Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Volcanic Ash Premium
Hawaii senior U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye hit town this week like a political Johnny Appleseed, planting seeds of approval for candidates he favors in the 2012 election.
With public support for Oahu rail sinking as the city tries desperately to accelerate its construction schedule, Mayor Peter Carlisle writes off the disconnect as a public relations problem.
State Rep. K. Mark Takai finally asked a question that has been years in the making: Why hasn't a 2004 legislative mandate that public school principals be put on performance contracts been carried out by the Department of Education?
I saw a Facebook mention of a PBS "American Masters" special on 1960s protest singer Phil Ochs and was distressed when I checked local listings and
realized I'd missed it.
Hawaii public school teachers proved again to be unreliable partners in the drive for better schools by rejecting a fair contract that could have helped save the state's $75 million federal Race to the Top grant.
Vacations are by nature escapes from reality, but Disney getaways have always been more so -- and the new Aulani resort at Ko Olina is no exception. One of the first things that struck me during a stay at Aulani last week with visiting family is that very little is real.
It's difficult to fathom why the University of Hawaii administration, which has plenty of real problems on its plate, would create a pointless controversy with its after-the-fact effort to obscure the salary being paid to new football coach Norm Chow.
The city's commuter rail project is supposed to broadly benefit the people of Oahu to justify its $5.27 billion price tag, but it seems at every turn that the payoffs are going to the connected few.
I'm trying something different for Hanukkah this year: saying the prayers fully and correctly over the lighting of the candles.
It's hard not to feel bad about how Greg McMackin's tenure as University of Hawaii football coach ended with his forced retirement after a 6-7 record this year and only one winning season in four years.
After a year of mostly taking the high road and avoiding attacks on his predecessor, Gov. Neil Abercrombie suddenly can't get enough of blaming Linda Lingle for Hawaii's problems.
There's been a lot of tongue-clucking about the excesses of retailers and shoppers on Black Friday, but I'm not going to join in.
Attaining more openness and transparency in government is almost always a battle because public officials find it more comfortable to operate out of view of the often-skeptical citizens they serve.
In a commentary in the Star-Advertiser last week, former Gov. George Ariyoshi delivered the sharpest indictment yet of the city's pending $1.4 billion contract with Ansaldo Honolulu to build and operate rail cars for the $5.3 billion Oahu transit system.
Local leaders tout the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings as a chance for Hawaii to build business relationships, attract regional investment, increase trade and spotlight our state as an innovator in renewable energy.
Politics is full of second chances, but few have gotten theirs as swiftly or as gift-wrapped as former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann.
The future belongs to the young, and I'm always encouraged to see them grab for it in our island society in which the old jealously cling to most of the power.
It's unusual when the impact of a column mostly boils down to one word. But that was the case last week with my piece on Gov. Neil Abercrombie's staff shake-up, and the one word was "futless."
If Gov. Neil Abercrombie ever comes through on his promised New Day in Hawaii, you'll probably have to experience it from a blackjack table.
The jury is still out on whether Gov. Neil Abercrombie will run a more efficient administration than his predecessors, but one early indicator is that he's smoking them so far on cashing checks in a timely manner.
Jonah Kaauwai's departure as state Republican chairman was inevitable once supporters of former Gov. Linda Lingle and former U.S. Rep. Charles Djou started gunning for him.
The big concern about Gov. Neil Abercrombie isn’t that he makes mistakes — anybody new to a job does — but that he doesn’t learn from them.
It looks like voters may have to decide again in next year's election how important it is to them that our congressional representatives
live in the districts they represent.
It's disappointing that Mayor Peter Carlisle is again answering thoughtful criticism of the city's $5.3 billion rail project by trying to bully the critics.
I always enjoyed when John "Hannibal" Smith of "The A Team" would sense a victory emerging from a situation fraught with the possibility of disaster and declare, "I love it when a plan comes together.
For Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Gov. Neil Abercrombie would do himself and his constituents a favor if he declared a moratorium on grandiose speeches about his “New Day in Hawaii” program until he has some actual accomplishments to trumpet.
Our self-interested Legislature will likely never toughen up Hawaii's ethics laws governing public officials. The next-best thing is to strictly enforce the ethics rules we have, and it's good news that the state Ethics Commission and its new executive director, Les Kondo, seem intent on doing just that.
I've visited the Borders store at the nearby mall several times since the going-out-of-business sale started and have been amazed by the cash register lines -- especially the first weekend -- to take advantage of discounts ranging from 10 percent to 40 percent on books, CDs and other items.
Many of us the city writes off as anti-rail aren't against mass transit at all. We just have doubts about the ability of our elected officials to run the biggest public works project in Hawaii's history in an honest, competent and cost-conscious manner.
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