Change finally comes to Honolulu Airport

Things meant to be temporary often hang around for years. Decades, even.

The renovation of the Honolulu Airport will find a new, basement home for those X-ray machines for check-in baggage. That’s welcome news.

The machines and the attendant queues of waiting people were stuck in the already chaotic lobby because there was no other place to put them at the time.

Bonus: The renovation also spells the end of the vintage Wiki Wiki shuttle buses, chugging between terminals for some 30 years.

Those were meant to be temporary, too.

Virtual records online just what doctor ordered

"Virtual records can be viewed by anybody on a network at the same time … this saves time and effort."

Mayoral candidates recently discussed city plans to unveil an online permitting system this week, agreeing that Web technology can enhance efficiency.

But the quote above did not come from any of them; they are from an unrelated website about electronic medical records and the benefits of doctors accessing information simultaneously.

Doctors and government bureaucrats — neither group famous for adapting quickly to change — seemingly are concurrently embracing 20th-century technology just in time for the 21st.

Well, better late than never.

Let’s hope, perhaps naively, that the new city permitting system will be just what the doctor ordered.