Entries Tagged 'News' ↓

I had to laugh when I read Malia Zimmerman’s article about following the money trail at Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

A few years ago Hawaii Reporter wanted to know where OHA’s money went. After all, it is public money. Does the public not have a right to know how the money is spent?

Apparently not.

At first, and as would  be expected by anyone with lots of money who doesn’t want others to know where it gets spent, their requests for financial information were ignored by the OHA powers that be. Or, were.

With a little legal pressure, OHA blinked. Sort of. It could have been a blink. Was it a blink or a wink? Under pressure, OHA was willing to provide the information for a price. $11,000. OHA representatives have promised, in public, to provide requested financial information. To date, they have not.

Why not?

Because. Because that’s what greedy money hoarders do. They connive to get money. Then they hoard the money they keep. Then then spend the money in ways they should not. Then they become indignant when someone asks for even a little accountability. Politicians do it. Embezzlers do it. Bishop Estate trustees did it. Now OHA trustees are doing it.

If you want to get to the Emerald City of Truth, all one needs to do is follow the Yellow Brick Money Trail. It may not be easy, but it is always an adventure.

Oh, take notes along the way. It’ll make for a good story, just like Broken Trust. As Dickie Wong is probably thinking, “These are not good days to be an OHA trustee.“

Uh oh. Insurance rates are about to go up again. Why? Because that’s what they do. In the age of computer efficiency and worldwide interconnected networking, large bureaucracies have figured out how to parlay technological efficiency into more profits.

Make no mistake. HMSA, Hawaii’s leading HMO, is a bureaucracy. Despite legislation and seemingly altruistic motives, they’re in business to do one thing– perpetuate money making.

Some may say that HMSA loses money from time to time, right? Right. But did executives take a pay cut, trim salaries, cut expenses, or get a pay raise with a bonus? Did they layoff a few hundred employees?

Uh uh. See?

When things get tight, they just raise their rates. Think of HMSA and other HMOs as public utilities for health care.

To say that Aloha Airlines is struggling is to say that beer is an acquired taste. Both take a little time to get used to, but too much of either leaves you feeling worse off.

In a competitive inter island airline market, Aloha can’t seem to do anything but spend money. They’re losing it faster than Ed Case moves toward political oblivion. Ed who? See?

I sympathize with Aloha’s investors and employees. It can’t be fun watching the airline spend your hard-earned investment money faster than it can be replaced. It can’t be fun working for an airline that claims to be the On Time Airline but can’t pay bills on time.

Aloha blames little go! airlines for their financial woes. I blame common sense. Aloha’s investors have the common sense to recognize that there’s something else amiss besides go!’s lower-than-cost competition. After all, Hawaiian Airlines didn’t file for bankruptcy. What is Hawaiian doing that Aloha can’t do?

The U.S. is heading into what appears to be a full-on recession. Cruise ships are leaving the islands. That does not bode well for the tourist industry in Hawaii, and can’t make for an attractive future for Aloha Airlines.

There are plans afoot for the state to bail out Aloha however possible; tax reductions, loan guarantees, a resolution of support, or whatever. The loss of a few thousand jobs as a large local airline goes bust will resonate far longer than the news headlines. Fortunately for Aloha, politicians have short memories.

Remember Hamakua Sugar? How’s that bail out plan working?

Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason. Sometimes the competition is just better. Either do what the competition does or find something else to do. Aloha couldn’t do either and will end up closing the doors unless a suitable sucker investor is found. Perhaps Governor Lingle would consider becoming Aloha’s savior and come up with a plan for the state to buy Aloha. Why not? She wants the state to get into the hotel and resort business.

What’s wrong with a state owned airline?

Hawaii lawmakers are working on a bill to curb domestic violence. That’s a good thing, right? Not so fast. How do we define domestic violence?

My mother and fathers spanked me. Sometimes it was deserved, sometimes not so much. Would mom and dad be criminals in Hawaii?

House Bill 3379 covers domestic violence, and creates a new crime (if that’s really possible; we have so many). This one is called third degree family abuse, a petty misdemeanor. Spanking your child could get you arrested.

Could your mother or father be arrested? The proposed bill states, “‘Physical abuse’ means striking, shoving, or kicking a person in an offensive manner, or subjecting a person to offensive physical contact with the intent to harass, annoy, or alarm.”

I don’t recall my parents ever kicking me, but there were more than a few instances of offensive physical contact with intent to harass and annoy. Apparently I managed to overcome those childhood tragedies and become a somewhat normal citizen despite the scars of abuse from my fair share of lickings.

If the bill passes and becomes law, I wonder if  a statue of limitations will apply? Otherwise, my parents could get arrested at the airport the next time the fly to Hawaii.

I promise to visit them in jail.

Making way for much needed construction jobs is the death of the Varsity Theaters on University Avenue, due to disappear from the neighborhood this week.

With few exceptions, old theater buildings just don’t last. It has nothing to do with construction. Many old theater buildings could last for over 100 years. Their death has more to do with math in the form of revenue per square foot.

A movie theater doesn’t have much going for it except plenty of square feet and even more cubic feet. It’s a lot of space for very little money, and fewer paying customers. As a sign of the times, most theaters in Honolulu have congregated together in movie complexes, like a herd of elephants waiting for the final attack.

I saw movies at the Varsity Theater. My kids saw movies at the Varsity Theater. I even had a couple of UH classes at the Varsity Theater. You know you’re getting older when places you once frequented end their days in a pile of concrete rubble and they call it progress.

Of course, Klum Gym fell to a similar fate, and I considered that to be progress. And, I haven’t forgotten, either.

To the outcry of at least one Hawaii resident, and perhaps more, the State House of Representatives recently killed a bill designed to protect pregnant women from attacks and assaults. The bill stemmed from a Big Island murder where an estranged husband attacked his wife and killed her unborn baby. The baby was not his.

The reasons given for killing the bill… somehow that just doesn’t sound acceptable, given the subject matter. The reasons given for terminating the bill… no, that won’t work, either. The reasons given for the bill’s demise… I’m not making progress, am I?

The reasons given seemed a bit looney considering the obvious. It’s already illegal to assault with intent to harm. Whether the intended victim is a mother, a father, or merely an offspring, or offspring from a notoriously stubborn beast of burden, or carrying a child, doesn’t make the assault any more illegal.

If life in jail for attempted murder isn’t sufficient deterrent for attacking a woman with an unborn child, what is? More punishment? Such crimes are usually crimes of passion for which typical deterrent laws don’t provide much, uh, well, deterrent.

Other connotations notwithstanding, Honolulu residents will balk at a steel wheel on steel rail fixed rail mass transit system. Why? Noise.  Honolulu’s city council will look at the proposals with an eye toward politics, not costs, so expect additional consideration for rubber a rubber tire on concrete system.

Why steel? Lower costs and supposedly more mature technology. The subway system in Sapporo, Japan uses rubber tires and has been in use for over 30 years, so it’s not exactly ancient technology. It sure is quiet.

Lower costs? Perhaps, but does it matter since the costs will go well beyond what Honolulu can afford to pay? Just a few years ago the estimate was for a fixed rail system to cost the city about $2-billion. Now it’s $3.6-billion, and that’s in 2006 dollars. What will the price tag be in the next couple of years when the city begins paying up?

Honolulu has a massive traffic problem. To solve it, through the years we’ve developed solutions– an intricate bus system, staggered work hours, bike paths, boats, express lanes, high gasoline prices, high taxes, employer paid bus passes, none of which have helped to curb an enormous appetite for purchasing cars and trucks for personal transportation.

Will a West Oahu to Ala Moana Center fixed rail system curb such an appetite?

Hawaii has an egg problem. No, it isn’t with mainland eggs, or the price of eggs, or anything to do with the nutritional aspect of eggs. Eggs make great easy throwing and difficult messes to clean up.

Too many teenagers in Hawaii, the kind old enough to drive, because they need a fast getaway, love to throw eggs. These same teenagers tend to find something alcoholic to drink just before they drive and throw eggs at houses in ritzy neighborhoods far from home.

Eggs are great to throw, and just as it is with hand grenades, the thrower merely needs to get close to the intended target, whether it be a house, a car, or a person in the wrong place at the right time. The egg needs to hit anywhere but in the yard or on the streets.

Eggs also cause a huge mess which is difficult to clean up. When eggs dry, they become hard like plastic. In between egg and plastic are various stages of goo, each capable of causing a permanent mess.

It isn’t that Hawaii’s egg-throwing teens are doing something illegal like drinking and driving. That’s been going on since there were drinks and things to drive and is not likely to change. They’re throwing eggs and eggs are expensive and messy.

Whatever happened to water-filled balloons? Water balloons. They’re less expensive than eggs, cause less damage, there’s almost no residue or after effects, and the only negative is that, like eggs, they sometimes break before they get thrown. Oh, and water balloons take a little more effort to handle just before the throw.

Would a drunken rich guy hop in his expensive car and chase a bunch of drunken teenagers up a telephone poll if they had thrown water balloons instead of eggs?

Whatever happened to punishment that fits the crime? Kids who are caught tagging homes and buildings with spray paint should have the same done to their homes. KIds who are caught throwing eggs should have to stand on a firing line with their parents so the victims can throw eggs at them.

It’s only fair. And it would be much more fun to watch the execution of justice on the news than watch news reports of some drunken rich guy get arrested for chasing drunken teenagers.

What better way to motivate high school students than to tell them the diploma they’re chasing isn’t worth much. If you want to do well in life, you’ll need the new and improved ‘College and Career Ready Diploma‘ from the Board of Education.

‘College and Career Ready Diploma?‘ What was wrong with the old diploma? Stigma Alert! Stigma Alert!

Beginning with the Class of 2013, the Board of Edumacation will offer this new-fangled College and Career Ready Diploma for students willing to take higher levels of math and English. That means they’re probably smarter and will have to work harder to prove it.

Did I ask what was wrong with the old diploma? Yes, I did. And the answer is ‘plenty is wrong with the old diploma.’ Too many of Hawaii’s high school graduates, those with the soon-to-be-out-of-date diploma couldn’t read or write or figure. The vast majority of Hawaii’s high school students could not place into 100-level college course on placement exams. Businesses found Hawaii’s high school graduates lacking in basic skills.

What does that say about the value of the current and past high school diploma in Hawaii? What does it say about the education system in Hawaii? It says that Hawaii’s education system is churning out students who don’t know how to read or write or figure. Colleges don’t like that. Businesses don’t like that.

The solution to this little crisis of the future, is to have the same Board of Education that created Hawaii’s diploma mill of the present to create a new class of diploma of the future for students who don’t want to be associated with the original, but now lower class, high school diploma.

Think of this as a private school attitude within a public school. It’s Punahou vs. McKinley without the added tuition.

Hawaii State Representative Tommy Waters loves lawyers. They support his efforts in Hawaii’s house to prevent the so-called “tort reform” that many of Hawaii’s doctors want.

Doctors get sued by their patients, sometimes deservedly so, sometimes not. What doctors want is some kind of legal protection from the State against the proliferation of ridiculous legal claims against them, hence ‘tort reform.’

Lawyers love to sue on behalf of their clients, especially when the target of the suit is a rich doctor. They’re suing more doctors these days and the doctors don’t like that and want the laws changed. Lawyers, of course, don’t want any change in the laws that would harm their lucrative tort practice. They make a lot of money suing people. Representative Tommy Waters, himself a lawyer, commands the Judiciary Committee and has vowed to kill any tort reform measures, not on behalf of his constituents or Hawaii’s citizens, but obviously on behalf of his, uh, campaign supporters, many of whom are, you guessed it– lawyers.

Doctors have threatened to leave Hawaii unless laws are changed in their favor. Many of them have left already, unable to make money with the handouts from HMSA and other HMO’s, and unable to afford malpractice insurance premiums to practice in Hawaii.

We live in something of a free market economy, so all of this will work itself out eventually. In the meantime, if you can’t find a good doctor willing to treat your illness at a price you can afford, call Representative Tommy Waters. He’s a doctor.