Thinking of Me

Since the Governor has millions to spend on advertising and many other opportunities to appear before audiences, I want you to think of Mike Hu and this campaign for the District 21 (Waikiki-Kapahulu) Representative, every time she says, “great Republican candidates.” That will obviate the need for my own massive fundraising efforts and the billions I would be spending for name recognition in this district -- which I rode the perimeter on bike yesterday, reconnoitering the territory and figuring out an outreach strategy.

Some of you will be receiving a modest request for assistance by regular mail tomorrow on one particular strategy for the high-rises, which actually should be a winner and create a greater sense of community in those buildings. The most difficult thing to see is the obvious -- and the simple, but it is the most effective, as well as impressive. It gives you, instant credibility in your own environment -- just as I have walking down my own.

Although I have been in contact with most of the heavy-hitters of the Party who offer a wealth of advice and experience -- even from out-of-state -- and of course, the generous offers of support from Nigeria and Kenya from perfect strangers of good intentions, I’ve decided to digest them all before synthesizing my own.

I recall on graduation day at Kaimuki High School in 1967, that one teacher came up to me and said, “You’re the best student I’ve ever had. Of course your writing and ideas were always better than mine. But I had to grade you down because you did not give me the answer I wanted -- which was the one I taught you. You refused, and always created a better one.”

That’s true for much of the social as well as the political scene in Hawaii -- this insistence that we’re here to carry on the old traditions, the old knowledge, the old memories -- rather than that the value and beauty of any culture and society, is responding to the challenges of the present times. So all that so-called education and knowledge is rather useless and counterproductive -- for those who will be the leaders of the future. And that is the problem our public schools have become -- not only here but everywhere else too.

They were conceived for another era -- and haven’t changed fundamentally since then -- while reality has. Information is no longer a scarce commodity -- and so a different set of skills and infrastructure is necessary for a person participating fully in life with all its possibilities. I think that is more relevant for the old than the young.

The focus in Hawaii, and many traditional societies, has been the justification and rationalization of everything “for the children,” “for the future,” and never for its own merits in the here and now. By discounting future value to infinity, anything might have value -- when it won’t in obvious, real time terms. So we do a lot of stupid things -- hoping time will eventually bail us out, or by then, we can be distracted by some other great panacea -- the wonderful Natatorium that will draw millions from around the world to marvel at that engineering miracle, after they have all dispersed from the Convention Center -- off of the NASA rocket ship that allows us to go anywhere in Honolulu, virtually instantaneously, for the same cost it would be to go to California.

So when the Governor says, “great Republican candidates,” think, “Mike Hu, Representaive District 21 (Waikiki-Kapahulu).”