A SOLUTION TO EXPAND AND COMPLETE THE HONOLULU RAIL TRANSIT PROJECT

Nearly seven years ago the site for the 2020 World Expo had not yet been selected.  (That logo on the right is from Milan 2015.)  I suggested Honolulu, and got little interest.  Guy Toyama (who has since passed away) wondered if I would get more support if the concept was expanded to the whole state:

     HAWAII SUSTAINABLE EXPO 2020--Visions for Blue Planet Earth

If you clicked on that posting, you would have read:

Here is the problem, and, amazingly enough, the solution.  Hawaii is broken.  You can blame politics, personalities, lack of industry, unions, manini thinking, whatever, but nothing monumental is possible in this state anymore.  From the sinking of the Super Ferry to the debacle that will become the Honolulu Rail Transit Project, we just can't do anything awesomely wonderful.   

Further:

In my world travels, I have been through Atlanta, Seattle, Vancouver, Tokyo, Tsukuba, Osaka, Seoul, Barcelona, Seville, Munich, Helsinki, Montreal, Shanghai (photo to the right), Beijing, Paris, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, London and a few other metropolises, where I noticed that each hosted the Summer Olympics or World Expo, and usually both.  In each case, the people experience became enlightening, for they learned that rivals in unison can, indeed, accomplish miracles.  Cooperation led to success, reinforcing credibility, cascading into a progressive municipality.  Hawaii needs to re-think itself, and I can think of no better way than to host...well, certainly not an Olympics, but a World Expo, sure.

This general concept was published in The Huffington Post on 14December2010:

     THE SUSTAINABLE EXPO FOR 2020

Well, call it World's Fair or World Expo, but Dubai was selected to host this gathering in 2020.  So you ask, what about a future Expo?  No site has yet been selected in follow-on years, but Lodz (Poland) has interest in 2022, Minnesota in 2023 and both Manchester and Toronto for 2025.

Hawaii could compete for 2025, but there has to be someone in the state with a lot of clout, credibility and extraordinary vision to lead the way.  Actually, to quote from TSEF2020:

What is needed is clear and imaginative leadership.  Usually, some unknown has triggered this all in these resurgent cities.  That individual had those qualities to involve power brokers and gain consensus.  Then, somehow, the effort gained a life of its own.

So anyone, theoretically, can get this going, but unfortunately we are getting to be now known as the state that murders progress.  You might even suggest, why not me.  Well, to further quote from TSEF2020:

After a lifetime in renewable energy and environmental consciousness, I fairly recently realized that I was mostly preaching to the choir. We academics are generally tolerated by key decision-makers, maybe now and then even appreciated, but do not have much credibility in the real world.

In any case, I hope this message gets to some key individual who is royally insulted by what I'm saying and does something about it.  But, alas, don't hold  your breath.

Short of anything so magnificent as a World Fair, there remains an element of my overall Expo plan that perhaps might be the solution to not only completing our Honolulu Rail Transit mess today, but expanding the system.  As everyone knew when this project began, there was not enough money to complete the route.  Stopping construction at Middle Street will only insure for failure.  Sure, government will find a way to increase local taxes, but is there a better way?  From SEF2020 (and remember that this HuffPo was published almost six years ago):

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 (click on that graphic to see the details) 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.

The key here is that these private sector / international consortia will need to be provided development rights around each station.  While it is questionable whether the Ala Moana Center station can be included in this new initiative, maybe not, and, of course, we will need to expand the route to the University of Hawaii Manoa and Waikiki, and maybe even Hawaii Kai.  Not sure about the feasibility of this addition, but why not even Kaneohe / Kailua?

If we can have six extra stations all involving the rest of the world, when completed, Honolulu could well become  the international headquarters in a range of opportunities.  Too, if the best restaurants, hotels and attractions can be included at, or adjacent, to these stations, rail usage would be maximized beyond just the weekday morning and evening rush hours.

To close from SEF2020:

The traditional naysayer, and we really have too many of them these days, will predictably argue that we will be selling Hawaii to the highest bidders, and worse. We need to look on this as our final opportunity to attain supreme world class status. That other option, I remind you, could well be a continuous local depression.

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A tropical depression has popped up east of the Philippines and seems destined to become a Category 3 typhoon and head for the region which includes Taiwan and Okinawa:

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PAT AT 76

Yes, I turned 76 yesterday, and bought my Tuesday night table a Macadamia Nut Cake:

J

That question mark has a story that has nothing to do with vanity or ignorance.  I went to CVS Longs for candles.  I certainly did not want to purchase 76 tiny ones, so decided on the numbers 7 and 6.  There were at least half a dozen each of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9, but no 7.  I noticed, though, that there was one ?, so made this command decision.  The table with Joe/Janet/Masa at the top, Jerilyn/Deanna/John in the middle and Pat:

I thought I'd treat myself for lunch yesterday, so I went to J-Shop to get a wagyu bento for $15.01.  Here is a piece of Shizuoka tenderloin for $97.50/pound.  Can you believe just that chunk costs almost $1000?  However, you don't need to buy the whole thing.  There is a butcher here who will slice off your needs:

J-Shop thinks there is a market her for outrageously expensive gifts such as is commonplace in Japan.  Here, one musk melon (a squishy version of honey dew) costs $56:

So, I took my bento to Magic Island, where you are entertained by couples taking wedding photos, Diamond Head, Waikiki and surfing:

My wagyu bento, with beer:

This teriyaki-like wagyu is so much better than anything Zippy's and anyone else sells, but you do pay twice as much for, maybe, an ounce or two.

To complete my wagyu fantasy, when I returned from my 24-day trip, I noticed a frozen piece of this beef in my freezer, also bought from J-Shop, perhaps two months ago.  After defrosting for a couple of days, I had it for dinner two nights ago, and there was no rancidity or freezer-smell.  It even looked perfect.  I first remember having steak on special occasions in the early 70's when there was a Keaau Steakhouse on the Big Island (located close to the Kilauea lava flows near Pahoa).  Simply salt and pepper with rice and grilled onions, plus a cabbage salad with a red French-type dressing. 

I should add that 15 Craigside served corned beef cabbage for my birthday dinner.

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WHY IS JAPANESE WAGYU THE BEST BEEF IN THE WORLD?

If you wish to read details regarding the ultimate steak, click on THE BEST BEEF IN THE WORLD, posted earlier this year.   CNN had an excellent summary last year.   Today, I will focus on how Japanese Wagyu Beef came to be and reasons why it is considered to be supreme.

Yes, as a promoter of sustainability, I do pause when I have a steak, for there are issues related to resource consumption, the environment and even global warming.  Then there is that matter of health.  However, while I pontificate about global warming, I do have a ridiculous carbon footprint, as my 24-day Circle Pacific Adventure 2016 reveals.  Thus, while I sincerely try to find solutions for Planet Earth and Humanity, I remain human and perhaps overindulge more than I should.  Sorry for not being perfect.

The best beef in the world comes from Japan and the best beef in Japan comes from Miyazaki.  It took me 12 hours to catch a train, most on two Shinkansens (bullet trains), transferring in Osaka.  The distance is 542 air miles, and an airplane takes all of an hour to get there.  Driving?  15 hours.  No one in Japan trains to Miyazaki from Tokyo.  I'm the only one who does this, mostly because I enjoy train rides and I purchase the one week Green Car Class Japan Rail Pass for around $350.  This would also be about the cost of a one way train ride from Tokyo to Miyazaki for those living here, so I then have six days to travel anywhere I want on Japan Railway, including a few ferries.

People in Japan don't eat much red meat.  They are second to Chile as consumers of seafood:

They generally can't afford the A5 (highest rated) Japanese Wagyu, so are more likely to consume imported beef.

Okay, so back to my history of beef in Japan.  If you Google, compare Japanese Wagyu to American Prime Beef, your links will first tell you that American Wagyu Beef is mostly Prime, and that the American version is inferior to that from Japan.  Australia and the UK also produce wagyu, but they are about equal to American.  To the left:  Japanese Wagyu (top), British Wagyu (middle) and British crossbred wagyu (bottom).

Way back in 1854 when the Treaty of Peace and Amity was signed between the United States and Empire of Japan, opening the country to foreigners, there was a social taboo in Japan about eating meat.  Nothing much to do with religion, although Buddhist priests did generally prohibit the eating of four legged animals.  Cattle were treated like members of the family.

Let me quote from the article that provided the above photo:

It’s all about fat. Wagyu meat comes from a group of Japanese breeds revered for an incredibly high level of fat marbling. Where the best Western beef has white streaks running through it, Japanese wagyu is more fat than flesh, a slab of white with a splattering of pink. In fact, never mind marble, if we were talking worktops, I’d say a stippled granite.

And it’s not just any fat – this is a soft fat with a low melting point, due in part to its high proportion of mono unsaturated fats, to go along with high levels of omega 3 and 6. Which, yes, means that it is probably healthier fat than the regular saturated kind, although in these fat-friendly days there are those who claim that saturated fat should never have been demonised anyway.

Incidentally, that chunk calculates to around $200/pound.

So how did Japan become the world leader in beef production?  To begin with, Wagyu loosely means Japanese cow.  Well, the Japanese breed has been around for 2000 years, but only for farm and labor work.  In 1868 2,600 heads were imported over a decade period from Europe, mostly British.  This cross-breeding resulted in four kinds of Japanese Wagyu, with the black one to the left dominant.  As recently as 1957 they were still used on farms, but mechanization caused a shift to consumption, and a marbling index was introduced to improve breeding.

Nothing new, for this practice has been going on for centuries, but high marbled cattle continued to be treated well:  sheds were well ventilated and floor covered with saw dust; fresh water was adequately provided, exercise was not encouraged, and brushing was enhanced to improve blood circulation.  Sake and beer were offered to relieve stress and stimulate appetite.  The animal is never exposed to stress.  High fiber foods are provide for prolonged periods, where the average daily weight gain is modest, thus ensuring for the deposition of marbling.  In general Japanese Wagyu cattle are slaughtered at up to the age 3, whereas around the world a little more than half that.  One particularly interesting result is that a lot more of the cuts can be sold at high prices, even Chuck.  I have purchased only fat for $10/pound.

The scale above explains the Japanese Wagyu quality:  A grade is best, then B, C, commercial, utility, cutter and canner.  The number reflects the marble scaling.  Thus, A5 is the ultimate.

This family operation is more and more shifting to mass production, for there were 53,000 breeders in 2013 and each year this number slips by 5% because the younger generation moves on to other things and feed prices keep rising.  There were 3 million head of cattle in 1995, and the number is now slightly less.

In 2001 Miyazaki in particular was hit by an outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease, and there was mandatory elimination to eradicate the problem.  But they recovered well, for recent competitions tend to rate beef from this part of the country as the best.  

So Japanese Wagyu is not a product that that has been around for millennia.  What you see in stores today only came about during the past decade or two or three.  Plus, the high cost and diminishing production, with more and more competition, means that the the $80/pound you now pay in a high-end butcher shop for genuine Japanese Wagyu Beef could well drop by more than a half soon to only $40/pound.  But when was the last time you bought good beef for $20/pound?

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SAINT TERESA OF KOLKATA

Pope Francis yesterday canonized Anjeze Gonzhe Bojaxhiu--more popularly known as Mother Teresa--before 120,000 at St. Peter's Square.  In 2003, nearly a quarter million squeezed into that space for her beatification. 

St. Teresa of Kolkata was born in Albania, now the Republic of Macedonia, left for Ireland at the age of 18, and then to India a year later.  She took her first religious vows in 1931 at the age of 20 while teaching at St. Teresa's School in Darjeeling.  She chose to be named after Therese de Lisieux, the patron saint of Missionaries.

In 1950 she founded Missionaries of Charity, a network now of 4,500 sisters active in 133 countries.  They mostly run homes for those afflicted with AIDS, leprosy and other ailments, plus administer to the poorest of the poor and run orphanages.  Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

Her time in Hindu India was continuously troublesome for a Catholic, and her life was peppered in controversy.  She had a reputation for gaining honors and financial support from shady characters such as Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti, Charles Keating of the savings and loan scandal, embezzler Robert Maxwell and Enver Hoxha of Albania.

Popular religious skeptic Christopher Hitchens has been a particular thorn in her side.  He thought Mother Teresa was a fanatic, fundamentalist and fraud.  Any time you thoroughly investigate a miracle, you will have serious problems with authenticity.

What I thought might disqualify her for sainthood, however, had to do with the simple fact that she had appeared to have lost faith in God.  Read Mother Teresa:  Come Be My Light.

I've regularly posted on this subject in this blog site. To quote from On the Matter of Sainthood:

A few years ago I posted on "How to Become a Saint."  In the 2000 years of the Catholic Church, perhaps 3,000 have been sainted.  That's 1.5/year.  With very little doubt, they all deserved this highest of status.  It is remarkable that in a three-year period, two saints have come from Hawaii:  Saint Damien and Saint Cope.  Today, Sister Marianne Cope was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI.  Six others also gained this honor, with a total of four being female.

According to U.S. Catholic, just on 12 May 2013 another 802 saints were recognized, joining more than 10,000 saints.  Pope John Paul II (from 1979 to 2005), left, canonized more saints than the popes from the previous 500 years.  However, I might still be right on numbers, for this publication might have been confusing beatified and canonized people.  Anyway my book on SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity  nearly a decade ago said:

The Catholic Church recognizes special people who demonstrate a life of almost perfect virtue, and more. Generally, the Pope first beatifies that individual, particularly when it can be shown that this person performed a miracle. Six years after her death, Mother Teresa attained beatification. But a book (see later section for details) was published showing that she “lost” faith. For sainthood, there must be a second miracle. Thus, miracles are fundamental and necessary for Christianity. Something tells me that Mother Theresa will nevertheless someday attain Saint Theresa status, for there is a plethora of miracles awaiting dredgment.

Incidentally, there are Hindu saints, and India has produced more saints than any other culture.  There are also Buddhist saints, including LIVING sainthood.  Interested in becoming a saint?  Read my section on How to Become a Saint.

But back to Catholic saints, Europeans, especially those from Italy, dominate the statistics.  Last year Juniper Serra, canonized by Pope Francis, became only the 12th America-related individual to gain sainthood.  Serra also has a dark legacy.  With Pope Francis from South America, more can be expected, but with verifiable compassion.

Want to become a saint?  Odds provided by Forbes:

• 1 in 20 million     becoming a saint
• 1 in 20 million     dying from a dog bite
• 1 in 11.5 million  attacked by a shark
• 1 in 10 million    becoming POTUS (President of the USA)
• 1 in 5.7 million    killed by tornado
• 1 in 3 million       dying from food poisoning
• 1 in 2.3 million    struck by lightening
• 1 in 0.7 million    crushed by a meteor
• 1 in 0.66 million  winning an Olympic Gold medal
• 1 in 11,500           winning an Oscar
• 1 in 220                writing a best selling novel

Forget about sainthood.  Write a book.

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There is a tropical storm in the East Pacific, to become Hurricane Newton just about the time he crashes into Baha:

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FINAL THOUGHTS ON MY CIRCLE PACIFIC 2016 ADVENTURE

Yesterday was one of my longest postings during the eight years of this daily blog.  Today, Sunday, I will keep it short.  Here are my final thoughts of a nearly month-long trip to Japan, Bangkok, Sydney and San Francisco:

• On the matter of Donald Trump:
• I talked to several distinguished individuals in Japan.  The more scholarly generally reacted with an initial discomfort tempered by a jovial shaking of the head.  Sort of like, what is wrong with you guys in the USA, anyway?  But politely.
• Here is a commentary from Thailand that probably accurately portrays the Donald.  It's worth a read.
• In Australia, there is a general nervousness.
• I did not get to London on this adventure, but here is a synopsis from The Telegraph published today that seems accurate:
• Clinton's lead is slipping, but she remains ahead:

• But polls are a bit screwy these days.  Betting odds seem to be more accurate, and Ladbroke's latest odds show:
• Hillary Clinton at 1/4 (80%)
• Donald Trump     3/1 (25%)

• What makes this difference almost compatible is that in 2008 Barack Obama (versus Mitt Romney) won 53% of the vote, but earned 68% of the more important electoral college votes.

• I still think Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is the wrong leader for Japan today.  He is pro-war and pro-nuclear, showing a surprising sense of humor and PR by portraying Super Mario at the Rio Olympics.  There is general comfort about him in Japan today, but that is because there is a perceived sense that the economy is doing well.  With the budget draining Fukushima nuclear debacle, shifting of funds from social to military priorities and the simple fact that the Nikkei is currently only half of what it was when the bubble burst in the early 90's (whereas the Dow Jones Industrial Average today is near an all-time high), things are not right in glocca mora.

• Thailand seems stabilized with military rule.  As much as we keep pushing all countries towards Democracy, the stage of development of many nations is such that a benevolent dictator (which in this country is that leader) makes more sense.

• Politically, Australia is leaning closer to China and away from the USA.  Trade with China dominates, and immigration is causing some social discomfort.  

• This remains a white society trying to figure out how to meld the colors.  
• A fourth of the 22 million residents were born overseas, and while essentially zero in the 70's, 25% of immigrants now come from India and China, and most of them settle in Sydney.  

• While there is supposedly a no discrimination  with regard to race policy in Australia, the reality is that Muslims are now finding it difficult to enter.  As it is, Australians think there are NINE times more Muslims in the country than real. 
• Compared to the 1980's, walking around Sydney today is a totally different experience.  Still safe, more spiffy, in fact, but with an almost uncomfortable sense that something could happen.

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