UH can’t escape grilling, with more in coming days

The sucking sound coming from the Capitol was the University of Hawaii being stripped of its alibis as we "flASHback" on the week’s news that amused and confused:

» University leaders endured six hours of intense grilling from Sen. Donna Mercado Kim’s special committee on the Stevie Wonder concert scam. The UH brass returns Tuesday for Kim’s next feeding.

» A hearing highlight was UH President M.R.C. Greenwood’s admission that "I am perfectly capable of putting my foot in my mouth." No argument, but it’s about time somebody made her do it in public.

» UH will pay a search firm $90,000 to help find a new athletic director to replace Jim Donovan. There’s only a small pool of qualified Division I athletic directors, and they all know the job is open, but hey, why pass up a chance to waste more money on this fiasco?

» An oversized vacuum called Super Sucker II has doubled the state’s capacity from the original Super Sucker to remove algae from Kaneohe Bay. I fear it’s going to take Super Sucker III to clean up the mess at the university.

» The Capitol, including the governor’s office, House and Senate, held an emergency evacuation drill. May they remember what they learned and evacuate immediately the next time somebody gets the bright idea to throw out the rules for developing state land.

» Mayoral candidate Ben Cayetano unveiled a bus-based alternative to rail transit that he christened with the acronym FAST. Now there’s an optimistic monicker for a vehicle that the slow lane was invented for.

» The pro-rail Pacific Resource Partnership, which spent more than $1 million attacking Cayetano in the primary, has a new ad repeating its widely discredited claim that he ran a "pay to play" scheme as governor. What they lack in actuality, they make up for in tedium.

» PRP’s TV ad boosts Cayetano’s opponent with assurances from U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye that he can "trust Kirk Caldwell." Did anybody ever doubt that Caldwell could be trusted to do what Inouye says?

» Two (de)Occupy Hono­lulu protesters grumbled that police waited until after TV news crews left to arrest them for refusing to vacate an illegal tent. They’re furious about being (de)nied their 15 minutes of fame.

» Google Maps made a splash by introducing new panoramic underwater images of Hawaii. Maybe we’ll finally be able to see where our economy went.

And the quote of the week … from Gov. Neil Abercrombie, scolding UH officials for not taking responsibility for their actions: "I guarantee you one other thing, I never would have let someone else take the fall for something I’m responsible for." Really? I could have sworn that was him who let his former senior staff take the fall for his bumbling first year.