By Cynthia Oi A couple of weeks after a sand-replenishment project in Waikiki was completed to the cheers of tan fans, tourists, hoteliers and shore-based businesses came a federal assessment that 70 percent of beaches on three of Hawaii’s major islands are slowly but surely eroding.
By Cynthia Oi U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye is four years away from a reelection campaign, if he chooses to try for a 10th term.
By Cynthia Oi Pity the poor staffer in the mayor’s office who had the miserable task of telling the boss that a consultant’s “data error” had messed up the ranking of possible landfill sites.
By Cynthia Oi Debates among candidates more often than not seem to be a twisted form of entertainment for political junkies.
By Cynthia Oi Oversensitive types might take offense that a new group of business chiefs in Hawaii presumes “to educate the residents of Oahu” about the benefits of the city’s rail project.
By Cynthia Oi Trust the City Council to take a long and winding road to the straightforward issue of banning single-use bags at checkout counters.
By Cynthia Oi The Hawaii Democratic Party did itself and voters no favor in rejecting Laura Thielen’s request to become a member in good standing so she could run for office under its banner.
By Cynthia Oi Good for Cynthia Thielen. The Windward Oahu representative wasn’t having any of Rep. Sharon Har’s health and safety argument, the mirepoix that’s become the base in the stew of rationalization for legislation the public might find distasteful.
By Cynthia Oi Women are giving Texas Gov. Rick Perry a hard time.
By Cynthia Oi Dressed in black, semi-baggy shorts and a crisp white short-sleeve shirt, the young man sheepishly directed motorists through an 8-foot-wide puddle of brown water stretching like a moat across the entry to the parking area for a small cafe.
By Cynthia Oi A massive development on the Ewa Plain will help meet a demand for housing as Oahu's population increases by 120,000 through the next two decades, its builder says. Its opponents contend the master-planned Ho'opili will flood the residential market with excess supply because population will not grow as projected and the kind of housing proposed won't be what buyers want and can afford, nor is it in a desired location.
By Cynthia Oi That old jingle that went “Ala Moana, Hawaii’s center, the center of your world” kept running through my head when Sears announced it would close its store there.
By Cynthia Oi Hundreds of Virginia citizens this week told their lawmakers they oppose a bill requiring that women undergo a vaginal probe before considering an abortion.
By Cynthia Oi A map with the 1996 news clipping is crude by today’s dazzling graphics standards for publications, a simple rectangle showing Oahu with a marker pointing to a magnified area on the island’s southwestern shore.
By Cynthia Oi
From time to time, I will drive through Waikiki just to see what's up in the center of our economic universe.
By Cynthia Oi As April 15 approaches, regular people begin collecting and sorting documents and other paperwork that will eventually be strewn across the kitchen table or next to the desktop so they can file their federal income tax returns.
By Cynthia Oi Time was, youngsters, when not every road vehicle came equipped with turn signals.
By Cynthia Oi The city’s rail project has Ben Cayetano so unsettled that he says he might make a run for Mayor Peter Carlisle’s job to stop the transit juggernaut.
By Cynthia Oi A war ended earlier this month and there were no parades. There were no hats tossed in the air along wide boulevards of American cities, no sailors surprising random women with jubilant kisses.
By Cynthia Oi They arrive with almost every delivery of mail. Slid in between catalogs for fruit-of-the-month clubs, flannel-lined blue jeans and DVDs of 30-year-old PBS dramas — and the infrequent letters from people I actually know — are pleas for donations.
By Cynthia Oi The Superferry has become the all-purpose symbol for virulent pro-corporate-globalist types who see the enterprise’s failure as the pox that persists in blocking Hawaii from its rightful place as a Pacific economic powerhouse.
By Cynthia Oi The shop clerk lifted her chin when asked if she would be working Black Friday sales late on Thanksgiving Day or in the early morning hours that followed.
By Cynthia Oi Merrie Carol called last week. We had not spoken for a long time, 12 years at least. Our point of contact was a missing lovebird named Sweetheart.
By Cynthia Oi Among the local enterprises worthy of attention from the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation affair last week was MA‘O Organic Farms.
By Cynthia Oi That’s going to be one colossal building kissing the Kakaako sky if all goes as intended by the state agency that gets to decide such things.
By Cynthia Oi Oh, that Peter Carlisle. You can trust that the former city prosecutor who is now mayor would be his forthright self when remarking on public complaints about hassles anticipated because of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation sessions here.
By Cynthia Oi A man goes before a government agency and pleads for a housing project that he says will give his children and grandchildren an opportunity to buy a home nearby.
By Cynthia Oi Most politicians will hold on to their elective offices as long as campaign contributions and law will allow. Oh, and voters, of course.
By Cynthia Oi Bring up the U.S. Postal Service in a conversation and you might hear complaints about snail mail delivery, inattentive and lazy counter workers, slogging bureaucracies, parcels gone astray and, of course, the junk that appears in the little box outside most residences.
By Cynthia Oi Turn on the TV," my friend said quietly, fully aware that what was happening could not be conveyed quickly and completely in words. Shaking off sleep interrupted in the deep morning hours by the ringing telephone, I did as the caller said.
By Cynthia Oi Watching natural disasters unfold among people un-used to earthquakes and hurricanes is fascinating for those of us who have come up against such events.
By Cynthia Oi When city leaders began the latest attempt to build a mass transit system for Oahu, I should have known that those plans could veer off course.
By Cynthia Oi Looking at the website set up for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings here in November is like viewing an aspirational illustration of Hawaii, kind of like those pretty artist renderings handed out when a housing development or shopping mall project comes up for discussion.