The Honolulu Advertiser from Honolulu, Hawaii • 42

The Honolulu Advertiser I Thursday, December 4, 1997 Island Life Editor: Wanda A. Adams, 525-8034 4 ba A jC each -1 I if. 'if' mi- predominantly local beach (also known as San Souci State Recreation Area). At 1:30 p.m. today, the City Council Zoning Committee will hear testimony on a special management area use permit for the Natatorium restoration project at what promises to be another contentious hearing.

"The only people who worry about it are the people who are stirring up this fear," said Nancy Bannick, vice president of Friends of the Natatorium, which has advocated restoration of the venerable structure for more than a decade and hopes to bid on running the facility once it's completed. "A small band of people is just sabotaging it. And the press keeps magnifying it. They consider the beach to be the last local place. Well, the Natatorium has always been a local place and would be again." See Beach, Page D6 Photographs by David ScullThe Honolulu Advertiser li By Beverly Creamer Advertiser Staff Writer For years, Kaimana Beach was a place of refuge and renewal for Charlene Cuaresma, a single mother raising her son in a small, noisy city apartment.

On this beach, young Kris Cuaresma learned to swim, wrestled in the water with his mother, and shared picnics with friends. But the Cuaresmas fear that Kaimana is endangered by a 1 1 .5 million city project to restore the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium next door, including its saltwater pool, fed by the ocean. The Natatorium was erected in 1927 as a tribute to Hawaii's World War I dead. With others, the Cuaresmas believe the project will be a public health' hazard and bring a new texture to a 4, Deooran BooKerThe Honolulu Advertiser Toto, I don't think we're on VHS anymore. The new generation of video imaging is called DVD.

Bob Balas, manager of Honolulu Home Theater by Sam Sung, demonstrates one player the store is selling. Finally, DVD has arrived New Digital Video Disc offers crystal clarity By Kevin Hunt The Hartford Courant Next to Barbra Streisand getting all snuggly-poo with James Brolin, has there been anything more revolting in the past two years than listening about the imminent birth of DVD? DVD, the new all-purpose video-audio-computer format, supposedly could do everything except remove iron deposits from your toilet tank. But the industry, which haggled so long on standards for the new format, couldn't even agree on whether DVD stood for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc. Finally, after all the turf wars and more than two years, the video version is here. With copyrightencryption issues settled, about 25 DVD player models and 600 movies on discs the size of audio CDs -will be available this Christmas'.

DVD technology promises more capacity than CD-ROM discs deliver for your computer and a clearer image than laserdiscs produce f0r movie viewing. And since the discs cost roughly the same as video (around $25), many retailers think this will one day replace the tried-and-true VHS. The only advantage videotape machines offer is that you can record with them; so far, playback is the only DVD option. See DVD, Page D6 MTV: ABC affiliate, Channel 4 Slogan: "Your 24-Hour News Source" Owner: Hearst-Argyle Television Staff: 49 Anchors: 0 Reporteranchors: 14 Reporters: 10 on the i Now that there are I plans to revive the Natatoriutn, some fans of nearby Kaimana Beach are concerned about health and crowding issues More films on the way No movie openings this week, but plenty of holiday offerings are on tap for the rest of the month: Dec. 10 "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's story of a slave-ship mutiny by kidnapped Africans and their fight to go home.

Dec 12 For Richer or Poorer," in which spoiled urban-ites Kirstie Alley and Tim Allen go Amish; "Scream IT with its more and gorier variations on the motifs of slasher movies. Dec. 19 "Home Alone HI" (need we say "Mouse Hunt," a comedy from DreamWorks; "Titanic," the most expensive movie ever made; "Tomorrow Never Dies," Pierce Brosnan and the durable James Bond franchise. Dec. 25 "An American Werewolf in Paris," based on the 1981 original; "As Good As It Gets," involving novelist Jack Nicholson, single mother Helen Hunt, gay artist Greg Kinnear, Cuba Gooding Jr.

and a dog; "Jackie Brown," Quentin Taran-tino's smuggling yarn based on Elmore Leonard's novel "Rum "Mr. Magoo," with 1 Leslie Nielsen in the title role; and Kevin Costner's "The Postman." Kaimana Beach next to the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium has been a favorite of local residents for years. Top photo: Warren Roth, standing in front of the New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel, says he used to dive in the Natatorium pool in the 1950s and has enjoyed the beach ever since. Above: Two-year-old Michael Bingham of Wil-helmina Rise is tended by his mother, Ruth Bingham, who has been a regular at Kaimana Beach for 20 years. KITVis ready to take the lead -1! 11' November's "sweeps" ratings could signal a change in the pecking order of Hawaii television news if KITV-4 catches KHON-Channel 2 in the 10 p.m.

broadcast ratings. Today, in the last of four profiles of Island television news stations, the Advertiser looks at KITV, which some journalists envy and believe is destined to be No. 1. Last in a five-part series By Dan Nakaso Advertiser Staff Writer A warm splash of light fell from a desk lamp and onto the Old Man of Hawaii's television news directors. Wally Zimmermann's office at KITV has become a fatherly den where reporters can kick around story ideas or get advice on raising their kids.

A bookshelf can't contain all of the audition tapes from reporters on the Mainland and from each of Hawaii's three other TV news stations. A lot of the reporters don't want jobs. They're just looking for some of Zimmermann's famous career guidance. Zimmermann, who turns 54 next month, tries to help all of them employees stuck on a story and competitors stuck in their careers. "It's time consuming," Zimmermann said.

"But if you expect people to think well of you, you've got to do the right things for people." Call it a corny, Midwestern approach to life. Zimmermann certainly does. "I'm like something from Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon," Zimmermann said. (Actually, he's from Chicago). Over the last eight years, Zimmermann's style has nurtured a news staff regarded as the best in Richard AmboThe Honolulu Advertiser KITV-4 technical director Daryl Harada controls what viewers see, under the direction of B.R.

Smith. TV journalists at other Hawaii stations believe second-place KITV is poised to overtake KHON-Channel 2 in the ratings. Hawaii television by some competitors, despite KITV's distant, second-place ratings behind KHON. Former KGMB news director Scott Picken has been watching a lot of local television at home since he left that station in May. What Picken has seen through the eyes of a consumer, instead of the eyes of a news director, has surprised him.

See KITV, Page D4.