Malia Leinau

Best neighborhood to cruise for roadside furniture

Hawai’i Kai

We here at Honolulu Weekly are all about sustainability. We’re all about reusing and recycling. After all, we only have so many resources–fresh water, land, oil and food. It’s all in short supply. But there’s one thing we aren’t in short supply of around here–and no, we aren’t talking about sun-burnt tourists and construction cranes. We’re talking about furniture. If we didn’t know better, we’d think the stuff actually grew out of the ground. It’s everywhere. And frankly, many of us are grateful it is. Once it’s on the street, it’s OK to grab. According to our loyal readers, the best place to gather these roadside blossoms is Hawai’i Kai.

Malia Leinau

Best place to take a nap in public

Ala Moana Beach Park

One job. Two jobs. Three jobs. Four. With skyrocketing gas prices and rising rents, folks around here work their fingers to the bones just to get by. No wonder no matter where you go around town you’re bound to stumble across somebody curled up in a fetal position on the sidewalk and catching a few Zs on a piece of cardboard. Everybody is just that tired–or passed out. Ala Moana Park seems to have more sleepers per capita than any other place in town, so it’s no wonder you picked it as the best place to take a nap in public. Kudos to the folks who sent in these entries: ‘Any air-conditioned ‘inspirational’ seminar,’ ‘Linda Lingle’s staged press conferences’ and ‘H1 during rush hour in my car with the AC on.’

Best parking garage

Ala Moana Center by Sears

Sometimes finding a good parking space in town is as difficult as finding an ounce of compassion in Dick Cheney’s cold, robotic heart. (Surely if there was ever proof that our cybernetic overlords in the post-apocalyptic future had sent back a terminator to bring about mankind’s demise it’s that old bag of bolts, but that’s neither here nor there.) And while street parking is generally preferable to taking that vertigo-inducing drive up through a parking garage, those concrete behemoths do serve a purpose. Your favorite place to park the car out of the burning glare of the sun is the Ala Moana Center parking garage next to Sears. But honestly, what’s the advantage of parking there unless you plan to go to the mall? < \c:

Malia Leinau

Best use For The Natatorium

Swimming pool

Call this one a no-brainer. What do you do with a swimming pool that is no longer in use? You repair the thing and open it back up for business. But in the case of the natatorium it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, no matter how much you guys want it to and no matter how many millions of dollars we have already spent repairing it. Humpty Dumpty can’t be put back together again. Maybe it should, as some of you suggested, be torn down and turned into a beach park.

Worst use of landfill space

Recyclables that could have been recycled

Jack Johnson would be pleased. His yearly Kokua Festival isn’t just an excuse to drink yourself silly while listening to the likes of Ben Harper, Paula Fuga and Willie Nelson. It’s actually helping to get across the message that we all should be taking a bit more care of our environment. And being the kind of folks who have their eyes on a sustainable, recycling-friendly future it’s no surprise that you aren’t too happy about the recyclables that some Island residents toss in the trash. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Catharine Lo

Best display of civil disobedience by a native Hawaiian activist

Tie: Walter Ritte, Hina Wong, Edward Ayau

If you don’t like acts of civil disobedience, well, you just don’t like America. From the Boston Tea Party to the sit-ins of the ’60s to wearing an anti-Bush T-shirt to the 2006 State of the Union, these acts of protests are at the core of all that is right about our fair country–sometimes it’s OK to break the law in order to make sure your voice is heard. And frankly nobody around here does civil disobedience better than native Hawaiian activists. Edward Ayau refused to disclose the location of buried native Hawaiian artifacts and was thrown in jail. Hina Wong didn’t approve of the University of Hawai’i’s move to bring a University Affiliated Research Center to the Aloha State, so she picked up the Hawaiian flag in the middle of a UH Board of Regents meeting, gave an impassioned speech and walked out of the building. That ole rabble rouser Walter Ritte wanted UH to give up its patents on three varieties of taro so bad he chained the doors to the John A. Burns School of Medicine just before a regents meeting, keeping the board out of the building. However, while all raised a little hell, only Ritte has been successful in advancing his cause.

Michelle Takiguchi

Most dangerous threat to the people of O’ahu #1

Graffiti

Judging by the slew of angry letters we received following a positive story on local graffiti artists–not to mention the near constant letters to the editor in the two dailies–it’s clear that no other single thing more threatens the lives of those of us living on this fair island than graffiti. Not hurricanes. Not mudslides. Not tsunamis. Nope. Graffiti. You’ve been warned.

Most dangerous threat to the people of O’ahu #2

MySpace

It seems like every other day or so one of our esteemed local newscasts carries a report about some pervert being arrested for using MySpace to solicit sex from a teenager. Yes, there are some sick puppies out there. We’re not going to argue with Joe Moore and company. But, if the sensationalized, you-have-everything-to-fear-including-fear-itself reports by Honolulu’s award-winning television teams are to be believed, every IM your child receives is from a would-be Marquis de Sade.

Chris McDonough

Most dangerous threat to the people of O’ahu #3

The homeless

See that homeless guy right there sleeping in the doorway of the boarded up shop? See that homeless lady sitting on the park bench surrounded by 10 Hefty bags, two suitcases and a Hello Kitty purse of miscellaneous stuff? See that family of five sleeping in a tent on the beach? Some of our O’ahu residents are scared silly by the homeless. And you know what? They should be. Fate has an odd habit of turning the haves into the have nots and the just-getting-bys into the drug-addicted and destitute.

Jarrett Keohokalole

Worst display of uncharitable behavior by a non-profit corporation in order to fund another charity

Kukui Gardens Corp.

Some 2,500 call the 857 units at Kukui Gardens home. Soon they may be without one. That is if Kukui Gardens Corp. is allowed to sell the affordable housing project to California-based Carmel Partners and the new owners are allowed to jack up the rent to market prices. Kukui Gardens is set to net $130 million from the deal, but what’s particularly disconcerting about this whole matter is that the money will go to the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation, a philanthropy organization. According to reports, the foundation will divide the funds among three Catholic groups–St. Louis School, St. Francis Healthcare System and Chaminade University. WWJD? Do you really need to ask?

Best reason to look forward to the end of the Major League Baseball season

The return of Winter League baseball

The 2006 Major League Baseball season is nearing the end. That said, there’s a good reason for baseball fans on O’ahu to wish that October would get here already. That reason is the return of Hawai’i Winter Baseball. It starts October 1 with a game between the West Oahu Canefires and the North Shore Honu.

[www.hawaiiwinterbaseball.com].

Eric Sheline

Worst new alien species to strike the island

The gall wasp

Surely you’ve seen the damage. Surely you’ve seen the trees. Stripped bare of their leaves, scores of dead or dying Erythrina trees dot the landscape. And the gall wasp is to blame. It strikes Erythrina trees, in particular the Indian coral tree, and buries larvae inside the leaves, choking them to death and thereby destroying the tree. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, just visit ‘Iolani Palace. Look around the grounds in front of the building and you’ll quickly get an idea of the kind of damage the gall wasp can do. The wasp is nearly unstoppable. Tree lovers are preparing for the worst by collecting Erythrina seeds.