Friday, April 04, 2008

April

Good Things: Our merger with Kamehameha is going well. The guys there are cool, though so far we've only met a few of them. A lot are in Hilo for Merry Monarch. I'm not sure which halau they're part of. We meet in the park near the McCully Bridge, and it's nice to be in a low key setting. No more worries about offending the yacht people, or keeping our voices down. Of course, no more hot showers and clean bathrooms - but I think we'll all take freedom over comfort.

To a point. The canoes need some love, and now. Some of the seats are weathered plywood that have been screwed in to the boat. My ass won't survive a long run on those.

Stupid Things: Too many to count. The governor has appointed a guy to direct the Office of Planning who says things like I am extremely excited about working with Governor Lingle and her Administration to meet the needs of Hawaii's people and future generations through statewide, collaborative, long-range and strategic planning efforts. I am fully committed to protecting the environmental and cultural resources that are so unique to this state, while carefully planning for our continued economic well-being. I am honored to be entrusted with such great responsibility and I thank the Governor for her confidence in my abilities in these matters.

I'll never be appointed to higher office. I can't even listen to people talk in such outlandish cliches, much less speak them.

Our local ""alternative" paper, the Honolulu Weekly , has gone over the deep end. I think they're hiring writers who have no concept of who's who here in the islands. Their recent articles on the environment are more opinion pieces - and they're presenting minority opinion as established fact. Their latest issue includes a cover story about why beach nourishment is bad for the environment and will destroy our surf breaks (it isn't, and it won't, and it's my office that works on it); another attack on light rail (which environmentalists everywhere else in the world support, just not here); and a lawsuit here by a science-fiction author challenging a particle accelerator, claiming it will create a black hole that will swallow the earth. Or turn the earth into anti-matter. One or the other.

"Alternative" shouldn't mean "lazy journalism." Nor should it mean that we sacrifice all critical thinking and promote every issue that isn't mainstream. The Honolulu Weekly has always been sub-par; now I think it must rank near the bottom of the nation's weeklies.

Bad Things: Aloha Airlines is gone. ATA is gone. Those are two pretty big hits for a single week. Once upon a time we had a strong economy - though I suspect it was a house of cards, built by building condos for rich Californians. Our population is dropping, but they keep paving the countryside and putting million-dollar condos up in the city. The feeling in Honolulu right now is, we're fucked.

Best News: Two weeks from now, exactly, I'll be dining on French food in Palm Springs. That might be our last meal, as the parties start Friday night and don't end until Monday morning.

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