Lung cancer is the number one killer of adults in Hawaii, and the Aloha State is ranked second in the nation for youth asthma. In all, over 175,000 islanders have lung disease — that’s more than the combined populations of Maui and Kauai. The American Lung Association of Hawaii (ALAH) is leading the charge against these diseases, and championing clean air.
The Breathe Concert is the premiere fundraising event for ALAH, and a fantastic evening of music and entertainment in its own right. Taking place at the Hawaii Theatre on Saturday, Jan. 30, this year’s concert will feature Willie K, Melveen Leed, and the Hotclub of Hulaville. In all, over 100 dancers, singers, actors, and celebrity guests will present a “spectacle of style, flair, comedy, song and dance.” The production will be directed by Marian Jay Morrison, veteran performer and dance teacher who worked with Walt Disney Entertainment for 15 years.
Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. concert start at $35. But for $135, you’ll get to attend a pre-concert party in the Weyand Room with even more live music, food, drink, surprise gifts, costumed characters, and a promenade led by whimsical sprites and puppets. Get your tickets at the Hawaii Theatre box office (1130 Bethel Street), by phone (808-528-0506), or online.
If you’ll be there, be sure to tell the world by RSVPing on the concert’s Facebook event page. And either way, show your support by becoming a fan on the concert’s Facebook fan page. ALAH can be found on Twitter @AmLungAsnHI.
Unfortunately, the concert is the same night as the advance screening of the final season premiere of “LOST” at Sunset on the Beach. But, if you’re fine with waiting to watch “LOST” with the rest of America the following week, Hawaii Theatre is the place to be on Jan. 30.
Good luck and good show to ALAH, and to its Director of Development Beth-Ann Kozlovich… who is also the executive producer of Bytemarks Cafe!
When I’m not blogging, I’m browsing. Here are sites and pages that I bookmarked on December 28th:
Swiss test solar-power aircraft for night flight: The prototype of an aircraft, to be propelled entirely by solar power even at night, has already been successfully tested for a ‘flea hop’ or a short flight. Scientists and engineers are working full-steam to fly the aircraft around the world for 36 hours.
U.S. EPA Releases Annual Enforcement Results and Mapping Tool: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed a new Web-based tool and interactive map that allows the public to get detailed information by location about the enforcement actions taken at approximately 4,600 facilities.
Maui divers wage war on predatory fish: The fish was introduced to Hawaiian waters in the 1950s to boost declining fish stocks. Its population exploded as did its appetite. On a tiny section of coral off the Kona coast, roi consume eight million reef fish a year. On Maui, divers are waging war on roi.
Best go digital in a pandemic: Getting medication rapidly to everyone who needs it during a major disease outbreak could be carried out more effectively using a prescription system based on personal digital assistants, or similar portable devices, rather than pen and paper.
Healthcare industry and UH Manoa create Hawaii Nursing Simulation Center: Four of Hawaii’s healthcare industry leaders joined officials and students at UH Mānoa’s School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene today to celebrate $1,050,000 in initial gifts to support the development of the Hawaii Nursing Simulation Center at Webster Hall.
Pentagon spending bill includes Inouye earmarks: A new defense appropriations bill includes several targeted spending provisions championed by Sen. Inouye that will benefit companies whose officers have contributed to his re-election campaigns.
Sensors seek out lightning throughout world: A global network of sensors to detect lightning has been developed based on research by a UH meteorologist. The data potentially could be used to identify thunderstorms, forecast hurricanes and other weather phenomena.
Keck Telescopes Gaze into Young Star’s “Life Zone”: For the first time, astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii have measured the properties of a young solar system at distances closer to the star than Venus is from our sun.
Work starts on expanded H-Power plant: The $302 million project will expand the waste-to-energy plant’s capacity by 50 percent to handle an added 300,000 tons of garbage a year at the Campbell Industrial Park facility.
For the fourth year in a row, questing teams will descend upon the Chinatown Arts district in February seeking fame and fabulous prizes… all to support the Hawaii Theatre Center. Registration is now open for Chinatown Chase 2010, a city-spanning adventure and scavenger hunt organized by the fun folks at Ravenchase Adventures. Teams of ten will have to tap all their wit and wisdom to solve puzzles, crack codes, find clues and execute a stunt or two in order to be the first across the finish line.
After the chase, participants will celebrate with food, drink, and dancing, including a block party and silent auction.
Here’s a video from last year’s Chinatown Chase, which raised over $64,000:
Each ten-member team can compete in one of three levels: Bethel Street Bourgeoisie ($5,000), Pauahi Street Posse ($2,500), and Hotel Street Hoi Polloi ($1,500), with the top two levels offering various premiums and benefits. You can register online, or download and print a PDF registration form.
I was happy to see that Larry Heim (of HONBLUE) and Amerjit Ghag, two great leaders among Honolulu’s business and arts community, will preside over Chinatown Chase 2010.
Hawaii is the second happiest U.S. state, according to a study published yesterday in the journal Science. More interestingly, the researchers say that a community’s perception of its level of happiness seems to correlate with mostly objective measures of quality of life.
“We wanted to study whether people’s feelings of satisfaction with their own lives are reliable, that is, whether they match up to reality — of sunshine hours, congestion, air quality, etc — in their own state,” professor and lead author Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick said in a statement. “And they do match.”
Using a random sample of 1.3 million Americans spread across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the study looked at people’s self-declared levels of happiness. The top five states ranked by happiness were:
1. Louisiana
2. Hawaii
3. Florida
4. Tennessee
5. Arizona
And the bottom five were:
47. Indiana
48. Michigan
49. New Jersey
50. Connecticut
51. New York
The list correlated strongly to a 2003 study focused on factors that would conceivably provide for a happy life, including climate, the amount of public land and national parks, education, taxes, commute times, crime, and the cost of living.
“When human beings give you an answer on a numerical scale about how satisfied they are with their lives, it is best to pay attention,” Oswald concludes. “Their answers are reliable.”
Oswald concedes that there are some unexpected results, such as Louisiana ranking first despite the widespread impact of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since much of the data came from before the disaster, he said the rankings of the other states were probably more reliable.
SPOILER ALERT: Today is the last day of “LOST” production for the year, with most of the cast and crew taking a break until Jan. 10, 2010. Most of this week, they were working at Police Beach on the North Shore, but there were a few location shoots closer to town. More on those to come in our next “LOST” podcast, but as a holiday treat, a lucky fan has just shared some remarkable photos from a set visit on Monday. [Read more →]
If you’re a “LOST” fan who has been contemplating a visit to “The Island” in January to celebrate the sixth and final season of the show, now is the time to take the leap.
Local officials have yet to confirm the advance screening of the “LOST” season premiere at a “Brunch on the Beach” event on Jan. 30. But with things apparently set on ABC’s side, fans around the world are already making plans to be here to kick off the sixth and final season of the best show on television.
I’ve received a constant stream of inquiries all year from “LOST” fans who were looking for information on the beach premiere, and when word broke on Friday, that stream became a flood. Already I’ve heard from people who will be coming in from the neighbor islands, the East Coast, Europe, Australia, even Afghanistan.
It became immediately clear that I was out of my element when it came to making travel recommendations. I’m a fan, a blogger, a geek… but not a travel agent. So I turned to Bruce Fisher at Hawaii Aloha Travel for help.
Bruce could put together airfare and hotel packages in his sleep, so it was soon obvious we could do more for “LOST” fans. So he called up Hilton and Sakara of Island Adventures to put together something even more unique.
The result? “Destiny Calls,” a special travel package created specifically for “LOST” fans who are making the pilgrimage in late January.
For starters, the packages include airfare and four days/three nights at the Park Shore Waikiki Hotel, which happens to be about as close to the location of the beach premiere as you can get without sleeping on the sand. It also includes a special “Aha Aina” dinner on Friday night (for which Sakara will undoubtedly work her magic), and a “LOST Transmission Brunch” the next morning (a likely geekier affair that I’ll help organize) at Lulu’s, a retro surf-themed restaurant.
Finally, and perhaps most intriguingly, there’ll be a “LOST” locations tour on Sunday. My wife Jen and I will help lead a bunch of “LOST” fans around the island to visit some of the most iconic (and perhaps a few lesser known) filming locations used for the show.
I will say up front that I’m not a professional tour guide, and there are awesome location tour companies you should call if that’s what you need. But if you like the idea of hopping on a bus full of fellow fans for an unabashed roving “LOST” geek fest, I think you’ll have a blast with us. Jen and I regularly meet up with visiting fans, and have helped many get to “LOST” locations on their vacations, but we’ve never done something like this before. I can’t wait.
The “Destiny Calls” travel package also includes a lei greeting at the airport (a nice touch you don’t see much anymore), and transportation to and from the hotel. And it goes without saying that there’ll be other little touches and treats that I’m sure we’ll come up with over the next couple of weeks.
But if you’re interested, you should call today. And that’s not a sales pitch. Between the day Bruce and I first started talking and tonight, the price has gone up by about a hundred dollars. And other fans who’ve already made arrangements on their own are also reporting airfare increases on a daily basis.
I’m not sure if the “LOST” event is a factor, and of course I can’t say if there’ll be price changes in the other direction, but with about 45 days to go, I’d say it makes the most sense to just book now and spend the next few weeks relaxing and planning what else you want to do in Hawaii.
Did you already make travel arrangements but want to come to Lulu’s or take the tour? Are you a local fan who wants to join the fun? Ala carte options are possible as well. Just ask Bruce.
Stay tuned for more news relating to the “LOST” beach premiere… including, hopefully, final details from the local organizers, and plans for a special edition T-shirt I’m planning on selling to celebrate the occasion!
When I’m not blogging, I’m browsing. Here are sites and pages that I bookmarked on December 14th:
Connecticut scientist leads the way in freezing coral to give it life later: Hagedorn's lab in Hawaii is the only one in the world dedicated to coral cryopreservation. With funding from the Smithsonian and NOAA, Hagedorn is racing to create frozen archives of live tissue before the endangered Elkhorn and Staghorn corals disappear.
Meteor hit unlikely cause for climate change, study finds: It's "very unlikely" that a meteor or asteroid colliding with the Earth caused an abrupt climate change leading to the extinction of the woolly mammoth and other large mammals 13,000 years ago, says the University of Hawaii at Manoa leader of a team that investigated the theory.
Isles to gain $387M in funding: Hawaii stands to gain more than $387 million for a myriad of projects affecting schools, transportation and other initiatives under a spending bill passed yesterday by the U.S. Senate.
Project receives $1.01 million for Native Hawaiian students in STEM majors: The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s Kahuewai Ola project recently received a four-year grant of $1.01 million that will allow for tuition support of 45 Native Hawaiian students and the recruitment of ten faculty mentors.
First Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Sun-Like Stars: An international team of planet hunters has discovered as many as six low-mass planets around two nearby Sun-like stars, including two "super-Earths" with masses 5 and 7.5 times the mass of Earth.
Solar farm moves Hawaii closer to energy independence: A 2-megawatt solar thermal project called "Holaniku at Keahole Point" on The Big Island is now officially up and running. It uses unique solar power collectors, which harnesses and intensifies thermal energy from the sun. It generates clean, renewable power.
Haleakala selected for solar scope: After the completion of a long-awaited environmental impact statement this summer, National Science Foundation Director Arden Bement officially selected Haleakala last week as the site of the planned 143-foot-tall telescope and funded the $300 million project.
Hawaii Biotech filing for bankruptcy: Hawaii Biotech, Inc. announced Friday that it will file for Chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Honolulu. The move appears to be an attempt to stave off an effort by one the company's largest shareholders.
9 undersea routes mapped for power grid: Hawaii's planned project to lay undersea power cables connecting the islands of Lanai, Molokai, Oahu and Maui is physically possible via nine recommended routes, according to a new report released Wednesday.
The much-anticipated premiere episode of the sixth and final season of “LOST” will be shown three days early on the beach in Waikiki, TV blogger and “LOST” fan Doc Arzt reported this afternoon.
To say there has been strong demand for the event would be an understatement. I receive several e-mails a week from “LOST” fans asking about it, and they say that it would make or break their plans to travel to Hawaii. At HIFF’s gala “LOST” event in October, a fan from Japan told Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse that previous beach premieres were a highlight of his Hawaii trips, and that many overseas fans were hoping to travel to Honolulu one last time.
Fortunately, during a HIFF panel on “LOST” earlier that day, Co-Executive Producer Jean Higgins and Honolulu film commissioner Walea Constantinau said that they were in talks to hold the event. It looks like those talks paid off.
The last “Sunset on the Beach” advance screening for “LOST” was for Season 3 in 2006.
The Season 4 premiere was scuttled by the writers’ strike, and no event was held for Season 5. But it’s apparent that both ABC and Honolulu officials appreciate the significance of the show’s final season. While much has been said of the importance of “LOST” to the Hawaii film industry, I am acutely aware of how much “LOST” drives the tourism industry as well.
No doubt hundreds of local “LOST” fans will be there on Saturday, Jan. 30. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the crowds on the beach that night will be made up mostly of people making a pilgrimage to “The Island,” knowing it will probably be their last chance to do so.
While the mainstream, corporate media is still struggling to find its footing in the digital age, grassroots online news initiatives everywhere are putting down roots. Citizen journalism and independent media are near and dear to my heart, so I’m always interested when a new venture is launched here in the islands.
The Hawaii Independent is not exactly new — it has been in development for nearly a year now. But recently, publisher Ikaika Hussey has shifted the publication into high gear.
“The Hawaii Independent focuses on Hawaii local news and investigative journalism,” Hussey wrote in a recent Maoliworld announcement. “We report on many issues which are important to the Hawaiian community… We’re also featuring the indigenous perspective on global climate change, which is a voice that is the mainstream newspapers are ignoring.”
The site is already well stocked with a good mix of articles. There are event write-ups (such as the Eddie Aikau surf contest), opinion pieces, food pieces (“The Remixed Plate“), the beginnings of a sports section and even a comics page. It looks great.
He also runs Maoliworld, an online social network on the Ning platform devoted to Native Hawaiian issues. In September, the network welcomed its 4,000th member. The Hawaii Independent is described as its “sister publication.”
My wife and I ran into the The Hawaii Independent crew staffing a table near HPU for “First Friday” last week. I mentioned that no less than Pierre Omidyar was pushing into the local news space.
“Yeah, we know about it,” they said. Translation? “Bring it on.”
When I’m not blogging, I’m browsing. Here are sites and pages that I bookmarked on December 7th:
Sea yields clues to ‘41 attack: New evidence indicating the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor effectively from under water, as well as the air, was announced today by the "NOVA" television series on the anniversary of the 1941 attack that led the United States into World War II.
Hawaii kids take honors in robotics competition: The three-team alliance from Bellarmine College Preparatory took the top honors, finishing as the Pan-Pacific Champions. The alliance of Honokaa High, McKinley High and Waiakea High earned second place in the championship.
The Voice of TheBus: The "Voice of TheBus" belongs to Puakea Nogelmeier, an associate professor of Hawaiian language, poetry and literature at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Scientists map deep origins of the ‘Hawaiian Hotspot’: The Hawaiian Islands are one of the outstanding volcanic features on Earth, but their origins have been shrouded in mystery. Still in debate is a theory that was proposed forty years ago.
The first portrait of a cool planet: A bull’s-eye in the hunt for planets: astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy have discovered and directly imaged a faint celestial body that orbits the star GJ 758.
Hawaii to receive $48 million for biofuel initiatives: Hawaii will receive $48,000,000 to fund a bio-refinery plant in Kapolei and to test and produce green gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from agricultural residue, woody biomass, dedicated energy crops, and algae.
