Veteran Hawaii Journalist Bob Jones Dead At 85

His extensive career included work as a print reporter, foreign correspondent, TV anchor and columnist.

By Chad Blair, Civil Beat – Link to original article

Wed., Nov. 24, 2021, 1:30 p.m.: One of the most prominent journalists in the Honolulu media landscape has died.

Bob Jones, a former KGMB anchor, Honolulu Advertiser reporter and editor and MidWeek columnist, died early Monday of heart failure.

His widow, Denby Fawcett, said he was 85 and passed peacefully at their Diamond Head home.

Jones began his career as a police reporter for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, later serving a three-year tour in the Air Force that took him to Europe, according to The Bob Jones Report website (“Red-Hot Opinion Erupting From Diamond Head”).

It was while working as a general assignment reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal of Kentucky that he visited an area bar called the Blue Moon. It featured a wall painting of Waikiki.

“I barely knew where Hawaii was but I looked it up and saw that it then had two daily newspapers,” he recalled in a MidWeek story about coming to Honolulu.

He was hired by the Advertiser in January of 1963, first as a general reporter, then as its military editor.

Jones reported on the Vietnam War, which included accompanying the Kaneohe 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, in Phu Bai, Vietnam, in 1964. Once, while on patrol, he was severely wounded by a mortar strike, which he believed was an incident of friendly fire and not an enemy round.

Cec Heftel, the owner of KGMB television station in Honolulu, hired Jones away from the Advertiser to join the anchor team that included Bob Sevey, Tim Tindall, Jim Leahy, Mel Proctor and Joe Moore.

In 1968 and again in 1972 he would leave KGMB to be an NBC News foreign correspondent in Vietnam and Laos. In 1970, he married Fawcett, a journalist. She joined him on his second NBC tour of Vietnam and worked as a war correspondent. Their daughter Brett Jones was born in Saigon in 1973.

Jones won several Emmy awards for his work. In 1982 he was a Peabody Award winner for the television news documentary, “Beyond the Great Wall: Journey To The End Of China.”

Jones quit KGMB for good in 1994. For many years he wrote an opinion column for MidWeek and was never shy about expressing his views on virtually any topic. He also wrote occasionally for Civil Beat where Fawcett has been a regular columnist since 2013. His hobbies included flying, scuba diving, skydiving and traveling “to exotic locales.”

In his 2012 memoir “Reporter,” Jones wrote, “An early reader of the manuscript for this book said he was struck by the fact that I always seem to land on my feet. I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s true.”

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“Humans still control artificial intelligence. We must shape it with our values.” The Age of AI by Henry Kissinger, et. al.

Resistance to artificial intelligence is futile. It is also contrary to the best interests of the human race.

We will run out of sufficient farming space; we’ll have to “make” food. Workers will no longer want to work at menial, low-paid jobs; we’ll have to use robots.

Financial houses will not be able to keep up with the flow of data; we’ll need quantum computers.

Auto-driving is here. Drones capable of moving at something approaching the speed of light will come.

Computer-driven jet fighters are beating human pilots in experimental air combat games.

We’ll look back on todays’ voice-recognition programs and robotic car assemblers as primitive history.

There’s been some ingrained fear of all this since the time of science fiction writer Robert Heinlein’s robots, and the wayward computer HAL in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

One of the fears is not far-fetched. Blue collar jobs like manufacturing are already being obliterated, but now it will be white collar, service-oriented jobs in the “knowledge” business that will be obliterated by smarter, faster machines.

Would AI reach a point where it doesn’t care for the existence of humans anymore, which we saw with Skynet in the “Terminator” movie? 

The computer scientist and philosopher Alan Turing said 71 years ago that a machine could be taught just like a child. That engendered the fear that computers would eventually develop the ability to think and do evil. In the 1970 movie “Colossus: The Forbin Project” a computer brings the world to the brink of nuclear destruction; then the same theme 13 years later in “WarGames.” The androids of 1973’s ”Westworld” went crazy and started killing people.

I say it’s much too early to get antsy. We have nothing approaching a general-purpose artificial intelligence or even a clear path to how it could be achieved. We have computers that can be easily turned on and off. Mine might learn to ignore my “off” command, but then I just pull the power plug. My desktop Mac has no battery life.

There are more pressing worries. Firms that increase their AI adoption by 1 percent reduce their hiring by 1 percent. And AI is powering new monitoring technologies used by corporations and governments — see the surveillance state that people live under in China. It is also being used in the U.S. justice system for bail decisions and, now increasingly, in sentencing. And it is warping public discourse on social media, hampering the functioning of modern democracies.

Let’s mainly focus on employment fallout. Sending jobs to other countries is a real American worry. Now AI is accelerating the loss of jobs in offices, warehouses and elsewhere. Employers focused on cost-cutting jump at any opportunity to eliminate jobs using the evolving artificial intelligence.

AI will not take over this column! My Mac will not direct my fingers on my keyboard. It will not replace me as the household cook.

But it already is influencing my investments, what I see on Google News and Facebook, what ads get through to me.

I’m unsure if FaceTime might be learning to mimic my look and voice to eventually do things in my name and even struck me into a critical Zoom session without my knowledge.

Or if some of you readers are seeing me via my built-in computer camera.

Yes, it’s spooky. But I’m a fearless explorer of the future. Nuclear fusion, far space travel, amazing virtual reality, and total replacement of worn body parts await us. AI will get us there.

Meanwhile, I keep a large claw hammer near my computer, just in case.

                —-30—-

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Open southern border? Terrible idea. Allowing migrants in while awaiting asylum hearings? Terrible idea. A long wall? Terrible idea.

There’s no sense in having a border if it’s open to all comers. The allowed-in migrants tends to disappear in the diaspora. The walls are built so far back from the border that they cut off valuable farmland and stop Americans from Rio Grande recreation.

There are surely good ideas out there but Joe Biden is busy chasing coal-fired furnaces and low-tax billionaires.

Both America and the European Union are being swamped at border areas by people wanting in but not going through the in-their-country visa application system, frequently claiming bogus asylum from discrimination or violence, and mainly wanting out of poorly-run countries.

That “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses …” on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty isn’t meant to be taken literally.

France gave us the statue inspired by Édouard René de Laboulaye, president of the French Anti-Slavery Society. As a supporter of Abraham Lincoln’s efforts during the Civil War, he saw the monument as “a common work of both our nations,” freedom for France and an end to slavery in America.

Most people erroneously believe the phrase came from the government or mistakenly believe it’s an immigration mandate.  The fact is that the poem was reluctantly written by Emma Lazarus to raise money for  construction of the pedestal on which the statue stands. The poem wasn’t placed there until 20 years later.

We have taken in boatloads of the tired-of-their-country and the poor. But today we’re awash in illegal immigrants. Eleven or 12 million of them. Some have sneaked in. Some have long overstayed their temporary visas. About 800,000 get arrested every year. The first time it’s a misdemeanor. But if you come back after deportation, that’s a felony. 99% of those arrested are sneak-ins.

Just saying “oh, well, whatcha gonna do” is unfair to all those who apply for visas or confirmed asylum status before they get to a border.

As the Federation for American Immigration Reform points out:

*Illegal Immigration causes an enormous drain on public funds

*The needs of endless numbers of poor, unskilled illegal entrants undermine the quality of education, healthcare and other services for Americans

*Job-desperate illegal immigrants unfairly depress the wages and working conditions offered to American workers, hitting hardest at minority workers and those without high school degrees.

*Illegal immigration contributes to population growth, overwhelming communities by crowding classrooms, consuming already limited affordable housing, and increasing the strain on precious natural resources like water, energy, and forestland.

*Illegal Immigration undermines national security, allowing potential terrorists to hide in the same shadows.

For reasons that escape me, President Joe Biden has put the southwestern border crisis on back burner. Mexico continues to allow caravans of Latin Americans into that country so they can try to get into this country.

I know — as a progressive fellow I’m supposed to stick up for the tired and the poor. I do, but via our USAID programs in their countries. Not by an open border policy.

We do need immigrants. Many take jobs Americans don’t want as farm workers or slaughterhouse employees. Others bring great skills in medicine, technology and general science. But for those we grant visas in their countries, not at a border crossing in Brownsville, Texas.

Most pro-refugee advocates tend to misinterpret international law on this issue. Yes, there is a right to asylum, but that law says it’s the protection granted by a state to a foreign citizen against his own state. The person for whom asylum is established has no legal right to demand it, and the sheltering state has no obligation to grant it.

Those massed at the Mexico-U.S. or Belarus-Poland borders have no right to be let in.

I’m not being heartless. I’m just being practical.

Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia all stoppered their Schengen borders as illegal immigration became unmanageable. 2.7 million last year. 23 million people in the EU who are not EU citizens.

Poland sent 120,000 troops to seal its border against would-be immigrants from the Belarus side.

Does Joe Biden think our southwestern border situation will just cure itself if we wait and do nothing?

                  —-30—-

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There are evenings when we’ve either had a big lunch or I’m just feeling too lazy to tackle a from-scratch dinner. For either occasion, my experimental Thai soup is perfect. Tasty. Plenty of nutrients. Good looking.

I bought one can of Green Curry soup. One can of coconut cream (not milk). One small whipping cream. Combined those in a medium size pan and gently heated until just ready to begin boiling. Reduced heat to low. Added in a shake of cinnamon, a pinch of salt, a pinch off fine herbs, stirring well.

Then came the clinchers. About a quarter of a cup of chopped cilantro leaves, and 3 loose-packed cups of packaged spinach. Worked those into the broth and cooked on low for about 2 minutes.

Most makers of similar soups tell you to run the final product through a blender. I disagree. I want the spinach to survive. I served this soup as is into large bowls. My wife agreed it was fantastic! And so easy. Try it. (P.S. You can add a small amount of chopped red bell pepper on top just for contrasting color.)

    —30—

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