Entries from January 2008 ↓

Last year’s news seemed to be dominated by a few stories– the football Warriors of the University of Hawaii and the Hawaii SuperFerry.

Other stories littered the news each week but with lesser impact– Don Ho died, Lisa Matsumoto died, Hawaiian Air beat Mesa Air group in court, so low fares died. Honolulu’s City Council approved the desire to impose a new mass transit solution on Oahu but did so without details of the actual solution.

It’s a new year already and that means new news. What will be the top news stories of 2008?

By the end of the year will people still be scratching their heads over Governor Lingle’s idea to buy Turtle Bay? Will traffic be better or worse (my guess is much worse)? Will an unexpected natural disaster strike Hawaii? Weather? Earthquake? Economic?

2008 started with an uproar at UH and the departure of popular head football coach June Jones to browner pastures and a bigger pay raise. The Warriors he left behind were perfect in 2007 but won’t be in 2008.

It’s hard to imagine that real estate prices can continue to increase. If they drop will that be the big news story? Does Hawaii SuperFerry have enough money to make it through 2008 or will they be forced to seek an opportunity in less hostile waters? I will reserve judgment until I can afford to use the ferry.

Nordstrom’s and Target will open just in time to enjoy Hawaii’s first recession in a few years, but 2008 will see the usual list of news items, the murders, traffic jams, bad weather, political fighting, crime and crime fighting, and other usual suspects, including a few stories about racism an prejudice. We won’t see solutions to the state’s most pressing problems, either.

In other words, this year’s news will be much like last year’s news but with different headlines.

Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. Or, so the saying goes.

The road less traveled is often less traveled for a reason. Maybe the reason no one does anything about the weather is because you can’t do anything about the weather.

Climatologists from all over the world (actually, about 160 people from just over a dozen countries) met in Honolulu to talk about global warming. If they were really serious about global warming, wouldn’t they meet in Greenland or Iceland instead of Honolulu?

“Honey, I have to go to Honolulu to talk about global warming. I’ll be late getting back so don’t wait up for me.”

The ring of seriousness is nowhere to be found in a roundtrip ticket from anyplace to Honolulu. Reykjavik Or Nuuk, maybe. Honolulu? No city is less concerned about global warming.

Those attending the “Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change” called the discussions constructive but said differences remain. You think?

We live in an age where it’s almost impossible to get adults to agree on anything, let alone college educated adults posing as scientists or government leaders. Either there’s global warming or there’s not, right? So which is it?

The answer, of course, is that throughout the history of the world, so far as we know it, there’s always been global warming. And cooling. And warming. And cooling. One man’s warm is another man’s global much ado about nothing.

Through the millions or billions of years it’s been floating in space, our globe’s weather alternately cools and then warms for all kinds of reasons. Earthquakes, volcano eruptions, asteroid crashes, sometimes all three on the same weekend, sometimes none of the three for centuries.

Weather changes. We all know it. What we don’t know is exactly why. We also don’t know positively, absolutely for sure, according to scientific processes, that human activity for the past 100 years or so is fully responsible for the current warming trend.

Assume that we are part of the cause of global warming, do we know we we did to cause the warming, and do we know what we can do to fix it, short of abandoning thetechnogadgets and accouterments of modern life, and living in caves?

Everyone talks about climate change, but no one is willing to take responsibility for it.

It’s a wonder you haven’t read or heard about it. The pothole filler shortage. Whatever they use to fill up potholes on Oahu is completely out of stock.

Two of my favorite potholes have been around since late 2007. They’re each at least a foot deep by now. Both reside within a couple of car lengths on the middle lane of Beretania Street, just Diamond Head of Keeaumoku Street.

Because these twin potholes are so close together it’s more difficult to zig and zag to avoid them both. Still, since last year, both potholes are still there. Why?

The aforementioned pothole filler shortage. Potholes, when they reach a certain depth, usually around 12 inches or more, get filled by the city streets department. Whatever they use to fill the potholes is in short supply or simply unavailable, regardless of price.

How else can you explain why so many potholes have gone unfilled for so long? I could be wrong, but it stands to reason that whatever material makes up our streets and roads could be used to fill potholes. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s been no new streets and roads in Honolulu for what seems like a decade or two.

Isn’t that additional evidence of the pothole filler shortage? If the city cannot make new roads, or cannot pave over bad roads because there’s a shortage of road building materials, then our potholes will be here awhile, because there’s nothing to fill them.

How about modifying the Adopt a Highway program to ease the Honolulu pothole crisis? Sections of highways on the mainland often are adopted by individuals, companies, and civic groups who clean rubbish from alongside the highways.

The city could institute an Adopt a Pothole program for Honolulu. Local folks, local businesses, churches, civic groups, even the military, could adopt potholes along a stretch of streets throughout the city, and fill them in using solid waste.

The potholes would use all the rubbish from Honolulu’s households and the city would eliminate the landfill problem. The city’s streets are in such poor repair that new potholes would spring up after each rain, providing the city with an unending destination for solid waste.

If we can’t find a place to store our waste, let’s drive on it.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s economic census says people in Hawaii love fast food more than any other state in the country.

At least, we did back in 2002, so says the latest data available. How much do we like fast food? Folks in Hawaii spent an average of $609 per person on fast food restaurants.

We’re not talking just McDonald’s or Burger King or Jack in the Box. Fast food extends to plate lunch places, too. Hawaii’s international culture also included Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and more.

In short, folks in Hawaii like to eat out. Or, do we?

True, people in Vermont spent less than half as much per person to eat fast food, but it’s so cold there who wants to go out to eat? I’ll bet microwave soup is popular in Vermont.

Consider this– fast food costs more in Hawaii than anywhere else in the country.  Could that have something to do with the ranking?

Slicing and dicing the math yields a few other realities. Per day, per person, the fast food folks of Hawaii still spend only $1.67 per day on whatever they eat. Even accounting for only five days a week, and a couple of weeks for vacation, it’s still only $2.44 per day, per person for a fast food fill up.

Who can fill up on $2.44 a day? Even eating fast food just twice a week comes to a modest and respectable average of $5.86 a meal. Somehow that sounds about right.

Just remember that dining out costs less per meal in Vermont. Frankly, if fast food were free in Vermont, dining out would still be a better deal in Hawaii.

We live in a nation that loves lists. Not necessarily to-do lists, but lists of the best of whatever.

Each Sunday we get the latest list of the top grossing movies of the weekend. Every sport has a list of the top (best) teams. The best players make it to an all-star game. The best teams make it to the playoffs.

Hawaii has plenty of best lists. Island beaches show up on best beaches lists with regularity. Island resorts and hotels make the list of best resorts and hotels.

Local publications produce annual lists of best restaurants. We like to eat at places that are considered the best. Honolulu Weekly showcases the Best of Honolulu each year. Best night life. Best restaurants. Best places to do whatever.

Honolulu Magazine ran a feature last year on the Best Lawyers in Hawaii, including the best in a variety of lawyerly specialties. As you would expect with any list of lawyers, the list was suspect. After all, the magazine was loaded with advertisements. Ads from lawyers.

We love best of lists. Best restaurants, best homes, best cars, best career opportunities, best schools, best teams, best books, best music, best television shows, best movies. New to the best of lists in recent years are cosmetic surgeons and cosmetic dentists. How long will it be before we have a published list of Hawaii’s best psychiatrists, or best surgeons, or best podiatrists, or best chiropractors?

What about bus drivers? Wouldn’t you rather ride a bus driven by one of Hawaii’s best bus drivers? Or, be stopped and given a ticket by one of Honolulu’s best police officers?

Each year, the sitting President of the U.S gives a State of the Union address, a typically partisan, biased, and political speech about the administrations accomplishments and vision and various and sundry blah blahs.

In Hawaii, the Governor gives a State of the State address, which, though local, is pretty much filled with the same political pablum, though on a local scale, and with less interest from the local media than the national media applies to the President’s address.

The problem with such addresses is the same as the problems with political campaign promises. There’s no score card. There’s no way to compare actual accomplishments of a politician with their promises and plans because no one remembers the details. No one keeps score.
Isn’t that what reporters and television cameras are for? They manage exactly that kind of comparison on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, so why can’t Joe Moore do the same thing on KHON?

Other than politicians or bureaucrats, who among Hawaii’s voters would not want to see a scorecard each year that compares promises and plans to actual delivery?

Even local television stations could get in on the act. Guy Hagi gives the five day weather forecast for Hawaii but never compares his forecasts for the past five days with the actual weather for the past five days. The better meteorologist would have the better score.

“Guy Hagi. Accurate weather forecasts for Hawaii 68-percent of the time.” I like it.

Tracking politicians is a somewhat different process. They’re so tricky. They lie about the future and they lie about the past. They lie about what they said they said and what their opponents said they said they said. No scorecard is complete without a good scorekeeper.

Should Hawaii’s citizens let politicians keep their own score, as golfers do? Or, should some independent authority be established to certify each promise, track the results, and present the scorecard each year? Remove the burden from the Governor and give it to someone like Frank De Lima.

Frank could give the official ‘state of the State’s scorecard‘ in a song which could also be played on all the local radio stations for two weeks each January. The lyrics could be printed in all the local newspapers for all to see. Everyone would have an opportunity to see how politicians and bureaucrats performed during the year. Good scores would be praised and their holders re-elected and re-appointed. Those with bad scores would be mocked, vilified, and eventually replaced.

Keeping score. What a unique idea.

A little competition can be a good thing for Hawaii’s internet users. It’s only fitting that Hawaii’s largest phone company and Hawaii’s largest cable television operator provider compete to provide better service.

Service? That might be a sore spot for many of their respective customers. Local phone company Hawaiian Telcom has suffered through a couple of years of troublesome customer service issues. Fortunately, they’re not the only phone company in town. There are choices.

The cable television folks at Oceanic, somehow connected to the megalithic Time-Warner media company, is pretty much the only entertainment show in town, so we have to take what they give us.

When it comes to telephone service, they compete against each other, with the nod for dependability going to Hawaiian Telcom.

What about local internet service? Both Oceanic and Hawaiian Telcom claim the fastest service. Oceanic says their cable-based Road Runner service is the fastest internet service in Hawaii. Meanwhile, the local phone company touts their network as Hawaii’s fastest.

They both can’t be right, can they?

They’re not, and they are, all because it depends. What do you mean by fastest? By using a broad definition, loosely defined, and more loosely applied, both claim the speed title.

In general, dollar for dollar, there isn’t much difference between Road Runner and Hawaiian Telcom’s DSL service. For both, if you pay less, the speed is less. When you pay more the speed goes up.

Hawaiian Telcom’s 3 meg service (measured as a maximum download speed of 3 megabits per second) is only $19.99, which compares favorably to Oceanic’s Road Runner 1.5 which is half the speed but half again as much money, at $29.95.

For cheap and slow, it’s advantage Hawaiian Telcom.

In the middle, Road Runner’s basic plan is$44.95 for up to 5 megs, while Hawaiian Telcom gives up to 7 megs for only $39.99. Advantage, to the phone company.

For screaming fast internet service, Hawaiian Telcom’s 11 meg service is only $49.99, while Road Runner’s 8 meg service is $54.90, and the ultra fast 15 meg service is a whopping $69.90 per month.

Clearly, the average value comes from Hawaiian Telcom’s DSL service vs. Oceanic’s Road Runner connection. But there’s more than meets the eye to the comparable prices and so-called speed ratings.

Generally speaking, and unless you’re downloading huge files each day, there is little practical difference between 3 meg service and 7 meg service. Email, web page browsing all looks and feels pretty much the same, whether the connection is from Hawaiian Telcom or Oceanic. There’s also little difference at the high end, from 11 megs to 15 megs because few servers elsewhere on the internet can send you files that fast anyway. Call it overkill.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but take it from someone who has used both Road Runner and Hawaiian Telcom’s DSL services, the dependability prize goes to the phone company. Invariably, my Road Runner connection would disappear two or three times a week, or slow down to a horribly ugly snail’s pace for an hour or so in the early evening.

I’ve used DSL for about eight years and can count the number of times the service has been down on one hand. Oceanic managed to match that level of service finger for finger but did so each month. The dependability advantage goes easily to Hawaiian Telcom’s DSL internet service.

Guess what? DSL still works when the power goes out, which seems to be more frequent in the past couple of years. I added a three hour battery power supply to my home network which kept it running for three hours when the power went out during the earthquake a few years ago. Of course, power was out for 15 hours, but still… When the power goes out, so does cable television, the cable company’s digital phone service, and the Road Runner internet connection.

Who would have thought that the Beep Beep slogan of the Road Runner’s perfectly unblemished record would ever be toppled by a lowly, local phone company’s internet connection?

Even while Target’s first big box store goes up in Kapolei, the number of visitors to Hawaii’s hotels goes down. In the face of economic uncertainty, Target is hiring workers, and Hawaiian Telcom is laying off workers.

If some of us thought Hawaii’s economic boom would continue forever, then be forwarned– forever is about to end.

Politicians, local or national, will use the faltering economy to gain political advantage. Fear not. It’s what they do.

As the winds of economic change swirl around the island’s fragile economy and our overheated real estate market, it’s important to remember the basics. What goes up, must come down.

The differences between a growing and prosperous economy and a recession or depression are easier to determine today. If everybody has a job, it’s a prosperous economy. If you’re out of a job, it’s a recession. If I’m out of a job, it’s a depression.

With all the noise over Kau Inoa and the echo from the racial satire of Cow Inoa, I wonder what the first settlers to Hawaii would think of what has happened to the people who reside in these beautiful islands, regardless of their origin.

Would they be impressed with what many have come to describe as the Aloha Spirit of Hawaii? Would they notice first the racial divides or the racial harmony among the people? Would they be pleased with the spirit of giving and love and trust that exists among Hawaii’s diverse people, or be saddened by the callous selfishness exhibited within all races?

Regardless of background or heritage or culture, our modern lives are full of unceasing change and unrelenting demands. In the face of inescapable pressures and seeming injustice from all around, the invitation and promise of Kau Inoa is understandable. Who among us does not long for a simpler, more pleasant way of life, a way to relieve our burdens, and the ability to control more of our lives?

It could be said that people have an inherent right to stand up, proclaim liberty, to seek a better life for themselves and their children. History tells us that when a people stand up, they often push other people down. History also tells us when that happens, both suffer. The past, however unjust or illegal, cannot be undone. History cannot be repaired. All that can be done is to learn from history, or repeat history.

Racial divisions and oppressions can be considered the cause of movements such as Kau Inoa, and the cause of responses such as Cow Inoa. Has either view really learned from history? Or, are they simply repeating history?

Hawaii’s governor wants the state to buy the 880-acre Turtle Bay Resort. Why? To preserve the north part of the North Shore from more development.

Governor Lingle’s plan surprised environmentalists, surprised the resort’s developers, and surprised those taxpayers and voters who expected to see the state’s financial surplus plowed back into highway construction, University of Hawaii building projects, education initiatives, and bureaucracy funding.

Such a bold move is not without precedent. Lingle pointed out the state’s involvement in preserving Waimea Valley, Pupukea-Paumalu, and Kukui Gardens. Which such notable successes, it’s probably good for Oahu that the state is turning attention away from unpopular mass transit and education issues,  toward the resort development business, which everyone loves.

After all, what’s good for the developers and owners of a desolate area of the island in an eager-to-sell real-estate-market-going-to-hell must be also good for Hawaii’s less-than-educated youth, broken but congested highways, unfunded University building projects, and the need to create yet another tax dollar-consuming bureaucratic project.

Is the state swapping potholes and traffic congestion for turtles, or education for a rural money drain? Or both?