Entries Tagged 'Opinions' ↓

Hawaii, for the most part, is a state controlled by the Democratic Party. For the first time in a long time, Hawaii’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention might be important to a candidate for President.

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, lived here a few years, left for a few years, then lived here again before moving to the mainland and college and politics. Obama went to Punahou School so he was something of a child of privilege, and probably mixed well in the mixed race environment nurtured in Hawaii.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign managers know that Obama is popular here, and his supporters hope to grab most of Hawaii’s delegates. So, Hillary sent daughter Chelsea to Hawaii to campaign for votes and delegates. Local folks love politics and rock stars, which is how both Hillary and Barack have been treated by local television news media.

It’s the battle of Obama’s local cult following vs. Hillary’s local machine politics. The battle of Obamasadas vs. Dan’s man. Or, woman. The battle of the Barackstar vs. The Ultimate Clinton.

I claim this solution as my own, even if it’s been mentioned before. Out of sight, out of mind. If I haven’t heard of it, and I haven’t, then it’s original.

The first class traffic solution is easy. Forget spending billions on a fixed rail system that won’t reduce the number of cars on the road. My solution is easy to understand, easy to implement, and will work.

Step #1 - Higher Taxes: make the use of cars and trucks expensive. Sure, gasoline is already bouncing above $3.50 a gallon, but that only gets the poorer people out of their cars and onto The Bus. It’s simple. The more the car costs to operate, the more taxes car owners will pay. The rich pay more. Lots more. Hawaii has plenty of rich people. Let them pay my share. Making cars and trucks very expensive to drive will provide an incentive for people to use Step #2.

Step #2 - First Class Bus: add First Class seating and luxury amenities on The Bus. One of the obvious deterrents to bus riding is the quality of bus riders already on the bus. Some of those people just don’t mingle well in a crowd, and that’s what’s on a bus. A crowd.

I would pay more for the privilege of riding in the First Class section of an air conditioned, smooth-riding bus, wouldn’t you? After all, The Bus already goes to more places than any fixed rail system will ever be able to go. Add wireless internet access, oshibori, daily newspapers and magazines, and true first class seating, and ridership on The Bus will increase.

In fact, the entire Express Bus fleet could be renamed and commissioned as The Bus: First Class. No more freeloading from senior citizens with discount passes. Computer systems these days are sufficiently sophisticated that riders could be tracked and awarded Frequent Rider Miles. These points would enable bus riders in Coach to upgrade to First Class upon occasion. There’s nothing like the taste of the good life to get people to pay more money.

This is an idea whose time has come. The city would actually make more money by raising certain taxes high enough that using cars and trucks for single-person transportation becomes cost prohibitive. The solution would be to make even more money by charging extra for First Class ridership on The Bus.

Remember, you read it here first.

Today’s headline has to do with traffic on Oahu. According to those who know such things, study such things, and to those of us who just watch and figure it out on our own, no matter what happens, traffic is going to get worse.

Honolulu’s city and county government plan to spend up to $5-billion for a fixed rail system that, according to everyone with an opinion who is not a politician being directed by unseen evil commercial influences (the kind that always seem to be unseen but influence politicians to ignore what everyone else can so, but whose votes don’t really count), won’t improve traffic.

Traffic is going to get worse.

Let me repeat that. Traffic on Oahu is going to get worse. Even the experts say that traffic on Oahu is going to get worse in the coming decade even if there’s a $5-billion fixed rail system in place.

Did you ask the same question as me?

It’s like Hillary Clinton having a personal conversation with God. “God,” Hillary asks, “Am I going to be President?”

And God answers, “Of course not.” To which Hillary replies, “Well, Lord, do I still need to run for President and spend $150-million dollars and wear myself to a frazzle and embarrass myself and tarnish my already tainted reputation?”

To which God says to Hillary, “Do it anyway. It’ll be fun.”

God must know how much fun it will be to soak Honolulu’s taxpayers, have politicians spend billions of dollars on an expensive, complex fixed rail system which will cause untold disruption of lives, property and business from Waikiki to Kapolei, all so Oahu’s traffic will only get worse.

Who says voters don’t pay attention? Straight out of David Letterman’s nightly Top 10 List comes the Top 10 Bans Considered by the Hawaii Legislature in 2008.

Not only are elected officials considering a ban on aspartame, HawaiiReporter compiled a list of other items to be banned. Additional perspective provided to ease the pain in your sense of humor.

#10 - Bad Feelings: It’s hard not to like this one. Bad feelings impact a person’s self esteem. No lawmaker wants to hear or read about things that are bad.

#9 - Cotton: Hawaii’s lawmakers are so left leaning that taking anything from a plant and using it for personal gratification is immoral. The State will hire civil servants to ensure that cotton imported into Hawaii fell of the plant naturally and wasn’t picked prematurely.

#8 - Jokes: No more political cartoons poking fun at locals. Corky Trinidad will have to move to Burbank.

#7 - Polyester: This proposed ban won’t make it. What would Hawaii’s legislators wear?

#6 - Bad Mustaches: No more wispy, Fu Manchu mustaches, men or women. The only ones who wear them are criminals, so crime will be reduced with the Bad Mustache ban.

#5 - Red: Any food item with the color red would be banned. No more char siu. It causes violent behavior.

#4 -  Ice Cream: Anything sweet is bad for you. No more azuki beans, mololo syrup, or shave ice, either.

#3 - Common Sense: I thought this was banned already. No one in the government uses it anymore. Common sense can only be found among the young. At least, those without vaccinations.

#2 - Bad Vibes: See #10. Not the same. Not even funny. Unless you’re toking, in which case it might be.

#1 - Dicks: Symptomatic of male oppression, female domination, so it’s no wonder that State lawmakers banned the use of such contraptions years ago.

Who says local folks don’t pay attention to what goes on in politics?

I know someone who lives in Minnesota. He says that Minnesota has four seasons. Snow. More snow. Still snowing. And road construction.

Isn’t it remarkable how states with such severe weather manage to have better streets and roads (not bridges, apparently) than Hawaii, though we can repair and build ours 12 months a year?

A few readers sent me a number of reasons why roads in Honolulu are in such disrepair. In brief, here are the basic arguments:

1 - Technology: Honolulu and Hawaii are decades behind new pacing designs and technologies. Many roads are resurfaced with one inch of hot mix asphalt known as a “political paint job.”

2 - Quality: Potholes develop quickly because of poor mix materials, poorly laid.

3 - Competition: Grace Pacific was allowed to acquire competitor Hawaiian Bitumuls and Paving. No competition means higher prices, lower quality.

4 - Tax Money: Where does Hawaii’s gasoline tax money go? If it is intended for streets, roads, highways, bridges, why is it diverted for other purposes by state legislators?

5 - Repair Priorities: streets and roads that need repair don’t get it. Streets and roads near politician’s home get all the repairs they need.

6 - Standards: Honolulu design standards are outdated so developers who build roads and turn them over to the city often construct sub-standard roadways which later need repair at taxpayer expense.

Finally, one reader noted the not-so-painfully obvious question: how can the City of Honolulu design, construct, and operate a complex high-technology rapid transit project when they struggle to maintain streets and highways?

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.

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.

Americans love lists. Locally, we love lists whereby Hawaii looks good. Best beaches. Best lava flow on U.S. soil. Most expensive gasoline in the country. Highest housing costs in the nation. That kind of thing.

So it is with pride we view the latest lists from TravelAdvisor.com and their 2008 Traveler’s Choice Awards.

Six of the 325 hotels on the list of awards are from Hawaii. Unfortunately, the Sunday brunch at the Pagoda was overlooked again.

What’s the best luxury hotel in Hawaii? Four Seasons. Where? It doesn’t matter. Big Island, Maui, Lanai. They all win. What’s the criteria for the best luxury hotels? They’re so expensive you can’t afford to stay there. Neither could anyone else who voted online. The category should have been Best Luxury Hotel You Can’t Afford To Visit.

The Best Pool was the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa. That’s wrong. The pool at the Grand Wailea on Maui is better. The voters probably based their decision on the hotel’s respective web site photos. The Grand Wailea’s photos don’t do the pool justice. The Grand Hyatt’s photos make the pool look better than it is.

Maui’s Aloha Pualani Hotel was voted as the 8th Best Hidden Gem in the U.S. If it’s hidden, how come it got votes? Regardless, it’s not hidden any more and you know what that means, right? The price just went up.

What’s the most romantic hotel in the U.S? The Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel on the Big Island, of course. We stayed there for a week one night. It would be nice to know why it made it to the top of the list.

Things are not looking good for those of us who like to travel. Even traveling to the mall or a neighbor island costs more these days.

Gasoline prices are up, so driving around town becomes an expensive pastime. Airline prices are up so heading to the neighbor islands or the mainland is more expensive.

Hawaii SuperFerry is no bargain unless you happen to be a banana in a truckload of bananas from the Big Island. Take that, Young Brothers.

Go! Airlines raised rates. Aloha Airlines raised rates. Gasoline costs almost as much as beer. It won’t be long and riding on The Bus will begin to look attractive. Except for all the other people riding on The Bus who are not attractive.

The rising cost of coming and going is getting me down. And don’t think that I haven’t considered walking. I have. That idea died when I saw $75 walking shoes, on sale, at Sports Authority.

Manoa and Kahala residents can breathe easy. My proposal for building neighborhood landfills probably won’t happen this year.

Honolulu’s Planning Commission has agreed to a two-year extension on the Waimanalo Gulch landfill permit. What? You were expecting strings? Strings we got.

The state’s Health Department needs to allow incinerator ash to be piled higher than it’s piled already. That ruling won’t come until next month.

Then there’s need for approval from the state Land Use Commission. Any other issues have to be addressed soon because the landfill’s operating permit expires in May, 2008.

Wait! There’s more.

Though nothing is ready to be done to fix, extend, or replace Waimanalo Gulch as the landfill of choice, huge issues remain. Culturally significant rocks were found in an area that could act as a landfill extension. That could buy a home for more garbage for another 10 to 15 years. Except for those pesky rocks and lawsuits.

Wait! There’s more. Did I mention that the landfill’s operating permit expires in May? What does that mean, really? That there would be no legal place to dump garbage.

Seriously, what’s wrong with neighborhood landfills? Make that the only legal alternative and see what happens. My guess is that another legal alternative would be adoped rather quickly.

If not, stock up on Glade.