Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

At this point, the Honolulu-based (de)Occupy group might be considered not only a protest group but also a particular category of homeless people. While most others living on the street have been passive victims of the City’s aggressive (but expensive and wholly useless) tactics (see: Mayor admits huge waste of money in homeless raids, 4/3/2013), (de)Occupy has successfully outsmarted the City time and again, and even has a pending case in federal court alleging Constitutional violations.

The City Council is about to install planters at the location on Beretania Street where (de)Occupy had pitched their tents. This will, of course, deprive the public of access to even more area of the sidewalk than the tents took up.

The city will begin installing the planters on the Beretania Street side in the coming days and then do the same on the King Street side, Jesse Broder Van Dyke, spokes­man for Mayor Kirk Caldwell, said Monday.

In a related development, the city closed the King Street sidewalk in front of the park where (de)Occupy Hono­lulu's tents have been in place since early March, when the city shut down the Beretania-side sidewalk for park improvements. In response the group moved about a dozen of its tents across King Street and onto the sidewalk fronting the Blaisdell Center Concert Hall, where they say they will stay until they can return to the Beretania side of Thomas Square.

[Star-Advertiser, (De)Occupy Honolulu group moves tents to Concert Hall, 4/23/2013]

Let’s note here that the reason that tent “strip malls” have appeared there, near Chinatown and at other locations around Honolulu is because the City has left the occupants no other choice.  It has chased them away from other places, leaving only that narrow strip alongside city roads. It’s not as though anyone would choose that location unless forced to.

It’s likely, but untested, that the “Law of the Splintered Paddle, which is enshrined in the state constitution, Article 9, Section 10, could prevent the City from pushing them actually into the street or into jail. Or, a federal judge might rule the City’s actions unconstitutional under US law. The next hearing on that case is in May.

Paywall bypass road

The link below the cited article is experimental. Because Star-Advertiser locks its articles away behind a paywall, a link to the S-A website is useless, and I don’t provide them for that reason. But the same article is indexed in the public library database, and access to it through that database is perfectly legitimate if one has a state library card (which is free).

It’s tricky, though. One has to go to the database location, and log on using a library card number and PIN number. (If you don’t have a PIN, ask for one, or try the last four digits of your phone number). Then the link should work. Or start from the library home page and navigate to the database page. There appears to be a short delay before articles are discoverable in the database.

You can use the database search to get access to the full text of newspaper articles from the Star-Advertiser, the Honolulu Advertiser, or the Star-Bulletin. It’s even possible to create keyword search alerts to be sent to your email address.

It’s inconvenient at best, but you can read the articles for research purposes or to cite them, without a subscription to the paper or its website. Columns aren’t included I believe, so it looks as though David Shapiro is still locked away from a public that should have access to his wisdom.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 4/25/2013 12:59:00 PM