Gov. Linda Lingle is back in town, so let’s poke fun at her before she leaves again as we “flASHback” on the week’s news that amused and confused:
Lingle will entertain 600 guests at her annual GOP ball with a speech on leadership. I guess with all the stock losses, they can’t afford a band this year.
The governor returned home after a Mainland campaign swing for McCain, but leaves again next month for a conference in Bali. That’s one way to keep the red ink dripping off the state budget from staining her toes.
Despite the state’s cries of poverty, tax collections are up. Wouldn’t you know that if anybody’s still making money in this economy, it’s the government.
The Health Department will close on Fridays while employees experiment with a four-day work week. Makes sense. That’s the day folks call in sick, anyway.
Barack Obama said he was only 8 when former supporter William Ayers ran the Weather Underground and he couldn’t be expected to know. And we can’t expect a president who doesn’t know history to make it.
John McCain wants to buy $300 billion worth of failed mortgages. Like he doesn’t have enough houses already.
Hawai’i Sen. Daniel inouye assured jurors at the corruption trial of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens that his fellow octogenarian’s word is “good enough to take to the bank.” That’s apparently what the oil-services company that allegedly gave Stevens $250,000 in gifts thought.
A 70-year-old woman was accused of punching out her daughter’s 20-year-old ex-boyfriend. Now there’s a senior citizen who could really fight for us in the U.S. Senate.
U.S. Supreme Court justices hearing a dispute over Navy sonar say they must balance the danger to whales against the danger of a North Korean sub sneaking into Hawai’i waters. Yeah, we can’t have the Koreans blowing up whales.
The parent of interisland airline go! got a labor deal with its pilots after 10 months of negotiations. The talks dragged out because the pilots had trouble staying awake.
Hawaiian Electric Co. says telephone impersonators are asking its customers for personal info. If any callers say they’re from the light company and want to know what turns you on, hang up.
And the quote of the week …
… from Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to lawyers in the Navy sonar case:
“You are asking us who know nothing about whales and less about the military to start reading all these documents to try to figure out who’s right.”
Mayor Mufi Hannemann held a news conference last week in which he painted a relatively rosy picture of Honolulu’s economy, saying we’re doing well despite the sinking national economy that has put the stock market in freefall and deep state budget cuts in the face of shrinking revenues.
“This is no time to panic,” the mayor said, indicating he wouldn’t join with Gov. Linda Lingle in warning public worker unions that there is no money for pay raises this year.
“There are important reasons to have hope and optimism about job retention and job growth,” he said, citing new construction projects coming up. “The bottom line is that O’ahu is home to three-fourths of the state’s population and a commensurate share of the economy and we’re being proactive in supporting our leading industries of tourism and construction.”
“We’ve seen too much gloom and doom in our community,” Hannemann said. “We’re in pretty good shape here in O’ahu. Let’s not worry so much about what’s happening on Wall Street. Let’s focus on Main Street in Honolulu.”
It’s an appealing view, but difficult to square against a gloomy report from Moody’s Economy.com that said Honolulu is among two-thirds of U.S. cities in recession, with a shrinking economy and job market that is actually somewhat worse than other parts of the state at this point.
The weak economy is driving down O’ahu property values, which will have major impact on the city’s leading revenue source. It seems inevitable that the mayor and council will either be joining the state in slashing the budget or raising property tax rates to maintain current spending.
I look more closely at the economy as it relates to rail transit and the mayor’s race between Hannemann and Ann Kobayashi in my column in the Opinion section of today’s Advertiser, “Kobayashi bets on volatility of rail.”
The day after the post-9/11 stock market crash, somebody asked bazillionaire investor Warren Buffett how much he had lost.
“Nothing,” he said, “because I didn’t sell.”
My little nest egg is a trifle compared to Buffett’s vast fortune, but I followed his lead and kept fully invested. I was rewarded when the market eventually regained its losses and soared to new highs.
I made the same decision to stay the course yesterday when the market took an even bigger hit than after 9/11 when Congress rejected a $700 million bailout of the nation’s faltering financial system recommended by President Bush and its own leaders.
I had to suck it up a lot more this time; I’m seven years closer to an age when I might need the money to pay the bills and don’t have nearly as long a time horizon to wait for a turnaround. Major nervous time.
The bailout was unpopular with much of the public, and I certainly don’t claim to know if it would have worked to restore calm and cash flow to the financial markets. It’s hard to fault our Reps. Neil Abercrombie and Mazie Hirono for joining 226 other House members in voting against it.
It’s unfortunate that this is coming up at the worst possible time politically, with the presidential and congressional elections just five weeks away.
But it’s obvious that something needs to be done, and I hope lawmakers can get past the jingoism about Wall Street vs. Main Street and figure out what that something is.
I wonder how many House members placed sell orders before they voted.
Racism and sexism are highly sensitive issues in this year’s presidential campaign, with the battle on the Democratic side between the first African American and female candidates ever to seriously contend and the Republicans fielding a their first woman vice presidential candidate.
That’s why it’s so disturbing to see a state official like Rex Johnson of the Hawai’i Tourism Authority fan the flames of ignorance and intolerance by using his state computer to send out ugly slurs under the official digital imprint of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
Equally troubling is the fumbling around of the tourism agency’s board trying to schedule a meeting to deal with Johnson while civil rights and women’s groups understandably consider protests at high-visibility conventions coming to Waikiki.
This is giving our visitor industry a horrible black eye in the middle of a sour economy when we can ill afford it.
If Johnson won’t step aside to spare us the drama, leaders in the Legislature who helped him keep his job when he was recently caught sending pornographic e-mails must step in and make clear to him that he can’t be effective in his job anymore, won’t receive their continued support and needs to go.
It’s good to be back from vacation. Well, not really, but let’s “flASHback” anyway on the week’s news that amused and confused:
Hawai’i soldiers going to the Middle East gathered with 7,000 supporters at Aloha Stadium to try a world record group hug. If only we could end the war that way — or at least the feud between state and city law enforcers at ‘Iolani Palace.
Would-be monarch James Akahi planned to chain himself to the throne when his group broke into ‘Iolani Palace, but he couldn’t find it. The only throne this “king” will ever sit on has a flush handle on it.
Jerry Coffee of the local McCain campaign dissed Barack Obama’s visit to Hawai’i, saying: “John McCain would have taken more time to visit historical sites and been more generous with the public.” Talk is cheap. Why not come show us?
Gov. Linda Lingle will speak at the Republican Convention and campaign on the Mainland for McCain. With her Hawai’i GOP contesting barely half of local legislative seats, she has plenty of time to fly around auditioning for her next job.
Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s new campaign ad shows him passing a basketball to fellow ‘Iolani alum Derrick Low. Good to see he’s picked up a new hoops skill since high school.
The airline getting to be known as “going, going, gone!” saw quarterly losses double despite the shutdown of Aloha Airlines. On the bright side, its pilots stayed awake this quarter.
Kapiolani Community College Chancellor Leon Richards joined more than 100 college leaders in calling for a debate on lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18. That’s one way to become the toast of the campus.
A Mililani man allegedly assaulted his wife after she tossed a video game she thought he played too much. After all those hours at the joystick, you’d think the dude would know that Super Mario is supposed to save the princess, not choke her.
Honolulu Zoo vets think their Sumatran tiger Chrissie might be pregnant, but they aren’t sure. Every time they try to give her the rabbit test, she eats it.
Hawaii is second-thinnest state behind Colorado, a national report says. They must be measuring us around our wallets.
And the quote of the week …
… from state economist Pearl Imada Iboshi:
“Some people are panicking, but the numbers aren’t that bad.”
Whew, I was starting to worry about the 2,500 layoffs, the 45-percent increase in bankruptcies and the double-digit drop in visitor arrivals.
