ITEM: The attempted rescue by three young men of a German tourist from drowning Oct. 2 at Hanakapi’ai Beach was witnessed by another visitor from California, who didn’t get their names but did snap a picture of them. The Californian,
ITEM: The attempted rescue by three young men of a German tourist from drowning
Oct. 2 at Hanakapi’ai Beach was witnessed by another visitor from California,
who didn’t get their names but did snap a picture of them. The Californian,
Ruth Murray of San Diego, submitted the photograph to The Garden Island along
with a touching op-ed she wrote for TGI’s Oct. 16 issue about the trio’s
heroics.
COMMENT: Now the rest of the story about the rescuers, who were at
the beach for a day of surfing and went away disappointed that they couldn’t
save the life of the German woman. Their names are Samuel Shaw, who called to
identify the threesome, Logan Carr and a guy Samuel only knows as Travis. The
island knows them all as heroes.
ITEM: Heads of divisions within Kaua’i
Police Department have bigger salaries than the chief.
COMMENT: It doesn’t
matter who the people are. It does, however, matter that a police chief makes
less than some of his subordinates. It flat-out isn’t fair under virtually any
scenario imaginable. The county’s Salary Commission, whose recommendations for
higher wages for the mayor and other county officials included the police
chief, should make another proposal that, if nothing else, puts the cops in the
proper pecking order on payday.
ITEM: Three women still in the running for
the Kaua’i County Council hope at least one of them cracks the all-male council
so that female points of view can be an active part of shaping county
government. As one of the distaff candidates, Rhoda Libre, put it, “We see
things in our own way. It’s a way of looking at issues and ideas that’s
needed.”
COMMENT: Libre, Kauilani Kahalekai and Anne Donovan finished 10th
or lower in the primary election last month. They have a lot of ground to make
up for the Nov. 7 general election, in which seven candidates will win council
seats. The women hopefuls must get a convincing message to voters if they hope
to give the council a woman’s touch.
ITEM: Researchers in Chicago, Ill.
spent four years analyzing the chemical components of a lock of Ludwig van
Beethoven’s hair and found 100 times the normal concentration of lead in hair
of today. Their conclusion: The famed composer may have have acted crazy and/or
been physically ill because of lead poisoning.
COMMENT: This information,
passed along to TGI readers Wednesday in an Associated Press report, is in the
running for Useless International News Item of the Year. Maybe lead knocked
Beethoven off his rocker. Or maybe he was just an eccentric genius. Guess we’ll
never know. For sure, let’s not lay awake at night wondering. And somebody
please find a real job for those researchers.
ITEM: Russ Francis, the
Republican Party’s longshot candidate for U.S. representative in Hawaii’s
Second District, was on Kaua’i this week looking for votes and will be back
again next week and Nov. 1 for some coffee klatches in Kekaha and
Kalaheo.
COMMENT: Francis was a heckuva player in the National Football
League, and he still packs a little celebrity sizzle from his pigskin days. But
he has as much chance of beating the Democratic incumbent, Rep. Patsy Mink, as
Mink does of suiting for an NFL game.
TGI editor Pat Jenkins can be reached
at 245-3681 (ext. 227) and pjenkins@pulitzer.net
