We’re introducing a new nightlife columnist this week, though her byline will be familiar to many of you. Christa Wittmier, known to her thousands of online readers, followers and fans as “Super CW,” will be writing on the entertainment and nightlife scene in Social Lite, in the space formerly known as Nightshift.
At some point in the next 36 hours, a final effort will be made in the Hawaii Senate to bring House Bill 444, the civil unions bill, to a vote. The move will likely come either in the form of a motion by Sen.
Regular readers may recall with some sadness the recent arson that destroyed the hale at Hoa ‘Aina O Makaha, the Waianae organic farm and community center which serves students and visitors from the area and from around the island every day. Sadly, March’s blaze was not only not the first for the hard-scrabble organization—it was the third such incident in as many years.
No one ever accused a newspaper of being above self-promotion—just look at the New York Times coverage of its five Pulitzer Prize awards this week—and Honolulu Weekly is game, especially when it’s for a good cause. If you’re reading this on Wednesday, we really hope you’ll come down to Fort Street Mall and check out the Honolulu Weekly Green Market.
This week we offer our Sustainability Guide, Honolulu Weekly’s annual look at people, organizations and institutions working to make our community more, well, sustainable. In the past, that’s often meant a focus on environmentalism specifically, but as we all come to understand just how untenable, across the board, our society has become, we’re trying to take a little bit of a broader view.
Against long odds, it appears the civil unions fight will go at least one more round. The Honolulu Advertiser reported this week that senators are considering an amendment put forward by gay rights advocates to remove the word “marriage” from House Bill 444 and offer civil unions—with the same rights and responsibilities as marriage—to all consenting adults regardless of how many people of which gender a couple consists of.
Guessing at the outcome of U.S. Supreme Court cases is a fool’s errand.
On Monday, a group of interfaith clergy and lay leaders gathered at the foot the Capitol’s Queen Liliuokalani statue to make their case for the equality of same-sex partnerships. Rabbi Peter Schaktman of Temple Emanu-El was first to speak.
Good to see Local 5’s Eric Gill taking a stand on civil unions this week. The treasurer of Hawaii’s powerful hotel and restaurant workers union led a group of community leaders in calling for the Senate to pass HB 444.
The pono police are at it again, and this time they’ve got badges. “We cannot let such distortions go unchecked,” Lt.
Here we are again, Hawaii, arguing once more over who gets to love whom. One of the women profiled in our cover story this week, UH-Manoa American studies professor Kathleen Sands, has more patience for this stuff than I do, which is really something when you consider that she is one of the thousands of Hawaii residents whose right to equal protection under the law has lately been compared to some of the most vile stuff imaginable.
Editor's Notes / It wasn’t a surprise, but then again it’s always a surprise, isn’t it? No matter how many three-dot items or nostalgic columns you read over the past couple of years, if you had a television in Hawaii during the 1970s and ’80s, the news that Bob Sevey died over the weekend had to jolt you a little.
Like many of us, I’ve been fooling around with social networking sites for a while now. Somehow, though, I never really got the whole Web 2.0 thing.
After retiring from public service in 2002, Ben Cayetano seemed to be taking it easy on the political scene–until 2005, that is, when then-Mayor Mufi Hannemann revived the long-lapsed idea of a Honolulu heavy rail project. Needless to say, Cayetano did not concur.
Last Thursday, the House Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection had a busy session hearing several controversial bills relating to geothermal energy. Chairman Denny Coffman introduced HB2689, which seeks to exempt slim-hole, or exploratory, geothermal test wells from any sort of environmental review as is currently required under Chapter 343 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes.
On Feb. 1, the Hawaii State House Agriculture Committee heard testimony on HB2703, dubbed the Food Self-Sufficiency Bill.
Mega-developer Castle & Cooke has re-filed an application with the Land Use Commission (LUC) seeking to convert approximately 768 acres of Ag land–currently in cultivation–into a “master-planned community” entitled Koa Ridge. If successful, the project will consist of two parcels–Koa Ridge Makai and Castle & Cooke Waiawa.
Office of Hawaiian Affairs holds a second round of community meetings to discuss the latest updates on the Kakaako land settlement. Stevenson Middle School, 1202 Prospect St., Wed., 2/8, 6:30pm; Waimanalo Community Center, 41-253 Ilauhole St., Thu., 2/9, 6:30pm City Council committees on Zoning and Planningand Transportation will take public testimony on agenda items.
[Feb. 1: “Kinda Kona”] The trade secret argument would fall to the wayside if it would read “10 percent Kona Coffee 90 percent Foreign Coffee,” or something to that effect.
If they are choosing the cheapest coffee from anywhere, then the “trade secret” is that they are adding crap and not a sp
[Feb. 1: “Rail Boss Wanted”] $300,000?
[Jan. 4: “Boss GMO] Dean Okimoto is a sell out and a criminal.
Monsanto is a major component of the NWO drive to reduce the world’s population in a global genocide program that includes the poisoning of the water, air and food. This criminal activity must be stopped.
Lets be real here, Dean Okimoto is not interested in anything other then keeping the status quo of industrial Ag. He is merely a puppet, playing it safe, a small game of following the money and corrupt political trail.
[Jan. 25: “Weaving the Future on Molokai”] Good luck to all those who possess the ability to balance long-term vision with short term opportunity.
[Dec. 21: “Underground Railroad”] This is, indeed, a “lunatic project,” as pointed out by a professor at the University of Hawaii.
This is such a bad idea for the overall architecture of Oahu. I visit here because my family is here and part of the charm is taking the bus or driving.
I cannot imagine how anyone can think this is a smart idea. I’ve lived in places with rail, but this Honolulu Rail Transit is stupid, plain stupid.
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