Dennis Fahringer's blog http://fotofah.posterous.com Most recent posts at Dennis Fahringer's blog posterous.com Mon, 18 Jun 2012 18:12:00 -0700 Hawaiian Airlines Launches Non-Stop Service From JFK to Honolulu (round-trip $699) http://fotofah.posterous.com/hawaiian-airlines-launches-non-stop-service-f http://fotofah.posterous.com/hawaiian-airlines-launches-non-stop-service-f
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Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:58:00 -0700 Hawaii Turns to Dog Shrinks as 'Incessant Barkers' Cut Plea Deals (news from the Big Island in WSJ!) http://fotofah.posterous.com/hawaii-turns-to-dog-shrinks-as-incessant-bark http://fotofah.posterous.com/hawaii-turns-to-dog-shrinks-as-incessant-bark

By JIM CARLTON

PAHOA, Hawaii—Carl Oguss is trying to use psychology to reform a couple of scofflaws, who are meeting with him as part of a plea deal.

"No!" he shouts, jabbing a finger at the miscreants after they appear to snub his attempt to drum some sense into them. One of them, Kala, hangs her head.

The other, Kamakani, gives a defiant response: "Woof!"

[BARK] Jim Carlton/The Wall Street Journal

Henry and Lindsey Kapu seek help for their dogs from Carl Oguss. right, who operates the East Hawaii Dog Psychology Center on the Big Island.

There's the problem. Local authorities have charged Kala and Kamakani with being "incessant barkers," an offense under a new law here on the Big Island. If the two Italian sheepdogs don't zip it, their owners face $575 in fines, and the dogs could be evicted from the neighborhood.

"We have to say 'no' like a loving parent," Mr. Oguss, who operates the East Hawaii Dog Psychology Center, explains to owners Henry and Lindsey Kapu, whose lenience he thinks makes the dogs feel free to bark. He's administering dog counseling as part of a plea deal the Kapus have made after five barking citations.

Dog counseling has been in demand in Hawaii County since early last year, when county commissioners passed an ordinance banning "barks, bays, cries, howls" that go on continuously for 10 minutes, or intermittently for 20 minutes within a half-hour.

Police can write barking tickets or sentence an incessant howler to a humane shelter. "We had to do something because you have neighbors living next to dogs that are barking and driving them crazy," says Mitch Roth, a Hawaii County prosecutor who takes on barking cases. "Then neighbors start fighting and there's mayhem."

Nuisance yapping is a problem everywhere. Los Angeles passed last year an antibarking law with fines up to $1,000. Two years ago, Centennial, Colo. passed an ordinance imposing fines up to $100 per violation on owners of dogs that bark more than 10 minutes.

Dogs probably aren't yowling more than before. Instead, officials in places like Hawaii County speculate that barking complaints have risen in part because more people are home to hear the yapping after losing their jobs.

Dog counseling has become a big business in Hawaii after the state passed new legislation aimed at silencing "incessant barkers." WSJ's Jim Carlton reports.

This Pacific island needed a stronger bark-abeyance law, authorities here say, because it has a particular pooch-population problem. The average U.S. household has 1.7 dogs, says a 2007 American Veterinary Medical Association report. On the Big Island, where people use dogs for hunting wild pigs, many residents have at least five and some as many 30 dogs, says Debbie Crazatta, founder of the Kohala Animal Relocation and Education Service, which helps find homes for stray dogs.

Dog-less islanders have long complained of dogs that bark around the clock. Jim Radovic says his neighbor's 10 dogs would serenade their block in Hilo, Hawaii, at all hours before the anti-bark law. "We got to the point we had two fans blasting next to our heads so we could go to sleep," says the 51-year-old emergency-room nurse.

Under previous law, officers had to time barking for 30 minutes and then give the owner an hour to quiet the hound. Police were usually too busy to stick around timing dog barks.

Mr. Radovic called police as soon as the law went into effect in May. County officials have since impounded five of the offending dogs. "We can sleep better at night," he says.

Some say the new law infringes on rights, human and canine. "It's nuts, man," says 49-year-old Clyde Wheatley, a bulldozer operator whose Rottweiler and Labrador have no barking violations. "To me, barking is good because it notifies you somebody's around who shouldn't be around."

Indeed, it is OK, under the new law, to bark if your owner is about to be attacked.

A county brochure, "Problem Solving Noisy Dogs," recommends three steps. First: Notify the owner. Next: Call the Humane Society for bark-suppression tips, such as "spraying your dog while it is barking."

Last resort: Call police, the brochure says, "when the dog is actively barking and exceeding the time limits." People have called the agency almost daily since the law passed, compared with once or twice a week before, says Starr Yamada, an animal-control officer.

Donna Whitaker, executive director of the Hawaii Island Humane Society, says often a dog barks because it is bored. Dr. Oguss says sometimes a well-mannered mutt is egged into barking by another dog. One large dog, he found, was blowing his cool after hearing the Chihuahua next door yapping for hours. "A dog who is instigating by being rude to your dog is looking to start trouble," Mr. Oguss says.

The Kapus say their problem—and their hiring Mr. Oguss—stems from a personality conflict between the dogs and neighbor Jack Sailer, a 75-year-old retired hospital broker from Texas who reported their dogs to the police. "He's a creepy old man who stares at us through the bushes," says Mr. Kapu, 28 years old, who runs an organic farm on the one-acre property with his wife, 27. "The dogs bark when they see him."

Mr. Sailer says he harbors no ill will and chuckles at being called creepy. He says trouble started after the Kapus started the organic farm. "The dogs would start barking at six in the morning and still be barking at nine in the evening."

Police issued the couple a citation with a $25 fine, then four more with fines totaling $575. The Kapus cut a plea deal with the prosecutor: He would dismiss their last four citations if they agreed to dog counseling and if their hounds avoided barking violations during a six-month probation.

Sizing up his patients, Mr. Oguss metes out advice. Let the dogs know who's boss, he says, teaching Mr. and Ms. Kapus, for example, not to let their dogs walk ahead of them.

But there may be a fundamental problem: Mr. Oguss suspects Kala and Kamakani bark unnecessarily because they cooped up in a 20-foot-by-20-foot enclosure with three goats. "There's very little for them to do," Mr. Oguss says. "Barking is their TV."

The two dogs have learned to pipe down long enough for the county to dismiss the four citations. They aren't out of the woods yet. "If the Kapus re-offend within six months," Mr. Oguss says, "then the matter will be revisited."

 

A version of this article appeared April 9, 2012, on page A1 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Hawaii Turns to Dog Shrinks As 'Incessant Barkers' Enter Pleas.

 

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Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:11:00 -0800 Hawaii ranked 4th in overall health nationwide http://fotofah.posterous.com/hawaii-ranked-4th-in-overall-health-nationwid http://fotofah.posterous.com/hawaii-ranked-4th-in-overall-health-nationwid

Hawaii ranks fourth in a state-by-state health analysis.

United Health Foundation released its 2011 America's Health Rankings Tuesday, showing that Hawaii moved up from last year's ranking of fifth.

The rankings highlight Hawaii's health strengths as a low rate of uninsured population, high per capita public health funding and low rate of preventable hospitalizations.

The Aloha State's challenges include low immunization coverage, high prevalence of binge drinking and a low high school graduation rate.

The report notes that in In Hawaii, obesity is more prevalent among non-Hispanic Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders at 56.8 percent than whites at 19.3 percent. In the past five years adult obesity increased from 19.7 percent to 23.1 percent. There are now 244,000 obese adults in Hawaii.

 

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Sat, 03 Sep 2011 13:45:00 -0700 Study finds Hawaii is #1 in methamphetamine use among employees, 410% higher than the U.S. average http://fotofah.posterous.com/study-finds-hawaii-is-1-in-methamphetamine-us http://fotofah.posterous.com/study-finds-hawaii-is-1-in-methamphetamine-us

http://bit.ly/qZsiyx

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Sat, 03 Sep 2011 13:36:00 -0700 Nearly 1/2 the babies on our Big Island are exposed in the womb to alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs :-( http://fotofah.posterous.com/nearly-12-the-babies-on-our-big-island-are-ex http://fotofah.posterous.com/nearly-12-the-babies-on-our-big-island-are-ex

http://bit.ly/oOEEkR

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Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:02:27 -0700 Top 3 Mac-using states are Vermont, Hawaii (19.41%) and Maine, according to Chitika Insights http://fotofah.posterous.com/top-3-mac-using-states-are-vermont-hawaii-194 http://fotofah.posterous.com/top-3-mac-using-states-are-vermont-hawaii-194 By city, San Francisco was #1, with 24% marketshare. California had the 4 top Mac-using cities in the U.S.

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Mon, 04 Jul 2011 17:01:28 -0700 Abuse goes unpunished at Hawaii's elderly care homes (very sad story) http://fotofah.posterous.com/abuse-goes-unpunished-at-hawaiis-elderly-care http://fotofah.posterous.com/abuse-goes-unpunished-at-hawaiis-elderly-care http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/hawaiinews/20110704__Abuse_goes_unpunished...

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Sat, 25 Jun 2011 01:05:00 -0700 Great photos of a 104 yr. old woman (plus a granddaughter) in the town I live in http://fotofah.posterous.com/great-photos-of-a-104-yr-old-woman-in-the-tow http://fotofah.posterous.com/great-photos-of-a-104-yr-old-woman-in-the-tow
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Photos by Ruth Powell, a past SOP I student of mine.

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Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:59:00 -0700 sex trafficking in Hawaii (quite an eye-opening article from the Honolulu StarAdvertiser) http://fotofah.posterous.com/sex-trafficking-in-hawaii-quite-an-eye-openin http://fotofah.posterous.com/sex-trafficking-in-hawaii-quite-an-eye-openin

STAR-ADVERTISER PHOTO ILLUSTRATION; PHOTO BY FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARADVERTISER.COM
The streets of Waikiki regularly teem with a variety of night life, as shown in this scene along Kuhio Avenue recently.

More Photos


INTRODUCTION

It’s called the world’s oldest profession, and it’s not exactly a new phenomenon in little Waikiki, either.

What is new is that Honolulu is about to move under the white-hot glare of international attention, and prostitution is not exactly what Hawaii leaders want to have front and center.

The advent of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in November has left Waikiki residents anticipating that the influx of some 20,000 attendees will create a surge in prostitution. And advocates for legislation to protect the victims of sex trafficking are afraid that the Waikiki sidewalk crowds will include some who were pressed into service against their will.

Kathryn Xian probably has the pressure of that impending event to thank for the legislation that finally was passed in the 2011 session, after years of her lobbying. Xian is director of advocacy for the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, which this year pushed for passage of House Bill 240, the first measure that attempts to address the issue of sex trafficking in some way.

“We’ve been at this with them for six years,” Xian said. “The previous administration’s view was that if it (the law) was not broke, don't fix it. And also because the victims were viewed as part of the problem.”

HB 240 is still under review by Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who has until July 12 to sign it or veto it; otherwise it becomes law without his signature.

This measure wasn’t what Xian and other advocates first proposed, either this year or in previous years. What they wanted was the creation of a new section of law to deal expressly with sex trafficking, establishing a set of new criminal terminology in which the person drawn into the sex trade is defined as a victim, not as a prostitute.

But Xian’s complaints about the Linda Lingle administration notwithstanding, the current city prosecutor agreed with the former governor that the sex trafficking bill offered both in 2010 and 2011 was the wrong approach. New legal definitions often get challenged in court, Keith Kaneshiro said, so he found Lingle’s veto to be based on sound reasoning.

Instead, Kaneshiro’s staff worked with state Sen. Clayton Hee and other lawmakers to craft a bill aimed at working within tried and tested legal definitions.

“We thought, ‘Why don’t we try to take the concerns of the human-trafficking people and look at how we can address the concerns?’” he said. The result was a law that offered witness protection to those coerced into prostitution if they testify against those profiting from their work; hardened penalties against the people who got them into it; and toughened penalties for the “johns” who frequent prostitutes.

The term “sex trafficking” never appears in the bill.

Hee believes it will work, because it focused on the needs of people affected.

“It’s always one thing to construct laws in the abstract,” he said, “but this law resulted from real-life people sharing real-life examples.”

———

The Polaris Project is a national nonprofit that bird-dogs all the state legislation aimed at curbing the trafficking of youths and adults into the sex trade. In the eyes of its policy counsel, Hawaii is beginning a long trek upwards from the absolute bottom of the heap.

It's not taking a path the group generally prescribes, said Jim Dold, but maybe that's OK. Whatever works.

"Sometimes the best approach is just going in there and increasing penalties," Dold said. "Each state has its own issues, and each state is responding differently."

That charitable assessment aside, Polaris still officially has Hawaii listed as one of the "Dirty Dozen": the 12 U.S. states lacking in large measure the laws it favors as weapons in the war on sex trafficking.

It's hard to know how or whether Hawaii's grade will improve once the fate of House Bill 240, as well as some other measures, is decided. HB 240 is the primary measure dealing with the issue that passed in the recent legislative session, and it's unknown whether Gov. Neil Abercrombie will shepherd it finally into law.

The 2011 bill takes a different approach from legislation that passed last year, only to be vetoed by then-Gov. Linda Lingle. At that time lawmakers passed Senate Bill 2045, which created a new section criminalizing "sexual human trafficking."

The veto dismayed its advocates, but upon taking office, Honolulu City Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro examined the issue and ultimately agreed with Lingle's reasoning.

"Using the word trafficking, we never had trafficking defined," Kaneshiro said. "And there's going to be all kinds of interpretation, so of course it's going to delay. It's going to go to the Supreme Court for a firm definition.

"It's in vogue to use the term, it's politically correct. That's the term that's going around, and everybody's using now," he added. "For us in the legal system, it may be in vogue but now it has to be tested. It's going to cause more problems for us."

Instead, Kaneshiro's staff worked with the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman — Sen. Clayton Hee — and other lawmakers to toughen up existing statutes that target the demand side of the prostitution problem, adding penalties for the "johns," as well as for those making the biggest profits.

Groups worried about the state's approach to human trafficking were uneasy that there was no terminology in law distinguishing the pimps for willing prostitutes from those engaging in what they view as a modern-day form of slavery. But Kaneshiro is resolute on that point.

"One of the things the human trafficking people wanted: ‘Can't you use, instead of calling it "promoting prostitution," can you call it "sex trafficking?"' And I said no. It's going to deflect from what we're trying to accomplish."

The focus of HB 240 is the "promoting prostitution" section of the statute, and if the bill becomes law, people who coerce or push people into prostitution through fraud will be considered to be committing the offense. These are people who are sex traffickers by another name, Hee said.

"This is the best effort by lawmakers to put together broad-based approach to sex trafficking," he added.

Hee's counterpart chairman in the House, Rep. Gilbert Keith-Agaran, agreed, but acknowledged that hardening the statutes won't be enough. Whether it's sex trafficking or any other kind of human trafficking — such as the Thai slave labor being prosecuted in federal court — better training of law enforcement and government agencies is an important component.

"One of the lawyers for the Thai laborers said one of the victims of trafficking at the farms went to an official at the labor department to complain, but (the official) didn't look into it any further," Keith-Agaran said.

The actual impact of legislative changes is hard to gauge, given that there are no clear numbers on trafficking to serve as a baseline. Kaneshiro said getting a better idea of the scale will be one job for his office.

Also unknown: whether providing witness protection to the victims of sex trafficking will help.

"For all these people who testify and say they're victims, not too many have come forward to say, ‘Can you come and prosecute the people who fostered this?'" Kaneshiro said.

Some people have their doubts. Tracy Ryan, who chairs the Libertarian Party of Hawaii and who has favored the legalization of prostitution, does not object to prosecuting those who are truly in the trade against their will or through misrepresentation of some kind.

But there are many cases of prostitutes who were convinced their pimp loves them, she said, and not many of them are willing to step up as witnesses for the prosecution.

Among her other objections are that prison populations and costs will increase; that few johns are repeat offenders, making the new "habitual solicitation" offense pointless; and that many offenders are engaging in a consensual act.

"The rational bases for the whole set of ideas is not supported by any real understanding of the sex industry and seems primarily aimed at pandering to the wishes of radical feminists who have zero expertise," she said in an emailed response to the Star-Advertiser.

One of the primary advocates of sex-trafficking legislation is Kathy Xian, and she takes exception to that characterization. Xian said her Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery organization has intervened for six years on behalf of those she prefers to call "prostituted persons." Very little about what they do is consensual, she added.

"After you establish trust with them, they all say the same thing: ‘Nobody in their right mind would do this,'" Xian said.

"The unfair bias against women is the assumption that a woman would want to engage in prostitution," she added. "Reality says to us that that is not the case, but that these people have been relegated to a very small choice, and we would argue that it isn't a choice. These traffickers steal these girls' lives away."

Xian agreed that better statistics would help, but she predicted that new protections for victims will drive better prosecution.

"Come July 1 when they take effect we will see more traffickers come to justice," she said. "And we will see more victims come through our doors, so social services better get ready."

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