For Conversation Café discussion on January 9, 2020 at 3 pm in the Ohia Room. Click on the title above to open the post with its comments.

As we venture into the New Year, let’s discuss what has happened in the past year. Here a few of the issues that were in the news during the year. These are by no means all-inclusive. Please send in your own suggestions for topics by using the comments feature. This post will be edited to include any that are received. (Latest edit: January 27,)

International

• Fall of the ISIS Caliphate: By January 2019, the caliphate Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had proclaimed four and a half years earlier had been whittled down to less than 50 square kilometers and was shrinking by the day. The enclave that Baghdadi left behind finally fell over the weekend after he fled into hiding. In late October, he died in a raid by U.S. troops in northern Syria, bringing a dramatic end to a years-long U.S.-led hunt.
• Brexit and the political upheaval in the United Kingdom (UK): Brexit is the term used to refer to the UK’s decision to leave the European Union (EU) and is a shortened version of British Exit. On June 23, 2016, the UK decided to officially sever ties with the EU. This monumental decision came as the result of a referendum—or public vote of nearly all citizens of voting age—in which more than 30 million people voted. In 2019, the ruling Conservative Party under Prime Minister Teresa May had failed to negotiate the details of the exit, and in July 2019 she was replaced by Boris Johnson as a result of a party leadership election. In October 2019, Parliament was dissolved and an election called for December 12. The election gave the Conservative Party their biggest majority since 1987. Prime Minister Boris Johnson won approval for his Brexit deal in parliament on December 20, the first step towards fulfilling his election pledge to deliver Britain’s departure from the European Union by January 31 after his landslide victory.
• Demonstrations in Hong Kong: Protests triggered by the HK Government’s proposal to pass legislation on extradition began in March 2019. A series of escalating public protests and demonstrations continued throughout the year, with many other grievances coming to the fore. These began to include violent clashes with the police. A march on June 16 involved between 1.5 and 2 million people. The protests continued in the following months. The 24 November District Council election, considered a referendum on the government and protests, saw the pro-democracy camp delivering their biggest electoral landslide and the pro-Beijing camp suffering their biggest electoral defeat in Hong Kong history. Unrest continued throughout December.

National:

• Presidential Politics: The Special Counsel’s report on the investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election was published in 2019. Late in the year, the House of Representatives voted to adopt two articles of impeachment, essentially on strict part lines. On the Democrat side of the upcoming presidential contest, a large number of candidates seeking the nomination in 2020 participated in a series of televised debates; throughout the process, most polls continued to show former Vice President Joe Biden as the front-runner, with Sanders and Warren still in contention as some of the early hopefuls dropped out and a couple of billionaires jumped in late.
• The Economy: Economic news in 2019 was very good, with substantial gains in job numbers, record low unemployment, a series of record highs in the stock market averages, and considerable growth in wages, especially in lower wage jobs.
• Legislation: Despite the partisan rancor in Washington, Congress managed to pass a landmark criminal justice reform bill, the First Step Act. Bipartisan support also resulted in approval of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, which will replace the current NAFTA agreement that governs trade in North America, a massive $1.4 trillion spending bill that will put off the possibility of a government shutdown until next September, and a $738 billion defense bill that hinged in part on two seemingly disparate issues: paid parental leave and the president’s proposed new “Space Force.”

Local

• TMT: The impasse over the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope has continued despite a decision on October 30 by the State Supreme Court that cleared it of all the legal barriers. Substantial amounts of public funds have been expended to manage the problems caused by opponents of the project who have blocked access to the site. Late in the year, Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim has struck a deal with the protesters on Mauna Kea, with Kim pledging there will be no construction activity by the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea and no police action to clear out the protesters during January and February provided the protesters move off Mauna Kea Access Road.

• Elections: Tulsi Gabbard’s decision to run for the Democratic nomination for President instead of standing for re-election has opened up a congressional seat to all-comers. She has come under increasing pressure to resign her seat, which she can still occupy throughout 2020, on the basis that she is neglecting her duty to represent her district while she is campaigning for the presidential nomination. There is also a wide-open competition for Mayor of Honolulu since the incumbent will be reaching the term limit.
• Aloha Stadium: The project to create a new stadium has gotten under way, with promises of results within a few years,

A combination of factors resulted in a Conversation Café meeting on December 5 with two people in attendance (including me). One factor was that an interesting talk by a resident about her book was being offered in the Diamond Head Room at the same time. In addition, the meeting was not included in the Calendar, and not mentioned in the weekly highlights. This was not the fault of the Lifestyles Office–with other things on my mind and Jack Harmon off in Kentucky for Thanksgiving, I failed to make it clear that we intended to meet. Unfortunately, I had told the Dining department that we would meet, so we had a large selection of Kahala Nui cookies and a supply of coffee that the two us could hardly do justice to. Afterwards, we took the leftovers to the Finance Office to share.

I think we should put the Conversation Café on hold for the rest of December. I will inform Dining that we will not require the coffee and cookie service until further notice, and will ask Lifestyles to add Conversation Café (cancelled) to the Highlights flyer for the remaining weeks in the month. In the days left in 2019, I’ll contact some of the regular attendees to see what we want to do in January.

Alas, one possibility may be to say goodbye to this old and formerly cherished activity. I have the impression that conversation is much more difficult in these polarized days, and people would rather converse privately with those whose opinions they know are close to their own. A less draconian approach might be to keep the concept alive but dormant and bring it out of mothballs on special occasions when there is a topic people are itching to talk about. The coming presidential election year may spark some such interest, and maybe some local issues will stimulate a desire for discussion.

In the meantime, I will continue to add to this blog, but unless some other contributors come forward, that means it will mostly be a record of my own thoughts and opinions. Perhaps some dialogue will result via the comments feature if anyone actually reads the blog and is interested enough to take issue with what I have to say.

Looks like we will only meet on December 5 and December 12. On the 18th, Jack and I will be at the meeting for Distribution of the Associate Appreciation Fund checks to our hard-working staff. This usually runs until the end of the shift for the housekeepers around 4 pm. In principle, others can meet without us, and we can discuss this at the next two meetings. As for December 26, we had already decided to cancel the day after Christmas (Boxing Day to those of us who have lived under British rule).

With Jack away, and so much else going on around Thanksgiving, we did not come up with a topic for December 5 and will have to make this an Open Mike day. It’s possible there may be some news about the report from the Inspector-General of the Department of Justice relating to the issuing of FISA warrants in 2016 or thereabouts for discussion at the meeting on the 12th. But the way things have been working out, there’s no guarantee that this will be of as much interest as originally seemed likely. It may even be as much of a bust as the “impeachment inquiry,” which was described as the most important thing ever and needing immediate action to save our democracy….by the same folks who then decided to take off for the holidays. This is purely an opinion, but I think the whole effort laid an egg as far as entertainment value is concerned. It drew an even smaller TV audience than the last Democrat debates. And our Conversation Café group was on the low end of the attendance scale when we advertised this as the topic. Anyway, if we get a few people to come on the 5th, we can exchange opinions on the matter.

Due to a conflict with the Veterans Day program on November 7, and the usual bye week after the Town Hall on November 14, we will not have a Conversation Café session until Thursday, November 21. We probably won’t want to have a session on Thanksgiving Day either. I think that unless the impeachment inquiry has managed to lose its momentum by then, this topic may be a suitable choice for discussion at that sole meeting in November.

In preparation, here are a few thoughts to bring to the table.

First, let’s recall this statement:

Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country.

And how about this one:

… today, I’m announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. I’m directing our six committees to proceed with their investigations under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry. The president must be held accountable. No one is above the law.

Does either or both of these statements make sense? The first was made by Nancy Pelosi on March 11; the second also by Nancy Pelosi, on September 24. What changed? Was the information coming out from the investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence really that compelling and/or overwhelming? Was this judgement somehow “bipartisan?” The closest thing to bipartisanship in this case was that two Democrats voted with all of the Republicans against the resolution to authorize an impeachment inquiry.

I would argue that it perfectly reasonable for you (or at least for Nancy Pelosi) to agree with both statements, if you understand that impeachment is a political act, not a judicial one, and that this was how the authors of the Constitution wanted it. The Constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power of impeachment, specifies no rules for how this is to be done (apart from requiring that articles of impeachment had be approved by a majority vote of the House), and gives only a vague description of what constitutes grounds for impeachment. What changed in the six months between these two statements by the Speaker was the political calculus. In March, there was a concern that impeachment proceedings would benefit Trump; in September, the hope is that impeachment will hurt his re-election chances.

Time will tell. Maybe by November 21, we will have a clearer idea of how this playing out. But you don’t need to wait until then to weigh in on this issue. Just click on “Leave a reply” below, or move your cursor to the ghostly speech balloon on the right end of the title line above (it will light up in blue when you do so) and click on that. This will open up a window in which you can type your own thoughts on the matter. Click on the rectangle labelled “Post Comment” to submit what you wrote.

For Conversation Café discussion on October 31, 2019 at 3 pm in the Ohia Room. Click on the title above to open the post with its comments.

The political conversation has been dominated by national issues, but we think it is time to take a look at what is going on closer to home. In the coming year, local politics will be a bit more interesting than we might have expected, since Tulsi Gabbard has announced she will not be standing for re-election, meaning Hawaii’s 2nd district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives is up for grabs. Combine this with the run for mayor of Honolulu, where the current mayor is facing a term limit, and we have two major elections with no incumbent. In addition, there will be a number of candidates running for Honolulu Prosecutor in the wake of scandals that have kept this office in the public eye for several years.

In the Congressional election, Tuli’s announcement was quickly followed by a number of contenders entering the race to replace her, including Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, former U.S. Representative Charles Djou, former Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho, former state Senator Jill Tokuda, current state Senator Donna Kim and State House Representatives Chris Lee and Stanley Chang. The second district includes all of the neighbor islands but also a significant portion of suburban and rural Oahu, including the Windward and Leeward Coasts, and the northern part of the island from the North Shore down through Wahiawa. In case you are wondering, the U.S. Constitution specifies that a representative must be a resident of the State he or she represents, but does not have to live in the specific district. It’s worth noting that the neighbor islands have a majority of the population in district 2.

The latest news is that Councilwoman Kimberly Pine, Councilman Ron Menor, and newcomer Keith Amemiya have indicated they will compete for the seat left vacant by Mayor Caldwell. Pine is a resident of Windward Oahu, and served four terms in the State House as a rarity in Hawaii politics–a Republican.

The candidates for Honolulu Prosceutor so far include the current acting Prosecutor Dwight Nadamoto, Jacquelyn Esser, who has been a Honolulu deputy public defender for the past 10 years, former deputy prosecuting attorney RJ Brown, and Honolulu attorneys Tae Kim and Megan Kau.

I had put this blog site together as a means for getting more information out about the topics we were planning to discuss, and perhaps to solicit suggestions from the general Kahala Nui population for future topics. It may be too early to declare these latter hopes as dashed, but it is generous to describe the response to date as minimal. The recent change to a more freestyle form of discussion, if this becomes the norm, would further decrease the usefulness of the blog for its original purposes.

The freestyle discussion mode, which we have described as Open Mike, has the advantage that those who meet can discuss whatever topic seems most relevant in light of recent news and developments. The first session of this sort was quite active, and drew a fairly decent attendance by our (admittedly modest) standards. The second meeting had only four members in attendance, but we were competing with some other events that several of our regulars were attending. We will try this format again on September 19, and one topic will be where to go from here. I will suggest we go back to a topic for the first meeting of October, but we can decide at the September 19 session.

I any case, the usefulness of this blog to publicize the topic of discussion does not seem to be working, and will be even less useful if we have no topic to publicize. It’s possible, with a presidential election coming up in 2020, there will be more interest in coming together to discuss the candidates and the issues. To date, however, the Democratic primary debates have not sparked much interest or enthusiasm. This may change when the field narrows.

So, what purpose this blog? One possibility would be to use it as a forum for discussion, like many other blogs. As such it would supplement the face-to-face discussions that take place at meetings of the Conversation Café. To make this work, we should have more than one regular contributor of posts. For one thing, this would spread the work around, and second, it would allow a broader range of opinions. At present, I am the only person with direct access who can post full articles. This has actually somewhat limited me, since I feel I am obliged to at least try to be even-handed. It is quite easy to add additional contributors, who could log on to the site and add their own blog entries. Ideally, it would work best if we had three to four people, in addition to me, who would each commit to posting something at least once a month (preferably even once a week) on a topic of their choice and expressing their own opinions about the issues. Readers would still be able to submit comments on any post.

To implement this, we would need to find people willing to be co-authors, and representing a variety of views on the issues of most interest. They would have to become familiar with using the computer for editing and entering posts. The WordPress system has a fairly straightforward interface, but it still takes a bit of effort to make full use of its features. Right now, for example, I am just typing this into a page on the screen. When I am done, I will click on a blue button on the upper right of the page with the label “Publish” on it. This will first ask if I am sure I am ready to publish, and when I say Yes the post will be generated and added to the blog that is visible to readers.

So, here goes…I am about to click Publish. If you are reading this, and think you might like to be a co-author of the Conversation Café blog, either submit a comment to this post, or just contact me in person. I am Peter Dobson, and am in apartment 105.

For Conversation Café discussion on September 12 and 19, 2019 at 3 pm in the Ohia Room.

The freestyle discussion held on September 5 worked very well. We had stimulating discussions of a number of topics, including

• The situation in Hong Kong
• An op-ed in the Advertiser that reported problems at Queens Medical Center that might have important implications for the availability of doctors in Honolulu and the health care system in general
• Indications that the state may be preparing to enforce the permit for construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope

We decided to continue with this format for at least the next two weeks. Please consider joining in. And if you have some suggestions of issues you would like to discuss, click the link reply to leave a reply to this post.

For Conversation Café discussion on September 5, 2019 at 3 pm in the Ohia Room. Click on the title above to open the post with its comments

We don’t actually have a microphone at our meetings, but the caption is borrowed from the open mike nights at many comedy clubs. This is a variant of a traditional Conversation Café topic called “Current Events.” For those sessions, one of the group asked those present for stories from the news on international, national, and local issues and wrote them on a big paper pad with a marker pen. We would then go down the list and see what anyone wanted to say about it.

For next week’s meeting the idea is for people to watch for interesting news items or even word-of-mouth opinions and comments on what’s going on, and bring their thoughts to the meeting to share. I’m not sure how this will work, but we’ve managed to have entertaining meetings when nobody really had much to say about the posted topic, so it’s worth a try. If it goes well, we may use this on a regular basis, say once a month, in place of a predetermined topic.

Anyone reading this is welcome to give suggestions by leaving a comment to this post. You don’t even have to agree to show up to talk about it. I will leave some items of possible interest in comments linked to this post.

For Conversation Café discussion on August 29, 2019 at 3 pm in the Ohia Room. Click on the title above to open the post with its comments

We often hear bold statements of a goal to have all electric power provided from “renewable sources” by some date not too long in the future. (If the statement is from a politician, that date is almost surely beyond the person’s term of office.) Sounds good, but it is often stated or implied that “renewables” are solar power and wind power, which is logical since most of the other major sources (nuclear energy, natural gas, oil, coal) use up the fuel, which has to be renewed. There are other options, like hydroelectric power and geothermal power, but these are limited to locations with specific geographical and geological conditions. But is it really possible to supply most of our energy needs with solar power (specifically via photovoltaic generation) or wind power (via large wind turbines)?

To address the question, we have to recognize that our “need” is not just for generic electricity, but for “dispatchable” electricity; that is, electric power that is available on demand. Neither solar nor wind provide dispatchable energy: solar only works when the sun shines and wind, when the wind is blowing. So wind and solar alone cannot be the future of energy; there has to be a third component. This is an effective and efficient way to store the excess energy when more is being generated than is needed so that it can be dispatched when less is being generated. Sounds like the definition of a battery (although some other options like pumped hydropower exist). So using “battery” as a generic term for the storage the real question is will wind, solar, and batteries be the future of energy?

If you think you know the answer, let us know by leaving a reply to this article.

It is early days, so it may be too soon to give up on this project. However, except for two very short comments by people who are already frequent visitors to the Conversation Café, there has not been much evidence of any interest in the content of this blog. In hopes that there are some people looking at it, but who are uncertain as to what to do, I will give you a brief introduction.

A blog is a website where the content changes frequently since the author(s) of the site are committed to making regular contributions. Many blogs, including this one, provide for additional content to be added by readers of the site who are allowed to post comments. In our case, all IL residents enjoy this privilege. When you open the site you can scroll down to see all the posted articles. Comments on an article are accepted up to about three weeks after its publication. My main point here is that to get the most out of the blog, you should visit it regularly. I add material to the blog on almost a daily basis, either through articles like this, or in comments that provide additional information. All of the entries are fairly short and it should only take a few minutes to read any new material.

At present, I am the sole “author” of the blog. For that reason, I try to be fairly neutral in what I post in an article describing a topic for an upcoming meeting of the Café. Posts of this sort all start with a statement in bold face type giving the date and time of the meeting at the top. After publishing a topic announcement, I usually add some background information about the topic in the form of comments on the original article. These may be added several days after the original; another reason to check back frequently if you have any interest in the topic. Once again, my goal in providing the additional information is to be fairly even-handed, but there is inevitably some selection bias that creeps in. (You can counter this by making your own comments on my comments.)

I will sometimes include an article that is essentially an op-ed; in other words, something representing my personal opinion on an issue. For the time being, you can challenge (or support) my views by commenting on my article. Ideally, we could have a discussion thread involving several people expressing a variety of views. None of this can happen unless some of you read the blog and have enough interest to submit a comment.

If the blog eventually builds a readership, I will invite others to become additional authors. This will help to ensure that the content of the blog will not be too one-sided. By the end of the year, I will need to make a decision as to whether or not this blog is having any effect on interest in Conversation Café. It doesn’t cost me anything to run it, but it does take time that might be better spent on watching football, say. For the time being it is kind of fun, but in four or five months, if I am just talking to myself, I will likely shut it down. And no one will notice….

Peter Dobson (105)