A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO MAKE HAWAII GREAT

Yesterday I provided some background of what I have attempted to do to bring greatness to Hawaii.  Clearly, I've failed, for the State is on the verge of crashing, probably does not realize this and seems unable to want to do anything about it.  I'm an optimist, but yet fear the worst, and you can read the details I've provided over the past few years at this site.

Today I wear my positive attitude hat and suggest how we can avoid disaster by instead becoming great.  A point to underscore is, replace Hawaii with where you're from and, by adjusting the details, just apply these suggestions to your situation.

Everyone knows that we can't depend on tourism to support our economy and provide ideal jobs for our children's children.  How can a small (less than 1.5 million people with 0.3% of the national land area) entity and most remotely positioned community escape this potential treadmill to doom?

Scientific American recently had a custom media special (also known as a commercial) entitled SINGAPORE:  A Smart Nation.  You scoff, how can Hawaii become the next Singapore?  Decent question, for we seem mired in jealous politics, union-labor-industry dysfunction, and a society which just cannot do anything together.  Exactly the opposite of Singapore, which, further, has:

• a population of 5.5 million, with nearly 75% of Chinese extraction, and

• status as a nation.

For one, Hawaii and the USA have a GDP/capita of $56,000, exactly the same as Singapore's.  Hawaii, furthermore, has 39 times more land space than Singapore...10,931 square miles to 272 square miles (half the area of London!).  Singapore (the purple space to the right) is about the size of the island of Lanai.  Hawaii has exceptional beauty, while Singapore seems like mostly a landfill.

Most important of all, we have ALOHA, while the quality of humanitarianism is missing in Singapore.  We have ideal weather in a geophysical setting that is both a hub for and interface of East and West, while Singapore is 88 miles from the equator.  Hawaii, in particular, has a plethora of natural energy opportunities.

The primary difference is that Hawaii has a democracy, while Singapore, officially a unitary parliamentary republic, in reality, has a benevolent authority.  It once was a benevolent dictatorship under Yew Kuan Lee, who passed away a year ago.  His son now is Prime Minister.  Their government is efficient.  Hawaii is about as bad as you can get, although India is worse.

Our mixed plate of ethnic groups (39% Asian, 25% White, 10% Polynesian, 9% Hispanic, plus...) should be an advantage, and, like in Singapore, there is relative harmony.  The three-fourths Chinese fraction in Singapore should not necessarily be an advantage, for China is almost 100% Chinese, and they are in a metastable state of controlled free enterprise in the midst of considerable graft and general unhappiness.

In many ways, Hawaii is positioned to become efficient.  Democrats totally control the State, which should make it easier to reach a higher level of cooperation, if you only can eliminate those egos and ambitions.  A Constitutional Convention will just exacerbate the politics.

There does not appear to be a King Kamehameha-type individual to bring together the competing forces for the common good.    Then again, a Kamehameha process for control would not work today.

The simple solution to get people to work in union is a mega-crisis.  But that is no way to plan, that is, wait for an economic depression or tragic natural disaster to induce leaders to agree on a unified effort.

Confoundingly, what can Hawaii do?  I've said this before, and I'll say it again:  take steps to make the University of Hawaii a world class institution, and in parallel, focus on a few areas where Hawaii can take the world leadership role, starting with sustainability and the Blue Revolution.

At the University:

Part One is to merge the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology with the College of Engineering, College of Business, and elements of the the Departments of Biology and Chemistry, plus portions of the College of Agriculture and Human Resources, into a mega school with no departments and no research institutions.  The new superstructure must be fashioned to stimulate multidisciplinary partnerships in academics and research, plus link with the community.

Then:

Part Two can trump academic and  community inertia.  This simplest of solutions will insure for the fruition of Part One.  The University needs to gain the confidence and financial support of at least one super billionaire, and a few of his rich friends.  This SB would indicate that he will provide several billion to the University only if it agrees to develop this School of Sustainability.  If, by some major miracle, this first wealthy individual can be so convinced, it should be easier to bring on board a second billionaire to transform our athletic programs, not unlike what happened to the University of Oregon (Phil Knight of Nike) and Oklahoma State University (T. Boone Pickens).  The third billionaire would be tapped to build up that Pacific-Asian program and related fields.

When I posted the above nearly four years ago, I said:

There are 1226 billionaires having a net worth of $4.6 trillion. With 425, the USA has the most.  China has 95 and Japan 30.  We only need three.

There are now 1,810 billionaires with a net worth of $6.5 trillion.

While this is going on in academia, the more difficult part to develop greatness needs to occur in the community.  How do you get companies, unions, governments, investors and the populace working together?  If  Part 1 at the University of Hawaii can show any movement, that should stimulate a few more positive attitudes in the State.  What has Singapore done?

• mobile penetration rate of 150%, or ubiquitous connectivity, or more specifically, 8.2 million mobile subscriptions for 5.5 million people
• single level of government for decisiveness
• a melting pot for technologies and their commercialization
• business friendly environment
• well-educated, forward looking population
• world's best mass transit system, where  80% of households are within a 10-minute walk to a train station, and a system where 75% are using this mode of travel during peak hours
• focus on smart and bio technologies, with one company increasing food production by a factor of ten
• a massive government sponsored area for 500 start-up companies, in partnership with academia, provided credit lines
• life expectancy of 83 (Hawaii is at 80 and U.S. 77)

In half a century, Singapore went from a third world country to become a world leader.  This could take Hawaii 50 years, but you got to start now, for we can't just wait for a transforming cataclysm.  How?  I continue to have this profound sense that we have most of the decisive factors at hand.  It comes down to people, will and some enlightened leadership.  Maybe it's time for Hawaiian god Maui to make a re-appearance, and use his ka hei to recapture the Sun.  Well, anyone got a better idea?

-

HOW HAWAII CAN BECOME GREAT: Part One--Background

The USA is the greatest nation ever, and Hawaii is the best place to live in this country.  My postings, Huffington Post articles and books have detailed why.  So why am I concerned?  Republicans like Donald Trump keep saying, let's make American great again.  Am I leaning towards the GOP?

Of course not, but let me today focus on my home state, for we have become inept.  We kill of the Superferry, delay building the Thirty Meter Telescope so that Chile is already in construction of a more capable instrument than what ours might have been, and have become overly dependent on tourism as our only industry.  We've totally lost our leadership in the U.S. Congress and will soon not be able to point out that the President was born in Hawaii.

I had a plan: make the University of Hawaii great and host the 2020 World Expo, with the venues being the train station themselves, to quote:

Honolulu is suffering through the pangs of planning a mass transit system. Funding crises will no doubt appear, again and again. Why not find a way to allow international teams to finance, design and manage these stations? Like in EPCOT Center around a lake, each site would feature a different region of the world interfacing, in principle, with the Pacific Ocean. A China village, with the architecture, restaurants and entertainment otions of that country. Maybe they’ll bring and leave two pandas. Same for Japan, Korea, the European Community, South America, Africa...and more. 

Why they would invest in our State is because we would give them "low cost" development rights within a 100 yards of each station.  2020 is a special year, for that represents ideal vision.  Well, this option is now gone, for Dubai will  host Expo 2020.  However, we continue to have huge potential:

Hawaii has a few wild cards in this mission. For one, this is the most beautiful spot in the world. Everywhere I’ve been, just about everyone thinks there is a certain magic about these islands. Two, we have a host of billionaires, some relatively young, who have already shown a high sense of community activism. Now, if some of them can somehow work together, they should be able to transcend politics, unions and personalities. Three, if we don’t do anything magnificent, soon, it will all be over.

Speaking of billionaires, they are also crucial to make the University of Hawaii great:

I calculated there was a 10 trillion to one chance that I would become what I have became.  The odds must be a trillion times better for the University of Hawaii to become among the greatest ten in the world, for how difficult can it be to gain the support of only three inspired billionaires with vision?

Well, the UH continues to struggle in mediocrity, our mass transit system is so over budget that they might shorten the length (which would insure for another failure) and Dubai beat us to that Expo.   However, I was reading an issue of Scientific American between holes at the Ala Wai Golf Course, and was enthralled with a custom media special, which provided an answer for Hawaii.  Return tomorrow for this solution.

-

THE LOBSTER et A BIGGER SPLASH

The older I get, the more I strike certain film genres off my list.  For example, I have stopped going to vampire films, although I once enjoyed them with Bela Lugosi, who, coming from the Kingdom of Hungary (now Romania), began on Broadway in Dracula.  That was 1927 and even I was not yet born.  Few envision him as 6 feet 1 inch tall, which he was, and piercing blue eyes, which could not be seen because his films were in black and white.   His 1931 movie, Dracula, the first American horror flick, actually has been bestowed a 91% reviewers' rating by Rotten Tomatoes.

Even as recently as 1979 I loved George Hamilton as Dracula in Love at First Bite.  Never saw this film? Well, click on it, for this is the full hour and 39 minute version!  Music composed by Charles Bernstein.  Okay, not Leonard, but Charles went to Juiliard. They did not take themselves too seriously in those days.

What I am leading to is that I saw two films over the weekend, and if you remove teenage mutant ninja turtles (#1 this weekend, but got an embarrassing 35% from Rotten Tomatoes reviewers),  X-Men (#2, RT 48%), Me Before You (#3, quadriplegic tear jerker, 56%), animated and the like, there is nothing much left.  So I went to see A Bigger Splash (RT 88%, #20) and The Lobster (RT 90%, #13).  Hey, I search for quality.

The cast of exotic French-English exotic thriller R-rated ABS is sterling, with Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Matthias Schoenaerts and Dakota Johnson.  They all are naked for portions of the show, two, full frontal.  Tilda plays a female David Bowie who was told not to talk after a throat operation.   Even her orgasm is noiseless.  Fiennes is fine, and his Emotional Rescue sequence is exceptional.  Johnson, perhaps a disappointment in 50 Shades, is here sexy, and more revealing.  Schoenaerts gets away with murder.

The Lobster is a darkly black comedy and obtrusively disturbing, very much so. In case you were wondering, "et" is "and" in French, a language I took for my Phd.  The film was entered at Cannes last year and won the Jury Prize.  However, I went to that site and could not recognize even one memorable award film going all the way back to 1966, then, three years in a row:  Alfie, Kwaidan (1965, also a troublesome movie) and Woman in the Dunes (1964, black and enigmatic...seems to be a trend, but Alfie was not).  In those days Japan was making great films.

So, anyway, read the reviews, for I'll only say don't go.  I might, though, finalize with a statement that much of the purpose and dialogue was intentionally ambiguous to create a surrealistic environment, and that Colin Farrell, an Irish actor in a role filmed in Ireland, gained 30 pounds to deadpan his way to the very end, when you don't want to know if he was successful.  Oh, the dog was his brother. and many animals are graphically killed.  About A Bigger Splash, marginal for your money, unless you vicariously relish in lifestyles of the famous, with full frontal nudity in a respectable production.

-

MY TWO MODERN MIRACLES

I'm sometimes religious on Sundays, or, at least many times post on things related to this day of worship for some.  This week I've been able to adjust two modern-day miracles (I'll provide the details at the end of this posting), which I initially introduced in my chapter eight years ago on the Golden Evolution, and, upgraded, in 2014 by adding the McGuire Sisters (Dorothy passed away four years ago, while Christine will soon be 90 and Phyllis is now 85--you just got to watch their greatest hits medley sung just before Dorothy passed away--they certainly did not look like they were all in their eighties--this clip remains as a kind of miracle--to the left, a photo from half a century ago), and a year ago refining the concept back to two miracles:  soap in a bag at the bottom of my bed to prevent leg cramps and the amazingly long life of my razor blade--

Read my chapter on the Golden Evolution in SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity for details, although this blog site serialized the book, beginning with Part 2.  The pages on modern miracles are found here, first written in 2007 when I started my experiment with razor #1.

Yes, these entries were mischievous more than anything else, but the fact that good things were happening without conventional scientific credibility, and, certainly, no divine intervention, captivated me.  For those too lazy to look back, in this last article I also said:

• A 2010 Pew Research Center report indicated that 79% of Americans believe in miracles. 
• To be a Catholic saint, you need to perform two miracles, plus, somewhat discouragingly, the odds of your becoming one is in the range one in 20 million.

• Americans are high on the religious miracle belief list, with only Cypress and Portugal more beguiled, while Japan (their most popular tourist attraction is the Golden Pavilion) is at only at 19% and Sweden 23%.

• You think religion is mysterious and unexplainable?  I continue to be astonished that we can only discern 4% of what is real:  scientists say that in our midst are dark energy and dark matter, except that no one has yet seen or detected them.

A miracle is defined as a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws, and is, therefore, considered to be the work of a divine agency.  The Bible provides seven kinds of miracles, and you can read the details.  This explanation differentiates between a genuine miracle and a feigned sign.  You also need a multitude of credible witnesses.  Modern Miracles are addressed, and, among those deemed unworthy are:

• faith healing and witch doctoring
• psychosomatic affectations (perhaps 55% of patients applying for medical treatment fall in this category where the problem was mental or emotional, not physical)
• spontaneous remission (frankly, I've long felt that most Papal miracles fell in this category, for they pray for millions, and a few will no doubt get "cured")

Here is a quote I cite from this article that certainly must dampen the hopes of current saint-seeking individuals:

There is abundant evidence that genuine miracles were performed by divinely appointed persons in the first century, but there is no proof whatever that such wonders are being replicated in this modern age.

I'm especially intrigued with that statement of "abundant evidence" about miracles in the first century.  Much of this recording came to be long after the actual event.

So we now come to today and my two modern miracles.  First, my shaving system was beginning to get downright cruddy.  After many years (four..five...more) of using the same blade, I worried about tetanus or gangrene, so bought a new Schick Quattro:

I went to Long's CVS and spent several minutes trying to figure out how to take the package off the shelf.  As I had not bought anything like this for many years, it turns out that many drugstores now lock up these items to prevent people stealing them.  I had to find a staff member to unlock the section.

Amazingly enough, my new Quattro did not work any better than my very old one.  The blade was till at perfection, after many years.  Thee are numerous articles that indicate if you dry your blades properly after every use, they can last essentially forever.  Turns out I just washed my with hot water and just replaced it on the holder, so don't get carried away with wiping it with anything special.  Then here is another one saying scrape in a different direction and you effectively are sharpening your blade.  Maybe something to this.  Then there is the Infinity Razor ($19.99 from Amazon):

• The Infinity Razor uses carbon injected steel technology to create blades so sharp they never get dull.
• Carbon injected steel is fused with tungsten carbide to create the sharpest shaving experience available.
• Perfect shaves for men and women.
• Carbon injected razor blades fused with tungsten make The Infinity Razor the sharpest razor
• Close shaves, durable blades, infinite shaves, giving kissably smooth shaves each time.

Mostly marketing PR, but no doubt, they last a long time.  However, my Schick Quattro is much cheaper, and it uses titanium blades.  People just change blades every so ofter because they think it is about time.  TRY THIS ONCE OF NEVER CHANGING YOUR BLADE AND SEE HOW LONG IT LASTS.  Let me know of your results.

Is this a modern-day miracle?  I think it is.

Let me cite Snopes.com for the soap at the bottom of bed method to cure leg cramps, for it is the accepted website for validating and debunking rumors and stories of questionable origin.  Year after year, they're befuddled.  They do indicate that there are various other means to prevent cramps in bed:

• Stretching one's calf muscles prior to going to bed.
• Swearing off caffeine in the evening.
• Increasing one's intake of potassium, magnesium, calcium or Vitamin E.
• Sleeping on one's back with toes pointed towards the ceiling.
• Increasing one's intake of water during the day.
• Taking quinine (now available only by prescription) or drinking tonic water (which contains small amounts of quinine). It needs be noted that in 2010 the FDA strongly cautioned consumers against using quinine to combat leg cramps because the drug can cause severe side effects, including death.

But, say you do all the above and still get a leg cramp in bed.  What do you do?  Against most common sense, the soap technique works for many.  Some don't need to, I need to actually touch with the cramped portion of my leg the protuberance representing the soap in bag.  It can be a problem if the cramp is way up the leg, so I've thought about placing this soap bag halfway up the bed, too.

The People's Pharmacy now and then touches on this subject, and it spends most of its time trying to indicate that there is something more than psychology at play.  One evidence is that some people need to regularly change the soap, so there must be something physical working.  Nah, that, too, can be your mind at work.  In any case, I  decided to add a second bar of soap to my bottom of bed collection:

So to my bar of soap (don't know what brand was initially used and I did not bother to check) in a United Air cloth bag, and added an Irish Spring in a Crown Royal bag, both attached below the matting, then covered by a sheet.  Lot of cloth in between the soap.  The anecdotal stories are, don't use Dial nor Dove.

So is this a miracle?  It's not a religious miracle, for they disallow psychosomatic causes.  Yet it is incredible that an ailment can be cured by something that cannot be explained by medical science.  So, for now, let me call it my second modern miracle.  Come to think of it, we are all a modern day miracle.

-