Entries Tagged 'Opinions' ↓

I went to the dentist today for my twice-yearly cleaning. Sandy, who works for my dentist, was wearing her blue uniform with a white mask. Uh oh. “Sandy, are you sick?” I asked.

She replied, with a little sniffle slightly muffled by the mouth and nose mask, “I have a cold. It’s almost gone.”  ‘Almost gone‘ is supposed to make me feel better, as if the germs hiding behind the mask are somehow diminished by age.

How old is a germ before it gets pregnant and begets other germs? How old are germs when they die? Sandy didn’t have an answer. But she had the right idea and wasn’t afraid to use it.

The mask. It’s an idea whose time has come.

No one likes to get sick with cold or flu or whatever else is communicable from mouth to nose contact or hand to mouth to nose contact, so a mask which covers up the mouth and nose and diminishes germ exploration is a very good idea. That’s the longest sentence I’ve written this year, though the year is yet young.

The problem with a mask is simple. Most people don’t want to wear the mask. Those of us without cold or flu but within proximity of those with cold or flu don’t mind if they wear a mask, though I suppose we without cold or flu could just as easily don said mask to help prevent spread of the aforementioned germs to our own mouths and nose. Gloves would suffice to cover the hands and prevent them from spreading the previously mentioned germs.

A mask which covers mouth and nose actually collects germs. Removing the mask requires fingers, which require a hand, and hands and fingers are also contributors to germ travel.

I propose a new law. Mask and gloves. If you have a cold or flu or anything resembling same, you should be required to wear a mask when in public or near anyone else remotely resembling human (covers children, spouses, and old people who claim immunity from everything). And gloves.

The mask and gloves. It’s two ideas whose time has come.

This isn’t politically correct, but nonetheless quite accurate. The real revolution in Hawaii is not political, not racial, and has nothing to do with Hawaiian sovereignty. Sorry. That’s just the way it is.

The real revolution in Hawaii is financial.

First, the rich are getting richer. The rest of us rent. Who do you know who recently bought a home with an average selling price? The median price of a house on Oahu is nearing $650,000.

Second, there are more ways to give your money to someone else than ever before. If you haven’t shopped at Wal-Mart, or the new Safeway super market on Kapahulu then you don’t understand. For the rest of us, the trend is unmistakable. More places to spend more money.

Whole Foods is due to arrive on Oahu this year in Kahala Mall, with another location planned for next year. If you have not shopped Whole Foods but are impressed with the new Safeway, you’re in for a shopping treat– and another way to see your money leave.

Honolulu already has two Apple Stores with a third due to open in Waikiki at the newly refurbished Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center (or whatever the new name may be).  Apple Stores are wonderful meeting places for gadgeteers, Mac or PC owners. But three in once city with less than one-million people? We’re privileged to have such a trendy place to see our credit card balances increase.

What of Nordstrom’s, the great white hope chest of the Northwest? The Ala Moana Nordstrom behemoth is set to open this spring, yet another example of Retailing Gone Wild, another place to park my car and open my wallet in air conditioned comfort.

Hawaii’s real revolution is not political, it’s business as usual.

Finally, someone at the University of Hawaii stepped up and took responsibility for the June Jones contract fiasco. UH President David McClain displayed a little class. He acknowledged that UH didn’t step up and get the job done to keep Jones in Hawaii.

From what we can tell, McClain got involved in the last minute negotiations to put a competitive offer in front of Jones before he made a final decision to leave Hawaii for Dallas and another perennial loser, Southern Methodist University’s football program. Sound familiar?

In the end, McClain said it best:

“I want to apologize to our fans and all of Hawaii for matters getting to this stage in the first place (bureaucracy talk for ‘we screwed up’). Exceptional performance deserves exceptional recognition (we didn’t know Jones was serious about improving UH athletic facilities; after all, he was doing so well with the crappy facilities we gave him), and your University was slow to step up ( we would have done something if we’d known Jones would actually leave). That won’t happen again (uh huh).”

From what I can tell, June Jones is a man of his word and not prone to ultimatums. UH didn’t get an ultimatum. Instead, UH received a very expensive lesson. A nearly perfect season has gone perfectly bad.

Pay attention.

As predicted, UH athletic director Herman Frazier is out, though his checkbook is thicker by a few hundred thousand dollars. Frankly, it’s money well spent, and yet another expensive lesson in personnel management for the bureaucrats at UH.

Pay attention.

UH faces a number of highly public obstacles, post June Jones. Athletic facilities must be upgraded. A new football coach must be found. As to the former, it’s time for the bureaucracy to put up or shut up. As to the latter, end the search for a new coach before it begins. Hire defensive coordinator Greg McMackin.

Pay attention.

McMackin may be the gem that June Jones left behind in hopes that someone at UH would find it. While he’s still here, and before he packs his bags, UH needs to talk to Greg McMackin.

Pay attention.

Despite the trail of obvious signs, shock and disappointment reverberated across Hawaii today. UH football coach June Jones is gone.

Coach Jones was idolized by a successful team, revered by hundreds of thousands of fans, and mostly ignored by a pompous and bureaucratic university who expected the status quo to last indefinitely. It doesn’t. It didn’t.

Nothing improves without change.

Over a nine year period, June Jones changed Hawaii’s football program, Jones changed the lives of players, and Jones changed the hopes of local football fans. What did the University of Hawaii’s bloated and sloth-toed bureaucracy change?

Former UH President Evan Dobelle brought in Herman Frazier as Athletic Director. That’s the kind of change UH implements. That Frazier was fomented on Hawaii by Dobelle should have been a warning sign.

What did Frazier change? Apparently Frazier ignored Jones’ repeated requests for upgraded facilities and an enhanced budget, Frazier changed the Warrior’s football schedule for the worse (easiest in the nation), Frazier gave back thousands of Sugar Bowl tickets in the face of unprecedented demand, oh, and along the way, Frazier paved a fast track, downhill road for June Jones to leave Hawaii.

If parting is such sweet sorrow, then Jones’ exit is the sorrow, and Frazier’s exit will be sweet.

The world is a crazy place. At times, so is Hawaii. As I write this, nearing midnight on December 31, 2007, our neighborhood is ablaze with thunderous explosions, flashing lights, and thick smoke. It will only get worse.

Hawaii’s tradition of fireworks will cause untold grief for hundreds of thousands of residents in congested neighborhoods, and maim dozens more in dangerous explosions.

Why? Tradition.

What? Evil spirits are aroused and frightened by fireworks, right? Celebrations require loud noise, danger, and physical damage, right?

Wrong. Fireworks in the hands of common man, and in the hands those who can least afford them, is a tradition whose time has come and gone. It is time to ban the sale of fireworks and relegate the spectacular visual effects of fireworks to the professionals and special occasions.

Why? Safety. Neighborhood fireworks provide no benefit to neighbors. They’re dangerous. They’re expensive. They’re noisy and offensive and pose a health hazard. Did I mention they’re dangerous?

How can reasonably intelligent (which assumes that those who use fireworks are neither reasonable, nor intelligent) citizens obtain a ban on personal fireworks? How about a referendum? A vote?

Now we’re on to something. A referendum is a vote by the electorate on a single political question referred to them by authorities for a direct decision. A referendum posed to registered voters would result in a ban of personal fireworks.

Alas, it is not to be. In the absence of lawmakers capable of enacting laws beneficial to Hawaii’s residents, the mere thought of a referendum on issues sends shivers down the spineless areas of the non-absent lawmakers.

Hawaii seems to have an inordinate number of traffic deaths by wheel. Whether the wheels of mopeds, motorcycles, and loose nuts behind the steering wheel, too many young people are dying on Hawaii’s roads.

It doesn’t take much effort to become a traffic statistic and die on a moped. The state doesn’t require a specific license for moped riders as it does for motorcycles, and based on the consistent number of deaths for both, I’m convinced that a moped riders license test would not matter.

Wheels of death seem to ensnare a disproportionate number of Hawaii young people. What can be done to stop the carnage?

I propose more carnage. Television advertising extolls the pleasures of owning a car, a truck, a motorcycle. Young people are influenced by advertising. Let’s advertise carnage. Even better, let’s teach street and highway carnage in our education system, starting with middle school children.

The schools are a perfect place to show children the results of accidents. Photos and videos of broken bodies, and bloodied, lifeless faces of the injured, dead, and dying, inflicted upon those nearing legal driving age would instill a more profound respect for the privilege of driving responsibly and safely.

Too harsh? Too extreme? Try a program of visual carnage education in half a dozen high schools and measure the results. If traffic accidents involving students in the trial schools goes down, expand the program to other schools.

What’s the harm? Too much violence, blood, and guts for young minds? Please. Do you know what children see on television and in movies theaters?

Hawaii’s most famous local playwright, Lisa Matsumoto, died drunk last week. She was very, very, drunk when her car, going the wrong way on the H-1 Freeway last week, crashed head on with another car. Matsumoto died, others were injured, including a close friend.

Matsumoto’s blood alcohol level was reported to be three times the legal limit. She suffered severe injuries in the crash, which was likely caused by ‘acute alcohol intoxication.’ It was 3:30 in the morning, and she was very drunk, and driving the wrong way on the highway.

Remember the television commercials that tried to prevent drunk driving? The theme was, “friends don’t let friends drive drunk.”

The premise of this national advertising campaign is simple. If you care about someone, don’t let them get into a car and drive when they’re intoxicated. Grab their keys. Drive them home. Call a cab. Call the cops. Do something besides letting your friend drive drunk.

The problem with that is simple. The “friends don’t let friends drive drunk” campaign has a major flaw.

What do you do when all your friends are drunk, too?

There is little to argue. Honolulu, Oahu, is in the early stages of a traffic nightmare that is likely to become much worse before it gets any better.

Why? Not enough land for too few roads, and too many vehicles. It’s math. We prefer the convenience of single passenger vehicles to the inconvenience of traffic woes. For now. When will it change?

The change is beginning, though I suspect the pain is not sufficient to cause mass change, despite mass transit rearing an ugly new head in the form of fixed rail.

A human’s nature does not easily change. Traffic experts tell us we have a problem. That much I already know. It’s the solution that scares me.

Cars, trucks, motorcycles are more convenient transportation devices than buses and taxicabs. The Bus system, while convenient compared to many mass transit systems elsewhere in the U.S., is less convenient and less expensive than moving about town in a car.

Change in traffic and transportation habits will occur only when those two basic issues are addressed– convenience and expense. For mass transit to be successful in the future it will need to be less painful (more convenient than The Bus), and remain less much less expensive than using an automobile or truck.

To date, traffic experts have told us that we have a problem, and that there is only one viable solution– fixed rail. Maybe so. But that solution still is required to meet, challenge, and solve the two major issues it faces– convenience and expense.

Otherwise, fixed rail becomes the solution that no one will use, to a problem than still remains. Convenience and expense.

I think I figured out the solution to Oahu’s landfill problem. It was easy. It was math. Read and learn.

The current landfill is filling up, which, as I understand physics and geography, is what is supposed to happen. You can’t keep piling garbage on the same pile forever. When the pile gets too big, we’ll need another landfill.

That’s the problem. Nobody wants the landfill in their neighborhood. Leeward Oahu folks don’t care where the landfill goes so long as it goes somewhere else besides the leeward coast. That preference is pretty much universal. Anywhere but where I live.

For elected officials it’s a bit different but the sentiment is the same. “Put the landfill anywhere but near my voters.”

Where will Oahu’s next landfill go? It’s an easy solution, really. In a vote among politicians, the landfill will go where there will be the least political damage, the least number of people, the least voter impact, the least fallout (except for the garbage itself).

If you live where there are not many people but there’s plenty of empty land, look out. Garbage is coming your way. It’s math.

If you read Waste Management’s web site about the landfills they operate, you get a perspective of the problem. Garbage is big business. Not including the area around Honolulu Hale and the State Capitol Building, Oahu generates over 1.6-million tons of waste each year.

That’s about one and a half tons of rubbish for each man, woman, and child on Oahu. More if city and state politicians are included. Much more.

Short of some scheme to load the garbage up on a big barge and send it to the mainland (puts an entirely different spin on ‘boat day’ doesn’t it?), the only solution is math.

If there are not many voters who live in your neighborhood, but there’s plenty of empty land, look out.

Wherever you go, there you are. So it is with people and debates. Wherever people gather, differences of opinion arise.

Daniel Rosen, Esquire, decries the Star-Bulletin’s position on the Akaka Bill. In a steamy rebuttal to the rule ‘don’t argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel,’ Rosen slices and dices both the local newspaper and various elected officials in what can only be described as a fit of class oneupsmanship.

The use of Esquire in the byline of Rosen’s HawaiiReporter article seems unusual in the context of the class distinctions created by the newspaper and the Akaka Bill and the movement for Hawaiian sovereignty. According to Webster’s, Esquire is a title appended to a lawyer’s surname. Rosen is a lawyer.

Another definition for Esquire is that of a young nobleman, an attendant to a knight, an officer in service to a king, or a country squire. It seems to me that if Hawaiians ever get a king and any degree of sovereignty as a result of the Akaka Bill, said king may need a nobleman, or perhaps a legal attendant, or a country squire. Rosen probably won’t be on the list.
Wikipedia sums up Esquire on a contemporary note, seemingly more fitting to the situation at hand. An Esquire is ‘a person of certain social status; always rather vague in its extent, the term carries little social distinction today.’ Is Rosens’s vitriolic opposition to the desire of others to increase their social status merely an exhibition of his fear that his own social status will be diminished via passage of the Akaka Bill?

What better way to enhance your own social status than to imply in public that your opponents on a particular issue of disagreement are Nazis ‘following the advice of another Nazi?’