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A lobbyist in the best sense
If the term "lobbying" now has a political tarnish, blame the influence of money in elections. Blame the advantages given to powerful interests.
Nobody can blame the late Terry Teruko Kaide of Hilo, whose determination lobbying in the state Legislature exemplified how to engage with government, relentlessly speaking truth to power.
The retired chief clerk of the state Circuit Court in Hawaii County was celebrated for her work in 2009, pushing for an exemption allowing her to live in a care home with her ailing husband for the last seven months of his life. Despite multiple back surgeries that had left her wheelchair-bound, Kaide traveled to Honolulu regularly to press for the law change.
The lesson here is that democracy does work, but it can take a tremendous amount of effort. Selected that year as one of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s "10 Who Made a Difference," Kaide was plainly one person who was up to the task.
Tweeting tourism in 140 characters
Hawaii tourism backers apparently have learned the potential of the microblogging site Twitter for promoting the state’s tourism industry. Out in front of this trend are companies like PacRim Marketing Group, which reportedly has tweeted more than 13,567 messages about Hawaii to Japan travelers in the last two years.
And tweeting to certain Asian countries in the native tongue has a certain advantage: Twitter, which restricts posts to 140 characters each, apparently counts each character of kanji (or hiragana, or whatever) just like individual letters, rather than the words or syllables they represent.
Check them out by searching for @PacRimMarketing.