things, but King Kalakaua gave him most of the first advice he ever had. That the King, King called him, hey Bud. Hey Bud.

[0:05:55] Randall Roth: Well, Bud, with that introduction, good morning.

[0:05:59] Bud Smyser: Randy, I didn't know this was going to be about me, and because I'm on the air, the sound is turned down and my wife hasn't heard it. So I'd like to have a tape, please.

[0:06:09] Randall Roth: Well, well, hang on, Bud. We'll just say it all again. Tell, tell Didi to come listen. No, no, no.

[0:06:13] Bud Smyser: She still can't hear it. In any event though, this should be a tribute to Randy Roth and a person who's encouraged civic responsibility, civic accountability, government accountability in a way no other person has in that ever since King Kalakaua called me Bud. It's, it's, it's, it's just amazing what you've done with your family help and with the help, I think you said of 300 various volunteers on the show and close to 100 on the two top books. So you've stirred up other people as well as yourself. You've made us all think more, we need more of this. I hope, uh, I heard a story the other night, and this is getting personal but, it has some pertinence. My wife, my late wife did a TV show for 25 years and I happened to meet Judge David Ezra the other night, and he listened to it as a youngster and he said he got ideas from it and retained them. I'm hoping a lot of youngsters and others tuning in on your show will call you 25 years from now, Randy, to tell you how much they, you contributed to their lives.

[0:07:25] Randall Roth: [unintelligible — audio glitch] Thank you, sir.

[0:07:44] Bud Smyser: Thank you very much.

[0:07:45] Randall Roth: All right, now that we've shamelessly done all of that, I want to push it aside and please guests in the studios and listeners uh no more nice things about uh Price of Paradise and and Randy Roth. Any criticism, that's okay, that's fair game. But nothing else nice about uh this.

[0:08:01] Randall Roth: I should explain too, if if listeners don't realize, one of the reasons that we're talking about civic activism and and some nice things have been said about the Price of Paradise is that um Susie and I are are taking off for about 5 months. I'm going to be uh teaching at the University of Chicago for their winter quarter and we do plan to resume with the program, maybe not on a weekly basis, but we do plan to resume with the program when we get back.

[0:08:25] Randall Roth: In the meantime uh at least for a while, this uh this time slot will contain classics of uh the Price of Paradise. We're going to have some uh uh real good shows that we've had in the past, we're going to do some replays and I think there'll be a lot of listeners that enjoy that. But at least for 5 months uh we're out of here. Okay, that's enough Price of Paradise stuff. We're back to civic activism. Chuck Friedman, get us rolling in a different direction.

[0:08:49] Chuck Freedman: [unintelligible — audio glitch] [unintelligible — audio glitch] But I think what we're what's critical is that we at on election day, we don't expect government to be solving all the problems without citizen action, that the responsibility uh for that is up to us and that uh we have to make exciting things happen in this town.

[0:10:06] Randall Roth: Jerry Burris, in in your article this morning, your commentary, you name some specific things that are going on and also some thoughts about what Chuck has just said. What do you think?

[0:10:12] Jerry Burris: I yeah, I think the point I was trying to make, it probably didn't come across that well, is that uh uh Hawaii probably more than a lot of states historically, tended to rely on government and the political process to get things done. I mean we were a new state and and politics was where it was at and everything was being handled through the political system.

[0:10:30] Jerry Burris: And that some good work was done, but you sort of reach a point of diminishing returns and I think a lot of what what people are saying, oh there's nothing, you know, everything is broken down, there's no engagement anymore, there's apathy, is that that particular process has ceased doubling its effectiveness every year and so people are looking for other places to do things.

[0:10:56] Jerry Burris: I mean, one point I made in there and I kind of surprise myself that uh uh under the former administration where Chuck was involved, uh and and one before that under the Ariyoshi and Waihee administrations, there was a tremendous emphasis on planning and they had the big planning departments and Governor Ariyoshi had, I mean, planning was his focus and then uh Governor Waihee took it in a slightly different direction and used planning as sort of as a management tool.

[0:11:06] Jerry Burris: And you see now, citizen groups rising up with uh trying to take a hold of some of the planning, you know, the benchmarking which is a form of planning for the society and the Hawaii 2020 thing, which was a completely private operation, some of the others, uh uh the Community Foundation is doing things, and the Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce are all saying, "Hey, we got to get involved in planning." The Society of Corporate Planners, the list goes on and on. That's right. And and what I think it is, that what the phenomenon is, is, is not that government doesn't have a role anymore. But wait a minute, we have a part in this too. So if you look at all that, you can't really say that people are apathetic or not involved in taking some sort of civic responsibility.

[0:12:12] Randall Roth: Well, something that I'm, I'm really pleased with that I haven't personally had anything to do with is is something called the Papa accountability group or or PAG, Papa Accountability Group. Uh Dolores Foley and and a group of folks who just put in a tremendous amount of time went back to everything that was said by Mayor Harris and Governor Cayetano during their campaigns for Mayor and Governor respectively and and listed all of that by categories and and basically said, "Here's what they told us they were going to do." Uh the Star Bulletin has put that online. Uh for those people who have the computer and the internet and all that stuff, HTTP:// I guess that's the standard introduction to things on the internet, but it's starbulletin.com, you can see what they've come up with and it invites you to, to hold that up against what it is that they're doing.

[0:12:35] Randall Roth: Um, just one of many, many community activities, nobody was paid to do that. It was just people who felt that it was important to, um, to their community.

[0:12:47] Chuck Freedman: Well, just the, I think the good reminder here is that if we all use the election day as a sort of a cutoff line and decide that uh when we're just not going to get into government bashing for the fun of it, that we're really going to make a commitment to give everybody sort of a, a brand new start with the day after election. I think would be helpful.

[0:13:06] Chuck Freedman: I think we've got to manage issues and not personalities and whether it's the way you uh you you judge uh the politicians or the politicians themselves judging each other, it sounds corny, but the more we just bash government because it's it's there to be bashed, and it's so doggone easy. Uh, I don't think that helps. [unintelligible — audio glitch] As somebody who, who, who put in five good years in government, I can tell you, there really are some terrific people there, and 99% of them are are hard-working and earnest, and to focus uh purely on the negative is, is, is bad.

[0:14:52] Jerry Burris: I couldn't agree more. I just, uh the other thing too is that, is going back to my theme about things going on. I was thinking when you were when Chuck was talking about last night, we went to a Lanakila elementary school, had a Halloween carnival spook house and you know, little kind of community carnival thing to raise money for the school and it was a huge turnout and there's just enormous numbers of people and here's a school that I think is going to be the first charter school in Hawaii. I mean, and and as there as my evening friends like to point out, incredibly, it's a charter school where they take care of their own affairs with the cooperation of the Public Worker Unions.

[0:15:24] Jerry Burris: I mean it's a unionized school. It's a pretty amazing thing, maybe the only one in the country where a publicly organized union school is going to be chartered, it's going to be in charge of itself and you can see all those parents and all the kids who were involved last night, and this is happening all over the place.

[0:15:44] Jerry Burris: And it's, and it's hard work, school reform is a real good example, I think, because it it began, I don't know, 5 or 6 years ago, the the school community-based management. The and the in the old days, what you did was wait for DOE at the centralized level to make some sort of decision and then every school and every community would criticize it and complain about it and it usually was pretty clunky decision. Uh what school reform did was try to, uh the overused word, empower communities and schools to take action.

[0:16:20] Jerry Burris: And you know what they found out in the community level? That this was hard work. That it was really a little bit easier to sit back and let somebody else make the hard decisions and complain about them than it was to have to make the tough decisions yourselves. [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:16:37] Randall Roth: Yeah, I know I'm not quite as critical of the media as I was before I tried to do some of this stuff, put things in, in print. Now I'm just critical of media ownership, Jerry. You're listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. My name is Randy Roth. We're talking about civic activism. Here in the studio with me is Chuck Friedman, who's the vice president of Hawaiian Electric and formerly communications director for Governor Waihee, and Jerry Burris, who is the editorial page editor for the Honolulu Advertiser.

[0:17:34] Randall Roth: If you would like to ask a question or make a comment, our number is 955-8821, or if you're on a neighbor island, it's 1-800-955-8821. If you called in or if you listened uh tuned in a little bit late and you want to hear the show in its entirety, including the wonderful introduction of these two fellows, uh KIFO 1380 AM. That's the place to go tonight at 8 o'clock to hear the show in its entirety.

[0:18:03] Randall Roth: Well, we're going to have some calls in just a minute. Uh, what else? What's going on out there, Jerry, that uh people ought to know about that maybe would be kind of exciting? And I'll just mention, I'm looking through the window at Jeff Ilarte, who's the director of operations at public radio. I know he has put in countless hours on this uh beach volunteer beach cleanup, uh litter cleanup activities that Jerry, you mentioned in in your article this morning.

[0:18:24] Jerry Burris: Yeah, and I think those are all little bits and pieces of it. I I don't think that that Hawaii is clean because our citizens go out and pick up every weekend, but that activity is happening. People volunteering the beaches, people building trails, you know, on the mountains, uh, uh, people are, are going into schools and volunteering to teach with computers and things like that. It's all little bits and pieces and and they're forming organizations and groups that you know, there's that book that came out a couple of years ago about how Americans will bowl alone now that yeah, and and that really isn't true.

[0:19:04] Jerry Burris: I mean, what what that thing did is looked at all the old institutions, the old clubs, the old social organizations said hey they're not they don't exist anymore. So society must be coming apart and didn't look a little bit deeper and see the new ways that people are linking, uh including over the computer. I mean there's there's networks of people on the internet, you were just talking about that I don't know where that's headed, but that's a whole new linkage of people that didn't exist even 2 or 3 years ago.

[0:19:00] Randall Roth: it's so huge and so complicated. Just an example, last, I think it was a week or two ago, we did something on welfare and I thought it would be good to put in, in very basic form, just the caseload and budget of the three basic welfare programs for this year and projected for next year.

[0:19:16] Chuck Freedman: And they finally did come up with something, but the immediate reaction was, oh my goodness, that's highly complicated. Can't really give you the numbers because it depends on so many factors. All legitimate, I think. You know, all real reasons why it's hard to do it. But from a citizen standpoint, like the caller, all I'm asking for is some numbers. You must have some numbers and we run into this morass.

[0:19:35] Randall Roth: Well, let's, let's we've got our former bureaucrat here, who is director of communications, if it's someone's fault, Chuck, what's what what would cause this? Why wouldn't DHS have responded to Susie's request by now?

[0:19:48] Chuck Freedman: I don't know and and as far as budget information, it is public information, whether or not somebody would be able to understand the budget information if they were given it given it is another question because when you look at the state budgeting system, it's hard to figure.

[0:20:01] Susie: I understand that very well.

[0:20:03] Randall Roth: Real quickly, Susie, I mean, from a citizen action standpoint, uh we are dealing with an issue with welfare reform that's going to be impacting uh an entire community uh at the federal level. It's things are changing at the state level, they will change too. The governors talked about it. Uh and the need for citizen action to to help deal with a safety net that the that's going to get harder to hold the the people that may be falling, is a real big social issue of our day.

[0:20:33] Susie: Let's get She should be able to get the information.

[0:20:35] Randall Roth: Let's get real practical. You were director of communications for the state. What would be the the most effective way for Susie to get that out of the bureaucracy?

[0:20:44] Chuck Freedman: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:20:57] Susie: Have a letter to the editor. Jerry Burris.

[0:20:59] Randall Roth: Always effective. I was just going to say another place, another agency that can maybe help you unlock if your door is you probably tried this too, but the auditor and the legislative reference bureau are are there to kind of pry open books and try to make sense out of them. Now whether they pride open this particular book, I don't know.

[0:21:17] Susie: And Mary Higga doesn't still fear in some bureaucrats.

[0:21:19] Chuck Freedman: That's That's right. And they may have done some of this. I mean, I'm not saying that that they'll take your cause and and handle it for you, but they may have already opened those books for other reasons and maybe they can share something.

[0:21:29] Susie: Randy?

[0:21:30] Randall Roth: Yes.

[0:21:31] Susie: Um, I appreciate this information very much, but we've strayed from my point. My point is, on your show, Susan Susan Chandler said, anybody can have this. I just want promises to be kept. If she hadn't said that, I never would have wanted a copy of the budget. I just want people like you who pretend to be friends of citizen activists to keep your promises.

[0:21:55] Randall Roth: Okay.

[0:21:56] Susie: That's all I want.

[0:21:57] Randall Roth: Thank you. I needed that. Um, I will call again and and Susan Chandler who is not the kind of person to uh to play things close to her chest, or at least that's that's my impression. Uh, I am sure there's an explanation, but that's that's not acceptable. Susie, we're going to get this thing done. Okay?

[0:22:16] Susie: Okay. Shall I call you again?

[0:22:18] Randall Roth: I yes. Call me again. Thank you. Thank you very much. We go to Andrew from Makiki. Andrew.

[0:22:25] Andrew: Good morning. How are you?

[0:22:26] Randall Roth: I'm fine, but where did I screw up this time?

[0:22:28] Andrew: Um I'm kidding. I haven't done anything. What are we talking about anyway? We talking about activism or volunteerism or what?

[0:22:36] Randall Roth: Well, the topic is civic activism and one of the things the three of us have been trying to do is to point out that there is a lot going on out there, but I think the three of us in the studio at least feel that that there's a need for a lot more.

[0:22:50] Andrew: Okay. Um I lived in Singapore about 3 years ago, 1994, and I cut this article out of the paper that was written by a Professor Tommy Co. And uh basically America gets slammed overseas all the time. And this guy is a Singaporean uh fellow, I guess they call him, you know, that pretty respected guy.

[0:23:10] Andrew: He wrote this article in the paper and it's been reprinted a few times and I I cut it out and I pass it along to everyone all the time. And basically it's in defense of America and he talks about how um Americans um give more time in volunteer service, like 80 million Americans volunteer their time and one in 10 Singaporeans do. They don't, you know, that's it's an American thing. Um talks about our competitive economy and how, you know, we can uh give uh uh we don't have a social stigma to uh honest failure.

[0:23:47] Randall Roth: Mhm.

[0:23:48] Andrew: And we share our wealth, and we give like 126 million dollars a year just in charitable to uh donations to education.

[0:23:58] Randall Roth: That's billion with a B, right?

[0:24:00] Andrew: Uh well, since 1945, we've given 300 billion dollars.

[0:24:05] Randall Roth: Okay.

[0:24:06] Andrew: into different uh I I think the lady that just called uh Susie Chandler is her name?

[0:24:14] Randall Roth: No, no, no, no. The caller was Susie and she's trying to get a report out of Susan Chandler.

[0:24:18] Andrew: something. Yeah, something, her her deal, you know. I think you know, volunteer stuff usually doesn't have a name to it. Normally Yeah. We we I'm starting to see like, yeah, we're for this and if you're not for that, you're not with us. You know, if you're down with this. You know what I'm saying?

[0:24:36] Randall Roth: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:24:51] Jerry Burris: Yeah, you know, that that article you mentioned and this is not just Singapore, but people talk about how the Japanese corporations moved into Hawaii that they had to they were completely unfamiliar with the culture of corporate giving and corporate and we expect corporations to be generous and uh every time we do a little fundraiser, we lean on Hawaiian Electric to help out or or the banks to help out or the newspapers and and the Japanese corporations uh don't have that as part of their ethic. And they come here and they learn and they change but uh it's a completely different thing. And I think when people come from outside, what you what you're describing there, is they're astounded at the amount of maybe unnoticed civic participation there is by individuals and by corporations and like my friend from actually another friend from Singapore said uh he doesn't understand about charitable giving. He says, if I had extra money, I give it to my family. I wouldn't give it to strangers.

[0:25:41] Randall Roth: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:25:52] Jerry Burris: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:25:55] Randall Roth: Okay. Andrew, thank you for your call. We've got some people who've been waiting on the line so I do have to move on. Thank you.

[0:26:00] Desmond: Desmond from Kaimuki and I'll just bet it's Desmond Burn of Common Cause Fame. Good morning, Desmond. Well, Common Cause, right, Randy. Um, sorry to see you go for a while, but uh um the woman who called up about human services, this is not just uh Susan Chandler or the Human Service department. This is right around state government. Kayatano when he came in said just ask for information and you shall have it. Well, that is uh meaningless rhetoric. It's extraordinarily difficult for legislators, groups like ours getting good information out of state government of how it works and budget information. So it's just pervasive right the way around.

[0:26:42] Desmond: Uh Randy, you touched on a thing in your in your article in the morning paper about the reluctance of business people to voice criticism. Um, this is not only just the business community, it's the lawyers group, it's the university group that there are so many groups in Hawaii who are unwilling to talk and step forward and critique government in its best way that uh takes out a lot of intelligent people and uh I'm not quite sure how these people look in the mirror each morning and uh like what they see or what they tell their children about democracy. Uh because uh it's very sad of the number of people who will not stand up and be counted around the place.

[0:27:25] Randall Roth: Desmond, let me get Jerry Burris's reaction to what you've just said. Jerry?

[0:27:30] Jerry Burris: Well, certainly true. I mean, I'm glad to hear you say the lawyers that uh because we Randy did the article where the business leaders had the things to say but didn't want to be associated with it very much and and Desmond, you know that every time you stick your head up, someone hits it with a mallet, like one of those carnival machines. And the uh lawyers don't want to and I think part of it is is that we're in a pretty small lifeboat, and there's just it's the idea of, you know, you're all floating in this little lifeboat in the middle of the sea, and if you start arguing with each other, someone's going to get thrown overboard. So everyone tends to swallow and hold their tongue a little bit. And I don't know what the answer to it is, other than to demonstrate, to experience, to have people stand up and say things and be critical in a positive way and and not totally get destroyed by that. I think if if we if we could show by experience a few times, maybe there'd be some change.

[0:28:22] Randall Roth: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:28:53] Desmond: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:34:41] Randall Roth: out there that feels it is important to have institutional watchdogs on government here in Hawaii. Uh Common Cause has to be uh one of if not the first name that comes to mind, and I know Common Cause doesn't exactly have uh coffers overflowing. Desmond, you probably would accept uh a contribution or two.

[0:35:02] Desmond: Yeah, right.

[0:35:03] Randall Roth: Desmond, I should add Randy that uh uh when you say civic activism the title of this that the fundamental processes as opposed to volunteerism, very few organizations do something on that, ACLU, the League of Women Voters, the Tax Foundation uh on tax integrity. Good point. And I want to add that what we're talking about often is the transfer or of power from government people to citizenry and from practical experience, I can tell you, it takes a lot of homework, a lot of knowledge, it takes time and patience, countless brush-offs from government and a lot of independence. And if you're not and it's extraordinarily difficult getting to the root of things. So we hope the checks and balances, the media, the minority party will uh and all these other organizations, collectively, will be able to do something. But it's an uphill, like pushing a big rock uphill.

[0:36:03] Randall Roth: And Desmond, this is Chuck Friedman. We're we're glad that guys like you are willing to do it.

[0:36:08] Chuck Freedman: And Desmond, I'm going to give you a call. I've made a promise to Susie to get something done and after I call Susan Chandler and see what's going on on that end, if if we don't get that report immediately, I'm going to call you because you are the expert on getting information out of government. Desmond, thank you for your call. We've got some folks waiting. We've got to move on. I'll just let listeners know that this is the Price of Paradise radio show. My name is Randy Roth. I'm here in the studio with Chuck Friedman, who's a Vice President at Hawaiian Electric, and with Jerry Burris, who is the editorial page editor for the Honolulu Advertiser. Our topic is civic activism and if you would like to ask a question or make a comment, our number is 955-8821 or on a neighbor island 1-800-955-8821. If you tuned in late, you can hear the show in its entirety tonight at 8 o'clock on KIFO, that's 1380 AM. You know, earlier in the show we we also talked briefly to to Bud Smizer and uh Bud is is far from retired, but because Bud has been around for a while, it it reminded me that there are some folks out there who are retired who are extremely active in different civic activities. Uh your old boss, Jerry, George Chaplin comes to mind as somebody who's been on a whole bunch of commissions and has done so many things uh without any kind of compensation at all. Uh Herb Cornell before he died a few months ago was involved in in just as many, and and there are a lot of people like that. Tremendous resource and if we in the community can somehow find a way to to encourage even more of that sort of thing, I think it would be absolutely wonderful. Well, we've got some people who've been very patient waiting on the line. Let's go to Bill in Pava'ah. Good morning, Bill.

[0:37:47] Bill: Good morning. I'd like to address this to Jerry Burris, because I'm a little bit uh flummoxed by the editorial page this morning. Uh Jerry, on one side, you say despite shortcomings, Clinton deserves four more years. on the other side look around you'll see signs of a concerned citizenry. The people are fed up, they've had it with the politics and politicians. How the hell can you endorse Clinton? Look at look at Charles Krauthammer's column I mean I'm appalled. You're telling people to vote for the most cynical, two-faced liar we've had in government since God knows when, the Harding administration or maybe President Grant.

[0:38:20] Jerry Burris: Let's hear what Jerry Burris has to say about that.

[0:38:22] Bill: I'm getting the impression reading between the lines that you didn't agree with the editorial. You're very sensitive.

[0:38:30] Jerry Burris: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:39:34] Bill: So we can keep from from losing our our focus on civic activism.

[0:39:38] Jerry Burris: This is my point about civic activism. When you start endorsing people who make people apathetic to begin with, it's oh my god, endorse him? Why the heck should anybody want to feel so active?

[0:39:46] Bill: Well, Bill, you you have a real strong position on one side and I'll be honest with you I happen to agree with you. Jerry Burris has a real strong position on the other side and I think it's just real clear that that neither of you is going to change the other's mind but hopefully and and Jerry, my own feeling is the paper doesn't always present what's going on politically with kind of a a balanced level playing field sort of thing. But I I don't think further conversation as to who's better Dole or Clinton is going to get us anywhere this morning. But Bill, I do appreciate your call. I really do. Let's go to Scott from Kailua. Good morning Scott.

[0:40:22] Scott: Good morning. I just wanted to say in the way of activism as a general topic that there are a number of groups working on the internet that was mentioned earlier. I'm not sure which of you mentioned it and we have a forum going on on Hawaii ocean policy on the internet, which is sponsored by the Law of the Sea Institute. And we more we'd we'd like to invite people to join that. And if if they would simply get in touch with the Law of the Sea Institute on Monday, we'll tell you how to join the internet forum on Hawaii's ocean policy. Ocean policy obviously very, very important to Hawaii's economic future. And we feel that it's not receiving the attention that it needs.

[0:41:13] Bill: Scott, Jerry Burris had a comment to make. Just is there an internet address or something that you could share?

[0:41:19] Scott: Yes. The URL is http://aloha.net/tildi/lsi/cweb.htm.

[0:41:37] Bill: And as Scott said, call the Law of the Sea Institute Monday morning. Scott, and I happen to know I recognize your voice and of course just listening to what you're talking about, this is Scott Allen who heads up the the Law of the Sea Institute right now and Scott, I I appreciate the the really good work you and and the many folks who are involved in that are doing and appreciate your calling this morning.

[0:41:56] Scott: You bet.

[0:41:57] Bill: Thank you. Let's go to Bill in Kailua. Good morning Bill. Good morning, Randy. Since several people have touched on the question of volunteerism, I want to hark back to several years when they had the teenagers who were volunteering as in as so-called candy stripers assisting the nursing staffs in the various hospitals. This relieved the nurses of considerable burden and I thought it was very admirable on the part of the teenagers to want to volunteer and assist in this in this manner. However, I called the advertiser and suggested that these kids needed some recognition in the in the press and I received a chilling response that oh, that wouldn't be news.

[0:42:45] Bill: Well let's let's find out Jerry Burris. I don't know who you talked to and I'm sorry you got that response. I would tell you it was a gentleman who was on the on the phone just at the start of the program, Mr. Smyser. Oh, well then you call the Star Bulletin. How about those Yankees?

[0:43:03] Jerry Burris: No, but if I can just briefly address that. That is a problem that papers have gotten into the mindset that that good news, the things that are happening like volunteerism or civic activity isn't news. It's only news if there's conflict. And I think we're re-educating ourselves a little bit to recognize that there can be a story that's compelling and interesting and worth putting in the paper about good stuff like volunteerism and so forth. Not not just soft soaping it but.

[0:43:27] Bill: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:44:01] Jerry Burris: No, no. We are competitive. It was sort of bred into us and and I I I've lived in towns where where literally the same owner owned both the morning and afternoon newspaper without it even any question about it and the staffs were still competitive. They still wanted to get the story first, do something a little better. And we're also competitive with with radio and with television. And I mean I that's the healthiest thing because that competitive drive forces us to chase down things we otherwise would ignore.

[0:44:27] Bill: Okay. Well you're listening to the Price of Paradise Radio Show. We're talking about civic activism. Our number is 955-8821. We've got some callers who've been waiting. Let's go to Jim from Makiki. Good morning, Jim.

[0:44:39] Jim: Yes, I wanted to maybe challenge some of the basic premises that you folks are operating under. Um one of the things that I maybe to regress a little bit to the uh POP stuff you did on TV a couple of years ago. Uh and the and power 94 uh was done too. The thing that struck me was that um uh you had two two basic groups and those um TV things. One was um you had people from the think tanks and uh lobbyists and whatnot from Merchant Street and uh Bishop Street and then you had citizens who had never been city as citizen lobbyists and whatnot, and uh many of them had never been to a city council meeting or whatnot. And so it seemed to me that it was a very uneven thing instead of um inviting people uh from the community, who uh were really familiar with the issues from the standpoint of the people. Um you know, on the one hand you had lobbyists uh think tank people from uh Bishop Street and Merchant Street just against people who basically had never been involved before. And I thought that was basically unfair.

[0:45:58] Bill: Well, let me just let me get a reaction to that, Jim.

[0:46:03] Jim: Jim. Let me just get a Jim, let me just get a reaction to that before we go on.

[0:46:06] Bill: Um maybe the Bishop Street sort you're referring to, or one of them is Chuck Friedman. Let's let's get a reaction from Jerry Burris, who's maybe the uh the objective or semi-objective party here. What's going on?

[0:46:16] Jerry Burris: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:46:52] Bill: Okay. Jim, your other point?

[0:46:54] Jim: Well, the other point is that Suzie from Makiki, if she really wants to get a copy of of uh figures and whatnot, maybe she could go through uh somebody like Walter Dodds from a first Hawaiian Bank or she could go through uh Lowell Kalapa at the found at Tax Foundation, or Dan Davidson at the Lurf, because these folks can pick up the phone and they can get a a report uh at the snap of a finger. But everyday uh citizens cannot do that. Okay let me get a reaction to that And this goes back again to the same to the same thing I'm talking about, and the thing is that you folks are focusing on government. The problem is is that we have two uh basic uh things in government. We have government of the people, by the people, and for the people, coexisting with government of the people by corporate Hawaii for corporate Hawaii.

[0:47:48] Bill: Okay. Well, let me get a reaction to that. Uh, Jerry Burris.

[0:47:51] Jerry Burris: There's there's there's a lot of truth to that that there's a feeling of the institutions are too big for any individual to break through. I I know that it can be done. I saw you do that once Jim with the issue of bus fares. Jim has his own uh cable TV show where he's doing uh, you know, getting his his side of things out there very, very well, I think.

[0:48:07] Bill: [unintelligible — audio glitch] Uh not at all.

[0:48:35] Jim: Jim Brewer.

[0:48:36] Bill: Okay. Jim, we do have to move on but I really appreciate your calling this morning. Okay, thank you. We go to Gary in Manoa. Gary, thanks for waiting so patiently. I know you've been there a long time. What do you have for us this morning?

[0:48:46] Gary: Sure. Uh, when collecting signatures to keep the Hawaii Green Party on the ballot, many people either didn't want to sign or if they did, they didn't want to fill in their social security number for fear that the government will get them somehow. Really paranoia about Big Brother, not wanting an opposition.

[0:49:02] Bill: There is a uh, there is that fear out there. Paranoia is a strong word, but there's certainly fear, and maybe it's that bad. Chuck Friedman, you look uh like you're not con convinced.

[0:49:12] Chuck Freedman: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:49:58] Jerry Burris: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:50:38] Bill: Okay. Gary, thanks a lot. We really appreciate your call this morning. Uh also waiting patiently. Dolores, is this Dolores Spoli?

[0:50:45] Dolores: Yes, it is.

[0:50:46] Bill: My colleague from the University of Hawaii, who has worked tirelessly on pop accountability. What do you have for us this morning, Dolores?

[0:50:53] Dolores: Well, I just wanted to um contrast two activities and then ask a question. One of the things that that you mentioned this morning was the Kahaluku and the pop accountability, which uh the first has been a real inspiring effort to be involved in.

[0:51:11] Chuck Freedman: And that's what some people think of as the benchmarking project.

[0:51:15] Dolores: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:53:25] Bill: And the question is how do we get that? How do we get that? Okay. Well, I'm going to toss it to to Jerry Burris, but first just so so people understand, um in terms of and I think Dolores the expression you used was uh was taking it seriously, when the pop accountability group gathered up the campaign promises, uh rather than just publish them, you sent them to to the people who you thought had made those promises, uh Mayor Harris and and Governor Cayetano and the mayor's office was quick to uh to get back in terms of we agree with this, we agree with that etc. and here's what we feel we've done in at least beginning to accomplish these if not accomplishing them, whereas I believe your experience with Governor Cayetano's office was that there just wasn't too much response and when there was, it it just didn't seem as though uh too much effort had been put in to trying to uh uh to be accountable.

[0:54:18] Dolores: That's correct and and I think um both administrations have promised updates and and we've yet to receive And you're anxious to get those and I I just want to make sure listeners kind of had the backdrop, but your real question, or at least the one that we're throwing at uh Jerry Burris's direction is where was the media? Why wouldn't the media be there to to do more analysis of what was promised, what's been done, etc. That's right.

[0:54:45] Chuck Freedman: There I I just have to say we just didn't do a very good job. I think if you go back over the past six or eight months or a year you'll find, I mean I can I can bring a big stack of clippings where we've written about politicians and how they behave and how that fit in with what they promise. So I I won't I won't acknowledge that we've done nothing. But uh is it coherent and is can you go to the paper and pick it up and say, now here is what these guys have done and here's how it compares with what they promised, I don't think you can find it in one place. Um we need to do more of it. That's just that's the simple answer. But I'd like to just make you also made the point about people not wanting to attach their name or wanting to participate, and in my small corner of the paper, one of my great frustrations is, as I'm I'm constantly encouraging people to write in and and analyze, critique, comment on and be part of the civic dialogue in terms of articles in the paper and it's so hard to get people to do it or to do it well and to attach their name to it. Uh the best ones I get are, please don't use my name at the end, you know. That please don't use my name, whoever that is is a real good writer because.

[0:55:49] Bill: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:56:08] Chuck Freedman: Just real quickly, framing the issues which is kind of what Dolores is talking about has been a problem. And and whose responsibility is it? The community and citizen groups, the newspaper, the politicians? And you look at this presidential election and you realize, um uh for all the importance of it, the issues really haven't been framed very clearly by whoever it is whose responsibility is to to do that. And what we kind of end up with is this cycle babble uh and I don't know that it helps you make a decision when you when you go to vote, uh needless to say what you're going to do the day after you're you're through voting and you're trying to take some action. So your point is well taken, Dolores. It's not just a local problem.

[0:56:47] Bill: You know, before we got started on this price of paradise stuff, I had no idea how time-consuming it is just to frame an issue properly and on any given radio show, Susie and I probably put in 10 times as much

[0:57:00] Speaker 1: time just figuring out how to frame the issue than we do and actually doing the show.

[0:57:04] Speaker 2: And Randy, isn't that a good reason for people, and I and I mean, I know people working two jobs and three jobs and life is busy, but I think that's a good reason why people should do their best to get involved in some issue at some level within their community to get a sense of just how difficult that can be.

[0:57:21] Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you you find out quickly. Dolores, thank you really for all your hard hard work and for calling in this morning. I got two people I want to get to before we run out of time, but I really appreciate hearing from you this morning.

[0:57:32] Dolores: Thank you. Thank all of you.

[0:57:33] Speaker 1: Okay, let's go quickly to Steve in Honolulu. Steve.

[0:57:36] Steve: Hi Randy, good show. You know, um one person that I think is the model, and I know in Hawaii it might be you, it might be Jim Burow, there's a lot of good models here, but I think a lot of people would agree Ralph Nader is the number one citizens action motivator.

[0:57:55] Speaker 1: Okay.

[0:57:56] Steve: Um and Jerry Burris needs to answer why he's not uh covering that. I also wrote to CNN on the internet and got, you know, a uh a uh a response, one of those canned responses.

[0:58:12] Speaker 1: Well let's we've got Burris right here on the hot seat and again, I don't want us to go off in a different direction. but.

[0:58:18] Steve: No, basically I'm saying if you're talking about citizen activists, he's the number one. Can you tell me one person?

[0:58:25] Speaker 1: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:58:41] Jerry Burris: You know, it's an interesting thing. He's we probably over time, given far more space to Nader as a consumer activist than as a citizen activist than we have as a presidential candidate. And uh I have to analyze why that is, but uh I have a feeling that that he's seen slightly different as a presidential candidate than he is as a citizen activist.

[0:59:01] Speaker 1: Well, say very different.

[0:59:02] Jerry Burris: Uh and and it may be I don't know what it is, but obviously, he is he he isn't going to win. And so there's some sort of subtle psychological thing that you got to focus on the people who are like But why is it that he isn't going to win. I know. It's the chicken and an egg thing. I we all recognize that.

[0:59:17] Speaker 1: Oh, but I think it's the papers that are the chicken here. I And you're egging us on. Anyways, thank you very much, but I think that sums up the citizen activism thing. Thank you, Steve. Bye-bye. Well, we had some uh interesting comments. Uh real quickly, Renee, because I got to save four minutes for something special at the end. Renee, you're on.

[0:59:37] Renee: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[1:00:24] Speaker 1: Renee, you know, I I have to move on. I I appreciate you making that point. You've made it extremely well, better than I made it in my article this morning. Uh but I've got to move on.

[1:00:34] Renee: Thank you. Thank you, Renee. Thank you for your show.

[1:00:36] Speaker 1: We've got just a couple of minutes left and I and I want to thank the Hawaii Community Foundation for its uh undying support and for all of the really good things it does in the community and has for a long long time. Jeff Alardi, the director of operations here at Public Radio and Public Radio, I think it's done a wonderful job, uh dedicated staff, lots of volunteers, Susie Roth, our producer, but the last couple minutes I want to have Chuck Friedman read something that that he wrote and and in part because it is a tribute to community or civic activism. It's from his days in the Peace Core, Dolores Foe was in the Peace Core, a lot of Peace Core people. Chuck, close this show out by reading a a little thing that you wrote.

[1:01:14] Chuck Freedman: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[1:02:16] Chuck Freedman: Camadings? Now possessing a college degree, I figured out this meant, are you filled up? I nodded, yes. The third night I was there, I went for a walk after dinner down to the beach. I was doing what peace core told me, dropping my American biases and absorbing the culture. Good stuff, I could do it. And then it grabbed me from the inside out, the tropical trots, invading some deep intestinal labyrinth, impenetrable back in Western civilization, but apparently vulnerable in small Pacific islands. I had to go to the bathroom, and soon. I had to go worse than I ever had to go before, worse than all the other times before, added up. A few hundred yards ahead was the school. Near it was the banjo, outhouse. I sprinted in the darkness and had my pants down as I entered the door bent over and backwards. A high degree of difficulty movement untaught in any Peace Core manual. Clearly, it was not in the Torah to eat spam in Micronesia. God was going to get it all out of me and pronto. In a few minutes, I was relieved. I looked around for the toilet paper, there was none. There never is in Palau, an old Sears catalog maybe, but not tissue. In this case, there was nothing. And so, prouder than ever of my college education, I used my underpants. Then I zipped up, belted down and walked out. Three feet out the door, I was attacked again. I cringed. How could there be anything left? Back to the wooden box with a hole in it, purging the thought of eating spam, I figured, worse, I was wiperless. As I thought it out, I looked down through the hole, something, stuff maybe, was moving down there. I was not in Kansas anymore. With my dignity gone, I pulled out my wallet, I had a couple of dollars which I used and sent down to the crawling things. Not done, I employed my Lafayette college ID, my press card and finally my driver's license. I was sorting out priorities. I'd unloaded all material wealth and all connections to my past, right down the banjo and Pelalu. I had not sought oneness with myself, it had found me from the inside out. A cultural catharsis, spiritual, hardly. The experience quite unexpectedly, had been a visceral one. I stood up, slowly this time and felt really, really good. A brand new man, a whole new world.

[1:04:54] Speaker 1: And with that, folks, we sign off for uh about five months with the live shows. We're going to have a lot of replays in the meantime. I want to thank Chuck Friedman, Jerry Burris, Jeff Ilardi, Susie Roth, the people at the community foundation, the people here at Hawaii public radio. Uh we've really enjoyed bringing this to you. Thank you gentlemen. You've been listening to the Price of Paradise Radio show. I'm Randy Roth. Aloha.

[1:04:54] Randall Roth: And with that, folks, we sign off for about five months with the live shows.

[1:04:59] Randall Roth: We're going to have a lot of replays in the meantime.

[1:05:02] Randall Roth: I want to thank Chuck Friedman, Jerry Burris, Jeff Ailardy, Susie Roth, the people at the Community Foundation, the people here at Hawaii Public Radio.

[1:05:10] Randall Roth: Uh, we've really enjoyed bringing this to you.

[1:05:13] Randall Roth: Thank you, gentlemen.

[1:05:14] Randall Roth: You've been listening to the Price of Paradise Radio show.

[1:05:16] Randall Roth: I'm Randy Roth.

[1:05:18] Randall Roth: Aloha.

[1:05:23] [music outro 227s]