Cleanup, homeless issues leave foul taste for officials

We go lurching from fowl to fowl as we plant tongue in cheek and "flASHback" on the week’s news that amused and confused:

» After eight white ducks were found dead in Kailua’s Kawainui Park, the city and state argued over who was responsible for removing the carcasses. It was our local government at its very best — putting on a clinic on how to duck an issue.

» The state said it won’t implement a $100,000 pilot program passed by the Legislature this year to ship homeless people back to the mainland after the plan was ridiculed inthe international media. This is progress; ridicule has never stopped the state before.

» University of Hawaii football coach Norm Chow dismissed his new offensive coordinator, Aaron Price, before practices even started, but Price will continue to collect the remainder of his $125,000 salary. UH needs to shorten its battle cry from "go for broke" to just "go broke."

» Sen. Brian Taniguchi grumbled that an offensive coordinator is making more money not to work than the governor is paid. It’ll be a valuable lesson to see if the UH offense scores more points than the governor.

» The Hill, a Washington, D.C., gossip sheet, ranked Hawaii U.S. Rep.Tulsi Gabbard as the sixth-best looking person in the capital city. Hawaii Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono and Rep. Colleen Hanabusa are waiting to hear how they placed in the chopped liver division.

» Hanabusa and Gabbard both signed up fora 37-member congressional junket heading to Israel and Palestine. Hanabusa is building foreign policy credentials for her Senate race against Schatz, while Gabbard is checking out possible Miss Universe competition.

» Schatz supports a Democratic bill to require more generous drug company rebates for Medicare patients, but Hanabusa opposes it because she says it might backfire. Indeed, itmight backfire on the campaignfundraiser the drug industry planned to hold for her.

» Schatz was called out for inaccuracy when he said in a Senate speech that 97 percent of Greenland’s ice cap had thawed. That’s dangerous territory for a guy whose only personal knowledge of an ice cap is whether to flavor it with strawberry, grape or lilikoi.

» Kentucky Fried Chicken shut its outlets on Kapahulu Avenue and in Niu Valley after closing shop on Kapiolani Boulevard. Why do we see so many loose chickens crossing the street on Oahu? To get to the unemployment line.

And the quote of the week … from UH athletic director Ben Jay on the Aaron Price buyout: "It’s not a loss, it’s already built into the budget. They are just going to go without the position for the rest of the year." This fiscal theory was popularized in the old Jerry Lewis movie, "It’s Only Money."