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by Jacob Shafer

July 30, 2009

HYPA LOCAL

These days, reporting grim economic news is the very definition of “fish in a barrel”; there’s just no sport in it. The latest example comes courtesy of the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association. HADA’s second quarter report, which draws data from Mainland-based AutoCount, shows that statewide, new vehicle registrations fell more than 34 percent compared to the same period in 2008, while Maui took an even bigger beating—a whopping 46 percent drop (or “cataclysmic nosedive,” whatever you prefer). Undaunted, the new Mercedes-Benz dealership in Kahului held a gala grand opening last week, replete with bubbly and pupus, according to a Maui News account. Plans for the dealership were first announced in March 2008, but various snags deprived Mauians of a place to purchase garishly expensive luxury cars—until now. So hey, good news after all! Not for you, but, you know, for rich people… Congrats to the Central East Maui Little League squad, which won state this week on Oahu and now heads to California, where another tournament victory would put the team in the Little League World Series. Good luck, dudes… 

LOCAL

The USS Hawaii made its much-ballyhooed arrival on Oahu July 24. In addition to platitudes from Gov. Lingle and other photo-op-seeking hoity-toitys, the vessel was greeted by three F-15 fighter jets, which did an obligatory flyover. Figure each of those fighters cost about $30 million, add the $2.5 billion that was reportedly poured into the USS Hawaii and you’ve got yourself more than $3 billion in taxpayer money hard at work. And that’s not even factoring in the cost of the giant lei they draped around the sub… Another victim of the budget crunch: The Kulani Correctional Facility on the Big Island is being shut down by the state. According to a Pacific Business News report, the prison houses 123 male inmates, all of whom will be transferred to neighbor island facilities. Exactly how many, if any, will be coming to Maui is unclear; calls to the Hawaii Department of Public Safety (which oversees corrections) had not been returned at press time… To say the “controversy” surrounding Obama’s birth certificate is getting old is like saying arsenic tastes funny. But on we go. Despite repeated investigations, all of which have concluded that the President was indeed born on Oahu (hell, Lingle has even said it), we had to go through it all again this week. And once again, the Hawaii Department of Health said: yep, he’s a citizen, now shut up about it (or something like that). As he does with most overblown political scandals, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart hit it on the head with satirical precision: “Oh my God! Barack Obama is running the old Kenyan-prince-birth-announcement scam. Here’s how it goes: You want to destroy America from the inside, but you can’t, because you’re a foreigner. So first, you’ve gotta find yourself a good old American willing to reproduce with you. Then, you have that child on foreign soil, while simultaneously placing the birth announcement for that child in one of our ‘fringe states’’ local newspapers….Then, you wait until this baby is a middle aged man. Now the trap is set—you just sit back and let that child go out and win the election for President of the United States.” Diabolical, isn’t it?…

NOT LOCAL

The American healthcare system is broken. That disturbing fact (and yes, it’s a fact) impacts us all, regardless of political affiliation. Yet politicians on both sides of the aisle have succeeded in making healthcare a partisan issue, one they can cynically use to score points and tip elections. Take the results of a recent Zogby International poll, which found that 49 percent of respondents supported a public/private healthcare plan that would cover all Americans, with 48 percent opposed. Here’s the telling part: 86 percent of Democrats fell in the “support” column, joined by just 11 percent of Republicans. I’m not here to debate the efficacy of one plan over another; that’s for another time. But when you see opinions about anything split that evenly along party lines, you know the Donkeys and Elephants have pissed in the pool… On July 26, Sarah Palin made it official, stepping down as governor of Alaska to spend more time with her lucrative speaking engagements. Her desultory farewell speech was bursting with quotable, faux-folksy Palinisms and featured a few predictable shots at the liberal elite gotcha media. But here’s my favorite line: “It is because I love Alaska this much…that I feel it is my duty to avoid the unproductive, typical, politics as usual, lame duck session in one’s last year in office.” Hear that, Lingle? MTW