As the entries piled up, it became clear that this year’s Literary Contest would be a horse race in all three categories: Poetry, Fiction and Non-Fiction. Overall, the quality of the writing was higher, and the voices and visions were from throughout the Islands, from Chinatown to Waipahu to Molokai.
Poetry Winners / Poetry Winners First Place Damien’s Tears Big Tutu says the salt in her jar Was gathered by a haole nurse Off east Kalaupapa, Where tide pools appear at sunrise But vanish by night. Plenty black crab over there Scuttling across the lava.
First coined in the 1970s, the sentiment “Keep the Country Country” still runs deep. But that mantra hasn’t insulated the North Shore of Oahu from the pressures of urbanization, which are squeezing the region on numerous fronts from Haleiwa to Laie, all connected by the sole two-lane highway but lacking a comprehensive plan.
On January 28, 2009, the day before the most recent Eddie Aikau Invitational surf meet was called, a crowd on the beach at Waimea Bay watched the crowd in the water: wannabes as well as the invitees tuning up for the contest. The surf was easily 20-plus feet Hawaiian, and one unfortunate soul, caught in the rip, was being swept inexorably towards Jump Rock and exploding white water.
Our list of the best in locally made food gifts is broken into two parts: delectable foods and surefire items to include in y
M.I.H.: What’s it spell? Made in Hawaii has been the Weekly’s mantra since we started out as a locally made newspaper 21 years ago.
As the holidays approach, traditional visions of turkeys, hams and Cornish hens dance in our heads. Unfortunately, in the Islands, we are heavily dependent on a supermarket meat selection produced by an industrial system lacking integrity and accountability.
“I want to see a conversation about how architecture affects everybody on a daily basis,” says architect Pip White, president of the Honolulu chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). “I want people to begin to understand how urban planning and design impacts their lives.
Writers are born of readers, and reading is all about understanding different people and places and judging–for yourself–what’s wrong or right, or both. Stories give our lives their shape, and you’ll find plenty to enjoy, fact and fiction, in this issue.
What’s gonna happen to Dillingham Boulevard if we let the city put the Hannemann/Caldwell elevated train right on top of it? It’s a question Honolulu needs to answer at the voting booth on Nov.
In urban Oahu’s storied Distr. 20, a Green Party candidate who refuses corporate contributions is seeking to unseat the veteran Speaker of the state House of Representatives.
Local, local, local. Here it is: Our first special issue devoted to local food, its importance, its place today and its future tomorrow.
It’s old news that writers and therapeutic drinking are eternally self-destructive soul mates. But since working at the Weekly, I’ve become surrounded by the rare breed of writers who don’t.
Artists in Honolulu are banding together to form mutually beneficial communities among themselves–as well as with the communities in which they live and work. Veteran Rich Richardson of Arts at Marks Garage and the Artists Lofts in Chinatown, who’s been at it for a decade, and youthful innovators Jasper Wong and Jeff Gress of the Lana Lane Studios in Kaka’ako, have ambitions as big as the city they’re trying to redeem from dereliction.
Taking control of Hawaii’s food supply is not an issue pitting hippies and liberals against economic progress. Rather, it is about understanding how the agrichemical farm industry seeks to control our food system by keeping us in the dark as to what, exactly, is in our food and being released into our environment.
The growth of Honolulu’s arts scene has been fueled by community demand and a shared goal of accessibility, and by the artists at the heart of a passionate multi-media environment energized by Hawaii’s ideals and artistic openness. This fall, we’re looking forward to indie rock’s Electric Palms Music Festival (next week) as well as Future Islands, Pink Mist, and Kill The Noise later in the year.
With Ben Cayetano opposing the Honolulu Rail on environmental grounds, and Kirk Caldwell supporting the Rail as green, it’s time to take a look at which one is the more credible advocate for the environment. What are their histories?
In the midst of this drought summer, Hawaiian Springs, a local company, announced that its bottled water is now being sold in The Fresh Market grocery chain’s 119 stores in 24 states (not including Hawaii). This brings to more than 3,000 the number of retail outlets for Hawaiian Springs “outside of its home in Hawaii, as well as in grocery stores in Canada and Asia,” the company cheered in a press release.
Ka’ena Point, Oahu’s wild and windswept northwestern tip, is the ancestral gathering place for souls of the dead, from where they jump off into the next world. Now it has new resonance as the first piece of land in Hawaii that is being allowed to revert to the way our islands were thousands of years ago, when there were no people, the only mammals were seals and bats, and tens of millions of seabirds flocked in from all over the world to nest.
Hold onto your haku: The results of Honolulu Weekly’s 2012 “Best Of Honolulu” Readers’ Poll and Editors’ Picks are here. The Weekly’s is Oahu’s original and oldest annual “Best Of” issue, as well as the youngest at heart.
Ice cream is arguably the best end-product to come out of a cow’s nipple, and you’d think local versions would thrive in Hawai’i, where the craving for a cold treat is a perennial receptor on our collective tongue. Indeed, Catherine Nobriga-Kim, vice president of Roselani Ice Cream, calls ice cream “the drug of normal people” island-wide.
On June 3, the city’s Department of Transportation Services (DTS) implemented reductions to bus service, citing rising operating costs as the reason. The result: People are waiting longer at crowded stops to board buses that are more packed than ever.
Here is a history of Hawai’i 2012 in one sentence: What began as a fight over the Honolulu Rail became a raging battle over environmental regulation, which in turn became an all-out political war over land and power. If it is distressing that only one person — Ben Cayetano — is in a position to bend the arc of this story, it is nonetheless the reality of the vote on August 11.
After spending 40 years in the trenches of the sovereignty movement, Native Hawaiian Roll Commissioner Mahealani Wendt says she fully understands why some Hawaiians are suspicious of the panel’s efforts to identify who should be involved in forming a self-governing entity. “I don’t blame Hawaiians for being distrustful of me or any other Hawaiian who presumes to undertake these efforts,” says Wendt, former executive director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp.
In the introduction to Honolulu Weekly’s 18th anniversary issue, the editors noted that the paper was old enough to vote. Three years later, we can celebrate reaching legal drinking age.
For as long as we can remember, Chinatown has been notorious for drugs, homelessness and filthy streets. Some claim nothing has changed–and that it never will.
Bicyclists have long been overlooked by four-wheel riders on Honolulu’s congested streets. In the gleaming, armored pecking order of the road, cyclists are too often dismissed as lane hogs, hand-signaling nuisances and unfortunates who can’t afford cars.
The fate of some 1,525 acres of land at Hoopili in ‘Ewa may have been decided last Wednesday in Hawaii’s First Circuit Court. The decision might have gone differently, but the appellant attorneys’ strategy seemed to collapse as Judge Rhonda Nishimura picked it apart based on technical errors.
Last Thursday, May 9, the Caldwell administration revealed its action plan for solving Honolulu’s homeless problem. But at the City Council’s budget meeting the same day, Budget chair Ann Kobayashi wanted to know where the money for “Housing First” (see Cover Story, pg.
The Mayor Wright Housing project has been slated for major redevelopment by the Hawaii State Housing Authority (HSHA); requests for qualifications will be going out to developers in three to six months. Nonprofit group Faith Action for Community Equity (FACE) wants to make sure the project’s tenants have a say in the redevelopment process, which could include major renovations or a total rebuild.
The Honolulu City Council held a special Committee on Transportation meeting on Tuesday, May 7, to go over its Complete Streets initiative with input from the department directors of Design and Construction (DDC), Planning and Permitting (DPP) and Transportation Services (DTS). At prior meetings, including the Moiliili workshop, community members pressed the idea of combining Complete Streets with Caldwell’s repaving projects, which Dan Burden of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute and some councilmembers have said makes sense.
Not much to agree with my friend Doc Berry (“Limits of Growth,” April 17). None of the scenarios he posits will ever materialize.
In your Diary of May 8 (“End of the 27th)” you reported on SB 1214, passed by the Legislature. In their nimble way, the Legislature tacked the wheel boot prohibition on a bill that was intended to abolish the Commission on Transportation.
On Friday, May 3, at 3:45 p.m., I was driving town bound through the Wilson tunnel on the Likelike. I was parallel to another car, and there were several other cars following closely behind me.
Congratulations Honolulu Weekly on the recent Pai award for investigative reporting (“Boss GMO,” Jan. 4, 2012).
When the biofuel guys say that costs are “confidential” (“Big-foot Biofuel,” May 8), I reply that since I am the one who is going to end up paying the cost, I have a right to know. Frankly, when everybody tries to hide the costs, I smell rat …
The Foster Botanical Garden never ceases to inspire for an urban setting it is like a step back in time (“See the Flora,” May 8). If Koko Crater Botanical Garden contains the world’s largest plumeria collection as suggested, it may be thanks in part to the Prussian born Dr.
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